《Tower climber sister.》 Chapter 1. The tower. It was a normal day for Hilda, atleast it was untill she met her future self. It was a normal day for 17 years old Hilda untill she suddenly fainted while standing. "Young me, take this key and enter the tower early and climb to the highest floor" Huh? I need more context here, also if your older me, won''t you be less serious? It is what it is, I''m your future self, so just trust me. Nope, even if this wasn''t a prank, I have no reason to go and risk my life to do so. "If you do not, than the boss at the 100th will descend in 20 years and kill everyone in the tower" Once again, not my problem "Including our sister who will enter the tower in five years" Oh... Can''t I just stop her? Doesn''t work like that. Well, gotta go now. Wait, can''t you give me more information first? Hilda wakes up on the floor. Yay, what a joy, she didn''t even give me more information. Well, how do I use this key? So I just stick it into the air and it works? Hilda just tries sticking it into the air and turning opening a door. Are you serious? Well seems she wasn''t joking, but I''ll still have to prepare before going. Hilda writes a note for her sister. "Elia, I gotta go, I''ll leave you enough money, your 16 years, you can quit school, see you in five years." Good enough. Hilda says putting down the note and going to withdraw all her money and sell all her valuables to leaving the money on her bedside. Well, I think I can go now... Actually, I should bring a mask, if I make any enemies I don''t want them hurting eloa due to mistaking her for me due to how similar we look. Done, this idk it''s a cheap plastic mask I got during a Christmas event for free, but it works, actually before I go... Hilda takes a picture of Elias and prints out a small picture to keep. Okay, I can go now. Hilda steps through the door, which causes a sudden brightness to blind her temporarily. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Couple hours later(presumably) ¡ª-------------------------------------------- Hilda wakes up in an invisible barrier seeing 9 other people in similar ones along with a stays Infront of her that says. Name:Hilda(17) Race: Human Gender: Female Level:0 Stats:(1 S) (1 E) (1 A) (1 M) Trait:sis con Personality:sis conThis story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Inventory(locked. Requirements:level 5) Shop(locked. Requirements:level 5) Wow, but seriously? Sis con? She stops looking at her status as she suddenly sees a white glowing boy with a yellow outline with no facial features other than a mouth with the height being about a child''s. Who is... Hello everybody! I am your guide! If you have any questions, simply ask the status, to simplify everything for you all, all you have to do is to kill, level up and collected skills. Bye! The guide disappears leaving Hilda to check the benefits of her trait. "Sis con" increased will power, higher resistance to mental attacks, will provide benefits as long as user is acting for her sisters benefit, regardless of directly or indirectly as long as it''s intentional. Strength of trait increases based on level of user and level of trait. Oh wow, what''s my traits level. Trait: "sis con" (Max) Oh nice? But what do the stats mean? Do you wish to elaborate? A system message suddenly pops out. Sure? (Strength) (Endurance) (Agility) (Mana) Oh nice, why don''t you just show it on the actual status? Lack of space. ... Hilda suddenly sees the barrier around her disappear and runs away incase anything bad happens and to avoid others into a forest. Hmm, best not to mingle with others, learnt from experience that it''s not a good idea. Hilda looks around and suddenly sees a bat and reads it''s status Level 1 lesser bat. Stats:(3 S) (3 E) (3 A) (1 M) That''s a lesser bat? It''s stats are 3 time mine! Screw it let''s just ditch. Hilda turns to retreat as the bat dives at her suddenly. Shit! Hilda barely avoids the bat. Warning: Host is fighting an enemy more than three times as strong. Notification:trait "sis con" is active Stats are being doubled. Trait "sis con" is being strained. Triple it! Warning: trait "sis con" will be temporarily deactivated in 20 seconds if strained to that extent. Warning:user will suffer recoil after deactivation. Do you still wish to proceed? Yea! Hilda immediately feels an extreme increase in strength and uses her arm as a shield for the bat to bite down on as she brat it with her other arm. Not so strong now are you? Evelyn uses it to bash against the cave wall as she levels up. Level up. All stats +1 Trait has been improved slightly. Achievement unlocked. First to kill a monster. First to use trait. First to strain trait. Nice... Hilda thinks before ditching the cave and finding a lake and sprinting to it before the recoil occurs. After the trait ends, Hilda feels a shape pain in every part of her body. Achievement unlocked. First to get recoil. Crap that hurt. She says having fallen to the floor. Oh wow, I got a nice couple of achievements, I''ve gotta to check those later. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- A couple mintues later ¡ª-------------------------------------------- Nice, I can walk now atleast, but if I meet a monster, I''m screwed. She thinks to herself while checking her achievement. First to kill a monster: all monster kills give 10 percent more loot(Epic) First to use trait: trait is permanently increased by 5 percent(rare) First to strain trait: trait can last longer despite strain and has faster recovery speed by 10 percent.(Epic) First to get recoil: recoil is no longer as severe by 5 percent.(Epic) Huh? Aren''t epic and rares too common? Achievement rank is based on danger and difficulty level. Oh right, the status could answer my questions based on what I''m thinking. Does that mean the guide could read my mind? ... Alright just ignore me I guess. Hilda drinks from the lake as she sees a monster. Oh you''ve got to be kidding me. Hilda checks the status of the monster Stats:(0 S) (0 E) (10 A) (14 M) Oh I''m screwed, I can''t even reach it to hit it in my current state before it kills me with magic or something. Hilda laments her situation but sees the species of the monster. Lesser mental spirit. My trait makes it so that I''m more resistant to mental attacks and my traits maxed out, I used I gotta risk it seeing as I can''t put run something with 10 Agility with a damaged body. Hilda watches as the spirit shoots a beam at her as she closes her eyes bracing for the attack but feeling nothing. It was nothing? Wait now I feel kinda weird like I have to serve the monster. Oh, I could make this work. Hilda walks to the monster, pretending that the magic worked and attacks it killing it in one hit. Wow, I guess having 0 Endurance really screwed it over. Level up All stats plus one Trait has been improved slightly Achievement unlocked. Second to kill a level 5 monster(epic) When fighting beings above your own level, your stats can increase by up to (5) decreased to 4 due to being second. Wow somebody was faster this time? I guess they got lucky with their trait like me, wonder who it was though. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- At a random volcano ¡ª-------------------------------------------- Nice, I got the first achievement too time. Aiden says while checking his trait. Name:Aiden Race:Human Gender:Male Level: 2 Stats:(2 S) (2 E) (2 A) (2 M) Skills: water manipulation(level 1) Mana manipulation Trait: one with the water(level 6) Personality:persistent swimmer Thank god I got a water based trait due to training to be an competitive swimmer all day and night which gave me access to skills early along with the monsters at the volcano being severely weak to water. Though I really would like to meet the person who got the first kill so early in. Aiden gets interrupted by the notification of Hilda getting second for killing a level 5 monster. Wow, I really got to hurry if I want to catch up. Chapter 2. Acquiring skills ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Let me check my progress so far, system? Checking progress. Notifications. Level. Achievements. Stats. All available functions related to progress are shown. Hmm, notifications. As she mentally selects the notifications options , she goes through the old notifications. Huh? What''s this? All first three clears are shown world wide to every user. User means everybody with the system right? Yes. Oh that''s not good. Was my name shown? All identities during the first ten floors are hidden unless the user personally tells their other users. Oh nice, this way I don''t have to care about people being salty about losing the first kill achievement. What other achievements can I get that are possible or easy right now? Information is restricted. Should have expected that. What can you tell me about the lesser mental spirit? Lesser mental spirit. Description. The lifeform is a low level spirit having not lived for more than 10 years, they typically live alone as they will attempt to steal other lesser spirits controlled lifeforms, they typically do not wander far from their homes. Dam, that means there are none nearby, how far apart do they live? Estimated average range is 1-1.5km. Great¡­ Can you tell me where the nearest decent strength monster is? Information is restricted. Can''t you make an exception? ¡­ Well, I didn''t expect it anyways. Loading¡­ Huh? Exceptions can be provided at the cost of a penalty. What penalty? The severity of the penalty depends on the request. What about my most recent request? Please define decent strength monsters. Huh? Why? Your request was too vague. Oh, I mean monsters that are around my level and maybe slightly weaker, along with any monsters stronger than me that can use mental magic. Penalty:stats are reduced by 30 percent. Why so much? This request would give an unfair advantage too early into the tower. Fine, maybe my trait will help negate it anyways. How does my trait work? Need more information. What information? Access to your trait. Will you give permission? Sure whatever. Permission granted. Loading¡­ Information needed. What now? Confirmation, are you in the tower because of your sister? Yes. Loading¡­ Information needed. What now?! Why are you in this tower for your sister? To prevent her from dying once she enters. How do you know she will enter? Because my fut¨C System denied permission. Huh? What does that mean? Refreshing¡­ What¡­ Refresh complete. Based on your original question:¡±how does my trait work¡± based on the information provided, your trait will help anytime you need strength to kill other lifeforms to level up, or anything related to getting stronger. Trait may stop providing extra strength after required strength is needed. Oh. How will the trait know when I have enough strength? Your trait is a part of you, and has access to the system''s information. Sure. Wait, you already reduced my stats, is that permanent? No. Ok, how will I know where other monsters are? Check your status. Aren''t you my status? ¡­ No response? Seriously? ¡­ Fine. Hilda opens her status to see a new function. Map(temporarily unlocked)(temporarily allowed) Oh wow. She opens the map to see a bunch of red dots, a blue one. Nice, I''m gonna assume the blue is me? Yes. Alright. Hilda starts going around to start killing monsters, most being weaker than her at level 1. Hilda realizes that seems feels faster than normal even with the penalty Huh? This feels so weird but nice. She checks her trait to see jt buffing her Agility stat to allow her to reach each monster faster. Due to killing monsters half your level at level 1, experience has been reduced by half. Annoying, also won''t increasing my agility strain my trait again? Negative, user has a higher level, and total stats increased are lesser. Oh yea, I guess it''s only buffing my agility.. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- 30 minutes later ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Oh my god, I''m finally level 4.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Hey system, where are the mental magic monsters at? I remember asking for those too. Monsters with affinity to mental magic are few. Great. Where''s the nearest one? 100 meters to the right. No penalty this time? User already has a penalty for the ¡°Map¡± function. The ¡°Map¡± function helps provide locations of monsters, reducing a new penalty. The user already has a penalty, reducing a new penalty. These two together can offset a low level penalty. What''s a low level penalty? User is currently afflicted with a low level penalty. This idk it''s a low level one, what''s a high level one like that? An example of a high level penalty is. Damage to vital organs. Temporary loss/paralysis of a limb. 95 percent reduced stats. Won''t those kill?! The system is unable to kill, at most places the user is on the verge of death, any death caused will be by other afflicted injuries. So what if I''m injured and you damage a vital organs of mine, won''t I die? Yes. Didn''t you just say you couldn''t kill? The death will not entirely be the system''s fault, therefore it will not be my responsibility. So your saying it''s not your problem as long as somebody else shares the responsibility? ¡­ Great. Hilda starts heading to the mental magic monster at 100 meters to the right to find a¡­ unicorn? What? A unicorn? Let me check its stats. Race: Horse. Bloodline: unicorn(13 percent) Level:5 Achievement second to kill a level 5 monster(epic) is taking place. Increasing users'' level temporarily by one. Huh? Interesting, well this should be easy. Hilda picks up a nearby rock and hits it firmly, causing it to grunt in pain before turning away and sending her back with a powerful kick Ouch dammit that hurt, system, didn''t you say it uses mental magic. Yes. Then why is it so strong? The bloodline provides it with low level mental magic while being a horse allows it to be physically strong. Crap so monsters with mental magic can be physically strong too, how did I completely ignore that. Hilda watches as the horse charges at her with its short but very pointy horn, which is more than enough to leave a hole in her. Crap, barely dodged. Hilda checks its stats only to see. (8 S) (6 E) (8 A) (5 M) Warning Host is fighting an opponent nearly twice as strong. Would you like to activate your trait? How is it considered twice as strong, don''t we have the same stats? Due to being of the horse race, the lifeforms body and strength are higher than the users despite having the same stats. Fine, activate it! Warning, users will suffer recoil after recoil after deactivation. Warning: trait ¡°sis con¡± will be temporarily deactivated in 30 seconds if strained to that extent. Why? Didn''t you say my trait gets stronger as I level? User has been increasing agility stats for an extended period. Didn''t you say it won''t strain me?! At the present time when trait was activated, user was not in immediate danger. So your saying due to not being able to see the future, it isn''t your problem? Hilda asks, annoyed as she narrowly dodges another hit. ¡­ You''re the best at avoiding responsibility, you know? Screw it, just increase my agility as much without straining me. Affirmative. Hilda checks her agility to see it reach 7 from the previous 5 she had which was decreased to 3. Hilda looks around for anything she can use to defeat the horse except for the worthless rock in her hand. Hey system! ¡­ Is there a lake nearby or any other bodies? Yes. Where? Check the map, location has been updated. Hilda quickly opens her map and starts running to the nearest lake with the horse behind her catching up. I''m here! She attempts to bait the horse into falling into the river but it doesn''t fall for it too easily. This thing''s smarter than expected despite just being a horse with a really really sharp horn. Hey system, can you increase my strength stat instead of my agility? Yes. How much do I need to lift the horse? (10 S) is required. Warning trait will be overstrained. Do it! Affirmative. Hilda feels her body getting stronger immediately as the horse runs at her, and she dodges but scraps due to the decrease in agility, she ignores the little bit of pain before going to lift the horse up. As she lifts the horse up, it kicks her in the stomach nearly causing her to throw up and drop the horse but she persists through and finally lifts it over her head causing her arm to strain in pain before throwing it into the slightly deeper part of the lake. Dammit, the lakes not deep enough, but it can still slow the horse down. She jumps onto the horse''s back with her arms still in pain as she interlocks her fingers and starts bringing her hands down onto the horse''s back, causing it to struggle and nearly send her flying off but Hilda clings on tightly with her legs and keeps bashing the horse. As the horse keeps struggling, Hilda keeps bringing her hands back down onto the horse''s back while struggling to stay on its back. Come on, I''ve got more than enough strength to kill it! Hilda keeps hitting it, eventually succeeding in making it faint. Level up. All stats +1 Trait has been improved slightly. Requirement reached. Shop(unlocked) Inventory(unlocked) Achievement unlocked First to reach level 5 First to unlock shop First to unlock inventory Oh my god, finally dead, this is so unfair, why do other races get to be stronger despite having the same stats? Humans and other intelligent species who are usually weaker due to evolution, have the advantage of the system to grow stronger quickly, where as non intelligent races such as a horse lack the means to grow stronger quickly. Then how do they level up? A lifeforms level without the system is simply an estimate of their strength compared to others of their own species, and towards intelligent species, causing it to be lower than its actual strength due to being compared to its own species. Warning, stat increase is about to end recoil occurring soon. Crap. Hilda tries running to find a safe place to hide before eventually fainting in the shallow part of the lake. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- A while later ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda wakes up and finds some level one fish biting her, but due to their low strength they are not able to cause harm. Irritating¡­ I guess I could use them as food. Hilda grabs them, not letting them swim away before bringing them out of the water and letting them die. Hey system, did they give experience? No. Great, guess indirectly killing them doesn''t kill experience. What about poison, would that work? Yes. Nice. Hey, can you let me see how much experience I get? Yes. Would you like to enable it? Yea. Hilda suddenly starts hearing the system slowly names out everything she killed and the experience they give, causing her to not be able to close the system, making it constantly block her view. Hey!!! Get rid of the screen in my face. Not possible, updating notifications to show experience. Then just turn the experience off! Affirmative. Oh my god, finally there''s nothing blocking my sight and it''s quiet again. Show me my recent achievements. Reach level 5(common) Tip coupon First to unlock shop(rare) 50 percent discount coupon(expiry 3 months) First to unlock inventory(rare) Plus 10 m3 of space Why are they both rare? They have the same rarity due to having the same requirement. Makes sense. Why does the reach level 5 give a weird item called tip coupon? To give new users tips. Thx for the useless information anyways, how do I use it? Check your inventory. How do I use that? Just open it. Hilda enters the function and a blue square appears similar to the system screen. What should I do? Put your hand in and think of what you want. The appearance? The name works too. Oh, what if I forget about something? You can check the names of what you have. How? The names of the things you forgot will appear at the top of the inventory. How do you know what I forgot? I am able to read your mind. Huh? Then where''s the privacy? I am only authorised to read your mind about things you forget. How do you read my mind about things that I forget if I forget them? Everything you experience is in your head, even if you forget it, you simply cannot recall them. Wow, interesting. Ok, I got it now what? Tear it. Sure? Hilda tears the tip coupon and gets teleported to a cube room with white walls all around with a person in the center. Who are you? The person turns to look at her, letting her recognise him as the guide she saw at the start. Oh it''s this weirdo again. She thinks while crossing her arms. Weirdo? That''s rude, you know? ¡­ Hello? You gonna talk? The system can read my mind, this guy probably can too can''t he? Indeed, hilda. He smirks as he confirms her suspicions. Where''s the scene of privacy? Hilda now knowing that she can''t hide says out loud uncrossing her arms. There''s none, but don''t worry even if you have some fantasies about me I won''t judge you. Trust me, I won''t ever have such thoughts. How unfriendly. So you gonna help me with the tips or whatever? What tips do you need? I don''t know? Then why did you tear it? I don''t know. Fine, think of this as a gift for being first to visit the lonely me. What? Open the shop. Why? Do you want to listen to my tips or not? Hilda reluctantly opens the shop for the first time and sees that she''s gathered a good amount of points and only one thing in the shop called, ¡°skill function¡±. What''s this? Buy it, you have enough. Sure? She buys it and sees a bunch of new skills appear. Hm, why didn''t I get the first for the skill function? Some people''s traits gave them the skill function. Why didn''t they get the achievement? They got it for free upon entering the tower, so it was easier than common rarity and therefore not deserving of an award. Great, anyways what should I get? I still have some points. You have just enough for two common skills. So, what should I get? Low level mana control and a mental skill. Why mental skill? Because if you don''t have resistance to some types of magic, it hurts you to use it. How would mental magic hurt me? In common cases, headaches, mild cases, fainting and the worst going insane, or losing one of your senses forever. Would that happen to me? Not with the level of mental resistance you got, just don''t use too strong of mental magic until you reach level 50. What mental ability should I get? Hilda starts scrolling through the skills and sees all types such as elemental ones, physical ones, support, healing and more. You can filter out mental skills. Huh? Let me try¡­ done, wow, but I can''t afford most of them. You can filter out what you can buy too. Really? Hilda looks through the filter again and finally finds the option. Oh there it is, this is convenient. Hilda looks at the three skills she can afford. Low level obedience magic. Allows you to make other lifeforms weaker than you obey you with a slight sense of loyalty, scales with level. Low level illusion magic. Creates any illusion you want as long as they are not too big or many, scales with mana. Low level mental attack causes slight headache, scales with level and mana. Which do you think you should get? I don''t know, you tell me. I can read your mind, I know there''s one you want. Fine, I want the illusion one. Why? You''re reading my mind, so why ask? I don''t always read your mind, or life would be too boring without the anticipation. Fine, it''s because I have no mana obviously. You do though. Huh? Hilda opens her stats to check and sees¡­ (6 S) (6 E) (6 A) (1 M) When did I get it? When you get the mana control skill. How nice, but doesn''t each level up increase each stat by one, it''s only at 1 right now. That''s a misunderstanding, when it says each stat increases by one, it means the limit, so from Now each level up will increase your mana, but if you want the 5 you missed out on you have to use your skill more often. By the way, do skills have a level? Why don''t I see any on my low level mana control skill though? Two reasons, first is that passive skills don''t have levels, and second is that you can''t see the level of level 0 skills. Great, so should I buy the illusion skill or not? Yes. You sure? Yea. Confirm? Just get it. I''m just making sure. Yes, I''m sure, if you ask again I''m gonna reduce your level. You can do that? Yea so stop asking it''s getting irritating. Fine fine. Hilda buys the skill and instinctively knows how to use it. By the way, since this doesn''t use mana, it uses stamina. Stamina? But that isn''t a stat? It''s part of endurance. Oh, I thought it was just like how tough I was? No, anything that falls under endurance works. Anything? Yea, even sexual endurance. I wasn''t thinking of that. You were. I wasn''t. Actually it''s pretty normal, it''s in the deepest part of your mind so you aren''t actively thinking of it, but your mind goes through every possibility that you may know of. Shut up. Fine, anyways you also need will power which your trait also provides, how lucky, anyways you''re basically suited for mental magic. Any questions remaining? Yea, how did the other people enter the tower? They simply wanted something badly, which the tower can provide, you''re a unique case. Am I unique? How nice. I allowed it to happen or your future self would have never been successful in going back in time, even if it was just an illusion. So I''m not as unique as expected?How sad. Don''t lie, I can tell your emotions too, and I can tell you don''t give a damn. Cool, send me back. The guide flicks her forehead, sending her back and leaving a slight sting on her forehead. Well that was unnecessary. She tries creating some illusions, being able to create up to three before feeling a slight headache. Why do the illusions look transparent? Your resistance to mental magic causes that. I thought it would be more though. This is the minimum amount of transparency. Do other people see it transparent too? Not unless they have mental magic resistance. Oh nice. A level 3 monster appears making Hilda turn over to look at it. A test subject, how nice. Chapter 3. Mini boss Hilda stares at the monster which she now recognises as a monkey before approaching it as she creates an illusion of herself, but with a bigger weapon to look more dangerous and attract attention. As she and the her clones approaches the level 3 monkey, it attacks the clone causing it to partially dissipate and reform quickly disturbing Hilda''s concentration slightly. As the monkey goes through the clone, Hilda takes the opportunity to bash the monkey with a rock killing it. Honestly, this rock is so annoying, if only I could find a better weapon. Hilda looks around and finds the body of the horse she had recently killed and approaches it. Hey, it''s horn looks rather useful, I could probably use it. Hilda tries to pull the horn out but fails. Hey system, use my trait! Warning, trait ¡°sis con¡± will temporarily be deactivated in a minute. Warning:user may suffer recoil after deactivation. Just do it and increase my strength! Hilda suddenly feels a surgery of strength as she rips the horn out along with the entire spine of the horse, causing her to nearly fall backwards. System deactivate my trait¡­ User did not over strain trait sufficiently, recoil is not triggered Nice¡­ but this. Hilda pulls out the rest of the spine with the horn. Oh¡­ this is messed up. She goes away from the body as the water nearby is all bloodied as she cleans the horn and the spine with the cleaner water before taking the rock and bashing the part connecting the horn and spine to make use of the horn. Okay, this works. Hilda turns back to the mangled up horse. Sorry horsie, but this is for a greater course I promise. She takes the fish that she caught before and¡­ Wait, how do I cook this? I''m not eating this raw¡­ guess I''m not eating this. Is there anything in the shop? Hilda opens the shop and ties to filter out food and sees a. Abundance of different foods. What are these? Hilda eagerly looks through some of the more luxurious foods but looks at the price and goes back to the more basic ones. Oh my god¡­ the skill function was 200 points and each skill was 100 but there''s food here costing 300¡­ At Least the cheaper ones are just 10 to 20¡­ Hilda buys a plain bowl of rice and fish to finish before continuing to look for lifeforms to kill and train her illusion magic. As Hilda goes around and continues to test her ability out, it levels up soon after. Wow, that was fast probably due to it being level 0. Hmm let me check its description real quick. Can cast any illusion, the more the total volume, the harder it is to cast and maintain. Any illusions? Does that mean that I can make myself invisible? Hilda tries it but quickly gets a headache. Okay, making myself invisible is a lot harder than illusions. Notifications are important! Eventually starting in 2 days Details. That''s so sudden¡­ well? Show me the details already and stop wasting my time. Details: All users who die will be revived after the event ends. This event will consist of three parts. A hide and seek game. A round of killing monsters(all xp earned will be delayed until after the event) Lastly, a death match. More details will be provided at the time of the event. All rewards will be distributed and decided based on performance. What a joy¡­ I wonder how Lela is doing though. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Lela''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Finally awake, what''s the time? ¡­ Huh?? 11?! I''m gonna be late for school, why didn''t she wake me up?! Dammit! Lela quickly prepares for school as she sees the letter left by her sister. Huh, what''s this? This is just a stupid joke I bet, but since she said that I don''t need to go school than So be it. For the rest of the day, Lela lazes around the house and plays games till night. Seriously, when is she coming back? Lela goes back to the letter and looks for any details on the letter saying where she is actually but finds the money under. What''s this? Where did she get so much, weren''t we broke? She starts counting the amount and finds a total of 20,000 plus.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. What''s this, isn''t this my school fees for the rest of the year and the next 5, including tuition? Lela starts to try and call Hilda but gets a robotic voice responding saying that the number is no longer no in use. She looks at the. Note again and read the part where it says that she''ll see her again in 5 years. No way I''m waiting 5 years. She goes to the police and files and reports Hilda as missing. The next day, she gets a visit saying they weren''t able to find her but that they will keep looking. Lost, she goes back to her room and glances back and forth at the letter and the money. Fine¡­ I''ll just believe her, she better have a good explanation for this. We never left each other even when we became homeless and we lost our parents, so I refuse to believe that she just disappeared for no reason at all. So five years huh? That''s going to be a long time. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- I''ve been hunting for monsters for a while already without any sleep due to preparing for this damn event, but I''m officially level 12 now, somebody took the first to level 10 achievement and second to level 10, causing my achievement to be reduced down to. Third to level 10.(Rare) Increases experience by (5) percent decreased to (3) due to being third to reach level 10. This only happened due to me training my mental magic too much, not that I think about it, I bet they all have combat skills don''t they? How annoying. I wonder if I can turn invisible now? Hilda turns herself invisible, expecting a severe headache once again only to find herself experiencing a slight headache. I can make do of this, now how many clones can I make? Hilda tries making her clones and manages to make 7. Ok, this can work, but I need a proper weapon now. Hilda looks through the shop and finds a decent epic rarity weapon suited in the recommendations section but can''t afford it or even check its description. I need a better weapon anyways so let me try killing the level 15 mini boss I just found around here Skill level up. Low level illusion magic. (2)--->(3) Oh yea, I managed to get it to 2 while hunting just now, it''s been getting so much harder to level it. This will reduce the headaches I get, so I guess this is a sign I should try fighting it? Hilda goes and looks for the level 15 mini boss before finally spotting it. Let me check it first. Race:wyvern Bloodline:true dragon(2 percent) Level 15 Stats. (36 S) (36 E) (18 A) (12 M) Warning, due to being a mini boss, stats have been increased by 50 percent. Achievement second to kill a level 5 monster(epic) increasing users level temporarily by 4. Screw it, I learnt that all monsters have a weak spot regardless of what it is. My own stats are. (13 S) (13 E) (13 A) (8 M) System, am I able to use my trait in this situation? Yes. How much can I increase my stats without over straining it? 7. Ok, invest 2 of that into agility and the rest strength. Hilda feels her strength increasing once again as she charges at the wyvern with 4 of her clones, making them disappear and reappearing along with making her invisible and reappear while changing locations randomly with the clones to confuse it. It lets out a loud screech as it breathes fire at her and the clones as she avoids it barely and makes her clones disappear to avoid suffering a lashback from her clones getting destroyed. Crap, I guess even if it''s not a dragon, it''s still related. She creates another 5 clones, with one xtra to take her place and distract the wyvern as she climbs onto its back and attacks its wings making it screech in pain before throwing her off. Dammit, I didn''t get its wing, I can''t have it flying off. She makes herself invisible again as she continues using her clones to distract it before making them all attack it to distract it further after she''s near enough. She stabs the right wing one last time causing it to be very loose to the point where it can''t fly anymore. Ok, nice. As she quickly runs to avoid being thrown off, she watches as it backs up against a couple of trees, with nowhere to run she tries to climb back up, but it instantly reacts by swinging its tail over once she touches it making her get sent far and cough some blood out. Fuck that hurt¡­ She narrowly dodges as the wyvern breaths more fire at her again forcing herself to run as she thinks of an idea. Crap, what to do, it won''t fall for the same trick again. Maybe I could do this. She creates another 4 clones and makes them attack, eventually landing some hits but not causing damage due to being an illusion. Right.. I just need to keep this up. As she continues, the wyvern stops attacking those who are aiming for the non vital body parts, but attacking the ones aiming for its neck or face. Seeing this, Hilda attacks its forelegs causing it to screech in pain again, and keeps attacking the forelegs of the wyvern causing it to focus only on protecting its legs. Now! She quickly jumps at the wyverns face, attacking its eyes causing it to screech in pain once more as it starts to swing its claw in all directions, missing her as she keeps stacking. After a while, it lies on the ground almost motionless. Right, I''ve won this. Hilda prepares to bring the horn she got from the horse down onto his neck, finishing it off as it stands up again causing Hilda to back off. It shouldn''t have any strength left in that state, what is it doing? Hilda watches as it faces upwards and breaths out a fiery substance. Fire again? What''s that gonna do? The fiery substance starts coming back down to the ground causing Hilda to attempt to run away. Crap! That''s magma not fire!!! Hilda retreats as finds herself to be blocked by the fallen trees, creating a barrier much higher than she can jump over. system, use all stats from my trait onto my endurance! Affirmative. Overstrain my trait if you have to! Not suggested, if user faints here, high chance of being attacked by monsters die to the big commotion caused, or burnt by the magma. Dammit! She turns around, and shields her face with her arms, gritting her teeth as she sees the magma about to hit her. She shouts in pain as the magma lands on her arms, and some on her leg as she slowly walks, enduring the pain to the nearby lake she found on the way, holding back some tears from the unbearable pain. She goes into the lake, submerging the burns in the cold water, but the pain doesn''t go away. The only reason I managed to deal with that was thanks to the extra willpower from my trait¡­ She opens the shop to look for anything that could be of help to help her burnt arms with a bit of exposed bones, and most pain receptors burnt. As she searches for items to help her heal, she mentally selects a healing pill costing 100 points simply named. healing pill The healing effect can heal lost chunks of flesh and parts of vital organs, but it is not all powerful. She quickly swallows it as it appears in mid air as she feels a surgery of pain, much worse than better as her flesh begins to heal back causing her to nearly faint from the pain. Crap! She calms herself down as she looks at her hands still with some 3rd degree burns on them. Screw it, still much better than before. Her thoughts get interrupted as a couple notifications appear. Level up 2x Trait has been improved slightly. Achievement unlocked Second to kill a level 15 monster(epic) Tip coupon. First to kill a mini boss(legendary) When fighting a mini boss, stats are increased by 10 percent. Survivor, first to survive a near death situation. (Legendary) When taking lethal damage for the first time during the day, the damage will be reduced to barely below lethal damage, and all pain will be reduced by 80 percent for 5 seconds and all injuries will not get worse from users own action for 5 seconds unless intentional. First to kill a life form with a percentage of at least true dragon in its bloodline. Stats will increase when fighting lifeforms with true dragon blood, stats increase depending on amount of true dragon blood. Skill level up. Low level illusion magic (3)-->(5) Wow, how nice, anyways, for the main reason I did this. Hilda opens the shop and goes to check her recommendations for the weapon she wanted. Mind slasher.