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[The 61st-floor stage begins.]
Explanation: Challenger who wants to take a short break and start a journey, here are two roads. One is a trail, where you have to walk through a burning desert, and the other is to climb a mountain filled with snow-storms. Both roads are full of dangerous enemies and difficult challenges. Conquer both paths, and reunite with your colleagues at the end.
â Clear condition.
Conquer the first ascetic path.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Conquer the second ascetic path.
3.?
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Two portals appeared with the message. They were emblazoned with the patterns of fire and ice, respectively. Splitting 50 people into two halves and conquering both of the paths beyond the portals would be how this 61st-floor stage was conducted.
And finally, they would meet again. The 61st floor would only be cleared when one side is wiped out. If the explanation Kirikiri gave was correct, perhaps it would be so.
[Which way do you want to go?]
âLeft.â I chose the portal with the pattern of fire. I was more used to fire than ice. Before going to the entrance, I called the frog.
âKeeaaaeeek!â
âIâm sorry, but Iâll have to put you back in. There must be a lot of temperature changes over there.â
âKeeeaaaeek!â The frog was sad, but he didnât object to my words either. Temperature changes were fatal to amphibians.
Of course, the frog only had an amphibian as its head and body of a dog, but anyway. I put the frog back and stepped on the portal. After a while, I stood in an open space, not in an enclosed space.
âIâm glad I called the frog back.â
[Right.]
The place where I was teleported to was in the middle of a raging desert. I thought it was better to recall the frog because of humidity problems rather than temperature problems.
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[You have chosen the first ascetic path.]
Explanation: The challenger who has chosen the first route, your journey will be rough. During the day, you will have to walk in the blazing desert, and at night you will have to sleep, hiding from the harsh winds. At the end of the journey, you must defeat one of the two rulers who rule this planet, the volcano ruler. There is a way to make the journey to the ruler of the volcano easier. You can weaken the volcano ruler by dedicating a companion to another ruler of the planet, the ruler of the Snow Mountain. The more the sacrifices, the weaker the ruler of the volcano becomes. As the ruler weakens, the number of his combat forces and powers decreases. Finally, the climate of the Great Volcano is adjusted.
-Clear condition of the first ascetic path.
Pass through the Desert.
Climb the summit of the Great Volcano.
Defeat the Ruler of the Great Volcano.
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All I had to do was cross the desert, go to the volcano, and kill the volcano ruler. It was a simple stage. There was a suggestion in between, about offering a colleague, but it wasnât a choice I could make.
âOkay. Letâs go for now.â
You can never clear it alone, Kirikiri had said. Even if they had a 50-member team, it would be difficult to proceed without the thought of sacrifice. Thatâs how I organized my thoughts and began to walk forward. I liked the feeling of stepping on the fine sand in the desert. I also liked the dry climate without moisture, but a sandstorm ruined everything. My shoes and clothing filled with sand, some stuck to my face, making me displeased.
âShhh!â
I hadnât said that. When I looked around, I saw a lizard staring at me. Standing on its hind legs, it was as tall as my knee. That was not a good attitude to hunt for food. It had already shown its position. Maybe that lizard was going to hunt me down. Instead, it was as if I had invaded that lizardâs territory. I think the lizard was threatening me by making sounds. Thereâs no need to kill an innocent lizard, so I just tried to pass it by. Until the lizard spewed out a fire.
âCooch!â
The lizard threw the fireball in my direction. The sound was funny, but the power was not a joke. Even in the middle of the hot desert, I could feel the heat of the flame. It was amazing.
âIs it the sub-species of a dragon?â
[Of course not. Thatâs just a lizard.] Ahbooboo answered shortly.
When the lizard saw that I had escaped the fireball, it licked its mouth, a visible sign it was preparing to spew yet another fireball. Before that, I approached the lizard and grabbed it by the tail. The lizard started struggling. Its short legs could not touch my hand that held it by its tail, but it still fought with all its might. I had no choice but to end up flinging away the lizard that was cutting off its tail. As soon as the lizard, with its tail cut off, fell to the ground, it rushed towards me.
I snapped my fingers. A fire broke out inside the lizard. The lizardâs insides burned horribly, and it died.
âDamn it. Too much blood.â
The tail of the lizard was still wildly flapping, sprinkling blood all around. There was a lot of blood on my clothes, too.
