Chapter 957 - The start of the fourth tournament

I steer clear of anyone nearby and keep walking by myself. My guess is that the system just likes to throw people in at random because of... reasons. Maybe Pride prefers it that way and is watching it all while eating popcorn. Maybe it is all the Ruler of Diligence's fault again.

Most likely, it is just for people to once again get used to the fact that it is impossible to die, allowing them to fight a little bit to warm up.

I, obviously, started abusing this fact the moment I separated from the two stigma guy. For a long time before the tournament, I had been preparing in case we would get this sort of effect again, and now I am running through my pre-prepared tests.

These include triggers that are too dangerous to test outside, changes to my Mana Cycling, tests for fully unsealing my Ignition Heart and keeping it as such, and some mental techniques. I am also testing my passives and preparing for when Synergy feed becomes upper pristine at level 500, which will boost my other passives to the point that they will all feel like mid pristine or stronger.

That much is just for the start, and there is much more, but with 14 days, I will have enough time to test it all out.

So far, I have only "died" five times, and it has been almost one hour since the tournament started. In a way, I think of that number as being too low. A part of me sees it as if I haven't put enough effort and strain on myself, and the other part of me sees myself as just that resilient and skilled, meaning I am getting more and more difficult to kill.

At 56 minutes since the start of the tournament, the environment entirely changes again. I blink and find myself on an extremely flat plain of fine red sand during the night. It is the third change, with the first one happening a few minutes after Tannatar left and the second one ten or so minutes later.

The second environment was the frozen surface of a sea, with waves akin to statues frozen mid-movement. The third environment was a fairly normal-looking mountain range dotted with thousands of lakes, and now there is this flatland, lit by what looks like a dying star.

I wonder how cold it would actually be there, and I suspect it is toned down so as not to erase all of the Easy Difficulty attendees still remaining in the tutorial with each change.

While I am curious and observing the new area just the same as the previous ones, I still continue to train while also going over the system notification.

Welcome to the fourth and final tournament!

Information about the events will be provided 24 hours into the tournament, and participants will be separated and moved to territories along with the others from their respective home planets.

The first event will start 24 hours after that, and the sub-events will start once the attendees are separated into their territories.

While it is impossible to die during the events or outside of them, the mental strain remains, so caution is required.

The tutorial shop will unlock after the first event concludes, allowing you to buy materials that can be used to create items to be auctioned to the other attendees.

Due to outside interference, 100 tutorial planets will be participating in this tournament, all from the same timeline to avoid putting more senior attendees up against newer ones. While this situation requires an adjustment, the overall structure of the tournament and the events remain the same.

The rewards for the tournament have been increased in proportion to the increased number of tutorials participating.

Individual rewards for all the events will be gathered and combined to be given to each participant after the tournament concludes.

Each attendee is able to use a forfeit three times. After the third use, the attendee will be removed from the tournament.

I wave these notifications off and create a manabloc chair to sit on. Its pale blue color contrasts strongly against the fine red dust of the long flatland, and I turn myself around, facing towards the dying star.

Watching the timer, I wait for a while longer, and 14 minutes after the previous change, the environment changes again. This time it shifts to a landscape filled with huge mushrooms, with many of them having bright, exotic colors.

The manabloc chair disappears from under me, and I boost myself up, landing on the cap of one of the mushrooms. I jump on it a bit, testing how bouncy it is.

Then I open my status.

Name: Nathaniel Gwyn

Title: Absolute Candidate

Difficulty: Hell

Rank: S, Radiant Gold

Guild: Primordial Knights

Floor: 12 - Ancient Weapons of War

Time left until forced return: 364d 23h 3m 27s

Traits (3/3): Noumenon Pupils 0/3, Panarchic Mana Vessel 0/3, Empyrean Ichor (Purity: 50%) 2/5

Lvl 490

Strength: 411

Dexterity: 406

Constitution: 5

Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 5177 + 5177

Primary Class: Mana Primarch (Unique Pristine)

Sub-class: [Adept of Pride]

Active skills (8/10):

Focus - Lvl 88

Redistribution - Lvl 87

Eclipse (Pride) - Lvl 84

Manifestation - Lvl 76

Weave - Lvl 67

Mana Manipulation - Lvl 89

Jüdrajil - Lvl 36

Calibration - Lvl 43

Constructs:

Kinetic Mana Heart

Sealed Ignition Heart (Partially Sealed, 1/3)

Sovereign Chassis

Tattoo of the Fractured Mirror 3/3

Passive skills (5/5):

Heat Resonance Restoration (Low Pristine)

Cognitive Vector Module (Unique Pristine)

Adaptive Defense (Low Pristine)

Mana Tempering (Low Pristine)

Synergy Feed (Mid Pristine)

Tokens:

Send a single item to your disciple (up to epic rarity)

Beyond visitor token - 1 year (unlocked after tutorial)

Beyond 14 day stay token (x 16)

Ten minute Disciple Communication token (x2)

Mid Pristine item

Shards: 41,022,419

Even after spending 30 million on the entire operation with the Demigod, I have almost already earned those shards back, and that is after so little time and with selling just a small part of it. No, these shards will grow much higher, and I should start wondering what I should be spending them on.

