Chapter 648 - No second chance

Every participant to the dungeon event was teleported back to the starting point on the Ark’s main deck. The crows was silent as everyone waited for the Andarian Seraph flying up above to give the results.

Alright, sorry for the wait everyone, we had a bit of an unaccounted-for situation going on with the rankings this time, so the results took longer than expected. Afil explained, clearly looking in Sofia and Pareth’s direction down below.

Breaking the trial was always to goal, so I suppose that’s a good start? Does that mean I beat Ezerid?

Before revealing the rankings, let me explain how they work. Very simply you get two ranks, one for the current pool of participants, and an ‘historic’ one. The historic ranking just like the level 200 trial allows you to compare yourself to every other participant until now. While it does not matter in this event except for vanity, some select later events will award you with extra points for scoring on the historical rankings. And now without further ado, here are the results!

[Dungeon Time Attack - Sea-lost adventure : Event rankings]

‘By default, only your score and 4 closest ranks will be displayed, you may search through the full rankings including historic data at your own leisure in your system logs’

[Rank 1 - Historic 1st - Sofia Aphenoreth & Pareth (twin ruleset) - Time : -00:00.000] 

[Rank 2 - Historic 3rd - Ezerid Rodes - Time : 00:09.361]

[Rank 3 - Historic 12th - Sonia Rotfallen - Time : 01:58.666]

[Rank 4 - Historic 478th - Akmar Vades - Time : 03:42.027]

[Rank 5 - Historic 947th - Remulus - Time : 05:33.202]

So they didn’t correct it, It’s really negative zero! One could say we completed this trial in no time… That’s funny knowing what I know.

Ezerid completed the trial in nine seconds… I wonder if he killed the three elites, if not… I’ll have to check who that historic second was though. But first…

[Detailed results for Sofia Aphenoreth:

Tier 4 event - Maximum point reward : 20 000 000 TP

Rank 1 point reward: 100 000 TP

Timer reward : 29 986 473 TP

Total earned : 30 086 473 TP

Your first place earned you a bonus Gold Star Pin!]

Thirty million out of twenty. Sofia couldn’t hold back a snort. The negative time must have really screwed their point calculations. Still, for the gain to be that huge from one thousandth of a second into the negative, that must mean the enormous majority of points was frontloaded in the first few seconds of the timer. With this kind of rate even Ezerid probably hasn’t gotten more than a few millions… No wonder so many of the more expensive uniques were never bought…

‘You have received rank 1 reward : Ark’s Gold Star Pin *1!’

Sofia felt the small pin appear in her hand as a new system window appeared right in her face.

[Gold Star notice: congratulations, you have earned a gold star pin, allowing you to purchase some unique items. Each trialee may purchase up to three unique items, and no more than one per shop. Additionally, some hidden Unique items are not displayed for sale in shops, and may have additional purchase conditions.]

I’m only getting this now? Three uniques total then? That changes plans a bit, but I suppose it makes sense to have guardrails in place to avoid outliers like me empting every shop.

Still, even by getting more than the maximum amount of points… It will be easy enough to buy any of the regular uniques, but the ones like the boots… I guess if this is a tier four event, the tier 1 event must be worth a shitload of points. But what’s truly worrying are the gold stars. The boots require 9 gold stars. If the other ‘hidden’ uniques also require nine stars, it might be that there are only nine or ten possible stars to get total.

I can’t be sure, so I can’t afford to lose a single round to Ezerid, Saria, Tartaros, Sen, or all the others. Despite being the first trial where you seemingly cannot really die, this sure is still going to be stressful…

‘You have received 30 086 473 tournament points!’

‘Current balance : 30 180 153 points’

[The third floor of the Ark: ‘Coaching facilities’ are now open!]

[The second event wave will start at 6:00 am tomorrow, please enjoy your break exploring the Ark!]

Sofia’s score provoked quite a few loud reactions in the crowd, but Sofia did not pay them much mind. Ezerid, unlike the others, walked up to Sofia. An incredulous look on his face, he was not even frowning like he usually did.

“Did you bribe the Seraphs? Are you the admin’s hidden daughter? How can you even compete with two people? How do you get a negative time? Just what…” he asked with no malice, completely flabbergasted.

“It’s nothing like that,” Sofia explained, closing all the system windows clogging her vision with a wave of her hand, “Pareth,” Sofia said, putting her her on Pareth’s side, “is part of my skills. And I’m part of his. Technically we are each other’s first specialization. So we are allowed to participate together in solo event under the twin ruleset for twins with duo classes.”

“That… Doesn’t seem very fair?”

“We get a hefty malus for it,” Sofia reassured him, “though I’m not going to give you the details. But you can ask the Seraph if you don’t believe me. As for the negative time, I completed the dungeon in basically exactly thirty seconds, but I killed the three elites, so the end timer is zero, and I guess it ended before it had time to switch back to the positives.”

“Elites?! What Elites?! Uuuuuh?!” 

So he really completed that whole thing in nine seconds going straight for the boss?

