Chapter 651 - Pestle on her last leg

Pestle attempted the challenge a few more times, with Sofia activating the third tier of [Runeforged overlord] for the fifth level, but the difficulty proved to still be too high. It was no longer even an issue of speed or flight control, which Pestle already excelled at, it was purely just information overload. Keeping track of the lights in five different directions with only one pair of eye was far from easy.

Sofia thought she might stand a chance using her demon form, as it gave her vision all around her. She entered the glass cube, and watched as the space inside of the pillar unfolded into a much larger room, to make enough space for her to play in the glass cube. Her starting squares were much larger, several meters wide, enough for her wings to comfortably fit. It took her a few tries to get through the second level, and the third proved to be too hard, so mch that she never even tried her demon form, as she knew she would never reach level 5 like this. Unlike Pestle, she was not very good at making sharp turns, and her heavy weight made managing her momentum a lot more difficult, even if her flight capabilities and speed were not bad by any means, there was no competing with a fae.

Maybe if I spent the entirety of the trial’s free time to train on it, and even then, what a waste of time that would be…

Sofia grabbed something from her storage ring and turned to Pestle, “Rested enough, Pestle?” Sofia asked the tiny skeleton perched on Bookie’s skull.

“Rested,” the fairy answered.

“Good. Time to get this over with. Get back in there.”

“I win, leg,” Pestle told Sofia like an order.

“Sure thing, if you make it through, you’ll get all the food you want, even if I’m not sure you can eat it like this…”

“Can eat,” Pestle confidently confirmed.

“Alright, well, you hae to win first. This time, I will guide you through the last level, alright?”

“Guide?”

“Yes. Whenever a difficult pattern appears, I will tell you where to go by thoughts.” Like this. “You just need to follow my instructions.”

“I understand!” Pestle said, “now I win! And we eat!” She clamored, jumping down from Bookie’s skull and walking toward the glass cube.

The cube shrunk as the tiny challenger approached once again, and once again, the grids lit up with red and green squares.

Pestle flew through the first four levels flawlessly.

It was time, Sofia activated the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord] again, and ate the things she had taken from her storage before, one of her [Crystalized] mana pearls. With an external point of view of the entire cube, a tripled thinking speed thanks to [Dodge - me] and the mana pearl, and the instant thought transmission to her summons, she was ready.

The fifth level started, as hard as the previous times, the thousands of minuscule squares of the grid lighting up in red, blue and yellow, with a few green zones.

The first green zone appeared right above Pestle, she flew into it in an instant, and the lights flashed. There were two green zones this time, in two of the cube’s oppposite corners, with cerved paths of red and yellow light that forced Pestle to exerce fine control of her flight trajectory while moving at an extreme speed, but this much was still fine. Pestle reached the green zone with milliseconds to spare, and the lights flashed again. This went on for about five seconds, Pestle needing no help at all so far. And after that the difficulty immediately went up immensely, not only was there only one safe zone, very far away, but the grids were like a three-dimensionnal maze of yellow and blue lights going off in all directions. A labyrinth one needs to fly through at full speed, that was where Pestle had failed most of her attempts until now.

But now she had a guide.

Two down. Eight left. First turn right. Up to ceiling. Forward twelve. Right, S turn. Twenty down. Diagonal upper right then second turn left.

Thinking was much faster than speaking, and Pestle’s reaction time was almost as good as Sofia’s tripled thinking speed, she immaculately followed the orders, and landed right in time in the green safe zone before the lights flashed again.

Stay sharp. That was only the beginning.

With Sofia’s guidance, Pestle made it to the halfway point. There, yellow lights started flashing unpredicatbly, forcing Pestle to make many sudden stops. When a column of blue light she was speeding through unexpectedly turned yellow, she was eliminated before she could stop.

“Good try,” Sofia called out to Pestle, who looked mentally crushed by the inevitable defeat despite the many layers of what she already considered cheating.

“I no strong. Shame,” Pestle complained, dragging her feet out of the cube.

“Hey, hey. What are you doing? Get back in. I have a few more mana pearls. We’re winning this. Don’t you want the leg?”

“Winning!” Pestle repeated, clenching her tiny fists and turning around with heavy steps, her motivation and drive instantly recovered by the promise of food. 