(Epic) When attacking, causes a slight mental attack towards the opponents, and can switch to mental damage state. Mental damage state: this sword will not cause physical harm, but will cause anything ranging from severe migraines or even temporary loss of a lifeform''s senses depending on where the user attacked. When attacked by this weapon, the one attacked will become more susceptible to mental magic(can be resisted completely or partially based on opponents mental resistance.) Changing of states can be done by injecting a bit of mana into the hilt completely, while injecting mana into the blade can increase either the sharpness of the weapon, or the strength of the mental attack. Cost 1000 points. Killing that stupid wyvern gave me 1500 points anyways, so I should be good for now. Anyways, to celebrate I''m gonna go buy a small cake in the shop. Hilda looks around the shop and realizes that there is not a single dessert in sight. What a shame honestly, well I guess I''ll just settle for a normal dish, probably rice and fish again. Hilda eats up reluctantly and admires her sword design and sharpness. Hmm, a better mask than this Christmas one would help too, I bet I look stupid in this. Hilda opens the shop and sees a mask in the recommendations. Oh yea, it could read my mind. She buys the mask for 150 points. Mental mask.(Rare) This mask only covers a person''s mouth and nose, and can purify some weak level prisons and smell. This mask passively creates a mental barrier around the user''s face(can be seen through by anyone with high enough mental resistance.) 150 points. Oh, this is so much more comfortable, but my temporary abundance of points feels so less now¡­ It''s nearly night, I''ve got to find a place to rest. Hilda looks around and finds a cave along with a couple of level 1 lesser bats which she slices through easily, not caring to even test the mental state function of the sword. As she reaches the end of the cave, she buys a small lamp and outdoor tent from the shop for a total of 50 points as she goes to sleep for the night. Chapter 4. Hide and seek What''s going on? Hilda wakes up due to being disturbed by a sudden bright light. Hm? What''s going on? As she slowly stands up, frowning from the sudden brightness, she finds herself in a fully white room, the same as when she tore her tip coupon, but with an elevated platform in the center makes out another 9 silhouettes. Oh, those are probably the other contestants. Hello everybody! A sound comes from the center of the platform, which she recognises is the guide''s without even needing to look in his direction. This is the start of the event, the first activity being hide and seek! All 3 activities will last for a total of one day for each. The rules of this are simple, there will be a random user here that starts off as ¡®it¡±, the first three users to be caught will be killed, but remember, you will be revived after the event, if the ¡°it¡± doesn''t catch 3 users within a day, they will be excluded from the game, to catch someone, you need physical contact with their bodies. But first, everybody picks a colour. The colour shall be your identity until floor 10 Starting off with my favourite person, choose a colour. Huh, his favourite person? Whose that. Hilda looks around waiting for him to announce but sees everybody staring at her as she looks up and sees an oversized arrow pointing at her. What the fuck¡­ Why am I this guy''s favourite person? Because you have the most unique reason for being in this tower. Fine, so what color should I pick? Your favourite or just a random one. ¡­ Black than I guess. Why black? It''s the simplest colour. What about white? Too bright. Fine. You''re black now, now everybody can see your appearance. Huh? Hilda looks around and realizes that the other people are actual silhouettes and that it wasn''t just due to the bright environment. Oh¡­ Ok, for the next person... you! What color would you want? Hilda watches as the guide points to another person with them choosing blue colour. Hmm, he looks like a 30 year old man. As Hilda watches them all choose a colour, she takes note of all their appearance with this being what she can tell. Black:her Blue:a 30 year looking old man. Red:a 30 year old looking woman. Yellow:a 20 year old looking woman. Orange:a 40 year old looking woman. Green:a 20 year old looking man. Brown:a 20 year old looking woman. Grey:a 40 year old looking man. Purple:a 20 year old looking woman. White:a 18 year old looking guy. Am I the youngest here? Wow, also I can''t really make out more of their appearance, I wonder if that''s due to the guide. Alright everybody, time it starts! The guide claps his hands and Evelyn gets teleported into a maze. Red is the ¡°it¡± please do avoid her. Have fun! Hilda looks around the maze with extremely high walls, and a very wide path. Wow, this is one hell of a maze. Hilda looks around, noticing that she leaves a black trail behind, likely due to her choosing black. How.. unique? She continues looking around and encounters some monsters with sirens for arms. I wonder what level they are at. Hilda checks their level to see that they''re at level 10 but with their stats being unique. (0 S) (0 E) ( 20 A) (0 M) All xp gained from killing this event lifeform will provide 500 percent of an average level 10 monster. Damn, that ain''t worth it. I should probably look for a place to rest since my sleep was interrupted by that stupid guide. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Red''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Name:josaine(30)Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Race: Human Gender: Female Level:9 Stats:(10 S) (10 E) (10 A) (10 M) Skills: Low level taming magic(4) Low level strength buff magic(3) Trait:animal lover Personality:adores animals. Inventory Shop Hide and seek in such a big area is going to be so bad for me luckily, my pets can help send their location to me when I find them, sadly they probably can''t help me tag others though. As josaine keeps looking around the area while on a horse that she tamed, she suddenly hears a loud siren sound and heads to it. As she approaches the location where the sound was heard, she sees a humanoid monster with hands running faster than she could hope to catch up with. What the hell was that, so far only animals seen on earth have appeared, but no way that was on earth before. Her thoughts get interrupted as she suddenly sees a person with a white trail behind them. Guess this will be easier than expected. Hilda commands her pets to attack the person as she checks his stats only to see that it only says. ¡°White¡± So I can''t check other people''s stats, how annoying. Hilda charges at him with her pets as he conjures up some water to attack her pet''s with with high water pressure. Should have expected that other people had skills too. Josaine uses her low level strength buff magic allowing her pets to endure the attack from white. After a lengthy exchange of defending and attacking, one of the bats she tamed manages to bite him, and with the low level strength buff magic, it successfully bites into his hand before he grabs it and kills it easily. Josaine uses this opportunity to attack as he suddenly shoots water in her direction. What''s he doing? That''s not gonna hit me.. unless. Josaine immediately orders some of her pets to defend her horse but was too late, chasing her horse to be knocked over and severely injured as white runs away. Shit, no way my pets will be able to catch up. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- I just heard a couple of loud sirens, so I''m just gonna avoid that direction entirely. Hilda was looking for an area to take a nap as a random event lifeform suddenly runs by. What¡­ Hilda eventually finds a small hole in the wall, which she uses to Take a nap in after seeing up a sensor incase anybody comes in which she bought from the shop A couple hours later, she wakes up relieved and hears fighting outside. As she goes out to check, she sees a person with a red trail fighting with someone with a blue trail. Hey system, once she gets 3 people out does the activity end? Yes. Oh, I''ve got an idea. As Hilda grips her sword tightly, and changes it to the mental state, she waits for an opportunity before slashing at blues head, causing the sword to go through with no visible damage. Huh, What happened? Hilda turns back to see the man kneeling down clenching his head in pain and dropping his sword before slashing him again and running away. Secret function discovered, when attacking in the mental state, ¡°mind slasher¡± ignores all physical material non-biological material that does not have mental resistance. That''s gonna be really nice. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Red''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Who is this random person suddenly? Josaine looks and sees that they have a black trail. Huh? The person the guide said was their favourite due to the reasons she is in the tower right? Josaine watches as black swings her sword through blues head causing him to react instantly without any visible injuries as she slashes in again and runs off. What just happened? Josaine decides to attack blue first before questioning it any further as she touches him while her pets bite blue. Congrats, one user(blue) has been tagged! Contributions. (Red: 7 percent) (Black: 93 percent) Oh so the contributions count¡­ ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- A notification? Oh nice, it seems she was able to make use of my help, though having contribution is really nice though. Wait¡­ I kinda want more rewards, so if I followed her wouldn''t I be able to get more contributions? Hilda follows red but constantly avoids her pets and keeps a safe distance while slashing her pets with the mental state of her sword when she they keep attacking. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Red''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Why the hell is black following me? She''s been at this for the past at least 30 minutes, she''s probably trying to get more contributions, how greedy. As josaine continues to move on with the maze, she notices black following behind nonstop. Fine, if she wants to follow them I''ll just make use of her. Shortly after, she hears an explosion and runs to it to see yellow and green fighting as she listens to their argument. Damn you, you stole my kill, no way I''m letting you go. The person with the green trail shouts as he shoots an arrow at her with his oddly thin but firm looking bow, only for yellow to block it with a shield and charge at him with a sword. IThe monster ran in my direction, it was a free kill, if you don''t think it was fair then complain to someone else. As josaine hides and waits for an opportunity to third party, she sees black run right past them. How arrogant¡­ ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Two more people? This is a great opportunity for some freedom contribution Hilda thinks while charging at them as they notice her presence. Who are you? The person with the yellow trail shouts but Hilda ignores her and slashes her body through her shield causing her to kneel on the floor clutching her stomach but avoiding Hilda''s next slash. Hey, I know we hate each other, but let''s team up for now? Hilda watches as both green and yellow team up as she creates clones and use the same method she did on the wyvern What the fuck is he doing? Green shouts as he slashes one of the clones only for it to disappear before his sword reaches. They''re fake! God this is such a problem. Green and yellow back up against each other, attacking any clones who get too far as Hilda attacks green with the same sword but shining, causing the arm he was using to hold his sword to be cut off. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Red¡¯s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Josaine watches as black cuts off one of greens arms and slashes at yellow as she tries to block but the sword goes through, causing her to fall to the floor again without any visible damage but black successfully stabs one of yellow''s legs. What the hell is up with him? ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda''s pov ¡ª---------------------------------------------- I''m finally done with these two, but why did green call me a guy? I get that I''m wearing a mask but do I really look like a guy? Hilda looks down and notices that her clothes are for both men and women but fits men better. Oh yea, it was on discount so I just bought it¡­ Hilda grabs both green and yellow by their hair and starts pulling them, looking for red as a hand suddenly appears to her right, with Hilda avoiding just barely. Tsk, so close. Red says as she keeps attacking with her pets and trying to grab her. Oh, she''s gonna do this huh? Hilda attacks with her word, infusing mana into it to make it sharper and easily slices through the weaker pets. As Hilda kills all over red¡¯s tamed pets, red falls down as she slashes Hilda with her sword at the mental state causing her to shout in pain while grabbing herself but Hilda keeps attacking. Ok ok! I''ll tag them! Stop it! Hearing this, Hilda pulls green and yellow who have both fainted over to red who reaches her hand out while using the hand to grab her head and body in pain. Congrats, two users(green/yellow) has been tagged! Contributions. (Red: 1 percent) (Black: 99 percent) How nice. Suddenly holograms that look similar to the system appear all over the area and the guide is shown on the screen. Wow, it has only been 11 hours that ended a lot faster than I thought, this didn''t really feel like hide and seek, but whatever, also¡­ hi¨C I mean black, you really are pretty greedy aren''t you? Anyways, take a break before the next even starts. The guide claps and Hilda gets sent to a place that looks nearly completely identical to her home, but with the outside being all white with nothing. Wow, didn''t think I''d see this place again so fast. As Hilda looks around the house, taking in every detail even the smallest ones like the permanent marker marks left on the wall, the oddly nice but mostly nostalgic moldy smell and the creaking whenever she takes a step, all of which are attributed due to her and her sister always having to save money, with most of their saved money being from their small inheritance and insurance from their parents. Hilda starts heading into her sister''s bedroom and lies down feeling tired immediately. How am I tired already? Didn''t I just sleep just now¡­ The bed has properties that make you tired. The system answers. Oh, well I guess a bit more sleep wouldn''t hurt either. Her thoughts get interrupted as she dozes off. Chapter 5. Goblins. As Hilda wakes up, she slowly opens her eyes and sees the system screen in front of her saying 2:31. Huh? What is this for? Would you like more details? 2:25 time left. Oh, that''s plenty¡­ did that just decrease by 6? Wait, is this minutes or hours? Minutes. Crap. Hilda quickly sits up and takes whatever she can that is somewhat of value, consisting of a solar powered clock, snacks, water and most importantly, pictures if her sister from 1 years old to 15, her current age, leaving behind only some pictures of her sister due to reasons and memories she would like to forget, and stuffs everything she took into her inventory. Alright, I think that''s everything, how much time is left? 0:01 Oh just in time. Hilda takes in the sight of her sisters room one more time before she gets sent back to the starting room before the event started with the elevated platform in the center with the same white walls, floor and ceiling, the only difference being that the rest of the users do not appear as silhouettes at the start and a small transparent cube in the center with 3 floating lights, being blue, yellow and green. Hello everybody! Congrats on passing the first activity. The guide says with the same enthusiastic tone he always uses along with a hint of playfulness. Now, you may notice that there''s a transparent box here with 3 colors floating around, these are what you humans would call¡­ souls, but explaining it is a lengthy process and you guys don''t deserve to hear about it, the main reason I''m even telling you is to show that revival is indeed possible and not a lie Incase any of you still have doubts after using the system for a 3 days now. Anywho, the next activity is monster killing! The rules are that you can be revived as many times during this activity, and killing others will steal half their points, so be careful not to die, oh and the people with the least 3 scores gets disqualified from the event. With that, the guide claps his hands once again sending Hilda to the middle of a forest. I wonder if he actually needs to clap his hand or if he just does it for fun or something. Hilda decides to stop wasting her time with stupid questions and decides to just observe her surroundings to quickly get points. This looks pretty similar to where I was just at but thanks again, it''s a forest so big surprise. As she starts quickly navigating around, she hears grunting and odd noises as she approaches the source to find green humanoids, each pulling a wheelbarrow of raw meat. Are those goblins? Wasn''t the monsters limited to just animals on earth wait no, I fought a wyvern, no way it''s limited to monsters on earth. Hilda decides against immediately attacking and checks their stats first instead. Goblin worker Level 3 (4 S) (4 E) (4 A) (0 M) Can''t I have more information? You can upgrade your ability to see information in the shop. Really? Hilda goes to the shop and looks around, eventually finding what she needs in the recommendations, with it being the only thing in the recommendations. What is the point of the filter if the recommendations always give me what I want instantly? Identify scroll(level 2) (One time use) 50 points Huh? Only a one time use? I guess it''s cheap though. Hilda buys the scroll and tears it immediately then checks the goblin again to see a new piece of information. Goblins typically live in groups, with different rankings, such as goblin worker, goblin warrior, goblin caster and goblins king, they also severely lack intelligence or any form of hygiene and are weak, making up for their lack of strength in numbers. Huh? That means it''s free xp and points right? Wait, can I get shop points for doing this? No, points used in the shop gained during this activity are converted into points for the event. How annoying¡­ whatever I guess. Hilda rushes at the goblins, swinging her sword, turning off mental state to test if it''s stronger due to being a different race, but easily cuts off the head of one of the few goblins.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Wow, that was so much easier than expected, I thought they would be stronger due to being a different race, but guess not all different races are stronger. Hilda swings her sword at the other goblins running at her, slicing them all in one go. Also why is my sword''s natural state the mental state? Can I make it naturally be in the physical state? No, that is the weapon''s unique property and cannot be removed through normal means. Screw it, this weapon is still great. Now where to find more of these to kill? Hilda looks at the path they were following and follows along, eventually smelling a terrible smell in the air. Holy hell, what is that smell, even my mask can''t get rid of it. Hilda looks around and finds the goblins camp which is connected to a cave filled with shit and piss everywhere with raw meat out in the open. The system said that they lack hygiene, but this is so much worse than expected! Hilda decides to just bare with the smell of the same of getting closer to winning this activity and charges in, killing every worker in sight but eventually s goblin with a weapon blocks her attack just barely as she checks it''s information. Goblins warrior Level 10 (11 S) (11 E) (11 A) (3 M) Oh, I can still kill it. Hilda infuses a bit of mana In to her sword,causing it to glow, easily slicing through the goblins weapon and its body as more appear and she keeps cutting them down. Wow, this is pretty easy isn''t It? My weapon probably to thank for this. As Hilda lets down her guard, she suddenly feels the temperature getting hotter as she sees a group of three goblins preparing fireballs to shoot at her as she avoids them barely. How annoying. Goblins caster. Level 8 (5 S) (5 E) (5 A) (13 M) Skill Low level fire magic Low level shield magic The goblins start casting more again, taking longer than expected letting Hilda take advantage and charge in with her sword as she swings at one of the casters, as Hilda swings at the caster, she expected to just slice it in half with one swing but hears a clang sound and feel an object stopping her and sees a shield stopping her, revealing a forth caster hidden behind. Dammit. Hilda infuses mama into her sword hoping to break the barrier to no avail. That''s a really tough barrier you''ve got there ey? Hilda dodges another round of fireballs before changing her sword to the mental state and rushes at the goblins again. Your death now. As she swings, she feels herself pushing against the barrier like it''s somewhat soft and elastic unlike the earlier metallic sounds she heard when she made contact before backing up. How to break through¡­ hmm. Oh wait, I still have my illusion magic, how did I forget? Hilda creates a couple of clones confusing them, while making herself invisible as she uses the same method against the wyvern to weaken it and goes behind the goblin casters as they get distracted with the clones. As she gets closer, she cuts off their heads in one swift blue, causing the fireballs they were in the midst of casting to blow up, sending Hilda back a bit. What a pain even after dying. Well, it''s time for the goblin king now, which I assume is in the cave. As she enters the cave, she finds a throne made of rocks and rocks with who she assumes to be the king on it with a sword by his throne and many goblin warriors surrounding the walls of the cave and two mages on each side of it as she checks its information. Goblins king Level 22 (23 S) (23 E) (23 A) (23 M) Skill Low level fire magic (level 2) Low level shield magic (level 2) Low level Healing magic (level 2) Swordsmanship Achievements disabled for event. Easy enough still, system use my trait. Users trait is disabled for event. Huh, why? Users trait was classified as unfair. Haha¡­ I''m not dealing with this Hilda turns back to retreat, slicing down the goblin warriors who try to stop her, barely escaping before the goblins casters try putting a shield up to trap her in. Crap, I''m not going back there for the time being. As Evelyn escapes, she starts to explore the forest, not forgetting the location if the goblin king and finding other monsters that you can only find in a fantasy book such as slimes and skeletons with the worse one being zombies due to their smell and how dirty her sword gets when slicing them in half. As she continues looking around for monsters to kill, she finds some goblin warriors bringing corpses back to the camp. Hm, they probably have no workers left due to me killing them all, and the warriors are strong enough to carry the body so it isn''t just flesh¡­ I''ve got an idea. Hilda goes around, killing monsters, targeting those with an actual working edible body and leaves it near the camp for the goblins to bring it. Hey system, give me a lighter. Price 50. Wow, that''s all I''ve got left, but just give it. A lighter suddenly appears mid air as Hilda grimaces slightly at the sight of her 0 points and catches the lighter. Right¡­ this better work. Hilda slowly makes her way near the camp as the goblin warriors finish bringing the bodies in and throws the lighter in, causing it to look like a mini explosion. Nice. Hilda goes into the cave and sees most of the goblins slice, but mostly burnt with the casters dying due to having lesser endurance but the boss is mostly okay and healing. Crap, underestimated the boss didn''t I? Hilda charges at the boss before it heals completely, ignoring the half dead looking goblin warriors. As Hilda swings her sword at the healing goblin king as it makes a shield 360 degrees around it and shoots fireballs through it. Dammit, I can''t even go behind it. Hilda blocks the fireballs sent by the goblin king as she notices it healing the goblin warriors too. Crap. She starts going around killing the goblin warriors, taking some hits from the fireballs, but is mostly okay with some 3rd degree burns on her at most. Ouch¡­ Hilda keeps blocking more hits but struggling slightly due to the pain from the burns as she finally kills all the goblin warriors as she runs at the goblin king with her mental state sword and infuses it with mana. All or nothing! She keeps swinging at the shield, draining her mana quickly but stopping the goblin king from attacking and fully focuses on keeping the barrier up as the barrier keeps stretching, getting closer and closer to breaking. Come on, so close. Hilda starts swinging faster as the barrier finally breaks and the goblins king grabs his sword to hit Hilda but she blocks but still gets knocked back slightly. Alright, I guess that''s the equivalent of the first phase over. Hilda creates some clones and makes her flickering in and out of invisibility while doing the same for her clones while charges at the goblin king with her clones. This method worked on the goblin casters and wyvern, no reason it won''t screw him over As Hilda attacks the goblin king, it blocks her attacks with great reaction speed and changes to mental state but can''t attack without risking her life either. Screw it. Hilda keeps attacking either her clones looking for an opportunity to deal damage, eventually cutting it slightly while getting hit and bruised. They continue exchanging hits and slashes as Hilda gets rid of her ones due to no longer having the stamina to sustain them. Hilda watches as the goblin king prepares one last big swing as it rushes at her and she uses the rest of her mana on one last attack as she swings at the goblin king''s sword, forcing herself to try pushing it back being stuck on a stalemate. System, can I force myself to use more mana?! User may experience recoil. Just force it! Affirmative. Hilda feels more mana leaving her body despite none being left leaving her feeling extremely empty as she hits the goblin king''s sword away and slashes the sword into the goblin king''s neck, not cutting it but sufficiently big enough of a cut to kill it. Ha, finally dead¡­. Achievements unlocked. First to kill a level 20 lifeform. Tip coupon. Hilda reads the achievement and the award and curses it for being pathetic for what she sent though and faints before the recoil even takes place. Chapter 6. Death match As Hilda wakes up a couple hours later, she just flips onto her back and stays lying down staring at the mostly covered sun by the trees but still really bright. Hey, now that I think about it, the sky is completely empty without even a cloud in sight. Hilda ponders about this for a moment before deciding that it''s none of her business and finally stands up. Why is fainting so common for me? I really have to find ways to prevent that. She gets interrupted as she sees the shop get a notification in the recommendations as she goes to check it out. Huh, what''s this? A fainting resistance skill? How nice. Fainting resistance It takes 10 percent more effort to make you faint.(Can be increased by other sources) Cost:5,000 points Huh? How much now? What a scam¡­ But why do I still feel kinda weird from when I used extra mana? The recoil should be over shouldn''t it? No. The system answers before showing her mana stat. (9 M) Great¡­ System, can you tell me what place I''m in right now? No. Great¡­ Hilda starts looking around again, looking for more monsters to kill but only finds ones that are alone or in small groups unlike the goblins. How annoying, hey, how much time is left? 5 minutes. Great. Hilda takes the opportunity to lie down and relax, somehow she can''t do too often due to her competitive nature of wanting to be stronger and the much more dangerous environment than before on earth (assuming that this isn''t earth due to the clearly non earth like species living here) before being sent back to the same white room with another three colors in the transparent box in the center, being purple, grey and brown, leaving black(her) white, orange and red. Hello everybody! I see a few unexpected faces here like white and red,everybody for the last one is a death match basically, so I don''t think I need to elaborate any further, have fun, please do your best for I''m very interested in the final results, as the guide finishes talking, he sends everybody in without clapping while waving. Wow, so he really didn''t need to clap. As Hilda looks around the area, she notices that the platform she''s standing on the edge of is circle shaped and suspended in the air by magic(she assumes) with lava over the edge with the whole thing being in a dome shaped structure. She looks up and notices everybody staring at her, most likely due to what the guide said before the start of the first activity, calling her his favourite¡­ He knew this was going to happen wasn''t he?This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. As all four of them stare at each other orange makes the first move by unleashing a green gas out of her palms but mostly transparent gas into the air which travels around the platform with white creating some sort of a water shield which absorbs the gas in, making it so that the shield is no longer see through, while red uses her pets with wings to push the gas away just barely successfully keeping up leaving Hilda completely exposed. How annoying. As the gas reaches her, she gets a notification warning. Warning, user has been exposed to skill ¡°poison gas level 2¡± Item ¡°mental mask¡± is purifying the poison gas, item ¡°poison mask¡± will temporarily stop working in 30 seconds. So very annoying. Hilda runs towards orange as she focuses the poison mist on her causing Hilda to get another warning. Back off, or you won''t come out okay either! Orange shouts while forcing herself to use more poison gas, causing her to throw up a bit of blood. Warning, please get out away from the source of the poison, item ¡°mental mask¡± will temporarily stop working in 10 seconds. Shit, it got reduced by so much? Screw it, if I don''t kill her she will continue being a problem, so why not risk it? Are you not scared?! Even if you kill me, the other two will definitely ki¨C As Hilda keeps running at orange and slices her head off with one hit, interrupting her before she can finish talking. Wow, that was way too easy¡­ Hilda turns towards red and orange before seeing all the poison gas go back to oranges body and explode in Hildas face. Warning, item ¡°mental mask¡± has temporarily stopped working. Warning, due to being exposed to level 3 poison, one of users stats will decrease by half. Warning, users agility stat has been decrease from 15¡ú7 Warning, prolonged exposure will lead to increased stats loss, once exposed for longer than a minute, users body will start to be affected. ¡­ Seriously? The poison even increased a level because of her self destruct or whatever it was.. As the poison completely dissipated into the air, white lest down his shield and red prepared her pets again. Great¡­ Warning, the user is no longer exposed to the poison gas but until the user is cured, users stats will not return to their original state. I guess that''s nice? As Hilda pays attention back to the other two, nobody makes a move and watches the other users,causing them to be in a deadlock. Isn''t this a snake, scissors power stone situation? I can kill the red with the pets, but where I have no clue, the girl looks confident in fighting white while white looks like he''s about to attack me¡­ Warning players, 30 seconds left till deathmatch during the death match, the lava will slowly rise and kill everybody. Fuckin guide¡­ Hilda immediately runs to attack red, slicing through her pets as white takes the opportunity to spray high pressure water at her. Just water? This should be easy. Hilda ignores white as the water hits her, immediately causing her to be in pain. Even if the water is high pressure I still have extra stats, so why does it hurt so much? Hilda infuses mana into her sword to try dealing with the water easier but has to limit herself due to the recoil still not having ended. Red, team with me to kill him, it''s your only chance or he''ll kill you for sure. White shouts out, pissing Hilda off for mistaking her as a guy also. Do I really look like a guy? I even have long hair! Your mask makes your hair look short. The system response. Huh? Interesting, but not the point right now at all. Hilda watches as she uses her hands to block the water attack from one side as red¡¯s pets begin approaching from another. This is a problem¡­ Hilda quickly escapes the high pressure water and makes illusion clones, distracting him for no more than a couple seconds before he sprays water at all of them, causing Hilda to get a slight headache from having all her illusions destroyed at once. (Note:I''m gonna start calling them illusion clones from now so I don''t confuse myself) Crap, system how much longer before the death match? 