It pains my ego a bit, but I really should avoid him as much as possible in the remaining events if I want all the gold stars, this speed is just stupid.

Sofia’s discussion with Ezerid did not last long, as he soon left for his room, looking absolutely ghastly after learning that killing elites gave bonus time. It was like his soul had left his body. Moreover, he shared that his rank 2 awarded him with 50 000 points, while his nine second timer gave him about five million points, showing just how harsh the difficulty of getting higher amounts of points was. Mr. Scribe even chimed in after that, saying that from his estimations, someone completing the dungeon in around half an hour was likely to get anywhere from one to ten thousand points, showing how harsh the trials were starting to get for anyone who was not already exceptionally strong for their level.

After that, Sofia and Pareth went straight back to their room, checking the historic rankings on the way. While most of the names at the top of the rankings were just people they had never heard of, the and time of the newly downgraded historic rank 2 left them a bit perplexed.

Jewel of truth, 0.53 seconds…

Who the hell is this Jewel of truth and why weren’t they in the challengers of Victory in the second trial? Someone born above level 200? I only beat them by half of a second despite having Pestle and everything… Thankfully they don’t seem to be among the fake trialees this time, that would have made things reall damned hard.

Pareth silently nodded on the side, walking next to Sofia, while bookie was relaxing in his book form, and Pestle had gone alone as a scout in search of the hidden uniques.

Entering room 1, Sofia wasn’t too surprised to see nobody else from her team there, as she knew all the other events were still ongoing, but the room was not actually empty.

A tiny furball was staring at Sofia while patiently waiting behind a colorful mark stall that now occupied a previously empty span of wall on the right side of the room. Short and fluffy orange fur… An Odon? It’s been a while. But they only have one tail, not three like En...

“Hello?” Sofia called out.

“Hi!” the tiny Odon answered, “I’m Lepo, Room 1’s dedicated Shopkeeper! Welcome back!”

“Hi Lepo… I’m Sofia, this is Pareth. Are you… Going to stay here all the time?”

“Oh, no, no. I only work from 2 to 8 in the afternoon. I have a life outside of the trial, you know?”

“Ah, so a real person too? Nice to meet you. Do you happen to know about a girl named En? She has three tails and–”

“You know about our third princess?!” The short shopkeeper asked, standing up on his chair.

“Oh, right, she was a princess… I know her yes, I was her teacher for a year at brighthall, in Exidion. I’m surprised you recognized her just from the name…”

“Ahah, there are not exactly many of us Odons, so for an outsider to know about someone named like our princess… So she went to brighthall…”

“You didn’t know that? Too bad, I was hoping you would be able to tell me what she’s doing now,” Sofia told the shopkeeper.

Lepo shook his tiny head, “Sorry, I’ve not returned to the kingdom in a few years… Still, if you really were the princess’ teacher, you can always go pay our kingdom a visit. You will be warmly welcomed, and the princess might have come back.”

“I would not mind visiting, but I have no idea where it is,” Sofia said.

“We are quite secretive about our whereabouts, for security reason, but for the princess’ teacher it should not be an issue! I’ll have to make sure that you are not lying first, but I will give you the location by the end of the trial,” the odon said, nodding to himself.

“Alright, thank you. So… What about that shop of yours? And if you don’t mind, why do you only have one tail?”

“You can browse the shop like any others. It has a few exclusive items, but mostly it is for convenience to skip the queue on highly demanded shops like for the awakening pills or the exidian bakery!” Lepo explained, then turning back, looking at his tail, he simply said, “Odon men only have one tail, women have three. It makes sense you did not know that if you only ever met our women like the third princess.”

“Interesting, can I see the shop? Does it have exclusive uniques?”

“Yes and yes! There you go!”

The shop opened, and Sofia instantly tapped on the well-named ‘exclusive uniques’ tab, an looked down at the last option in the list with the highest gold star requirement.

★★★★★★★★★★U [The Perfect Run – Ultimate Star Pin]: 

Only then can you truly call yourself the ultimate winner of the tournament Ark.

Effects: hidden until bought.

Price: 1 TP

Does not count toward the 3 uniques purchase limit.

Ten gold stars.

So there are ten events total? Good to know. I’m technically allowed to fail one event and still buy the boots or equivalent uniques. Ezerid is already locked out. I feel a bit bad about it, he was really unlucky not to come a bit earlier… 

“You have a good eye,” the shopkeeper noticed from his stall, “Nobody’s ever managed to buy it, though. But I suppose you still have the opportunity to. I’ll be rooting for you!”

“Thanks…”

“Oh, right, want to see it?”

“What, the ultimate star pin?”

“Yes, yes! I’m the shopkeep of room 1, after all, of course I have all the exclusive items in stock. No Identifying it, though! Ta-daaaa!” He said, proudly producing a tiny star-shaped object in the palm of his hand out of nowhere.

The star pin was smaller than the regular golden ones, it was black with tiny shining green-pink dots, and reflected light in a strange way. Sofia could also tell it was loaded with more mana than she herself could handle at the moment.

Mithrium-speckled Asterite?!