Pestle failed again two more times, reaching and failing at the fifty-ninth second on the final pattern both time. Sofia was starting to feel physically sick from consuming the mana pearls in such quick succession, but the thinking speed bonus was so short lived that had no choice but to eat one every time Pestle reached the fifth level.

I think I understand how the grand finale goes. One more time, Pestle.

Pestle had turned silent, without even need to wait for Sofia’s motivational speech, she had already started a new run. She was in the zone, with complete and uninterrupted focus on the task ahead, leaving no place for emotions.

Reaching the fifth level again was no issue. Pestle had done it so many times that she could probably do it without any speed buffs by now, just from sheer ‘muscle’ memory and knowledge of each level’s possible pattern.

This time, there was no hesitation, no wasted movement. Pestle moved like lightning, weaving through the chaos of colors with monstrous precision, guided by Sofia’s thoughts like a second brain. When the final green zone appeared, hovering at the opposite edge of the cube, tucked behind several walls of erratic yellow flares, Sofia’s heart clenched. But Pestle did not falter; she curved, rolled, and slung herself around, diving through the narrow passages through the last barriers in a series of flawlessly timed arcs on Sofia’s calls. 

At the last second, after flying through a whirlwind of rotating yellow lights, Pestle jumped into the final green zone.

The cube’s lights went out.

Pestle hovered in place, stunned, wondering if she had failed, she had seen no red flash, but the last instants of the level were so chaotic, she wouldn’t be surprised if she had missed it.

The entire cube flashed green.

‘Level 5 cosmic cube shop unlocked! Congratulations!!!’

“Leg!” she screamed. “We eat leg now!”

Sofia, drained, dropped to her knees with a dry laugh, rubbing her forehead. “Yeah, Pestle… You earned it.”

Pareth and Bookie helped Sofia stand back up, supporting her as she started uncontrollably puking out a stream of liquid mana that burned through the floor. Her body felt weak, and her thoughts were scrambled, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was the hidden shop.

Pestle. She communicated by thought as she wiped her mouth. Open the shop.

The shop window appeared to Everyone, showing on the cube’s walls.

[Cosmic Cube Shop - Level 5]

[Categories : Consumables (LV1-2) - Cosmic Cube Replica (LV3) - Skill tickets (LV4) - ★ Special shop (LV5) ★]

Pestle tapped on consumables first, shouting “Leg!”, only to discover that it was only potions and quickly switching to the second tab, growling.

[ Cosmic Cube Replica (unlocked):

Cosmic Cube (Tiny to Very large, select one) - A perfect replica of the Cosmic cube, to polish your skills at home! - 10 000TP - Limited to one sale per Ark Tournament - 4 out of 10 still in stock

Hmm… 

“Do you want it?” Sofia asked pestle.

“No! I want leg!”

“Ahah alright alright, get me the other tabs first.”

I guess I might buy the medium-sized one for myself if I have leftover points at the end of the trial.

[ Skill tickets (unlocked):

Skill fusion ticket - Allows the user to fuse two compatible skills making the result stronger and potentially freeing up a skill slot - 10 000 TP - Up to one per trialee per shop

Skill ablation ticket - Allows the user to attempt to remove a locked skill with the help of the system, results may vary - 100 000 TP - Up to one per trialee

Random specialization ticket - A specialization ticket for a skill category you do not already have a specialization in, allowing you to substantially alter a skill and your class - 100 000 000 TP - Up to one per trialee]

Oh shit. Just like that?!

This… Forget everything else, if I can get the specialization ticket early, I’ll have a huge advantage for the rest of the trial!

I still need to buy the awakening pill though. And it is quite expensive… Ugh. I was going to say it’s quite an easy specialization point to get ocmpared to the others but… I couldn’t have gone through level four myself, and the price…

A lot of things are competing for my points already.

After a few seconds, Pestle opened the last and most important tab of the shop. Which only contained two items. Sofia’s gaze immediately jumped to the more expensive one.

As expected, there was more.

★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Hell to Heavens Pauldrons]: 

Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master pauldrons enhance your flight in any environment with a constant stream of mana.

On first equip: 

Choose a skill, its channeling speed is doubled. 

Choose another skill, its cooldown is halved. 

Choose another third skill, its range is doubled. 

Choose another fourth skill, its mana cost is halved.

Cannot be destroyed.

Must be primed before use.

Price: 1 000 000 000 TP

Oh my Lord. Now that is an item.