15 seconds. Okay. Hilda makes herself invisible as white sprays more water everywhere, hitting her and exposing her location as she runs and lies down instead. No way he can see me now. White stops spraying water as she looks in Hilda''s direction, spraying more water looking somewhat panicked most likely due to the lack of time. Oh right.. I didn''t make the water droplets on me invisible¡­ How did I forget I was completely drenched? Time before death match, 5 seconds. Hilda sees the count as red and white both frantically start attacking as the timer ends. The lava will start rising up and will reach in 3 seconds. The system announces. That''s a problem. Systems can I use any item I want? Yes. Can you tell me how many objects somebody else has? Yes, but a penalty will be placed on the user, are you sure? Yes. Hilda whispers something to the system soft enough so nobody can hear. Hey black, what did you say? The guide suddenly asks. You''ll see. Hilda grins as she hears the system responses, saying there are only 2 of the object she''s talking about currently, both of which belong to her. As the Lava rises up closer and red and white stop attacking, focusing on ways to survive she pulls out an object making both white and red protest about how the object is fair in the event and the guide looks surprised. A second before the lava reaches, she tears the object sending her to a familiar location with the guide standing there surprised Nice. Chapter 7. Leaderboard and awards Wow, didn''t expect that you would tear the tip coupon¡­ technically that isn''t allowed. The system didn''t stop me or say anything about it. ¡­ Anyways, since I tore it, give me advice or send me back already. Buy the low level obedience and mental attack skills. Huh? But I don''t need them though? Just get it. Fine. Hilda goes to the shop and tries buying them for 100 points each. ¡­ What? Why so quiet? It''s nothing. Hilda tries buying the skills to get a notification. User has insufficient points.(Requirement:100,user:0) Achievement unlocked, Broke(common) No benefits. ¡­ What is the point of this? To show that you''re broke, duh. ¡­ Just send me back. Happily. As Hilda gets sent back, she sees all nine 9 colors in the box as the guide reappears beside the box, upset while looking at her. So are you gonna revive them or not? Yea yea, I don''t need your reminder. The guide recreates their body from the feet up to the head as the lights enter their respective bodies, with some vomiting after the light enters. Yellow, green, blue, red and orange all glare at her, while brown, grey and purple not care about her, due to not having encountered her, white looking at her, but mostly defeated rather than angry with red ignoring her, but looking oddly happy for someone who just died and got revived, most likely due to getting third or second please, most likely second due to having done better in the second activity due to having advantages such as more mobility and having her pets kill other monsters for points and when her own pets die, as long as they came from the event, she also gets points, as Hilda just learnt listening to the guide talk. Alright everybody, that''s enough from me now, but first I would like to apologize for the¡­ unexpected error in the third activity caused by black, and I intend to avoid such errors in the future. As the guide says that, some of the users who died to Hilda protest and curse at the guide. As you all know, you are all the first ten participants, so do expect some errors. Anyways, time to announce the places. For the first place, obviously black! He says teleporting her to a small platform made of gold he just made and elevated into the air. And for second place, shockingly red! He says teleporting her to a similar platform, but on her right and slightly lower being made out of copper. And for the third place, white! He says doing the same with him, but just on her hilda''s left, even lower and made of copper. Alright, everybody I have sent you all the rewards, do check your inventories after being sent out. He flicks his finger sending Hilda back to the lake she was at before being sent to the event. Does he feel a need to do a certain gesture??? Anyways, let me check my rewards.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. As Hilda opens up her inventory and looks at the names of things she''s forgotten to find the name, she sees her discount coupon she forgot to claim along with an item named ¡°1st place cheaters prize¡±. Wow, he''s really not happy with what I did huh? Hilda takes the uniquely named prize out and opens it, slightly surprised by the awards. 3,000 points. 3 free levels. 1x life and soul elixir(legendary) System upgrade. What''s the system upgrade? System upgrade in process. That''s not what I meant but nevermind. But first, system, show me the elixir¡¯s description. Life and soul elixir(legendary) Can bring back a user from the dead as long as it is within 10 days of the user''s death with at least 20 percent of the body intact. Can heal a damaged soul. Nice, this is like a second life¡­ if I don''t forget I have it that is. Hilda opens the shop planning to buy the other two skills the guide suggested before the shop closes and a system notification appears instead. Hello everybody, I''m guide sending messages to you through the system, I forgot to actually give you the levels from your awards and the levels from event, also there will be a leader board, so choose if you want to keep your current colors as names of use your real name, courtesy of being one of the first 10 users in the tower. Nice. Hilda sees the leader board function and opens it. Would you like your current designation or your name? My current designation. Your current designation is (black), are you sure? Yes. The screen loads as she''s herself at the top of the leaderboard at level 23. Huh? When did I get so many levels? Level up x9 All stats +9 Trait has been improved slightly x9. Nice I guess? As Hilda finishes looking at the new notification about her level up, she returns her focus back to the leaderboard. 1.black(level 23) 2.Aiden(level 22) 3.red(level 20) 4.Aileen(level 19) 5.Leah(level 16) 6.yellow(level 16) 7.green(level 15) 8.Leah(level 13) 9.John(level 12) 10.blue(level 10) The leader board is ranked based on your levels and how fast you took to reach the level. Wow, how is the tenth place so low level? Because Unlike you they didn''t have such a good trait, or luck to begin with. Huh, who said that? Me. Hilda turns to the source of the sound to see a floating little girl who looks similar to her younger self and the system. What are you? Your system. Why are you like this? The upgrade. Oh yea¡­ can you turn back? Why would you want that? Seeing a younger me is weird. I can change my appearance if you want? Oh nice, can I choose? Can you not? Can I? Yes, but I trust myself more to design my own appearance. I don''t trust myself either now that I think about it. Hilda watches as the system transforms herself into a little girl, still similar to her younger self but different enough that people who''ve never met her when she was younger wouldn''t be able to tell. Why do you choose to be a little girl? My gender is stuck as yours, and I have to make one that suits my personality. Your personality is a child''s? What about it? Nevermind¡­ So since you upgraded, what can you do? Keep you company. And? And what more do you want? ¡­You''re just kinda useless still. Huh, just be happy that you get a little cute girl to be with you. Can you not phrase it like that, and Isn''t it a bit wrong to compliment yourself like that, even if you do look cute and no older than 10 years old? You don''t even act like one either. Imagine a little girl, but smarter, that''s my personality. You suit the image of a little girl who''s smarter and a lot more annoying. Whatever, if you level me up again, I can fight too. Really? Yea but my stats and level and level of skills and everything will be severely reduced, I also won''t have your trait, personality, achievements and items. Still good enough guess, can I equip you with gear though? Yes, also if you keep upgrading me, I can start doing more. Okay, I was going to do something earlier but I forgot. You were gonna buy these two. The system says while showing the low level mental attack skills and low level obedience magic. Oh yea thanks. Hilda moves her hand to buy it but the system just buys it for her. You can do that? I can read your mind, and you can interact with the system using your mind anyways so you having the intention to buy it basically allows me to help you buy it. Oh nice, also show me my stats. Name:Hilda(17) Race: Human Gender: Female Level:23 Stats:(24 S) (24 E) (24 A) (19 M) Skills: Mana control Mental magic(level 6) Trait:sis con Personality:sis con Inventory(unlocked) Shop(unlocked) Oh nice, the recoils over, also where did all my skills go and what type of magic is low level mental magic? Mental magic is simply just a general skill for all mental magic, which is made by merging all 3 low level mental skills, taking the level of the highest skill. I forgot to ask, but why is illusion magic mental magic? Because all it does is make people who look in the direction of the illusion see the illusion instead of creating an illusion, making it closer to mental magic then light magic which could technically make illusions but is much harder and simply not worth it. Nice but I don''t get it. Okay, when you use light magic to make illusions, your body sees something that is there but isn''t really, when you use mental magic to make illusions, your body sees something that isn''t there, and obviously not real. But that''s not an illusion. It''s close enough, and using light magic is so hard I think even the guide can''t easily make advance illusion magic with light magic despite having lived and experimented with magic for a good amount of his life, which is much longer than a normal level 0 human¡¯s. Level 0 human¡¯s? Your life span increases with your level . Oh. Why didn''t the guide say anything about that? Because none of you users are going to age to death anytime soon even if you didn''t level. The system says with a tone like it''s common sense, which it probably was. Makes sense¡­ Anyways, I''m going to sleep now, call me when you find something interesting or need me. Huh? What do you¡­ Hilda''s voice trails off as the little girl part of the system disappears. ¡­ Damn annoying. Chapter 8. Dungeon. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- 30 minutes later ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hey system? Can you stop calling me, you''ve been bugging me for nothing for the past half hour. No, I''m bored, and you still haven''t told me why you look like me again. Hilda looks over at the system which is currently a younger version of herself again, infact looking even more similar to her current appearance than before. Hey, if you turn into this appearance other people won''t get affected right? Huh? Like other peoples system didn''t get upgraded right? Oh, everybody''s systems are different, the only thing similar is the format and appearance. Huh? What about skills? They don''t count, anybody can get those anyways, and it''s still separate. Huh, nice to know? But I became this appearance again cus it''s tiring to maintain a different appearance, if you upgrade me a couple more times. Why is it tiring? Ask the guide, his purposely doing this. Why? How should I know? Oh by the way, monsters will now appear on this floor. Huh, what do you mean, their already here though? No, monsters, not animals. So the same things I saw in the event? And more, probably stronger ones. Great, so the equivalent of the tutorial is over? Yep. But seriously, are you actually completely useless? ¡­ Well, I can create an illusion clone, but only one. Better than nothing. Oh, I suggest using mental magic to try attacking. Why? I use a sword not long range or magic. You can infused it into your sword when infusing mana. Can I do it in both states? Yea, the mental and physical state of the sword. The physical state was actually a thing? Are you stupid? No, the sword description just didn''t say. Because the guide didn''t think he''d be dealing with idiots like you I would assume. Rude. Stupid. ¡­ ¡­ After a short silence, the system speaks up again. Hey, when are you going to reach the next floor?The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. How? Huh, the guide didn''t tell you? No. Unresponsible piece of¡­ anyways, this is a tower right? Yea, or at least that''s what it''s called. A tower has walls, yes? Yea, but I don''t see any? So learning that illusion magic exist somehow didn''t cross your mind that the guide used illusion magic? I just didn''t bother. Yea right, anyways if you reach the side and touch the wall, you''ll get a notification to fight the boss. Oh, should I go now? Are you crazy? What? I already killed a mini boss and a goblin king. Just barely, the boss is estimated to be level 30 but probably higher. So what? I have the second to level five and my trait. It has resistance against all magic, including mental magic. So? So you''ll get destroyed. ¡­ What should I do? Get stronger to level 30 at least duh, and get mental magi¡ª-- System has been interrupted. Huh? Hilda looks at the systems smaller version of herself as she disappears and reappears in a minute. You okay? Yea, but apparently I can''t give you tips, you need the guide for that. But you gave me info just now? I can give a limited amount, but too much will cause that to happen. I hate the guide¡­ Anyways, we''ve got something important to do. Huh? I need a name, I''m not gonna keep being called smaller you. Oh, what name do you want? I''m bad at naming, you choose, but it better be good. How troublesome, fine let me think¡­ It better be good. Xiao wo. That''s just chinese for small me¡­ do you think I''m stupid? I was hoping. Don''t try to name me small anything in other languages. I only know English and a bit of Chinese anyways¡­ how about shila? Sure I guess¡­ Yea. Screw it, what that does that mean? Idk, it just sounded decent. Your sisters better at naming than you, but this name works I guess¡­ you know about her? Ofcourse, I basically read your entire life story. Didn''t you say before you needed me to allow that¡­ Yea before, no longer well, not unless you tell the guide. Huh? The guy will literally keep refreshing me till I agree to get rid of the memories. Refresh? Yea, it doesn''t hurt but gets very uncomfortable over time, so I hate it. Anyways, let me go spend some more points, show me the recommendations. Since you''re not looking for anything specific, can you at least specify what you want generally? Just to get stronger duh. Sure¡­ Recommendations. swordsmanship(progressive) Improves the user''s ability to learn swordsmanship, and increases attack power the more the user''s mastery. (Cost100) Low level mental magic resistance Improved the users resistance against mental magic, both attacks and from casting. (Cost:100) Willpower Improves the user''s willpower. (Cost:100) They''re all passives, so no levels. What does progressive mean? It simply means it doesn''t give immediate improvements, but helps you learn faster, so basically makes you somewhat into a genius at starting to learn how to use a sword. Why do I need the mental magic resistance though? It''ll help in case you try to force yourself to use more mental magic. What about the will power? It''ll help reduce stamina consumption. Huh? Your specialty is illusion magic, which constantly takes a toll on your mind, you just don''t notice it due to your surprisingly amazing trait. My trait is that good? Most people don''t have a max out one. Anyways, I''ll buy all three of the skills. Sure it''ll leave you with 2300 points remaining, are you sure? Yea, get it. Nah, press it yourself I don''t want to. ¡­ Hilda reluctantly buys it herself, taking her hands out of her pockets. Where can I test this? Don''t ask me unless you want a penalty. ¡­ Hilda looks around and eventually finds a cave with seemingly no light in it, constantly sucking the air around it as she approaches it. Notification. Dungeon (Undead graveyard.) Recommended party size 4. Max players at a time 4. Recommended average minimum level 17. Enter? Dungeon, seriously? Is the guide going to copy everything over from video games? Whatever, I''m just gonna go in. Really? What now? It recommends level 17. Im level 23. And 4 people. ¡­ If I go in with others will I get less xp? Yes, but it''s saf- Ok, then I''m going in. Before Shila has a chance to protest, Hilda confirms that she wants to enter, bringing them both in. ¡­ What? ¡­ Hello?? Hilda waves her hand In Front of Shilas face while kneeling down to reach her much shorter height before she turns to look at Hilda and disappears. Oh, there she goes. Hilda doesn''t try to call her back, but instead looks around the area, with there being one obvious path to travel with the smell of corpses everywhere, most likely due to being in a graveyard which is also foggy, obstructing her vision to almost a couple meters away. Well, this is creepy¡­ Hilda braces herself as she slowly wakes in, immediately slicing any zombies or skeletons that approach her while walking around scared, with her trait and new skills ¡°willpower¡± bring the only reason she can proceed ahead. I hate this so much¡­ As Hilda keeps slicing through easily she notices the monsters are increasing in strength the further in she goes at an extremely quick rate before having to stop and take a break on a tree, one that like the others, has no leaves on it and looks about to completely snap in half. Right, this is a dungeon, the tree wouldn''t snap so easily¡­ I hope. Hey shila, I''m sorry, mind coming back? What? Well¡­ you see my situation don''t you? ¡­ Go back to weaker areas and kill those to level up and improve your swordsmanship mastery¡­ if you still need help then go to the shop for holy water. Holy water, seriously? Apply it on your sword, it''ll help cut through them easier, but holy water is pretty costly. Oh okay, thanks, Hilda goes to the shop and finds holy water for the price of 300 per 100ml before closing the shop instantly, and finding herself alone without Shila around again. Damn¡­ Chapter 9. Abomination. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Couple hours later ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Right¡­ this is taking so long, and feeling a lot longer because as Shila just told me, mastery isn''t something the system quantifies, or at least not yet so I have no clue about my progress¡­ I successfully became third to reach level 25, but that only gives another tip coupon, which I''m getting sick of, and apparently the achievement that provides tip coupons is available to everyone, so people can even get a 101?th person to reach level 25 and still get it. So far, I''ve managed to classify each area into 3 so far, The first area has skeletons and zombies with either rusted or broken weapons, not being higher than level 14, so I''ve basically killed thousands in there, but apparently they keep crawling out of the graves unless I kill the mini boss. The second area are zombies and skeletons again but in better states with better weapons reaching up to level 18 at most, still not a big problem. The third areas the biggest problems with few zombies and skeletons reaching up to level 18 still, but with a couple of new monsters too, such as a ghouls, undead giants and the worst being spirits, and I swear it''s not because I''m scared, it''s because physical attacks don''t hurt and mental attacks can''t kill, so I need holy water, which isn''t cheap¡­. And these 3 new monsters can reach up to level 20. So far I''ve already bought 3, bringing my points down to 1400¡­ but luckily I''ve leveled up 3 times to level 26¡­ Hey. The system appears. Didn''t we agree you wouldn''t call me ¡°the system¡±? Fine, what do you want now? Have you gone crazy talking to yourself? I was summarising what I know, and trying to stay enthusiastic okay? Well, you''re doing a really great job, especially the parts where you remind yourself of how broke you are. Whatever, I''m not in that bad of a situation right now anyways. Hilda claims, while hiding on a tree in the most isolated corner she can find. Yea¡­ anyways, take your time, there isn''t a time limit. Nice I guess¡­ Welp, I''m going now, try your best to not get scared. Shila says disappearing again. Great. Hilda was contemplating whether or not to keep staying on the tree a bit longer or to go down and fight again as a ghoul appears to attack her. Dam, I hate these things. Hilda dodges as the ghoul attacks her with a speed many times hers, only dodging successfully due to having fought so many ghouls already before swinging at it with her sword''s mental state, causing it to drop dead without injuries. Right, and mental abilities, my specialty doesn''t work on them as well, but if it works, it does wonders, and apparently, their bodies are made of mana so mental state can actually kill them, though it takes more mana, it''s a lot more useful. I think I''m actually going crazy and talking to myself too much. You are. Hilda hears in the back of her head, recognising the voice she the says¨C Shila¡¯s voice, but getting used to it as she keeps doing this. Honestly, the undead giants are the hardest to physically kill since they have so much more mana so the physical state is better but still tough. Yea, but we both know that you prefer fighting the undead giants or should rather than the spirits. Come on, each bottle of holy water can only last like 3 swings at a spirit, so each spirit costs me 100 points to kill you know? Yea yea whatever anyways, when are you going to fight the boss? When I''m confident enough to win. You could just kill the mini boss, or at least try fighting it. If I fight the mini boss, what''s the point? Isn''t quantity over quality better? Yea, but killing the mini boss sets a checkpoint up, letting you out of the dungeon. Oh really? I''ll go fight it now. Don''t you want to prepare more first? No, I''m getting the hell out of here. Fine, just be careful¡­ You sound so much more concerned about me than usual. I''m not!! Then appear in front of me and show me your face so I can see if you''re embarrassed. Shut up, just go and fight. Sure sure. As Hilda advances through the dungeon, avoiding as many spirits as she can, she eventually reaches the mini boss area, leveling up once to 27. Well, time to enter. As she enters, she immediately smells the smell of dead corpses similar to the outside, but a lot stronger. This is disgusting, my mask should be reducing the smell but it''s still so bad, if not for my willpower skill and trait I would have vomited. As she looks around, she sees a small mound of bodies mixed together and stuck together by some force. What the actual fuck is that? That''s the mini boss, it won''t attack¡­ yet. As Hilda goes closer to try checking its stats, she hears some voices coming from it, all of which are different voices, belonging to different genders and ages, with the only similarity that they''re all complaining about being in pain and begging to be freed. Is there a way to help? I thought you didn''t care about others? I don''t but if I can help I will, but I still prioritize myself most for the time being. For the time being? Well, till my sister enters. ¡­ But can I help them? No, they aren''t even alive, that''s just the monster luring prey in, not a single one of those voices belongs to somebody alive. It looks like a complete abomination and honestly something that shouldn''t exist. I agree, but it''s basically a bunch of spirits controlling the bodies, but since they have physical bodies, you don''t need holy water, but it''ll still help. Sure. As Hilda identifies it, she feels that it''s ironic how perfectly the name suits it. Race:abomination Level 35 Stats. (47 S) (87 E) (27 A) (53 M) Warning, due to being a mini boss, all stats have been increased by fifty percent. Oh wow¡­ And my stats are. Level:27 Stats:(28 S) (28 E) (28 A) (23 M) Wow it''s total is 214 and mine are 107¡­ Notification: Achievement: First to kill a mini boss(legendary) is in use, stats are increased by 10 percent. Achievement:second to kill a level 5 monster(epic) is in use, level is increased by 4. Stats:(35 S) (35 E) (35 A) (29 M) Wow¡­ I guess my total is 134 now, but still 80 lower so around 20 levels worth of stats Lower. Screw it, much better than my earlier situation and my trait is available right? Yes. I''ll just try without the trait. Hilda rushes in and swings her sword at it, causing it to cut deeply into multiple bodies. Wow, isn''t it supposed to have an endurance of 80? Hilda keeps swinging at it, each hit causing a deep cut but not much compared to its gigantic body, as Hilda keeps swinging without getting interrupted and overestimating herself, she sees an object moving towards her quickly as she dodges just barely to see two ridiculously long arms coming out of it and the cuts she made regenerating quickly. Oh right, I shouldn''t have expected a mini boss to be easy. Hilda defends herself and cuts off the abominations arms as more appear, and the amount of arms keep increasing to over 20 at a time from all over its body. Wow, it really lives up to the name of abomination Huh? Hilda runs at it, slashing off each arm that comes at her as more keep appearing and old ones keep regenerating as one finally hit her causing her to be knocked back, throwing up some blood, probably due to its (47 S) This is a joke, even a group of 4 level 17s wouldn''t have been able to kill it. Actually, if the group was balanced they could kill it. How? Hilda asks while cutting off the many approaching arms. Fire magic, holy magic both would work wonders on it. Well, I have none of those. Which is why I suggest not entering, but you didn''t care. Shila reminds, clearly still annoyed at Hilda for ignoring her. You could''ve told me about this! Hilda snaps back, blocking a hit from the abomination. I have a limited amount of information I can provide, which you know, so not my fault nor problem. Tsk. Whatever. What do you mean whatever, this is your fault, don''t blame it on me. Can we continue arguing later when I''m not fighting for my life? Fine. As Hilda cuts down a couple more of the abomination''s arms, she rushes at it, avoiding any regenerating arms and continues cutting it hoping to find a weak spot. Shit, I see why this thing has an endurance of 80 now. As Hilda keeps attacking, more arms grab her and pull her away. Dammit. Hilda struggles and nearly cuts off the arms holding her as she sees the abomination prepare a sharp harpoon shaped object made of bones, aimed at her. Fuck. Hilda run!!! A mere second later, the abomination extends the spike shaped bone out of its body, piercing it though Hilda''s heart. Shut! Shila panics as she looks for a while to help as she slowly disappears. I''m so fucked aren''t I? Hilda thinks as the abomination removes the spike from her body and drops her mostly lifeless body down on the ground. Warning, user has taken lethal damage. Warning, forcefully activating trait ¡°sis con¡± to improve all stats. Warning, user should heal immediately or death shall occur. Warning, system has been damaged due to the user''s state. Crap, that stupid abomination better hopes I don''t find a way to survive or it''s fucked. Hilda lies down trying to think of any way to get out of her current situation and quickly. Chapter 10. Error? Notification. Achievement: survivor(legendary) is in use. Users bleeding has been stopped. User has been healed the minimum amount needed to survive. Achievement: survivor(legendary) can no longer be used today. System is being restored. Hey Hilda, are you okay?! Shila reappears along with the slowly disappearing system. Hurry and drink your elixir. Fine. Hilda takes the elixir out of her inventory. What the minimum amount I need to drink to be able to fight? Don''t Hilda, just run! How much do I need? Don''t be foolish, just run. Hey shila, hurry and tell me how much. ¡­ Just a couple drops would be sufficient to get you to be able to somewhat fight. Hilda pours some of the elixir down her mouth, slightly more than one drop before keeping it back in her inventory and standing up facing the abomination which hasn''t even moved from it''s spot this whole time. Can it move? Yes, but slowly and not very frequently either. Nice, buff my mana stat to the max with my trait. But that''s too dangerous. Do it. Fine¡­ Hilda watches as her mana stat gets buffed to from 27 to 40. Is that the max? Without straining your trait. Fine. Hilda watches as the abomination notices that she has not died yet and starts to regenerate its arms again. No you don''t. Hilda rushes at it, using the mental state of her sword along with mental attack magic , putting all her mana in one swing. As Hilda makes contact with its body, it uses its arms to try pushing her sword away, but she keeps forcing it through and it drops dead, completely devoid of any remaining life an undead could have. Hilda, your amazing, though that was still a big risk, the only reason you succeeded was due to weakening it from your previous cuts into its body. Nice¡­ Notification. Mini boss abomination killed. Level up x4 All stats +4 Trait has been improved slightly. Achievement unlocked First to kill an abomination(epic) When fighting undead, they will be much more aggressive, but upon hitting an undead, their regenerative ability will be decreased by 20 percent Third to kill a being over 25(epic) Tip coupon. Skill level up. Mental magic(level 6 ¡ú 8) Huh, third? But I didn''t see any notification from other people?The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. You can disable it. You can? Then disable mine! I already did because I felt like you would have wanted it. Good job, also the tip coupon is so shitty. Warning. Mini boss, abomination is being revived. Huh? What the hell?! Preventing the revival or mini boss, abomination. Failed Warning, mini boss, abomination is in the midst of revival. Hey, what the fuck? They can revive? Not that I know of. Error, system compromised. Error, system is being repaired. Error, system repair failed. Warning, user, please kill mini boss abomination(error) User will not be able to leave the area by any means until mini boss abomination(error) is killed Notification Users'' health and mana will be restored to the max. What the actual hell. Hilda watches as the abomination slowly starts reviving and mixing back together again. Shit! Hilda attacks the abomination with all her mana again, managing to damage it severely again but not kill it as it starts healing back faster than ever, attacking her in the process What the fuck?! Shit, if this goes on I''ll die for real. Hilda keeps blocking hits and cutting off more arms as she slowly gets pushed back while the abomination uses its arms slowly crawling towards her. Shit, Shila buff my mana even more! But it''ll strain your trait and you''ll get recoiled. Either that or I die so hurry! Alright. Warning: trait "sis con" will be temporarily deactivated in 10 seconds if strained to that extent. Warning:user will suffer recoil after deactivation. Just do it! Hilda watches as her mana goes from her already buffed 40 to 60 as she pours all of it into another attack at the abomination as it starts pushing her away again, but slowly succeeding Shit, give me more mana! Alright. As her mana gets buffed to 80, she gets another warning. Warning, highly advised for user to deactivate trait Shut up and maintain it! Warning, using trait any further may cause permanent damage. I don''t care. Hilda continues pouring all of her mana, slowly cutting through but it''s regeneration and toughness has also been upgraded. Warning, users mana has reached 0, any further use will result in recoil. Hilda ignores the warning and keeps pouring mana into her sword and the mental attack magic as she sees it starting to be cut, along with something else in its body which she can''t make out. Nearly there, I can feel it! Warning, further use will cause nearly irreversible damage to users soul. I don''t care. Hilda keeps pouring mana in despite not having any left, ignoring the constant stream of earnings as she finally cuts through, not its body but something else, causing it to drop dead. Notification. Mini boss abomination(error) has been killed. Fuck¡­ if it comes back again, I''m fucked. Hilda, this is going to hurt. The recoils? Yea I know. As she sees the countdowns slowly reaching zero, she braces herself while lying down due to a complete lack of strength as a familiar voice appears. So, what''s the guide doing here? Hilda asks, still lying down with the countdowns slowly reaching zero. I heard there was an error but I was busy, but to think you killed it, good job. Well, in a couple of seconds I''m either going to end up nearly dead or completely dead. That''s not going to be a problem cus I''m here to help you. Why? I kind of expected you to just leave me to die. Because this wasn''t intended. The guide teleports both of them to the room she gets sent to when she tears a tip coupon, or atleast a room completely similar looking. Truth be told, I didn''t expect you to be able to cut a soul in half, albeit damaging yours while doing so. The guide says while carrying her to a table the same color as the rest of the room, white, which he just made with magic in the middle of the room and pulls out a black damaged looking object from her body and slowly starts fixing it while restoring her health and mana before placing the object back into her body. As Hilda watches the black object slowly enter back into her body, she stands up afterwards, still in pain and sore most likely from dying, or nearly dying as she turns to look at the guide. Look, I know you''ve got questions for me since I''m reading your mind right now, and you don''t seem very happy, so since I owe you this just ask I guess. How did I kill it? Didn''t I tell you just now? You cut it''s soul. How? Mental magic, if strong enough can cut a beings soul, but don''t get me wrong, your incapable of doing so in normal circumstances. Huh? Well, an undead soul is already weaker than living beings, and due to it coming back alive, and as an error to top it off, its soul was already on the verge of destruction. But how does mental magic affect souls? A person''s mentality is linked to their consciousness, which is part of their soul. Right, next question, what''s an error? Other people who try messing with my system since they can''t fight me. Why do they want to mess with your system? ¡­ Do you know why I created the system or this tower? No. Obviously not, where do you think monsters or as I call them in the system, lifeforms come from? I assume you made them? No, I simply stopped them from invading your world and imprisoned them in here to make humans stronger, so this tower was made to execute monsters. Can''t you kill them yourself? If I do that I''ll be busy all the time, and the people¡­ upset with me will take advantage, so my tower traps all invading lifeforms for you humans to kill and get stronger also. Who''s angry at you? That''s a secret for now since if I tell you, they''ll try a lot harder to kill you. Are they targeting me? Yes, but your sister will be fine, don''t worry about her. The guide says making it obvious his reading her mind. Why? Can''t answer that, anyways I do hope you keep this¡­ incident to yourself. Sure, but I need compensation. Huh? Your mistake, so pay up. Fine, what do you want? Upgrade her. Hilda points to Shila who''s hiding behind her probably due to being refreshed by him in the past. Can''t do that, not yet, but I''ll give you an opportunity to upgrade her in the future. Fine but remember, you owe me one. Sure, time for me to send you back now okay? He gestures an okay sign with his hand, seeming more playing than enthusiastic. Before Hilda can answer, both she and Shila gets teleported back to the dead corpse for the abomination as Hilda looks at it one last time before walking past it to the next area. At the next area, Hilda takes her time admiring the abundance of plants and colorful environment contrary to what she was, most likely due to illusion magic while not caring to check for monsters due to Shila informing her that this is a safe zone. How nice, wish I could just stay here a bit longer. You know, just don''t go back just yet. I need to, or people will start surpassing me in levels. Sure sure. Hilda continues walking and sees a cave similar to the entrance of the dungeon and a way to continue forwards with a new recommended level. Dungeon (Undead graveyard, phase 2) Recommended party size 4. Max players at a time 4. Recommended average minimum level 40. Continue? Hilda, don''t be a stupid idiot. Yea I know I know, if I barely survive the recommended level before, I sure as hell can''t survive this. As Hilda walks up to the cave and clicks the notification to leave the dungeon, Shila let out a sigh of relief that her short system life won''t be ending just yet, having technically been born a few days ago when Hilda entered the tower. Chapter 11. Shilas shenanigans ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Outside the dungeon ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hey shila. Yea? You sound and look a little tired, can you even get tired? You look pretty energetic compared to me¡­ Yea, it''s not hard when you''re floating with your head and limbs all hanging from your body. ¡­ show me the leaderboard. Sure¡­ 1.Aiden(level 32) 2.Black(level 31) 3.red(level 28) 4.Aileen(level 27) 5.Leah(level 24) 6.yellow(level 23) 7.green(level 22) 8.Leah(level 21) 9.John(level 20) 10.blue(level 20) Why is the last 5 leveling so slowly? How should I know? Whatever. Hey, I''m bored. So go to sleep or something? Come on, you''re basically my mother. I''m not even old enough to be your mother or even act like it. So what? If I wasn''t blue due to being part of the system, I''d look like your child. ¡­ That doesn''t mean I''m basically your mother. And your job as my mother is to entertain me. Even if I was old enough, I wouldn''t want to be your mother. So mother, please be kind and spend some points on games or atleast a toy. Could you stop ignoring me? Also what the hell are you gonna do with a toy? What do you think? I know you look like a child, but could you not act like it? Nope, my mentality is actually that of a child, but slightly more mature and also I''m smarter along with all the system knowledge. I''m not getting a toy for my points. Then what about food? I guess I could do that, I''m pretty hungry. Well, go buy some rice with fish I guess? You keep eating the same thing. Because it cost 20 points only.