Chapter 745 - Events for the 3rd tournament

This tournament has only four events over the duration of five days. It is less than before, and the tournament is shorter too.

What I keep thinking of is that the fact that it is impossible to die during events might push the planets to fight against each other. I would not be surprised if this entire setup is designed so that we attack each other. Us being on two separate floating islands clearly hints at that. All paired with the fact that people can die outside the events.

It makes for a surprisingly cruel setting. For example, someone like Adrian or Christoph could probably just fly to the opposing island and erase all of them. There are likely a few hundred people from Hell difficulty who can put up a fight, and some Beyond attendees who could push him a bit further. But how the hell would they learn to cooperate fast enough to face someone who already killed a Champion grade being on the fifth floor of Beyond?

When he flew toward them, I thought he might try exactly that, but it does not seem to be the case. He returns a few minutes after he left, landing in the middle of the group of people and talking to them.

I watch from inside my barrier when Lily brings my attention to her.

“It hurts,” she says from where she sits on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest.

I turn to her and tilt my head in question.

She keeps talking. “It hurts you. Every body upgrade so far caused a lot of pain, and with your current Constitution, it must be even more intense, especially since you also need to manage your mana. And I have felt it before, those golden flames of yours are especially painful. You would probably say you can ignore most of it with your concentration skill, but I know you would be lying.”

A few minutes of having to deal with the constructs pass, and the current stage of the body upgrade pauses, so I move thermal energy to heal myself and restore my vocal cords enough to talk.

“It is like stubbing your toe or getting a papercut,” I tell her, before all of it burns away again and forces me to close my mouth.

Lily laughs and buries her face into her knees so I cannot see, “When I healed you a little, I examined your scars, Nat. All these scars now covering your body. They will stay. I do not think anyone other than a specialized Absolute will be able to remove them. They feel like they became a part of you because of all these things happening at once.”

I glance at my hands coated in golden flames that burn them, and through the flames, I see the pale white scars across my forearm and the back of my hand. It is not like my whole body is covered in them, but there are plenty. Some wounds heal without scars, and others do not.

There are scars on my back. Two long ones are on my chest. Two crossed ones on my shoulder. Another long one around my right forearm, almost like a ring circling its entire thickness. One even runs from the bottom of my left cheek and continues across my neck.

Interestingly, my pale left arm has none. On it, every wound heals perfectly.

“Does it matter?” I ask Lily once I heal enough to speak again.

Still with her face buried in her knees, she says, “I guess it does not.”

***

Similar to the prior tournaments, the first day has no scheduled events, so people can simply meet and talk with each other. Most of all, Christoph uses the opportunity to introduce himself to the others from the Earth´s tutorial.

Many people already know about him, and many more saw him defend the floating island or go to talk with our tournament opponents. I can only imagine how easy dealing with them must be for him, thanks to his [Empathy] or some similar skill. He’ll know all their worries and suspicions, and with almost a thousand years of experience with people and life in general, it’ll be simple for him to handle it all without anyone noticing.

Maybe Izzy could pick up on something, but I doubt she is strong enough. I also doubt Christoph wants anyone to know he’s an empath, so a part of me worries only for me to realize that this is probably exactly what he expects. I worry for Izzy. I can imagine someone ruthless killing her to avoid any risk of being exposed by an empath. But he must know she’s part of my group. Hell, he probably understands better than I what I’d do if he touched her.

And for now, he seems to want to stay on good terms with me and Vic, so I really don’t think he’ll do it. But if I stood in his way, if I was too weak to finish what I start, then he doesn’t strike me as someone who would hesitate.

He can talk all he wants about how he changed, but I’m sure parts of that Adrian from the tutorial a thousand years ago are still inside him.

Another question hits me. What does he sense from Vic? I know my sister, and I love her deeply, but I also know she experiences very little emotion, probably only one or two at most.

Forced to stop those thoughts, I focus on my body, only to realize it’s getting worse, and the upgrade is starting to dig further and deeper. It feels like the beginning was just a soft touch, an examination and surface preparation, and now it’s pushing into the core.

The upgrade should take a few days, though I don’t know how many. I just know that when this is all done, my capabilities will be incomparable to anything I could do before.

Freed for a moment after another spike of changes, I start reading the tournament notifications to keep myself busy while dealing with it all.

Events for the 3rd tournament of the Earth tutorial have been decided. They are as follows:

1st event - Stampede

2nd event - Bridge of Conquest

3rd event - Dungeon Challenge

4th event - Open Challenge Circuit

The first event will start in twenty two hours. More information will be shared soon.

One thing is clear. Only two hours have passed, even though it feels much longer.

Fuck.

(Okay, I finally did it. Damn it, if it wasn’t difficult and if it didn’t keep disconnecting. Nat, tell the twins to shut up. I need to focus and keep rebuilding the bridge because you decided to become mana radioactive. And Lily, are you sure you’re okay?) Sophie’s voice sounds in my mind once I let the communication attempt connect.

(I'm fine, Soph. I'm watching what this amount of mana does to my body, and working on simple defenses against it. It might be useful for more mana sensitive people from Earth who will work with attendees a lot,) Lily answers calmly.

(Are you going to sell it?) Dennis asks. (You could make a lot of money.)

Tess joins in. (I seriously doubt Lily will ever lack money. But Nat, all good?)

(It feels like my body will break apart into a radioactive mess any second.)

(So your optimal state, where you are at your most powerful... ouch, what the fuck, Min-Jae!) Dennis doesn't finish his sentence properly.

(Are you okay with us talking, or do you need to concentrate more?) Min-Jae asks.

Thinking of it for a moment, I shrug, though they likely don't see it, as I can't see them from here. (Lack of concentration isn't the problem.)

