CHAPTER 706: 2ND ROUND: SKILL CHECK (END)

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"Okay, things are getting a little more complicated now."

Cedric wasn’t referring to the mechanics of the 2nd round when he said this. That remains the same: learn and master the skill, defeat the room guardian, move on to the next room, and rinse and repeat.

He’s talking about the skills he had to learn.

Currently, he’s at the 55th room, far ahead of everybody else. At this point, the difficulty of learning and mastering the skills available here spiked sharply, enough to force him to spend weeks or maybe even months trapped in the same room.

And this was mostly because he’s learning genuine Immortal Level techniques now, all of which could alter reality itself if used. And the subject was broad, too. Focusing on one aspect could make him miss the really important aspects of the technique, taking up more of his time and effort.

Take this [Blood Seal Twisting Murder] skill, for example.

This skill creates a rune that twists everything around it, be that matter, space, time, reality, or even conceptual laws themselves. The nifty thing about it is that it doesn’t need origin energy, just blood. The higher the quality of blood used, the more effective it becomes.

Literally anyone who gets this skill and learns it will immediately think that they should focus on making the seal and securing high-quality blood to use this technique as efficiently as dictated. But if they follow that thought process, they’d soon face a wall that will prevent them from actually displaying the true might of this technique.

Because you see, the ’Murder’ part in its name was just as important as the Blood Seal itself. It’s also probably why its creator even bothered to include that in its name.

While the rune and the high-quality blood were, indeed, incredibly important to this skill, for they’re the medium to make it manifest, the mechanism that drives this skill to motion was one’s murderous intention.

The maddening rage and murder intent to twist everything into a gruesome mess was the real force that will push this skill to its limits; therefore, this part cannot be neglected at all. If one’s murderous intention isn’t enough, the skill’s power will drop severely even if everything was done right.

This part can easily be missed if one wasn’t paying attention. But it’s not like it was deliberately hidden.

Upon receiving the skill, the participants will also learn the history behind the creation of this skill. The name of its creator was included in it, as well as his intentions for making it.

As anyone would expect, the creator of this skill was a lunatic that just wanted to destroy everything.

Most would disdain reading through this and would just move on to the mechanics of the skill, but that’s where they’d make their first mistake.

Their prejudice will make them miss the fact that the system wouldn’t have included the history of this skill for absolutely nothing. That in itself was the hint. One that would be designed to test the intelligence and wit of the participants.

Cedric will admit that he too missed this during the first time. If it weren’t for his instincts telling him that he’s missing something, he wouldn’t have figured it out at all. It also took him a whole week to notice it, which was embarrassing for him.

That said, he’s also thankful for it since it reminded him to not be complacent.

However, knowing what he missed and being more mindful now doesn’t solve all of his current problems.

Knowing and doing are two completely different concepts. Cedric knows this and understood it completely.

When he used the skill again, with the right mindset this time, it exploded on his face. The force that erupted from it was so strong that it made him doubt if the room could contain it.

Judging by what he felt, that explosion was enough to vaporize a whole solar system in seconds, and under the right circumstances, the damage might even expand to cover an entire cosmic realm.

The twisting force was too volatile to contain. Using murderous intent as the driving force behind it was an idea only a true lunatic could think of because it’s like fighting fire with fire.

Both the twisting force and the murderous intent were fiercely trying to dominate each other. They kept clashing, and the resulting force was making it extremely difficult to contain them inside the blood seal.

In theory, this shouldn’t have worked. But it does; it truly does. And it does so in such a grimly satisfying way that made Cedric think that he’s being influenced by the lunacy of its creator.

It took Cedric two whole months to learn and master this thing completely. And as much as he disliked the idea, learning this skill gave him too much inspiration for his personal growth. It broadened his horizons to new avenues he never thought to explore before.

Alas, he could only keep his thoughts to himself for now. He had a tournament to focus on, after all.

**

Dawnbringer’s speed of clearing rooms slowed down. That much was obvious to everybody.

But even though that’s the case, so what?

Him slowing down doesn’t mean that others were speeding up. If anything, they’re even slower than him. The speed at which he cleared rooms right now was close to their approximate speed at the start of this round.

It’s already given that the more rooms they cleared, the more difficult it got. Everybody could feel this, and it’s the reason why they were still slower than Dawnbringer at this point.

And this was with the immense gap between them.

The 2nd place was at the 30th room, and he was struggling to comprehend the skill he received.

Others could only imagine just how difficult the skills Dawnbringer needed to learn at his level. But more importantly, they can’t afford to be distracted since they have their own problems to take off too!

And so, just like this, the 2nd round continued.

The final hours were upon them. To the audience, it has only been five days, but for the participants, it’s been a decade.

In this final stretch, time was synced to the real world without the remaining participants knowing it.

In any other situation, they might’ve been able to sense this happening, but with their current state? Well, let’s just say that they’re lucky that they could still cling to some semblance of their sanity.

Most of the remaining participants looked like hollowed versions of themselves: bloodshot eyes, messy hair, sunken cheeks, deep eyebags...their appearance had turned wretched at this point.

Only desperation was allowing them to hold on until this point; the burning desire to prove to everyone and themselves that they had a place here is what’s keeping them grounded somehow, even though they could feel their whole world spinning.

Their minds are filled with many concepts at this point. Their brains were pulsing with extreme effort as they tried to process all the information they forcibly crammed in them during this past decade.

They probably haven’t used theirs as much as they have until this event happened, which could only be the logical conclusion as to why they are now like this.

Cedric was one of the few who didn’t turn out like them. And even amongst the minority, he’s still different because he just wasn’t tired at all. He never felt overwhelmed nor exhausted. He kept going, pushing him further and further away compared to others.

One important thing to note, though, is that Cedric was out.

He left on the 4th day, which was around the 7-8th year inside the trial space, less than two years earlier compared to others.

Cedric reached the 101st room on the third day, but instead of completing it, he chose otherwise.

He sat down, not even bothering himself to learn whatever skill was offered in that room. He then spent the next year or so in that room rounding up and polishing all the skills he had learned so far. They even saw him incorporating some of its concepts into his own swordsmanship. He didn’t have a sword, obviously, but that didn’t stop him at all.

Once he was satisfied, Cedric lay down to sleep. He woke up a week later, and the very first thing he did was to make a voluntary exit from the 2nd round.

The system tried to convince him that he could still go further, but he had made a decision, so he was transferred out and his results were tallied.

His record was 100 rooms cleared. The second place? At the 50th room, still struggling. Suffice it to say, nobody was coming even remotely close to taking away his spot, so there’s nothing to worry about.

And even if, by some miracle, somebody did catch up and overtake him? He wouldn’t be worried anyway. Cedric has never been afraid of a little competition.

So, while others were still desperately trying to make last-minute progress in attempts to improve their placements, Cedric had already returned to the lobby world, taking some good naps here and there.

And as everybody expected, Cedric’s position remained untouchable by the rest.