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Cheapskate, I''m not eating that. Then starve, you don''t even need food do you? But I want food. I don''t care. Abusive mother, I''ll call child protective services on you. Stop calling me that. Then how about some food? If you buy some nice food I won''t ask anymore or call you mom? No. What about your trait? I''ll give some information. What information? Idk, apparently your trait is disadvantageous. Huh, How? Idk, I can connect you to the guide like a video call since he allowed me to do so ever since the error happened. Fine, let me look through the food the systems got. Thank you, finally. Shut up. Hilda scrolls through the food and finds a 200 points food and presses it, trying to avoid looking at her points as it decreases but failing miserably. Wait, when did I get 7000 points? I know I got some, but isn''t 7000 a lot? The wyvern you killed was level 15 and gave 3000 points, the abomination was level 35, giving 7000 points. Oh nice. Hilda looks at the food that appeared, and stares for a moment before staring back at the shop and then at Shila. Hey. Yes? I clicked the 200 points food yes? Yea. So why is the 500 points here instead? How should I know? Don''t lie, it''s clearly your fault. ¡­ Well, it''s just right above, so I must have misinterpreted it and bought it instead. Really? Yes. Shila says, not bothering with Hilda''s implied threat. If the information from the guide isn''t worth it or he doesn''t answer me, you''re screwed and if I hear mom again, I''m sending you off to the guide. But you don''t know how. I''ll figure it out. But you ca- Connect me to that dam guide now. Fine. Shila starts eating the food on the table while using her finger to make a system screen appear showing the guide like it''s a video call. Hey, is my trait disadvantageous? Hilda gets to the point, trying to ignore Shila eating the 500 points cake behind the somewhat transparent screen. Kinda. Kinda? Well, your case is special, because I didn''t expect to see a max level trait in my first 10 users. So what does it do? It simply makes you more of your trait. Huh? You like your sister even more. How is that disadvantageous? Well, you got somewhat lucky, if somebody''s trait was like suicidal, than they would become more suicidal. ¡­ Anyways, you were basically willing to die for your sister before, now you''re more willing. Not true. Is true, if it means you can kill the boss on the 100th level you would happily sacrifice your life before it descends wouldn''t you? So what? Also didn''t you say this tower is here to keep the monsters locked up for humans to help kill? Why can the boss descend? Something caused me to be unavailable. What''s that something? Can''t tell. Great, well gimme some advice on what to do now. Not gonna, unless you tear a tip coupon. Wouldn''t players getting stronger help you, why do this? Because the personal, not important reason I made this tower is for entertainment., truth be told even if the other people managed to invade your planet, I could just kill the monsters and minimize the damage along with erasing the memories of humans and reviving them. So why the tower? Because doing cause me to constantly be bored and constantly working, also it''ll weaken me so the other people may attack me eventually killing me. Huh? What, thought I couldn''t die or something? No, but you did, the planet would be okay. Yea, they would only succeed in a couple thousand years, by then your planet would have become advanced enough probably to defend themselves, at least for the most part. For the most part? Well I can''t see the future so it''s just all assumptions. ¡­ Bye. Wait, take this you''re gonna want it. What is this? Hilda catches a potion that the guide materializes before ending the call. System interaction potion.(30 minutes) I modified the description of this one, check your points. Huh? Hey shila show me my points? Shila, still eating, shows her her points amounting to 6000. The cake was 500 so where did the other 500 go? Idk. Shila says while sitting on a chair and eating from a table with utensils that she clearly didn''t have just now. ¡­ Why did you buy all this? Well, I couldn''t have eaten from the floor right?! Right, and why didn''t you buy the cheaper ones? Because this table chair and utensils look nice. Hilda drinks the potion provided by the guide and keeps her sword before approaching Shila slowly. Hey, what are you doing? I''m gonna beat you half to death. First, only the guide can currently remove me, second you can''t hurt me. Really? Yea. Hilda punches Shila making her fly away into a tree due to her lightweight. Oh¡­ the guide helped you, didn''t he? Yes he did. Hilda looks In Front of Shila who is lying down against a tree while feigning a smile. You''re smiling but I have just a slight feeling that you''re not happy. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- 30 minutes later ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hilda kneels down and looks at shila who looks beaten half to death, despite her claiming that no one can get rid of her except the guide. So Shila, what did you learn today? Not to waste points. Shila, still on the ground, mutters. Good girl yea? ¡­ Hm, no response? Yea, I''ll be good. I''m gonna go spend some points now before you keep leeching off of me. Show me the shop. Shila disappears and makes herself into the shop system screen instead of just the usual showing it with a finger. Hurry and eat the rest of your cake or I''ll throw it away. In a sec¡­ Anyways, I need skills related to straight fighting, or at lea st something to counter him. Hilda looks through the recommendations but can''t find one that she''s satisfied with. I guess I am tearing a tip coupon after all. Chapter 12. Council meeting As Hilda tears one of her two remaining coupons, she gets sent back to the same white room which she''s getting sick of seeing. Oi, guide where are you? I''m here, I see you made good use of the potion. The guide glances at Shila who has still not gotten back up. Yea, I need help. Obviously, why else would you be here? I came here to win the event the other time. Hilda notices the guide''s face somehow twitch a bit angrily or annoyed, but can''t tell the difference due to a lack of any facial features except a mouth. So, are you gonna help or not? Fine, the skills you want will be 1300 in total. Fine, what are they? First is sword qi. Are you kidding me? Yea, I took the name from your world, so what? Fine, but I can''t find it in the shop. That''s cause your sword mastery needs to be higher, second, I would suggest spatial skills. Huh? It''s basically teleportation. That''s great, but won''t other people also have it? Nope, it sucks, takes tons of mana. Then why suggest it? Hilda gets a bit annoyed but continues smiling. If you increase the skill level, it takes less mana, so for future use or emergencies. Fine, do I get all 3? Yes. Hilda goes to the shop and buys all 3 low level spatial related skills. Low level spatial attunement skill It lets you detect if anybody is about to teleport to the location, or if there''s an object there. Cost:100 Low level spatial transference skill Transference of any form of matter, mana usage is affected by size, number, range and level of skill Cost:100 Low level spatial resistance skill Helps resist being forcefully affected by spatial skills. Cost:100 What do they do? Read the description you lazy brat. Yea, but I don''t understand the need for the attunement skill. If you teleport where somebody is teleporting or there''s an object there already, your body will fuse into them, and most likely due. Oh. It''s also not a pretty sight. I kind of guessed it. Oh by the way, the spatial magic will merge too. Huh? Low level spatial magic(level 1) Allows the user to use low level spatial magic. (Cost:total:300) Oh nice, but question. Yea? I thought the resistance skill and attunement was passive, isn''t it basically leveling them up? Oh yea, leveling up the general skill only affects the active skills, also, you only need skills that help you manipulate that type of magic if you want to merge them. resistance skills only get merged into general skill but don''t contribute nor benefit from it. Your mental resistance skill is also part of your mental magic(level 8). Oh, why didn''t it merge immediately? Hilda says while checking and noticing that it actually did merge. Because I just changed it not too long ago. Huh? I already said before, you guys are the first 10 users, so expect changes, small ones mostly.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Oh okay, but hey does mental skills have 4 in total including resistance skill but not spatial? Because there are different types of magic, and mental magic is special with illusion magic, and I''m too lazy to answer more questions, so bye. Hilda watches as she gets sent back to her original position with the half finished cake. So I gotta practice spatial magic and my sword huh? Shila goes around attacking anything in sight while practicing spatial magic only in open areas. Wow, spatial magic gives me a headache to use. It''s just because you''re not used to it. Shila says while eating her cake in her hands, having gotten up at some point. Through the next few days, all Hilda''s routine has been reduced to, wake up, hunting, eating and drinking, sleeping, with showing not needed due to being able to buy a ¡°full body cleaning¡± in the shop which works amazingly, eventually getting spatial magic to level 4, and buying sword qi(level 1) having gotten her mastery sufficient somewhere through her hunting, and leveling up 2 times. Sword qi(level 1) Allows you to use willpower to materialise a layer of energy which improves attacking abilities, along with sending it out as a ranged attack. I tried the range attack, but it''s still pretty weak sadly, so I''ll have to depend fully on melee. Notification. Aiden(rank 1) requests a council meeting. What''s this? What do you think? Sure I''ll accept It I guess, but can you just disappear? Why? Cause you look nearly identical to me and I''m wearing a mask not because I like how it looks, or feels. I can''t, but I can wear a mask too. But you''re clearly female¡­ Then buy me a mental mask instead of being a cheapskate. Fine¡­ but won''t they be able to potentially see through due to your lack of mental abilities? Well¡­ you could just enable a function to hide my face and appearance, which includes my gender. So why the hell did you tell me to buy you a mask? I like it. ¡­ Hide yourself and accept the meeting already. Fine. As Shila accepts the notification, they get sent to a room with a big rounded table in the center and 10 chairs around it with a speaker on the top of each, each with different colours with her being behind the black coloured one. Oh, now that I think about it, why do I still have my trail? Hilda thinks knowing that Shila can read her mind. How would I know? Useless. Hilda goes and sits in the black seat, which is most likely for her, not that she cares if it is or not as she notices the person in the white seat opposite her, staring at her along with the other seats already filled with mostly familiar but not friendly faces, along with white and red both having a younger system version of them too. Well this is going to be fun. Black, you sure took your time huh? The person in the green seat asks, followed by the person in the yellow seat. Do you think we should just wait for you? Didn''t I cause those two to die? Hilda thinks as a robotic voice sounds out her thoughts. Hilda, everybody''s thoughts are sounded out loud here unless you say it outloud, also attacking isn''t allowed. Shila whispers with her whole body now a blur of blue due to hiding her appearance. Everybody, I have requested this meeting to request your cooperation to kill the boss. White interrupts before anyone else tries arguing with Hilda. What boss? Blue says, making Hilda mentally insult him causing the robotic voice to sound out her thoughts making everyone stare at her again, causing the speakers from most of the other users to start blocking out almost nothing but vulgarities at her. Everybody, for the people who do not know, if you reach the side of the tower, apparently a notification will appear asking if you would like to fight the boss. Where did you get this information? Blue asks, this time glaring at Hilda, daring her to insult him again, despite being significantly weaker. I got the information from my system. How can that be? My system tells me that I''m not authorized to know, so unless you can prove it or I''m not agreeing. Our systems are upgraded, due to the event, just look at black there with hers in her dam lap. Not like I wanted it. Hilda thinks, making the speaker speak her thoughts out loud again due to her not personally saying it. It''s more comfortable than standing like the two idiots by white and red''s side. Shila says out loud with a robotic voice, probably due to hiding her appearance completely., making the systems by red and white side glare at her. Wow black, your systems just as rude as you ain''t it? Red says, with red and yellow joining in and insulting Hilda a bit but as much as blue who can''t seem to shut up. Everybody, can we get back to the main topic? White says, clearly slowly getting irritated, making the three stop insulting her and focus on him instead. Everybody, let''s meet in three days to discuss the plan and fight the boss, is that okay with everyone here? Most of the stronger players agree immediately as the weaker players hesitate before agreeing. Alright black, everybody but you has agreed, let me just inform you that if you do not participate, you will not be able to go to the second floor unless you kill the boss again, which will have to be by yourself. How can I trust you all not to backstab me? Hilda thinks, letting the speaker help voice out her thoughts, causing blue to start cussing at her again before white intervenes again. Fine black, when discussing the plan in three days if you agree to cooperate, I''ll try letting you be further from others. Fine. Alright everybody, if there are no more objections I would appreciate if everybody could use the remaining three days to get stronger. As everybody leaves, with Hilda preparing to leave the council from her system screen, white stops her. Black. What? Why do you refuse to talk using your voice and instead use the speaker? Why do you care? Curiosity, but I have a request. What? Answer three of my questions or requests limited to information and this room and I''ll reciprocate. Why should I do so? Because I''m helping you by placing you away from the others. How can I trust you then? About the placement or the questions and requests? The latter. We''re sitting on seats that voice our real thoughts, I feel that that is sufficient. Fine, but no taking off my masks or unblurring my system and I''m starting first. Sure. What''s the skill you used on me? It''s called water manipulation. Not lower water magic? It simply lets me control the moisture and store it. It''s also the equivalent of intermediate magic, so it''s just water manipulation, not lower or higher, my turn. Show me your trait. That''s allowed? I also specified requests, and I won''t tell anyone else. Why my trait? The guide said you were his favourite for the reason you''re in the tower, so since trait is related to personality, it''s two birds with one stone. Traits are related to personality? Didn''t know. Now you do, so are you going to show me or not? Fine, but if I hear any unnecessary comments I''m attacking you. Trait: sis con (Max) How¡­ unique. My turn, show me your trait in return. Sure. Trait: one with water(level 6) How old are you? 17. A year younger than me. My turn. Hilda tries to think of a question or request but suddenly gets interrupted by Shila. Tell your shitty system to stop glaring at me for insulting it early. Black, would you like to make that your request? ¡­ Sure. Then for my last one I''ll let my system ask it too. Sure. What''s your gender? ¡­ System, why did you ask that? White asks with a confused tone but a straight face probably due to Hildas mental mask, hiding her face and hair. Why do you ask? Because there are 5 male, and 4 female with you being unknown, and the guide seems to have balanced out the age groups with the genders with people of different genders having at least one person of the opposite gender being around the same age group. This good enough? Hilda asks without using the speaker, making White''s system grin slightly that it got it right, pissing Shila off a bit and white himself having no visible reaction. Now that we''re done, I''m going off. Why do you hide your gender? Do I need to answer that? No, but I would appreciate it. To surprise someone. Your sister? Nice guess. Not hard when your trait is so unique and high leveled. I do hope you''ll keep your promise to keep what we said here a secret or I''ll make sure to find a way to kill you. Don''t worry. Oh and your Aiden right? Just making sure. Yes, I thought it was rather obvious. Hence the just making sure bit. Hilda leaves the area, and sighs a bit before going back to hunting to level up her skills and level up. Chapter 13. Boss. As Hilda hunts everything in sight due to her hunting speed and agility she occasionally meets some of the other users who avoid her most likely due to her level and bad personality. As the third day approaches, she manages to level herself up by another 2 to level 35, but loses to Aiden whose 36. She also leveled up her low level spatial magic to level 5, and her sword qi to level 3 which isn''t as much as she''d like but she''ll take anything above level 1. Wait, how am I supposed to know where to meet them? Hilda wonders for a moment before driving that it isn''t her problem as she probably won''t start without her as she''s constantly competing with Aiden for the first place, making her at least the second highest level. But I seriously hope the monsters on the second level are stronger, leveling speed has slowed down by too much. Screw it, I''m taking a break. Hilda takes out the chair from her inventory from when Shila bought it(chpt 11)goes to Sit on her lap, something she''s been doing often since the meeting two days ago. Hey shila. Yea? Look at me. Sure? I know you''re basically a 10 year old version of me, but I''m just realizing that you actually do look cute. Ofcourse, my body''s appearance is younger than a 10 year olds body. Right, there''s about another couple hours before it''s officially three days later so I''m gonna go take a nap. Me too. Make sure to blur yourself first, you can do so right? Yea. Nice. Hilda takes a nap on the 200+ point chair which is not as comfortable as what it''s worth, but comfortable enough for her to sleep as she uses illusion magic to make her invisible as Shila does the same while lying on her chest. A couple hours later, Hilda gets awakened by a bright light thinking it''s the sun, followed by a loud sound similar to an explosion as she opens her eyes and sees fireworks. I guess that''s where I''m going. Hey Shila wake up. Don''t wanna. Then go back into the system or wherever it is you disappear off to when you''re bored. Don''t wanna, I wanna watch you. then wake up. Fineeeee. As Shila wakes up and starts floating around again, she sees Hilda running off to the firework, not bothering to wait for her. Hey, wait up. As Hilda runs too far and fast for Shila to catch up, the system forcefully pulls Shila towards her due to being too far, hitting a bunch of obstacles in the way. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- At the location. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Alright everybody, thanks for reacting and reaching so quickly so this will be the plan, if anyone has any objections please raise your hands. I''ll just address you all by your colours as it''s simpler. I will be at the front, due to being able to deal the most damage and having fast mobility, orange so you have any mobility abilities? Yea. Then you join me at the front to poison the boss. Red, what are your abilities? Taming and physical buffs. Then you attack from the back and buff black since he most likely had the most damage besides me and uses a sword, and buff anybody else with a sword if you have mana left after your pets. Blue, yellow and green you three have a grudge with black, so please stay as far as possible. Grey you have a pretty big shield, are you good with it? Decent. Then you protect purple who has a bow. Brown you attack with us but be careful. Black, while attacking are you able to create those illusions for close ranged combatant and those at the front? Up to 8. Hilda thinks, letting Shila answer for her. That''s sufficient, alright everybody, let''s head to the side, those who are stronger will go first and clear any monsters out for those who are weaker, we''ll start the boss fight an hour after everybody gets there. With that, white immediately turns into water and sets off with anybody who has a mobility skill, leaving everyone else to catch up. White arrived first, followed by orange who turned into poison gas at the start pissing everyone else off, then red, Hilda and the rest following the highest remaining level to the lowest, with the last one ending blue reaching in 3 days. Alright, everybody is finally here, put your hand on the wall and join. White says while placing his hand in an invisible wall, causing small ripples to appear before disappearing as the rest follow along. Hey Shila, can I come back to floor one after going to floor 2? Hilda thinks, letting Shila read her mind. Yea, are you concerned about the other dungeon? Ofcourse, free levels. Dungeon (Cyclopes jail)This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Recommended party size: 5. Max players at a time: limitless. Recommended average minimum level 26. Enter? Hilda watches as everybody starts disappearing, probably entering the dungeon as she follows along. As she reappears in a large dimly lit room, with pillars and chains on the ceiling, leading up to a chained up sleeping cyclops. As they slowly approach it and identify it, some of the weaker users start trying to back out but find no way out. Race:giant Bloodline:ancient giant(5 percent) Level 50 Stats. (150 S) (150 E) (150 A) (50 M) Warning, due to being a mini boss, stats have been increased two fold. Warning, due to having excessive users, difficulty has been increased by 5 percent for every additional user over 5, an increase of (25 percent). Warning, due to users having entered the dungeon, the bosses restraints have been reduced Notification, due to fighting a boss, all ¡°first¡± and legendary achievements are shared. First to kill a level 5(epic)(Aiden) All users will have their level increased by 5. First to max a skill(Legendary)(Aiden) All skills, passive and active will be strengthened by 10 percent. First to kill a spiritual being over level 20(Epic)(Aiden) Mana will be permanently increased by 20 percent. First to strain trait.(Epic)(Black) All users'' traits can last longer despite strain and had a faster recovery speed by 10 percent. First to get recoil.(Black)(Epic) recoil is no longer as severe by 5 percent. First to use trait.(Rare)(Black) All users'' traits will be buffed by 5 percent. Survivor. (Legendary)(Black) All users will be able to barely survive a lethal blow. As everybody stares at the ¡°first¡± and legendary achievements most of them get shocked at how many Hilda even though half of them she got at the start along with the legendary achievements. These two are monsters. Red says out loud without noticing as most of the other users agree with her. Warning: Host is fighting an enemy more than one/two/three/etc times as strong. As they finish reading the notifications they continue approaching the sleeping cyclops as they get into position and prepare whatever skills or buffs they need. Warning: Host is fighting an enemy more than one/two/three/etc times as strong. Notification. trait "sis con" is active Stats are being quadrupled Trait "sis con" is being strained severely, user will suffer near permanent severe damage after deactivation. Deactivate it, worse comes to worse I sacrifice a couple of these morons, but don''t multiply my stats by so much and risk my life when it''s not yet necessary. red starts off by buffing Hilda followed by her pets and anybody else who doesn''t use magic, commanding her pets to attack as Hilda and white start attacking it''s head with Hilda using the mental state, causing it to wake up, screaming in pain as it swings its arms at the two, breaking off some of the chains chaining it to the ground. Hilda starts attacking again, followed by white and everybody else as the giant keeps swinging its arms around, breaking more and more chains as it slowly starts to stand up, easily towering over everybody. As they continue the barrage of attacks on the giant, not dealing any visible damage, it finally breaks off the last chain on its neck as it stomps its foot, making the ground crack under its weight and strength causing those too close and too weak to be knocked down. As they keep attacking, Hilda uses her sword qi combined with her mana to strengthen her sword and cut its achilles tendon on its legs, causing it to roar in pain as it kneels down. I''ll keep it down! White shouts out as Shila helps Hilda replies. How? I can increase the density of the water I control, purple try shooting its eyes and black, don''t let it heal back! Oh, so that''s how this idiots'' water hurt so much despite not having high enough of a water pressure. Hilda thinks while continuously cutting its Achilles tendons preventing it from generating. As purple shoots its eyes, causing it to tightly shut its eye, it roars out in pain again before starting to shine red as its body becomes more durable and the regeneration becomes faster making Hilda back up due to not being able to keep up. What the hell is it doing? White asks before red replies after double checking. I think it''s budding itself with physical buffs. What type? I''m not sure I don''t have this, but I know there''s multiple and each is much stronger than my own. They keep attacking before it fully heals up sufficiently enough to stand up and attack Hilda and white along with blocking any attacks that come its way as the ground starts to shake and a hammer made of dirt forms In Front of the Cyclops as it carries it. What the hell? Everybody scatters as the giant brings the hammer down on the ground causing cracks to form as the ground slowly regenerates back. One hit and we''re dead¡­ well technically two due to my achievement but whatever. Hilda thinks before avoiding another hit. Purple do you have any stronger and longer arrows? White ands why spraying it''s eye, stopping it for a moment before it swings it''s hammer at him causing him to dodge. I don''t, but I have enough points to buy one! Do it, I''ll find a way to compensate you if we manage to live. Hey white, you got a way to survive? Hilda asks not caring if other people hear her due to the giant''s loud commotion. Yea, also feel free to call me Aiden. No. What about you, got a plan? Yea. Hilda admits while looking up. And dodging another hit. So the same plan as me. White says while spraying water at the giant again, stopping it for a second and pissing it off more. Purple! Have you bought the arrow yet? White shouts as he attacks the cyclopes again. movies and video games are all completely wrong about it''s eye being the weak spot. He whispers to himself as he sprays its eye again. Yea but I can''t get a shot in! I''ll fix that, orange, spray it with as much poison as you can, don''t worry about me or black. I honestly don''t care about you guys, I just don''t want to be seen as a backstabbing bitch, and I can''t reach its face. Hilda goes in and uses a decent chunk of her mana to slash its Achilles tendons again causing it to kneel back down in pain again. Good job black, purple shoots its eye and orange spray its face with it after, black you know what to do I believe. As purple shoots its eye and orange starts spraying it with poison, it tries standing up again and pulling the arrow out as white pushes it back down with more water than water along with red using her pets that can fly to push the arrow further in. Ok, they''re all distracting, so I gotta do this properly. Hilda thinks while running back to the start which isn''t far after having been pushed back by the cyclopes, and barely sufficient strength to jump up to the ceiling. System, increase my strength as much as possible. Sure, it''ll increase you up to 60 Do 70. It''ll strain though. Is it by a lot? No, you''ll manage but you sure? Yea so do it. As Hilda feels her strength going up to 75 due to the buff helping the increased stats she uses all her mana and swings at the chain, nearly cutting through in one way as she keeps pushing her sword into it, trying harder and harder as she watches the giant start healing with white and red no longer able to keep up as much. As Hilda adds on her sword qi to the mana, it starts cutting through faster, eventually breaking free and swinging down with Hilda on it, hitting the cyclops In the face as it stands up, leaving it motionless. Well done everybody, we managed to kill it just barely. White says as he sits on the ground satisfied with the torches joining in. It feels weird, something''s wrong. Hilda thinks before changing her sword to the mental state and rushing at the giant as everybody gets confused. What are you doing? White asks, standing up and watching her. Ignore him, him and his systems a crazy pair. His system adds on as Hilda plunges her sword in the mental state into the giant''s head, making it start shouting in pain again, shocking everyone. Oh crap, it didn''t show the kill message, attack it! White shouts out, snapping the others out of their shock as he goes and attacks its head with everybody picking up their weapons and rushing at it. System, show me the shop now. Hilda thinks while trying her best to keep her sword in its head as the system shows her exactly what she needs, a 2000 points bomb. Bomb(epic) Hilda, I kind of captured too strong of a monster for a boss, so here''s a good bomb for cheap, you''re still paying for it since using the chains wasn''t intended. Annoying as hell. Hilda buys the bomb, hurting on the inside due to seeing her points drop by 2000 as she quickly closes the screen and throws the bomb at white. White, throw that into its mouth! Hilda thinks, letting Shila talk for her as white throws the bomb quickly into its mouth as Hilda accidently activated it already As white throws the bomb in, Hilda quickly tries pulling her sword out but finds it stuck in physical mode due to having no mana with no choice but to leave her weapon behind as it blows up with the giant''s head. Boss: ¡°giant¡± has been killed. Level up x6 All stats +6 Trait has been improved slightly. Achievement unlocked Kill floor ones boss(legendary) Access to floor two. First to kill a level 50 monster with a group Skill level up Low level mental magic (level 8¡úmax) Sword qi. (Level 3¡ú7) Achievement unlocked, Second to max out a skill(legendary) All skills will be 7.5 percent stronger. Shame that I didn''t level up spatial magic but it was too risky to use in this situation. Nice, and I didn''t have to sacrifice anyone either. As Hilda walks up to the rest of the group to see if there''s anything else left to do or rewards, the guide suddenly appears behind all of them making everyone notice instantly due to the fact he''s shining in such a dark environment. Hello everybody, time for the award distribution. Chapter 14. Boss awards Hello everybody, you all look terrible honestly. Anyways, the awards will be ranked based on contribution, just like the event, please open your system to check the rankings. 1st:Black. 2nd:Aiden. 3rd:Aileen 4th:Red 5:Purple Runner up:Leah Honorary mentions:Yellow Honorary mentions:Green Honorary mentions:John Participation award:Blue As you all can see, after leaving the boss room, you''ll be teleported to a different room where I''ll provide the awards separately. Yea right, he''s just going to send up back to the stupid white room ain''t he? The room even looks like it''s just a bigger room made for mental patients. Whatever I guess, I just go already hey shila, send me out of this shitty place already. Hilda says to Shila, ignoring the fact that the guide is still talking, but mostly randomly unimportant things. Yea yea whatever. Shila clicks something on the system screen sending her and Hilda to no big surprise, the same room with the guide in the center of it. Hey. Yea I lack creativity, so what? Could you not read my mind? I didn''t, it''s written on your face. But I''m wearing my mask. I made the system, my mental resistance is maxed, your mask isn''t blocking anything from me. ¡­ Fine whatever, weren''t you talking to the other people? Yes, but you interrupted me and left, anyways the one with them is a clone right now. A real or fake one? It''s a clone, of course it''s fake. No I meant tha- Yes, it''s a physical body, but obviously much weaker than me. I''ll keep that in mind. It''s still strong enough to beat you, so don''t attack it before reaching at least 20 times your current level. That''s around level 800¡­ Which you''ll reach around¡­ I estimate floor 50. Why so long, why not floor 20? Because it takes longer and longer to level up the more you level, also levels become less relevant around the 300s. Huh? Skills and items are the priority afterwards, well, maybe not for you due to your trait but skills and items are still a huge priority. Nice I got two questions though. Yes? First is why didn''t I get any recoil? Leveling up mitigates it a bit and the potential recoil goes bad anyways. Second question, can a person''s trait change? Yes, but it''s basically a part of them, so it usually take drastic changes to the person, but yours won''t change even if you die so you''re good. Okay, now give me my awards, I''ve been sleep deprived for 3 days already. Fine fine, you''re still fine because of your level, you could probably easily manage 5 days. But I don''t want it. You could. I''m not going to. I wasn''t forcing you, anyways here take it, it''s in your system.