Chapter 383: More...
"You..."
Sylas ignored him, looking toward Brisa and Aerwyna. "There's a reason he was the first to approach me."
Those were all the words Sylas said, and it made the two of them feel a lurch in their hearts. Even Vayu looked at Sylas a bit incredulously.
However, time had run out.
The token in Sylas' hand began to vibrate and the others were forced to rush to their teams. With a flicker, a portal appeared before Sylas and he took a step inside.
...
The first thing Sylas saw was a staircase of ice. It would have been completely transparent if not for the blue Runes swimming through it.
'Frostbane.'
These were the first words Sylas thought of because it was the very name of this Dungeon. It was very likely that Frostbane was an extension, a type, or maybe an even evolved version of Ice-Poison. Or maybe that was just the name of the specific Ice-Poison Rune at work here. After all, it wasn't lost on Sylas that he had given all the Ice-Poison Runes he had come across perfunctory names.
These Runes, though, were very clearly Ice-Poison Runes. But...
'43 Foundations...'
It was far inferior to his slow and Freeze Ice-Poison Runes.
Sylas looked around, but there was no one else here. There were exactly nine steps before him, and each one was more than double his height. It seemed that the only way forward was,
well... up.
He bent his legs and leapt up. He caught the edge of the ledge, pulling himself up. The first thing he felt was that the temperature had suddenly plummeted, but he couldn't think about that for very long before a growl caught his attention.
[Ice Wolf Spirit (???)]
[Level: 5]
-
[Physical: ???]
[Mental: ???]
[Will: ???]
-
Sylas frowned. What was he supposed to make of that?
'I see...'
It didn't take him long to figure out what the problem was, and this problem was likely also the reason he couldn't even see the Grades of the others.
Earth's current stat system was based on relativity. When they first entered the Trial, they were given stats from 1 to 10, where 10 represented the 99th percentile of physical or mental capabilities.
Obviously, Earth's stat system wouldn't translate one to one with the outside world. Sylas' current system wasn't suited to translating, and that meant that he was flying blind...
Sylas frowned, but he didn't have much time to consider this matter, the Ice Wolf Spirit had already lunged at him.
It was a beautiful creature, about 1.7 meters long not including its crystalline tail. Its fur was somehow both flexible and formed of ice, its marble blue eyes reminding Sylas of the Arctic Emperor Bear.
'It's not very fast, but...'
Sylas's Enchanted Scholar was still activated so he immediately noticed that there was something particularly deceptive going on here. The wolf was gathering power from the surroundings in a way that he had never seen before. It seemed like it was even about to level
up.
Not only that, but there were several more kernels gathering energy in the surroundings as well as though they were trying to form something.
At first, Sylas thought that it was a skill of the wolf. But the more he observed, the more he realized that this wasn't the case at all.
'More wolves.'
When Sylas realized this, he suddenly burst into action. He didn't want to meet the wolf head-on without first fully understanding what its stats were. Although he had a few guesses, that wasn't nearly enough.
So instead, he brought out the pauldrons and shin guards of General Aleen again. Pulling on his Gluttony Seed, the power he could exert almost doubled as he smashed the pauldron into the wolf's face.
BANG!
The wolf's head exploded and it came to a skidding stop.
Sylas separated part of his visualization to pay attention to it as he rushed toward the location of the other forming wolves. His mind went through several thoughts at once until he just decided on the most violent method.
Using Rune Soul, he forcefully took control of the gathering Runes and disrupted them.
Just like that, the forming wolves stopped forming.
'It works.'
Sylas repeated the action, blanketing the region in his visualization and stopping every spawn point until he was satisfied.
Just when he thought things were over, his head spun back to the original wolf he had killed.
'It's reforming itself?'
Sylas' figure flashed and he appeared before the reforming wolf. With a push of his intention, the Runes were forced to disperse again.
'Is that it?'
His luck wasn't normally so good. He could see how this step could have gotten very difficult, very quickly. But he had been able to stop it before things even got to that point.
From what he could tell, every kill came with a certain bit of damage to the Runes, and depending on how much stronger you were than the wolves, you would have to kill it anywhere between twice to even four or five times before it would stay dead.
At the same time, more wolves would continue to spawn. Sylas had counted at least three dozen more nodes of rising spirit wolves. It was no wonder this trial required a team of ten. Things worked out in his favor this time, though. These didn't seem to be real beasts, but rather formations of Runes. It was an exceptionally high-level application of Rune Mastery, and though Sylas couldn't understand it, he seemed capable enough to disrupt it.
But he also realized that this was only because the wolves were set to a weak level. There was no telling if he would be hard-pressed to disperse them with the same ease if he was up against a stronger spirit construct.
It didn't seem like there was anything more here, so Sylas moved on, walking toward the beginning of the second step before leaping upwards again.
As he was moving, so too were the other teams. They worked together seamlessly, and soon their first clash would come.