(Will you be okay?) Min-Jae's voice sounds slightly worried.

(As if something like this ever stopped me, I...)

I don't get to finish my sentence as Sophie barges in. (Sure, sure, you guys can have your manly men conversation later. Did you go with the third variation?)

I snort. (Obviously, though, that one was made in case the healing aura wouldn't be too effective against system-caused damage, like the body upgrade, so I had to modify it a lot. Before you offer, I don't need help; I've already been working on it from the start. I just need to make improvements faster than the progress of the body upgrade.)

(And Izzy calls me stubborn,) Sophie sighs. (Fucking weirdo.)

(I've heard worse. How does it look out there?)

This time, it is Tess answering. (As you would have expected. Samuel once again tries to build his army, organization, or whatever he calls it nowadays. Our First Beyonder on the other side is surprisingly casual about all of it. He shows off a little, slips into the background, talks to a person or two, and gradually, more and more people grow curious about him and try to talk to him because he seems so approachable. But who knows what his goal is in all of this?)

As I listen to it, I give it a thought of how I should react, what I should say. Anything I do might hint at a thing or two, so I'd rather decide to say as little as possible.

Aaron thankfully helps with that. (Some of the Hell difficulty groups lost people, even Whitewing. Brainiac worries about Gareth, who takes it on himself that he couldn't protect them. And after the first attack, the other planet just went silent. Christoph said they were just playfully testing us, and they won't do it again.)

(He must have spanked them real hard. We have this tournament in the bag.) I can almost hear a grin in Dennis's voice. (Imagine how the third tournaments look when both sides are equal. I bet people sneak in to kill certain people to have a better chance during the event.)

(It is still possible it will come to that later.) Tess rejoins and addresses me again. (Our opponents are thylarin. I haven't seen anyone I would recognize from the description as a powerful A rank, and I don't think they have any S rank.)

(Tess,) I say, (please don't tell me you bought information on powerful A ranks in Beyond and remembered as many as you could.)

(I did, but as I said, only notable ones. Of course, even though I didn't see any such thylarin among them, it doesn't mean they don't have any or that they don't have powerful people who just didn't go to Beyond, so we will keep our guard up. From the previous experience, it's safe to say there will be events where we will end up facing each other.)

(Won't it start with an event where we go against monsters, then large-scale battles, before more individual ones? The previous tournaments went like that.) Min-Jae muses.

(It might...) Tess doesn't get to finish when the conversation cuts off after yet another spike of changes done to my body.

I don't allow another attempt to connect and instead turn my attention back to my body fully.

"They are asking if you are okay," Lily says from where she sits.

"Yup, I'm okay," I say.

She doesn't react to it at all, so I turn to look her way out of curiosity.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Lily sings quietly, staring at me.

"Well, the part about pants on fire is suspiciously accurate now," I say back.

"Nose as long as a telephone wire," she finishes quietly.

***

Just before the start of the 1st event, I get a notification.

The 1st event - Stampede will start soon!

In one hour, everyone will be transferred to the event area, both planets and all difficulties together. The location of the event will be randomly chosen from the system database.

Your planet will compete against your opponent´s planet. The winning side will receive boosted rewards, which will also raise the individual rewards given to the participants.

The 1st event will take place over the course of the next 12 hours, and the individual contenders will be rewarded according to their performance.

During the Stampede, more and more powerful waves of monsters will come through the portal for you to face.

Your objective is to collect more points than your opponents.

You can collect points in two ways:

1st - Killing monsters

2nd - Sabotaging your opponents

The longer you endure the stampede, the better the rewards.

Reading it, I come up with some strategies right away. It’s obvious you likely do not want to sabotage your opponent too much, so both of you can endure the stampede for as long as possible for the best rewards. Then you also want to sabotage them for more points, and need to balance these two things.

I almost suspect that in the last minutes of the 12th hour, the monsters will become increasingly powerful. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same as with the Witherclaw, where in the last seconds, he became comparable to an Absolute.

For the rest of that hour, I do my best. I prepare an array that would allow me to halt my mana as much as possible. I am even prepared to move away from the others.

I should still be able to do enough for some decent rewards. In my opinion, my state isn't that bad for me not to try. Actually, I got used to it and it doesn't even hurt that much anymore. It will be a mess, but that is to be expected.

So impatiently I watch the timer, and when the invitation comes, I press yes to accept.

I feel myself moved into the event the same as everyone else, and find myself on a far stretching flat plain with dust rising into the air and ruins of large structures all over the place.

When I'm about to take a step, I feel a pull and find myself outside. Back alone in the common area, where the barrier around me starts blinking off as it’s only powered by a few mana batteries quickly filled and set to power the structure.

A notification pops up.

You have been flagged as dead, healed, and removed from the event.

Good luck next time!

My healed body starts gathering damage once more.

I slide and sit on the ground, where I clench and open my fists. Then I look up, towards the huge screen that appeared in the common area, and start watching the event.

A second later, Lily appears back in the area.

I stare at her, she stares at me. Then she sits down and pulls her knees up to her chest.

"Wounding yourself enough to get kicked out of the event just to sit here near my sorry ass is exactly the abnormal behaviour I expect from group 4," I note.

Looking at me intently, she says, "You would do the same."

"I wouldn't."

Lily just laughs and stays quiet.

Annoyed for some reason, I lean back from my sitting position and end up lying on the ground as I stare at the top of the barrier while energies explode around me.

"I'm bored, tell me about something," I say.

"Sure." Her voice picks up with excitement. "Want to hear about how Grumpy once saved me from the neighbors’ scary dog?"

"I don't mind."

She then gets to talking, and even with just a small part of my available mind, I listen to her.