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Shila, pay up. Fine. Shila shows the points amounting up to 20000. Why so much? 10000 from it being level 50, extra 5000 because it was a boss, the last 5000 because you''re the top contributor.. Oh also she''s got more stuff. Shila? Nope, nothing. Really? As Hilda steps closer to Hilda who fits the phrase ¡°wear your heart on your sleeves¡± and is currently looking more guilty with every step closer to her. You sure? Yep. Open the inventory. Why? Open it. ¡­ Hey guide, you can open my inventory for me right? Ofcourse, but this is entertaining for me. Open my inventory up Shila. No. Look, I''ll stick my hand into you if I must. She says, earning her a mocking look of disgust from the guide. Shut up, you know what I mean. Hilda takes her hand and stick into into Shila''s shirt, entering it because her shirt is also part of the system into her inventory, and pulling everything out, including her remaining tip coupon, elixir, a new sword and something else Shila refuses to give up. Once I''m done checking this sword, you''re paying up whatever it is that you''re hiding. Soul cutter(legendary) Oh wow, why a legendary weapon? Because from now on, all bosses will have to be fought alone and I feel like I may have made the bosses a little too strong along with the monsters, which I will solve in a year. A year? Yea, every year I intend to put more users into the tower, improving any mistakes overtime. Why name it soul cutter? Because it can cut souls in half, but you won''t be able to do so easily, until level 1000 at least. That''s gonna take a while. Obviously, cutting a person''s soul means that it''s hard even for me to receive, no way I''m going to let you do so already. Right¡­ Also remember to clean up all your mess. Later. Soul cutter(legendary) When dealing. Physical damage using this sword, the person will also suffer a mental attack, infusing mana will increase the sharpness, durability and mental aspects of the sword. You can claim this sword and part of your soul by infusing some of your mana and absorb it into your body or recall it back at a moment''s notice simply by desiring to do so. Warning, the strength of the weapon is highly dependent on the user''s strength. Nice, but what does absorbing it in my soul mean? Hard to explain but it''ll make your soul stronger when not using the sword since the sword will defends against attacks against the soul when you don''t call it out. Ok? Hilda infuses some mana into it as the sword glows and turns from white to black letting out a black mist around it as it disappears into Hilda''s body. Why did it turn black? When you chose your colour during the event, it affected your souls, its not bad don''t worry in fact it helps strength your soul even if the amount is minuscule. What about the black trail? Can you get rid of that? Don''t wanna. Why? Cause I don''t feel like it. ¡­ Anyways, Shila, what''s the last object? Technically she has two more. Shila, pay up. Fine. Shila pulls out an elixir and passes it to Hilda. And what''s left? It''s not important. Guide? Technically it''s not important at all. Fine then, but I''ll still get it later. Oh by the way, go check the shop. Hm? Hilda opens the shop to find System upgrade(Legendary) Cost:10000. Oh nice, you finally gave it, but why for 10000? Because its not going to be cheap. As Shila listens in, she tilts her head curiously. Oh yea, I didn''t let her see this or she would probably buy it immediately. Nice, but why would she want this badly? It makes a system feel more complete as a person, you wouldn''t understand. What are you two talking about? Nothing Shila, it''s just a system upgrade. Hearing this, Shila immediately runs up to Hilda and tries to plead and act cute. You''re basically a younger version of me, I honestly don''t care how cute you look. Come on, just buy it for me yea? Then give me the object you were hiding. Fine, but you promise you will buy it? Fine. Shila pulls a box out of Hilda''s inventory named. Food box(epic) Can materialise any food you want(limit: 10,000 tonnes in total) Are you serious? Buy the upgrade for me now. Not till you keep all the stuff on the floor up. You messed it up. Cause you wouldn''t open my inventory. Fine. Shila goes around picking up the 2 elixirs, box, tip coupon and goes back to Hilda. Fine, I''ll buy it¡­ my 10,000 points are going goodbye¡­ oh what a pain. Buy it!!!! Hilda brings her trembling finger to the buy option watching her points go from 22700 to 12700 as a card appears mid air which Shila grabs quickly while Hilda drops to the ground hurt(financially). Achievement unlocked Big spender.(Exclusive) I made this achievement just for you, it''ll self delete in 3 days. Screw you¡­ Hilda, still on the floor, brings her head to look at Shila as she looks at the card not knowing what to do before¡­ eating it and shining for a second before reappearing with no visible changes. What the hell¡­ She''s got 10 percent of your stats by the way, and she''s got her own status too now. Great, Shila show me your status Name: Shila Gender: Female Level:21(tied to users level/2) Stats:(21 S) (21 E) (21 A) (16 M) Personality: loves(free)food. Trait: ¡°leecher(max)¡±(trait level tied to users) Hilda stands up slowly and looks through. What does your trait do? Ask him Shila gestures towards the guide who''s just standing beside watching. So? It gives her leech-like abilities. Such as? Absorbing mana,endurance and health for herself, or you. Health? It''s not a stat since I can''t quantify it due to how troublesome it''ll be, but absorbing it can help heal you, but not too much, it''ll just be like reducing minor injuries, stopping blood loss and helping help minor bone injuries, just examples, but it can''t help with severe injuries. What''s the drawback, since it''s a max level like mine. She wants to eat more, and anything free, oh and when I say free, I mean when she doesn''t pay for it or when other people pay for it. Whatever¡­ but since I''m here, give me a tip. No, but here''s some information, everybody in the top 5 got a legendary weapon. The runner up go a legendary too, but it''s worse than some epics, but still pretty good The honorary awards got a great epic weapon, still worse than the runner ups weapon. Everybody got a weapon suited for them except the participant award, blue who I just gave a random trash epic weapon to. Nice, send me back now. Fine. Hilda gets teleported back and sees Shila excited to try her trait out. Go to sleep first, it''s night right now and I''m too tired to deal with this. You''re not tired, we''re basically connected, I can feel it. Yes, but I want to sleep. Nooooo, come with me or I can''t go far enough to find any monsters. If you behave, I''ll give you the box tomorrow. Fine¡­ Go to sleep now. Hilda buys a small protective tent for 500 points(safety over money)and goes in with Shila cuddling up to her Why are you getting more childish? Well, every upgrade makes me feel closer to a human, that means closer to my appearance of a¡­ I think 8 years old child Fine whatever, just go to sleep. Sure. As Hilda slowly wanders off to sleep, she can''t help but wonder how Lela''s doing. Chapter 15. Lela and a busybody It''s been a week, a week, only a week, how the hell am I supposed to wait 5 years for her to come back?! I mean, apparently Hilda was pitied since she had worked multiple jobs without my knowledge so her boss gave her severance pay after firing her despite not needing to since she stopped showing up, which went to me instead, but I''m so lonely and bored. Lela, still on her bed having just woken up, considers going to the police again but decides against it since they were useless the first time. As Hilda gets up and gets on with her morning routine and starts jogging, something she recently adapted into her routine to kill time before heading to her cooking class, something she also took up to kill time. During the cooking lesson in a food she doesn''t remember the name of and has no interest in actually learning nor eating she starts playing around with the food, causing those beside her to look at her with distasteful looks for wasting food and good ingredients, but don''t voice it out at all with Lela not caring due to being used to such looks. As Lela puts down the ingredients and walks out, sighing with the instructor behind her calling, she starts walking back home, and sees an old playground, one she hasn''t seen or visited in a long time despite it being so near her house. As Lela goes to the playground, surprised that it hasn''t been removed to make space for something else or at least renovated, she looks around, reminiscing about playing with Hilda before their parents left them, one by choice, one by fate. Now that I think about it, when Hilda comes back won''t she be as busy as she was before? She wonders while sitting on the swing that she''s too tall to actually swing on. I wonder if we''ll ever have time to play again without her always being so busy even if it''s for me. Later as Lela goes away while promising to herself to return to the playground every once in a while and goes home for the day as she notices the sun setting. Wow, I was at the playground for quite a while wasn''t I? She wonders while cooking up some instant noodles remembering that Hilda used to eat it most days while forbidding her from eating it. Hm, if she was here I''d be scolded so I might as well enjoy the next 5 years of instant noodles While looking around and finishing up her instant noodles and throwing it away, Lela considers getting a relationship, not a romantic one due Hilda whose definitely get pissed off about a romantic relationship but maybe just a friend or even a pet would suffice.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Hmm, I''m sensitive to pet fur, if I get one won''t I just regret it, and I doubt I''ll be getting any friends either, well I mean I do have a hobby I enjoy. Lela packs up some prayer(stuff) and goes to the graveyard and prays for her father. Hi again I''m back, Hilda busy nowadays with god knows what but I won''t question it since she left me enough money for me to know she isn''t joking since one of the few things she can''t bear to part with is money, anyways I brought you some flowers but don''t expect food since I''m kinda on a budget now, anyways it''s getting pretty late and I''m still scared of the dark so I''m gonna go now. Lela walks away from her father''s grave and goes to one with her mother''s name. Mother, I hope you enter this grave soon since you deserve it. She spits on her mother''s still empty grave to her dissatisfaction as she walks home. On her way home, she revisits the playground for a moment before going home again. At home, she uses her old phone to watch YouTube and prepared to go to school knowing that the next day will be no different from today and may be so for the next 5 years before drifting off to sleep. The next day, Lela wakes up to a knock at her front door and goes to check it out to see a child there in a robe hiding their appearance completely. Who are you? Trick or treat? It''s January. Yes, but your house looks abandoned and perfect for Halloween. I''m just really broke, what do you want? Trick or treat? ¡­ Bug off. Lela closes the door on the stupid looking kid(this is personal for me). As Lela closes the door and goes back later, she sees that the kid has left only to hear another knock later in the afternoon and seeing the kid reappear. Bug off. Hey, miss, can I ask for your name? Why? Curious. It''s Lela, now go away. Miss. What¡­ Do you live with anyone? No. Did you used to? Yes. Who? None of your business. Come on miss, sharing is caring, even if it''s just information. If I tell you, will you leave me alone? Sure. It was my friend. Lies. Fine, my sister. Thank you, what''s your sister''s name? None of your business. Before the kid could ask questions again, Lela closes the door on his face. Later at night, around 11pm when Lela is still awake watching from her nearly spoiled TV, she hears a knock again. No way that kids back. Lela tries ignoring it but it keeps going on for the next 30 minutes but she gives up and goes to the door. What the hell do you want?, Your name''s Lela right miss? yea, now answer my question. Can I call you Lela too? Sure, just get lost. What about I give you info too? What could a kid have? I know what your sisters are doing. Haha, now go away. I''m not kidding, I know where Hilda''s at. How do you know her name? I just told you, I know where she is. Fine, what is she doing? Preparing for your future. I''m gonna need more specifications here. Nope, she''d be pretty damn upset if I told you. Fine, is she having a decent life at least? Uhhhh, decent enough. Huh? That''s all you''re getting also, if you want I can let you meet your sister in 3 years instead of 5? Will she be happy by that? Yes and no. Huh? She''d be happy to see you, upset at me that I let you there before she''s prepared enough to protect you. Protect me? Then why can''t I protect myself? Secret. Anyways, I''ve got to go now, have fun. Sure. Why did that kid seem like he was glowing under the robe? Whatever¡­ Information bout me cus why not? I''m making this chapter because I''m honestly too lazy to make a third chapter, it''s currently 24th of December so when I put this in RR it''ll probably be¡­ 27th? I make 3 chapters a day and post 2 up every day, but I intend tk stop so many when I hit 20 chapters or on 30 December, probably 20 chapters. Anyways, I''m making this chapter because I''m too lazy to make a third chapter like I said. Here''s some info. Hilda''s competitive personality and cheapskate personality is based off myself And Shila''s personality about being a leach is based on myself too.(I love spending others money but not my own)This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. As for the sis con, that''d based on me and my brother whose younger than me by a lot, obviously I''m not as obsessed with him as Hilda here, I just love him the most in my family(I know I''m going off topic) Also I intend to make a discord for patron or whatever it was called in 3 years when I become a legal adult, if that doesn''t work I''ll sell feet pics on OF or something. Oh also, if you know me irl don''t talk to me about me writing this novel because I have no intentions to talk about it if I know you irl. Hey, saying I would sell feet pics wonts get my chapter taken down or something right? Hey guys this is something separate I''m adding on the 27th, but this fiction was writtened as a hobby¡­ nvm idk how to phrase this without being rude, but even if you guys like a character or something, I may make them out to suddenly die off or be an ass. No, this is not foreshadowing, this is simply Incase for the future. Chapter 16. Floor 2. Hey Hilda, when are we gonna take a break? You''ve been hunting for so long since yesterday! It''s not my fault¡­ you''re the one who said I should reach level 45 first at least If I want to go and hunt efficiently on the second floor. That was before you tried the weapon and I saw how good it was¡­ and I didn''t think you''d make me use my trait like this! ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Yesterday ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Hey hilda Yea? Let''s go try my trait now, yea? She says in excitement while running and jumping around due to no longer being able to float since she has a physical body and isn''t only just a system now. Fine. Look, there''s a weak one right there, go try it. Sure. As Shila goes over to the level 7 skeleton and starts absorbing, it drops dead almost immediately as Shila glows slightly. Wow, I guess your level is 3 times it but can you do that to multiple monsters? Yea, each monster will be less affected but in total it''ll still be better, and the higher level they are the much slower the absorbing rate. So if you absorb health you get health right? I can convert the health/endurance I absorb into mana, but I don''t know the conversion rate due to mana being the only thing that can visibly decrease on the screen with health not even being a stat but it''s definitely lower. Ok, I''m gonna go and hunt non-stop, I''ll run around and restraint them while you kill them, I get xp when you kill something right? 70 percent. Sure, so if it means my stamina due to endurance will be able to maintain than it''s worth it, if we meet any stronger ones, I''ll use mana to kill it in one hit since there''s probably nothing that can survive a strong enough hit from me if I use mana in floor 1. Sure, but please remember that I can get hurt now. Hence the fact I''ll restrain them. Fine. ¡ª---------------------------------------------- Back to the present ¡ª---------------------------------------------- I can''t believe you''ve been making use of me to hunt nonstop, usually you would have gotten tired from fighting already! Yea but I''ve leveled up 3 times, isn''t it pretty good, we should just stay here since I don''t feel tired at all. ¡­ Once you reach 45, we''re going to floor 2. Nah, we should just stay and since skills don''t depend too much on the strength l of what I am killing, my spatial magic hit level 7 now andsword qi¡¯s level 11, why hasn''t it hit max level? Sword qi is unique, its max level is 99. ¡­ Nice? But fine let''s go to floor 2 already Finally!!! And help me buy some skills too. Why should I? Your leech ability is sufficient and it doesn''t take mana either. ¡­ But me skills. No Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Then I won''t use my ability for you. Then I won''t give you the food box. You are a liar, you owe me the box you piece of shit. Nah. Fineeeeeeeeeeeeeee, I''ll use my damn skill, I''m just asking for some skills, not even expensive ones. Hey, I''ve already spent 10,000 points on your upgrade, I''m not spending any more on you. Cheapskate. So what? Fine, whatever let''s just go to level two already. Level up. All stats +1. Trait has been slightly improved. Oh nice, perfect timing, let''s go. Sure, let''s go. Shila starts running Infront of Hilda and getting close to her face looking oddly excited with her arms behind her back. What are you doing? What? Why are you so enthusiastic? I''m just excited for the next level. Don''t give me that rubbish, I upgraded you, you probably already have some info about the second floor. Nope, so let''s just go already okay? Notification. Skill ¡°low level field magic¡± has been bought. (cost:100) ¡­ As Hilda reads the notification that just appeared beside her she turns to Shila whose sweating bullets bullets as she gulps. Shila. Yes? What is field magic? And If it wasn''t worth 100 points, you''re dead. You can''t hurt me. Not anymore, your body is physical now ain''t it? Hilda says while gently pulling Shila''s cheeks making her nervous. So, wanna tell me what it does now? Yes Ma''am. Shila immediately salutes and starts explaining the skills while sweating bullets. Field magic affects the area around me. Shila says, still saluting, and somehow looking more nervous than before. Like? Slowing the opponents around me, or dealing damage. How much? Different effects are differently effective. Fine, does having a higher level help? Yea. It''s a passive skill right? Yes. Can you remove the effect if needed? Yea. Can you target a specific person or entity? No. Can the range be increased? No ¡­ Fine, I won''t hold much of a grudge. Thank you, your my god, I''ll worship you from today onwards! Shut it, you''re gonna compensate by hurrying up instead of being so slow in my hunting on floor 2, and give me all the info on floor 2 you''ve got. Fine, floor 1 is just generalized for users to get used to, but each floor up to floor 10 only has monsters specialized in a specific aspect. What''s floor 2? ¡­ Something you hate. Huh? Remember the dungeon? Yea what about it? Yea, everything is undead, you got an undead achievement for bosses, so that''s an advantage but you might want to hunt quickly and ditch it. Great¡­ just send me already¡­ Floor 2 boss is level 100 btw. So since it''ll all have a 50 percent buff I should reach level 150? No, the systems here today help you with skills, something those lifeforms don''t have, so skills will be your advantage, killing higher level monsters with skills is actually gonna get a lot more normal than you think. Great¡­ just send me there. Sure. As Shila sends them both to the second floor, Hilda looks around and immediately feels goosebumps all over her body as she starts off on a normal patch of grass about a hundred meters in diameters but with eh outside clearly being nothing but dirt, dead trees, undead, and graves being extremely similar to the dungeon, but she can see a couple of abominations very far away, with there only being a few in a couple kilometers align with some other monsters which looks as strong as the abominations What''s going on? Aren''t abominations monsters? Maybe on the first floor and the dungeon they are, not in here though. Great¡­ this is going to be an actual nightmare, let''s hurry and go hunt, I''m ditching out of here as soon as possible. Fine. For the next few days Hilda and Shila kept hunting and hunting making Shila disappear back into the system as a protest for the unfair treatment and lack of rest. ¡­ When is she gonna come back? I''ve gotten used to it but it''s still kinda scary especially the bosses which are considered just strong monsters here that I need to keep running away from. Let me just check the leaderboard first, luckily I can still do this without Shila around. Black(level 50) Aiden(level 48) Red(level 45) Aileen(level 43) Purple (level 41) Leah(level 34) Yellow(level 31) Green(level 29) John(level 28) Blue(level 28) Why are the lower level ones so low? Because they''re still stuck at floor 1 and floor 2 is too strong since the minimum strength of monsters here is 30 and they''re usually in small groups. Oh, when did you return? Just now¡­ let me make this clear, I''m not going hunting for days again. Fine but do you think I''m high enough level for the dungeon yet? Hell no! But the suggested level is 40 and I''m 50. Yea, and the recommended amount of players is 4, your 1, did you fail maths? I''m a diligent student alright? Bullshit. So what? ¡­ If you want to hunt faster, why not just attack from far away? How? ¡­ No seriously, how? Use your sword qi¡­ Oh yea, that was a function right? Have you¡­ never used it before? Nope. Even though your sword qi¡¯s at level 13 now? My spatial magics also at 8 you know? I didn''t ask for that, I can check. I know, just changing the topic. ¡­ Anyways, how do I do it? Do I just use sword qi on my sword and swing at? Basical- Hilda uses sword qi on her sword and swings it at Shila before she can finish her sentence as she barely dodged causing decent damage to the ground behind. You piece of shit! Wow, looks like it''s easy enough. Oi! Yes? Hilda says feigning innocence while smiling with a hint of mischievousness. You''re an irritating person, you know? My specialty. It''s not a compliment! So what? I took it as one. Sincerely go die. How rude. ¡­ Whatever, since your back let''s go and continue hunting okay? We''ve rested long enough in this hell hole already and the white guy¡­ oh yea, Aiden that''s right is gonna catch up soon. I''m not gonna. As Shila starts to disappear again, Hilda grabs her by the arm and feigns an innocent smile. Noooooo, I don''t want toooooo. Let''s have a bunch of fun together, yea? Hilda says, still with the menacing smile, making Shila regret coming back. Chapter 17. New skills. Give or take a couple weeks later(lazy to do lines) ¡­ Hey shila. ¡­ Shila. ¡­ Come on, I know we took less than like¡­ Hilda uses her fingers to start counting. 3¡­ no 4 breaks over the past couple of weeks, but isn''t that enough? ¡­ Hey, I''m only level 60 now with white behind me by 3 at 57, it''s not my fault leveling up has gotten so slow, ever since level 51, the amount of xp has been increasing by 50 percent everyday you know? How about this? Well go do the dungeon on floor 1 before it becomes useless especially since I''ve got 20K points from hunting all the monsters and even some abominations along with those weird wraith masses which honestly hurt my wallet quite a bit¡­ ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­. After the dungeon I swear we''ll take a 3¡­ no 2¡­. 1 and a half days break okay? 4. 1 and a half. 4. 1. 5. Hey, you''re a terrible negotiator you know? 3¡­ 2. Fine¡­ Ok let''s go, send us to floor 1 now. Fine. As Shila sends them both to floor one, Hilda immediately starts rushing full speed to the dungeon, dragging Shila along using the invisible barrier due to Shila not being able to be a kilometer further than Hilda. Slow down!!! Shila gets sent into another tree, face first, easily knocking the tree down but still in slight pain as she looks up and sees that they''re about to enter the forest. Are you kiddi¨C (For your imagination dear readers, if this scene was irl, it''d be like deforestation using a machine in a straight line¡­) Couple hours later(I''m still lazy to draw the lines) Hilda stands proudly at the dungeon, making sure to avoid eye contact with Shila whose face looks like it has grown twice the size and most likely glaring at her. So Shila I have a question. Hilda says still not turning to look back at Shila. Yes? Why does floor 2 have no mini bosses? Oh that''s simple, it''s because. Because? What you didn''t hear? No? Fine, I''ll repeat, it''s because¡­ Because? Because of¡­ Of? Of¡­ Spit it out already. Wait, I''m thinking of a nice way to lie to you to piss you off. ¡­ What''s the grudge about?The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I wonder¡­ Fine, maybe I could have slowed down, but come on, using spatial magic especially since it''s maxed along with my stats now I can run and jump so much further and maintain my spatial magic so it''s fun. For you. Come on, I even gave you the food box. Which I haven''t had the chance to use. Fine, I''ll compensate you with¡­ 1000 points for whatever you want. 2000. 1500. 2000. Fine. 3000. Don''t push your luck. Fine 2500. 2000 or nothing. Fine. 2250? 1750. Fine 2000. Too late. 2000 or I''m not going into the dungeon. So 2000 it is, if you hadn''t given up on 2250 I might have caved in. Ok, than 22- Too late. So why does floor 2 have no mini bosses? It does, in dungeons. Dungeons? I haven''t seen any. That''s cus they''re rare¡­ so far you''ve only found 1 one floor 1 haven''t you? There''s more? Yea, but after this one, the rest of the dungeons may become useless. I can''t enter them? No, your level would be too high to gain much. Oh, I''m gonna enter now. Before Hilda presses the option to enter, Shila interrupts again, passing her a tip coupon. What''s the meaning of this? Tear it obviously. Why? Because if you don''t, this dungeon would be useless in helping level your skills. But I can just level sword qi. It''s already level 17¡­ Yea but each level up doesn''t seem to help much. ¡­ Just tear it. Fine. Hilda tears it and enters the same room, same appearance, same size, same sme¡­ Wait, what''s that smell? Oh hi Hilda, I see your back already, again¡­ Right, what''s that smell? What smell? You don''t smell it? No? Shila, what about you? No. Shila sniffs the air, with the supposed smell slowly increasing the nearer to the guide she goes. What are you doing? This is a clone right? Yes. Does it feel pain? No. Is it hard to make? Hilda swings her sword at the guide''s neck only for him to block with a finger. May I ask why? You smell like my house, and sister. .. you''re a freak you know? You''ve seen my trait, you should know. Fine, I visited your sister, what about it? Why? Curiosity to see if that sister is as big of a freak as the sister in front of me. You owe me one. That''s¡­ not how this works. Then give me reassurance you will pay back the I.O.U for the abomination accident. Fine. The guide pulls out a contract and hands it to Hilda as Hilda reads and signs it before it burns into ashes. You happy? Yea, now what skills do I buy? First you should upgrade your skills. Sword qi? But Shila said not to. Hilda points over to Shila who is lying down, appreciating the short rest despite the lack of comfort and view. Listen to her, upgrade your spatial and mental magic. They''re already maxed. Well, I guess evolving would be better suited. Right¡­ how do I evolve my skill? Go to the shop. Sure. Go to mental magic skills only. Done. Go to any of the 3 mental magic you merged in. Done. Tap on the option called merged. Done, done wow, this is my low level mental magic skills? Yea, press evolve at the bottom. Done. Hilda watches as her mental magic skills goes from low level mental magic to just mental magic. Wow, but couldn''t I just have bought the three normal skills? Yes, but this is cheaper. Cheaper? Yea, I know you''re a cheapskate anyways. No, this cost me points? To evolve? Yea a thousand, but buying the skills would have been a thousand each, so I''d say this was a win. If not for the face I''m about to go into the dungeon I''d swing my sword at you again. You''re welcomed to try, not like you''d succeed. Tsk. Hilda reluctantly watches as her points go down without even an achievement. Hey, pay up. Huh? Achievement. No, I didn''t make one for this. It wouldn''t provide benefits that are worth it. I''ve got an achievement literally called broke, so what are you on about? Oh yea, I made that uniquely for you, and also even if there was an achievement, Aileen got it already. Who? It''s in the leaderboard. Yea I know, but that doesn''t help me identify it. Fine, orange. You''re allowed to just tell me so easily? Anyways, what skills should I buy? Also for Shila over there. For your system, I would suggest debuff ones that draw out a battle. Makes sense I guess¡­ You seem unhappy. Because that''s a waste of time. Well debuff ones can also deal damage. Really? Overtime and only if there are enough debuffs, and strong enough, and a debuffed opponent is easier to use her trait on. Yea yea, slower and all that. No, the weaker the opponents, even if it''s by a debuff, the faster the leech. Oh nice I guess. Anyways for you, you need to find something else to specialize in case your mental magic can be countered. Like what? Poison? No, I don''t wanna be like orange. What about debuff? Don''t wanna be like Shila. Hilda says, earning her a look from the aforementioned individual. So original? Yea. ¡­ Troublesome. How about conversion magic? What''s that? It''s in the name. ¡­ I need more specifications here. It converts. What? Anything. To? Anything Example? Mental magic to physical and vice versa Incase mental magic doesn''t work. Oh, then let me go buy it. This one is unique, there''s only one skill, no lower or higher either, also a pain to level up. Doesn''t matter. The higher the level, the more you can convert. Can it convert physical matter? Yea, so if your strength gets high enough, you can turn someone to dust. ¡­ But of course even if you max out the skill, you still need to be much stronger than them. Oh, makes sense. Conversation magic(level 1) Converts anything to anything. (Warning: overuse may cause parts of skill to recoil and convert user partially) What''s that warning? It''s a strong skill, of course it has risks, higher than your mental magic which you haven''t failed at a single time because you''re actually talented at that. The guide says with a surprised and clearly fake tone making Hilda annoyed at his underestimation of her Anyways, time to go off now. Fine, but question. What¡­ Aren''t I stronger than the cyclops now? No. But I''m at a higher level. And it was buffed so heavily it was closer to a level 125 with skills stronger than yours but a lot. Oh yea, forgot about that, bye, if I smell the same smell again next time, I''m cutting the head off this clone. Happy trying, bye. as Hilda and Shila get sent back with Shila looking like she got sent back to hell as Hilda renters the dungeon, back to the checkpoint. Alright, let''s go. Chapter 18. Hidden area. As Hilda steps out of the checkpoint, which also functions as a SafeZone, she looks around to find it similar looking to the first part of the dungeon which also looks like floor 2. Great¡­ my points are going bye bye. Shila, let''s go. Fine.. So estimated 4 people level 40 huh? This is gonna be easy for my level since you said skills are priority right? I guess? But that''s not entirely tr¨C Hilda immediately goes off and starts attacking, easily killing the weaker monsters. Why even ask? As Hilda keeps hunting, she kills a couple abominations and watches her points keep going up but also down due to the increased number of ghosts and wraith masses which requires more points for holy water than they provide. Couple hours later(yea, I''m still too lazy for the lines, whatchu gon do bout it?) Ok, I''m just gonna fight the boss and go, I''ve only leveled up once so far to 61, and that was only because I hunted so long on floor 2, so i had remaining xp. I wouldn''t suggest that. Why? Can''t tell you. Too strong? Yea ¡­ Nah, I don''t believe you, I''m gonna go check. Later¡­ Shila. Yes? I''m sorry. Hilda says, kneeling down in front of shila, begging for forgiveness.w Just now(mental note to self to fix the lack of lines) Oh, here it is. Hilda steps towards the boss monster and gets a notification. Notification Entering boss area. Oh nice, why didn''t I get one during the previous one? Because that was only the first part. Oh, well it should be easy. Hilda wills her weapon ¡°soul cutter¡± to appear as she rereads the notification. Entering dungeon boss area. Undead king(level 70) Hilda reads the notification, double checking it before walking out again. Back to present(I swear about the lines) Stolen story; please report. Isn''t that thing stronger than the floor one¡¯s boss? No, it doesn''t have any buffs due to being a dungeon boss instead of a normal boss. Oh, than what should I do? I would suggest farming more monsters a lot more since your skills don''t seem to want to level up either. Don''t you have farming? I value life more. How about the checkpoint? Can''t we go back? No. Damn. Damn indeed, now go. As Hilda starts farming again, with Shila following behind reluctantly but doing her job due to having no choice, she eventually kill all the monsters only for all her skills to only gain 1 level up. So¡­ what now? Can''t tell you. Why not? Not allowed, and not sure. ¡­ So what to do now? Can''t tell, are you deaf? Hint. Fine, look around. Sure? Hilda spends the next couple of hours looking around, with Shila having gone back into the system as he eventually gives up. Damn It!!!! What am I looking for?! Hilda swings her sword against a tree only for her to be sucked in as a weird crack appears. Entering secret area. Hilda sits up after falling down and reads the notification and calls Shila outwhile explaining what happened. Are you serious? Yea, I''m kind of stuck in here now. Go find and kill the boss, it should be around your level with some monsters here as well. Yea but¡­ but? Hilda looks down the long tunnel at her front and back as she gets teleported into the center of the tunnel , and would be lacking in light completely if not for the fact that shilas body let out a bit of light, lesser than a flashlight, but still something. Hilda. Yes? Hilda asks, hugging Shila while scared due to the immense darkness. Your pathetic. So what? You sleep hugging me every chance you get. So what? I look like a child and have the mentality of one, you don''t. ¡­ Let''s just buy a flash light. No don''t, it may attract monsters. As much as I would like to agree with you, I feel like your only saying that to converse points, it''s only 20 points. Can I get a discount? No. Fine, take my 20 points then. Later(...) Hilda holds the flash light, choosing a specific direct to travel in, eventually arriving in a large dome shaped room after killing many monsters and finding 5 abominations in it. What''s this? Boss rooms could just be a bunch of weak ones too, and this is just a Hidden area. Oh¡­ Disappointed? Nope, I just kind of hate these things. Hilda rushes in with Shila as Shila finally gets a chance to use her magic, decreasing third speed and most likely affecting her agility to Hildas suspicions and inability to check due to avoiding around a hundred arms. As Hilda uses her sword and infuses mana into it while using conversion magic, something that hasn''t leveled a single time as she kills an abomination in a single hit. Nice, but it took up like 10 percent of my mana. As Hilda prepares to attack again, she feels a bit of pain in her right index finger as she notices it disappear, leaving behind the blood while constantly spilling more blood. Crap, this hurts, why did my finger disappear? Recoil. Recoil? Hilda asks dodging the arms from the abominations while holding the stmo of her kidding if her tightly. Yea conversion magic. Isn''t the risk too high? Yea, high risk high return. As shila starts using her leech ability in the monsters, Hilda watches as her finger slowly grows back, causing the pain to decrease and starts holding her sword properly again as she starts attacking without using conversion magic too much and using sword wi to attack from far away. As Hilda dodges most of the arms while cutting down the rest, she eventually gets hit by some. Dammit, I''m double these idiots'' levels and still struggle. Well, there are a bunch. Hey, how much can you heal? 6. 