CH (3): Cracks

– Crucial Information That Every Challenger Needs, Ch 1, page 3

*POV Ariza

During the intermission after the 4th round, Ariza was once again, walking through the forest. She was almost complete sure she had mapped out the entire forest by this point, yet it seemed to keep on going, stretching into infinity. What am I missing? I already check the rest of the trial and there was nothing there! She looked at her pages filled with maps. hmm? Isn't this looping? Checking all her maps to confirm, she realized a roughly circular section of the forest was warped. 

A barrier? So that's why nobody figured out the hidden objective. Ariza navigated to the edge of the border, before pulling out her sword and imbuing it with mana. Slicing with her sword, a hole in the barrier formed, which Ariza swiftly stepped through. 

Ignoring the barrier slowly closing behind her, Ariza looked at the abandoned shrine ahead of her. The shrine was made out of stone brick, which was now cracked. Moss crept up the outer walls, and a broken window shined light into the shrine. Opening the worn door with a loud creak, she looked inside. Even the gold altar, the centerpiece of the shrine,  had its corners worn out. walking to the altar, she prayed in her mind.

Isteal...Zenarcith...Codzack

<Hidden Objective: "Pray to the wanderer's gods" has been completed">

one goal down, 3 to go. Ariza's next goal was about her class. She checked her status, and distributed her stats.

Ariza clicked the notice at the bottom of her status.

<would you like to use a class selection opportunity?>

<you have declined your class selection opportunity>

"I swear to never acquire a class or skill points"

<You have made a system oath. Removing "Class" and "Skill points" from status. "Class skills" -> "common skills" You have gained the title <(first)Classless> and all stats +3>

Ariza checked her status once again and looked at her new title.

Heh, ironic. Ariza went on to the next part of her plan. Sitting down on the floor of the shrine, she focused directly on her soul. So glad for the <Soul Mind> trait. Strategically manipulating her mana, she created a intricate set of channels within her soul. carefully...and...Done!

<you have gained <basic alchemy(1)>, <basic enchant(1)> and lost -100 maximum mana>

The greatest benefit of not having a class was the ability to "create" skills. Of course, it had many restrictions. Creating skills required in depth knowledge about the soul, in depth knowledge about the skill, excellent mana control, excellent focus, access to the soul, been awakened(without having a class), and enough max mana to actually create the skill.

Ariza had knowledge in the soul as she was a genius in manipulating her own soul due to studying it for almost 60 years. As she was excellent at manipulating her soul, she of course, had great mana control and great focus to match. Her <Soul Mind> trait gave her basically free access to her soul, and she literally had a title celebrating the fact that she had been the first to awaken without a class. The hard part were having a lot of knowledge about the skill and having enough max mana.

Knowledge was separated into 3 levels: Basic, which meant you could ace a test on the concept,  Mastery, which meant you were an expert in the concept, and instinctual, which meant is was deeply engraved into the soul as a skill. You needed Mastery level knowledge of a concept to even attempt creating a skill, and even for a genius like Ariza, that would take at least 3 months.

The other problem was mana. Max mana actually wasn't that hard to get, but it was very hard to manage. Mana was managed by the subconscious, whose processing power was dictated by the int stat. If you exceeded 130% 0f the natural limit provided by the int stat, you would have to coconsciously manage at least part of your mana so it didn't explode constantly, instantly killing you. Even when maxing out the <Mana Manipulation> skill(which was notoriously hard to max out), the natural limit would only increase by 20%. Ariza calculated that she would need around 3 time the mana of an average challenger, meaning even with the maxed out <Mana Manipulation> she would still need 1.93 times the int of an average challenger of her level. However if she included her extremely high natural mana control, she could bring this number down to 1.43.  This was also considering that she was trying to exceed an average challenger in her other stats too.

Ariza immediately set out to use her new skills. Taking off her blood-soaked jacket, she started enchanting on most of her clothes that weren't also blood-soaked.

<cut undershirt>

Dur: 23/30

--(active)<Identity Blocker(1)>

*A part of a sleave is missing

<shirt>

Dur: 28/30

--(active)<Identity Blocker(1)>

<pants>

Dur: 29/33

--(active)<Identity Blocker(1)>

<socks>

Dur: 14/15

--(active)<Identity Blocker(1)>

<<Basic Enchant> has reached level 6>

If she used all enchants at the same, Ariza could get <Identity Blocker(3)> for 400 mana per hour. Good enough. She checked the time remaining. 0:15. she simply waited for the round to start.