[Whatâs wrong with blood?]
Well, thatâs true. I felt uncomfortable because it was not the blood of an enemy, but of an insignificant beast. My curiosity hadnât been solved at all.
I asked Ahbooboo, âHave you ever heard of a lizard spouting fire in a crisis?â
[Of course not.]
Was it really a dragonâs subspecies? Maybe it was a Hatchling. The ruler of the volcano I was looking for was actually a dragon, but could it be that I had already killed a dragon cub? Something like that was plausible.
[Never. Thatâs just a lizard.]
âBut it spat out a flame by its mouth.â
[I guess itâs a unique lizard. Anyway, itâs not a dragon. How can a lizard that doesnât have even a handful of mana be a dragon cub?]
It was an unusual lizard, huh. Maybe, fire-breathing was a local trait here. Volcanoes in the desert and even fire-breathing lizards. All the themes in the region seemed to be set to fire and heat. Now for the second question, I violated the control of the lizard and set it on fire. How did I do that? Come to think of it, the first time I used was when I didnât know much about my abilities. I just happened to use it.
At that time, I thought that the power to exercise control over others came from the core of the source given by the God of Remorse. But now that Iâd been dealing with both gods and the source, I knew it wasnât. So, it didnât make sense that I had started a fire in a lizardâs body with the power of the source. Most importantly, I didnât have any source right now.
[Are there not people who have faith in you?]
âHuh?â
[Like people from your hometown or the people you met last time. Donât the other challengers of the Earth or from the Tutorial have faith in you?]
That was a valid point, but it didnât seem so. My image among the challengers was no less than a vague fear. Even Kim Min-hyukâs work was fading the image. I didnât see that as religious. The same was true of the Earth. I didnât know what the people outside thought of me challenging the Hell Difficulty level. I doubted that they had faith in me.
[How about Warrior?] Seregia, who had been quiet, asked.
âHuh? What do I think?â
[No.]
I thought she was asking me what I thought about this problem.
[Warrior believes in himself.]
âUh, yeah. Thatâs right.â
[Crazily, maniacally.]
â....â
[Close to crazy. Warrior has the belief that he can do it. Itâs not a bad thing. But when you canât do something, instead of feeling sorry or disappointed, Warrior seems to deny the possibility of failing.]
Thereâs no way that I canât make it because I have to. Perhaps such an obsession that goes beyond faith, which I send to myself, had become faith. That was what Seregia meant. She had tried to convey the meaning of words too directly. It was not bad, but sometimes it hurt my heart.
[Sorry.] She didnât sound sorry at all.
I asked Ahbooboo, âWhat do you think?â
He was silent for a moment, then replied, [Thatâs something I canât tell you.]
He was under a constraint. I didnât know if it was a systemic constraint or a divine constraint. This increased the credibility of Seregiaâs hypothesis. This was quite an important matter. If Seregia was right, then I could self-produce power without anyone else.
âWell, letâs find out slowly.â
If I looked back on the memories of my first experiment with and observed the changes that emerge through training, I would soon know. After thinking about it, I decided to start again.
I spread Talariaâs wings and flew up. I didnât want to walk because of the annoying sandstorm. As I flew up into the sky, the wind seemed a little less sandy. When my body was covered by mana, the sand that clung to the body was significantly reduced. There was also one more good thing. A desert city was seen from the top.
After such a long flight, I should arrive in front of the city soon. I landed nearby and walked to the cityâs main gate. As I was strolling, the city faded from my sight. Soon the city disappeared without a trace, and only the boundless sands remained in front of me.
â...Was that a mirage?â
[Huh... I guess so.]
* * * * * *
âItâs not a mirage. Definitely not.â
At first, I didnât realise, but after seeing the city disappear nearly ten times, it slowly began to hit me. As far as I knew, a mirage was a phenomenon in which light bends to move through warmer and less dense air.
This was a phenomenon in which the city showed up at a different location every time.
The problem was, I didnât see it wrong. I had approached the place with the thought that there was a city in the place, not just through sight. Nevertheless, as soon as I approached, the city had disappeared. I had to hold back my boiling anger at this, which seemed as if someone were making fun of me.
âThis is not a mirage. Someoneâs playing a prank on me.â
[Oh, my God, looks like Warrior has gotten agitated again.]
End