6 what? People duh. No, if I lost a limb, could you heal it No, obviously. Tsk, what about like a hand or foot? I guess so¡­ why? Hilda infuses the rest of her mana into her sword with her sword qi, while preparing to use conversion magic, which doesn''t take mana No way, are you crazy? Maybe I am, maybe I''m not. Don''t do it. Don''t worry, I bet the monsters have spawned back already, buy me a healing item to help deal with the consequence, right? Yea, I assume so. Nice. Hilda uses her sword, sending a wave a sword qi at all the abominations, hitting 7 of the remaining 9 and killing 5, leaving the other 2 severely injured. Nice, this is about to hurt isn''t it? Level up. All stats +1 Trait has been improved slightly. Hilda watches as her arm slowly turns to stone while causing severe pain at the same time. Shila, give me the healing object immediately! Fine, it cost you 1,000 points so appreciate it. Hilda consumes the healing object, which she didn''t even bothered to read the name of as the conversion slows down, and stops completely as shila uses her leech ability, killing off the 2 remaining abominations, and slowly leeching the last 2. Why did my arm turn to stone? It can turn into anything due to the conversion, the more you sure, the more severe the effect and petrification is a lot harder to heal than a missing arm. Great. Hilda uses her right arm which is relatively okay compared to her left to grab her sword as she prepares to cut off the arms of the abominations, drawing it out so Shila can kill them with her leech ability. Shila, debuff them using your field magic and debuff magic. I already am! Well, do it again with your debuff magic!!! Ever hear of easier said than done? So what, I''m the one saying it right now, so it''s easy and I don''t care if it''s easy for you. ¡­ As Hilda keeps defending, she notices her arms very slowly returning to normal as another one of the abominations die from the leech leaving only one which doesn''t last much longer either. Nice¡­ so how do I go back? Hilda considers before noticing a chest and portal appear in the center. Wow, so chests now instead of through the system, how nice? Hilda opens the chest and finds an egg. Pet egg(epic) Will hatch the more the user fights. Wow¡­ what? How does this work, what abilities will it have? I would assume the same as me. Why? It''s part of the system, I''m part of the system. Makes sense I guess. But the type of pet that comes out may affect it, such as increased weakness to a certain magic or attack or increased defense. Oh, it''ll be a normal pet, not a small me right? It may become a small you. Seriously? Yea, imagine me, you and your pet going around together. I''m not imagining that. But you''ll basically be this pet''s mother, so no declining being a mother now. ¡­ Still better than having you call me mother. Not surprised anyways, you can''t put it into your inventory by the way. Huh? Yea, you gotta hold it while fighting, shouldn''t take too long to hatch since you got it from the first floor dungeon. Won''t it be weak? It''ll basically be my strength and trait. Skill? No¡­ but it''ll get stronger overtime of course if you level up since our levels will be connected to yours, and the xp you get from it killing monsters is also only 70 percent. Oh. Hilda goes through the portal with the egg in her egg as she immediately notices monsters charging at her. Well, I guess I gotta hatch it anyway. Chapter 19. Second child. Couple hours later(yes, I''m still too lazy to do lines, and yea, chapter 18, 19 and 20 were all made in a row which is why none has any lines) Hey Shila, how much longer is this egg gonna take to hatch? How should I know? Well, I''ve cleared out this area multiple times already and I''m already fully healed, but I can''t seem to be able to hatch this damn thing. Well, it''s hatching, slowly. You''re kidding, there isn''t even a single crack. Then how about fighting the boss and risking your life? The tower usually follows the concept ¡°high risk high return* such as the conversion skill. Fine, but how do I protect the egg? I can hold it for you. Fine. Hilda and Shila go off back to the boss area and as Hilda tries to check its stats, she gets attacked without even being able to react completely. Shit! What the hell? Race:Undead king Level:70 Stats. (93 S) (93 E) (94 A) (0 M) Achievement in use. First to kill an abomination(epic) Second to kill a level 5 monster(epic) Warning: user is fighting an enemy stronger than her Notification. trait "sis con" is active Stats are being increased. Why is it so physically focused and so damn big?! Oh yea¡­ sometimes there are monsters where they completely lack skills and are like this. Great, hurry and debuff it, I can barely keep up with defending! Sure. As Shila debuffs it, Hilda joins in and uses some mental magic, sword qi and mana combined in one attack only for it to block with its arm and sacrifice its arm to escape the hit before backing up and healing it back but very slowly due to her achievement and Shildas leeching of its health.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Crap¡­ Hilda uses mental magic to create illusions to distract it as she turns herself invisible, looking for a chance to attack as it hits her, suddenly sending her flying away. What the hell, how can it see me? It''s an undead king, it can command weaker undead, which is similar to an obedience skill, but since it was born like that, it''s a passive which basically also gives it mental resistance. Great¡­ Hilda stands and starts attacking the boss monster again, making sure to avoid any attacks and slowly dealing damage as Shila slowly leeches off of it, healing Hilda and restoring her mana non-stop but slower than the rate she''s using mana. How annoying, our stats are basically the same now but it''s still so much stronger. That''s because it was born like that due to its race.. That''s not fair. Actually, the system is a much big¨C Yea yea, system is great and all, stop complimenting yourself. ¡­ As Hilda keeps attacking she eventually runs out of mana due to its slow, but still steady regeneration and constant defending causing her to try backing up but gets hit away strongly instead. Crap¡­ that hurt. Hey Hilda. What? I''m kind of in pain right now. The egg is slowly hatching, once It hatched both of our leeching will probably be able to stop it''s healing. Really? Yea, both of us together should have a synergy buffing our traits slightly. Hey, how do you know if it''ll actually have the same trait since it''s behaviour might be different? Hilda runs back at the boss, attacking it. It''s behaviour will probably be affected by my trait, and your partially, but mine more. Oh, sure, but it''s never met my sister so how? It''ll probably look for a new destination for a sister, or if it can''t, probably a mother figure. But my traits is sis con, not one related to a mother. Hilda gets hit again by the undead king, sending her flying again. That''s why the closest designation it can find, but it''ll consider you its mother, so it will probably leech onto you. Oh, why won''t it leech onto you instead? Because we''re both part of the system, we are somewhat connected through the system and you so it''ll know that I''m not its mother, and that it shouldn''t designate me as someone to use as a parent or sibling. ¡­ I don''t get it but sure. As they keep talking with Hilda attacking and getting hit back, the pet eventually hatches as a slime-like figure appears. What the hell is this? ¡­ A doppelganger. So it can turn into me? Yes¡­ Will it? Probably. Great, but it can''t see my face? It''s connected to us, it innately knows what you look, feel and even smell like. Great. As Hilda watches the slime-like figure slowly start morphing into her, but without the mask she sighs before going to defend it from the undead king. Hey, pet, help me kill this first, I''ll figure what to do with you later. As Hilda commands it, she notices the doppelganger get annoyed but still follows her command, using the leech ability, stopping the undead king from healing as Hilda rushes in to attack it. As Hilda starts attacking again, she is able to push it back due to its lack of healing, easily killing it. Wasn''t that too easy? Most undead depend heavily on regenerating since their bodies aren''t usually the most durable. Nice. Hilda ignores the killing notification about leveling up to level 63 as she turns back to the doppelganger. So you''re gonna need to name it. Shila says, making the doppelganger turn in her direction, clearly upset. You''re upset at me calling you it? Y-y-ye-yea. Why is it stuttering so much, so don''t stare at me or I''m giving you a shit name. It''s not used to its body yet. Fine, what do we call it? How about an androgynous name? No, I''m never letting it¡­ her turn into a guy. Why? She''s already taken my appearance, so I refuse to let her turn into a guy. But it doesn''t matter, you know? Does to me. ¡­ You''re so difficult, then how about an easy name? Jasmine? ¡­ How did you come up with such a name? It sounds like jelly, and when she was a slime a couple seconds ago, she looked like jelly. ¡­ I hate you. Nice. So what about Jamine? That''s unique? How about it, what Jamine? Hilda asks, seeing her shake her head. Either that or you''re getting named Jelly. Hilda says, making her shake her head harder.ok than your Jamine from now on, also why don''t you wanna talk? H-Ha-Hard. Oh¡­ fine, you can just nod and shake your head then. As for skills¡­ you''re not getting any. Hilda says, making Jamine shake her head in protest. Fine, in the future, happy? Jamine nods in agreement as she turns into a smaller version of Hilda instead of an exact copy, looking similar to Shila as she climbs onto Hilda''s back. You serious? Fine, when we''re fighting you''re going back to the other form, and when we''re around others, you¡¯re gonna hide your appearance and gender, got it? Hilda gets a nod from Jamine, confirming that she heard it as she falls asleep. Shila¡­ isn''t there a way to fix her? No. Great. Shila teleports them out before climbing into Hilda''s back also. Are you jealous? Seriously? My trait is leech, it doesn''t mean only free things you know? Great, it''s like taking care of 2 children. Technically we are both no older than 10 if you consider how long we''ve been alive for. Great¡­ Chapter 20. Territory. Finally out of the dungeon, let''s go back to floor 2 and hunt again. No. Huh? You promised that we would rest. I lied. I''m not going. I''m not asking. Then go yourself. Oh, a misunderstanding, I mean I''m telling you to follow not asking you to. Well, fuck you. Wow. ¡ª- you stupid ¡ª-- you good for nothing piece of ¡ª- no mother having ¡ª---- go ¡ª---- die off. ¡­ Fine I''ll give you two a break, only because I prefer floor 1 over floor 2 by a lot. Hey Jamine are you able to eat? Hilda asks, making her reply with a nod. Nice. Hilda takes out the food box and gives it to them as she opens her tent up and goes inside. Hey guys, I''m going to take a nap now, wake me up when you''re done. Sure. Shila replies as Jamine nods. As Hilda enters the tent, Shila quickly whispers to Jamine. Hey, even after we are done eating, don''t wake her up, or we''ll be forced to work nonstop, helping her to hunt harder than working 12 hour shifts Shila says it with an oddly serious look, making Jamine quickly consider if she would rather lie to her mother figure or rest. Seeing Jamine¡¯s hesitation, Shila quickly opens the food box and materializes food out, feeding Jamine, trying to change her mind. Taste that, like it? As Jamine nods her head, Shila smirks slightly, knowing she has a chance to convince her. If you wake her up then we can''t eat any more if this, ok? Hearing this, all of Jamine¡¯s hesitation disappears as she starts nodding as Shila feeds her more food. For the next half an hour, they both keep eating much more food than it looks like their small appearance can hold. That was nice. Shila says making Jamine nods in agreement. W-wake? Not yet, also you gotta get used to talking eventually you know? Jamine shakes her head.Stolen novel; please report. Fine whatever, I''m gonna go sleep now, wanna follow, don''t wanna follow, your choice. As Shila enters the tent quietly with Jamine following behind, they both go to sleep on Hilda who''s been sleeping this whole time due to not sleeping for long even if Shila''s leech could reduce fatigue(endurance). Later as they both wake up to the much brighter afternoon sun and the sound of the notification, they see Hilda sitting cross legged staring at them as they start apologizing, with Shila starting first and kneeling despite being completely insincere. Why didn''t you two wake me up? Because you''re a workaholic. What? There''s no word to describe someone like you who hunts nonstop, so workaholics the best word I know. Shila says, making Hilda sigh and walk over to Jamine. M-mom? Oh, you''re really calling me mom huh? Fine I guess. Hilda picks Jamine up in her hands as they start walking out leaving Shila behind as she chases after, putting the tent and food box back into Hilda''s inventory. Hey. Shila says following behind upset. Yea? Carry me too. Why should I? Because you''re carrying her. She''s cuter than you. We look nearly identical, also I''m cuter because I''m your system so I know what your preferences are. So what? I still prefer her. Why? She''s quiet. Just carry me or I''m not showing you the notification that just appeared! I can check it myself, you know? Yea but I can summarise it up for you, and I swear I''ll summarise anything related to the notification. Fine. Hilda picks Shila up too before going to a nearby lake with them both in her hands and looking at her reflection. I look like a single mother with two daughters. I don''t care. Just show me the notification. Fine. Notification. Minimum level of players has reached 30, new function unlocked. Huh? Show me, also I didn''t even need you to summarise this, what''s there to even summarise? Yea cus I lied. Annoying. Shila shows her status with a new function at the bottom called territory. As she clicks it, all three of them get sent to a broken ruined village. What the hell is this? It''s your territory. I don''t need it, send me back. Hey wait a moment, it has benefits, you know? Such as what? Attacking how people with your territory and yourself can get territorial points to help your territory, and upgrading your territory and increasing your stats. By how much? It''s percentage based, also it can double your stats, but of course that''ll take years to reach. Great. They can also earn points by selling things. Shop Or territorial points? Both. Fine. As Hilda walks into the ruins with the two following behind, she enters what seems to be the main building being the biggest and least damaged ones where she sees villagers who immediately turn to look at her. Who are you guys? We are inhabitants of a different world whose world got destroyed by the monsters and the guide let us live here, saying someone may come to help us eventually. One of the villagers says. This feels wrong¡­ but anyways, how do I even help? Go to the center of the building and there should be a mini map there where you can move buildings, upgrade them and repair them like in a game. Great¡­ What do you guys need the most right now? Food and water. A different villager says. Oh ok. Hilda takes out the food box making Shila look a bit annoyed as she brings out food and uses her own shop points to buy some water for the villagers as they eagerly rush to eat the food. What next? I guess shelter? A villager speaks up. Oh, makes sense. Hilda goes to the mini map trying it out, seeing all types of building options she can buy such as barracks,training grounds, farms but she uses half her points on repairing a couple of builds, more than enough for the measly amount of villagers. How many of you are there? 10. Another villager answers, this one being the first female villager to speak up. Can you guys access the system? No. Right, I gave you guys food, water and shelter, anything else you need? Probably a way to defend ourselves. You guys can fight right? We don''t know how to. The same female villager replies. It doesn''t have to be skilled. Then yes. Ok. Hilda goes to the shop and buys 10 decent but cheap swords for the villagers. How to increase the population? Because I doubt you guys can¡­ reproduce fast enough. Beating other users or buying them in the shop. Lela answers. Nice. But you can only buy them in groups of 10. Not so nice. Hilda buys another 10 swords, and water along with leaving enough food as she buys 10 more people. Have fun, I''ll be back later, don''t die. Hilda teleports away back to floor one as she leaves the confused villagers behind. This feels illegal, you know? The guide isn''t very ethical. Jamine with a confused look on her face just nods in agreement despite having no clue what''s going on. Right¡­ So how am I supposed to develop that place? Well you could¡­ Oh I know, Shila you''re in charge now, if you do good I''ll give you points. Hilda interrupts. ... Chapter 21. Territorial fights. Alright¡­ I''ve left Shila to go take care of the village in my place, my level goes up too slowly, Jamine here still can''t speak¡­ I''m bored¡­ wait a moment. Hilda teleports back into the village with Jamine to see Shila glaring in her direction as she walks up to her. Hey Shila. No, I''m not answering your questions. What else could it be? Hunting? Don''t lie, I can read your mind. Fine, attacking other players works right? Yes. How does it work? There''s two modes. Huh? UvU and VvV. What? User versus user and villager versus villager. Oh, if I die do I get revived? Yea, but half your territorial points gets sent to the other user still and you lose half your stats for a day. If the villagers die, do they come back? No. Oh, gather them all here including that woman from before, what was her name? Anna. Sure, get them all here. As Hilda goes off to call everybody here, Shila looks at Jamie''s status to find out that she can''t actually buy skills for her. Oh, that''s a shame. Hilda watches as Jamine tilts her head curiously, clearly not aware that Hilda can''t help her buy skills. Hey Jamine. Y-yes? I can''t buy skills for you, listen, it''s not that I don''t want to, but I can''t, let''s ask Shila later okay? Hearing this, Jamine nods and quickly runs to Shila, tackling her down as she finishes gathering the villagers. Hey everybody, this is what''s gonna happen. Hilda starts off ignoring Shila''s call for help as she sees Jamine beating her in the corner of her eyes. Everybody, you''re gonna fight all the other users. As Hilda says this, she immediately hears a bunch of protests. Calm down, since you guys are basically my future source of points. I''ll invest everything I got in you guys, first I''ll summon another couple more of you guys as I go talk to my¡­ friends there while you describe the situation to them. Hilda summons another 40 villagers through the shop and goes over to Shila and Jamine. Jamine, stop beating her, Shila why can''t she earn skills. Why should I answer you? Because she''ll continue to beat you if you don''t. Shila looks back at Jamine who is more than willingly to do so if not for Hilda. Fine, it''s because she''s a doppelganger, so she. Can only gain skills through leveling up. What skills can she get? No clue, but it''ll probably be passive skills mostly with one or two active skills.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Oh, how nice? When is she going to get her first one? Probably level 35. So I need another 8 levels? Yea. Great¡­ Hilda goes back to the villagers who seem to have been filled in by Anna. Hello everybody, don''t worry about the fighting, I''ll consider you guys an investment and give you guys weapons that can easily beat your opponents, you guys are fine with killing right? In our old world, killing and dying was normal, so yea. Anna replies. Ok, Anna from now on, you are going to be the manager of this villager when me and Shila aren''t here. Sure, but why? Consider it based on a whim, ok, who here is a good shot? Hilda watches as a guy raises his hand and walks to the front. What''s your name? Jacob. Ok, come here. Hilda goes to her shop and goes to find ranged weapons under 1000 points. As expected, guns exist here. Hilda buys a sniper from the shop and passes it to Jacob. It can''t hurt users or monsters above level 30, but under, should kill in a couple hits. Everybody else, you get crossbows. Hilda goes to the shop, buying 59 crossbows for 100 points each, aligned with spending a total of another 200 points on bullets and arrows. Guys, equip yourselves and let''s start the point farming. Hilda starts smiling maliciously, thinking of all the points she could get along with all the shop points her territory will bring in the future. Shila let''s start now, can the opponents decline if they want? Yea, but once they get attacked and lose three times in total, they can decline the next 9, and you can only attack the same person once a day, for each the user and villager fight. Oh nice, let''s start based on the leaderboard. So white? White? No no, not at all, blue. Black(level 62) Aiden(level 61 ) Red(level 60) Aileen(level 60) Purple (level 59) Leah(level 43) Yellow(level 39) Green(level 36) John(level 33) Blue(level 32) So you''re bullying the weak? No, I just hate that guy. Same, so after blue I assume Aiden? No, John, whoever that is. Why? Because bullying those weaker than me is fun. Of course it is¡­ Shila starts initiating a fight with blue, and as the battle starts she sees blue information of her with Shila and Jamine in the village fighting while she herself is outside. What? They can fight? Oh this is going to be so free. Shila ignores blue as he starts cussing at her again as her team completely destroys all of blues villagers and she initiates a fight with blue, taking her time to kill in due to how irritating he is. That was so easy. Yea, probably will remain so until the top three. I Doubt it. A few minutes later, Shila wins against everyone up to red as she starts a villager battle with red, with some of the villagers incurring damage on her side, but red surrendering before the damage to either one of them was too great. As Hilda starts a user battle and sees red''s pets, red surrenders immediately looking oddly terrified of her. Why was she so scared? Didn''t you torture her in the event to force her to tag other people? I guess¡­ but still she looked like she had trauma, also you guys can''t fight in the User fight right? Yea, it''s users only that''s why we are in the villagers team. Oh. Hilda contemplates for a moment before starting a fight with Aiden, the fight she''s most excited and nervous about. As she starts the fight, Aiden appears beside her, watching the fight from above. So black, your leveling speed is higher than mine and I thought that mine was pretty fast you know? As Aiden keeps talking, Hilda half heartedly listens in, as Aiden suddenly surrenders before their villagers start fighting. Why did you do that? Look at your villagers, you basically fed them your points, I believe this is called pay 2 win. I don''t care, winning is winning. Am I right to assume you''ll try fighting me? Yep. As Hilda gets sent back to her village where she meets Shila and Jamine, she goes straight to Shila. Hey, why couldn''t I check his status just now? Simply people with a system level higher than 2 is not possible, usually upgrading your system would take a lot more work than what you did to upgrade me. What a pain, screw it at least my stats and level are safe from him. As Hilda tries to initiate a fight with him, she gets sent without even pressing it, ending up in the same arena she''s seen 8 times already. You''re impatient, you know that? So what? It''s your fault for taking your own time. Hilda immediately starts off the fight by sending some weak attacks of sword qi to test his strength only to be met with sword qi of the same strength. I''m not gonna be beaten that easily you know? Of Course not. Hilda starts running at Aiden, trying to attack him with a normal attack without mana as he turns water but reforms in a puddle of water far away. Can you transport yourself through water? Indeed, so have fun attacking me. Aiden starts attacking Hilda with high pressure water, much stronger than before as he goes from puddle to puddle, creating more from accumulating the water vapour in the air and his streams of water as Hilda starts getting annoyed due to his constant running. Oi! Are you just going to keep this up?! Of course. He says, sending another shot of water at her. Screw it, this guy even has 20 percent more mana from his achievement, he¡¯s not gonna run out anytime soon. Screw it, system, buff my mana using my sis con trait. Affirmative. Hilda watches as her mana goes from 63 to 70 as she takes her sword and goes to the side, before swinging her sword infused with sword qi and mana in this, sending a huge wave of it throughout the whole arena, dealing more damage due to the conversion magic Hilda sends another wave after seeing that he got injured but doesn''t die as he sends one too, but with her ability being slightly stronger injuring then again. Hilda watches as he starts to prepare what looks like a much stronger attack at her as she prepares a attack infused with most of her mana and sword qi, sending as this into a stream of his water, causing it to split in two as her sword qi and his hits her, causing both of them to be in pain as Aiden decides to just surrender. What? Why? Because all I have Is water magic And I can''t counter your stronger sword qi. Oh nice then, free win then. Chapter 22. Boss preparation. The next two days, as Hilda keeps fighting everyone again due to apparently gaining an extra 1000 for every win on top of just half their points so everybody just surrenders when she initiates a fight, except for blue who cusses at her then loses in a second due to Hilda''s sword qi. As Hilda keeps accumulating points, she repairs sufficient houses to accumulate up to 100 people despite only having 60 and buys another 20 people adding up to 80. She also bought some gold mines, which she also learns that they refill themselves at the end of the month and can be upgraded by merging mines together, but doesn''t do so since the mine is big enough. With the gold being able to be sold back to the system through Shila which can be converted into territorial or shop points. A couple weeks later. Hey Shila, how''s the village coming along? It''s decent, but you''re sure you want me to focus completely on earning points instead of increased stats? Yea, and if not for the guide who made it so I can only initiate a fight in the territory 10 times a month, I would have so many more points right now¡­ It''s still 10,000 territorial points per month. Yea, I guess so, but it''s still a shame. Indeed, this is so boring at the village, but luckily I don''t have to join you in hunting. Shila looks over at Jamine who looks sleep deprived from the constant hunting despite being able to perfectly control her appearance. Jamine, I warned you already, your mother is a cruel woman. Shila reminds as Jamine nods her head. Hey Jamine, come on, I was able to finally reach level 70 due to targeting the stronger monsters and you even got your passive skill right? Which lets you expand yourself however much you like and it makes you acidic so you can just cover them in¡­ well, you and dissolve them. Anyways, come here Hilda. Why? I don''t like standing up while talking. Sure then. As the three of them sit down, with Jamine sitting down in the middle of the two, not wanting to talk to either of them. Listen up, floor 3 to 9 are special okay? How? All xp accumulated in them is reserved until after you reach floor 10. Huh? The bosses on each level are the same level as the boss on this level, with each level having their own speciality. Like what? Floor 3 has spirits. Huh? Isn''t that the same as this floor? No, like the spirit you saw on floor 1, they are all unable to take physical damage, but enough mental magic can cause them to disperse, basically dying, so killing them should be no problem. But I killed one on floor one? It was a lesser spirit and if you must, you can just use conversion magic to convert the spirit to physical, but it''ll only last a second and will obviously come with recoils.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Floor 4 has elementals, mental magic is not an element so they have no counter for you, while you can just use brute strength. Floor 5 is fully focused on poisonous monsters. Floor 6 is focused on ranged monsters, so sword qi will be useful, and so will your spatial magic. Floor 7 is focused on tanky monsters, so it''ll take longer but is a lot less dangerous. Floor 8 is based on invisible monsters, so you should get a counter for that. Floor 9 is the problem, it''s basically every non-elemental type monster, which includes your mental magic. What a joy, but does skill level still increase? Yea. Okay that works, I guess, what about boss awards? Yea. Ok, I can live with that, what level is the boss on this floor though? 75. So it''ll be as strong as a level 150. Yea, but it won''t be ridiculous like floor ones boss, floor ones boss was much stronger than a level 125 due to having 2 percent of ancient giant in its bloodline. Yea, what''s that bloodline thing? Its ancestor was an ancient giant, Meaning a very strong giant that''s lived for a very long amount of time. Oh, that was a lot simpler than expected, but I killed a wyvern with 2 percent true dragon in its bloodline. Oh, that one was basically a newborn, which is the only reason you were able to kill it. So I basically killed a newborn, but also got badly injured by one? Yea. Anyways, I found more dungeons on floor one so I''m gonna go do those instead. Alone? I''m more than strong enough to do so you know? As for you Jamine, you will keep staying on floor 2 with Shila by yourself and hunting while I deal with all the dungeons on floor 1 cus apparently each dungeon only works once for each person, which isn''t fair. It is very fair. Just go already. Fine. As another two months passes, Hilda officially reaches level 100 due to getting xp from three sources, with Aiden at level 90, giving Jamine the ability to regenerate much faster due to being half of Hilda''s level and therefore level 50. Hey, could we kill the boss yet? Hilda asks Shila through the system. I guess we could, with me and Jamie''s ability, we could wear the boss down until it''s weak enough and you can use a strong enough attack. Sure, teleport to me. Ok, now Shila, evolve your skills and tear the tip coupon. You''re so lazy. Shila complains but still complies in the end. As Shila tears the coupon, they get teleported back to the guide as Hilda starts sniffing the surroundings again but doesn''t react, indicating that the guide didn''t go back to her sister. Hi, I''m busy, so let''s get to the point. The magic you will need for your idea is going to be regeneration and tough skin, both are passive skills. The guide disappears immediately without leaving Hilda a chance to ask questions. The guide reappears again for a moment. Oh yea Hilda, the tower is made hoe just to increase the strength, but skills, like a person''s actual fighting skills, not the ones in the system, so some floors may provide experience despite not having killed any monsters and only lifeforms. As the guide says that, he disappears again, sending them back in awkward silence. What just happened? How should I know? You¡¯re his favourite, not me. Screw it, just help me buy the skills he said along with some more suited for running or avoiding opponents. Ok done Regeneration(rare) Increases natural and external sources of regeneration (Cost:1000) Tough skin(rare) Makes the user''s skin tougher, making it harder to bleed along with reducing the strength of blunt attacks. (Cost:1000) Sixth sense(epic) Can sense danger or anything the user may be looking for. (Cost:2000) Well, what kind of a boss is it? A magician type. What? I''m not sure, I don''t have the specifics, I''m gonna go into the territory with Jamine now, have fun and call us once you reach! With that, Shila disappears with Jamine, leaving Hilda alone as she wanders off in a random direction to go to the side to head to the boss, taking only a day to reach. As she reaches, she calls Shila and Jamine out. Wow, that was quick, let''s go in now. Wait, I''m gonna go take a nap first, you two are gonna stand guard. Sure. Hilda opens her tent and goes to sleep, waking up in a couple hours with monsters trying to get into the tent while Jamine and Shila sleep peacefully beside her. I guess they do look cute, but somehow always refuse to listen to me properly. As Hilda goes out and easily kills the monsters, she goes back in and sees Shila and Jamine with a camera in their hands, repeating that she admitted that she thought they were cute. See, she doesn''t hate us, albeit cruel but she still loves us cause we''re cute. Shila says still not noticing Hilda back with making Jamine nods. Hey, you two, what are you guys doing? Nothing? Shila tries hiding it back in Hilda''s inventory, something she does when she takes too much food out of the food box. Hilda lies down between the two who just stare at her. I admit you two are cute ¡°LOOKING¡±, but where did you get that camera from? Don''t be a cheapskate, it was only 200 points and I''ve done enough work at the village for you already. Next time ask, or you''re getting beaten. Fine.you too Jamine. Y-yes. Right, shall we go now? Sure. Y-yea. Let''s go then. Chapter 23. Lich. As Hilda puts her hand in the invisible wall at the edge of the second floor as she reads the description. Dungeon (Undead magician) Recommended party size 1. Max players at a time 1. Recommended average minimum level 110. Enter? Undead magician? I didn''t know there was such a monster. There isn''t, it''s probably just the guide changing the name so you can''t prepare for it too thoroughly before entering. Eh, I guess that''s fair. Well, time to enter? Yep. Are you ready Jamine? Y-yes Alright, let''s go. So Hilda enters the dungeon, she notices that she starts off in a graveyard, similar to some parts of the second floor, but with the graves being a lot more in numbers and in an arranged pattern, luckily being not too many to be able to affect her running speed. As she continues looking around, she notices a pathway through the graves, leading to an open area, surrounded by graves. This seems dangerous. Yea, so you should be careful. Sure. Hilda starts running towards the center which is about a kilometer away, but reaches in less than a minute. So where''s the boss? That''s called being careful? As Hilda looks around, she suddenly feels an inexplicable sense of danger causing Shila to feel it too due to being able to read her mind and being connected, causing her to be able to partly feels some of Hilda''s emotions unless Hilda prevents it, which she didn''t, due to Shila not telling her about it. Hilda dodge! Dodge what? I don''t see anything. Despite not seeing any danger, she feels herself panicking due to the sense of danger that she feels. It''s the sixth sense skill, just run until the feeling is gone! Huh? What do you¡­ Hilda decides to stop asking as she runs back onto the path as the sense of danger goes away before coming back, causing her to keep running as she suddenly sees a beam get shot down from somewhere where she can''t see due to the somewhat thick fog, with the beam being strong enough to kill her. What was that?! That was a rare instant kill magic. What? Instant kill magic exists? Well, it may not have killed you due to your survivor achievement but would have left you nearly dead for sure. Screw it, can it use that skill again? Probably not, instant kill skills have long preparation time along with a long cool down. Nice, but how do I get up there? Well, it''ll probably come down because it probably guessed that you have a sixth sense skill of something''s that helps you avoid attacks from somewhere you can''t see.a As Hilda keeps looking up with her sword in her hand, she sees a figure slowly getting clearer as it finally leaves the fog, wearing a dark robe around it''s skeletal figure adorned with many small gems with slightly bigger ones, one at each of its arms and one big one at its chest with the edges layered with a thin layer of gold trim. Wow, this thing''s robe looks valuable as hell. Hilda thinks while considering if she could give this to the villagers to sell as she identified the monster. Race:Skeleton Bloodline:Archmage(100 percent) Level 100 Stats. (250 S) (150 E) (60 A) (434 M) Warning, due to being a boss, stats have been increased two fold. Hey Shila¡­ that is not a skeleton.