/    /    /

*POV Alexander

Alexander had been using his <speaker> skill from his subclass to artificially increase hostility towards Ariza within the tutorial group. Between the smart survivalists, the greedy, the morally incorrect, and the brats who wanted to be the center of attention, he had manage to convince 63 people to help him murder Ariza over the last 3 rounds, and gained 4 levels in <speaker>. He had also convinced his group that as the leader of the operation, he should get more goblin kills. I need a few more people...

/    /    /

*POV Ariza

Slicing the last goblin in the 6th round, she watched the goblin's blood drip off of her sword.

The others are getting more hostile... Sure, I expected some people to dislike me for stealing all the kills, but it shouldn't be this bad. Is somebody causing it?  Ariza noticed there was a group of around 60 people who looking at her with undisguised killing intent. I guess I know who will be the 25 kills for the side objective.

Ariza also stopped gaining experience in the 6th round. The tower gave an experience multiplier based on the possible danger of a situation, so this was expected. Seriously, the Goblins couldn't kill be if I tried. Would I start gaining experience if I wait a few rounds? The goblins' stats increase 25% every round.

During the last few rounds, Ariza had increased the level of the <Monster Slayer> title to 3 and during the intermissions, increased her level to 40, and used alchemy to create a better mask. This mask widened her field of view, didn't interrupt her focus with splinters, had 10 defense, and actually looked good, so it was an improvement in all aspects. Having a wider field of view, Ariza's combat ability greatly increased. Once again going into the forest, she returned to the shrine in the woods and started making items using alchemy.

<wooden practice sword>

Dur: 60/60

+5 Atk

<wooden shoulder plate>

Dur: 65/65

+15 Def

<<Basic Alchemy> has reached level 5>

<you have gained title <identifier>>

This was Ariza's second goal. Identifier provided the skill <identify> which could find out hidden features of items or read another person's status. However it had a hidden effect of working exactly like the identity blocker enchantment, meaning she could now block identity for anyone less than 40 levels above her. Considering she estimated scouts for the guilds in the tower to be up to level 80, that almost guaranteed her safety as long as she was careful and didn't expose herself accidentally. Identify also allowed for a disguised status to be shown if someone failed to identify you. Only the main objective and the side objective left.

The seventh round was now starting.

[10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...now spawning 1100 goblins]

This round will be a bit different. Goblins had the <group mentality> innate skill, which explained why they would aggro on Ariza once she killed a certain amount of their members. However <group mentality> had a maximum group limit, which was 1000. This meant that there would be 100 goblins that were actually focusing on the other challengers. There might actually be deaths this round.

Ariza started her slaughter on the goblins once again.

/    /    /

*POV Alexander

We underestimated her! Alexander had been 1 of 5 people to fight the secondary group of goblins. 2 people had died, another was greatly injured, and the person other then him fled when he noticed the goblins' behavior. Only him, with his much higher level, could take out the goblins without major problems. Unlike the other group of goblins, who just stood there, facing Ariza with hostility as he openly stabbed them in to the neck, the second group was vigilant, constantly moving in a pattern that covered up each others' weakness if you were their target. It was close to impossible to get a clean hit on them. She dealt with this every round? 

It was pretty obvious that if nothing else, Ariza had hit a limit. She had stopped getting stronger after round 5. She was also smart enough to realize that the trial would end faster if she killed people. The thought that it was much more likely for him to die by Ariza then by the goblins hit him like a truck.

Alexander continued recruiting group members, This time using fear instead of greed.

WritterIDKwhatImDoing

Sorry I was a bit late in finishing this one. Good news, the next chapter will be the end of the tutorial and have an actual fight in it. Wow. I didn't include the fights against the goblins because I didn't want a chapter that felt like reading grinding in a RPG. Honestly would you be interest in "The same fight 7 times but each fight MC ends the fight faster and easier"? No. you would not. Maybe I will go back later on and merge and condense these last 2 chapters because that was pretty long for a tl:dr of "MC finishes some of her goals and tensions rise"