Otherwise, there is a lot of growth, though not as much in [Jüdrajil] as I would like, but the skill is just difficult to level up, and in a way it makes sense. It has that sort of fucked up effect, and it relies on that part more than my "understanding." It might change a bit later, but for now, it is what it is.

I wave even this window off and decide to stop searching for anyone. Instead, I actively avoid people, and after each scenery change, I find a higher-placed spot with a nice view and form a manabloc chair. Then I remain sitting in it, taking in the view while constantly training and dying.

Overall, with the first included, there are 100 sceneries in total. One for each of the planets participating in this tournament.

I could imagine worse ways to spend these 24 hours, and if pressed, I would say I quite enjoyed them. Maybe I am truly growing old, dreaming of sitting on my porch and taking in the view. The training cannot be stopped, though.

The last 14 minutes start counting down with the final view, which is of a range of jagged rocks. As if tectonic plates had pressed against each other, one broke out of the surface in a shape reminiscent of a rock wave frozen mid-air. The entire stone range of that wave is very tall, akin to our tallest mountains, though there is no snow at all.

And the planet is lit by a star that has a more orange shine to it than our Earth. Include some nice greenery sprouting below and across that mountain range, and you could say that the view is quite nice.

Finally, the last second ticks, and I feel myself move instead of the environment changing around me.

There are a few thousand people surrounding me, causing me to check the current number of attendees participating in the tournament.

Easy Difficulty: 6,321

Normal Difficulty: 4,226

Hard Difficulty: 1,330

Hell Difficulty: 172

Beyond: 56

Looking at the Easy Difficulty, it is easy to guess that thousands of them are out of the tutorial, with plenty staying because they probably just enjoy this place. After all, I have heard of the adventures of some Easy Difficulties and what their floors look like.

Let's just say that first-floor me would easily clear all the Easy Difficulty floors.

Normal Difficulty has a higher percentage staying than Easy, and that further increases for Hard. Both are deciding to get out of the tutorial.

As for Hell, I suspect every Hell Difficulty attendee currently in the tutorial decided to participate in the tournament. Yet, out of the 2,500 Hell Difficulty attendees Earth started with, only 172 remain. And the same goes for the Beyonders, which I think I remember we used to have 20 more of. Something tells me that that number will go even lower, as is common for all tutorials. The attendees, especially in the higher difficulties, filter down until only the most talented, the smartest, or the luckiest remain.

Then I start more actively filtering out the noise of the thousands of Earth attendees around me and approach one of the many boards placed around, with each having people gathered around it.

Peeking through the crowd, I see a map with exactly 100 circles, with one of them being red, marking our position on the map. There is even a legend showing the five levels of how the circle showcasing our "territory" can look on the map, ranging from a simple bronze circle to a winged platinum circle.

To clear that up for myself, I open the notification.

You have been moved to the territory of your tutorial, where you will spend the remaining 13 days.

There are five sub-events you can participate in to earn points. Your accumulated total will be included in the calculation of your tournament rewards, and you can also spend these points to unlock upgrades in your territory.

You can upgrade each territory up to level 5. Every new level lets you either upgrade existing facilities or unlock new ones, such as gathering nodes, training circles, rejuvenation zones, advanced territorial defenses, and artisan smithies.

To level up your facilities or the territory itself, points can be used in the territory status window. There you can find possible upgrades, information on how many points they require, as well as a short description of the beneficial effects they will give.

Each attendee can decide how many points to invest in the upgrades of their choice, allowing for further communication and teamwork with fellow attendees.

The five sub-events that allow for gathering points are:

1. The clash of the territories

2. Monster hunting

3. Crafting rankings

4. Resource gathering

5. World Boss Raids

And then it is also possible for me to "click" on each of the events for more information. For example, the first sub-event says how many points you get for killing at what difficulty, and how many points you get for damaging defenses. There are even points for sabotage, espionage, and such. Some of the territories can become vassals to others, which brings in even more points.

There is so much of it that I just give up. But before I close that window, to my own amusement, I find out that "killing" the person with the highest level in the territory gets you the most points, as well as killing the next ten highest-level attendees.

I will probably reread it all soon, but I am scared of seeing how detailed some of the rules are. For instance, there is the fact that you can only get points for killing someone once an hour, and that there is currently only one hour per day window when you can attack territories. That time will increase with the passage of the tournament, making it so that during the last days, you can attack at any time.

As always, smarter people than me will look over it all, and I guess I will just go out once in a while and bomb an entire territory.

The other sub-events seem fun as well. Monster hunting is obvious, as are the crafting rankings, and here, I am confident a certain crafter with a fucked up name will return.

Resource gathering is exactly that: gathering resources you can trade for shards and use to craft items or improve your territory. Though its idea is simple, it is the sub-event with the highest number of rules and explanations.

The fifth sub-event holds my attention a bit longer, and I read the explanations there more carefully. It talks about monsters appearing at random, akin to a throw of the dice, with each appearance having its own set probability. This ranges from a swarm of goblins to the chance of an Absolute grade monster appearing, though that seems to be a really low chance.

And those are just the sub-events, with the main events to be introduced soon.

I almost get a feeling that the 13 remaining days may not be enough for all of this.