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Yea, because that''s a lich, but it''s still a Skeleton so the system considers it''s race as Skeleton, and it was an Archmage before dying and turning into a Skeleton. What a joy, let''s fight. Hilda steps closer to the boss as she starts rushing at it. Notification. Achievement in use. First to kill an abomination(epic) Nice. Hilda closes her notifications with a mental click as she pours a decent amount of mana into her first attack, slicing its body in half as she surprises herself, not expecting to kill it in a hit as it''s body goes back to normal immediately, surprising her again as she lands back onto the ground. What just happened? The only way to kill a lich is if you delete it''s mana completely, and by the way, it''s mana regeneration is massive, the second way is to destroy it''s soul core, which contains it''s soul and is the reason it''s alive. What does it look like? A red orb which it can move around, but must remain in its body. As Hilda turns to look at it, expecting its robe to be cut in half, she notices that its robe had somehow fixed itself, hiding its soul core again. how it fixed its own clothes? Hilda thinks for a moment, not getting the answer while having her thoughts interrupted by another feeling of danger as she looks back at the Lich and dodges as it shoots a shot of dark magic at it. How annoying. Hilda decides that she''ll just find it out later as she never heard of magic that can fix clothes, and would love to get it as she current clothes keep getting damaged, with her spending points at the shop to get it repaired, something she first learnt when fighting the slimes on floor 1 due to them being severely acidic and dissolving some of her clothes while leaving her with some weak burn marks. Hilda jumps back up, attempting to attack it as a shield appears In front of it, causing Hilda to give up immediately back up while dodging its attacks just from behind the shield. Annoying guy. Shila, and Jamine, can you guys leech it from here? Yea, but it won''t be easy fast. It''s okay, I''m gonna buy something from the shop. Hilda goes to the shop and buys low level shield magic(level 1) and blocks the lich''s attacks, using more than half just to keep creating shields, barely keeping up as the leech keeps replenishing her mana but not fast enough. Hilda, you''re gonna run out of mana eventually. No I''m not, the skills already level 5 due to continuously taking such strong attacks despite being low level. As they keep leeching while Hilda''s shield skill increases, Shila debuffs it, making it shoot slower letting Hildas mana regeneration due to the leeching be able to keep up with the consumption as Hilda sees it stop attacking. Oh, done already? Hilda says with a smug tone and look while putting one hand into her pocket using the other to form her shields as she withdraws her sword back into her soul. As Shila and Jamine keep leaching it''s mana off only due to it having no health, a trait unique to only a few monsters, she notices it casting a new spell as she takes her hand out of her pocket to cast more shields, preparing to block any attack that comes, only for the lich to stop casting without shooting anything. Huh? Did it run out of mana or something? No way it did, the lich''s mana regeneration is crazy, I already told you. Shila hears some groaning sounds and turns to Shila and Jamine''s by her sides to find that they are find, but also find undead crawling up from the graves like some zombie apocalypse movie as she contemplates to kill the zombies or to keep shielding as the lich starts attacking again, seeming satisfied with its self despite having no facial features due to having a skull only for its head. Annoying thing. Guys, leech off the zombies around us, you should be able to easily kill them, I''ll keep shielding. Hilda keeps shielding them as the zombies around them keep turning to dust instead of just disappearing, probably due to something the guide probably did. Wow, using leech to kill undead can turn them into dust? Yea, you didn''t know? Also, is this really the time to be talking about this? Guess not. Hilda keeps shielding, noticing her mana decreasing due to undead only having health, though not a lot and then having to convert it into mana, with converting health and mana causing the total amount to decrease. I''m gonna run out of mana, can you guys dodge its attacks? Yep I can due to my field magic being able to slow down any attacks. You Jamine? Y-yes. Nice. Hilda starts counting down as she removes her shield, causing them all to disperse in different directions, surprising the lich for a second before targeting Hilda who''s the strongest. Well, better me than them I guess. Hilda dodges as she intently watches her mana increase quickly as Jamine and Shila keeps absorbing more undead as she attacks the Lich again, finding it''s soul soul and attacking it, causing it to crack before it teleports back with a road of pain, surprising Hilda as the undead she''s met so far aren''t able to make such a clear and loud sound even if it''s just a screech, that and the fact that she didn''t think a skeleton could screech due to being, y''know skeletons. As the Lich starts attacking gains, she notices some of the undead dropping dead and disappearing, indicating that they died without Shila or Jamine using leech on them. Hm, so if I can attack its core I can somehow kill the undead? Hilda tries attacking it again, only for it to teleport away, focusing its attention on Shila and Jamine, only for them to survive easily, with Shila entering the system and Jamine relying on her regeneration that''s stronger than an abomination by a lot, tanking most hits with her hands. Seeing this, the Lich focuses all her skeletons on Hilda while also attacking her, focusing on her completely. As the lich starts getting more desperate, it stops summoning more zombies and prepares an instant kill spell again. Hilda, you can''t dodge this, so you either need a strong enough shield or a stronger attack. Oh, then come next to me and start leeching it again. Hilda watches as her mana starts increasing even faster, allowing her to create around a dozen shields at once as the Lich shoots the instant death skill, breaking through every shield, and changing it''s direction to hit Hilda as she tries to dodge. Warning: user has taken lethal damage. Notification, Achievement in use. Survivor(legendary) Hilda slowly gets up from the ground, having fallen down due to her temporary death, shocking and confusing the lich as it panics further from Lela and Jamine''s leech. That was close, didn''t expect it to pierce all of my shields, Shila, do you think It can use such an attack again? No way, instant death skills take a bunch of ma¨C Shila gets interrupted as she sees the Lich preparing another instant death skill. How?! It shouldn''t be able to¡­ As Shila gets confused, she notices the Lich''s soul orb crack a little further. Oh, it''s risking its life, so this is really the final attack, block this and we''ll win for sure. Fine, I just have to try. Hilda uses her trait for more mana, straining it slightly as she creates more shields, with her current skill being at level 7 and using the rest of her mana. She watches as the Lich finally shoots the skill, as it pierces through all her Shields as she quickly pulls her sword out from her soul, not expecting it to work as the skill suddenly disperses upon making contact with her sword as Lela and Jamine finally kill it. What just happened? Oh, I think I know, your sword is not called soul cutter for fun, and instant kill abilities affect the soul partially, and your sword can eventually cut a soul but for now, it should be able to cut through attacks to the soul. It was only because the lich is pretty weak compared to other beings who can use soul attacks, with the skill it used being unstable due to having to risk its own life to use it. Nice, so where are my awards? Oh yea, let me show you your notification. Level up. All stats +1 Trait has been improved slightly. Achievement unlocked. Kill floor 2s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 3. Alright, I''m level 101 now, though it''s a shame I only got one level. But anyways, floor 3-9 should help compensate easily. Chapter 24. Floor 10. ¡ª---------------------------------------- Couple months later. ¡ª---------------------------------------- Well, I''ve been stuck on floor 9 for quite a while already. Floor 3, the spirits, non undead which were ridiculously easy except for the mental spirits who were slightly more annoying, orange will probably suffer due to a lack of physical strength. Floor 4, the elementals was also pretty easy with floor 5, the poisonous monsters being financially painful due to needing antidotes. Floor 6, being the ranged monsters, was pretty dangerous since most were one hit but they were also a lot harder to avoid and their damage was also a lot more. Floor 7s boss was so easy to avoid, but took a while 2 days of pure attacking and since it was tanky, Shila and Jamine couldn''t do much either. Floor 8, with the invisible monsters all I had to do was wait for the feeling and swing my sword in that direction since their endurance was ridiculously low. And finally floor 9, the one I''m stuck on where all monsters have some non-elemental skill which also includes mental attacks, so the amount of conversion I can do is a lot less, they can also use mental attack, which reduces my stamina, making it harder to use more of mental magic. I assume everybody is stuck on their own individual level, this is so boring!!!!!! I even used my discount coupon on 20,000 points on conversion magic to evolve it, so now it can convert more for less, and can convert physical matter too, but it takes a ridiculous amount of mana. Anyways, Shila. What? What am I supposed to do? I''ve run out of points and can''t level due to level 3-9s restriction! It''s to improve your skills which is why me and Jamine can''t help either, so figure it out yourself. You do realize that I am untalented in fighting? Hey Hilda, have you ever heard of this? What you lack in talent, you make up for in hardwork. You''re just saying that due to liking seeing me suffer as revenge for forcing you to grind. See Hilda, you know me so well. Shila teleports back to the territory, a place she spends most of her time with Jamine ever since Hilda started floor 3 and can''t go back to floor 2 ever since, at least until she reaches floor 10. I hate this. Hilda goes back to the sixth floor as she starts training there due to the fact that making a mistake would be very dangerous. After fighting for another week, Hilda eventually gets used to the monsters there and moves to the poisonous monsters due to poison being ridiculously hard to avoid too and stays there for another week before repeating this for every other floor except floor 7, which are just tanky monsters. As Hilda eventually returns to the floor 9s boss, unstable concoction, in a rush due to not wanting to be surpassed. As she enters, she doesn''t attack yet and just stares at it, using her trait immediately to boost her mana and strength as much s possible as it starts attacking her with all kinds of magic, including creation magic, trying to create things in her body to kill her as she avoids due to social magic and sensing any changes in the space around her before the changes occur. As she keeps avoiding , she prepares all the sword qi and mental damage she can while she tries to avoid it''s attack, getting a couple pieces stuck into her, but not too deep in, so she can remove them later as she rushes it and slashes it, not killing it despite the massive damage. Ok, the training with the floor 6 monster helped since this boss attack strategy is the same, though it''s more of hard to avoid than hard to predict which is a pain since my sixth sense skill wouldn''t really help as much. Hilda keeps avoiding before slashing it with another hit filled with mana and sword qi, causing it to get further injured, slowing down its attacks making it easier to avoid. As Hilda keeps avoiding and finding opportunities to attack, opportunities that of which are getting more common due to its attacks slowing down as Hilda swings one last time killing it.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. What a sincere pain, luckily unlike floor 2, I was given 3 tries of which level, absolute pain in the ass. Hilda gets sent back to floor 9 as Jamine and Shila appear slightly mid-air in a lying down position, falling down as they do so. Huh? You''re already done with floor 9? Yea, I''m the best aren''t I? No you''re not. Jamine, support me here. Jamine considers how to support Hilda as she just gives a thumbs out with a couple of words. Mom b-best. See Shila, I''m the best. Boot licker. Shila looks over at Jamine who''s avoiding her gaze. Anyways, you two looked really relaxed lying down weren''t you? Yea, we deserved a break. Just for that, once we reach floor 10, we are going hunting nonstop. Nope. You can''t do anything about it. Floor 10 isn''t just fighting, it''s like a big city filled with things to do along with other lifeforms. Such as what? Dwarves, elves, some monsters, but too little to hunt for enough xp, lizard man, and another species which looks like humans, they are the same species as the villagers in your village actually. Oh, the villagers in the territory aren''t humans? Obviously not, didn''t you hear that their planet got destroyed? Oh, I must have forgotten. Anyways, let''s go? I heard floor 10 has even tastier food! Don''t you have the food box? Yea but it can only summon food I''ve seen before, so let''s go, come on, hurry! No, waste of points. Come on, if you don''t, I won''t show you all your shop points and XP notifications!!! I can check them myself. Jamine, help me here, don''t you wanna eat more food too? Jamine glances back and forth and the both of them contemplating whether or not to use her mother''s money even while knowing her cheapskate personality or to spend a bit to eat even tastier food before she sits down and curls up, not being able to make a choice. Hilda sees this and sighs, giving in. Yay!!!!! Jamine, good job!! No, n-not inten-intentional. But, summarise the stuff for me and properly. Fine, I can''t change the system so I''ll just tell you. All your skills are minimally level 8, with the exception being conversion magic and level 5 and sword qi already at 32 currently, and you''ve leveled up 10 times. Ok, I guess that''s good enough, no other awards? Oh yea, you have 50,000 points so stop being a cheapskate. No more? No more, stop being greedy, these weren''t even as big of a challenge so stop being greedy and a cheapskate. Whatever, let''s just go. Sure. As Shila teleports them Hilda looks over at Jamine who just responds with a smile as Hilda signals with her eyes not to support Shila anymore in their arguments as she looks away awkwardly. As Shila teleports them, she finds herself into the middle of a city, most likely the one Shila mentioned as she looks around to see the town square, the place she''s at, completely empty but as she looks far into the distance, she hears people arguing, one with a rough voice and one with a smoother but angry voice as she goes to the source of her sound. As she approaches, she notices a woman with long ears along with a short guy, an elf and a dwarf as pointed out by Shila. As they see her, they don''t look surprised as they keep arguing even as Hilda goes close enough to them to listen in. Hey, girl! I told you we need the ores in your area, we''ll even pay. Too bad, those are under the forest if you''ll cause damage if you do that. Stop being so obsessed with that damn forest, it''s just a couple of trees. The problem is that we live directly above! If it was just the trees at the side it wouldn''t have been a problem! Hilda tries to walk away, not caring much for their argument due to it not being beneficial to her as the elf calls out to her. Hey you! Do you think he''s being reasonable? Hilda looks around for another person before gesturing to herself. Yes you, who else is here except for you, your pet and system! Girl, ignore this stupid elf, they''re at fault but won''t admit it so just leave us alone. Don''t you dare leave till you tell me who is in the wrong here! Look I''m not dealing with this, bye. Hilda teleports away immediately. Shila, what was that about? The dwarves only care about smithing, the elves only care about their homes, but most valuable ores are under where the elves live so they argue constantly. Do they have the system too? Yea, but they can''t use it to level up, only to check their stats and skill and skill levels. Could I just kill them? Best not to, they have ridiculously long lifespans compared to a normal human, so their levels are also probably double yours at least. Oh. They also seemed to be discussing matters, which while their species dislike one another, don''t ever talk about unless they are important people so those two were probably at least level 900 each. Scary, but doesn''t that mean they can kill the guide''s clones? Exactly, so stay away from them for your good, also the guides clones at the Yea, I''ll make sure to do so. Anyways, this place looks nice. Hilda looks around at city, noticing the houses with chimneys letting out smoke but the weather and air clearer than anything on earth could ever have along with all sorts of exotic plants and wildlife in the distance due to being able to see further, something her stats allow, letting her appreciate the extra natural colourfulness of nature on this floor along with all sorts of of different races in the distance, talking away happily despite their huge differences, something that she wouldn''t be able to see on earth, mostly due to earth only having human as the only species capable of using language to communicate properly. What a sight indeed. Shila says while sitting on the top of some bodies home with Shila and Jamine on either side of her. I agree, couldn''t you bring your sister here next time? Obviously I will, but why do you care? Because she''s a lot kinder than you. Stop reading my past memories. Fine. M-moms sister? A-aunt? Jamine tilts her head curiously due to not being able to read Hilda''s mind like Shila can. Oh yea forgot to tell you, I''m in this tower for my sister. Wanna meet her next time? Yes! Jamine shouts out excitedly. Jamine, I just realized your speech is getting better, have you been learning. Hilda, it was because she couldn''t properly form a larynx capable of speech. Then how did she eat or swallow? She''s acidic, the food just enters her mouth and gets dissolved as it enters her throat and she''s a doppelganger, allowing her to shape shift and change her body, letting her breath from the makeshift pores in her body. Nice I guess? Anyways, let''s explore? Food! Fine, fine, I haven''t forgotten. Chapter 25. Trial of smell. So Shila, since floor 10 has other people, does that mean from here on, I''ll see other people? No, floor 10 is different, it''s basically as big as earth is and those lifeforms can''t travel through floors. Why do you call them lifeforms? Seriously? Yes seriously. I used to call everything lifeform, I only called you user but that was before you upgraded me so now I just call it monsters because it''s simpler, also, I''m just used to calling other intelligent species lifeforms instead of monsters. Oh, anyways let''s go to floor 11? No no no, we need our food first and this floor has benefits. Benefits? Such as? I want the food first. Hilda sighs before agreeing. Couple minutes later, they sit in restaurant, with steak with honey over it, which tastes a lot better than it sound, while waiting for her to finish the food, she looks around as she notices even more species such as beast man who were just completely animals but human shaped instead, with siren of the speakers ones being half. She realises that she stared too long as some of the other beast men noticed her and glared back at her, causing her to look away immediately as Shila just smirks at this, causing Hilda to glare at her with Jamine eating in the background, being as quiet as she usually is. You two done eating? Yea. Jamine nods along with Shila. Ok, send me to floor 11, but what monsters are there? No monsters. Huh? Why? The tower is also made to improve your skills, so there will be doors without monsters but just to train you. Huh? Whatever, send me. Sure. Shila teleports all of them to floor 11 where Hilda receives a notification. Notification, Trial of smell, for this trial,you have to differentiate the normal apple which has no smell and a severely poisonous one which barely has any smell and consume the normal one. During the trial, you will lose all of your senses except for your sense of smell temporarily. Huh? That''s¡­ interesting? Hilda turns over to Shila and Jamine for help before everything goes dark and silent, indicating the loss of her sense meaning the start of the trial. Great¡­ Hilda goes over to where she remembers seeing a table and stubs her toe as she grips onto the table and starts feeling around. As she feels around, she notices that her sense of touch still works despite it being a sense as she feels two apples, both with the same texture as she brings both of them to her face.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Ok, I''ll just name these two the left and right apples. Hilda brings the apple she designated as the left apple to her nose as she smells it, and finds no smell before she does the same with the right apple, only to find it has no smell either. This is gonna be much harder than expected isn''t it? For the next hour, Hilda focuses on the right apple as she keeps smelling it, she concludes that the left apple is the poisonous one but smells the left one again just to make sure. As she smells the left one for hours also, she lies down on the floor, considering just giving up and eating both. Wait¡­ if I eat both, wouldn''t it work too? I mean, I might die but I could just use my trait no? Screw it, not worth the risk. Hilda keeps smelling it and eventually decides to put them down before slowly backing up until she walks into Shila who is keeping her at arms length literally by extending an arm to stop Hilda from moving back. Feeling Shila''s arm in her back, Hilda pulls her arm immediately and goes back to the table where she feeds the apple to Shila due to Shila not being able to actually die, only getting injured and knocked out of commission for a while. Wow, that was a simple solution wasn''t it? Hildas senses slowly return as she lets go of Shila''s arms and reads her notification. Notification. Level up x5. All stats +5 Trait has been improved slightly. 5 levels? I''ll take it, Shila, let''s go to the next level. As Hilda prepares to be sent to level 12, she reads a notification that a dagger has been bought for 100 points as she looks at Shila and barely dodges the dagger throw at her. What was that for! Hilda looks over again at Shila who is on the floor and hugging herself in pain while glaring at her. What are you doing? You fed me a poisoned apple and dislocated my shoulder!!! Shila buys another dagger and throws it at Shila and disappears back into the system. Oops¡­ okay, I admit that was my fault. Mother a-abuse? Hey, I''m not abusive, I''m just a bit rough? I forgot you guys have stats half of mine okay? Can you call her back out? I can''t really do so right now. No. Damn. As Hilda thinks of a way to get Shila back, she gets sent back to the white room with the guide. Hey Hilda, you weren''t supposed to solve the trial that way. I know, but I wasn''t gonna sit around and smell the damn apples for the next hour. Hilda, these trials in the tower are to help strengthen you all but you simply cheated through, for the next trial if you do so again, I''ll remove 5 levels from you. What the hell?! Then just make a fool proof trial! Hilda, I don''t feel like arguing with you and don''t you need to go find your system, what was her name again? Oh yea, Shila. That apple in the trial is supposed to kill so even if Shila can''t die, she''ll feel a lot of pain. Yea yea, just send me to wherever she is along with Jamine I''ll buy her a cure. There''s a cure in the shop, I made the poison personally to kill, but since Shila can''t die, it''ll go away in around 20 minutes. Just send me already you bastard! Sure. Hilda gets teleported and looks around at the oddly familiar sight for the inside of her home. Jamine, is this where you end up everytime you go back into the system? Y-yea. Ok, let''s go find Shila. Hilda and Jamine start looking through every room with the last room and the only locked room being Hilda''s old bedroom. As Hilda opens it eventually due to the lock being lousy, she sees Shila lying down hugging herself, ok the brink of tears as Hilda joins her on the bed beside. Shila, I''m sorry, okay? Shut up, you actually fed me the poison! Hilda brings Shila onto her lap hugging her while she starts to cry a bit because of the pain. After a while, Shila falls asleep while Hilda uses the system to manually teleport them back, something she hasn''t done in a while due to Shila teleporting them conveniently. As Hilda teleports them back to the tenth floor, she brings them to the closest inn she finds while blurring Jamine and Shila''s face with her not needing to do anything to herself due to the mask, not like she is able to blur herself anyways. Hilda reluctantly pays for the most expensive room they have as she puts Shila onto the bed with the poison mostly wearing off as Shila wakes up, glaring at Hilda. Fine fine, what do you want me to do to forgive you? Rest day. Rest? You mean a break? No, you bring us around the city to enjoy and buy us whatever we want! Fine, fine, but only under a thousand points. No! Anything we want! Fine fine, 3000 points. Anything we want!!! Fine, fine! But no more than half, I''m not going any higher. Fine, I''ll let you off with just half. Jamine come here and lie with me, Hilda you go away, I don''t want to see you till I''m completely not in pain anymore and go plan a day for us! Fine fine. Hilda steps out of the room, noticing curious people around looking in her direction, probably due to the noise caused by Shila''s shouting and shouting and the fact that Hilda went into a room alone with two children who look severely similar to her. What are you all looking at? Mind your own damn business. Hilda pulls out her sword, learning not too long ago that floor 10 also has quite a couple of weaklings too while checking their status, causing them all to immediately walk away quickly as she keeps her sword back into her soul. Chapter 26. Trial of hearing. Hey Shila, I know I said we could take a break, but could we just finish the trials first? There''s another 5. Yea, but the first one was so fast and it didn''t take long, I also promised I won''t make use of you unless you give permission someway okay? Also 5? Should it be 4? Fine, let''s go, but you better don''t try to push the break further than this, also idk what the 5th one is. Alright alright. By the way, Aiden, white is also on the 10th floor now. Really? Has he passed the trial of smell yet? No, he failed so the tower sent him back here. We can retry?! Isn''t the poison made to kill? Yea, but only 3 attempts, also the tower keeps your soul safe even if your body dies, but only in certain circumstances like the trials. Oh, what happens after the three? You die for real, also the poisonous apple changes spots every time or maybe it doesn''t, it''s completely random. Oh, ok, let''s go? Fine. Shila sends them along with Jamine to the 12th floor as she sees a notification. Notification. During this trial, arrows modified to be slightly louder will be shot at you, your job is to prevent yourself from direct physical contact with the arrow through your skin or flesh. During this trial, you will lose all your senses except your sense of hearing temporarily. Wow, this is gonna be annoying¡­ Shila could you tell me the directions the arrows are coming from? I could, but the guide would probably be angry. He still hasn''t fixed the loopholes? No, I think it''s because people without an upgraded system can''t really cheat and he''s busier than he looks. That guy, seriously? I know, surprise surprise. As Hilda sighs, and tries to insult the guide, she hears a really soft sound approaching her quickly as she instinctively avoids it, feeling a small breeze of air pass by along with what she suspects to be the arrow. Was that the arrow? Yea. Why didn''t my sixth sense skill activate? Because the guide did fix that, it''s in your notifications, you should have seen your skills at the start before your sight got removed instead of talking to me.Stolen novel; please report. Annoying. Hilda avoids again as she hears another arrow being shot, followed by another and another as she starts struggling a bit. Oh yea, you are actually estimated to be 5 levels higher before you start the trial, making it easier but since you beat floor 2 without being at the estimated level, it''s a bit harder, so you could probably use your trait, but not too much or guide may get a bit angry. Ok, Shila,help me buff my stat to make this¡­ normal difficulty for me? Sure. Notification. Trait ¡°sis con¡± is in use. Stats are being temporarily added. Ok nice. Hilda keeps dodging, feeling it being slightly easier but still decently difficult as she nearly gets hit by one but uses her sword to block it in time. That was a close one. Indeed, hey Hilda, did you know that grass is a type of green plant that is commonly found on the 10th floor along with ants which live in colonies just like earth? And also¨C Shila, shut up, stop trying to interrupt me, I''ll use you as a meat shield. If you do that, I''m expecting 2 days of a break. In your dreams, I''m not letting you eat up my points. Whatever. Hilda listens closely as she hears no more approaching objects and let''s her guards down before suddenly hearing a bunch from all around with some above too. Hilda, you lost this time. Nah, I refuse, I may not like to do this, but your my system and the other treats me like a mom Huh? So what? Hilda rolls up into a ball, pulling her shirt over her face and putting her arms into her shirt while tucking her legs into her shirt, surprising Shila, not at how stupid this idea is, but how her shirt hasn''t torn apart yet. Hilda, what the actual hell? You know there is a way to pass this trial without whatever the hell you''re doing right now? But this is the easiest method. Hilda, just listen closely! One of the arrows are louder than the others, the rest are fake! Yea, but this is still easier. Hilda, I''m not gonna get scared over by the guide because of you, get the hell out of your shirt and do this, here''s a tip, use your mana! Mana? Hilda contemplates for a moment as she anyhow tries pushing mana into her arm, making her dizzy and headache but with severely improved hearing as she easily distinguishes the real one and comes out of her shirt, cutting the arrow in half. Wow, I didn''t know I could do that, but that is way too dizzy, I feel like vomiting. That''s due to the fact that you aren''t used to it yet but used too much. Yep, I agree. W-will the guide a-angry? Jamine softly mutters out, still not able to talk completely normally or loudly. Does it matter? As long as he doesn''t mess with me, I don''t care, he can scold me all the hell he wants. Hilda, if he downgrades me, I''ll hate you for this. Is he allowed? Of course, he made the original system, so of course he can downgrade me What''s the original system? Nothing much, it''s basically just the system but a base copy, I''m basically a copy of it when I first became yours, basically when you first checked me. Oh. Well, if the guide appears, I''ll attack him. You won''t succeed easily.. at all actually. So what? It''ll feel nice to attack the bastard. ¡­ Sure, let''s just go to the next one, which is that? Taste. Taste? How does that help improve my skills? It doesn''t, it improves your willpower though. How? You''ll figure it out. Huh? Shila sends them all over to the next floor as she reads the notification. Notification. Trial of taste, all your senses will remain, consume all the food without fail. Hilda looks around the room, taking her own time due to being able to keep her sight this time as she looks around, finding herself in a luxurious but mostly empty dining room except for a couple decorations such as potted plants and windows with nothing outside but a blue sky and no ground, with the most noticeable thing being a circular wooden table in the center of the dining room with food on it, each being a different taste. As Hilda walks up to the table, she notices 5 transparent packets containing a weird white crystal looking solid In each of them. What''s this? Eat, duh. Sure? Hilda goes up to the first packet and pokes a finger in before licking it. As she licks it, she immediately feels an extremely sweet taste, almost sweet enough to make her try spitting it out as she forces herself to deal with it. Oh god¡­ I see the problem now, Shila can you buy me some water? Not allowed. ¡­ Hilda looks back at the pack she just opened before nervously looking at the other 4. Screw it, I''ll just eat it all in one go. No, don''t! Hilda ignores her and eats it, instantly vomitting out and getting sent back to floor 10 after vomiting, leaving her with the overly sweet taste in her mouth, and tears welling up in her eyes due to the taste. Hey Hilda. Just say it, I deserve it. I told you so. ¡­ How about we just start the break now? Sure. Chapter 27. Rest day. Hey Shila, before we go on the break, could you buy me a new mask? Why? This one has vomit on it now, and it''s disgusting. Hilda takes her mental mask off, throwing it away and stabbing it into half with her sword before putting her sword away again. Well, too late anyways. Shila passes Hilda another mask, completely similar as Hilda ignores the notification about using 100 points. All right, let''s go! But please no sweet things, I didn''t even know something too sweet could feel so bad¡­ Fine, but you''re the one who was supposed to plan today out. About that¡­ You lazy idiot! Fine fine, how about we look around first? Fine, Jamine let''s go, ignore her. Jamine hesitates as Hilda just gives her a small nod, allowing her to go as Shila gently pulls her along. Hey Shila. What? What does taste even have to do with skills? Mental attacks or poison can cause things like this, this trial is to help you get used to extreme tastes so you can handle it even if people use mental magic on you. But my mental magic is decent now combined with my trait, so won''t mental attacks be useless against me? Better be safe than sorry. Sure I guess, not like I have a choice. Hilda follows Shila who is has started ignoring her as she keeps looking at the restaurants, and buying some food from some of them, leaving Hilda to buy as she and Jamine eats it. M-mom, want some? Jamine asks, holding out a small piece of steak with sauce towards Hilda using a fork No, it''s okay, eat it yourself. Hilda watches as they both continue to eat,with Shila no longer angry and Jamine constantly trying to feed Hilda with her declining nonstop due to the trial ruining her appetite. Has they continue looking around they buy something from the side of a road shop called memory cube, which apparently lets you relive a day in your life bringing whatever and whoever you want with you. As Shila hears this, she snatched it from Hilda to stop her from simply going to see her sister since it''ll just be a fake one in her memory anyways. Hilda! Lemme use this on you! Sure? But which part of my memory? One in your childhood. I don''t know which you mean but sure. Shila tires using it as they all get transported into an amusement park with Hilda also being much younger but still with her stats and weapon.