CHAPTER 705: 2ND ROUND: SKILL CHECK (II)

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"Dude, there’s no way! He must’ve already known the Silk Vine Entanglement before. Otherwise, he shouldn’t have been able to master it that fast!"

"I’d like to believe that too, but...you were watching him too; you saw the look in his eyes when he got the skill, and you saw how he gradually increased his control over it within ten minutes after getting it."

"No. Just...no! He’s already good at fighting. He can’t be that good at learning too; that’s just unfair. He’s also handsome to boot. He can’t have everything. I refuse to believe it."

Conversations like this happened everywhere after they witnessed Cedric clearing the first room within 11 minutes.

Many people refused to believe that he just learned and mastered that skill right then and there. Some people just refuse to believe it.

They don’t want to believe it because if they did, it would be the same as admitting their incompetence.

But no matter what they felt about this, it sure doesn’t interfere with Cedric’s progress at all. No matter how many times they complained, it wouldn’t be able to slow him down.

Upon getting to the 2nd room, Cedric once again saw the shadowy figure of the room guardian blocking the door. Obviously, the altar was there too. He walked up to it to receive the second skill he had to learn.

The skill was called [Fallen Walker’s Approach]. It’s a movement technique that not only amplifies one’s natural speed but is also capable of disrupting the environment.

It wasn’t the most advanced skill he saw, nor was it the strongest, but it was simple and effective.

Using this skill allows one to accumulate nine layers of ascending momentum, which they can release all at once as an impact to disrupt the battlefield. The more layers they accumulate, the larger and stronger the effects will be.

As stated, the concept was simple. It wasn’t foreign to Cedric, so he was able to grasp it right away as soon as he got the skill.

In his first try using it, he already managed to accumulate five layers of momentum. He only failed at the sixth because he fell a little slower since he’s also analyzing the skill at the same time.

On his second attempt, though? All nine layers were accumulated just fine. It was just slightly unstable. He held it long enough and released it all at once, causing the room to shake due to the impact.

But even though this was technically considered mastering the skill, it didn’t make him feel satisfied. It’s too unstable in his opinion. So, he refined it one step at a time.

In his third attempt, he gathered enough momentum for a layer and then released it. He then accumulated enough for two layers and released it again. He progressed like this, one step at a time, until he reached nine layers and released for the final time. The result was an impact at least twice as strong and effective as his previous attempt.

With that, this skill was considered mastered.

And so, Cedric wasted no time. He immediately challenged the guardian and defeated it.

The time he spent in the second room? 10 minutes. And just like that, he moved on to the 3rd room.

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"Again!? How is he so fast?"

Cedric’s progress wasn’t just clear to the audience; his fellow participants were made aware of it too. And it’s all because there is a leaderboard they could access at any given moment.

You see, the skills are set randomly in his test. None of the participants got the Silk Vine Entanglement or Fallen Walker’s Approach. They had other skills to learn. However, the difficulty levels were all the same to keep things a bit more fair.

So far, only Dawnbringer has managed to reach the 3rd room. The majority of them are still stuck on the 1st room; only a handful just got to the 2nd.

Most of them attributed it to Dawnbringer’s luck, thinking that he just got lucky in his draws, receiving skills he might already know beforehand, because that could happen here and it wouldn’t really be considered rare.

They thought that maybe they could get lucky too, and if that happens, they will quickly catch up to him or maybe even surpass him.

But reality is cruel most of the time. And today isn’t any different.

You see, knowing the skill and mastering it were two completely different concepts. Especially in the standards of the Primitive Universe. Most of the time, successfully mastering a skill required one to push it to a level where the skill itself could affect conceptual laws themselves.

It’s the artistic conception level, if you will. And some skill is required to be pushed even beyond that level.

The difficulty of the room guardian depends on the ceiling of the skill. One should always expect that the room guardian will use the same skill at its acme, and the participants have to match or even surpass that to defeat them.

As time gradually passes, the participants progress further and deeper into the 2nd round. Still, nothing changed. Dawnbringer was still ahead.

It’s not like the other participants haven’t gotten lucky to receive a skill they already knew. Some of them did, and initially, they were ecstatic.

They believed that with this, they could bridge the gap right away. So, they excitedly ran up to the room guardian to defeat it right away, hoping to catch up to Dawnbringer and ride this luck further.

Alas, they thought a little too highly of themselves. They were slapped by the reality that the skills they thought they knew were more than they knew all along. The room guardian handed their asses over to them under the guise of a strong beating.

And it wasn’t the pain that hurt. It’s the humiliation they felt.

They were being watched by everybody; that’s for certain at this point. And since that’s the case, it’s only right for them to expect that their failure would also be shown as well.

The shame and embarrassment burn more than the bruises and cuts. And it’s only intensified by their disbelief that their attempts weren’t working.

It’s here that they were reminded that they could only issue a challenge to the room guardian a total of three times. Once they used it all up without defeating the guardian, the 2nd round was over for them.

And, as luck would have it, they just wasted their attempts due to their overconfidence. Their arrogance and the intensity of this competition got into their heads, making them reckless. Now, they’re paying for it.

It would’ve been nice if it ended there, but no, it doesn’t.

The skill they thought they had mastered? Well, it turns out that they didn’t master it at all. The room guardian proved otherwise. Some of them even realized that they’re barely scratching the surface of it. And so, they were forced to spend more time in their current room.

They have time, sure, but they can’t stay here forever. They were only given a decade to learn and progress as much as they can here. And this was a competition.

This realization helped them realize just how profoundly absurd Dawnbringer was. And the audience was gradually learning the same thing.

Knowing the skill and mastering it are two completely different concepts...

Once or twice was fine; they could just say that it’s a pleasant coincidence or just luck. But three times...fifteen times...twenty times in a row? That couldn’t be sheer luck anymore.

When Dawnbringer learns and masters every skill he received from rooms in practically an instant, even the dullest tool in the shed would start to believe that he’s omnipotent.

The skill and talent one must have to achieve this was practically unattainable. And there’s no way Dawnbringer could cheat here. Not after his stunt during the 1st round. It would be wrong to say that he’s under the microscope at this point and that every single action he did was being watched and analyzed in real time.

And since he’s still here, it means that nobody could find a flaw in his activities. Meaning that he wasn’t cheating at all. Which honestly made others feel worse, somehow.

They’ve been here for two years, a whole day outside. And so far, Dawnbringer was already on the 50th room. The second place? Well, he’s in the 19th room.

See that? The difference was staggering.

Every time they check on the leaderboard, their hearts will always sink seeing how many rooms Dawnbringer has cleared. The further he got, the more he realized just how wide the gap was between them.

It’s honestly demoralizing to be in the same era as him, they realized.

At this point, nobody, not even the audience, could call him lucky. He’s gone way past that point already. Nobody could be lucky 50 times in a row! That’s unheard of and practically impossible to happen.

Honestly, they should be more thankful that they could only see how many rooms he cleared and not the skills he learned or clips of how he defeated the room guardians.

Because if those appeared as well, it’s almost certain that the other participants will feel even more despair at the gap between him and them.