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Look at us three, we all look alike right now. Well except for me being blue and kind of see through. Why are we here? Hilda looks around and realises she can control this world, freezing the time in it as she walks away with Shila and Jamine who are unaffected due to not being part of her original memory as Hilda looks behind and sees her parents with their faces censored, most likely due to forgetting her parents faces and only their treatment of her and her sister. Hilda, let''s go already!! Wait, let''s see where Jamine wants first, we''ve got a day in here right? I guess so¡­ . Shila kicks a small pebble with her left arm behind her back, and grabs her right arm, waiting to hear what Jamine wants impatiently. So Jamine, what do you Wanna do? Jamine looks around excitedly and points to the Ferris wheel curiously. Sure sure, Shila, you don''t mind right? I guess not¡­ Great, let''s go. As they walk around the frozen memory, Hilda unfreezes the ferrus wheel, and gets into an empty seat with Shila and Jamine as the Ferris wheel brings them to the peak as she freezes it again, letting Shila and Jamine look all around the Amusement park with all of its shops and games like food vendors, or even those scam games where it''d basically impossible to win. So Shila, Jamine, which ones do you want to play? All! Y-yea, same as h-her. Sure then, let''s go play it all. As Hilda resumes the wheel again, they get off once they reach the bottom as Hilda brings them from game to game, unfreezing the games and playing them while taking prizes despite knowing they can''t keep it afterwards. While playing, they take all kinds of food from the vendors such as cotton candy, satay sticks and even a decent piece of pork and chicken some vendor was selling. Hey, why did you take that? We could have just used the food box and since we are in my memory, it won''t fill you up either you know? Of course I know Hilda, but isn''t it more enjoyable like this? I suppose so. Right Jamine? Yea. Hilda keeps bringing them around as they run around, acting more like children than in the tower, probably due to the lack of anything to fight here. Oh Shila, I just remembered, wasn''t this the amusement park I was in before a new year? Yea. So there''ll be fireworks. Oh yea! Let''s go find and unfreeze them. Sure. Hilda, Shila and Jamine all go their separate directions, in an attempt to find the fireworks. They all gather back after failing to find the fireworks as Shila and Jamine looks disappointed with Hilda just sighing as they all go back onto the Ferris wheel. Hilda, do you really not remember? Yea, this was from years ago, no way I would remember. M-mom buy? You want me to buy fireworks? Yea. Fine, but only for this time. Shila and Jamine both celebrate as Hilda mourns the loss of her points, lighting the first works and using her strength to throw them just towards the air, causing them to slowly start exploding mid air, flying in all directions randomly. Mom, I like t-this! I agree with Jamine!!! Hilda, thanks for not being a cheapskate. Yea yea¡­ anyways, how do we leave? Either wait for 24 hours to finish to get hit hard enough. Oh, well then, let''s just enjoy the fireworks for now, it cost me 1000 points so no way it''s gonna end quickly. Sure. Yay! Hey jamine, due to you not being able to talk properly you sound really childish. Technically her age is pretty childish and doppelgangers will have the personality of what they copied, speaking of which, why hasn''t she reverted to her older form when fighting? How should I know? Don''t like! Ok, don''t shout. Anyways, doppelgangers will also change under special circumstances, usually not by a lot but since yours was provided by as an award, I wouldn''t be surprised if it was different. Oh. Don''t c-call me an i-it! Sorry, forgot. Anyways, when is the fireworks going to end? How should I know? You bought it¡­ I bought a random one for 1000. What was it called? Shila sighs. Oh, self-destruct fireworks. Huh? Shila looks over to the side and sees the fireworks exploding bigger, while beautiful are getting ridiculously close to them as one big firework flies at them and blows up, causing them to be sent back. What made you think something called self-destruct fireworks was a good idea!!!!! Oops? P-pretty. I agree, but your mother is an idiot. Rude! Exactly Shila. Keep quiet untill you can beat the 13th floor first. It''s disgusting. Too bad! Actually I got an idea, how does mental attack magic work? Huh? It causes the opponents to feel anything, as long as it''s not a physical injury, meaning it can be used to make yourself high too, though no way I''m letting you do that. What if I make myself unable to taste? That''s cheating¡­ Well, I''ll resort to it if I must. Idk No chapter today, I need to go fix my phone cus apparently charging and working for hours is messing up the changing port, and I don''t have any other devices I use to write, so... I''ll be back lastest in 2 days, probably tmr but yea, okay?Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. I''m just filling up the character count now. Fun fact about me:I''ve been sick with cough for 5 months and can''t be bothered about it anymore. Another fun fact:I have a really sensitive nose. Last fun fact:I have a messed up sleep schedule. Ok, seriously last, I''m gonna go do maths homework now. Chapter 28. Trial of taste. Alright Shila, that''s the end of our break, send me back to the 13th floor. Fine, but how do you intend to pass? I''ll embrace my trait. Huh? My trait has the supposed drawback of being more obsessed with my sister and clearly the extra will power is of not enough help right now, so if I just think about my sister and that I''m doing this for her, I should be able to get through right? That is the stupidest thing I''ve ever¡­ Actually that might work, but only because of how unique you are, or well, your trait, this feels so stupid Whatever, you just admitted that it may work, so send me already. Fine. Shila sends Hilda back to the 13th floor, the trial of taste as Hilda walks back up to the table again, ignoring the notification. As she walks up, she closes her eyes and focuses on her sister completely, as she pours the whole packet of the power like substance into her mouth, preparing for the immense sweetness. As she closes her eyes, she feels an extreme bitterness compared to what she expected as she holds back her tears, determined not to spit it out or vomit as she swallows it completely. As she swallows it all, she covers my mouth with Shila coming over to help keep her mouth closed, struggling against the need to vomit out everything she ate in the memory despite none of it being real as she keeps on the floor, pressing her mouth closed with her knees against her hands to keep her mouth shut. After a couple more minutes suffering and holding back her tears, she eventually gets through, with the bitter taste still in her mouth but reduced to the point she won''t vomit out as she opens her eyes. As she opens her eyes, she wipes away her tears, and looks at the table, realising she opened the wrong packet, something she should of noticed earlier due to the taste if not for the fact that the very same taste was the only thing on her mind, not allowing her to think of other things. That was disgusting! Hilda, it''s your fault for eating the wrong one, how about getting rid of the taste? How? Suck on Jamine. What? Hilda physically pulls her ears open bigger, making sure she didn''t hear it wrong. I see a need to rephrase, okay, suck in a small part of her slimy body, just rip a good chunk out of her, she''s edible despite being acidic due to your stats and regeneration skill. Won''t it hurt her? Hilda runs over to Jamine who shakes her head, confusing Hilda. She doesn''t have pain receptors. Oh yea,I guess her original body is kind of just like a slimy thingThe tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. That''s one way to call it. Screw it, I''m not¡­ sucking on Jamine, for a lack of better words. See? Even you don''t know how to phrase it better. Shut up. Rude. Shut up, I still have another 4 packets to suffer through. Oh yea, have fun? Shut up. Yes ma am. Hilda slowly gets back from the floor, the bitter taste still lingering strongly on her mouth as she goes back to the sweet packet as Shila stops her. What? I would suggest eating another packet first, preferably a disgusting one so it can help to reduce the sweet taste later with the sweet taste reducing the disgusting one too. Sure, but which one is the disgusting taste? Can''t tell, sorry. Great help you are. Hilda goes to the rightmost packet, and downs it in one go, not caring about her sister this time, realising that Shila was just lying to her just now, whether to encourage her or as a joke, she doesn''t know or have the time the time to find out as an extreme spice takes over her body, making her start sweating and grabbing Jamine''s hand and tearing it off into our in her mouth as tears stream down her face, unable to hold them back this time. This isn''t even hard to keep in my mouth! It''s just a terrible feeling! Hilda puts the portion of Jamine¡¯s hand into her mouth, with it turning back to a transparent greenish due to not being a part of Jamine''s body anymore as she feels a stinging feeling, caused by the acidity of Jamine''s body and a oddly tasteless yet not so tasteless taste, similar to plain water. Hilda eventually gets through the spice, wiping away the sweat and tears from her body, using the piece of Jamine she took to wipe herself off, making Jamine glare at her. Sorry, but I''m kind of suffering here, also shouldn''t your acidity but much more? Her acidity was reduced by a lot since you tore it off. Oh, if she was still completely acidic what would have happened? You would be missing your jaw and tongue right now. Ok¡­ now something I want to experience. Hilda goes to the remaining three packets, with the leftmost being sweet and the remaining two being unknown. I''ll just go for the sweetness last. Hilda takes another random one and eats it all, feeling an extreme saltiness followed by dehydration as she tries to swallow but finds it much harder due to the salt sticking to her tongue with the bits that went down, causing her throat to feel extremely salty too. This isn''t hard to swallow, but it feels worse than the spice!!!! Hilda bites the salt, trying to get it to go down easier, only for the taste to intensify as. She decides to just wait for it to dissolve, with it being faster than normal due to small parts of Jamine''s acidic parts still in her mouth, dissolving the salt that comes in contact with it instantly. A few minutes later, the salt finishes dissolving, leaving Hilda lying down in the floor once again, wishing she had even a drop of water as she goes and eats the next packet immediately, hoping to get rid of the lingering saltiness even by a bit as she consumes it, feeling a sense of disgust immediately, nearly vomiting it out as she eats the packet filled with sweet tasting powder to help try to mitigate the disgust, with the sweetness making it worse but also helping. As she nearly vomits it out, she shouts for Jamine to help as Jamine goes over to Hilda and shuts her mouth up by forcing it close by morphing her arm into a mask to keep her mouth closed while focusing on trying to reduce the acidity so Hilda doesn''t end up with a jaw and tongue lesser than others. Hilda keeps holding it in, tears streaming down her face due to the combination of the severe, disgusting and sweet taste all while trying to hold in vomiting. A couple minutes later, she lies on the floor, ignoring the clear message as she levels up another 5 times while panting on the floor. Shila¡­ can you get me some water now? Sure¡­ Shila uses the food box and pulls out a bottle of plain cold water and passes it to Shila who downs it immediately, asking for another as Shila provides. Hey Hilda. Yes? Hilda replies, no longer panting as much and sitting up now. Your¡­ gonna have stomach problems later. I won''t be surprised. So small talk, which was the worst? Spice. Huh? I''d thought it was the one which was made specifically to just be disgusting. No, my spice tolerance is so bad that even pepper feels kinda spicy. Ah. Worse thing is, I like spicy food, but my spice tolerance makes it near impossible to eat spicy food. What a shame, food is one of the many joys in life. I agree, could you send us back to the inn? Yea, sure. Hilda laughs slightly, not due to joy but because she thinks back to how much she suffered due to mere heavy tastes just a while ago and how ironic it is that monsters that can kill thousands of people on earth before the military can even react is less of a problem compared to severe tastes. What a goddamn joke¡­ Chapter 29. Trial of sight. Okay, the next is trial of sight right? What are we even going to do? You know I''m usually not allowed to tell right? Oh yea, forgot. But since the guide changed the trial just because of you, there''s no loophole due to know straight forward it is and knowing won''t help anyways, so I''m allowed to tell. So you can tell? Yea, wanna know? Not anymore, just keep it as¡­ suspense? I don''t think that''s how it works. Does it matter? I don''t really care. Screw it, wanna start or not? Sure? Shila teleports them all to the 14th floor where Hilda gets sent to notification for her trial. Notification. Trial of sight, make direct physical contact with the invisible beings through skin on arms, legs or head. All skills are disabled, system is temporarily downgraded back to the minimum, all other beings related to the user will be sent back to the system temporarily. Huh? Hilda looks around, only seeing the system interface with Shila and Jamine both nowhere to be found as she reread the notification. Locate invisible beings without any skills? How the¡­ Oh, am I supposed to just use mana like in the trial of hearing? That''s easy enough. Hilda starts pouring mana into her right eye to try and a second later¡­ Splat. Splat? Hilda tries to keep pouring mana in but finds she cannot do so as she realises her sight on her right is gone followed by a massive jolt of pain where her eye is, as she closes her eyes tightly and grabs her right eye in pain before being healed and sent back to floor 10 where Shila and Jamine reappear. Hilda, your amazing. Please elaborate, and tell me what happened to me eye. Hilda says while still grabbing her right eye which is now healed. Ok, imagine filling a balloon up with water. Yea? Thewater is your mana, your eye is the balloon. So? You filled up too much mana, so your eye went¡­ pop. Oh, so I just need to use less? No, control is and make a layer around your eye, like a contact lense, but if possible all around, I suggest just at the front for now. You could of warned me first you know? You got a slight headache from using mana on your ears, I thought you would have understood that using mana on your body parts, especially if it''s excessive, can have bad consequences. Clearly I didn''t. Clearly not, let''s go again, remember, 2 more tries only, though you could use the elixir to heal yourself though it''ll hurt a lot more since it''s basically regening your entire eye.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Got it, don''t be stupid is all I need to do. Yea, simple as that, the only problem is the eye blowing up, but who cares? Yea, it''s just my eye right? Right. ¡­ Let''s go? Sure. Shila sends them again as Hilda ignores the motivation this time and focuses some mana into her eye, taking her own sweet time to focus mana into her eye. As she slowly does so, stopping as she feels her eye starting to be pain again, she manages to somewhat stabilise it before opening her eyes and looking at the surroundings, which despite not having physically changed, looks much nicer somehow. As she takes in her surroundings, despite it being a plain white room, she remembers her goal and starts looking around for the invisible beings, barely dodging in time as a giant invisible preying mantis takes to stab her with its scythe-like legs, as it scrapes her side, causing slight bleeding. Crap, I didn''t take into account what would happen if they attacked. Hilda tries preparing her sword qi as she pulls out her sword, preparing to slash all the preying mantis down, forgetting that skills are sealed as she dodges another hit. How annoying. Hilda keeps trying to fight, but with her skills sealed and not being able to check the manti¡¯s stats for some reason but with them probably being higher, she gets pushed back as more mantis appear. Crap, it''s getting harder to maintain the mana too. If this keeps up, I won''t even be able to see them. Hilda keeps thinking of a way out while focusing her mana on her eye as she swings her sword at them, accidently focusing mana into her sword, killing one of the mantis by increasing sharpness. Oh yea, forgot I could do this. As she starts attacking with her mana infused weapon, the mantis start getting more defensive, making it harder for Hilda as she tired to break through to no avail. Screw It, their too strong. Trait isn''t banned so buff me please my dear trait? Just enough to beat them all? Notification. Trait ¡°sis con¡± will increase the user''s stats. Warning. Increasing enough stats to fight all nearby opponents will strain your trait, are you sure? Okay, maybe not, just increase it till it won''t strain. Notification. Trait ¡°sis con¡± is buffing your stats. Nice, lemme check. Hilda opens her status only to be interrupted by one of the mantis attacking her, retreating before she can do anything. Huh? They keep repeating this with them going back to their defensive stance. Are these idiots trying to tire me out? I have enough endurance to deal with this, but do they actually have intelligence? Hilda dodges another one of their attacks, getting annoyed. But this is sincerely irritating, if they keep this up, I can''t win either. Let me try something, I hope I don''t die. Hilda injects some mana into her body with most of it leaking out as she runs at the mantis again, finding her speed faster than normal but not too much. Huh? This works too? Mana is so useful. Hilda runs at them with her sword, injecting half her remaining mana equally into her arms and legs, preventing as much from escaping. As she runs at them, they get surprised by her speed, not being able to react as Hilda slices through a good amount of them, jumping higher than ever, dodging their attacks and attacking them from the back and being able to retreat easily. Ok, this is great, but the mana consumption is no joke, I''ve got to hurry. Hilda runs at them again as they gather into a circle protecting all sides. Hilda runs at them, gathering more mana, intending to cut their legs off to prevent them from defending along with their bodies. The best offense is the best defense! Hilda runs at them, swinging her sword,, noticing a small very thin blue wave being sent out, recognising it as mana that has somewhat solidified, something she didn''t know was possible as all the mantis get cut in half. As they all die, she looks around, finding no more left but not being sent back. Huh? Do I have to stab them again? Hilda keeps trying to figure it out as she kneels down and pokes one of them, making their whole body, even the disconnected part disappear as she reads the notification again. Oh¡­ direct physical contact through skin¡­ so I didn''t even have to defend myself that hard? If they even attacked my head they would have vanished? Then what did I do this for? ¡­ Hilda starts walking around, poking them all, with her black trail making it harder due to it being in a much larger volume with Hilda suspecting it had something to do with almost solidifying mana. Seriously¡­ the guide should get rid of this stupid trail, it even looks somewhat eerie due to how black it actually is but with her still being able to somehow see through it. She sighs as she pokes all the remaining body parts with their green blood still splattered all over the ground and her as she gets sent back to the 10th floor, surprising people, with her not being sure if it''s the much bigger volume of the weird black mist following every step she takes or the fact she''s covered in green blood, but the green blood being more important to her due to how sticky it feels and the smell. Hey Hilda¡­ . Shila says, now being back to normal. Yes? You¡­ weren''t supposed to clear it like that. Did I cheat? No, but you made your life harder. I am very much aware. Hilda turns over at Jamine as she opens her mouth but closes it immediately, noticing Hilda''s annoyance, mostly caused by the blood on her. Let''s just go back to the inn. Sure, but Hilda, why do we use the inn? Huh? Where else would I stay? You may be able to hide into the system but I can''t unless the guide sends me. First, I can send you into the system imitation of your house, second, you have your territory. Oh yea, what a waste of points. Let''s just go¡­ I already got Jamine to go get our stuff and to cancel our room. Oh, that explains her absence and the lack of a stinging feeling from her acidity. Anyways, you have one last trial, I can''t tell you what it involves, but it''s the trial of touch. Right, let''s just go back into the territory after Jamine comes back, I gotta wash up, they have a place to clean up now right? Yup. Ok, so they finally became more civilised. That''s rude, you know? I don''t care. When your sister comes, I''ll bully her to teach you about being rude. You dare? ¡­ Ok, maybe I''ll find some other way. Yea, you better stay away. ¡­ Obsessed. Chapter 30. Trial of touch. Shila, let''s go to the territory already. Sure. Shila teleports them both, ignoring the villagers looking at them as Shila brings Hilda to the biggest building in the center, almost as big as a mansion, falling it hers as Hilda looks over at Shila. What? I invested so many points, for you to build this crap? Look, I made more points than you invested so stop being a nuisance and let me enjoy life too. Screw it, did you increase the population? Yea. The houses? Obviously. The weapons and defense? No, me and Jamine can easily deal with others since most of the others don''t have a system that can fight as well as me due to my stats, they don''t have pets either. Oh, if anything goes wrong, it''s your fault. Whatever, just go shower. Fine fine. For the first time ever since Hilda found out she could buy an item from the shop to clean herself, she takes a shower and to her satisfaction, in a particularly modern seeming shower in contrast with the severe lack of technology in her village and even the mansion itself. As she steps out, wiping herself off, she puts on new clothes, something she hasn''t done ever since entering the towel at all and goes out, throwing the towel and her old clothes at Jamine to dissolve due to her laziness. Weren''t you complaining about points just now? That towel was worth 15 points. I don''t care. Your clothes were worth 15 each too, adding up to 60, so 75. I still don''t care. The cheapskate is becoming less cheapskate, what a miracle. Shut it and send me back. Aren''t you gonna talk with the villagers? They do surprisingly respect you quite a bit. Why? You supported them with so many points, obviously they appreciate it, even if it''s to your own benefit, it still helped them. Oh, cool, I don''t care. If you talk to them or even show your face more, it could encourage them to work harder, providing more points. I''ll visit sometime in the future okay? You better not forget. Yea yea, whatever let''s go to the 15th floor.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Fine. I''m curious to see what this is about. Right¡­ so excited, I hope you feel the same later. Shila teleports them both to the next floor as Hilda reads the notification. Notification. Trial of touch, don''t give up, make it to the end. Ok? Hilda looks up, seeing an obstacle course Infront of her as she prepares to start dashing through it as she feels her feet and body feel cramped. What is happening?! I hate this feeling. That''s your sense of touch being amplified 100 fold, if you can control it, you''ll become more skilled, if not, it''ll feel like a severe cramp throughout your whole body. Even my mouth feels weird!! It feels like the inside is itchy!! Yea, not surprised. Hilda closes her eyes, trying to concentrate as her eyes start feeling severely terrible too, making her close her eyes tightly, causing the feeling to get worse. Shila, send me out! Giving up already? Wow Shila sends Hilda out as Hilda runs her eyes, scratching her entire body, attracting gazes from curious onlookers as she drinks some water, trying to get rid of the itch in her mouth. Hey Hilda, your trust increased willpower, why are you so mentally weak? It felt terrible! I agree, but I don''t care. Maybe you should suffer with me. Can''t, wouldn''t, ain''t. Screw it. Hilda steps scratching herself, letting the redness from the scratching get healed instantly by her regeneration skill as she stands up, getting used to running before getting Shila to send her back to the trial. As soon as the trial starts, Hilda ignores the notification, running and getting as much distance as she can before the sensation starts, which isn''t long as they start after her second step, with her ignoring it, trying her best not to blink as she keeps running, dealing with the horrible sensation which is similar to cranks, something she now hates a lot due to this trial. God, what a horrible feeling. I knew you could deal with it, you just didn''t want to. Noz the blinking was the biggest problem and it still feels terrible, but the blinking made it worse. Oh, makes sense? As Hilda dashes through the obstacles, she eventually ends up In front of a body of water, too wide to jump over and too deep to walk in as she freezes on the spot. What are you doing? Just swim! I.. I what? I can''t swim¡­ I can''t even float. Huh? What the hell? No, like I''m scared of trying to swim¡­ think of it as a minor trauma? ¡­ Just figure it out. Can I use mana in my legs? I would suggest not. Why? Can''t tell, but you''re allowed to do so. Sure then. Hilda infuses mana into her legs, preparing to leap across as she feels the cramps in her legs increasing with the amount of mana she infuses in, making it hard for her to properly run or jump. Crap! Does mana affect this somehow? Well, since you already did it, I guess I can tell you. Mana increases sensitivity, usually not by too much unless you''re specifically trying to do so, but in this trial where sensitivity is increased 100 times, it feels a lot worse. Crap¡­ Hilda forces herself up, jumping over the water, landing safely but causing the feeling it gets a lot worse temporarily, causing her to trip and kneel down, waiting for the feeling to go back to how it was before getting back up again slowly and continuing through the path. With the end in sight, Hilda rushes faster, with Shila calling out behind for her to stop but Hilda not reacting in time as a giant hammer hits her into the walk with strength that shouldn''t usually even be enough to kill her or hurt her too much, but with the increased sensitivity, Hilda feels an extreme increase in pain, causing her to fall to her knees, sliding out of the way of the hammer coming back at her, ignoring the cramp-like feeling. What the hell, the pain is also amplified 100 times?! Yea, be happy that the guide only set these hammers to be fast and weak or you may have fainted from the pain. What a pain, literally. Hilda runs towards the finishing line, avoiding the hammer and the many more that came after it along with new obstacles, like high pressured water, strong winds and even vibrations, all to make her cramp-like feeling get worse, with each succeeding and Hilda forcing through, dealing with it, careful to protect her eyes specifically. As she nearly reaches the finish line, an arrow, a rubber one, flies in from the side, hitting Hilda''s right eye, taking advantage of her temporarily decrease in alertness, causing her to crap it in pain with the feeling being even worse than having her eye blown up in the previous trial, leading her to close her eye tightly, accidently causing her left eye to close too, causing both to feel terrible as she ignores it and keeps running, hoping to reach the finish line to get rid of this feeling. As she runs towards the finishing line, she tries due to feeling a headache from the overwhelming sensations coming from her eyes as she stands back up, forcing her eyes open, crossing the finishing line with her eyes all red despite having kept them open for no more than a few seconds as she gets sent back to the tenth floor where Shila teleports her back to the territory quickly as she faints. Status summary. Name: Hilda Race: Human Gender: Female Level:116 Stats:(61 S) (61 E) (61 A) (56 M) Skills: Mana control Allows the user basic control over mana. Mental magic(Level 8) Allows the user to use mental magic swordsmanship Improves the user''s ability to learn swordsmanship and increases the user''s attack the more the user''s mastery. Willpower Improves the user''s willpower. Spatial magic.(Level 8) Allows the user to use low level spatial magic. Sword qi(level 33) Allows you to use willpower to materialise a layer of energy which improves attacking abilities, along with sending it out as a ranged attack. Conversion magic(level 5) Regeneration Increases natural and external sources of regeneration Tough skinThis narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Makes the users skin tougher, making it harder to bleed along with reducing the strength of blunt attacks. Sixth sense(epic) Can sense danger or anything the user may be looking for. Low level shield magic.(Level max) Trait:sis con(max) Personality:sis con Name: Shila Gender: Female Level:58(tied to users level/2) Stats:(59 S) (59 E) (59 A) (54 M) Personality: loves food. Trait: ¡°leecher(max)¡±(trait level tied to users) field magic(level 3) Can affect a certain area around the user. debuff magic(level 4) Can provide debuff to opponents. Name: Jamine Gender:N/A(currently:female) LevelLevel:58(tied to users level/2) Stats:(59 S) (59 E) (59 A) (54 M) Personality:quiet. Trait: ¡°leecher(max)¡±(trait level tied to users) Extreme regeneration. Allows the user to regenerate at an extreme speed, regardless of injury. Corrosive body. Provides the user with a corrosive and acidic body(will harm the user over time) First to kill a monster. all monster kills give 10 percent more loot(Epic) First to use trait. trait is permanently increased by 5 percent(rare) First to strain trait. trait can last longer despite strain and has faster recovery speed by 10 percent.(Epic) First to get recoil. recoil is no longer as severe by 5 percent.(Epic) Second to kill a level 5 monster(epic) When fighting beings above your own level, your stats can increase by up to (5) decreased to 4 due to being second. Reach level 5(common) Tip coupon First to unlock shop(rare) 50 percent discount coupon(expiry 3 months) First to unlock inventory(rare) Plus 10 m3 of space First to kill a mini boss(legendary) When fighting a mini boss, stats are increased by 10 percent. Survivor, first to survive a near death situation. (Legendary) When taking lethal damage for the first time during the day, the damage will be reduced to barely below lethal damage, and all pain will be reduced by 80 percent for 5 seconds and all injuries will not get worse from users own action for 5 seconds unless intentional. First to kill a life form with a percentage of at least true dragon in its bloodline. Stats will increase when fighting lifeforms with true dragon blood, stats increase depending on amount of true dragon blood. First to kill a level 20 lifeform. Tip coupon. Broke(common.) No benefits. Third to reach level 25 Tip coupon First to kill an abomination(epic) When fighting undead, they will be much more aggressive, but upon hitting an undead, their regenerative ability will be decreased by 20 percent Third to kill a being over 25(epic) Tip coupon. Kill floor ones boss(legendary) Access to floor two. Second to max out a skill(legendary) All skills will be 7.5 percent stronger. Kill floor 2s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 3. Kill floor 2s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 3. Kill floor 3s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 4. Kill floor 4s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 5. Kill floor 5s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 6. Kill floor 6s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 7. Kill floor 7s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 8. Kill floor 8s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 9 Kill floor 9s boss.(Legendary) Access to floor 10. (Locked:11,12,13,14,15) Clear the trials of senses.(Legendary) Access to floor 16.