Chapter 294: Fault (1/2)

Leonel's expression changed. This was the last thing he could have possibly expected to happen. However, after a while, he understood why such a thing would happen.

The Merlin Trials were set up with the utmost transparency. With the exception of hiding what happened within the Special Store, everything else was laid bare for all to see. Whether it was one's performance and grade or even the skills one chose to unlock, everyone saw it.

Beyond this transparency, one could watch everyone battle. This was especially so in single participant trials like trial 1 and 2 had been. In that case, even when one waited to unlock skills after using a Special Store Ticket, it was more likely than not that whatever improvements one made would become very obvious, very quickly.

As though this wasn't enough, everyone shared the same physical root skill tree. In addition, all those who used the same weapon shared the same weapon root and special root skill trees as well. This meant that even if one wanted to hide their skills and did a good job in doing so, the kind of skills one had unlocked could be deduced just by observing someone else with a similar weapon!

What did this all come to mean? It essentially meant that this set up made it very easy to distinguish who was powerful and who wasn't, in addition to who was improving faster than others and who wasn't.

In such a situation, a small group of individuals becoming the target of many was very possible. One could even say that it was inevitable. The only question was of when.

Understanding this, Merlin would have definitely made some plans accordingly. Or, maybe this was always Merlin's intention to begin with.

'It feels as though everything is suddenly moving quicker. Whether it was the sudden Elimination Round or this Random Event, both were triggered by something that should have only begun to happen much later in the trials…'

After thinking to this point, Leonel became several points more serious. Though the voice had said that he had 10x the rewards to claim, he knew that doing so wouldn't be so easy.

Before Leonel could think anymore, he felt the world warp around him. When his vision cleared, he found himself in a familiar throne room. Except this time, rather than kneeling before it as he had done last time, he was sitting on its cushioned seat.

'King Arthur's Throne Room?'

Leonel frowned. He felt that this positioning wasn't much of a coincidence.

After a sweep of his senses, Leonel realized that though he was within Camelot's castle, it was completely deserted. In fact, for as far as he could stretch his Internal Sight, he didn't spot a single person.

Leonel was pleasantly surprised. He hadn't thought that he would gain something like that. This made things much more convenient for him.

After a while, Leonel understood the Random Event.

There was a flag in this very throne room. In fact, it was waving above the throne he sat on at this very moment. His role was to protect it, while the role of everyone else was to steal it.

Leonel had to protect the flag for a single day. However, should the flag be stolen away, it only had to be protected by the opposition for ten minutes. The only exception to this is if there was less than ten minutes remaining to the end of the trial. In that case, they only had to protect it until time ran out. This essentially meant that the most dangerous time for Leonel to lose the flag would be in the final minutes.

Of course, the reason Leonel wasn't in too bad of a position was because he could move the flag if he wanted to. The only restriction was that since the chosen location was Camelot, he couldn't leave the city walls. In fact, from Leonel's understanding, he had to stay within the core city's gates as well. However, this was still a large area.

'Run?'

Leonel's lips curled, a cold light suffusing his eyes.

In order to participate in capturing his flag, Leonel's enemies had to pay 1 star point or 1000 skill points. This way, most were filtered out. However, it also guaranteed that all who dared to do so would be elites.

At the same time, the more who participated, the better his rewards would be.

”Yip! Yip!”

Little Blackstar jumped up from Leonel's shoulders to the top of his head. Previously, the little guy had felt quite enraged about how Leonel was being treated and had even wanted to charge out to face their enemies directly. However, Leonel had stopped the little guy from doing so. Though the little mink was powerful, Leonel was sure Blackstar was still an infant. He couldn't let him rush to his death like that.

”Yes, yes. We'll get them back now. Giving an Earth Mage time to prepare their own terrain? They should expect to suffer a few losses…”

Leaving such an advantage to an Earth Mage was bad enough. But, Leonel wasn't just an Earth Mage… He was an Earth Magus who also happened to be a Force Crafter.

The moment Leonel had this thought, he began to use the over 3000 skill points he had  just gained without thought for conservation.

**

The 30 minute timer ran its course.

At that moment, several individuals turned their gaze toward the Segmented Cube Leonel had left behind. However, none of them had the ability to cross the skies like Leonel had. Or, maybe some of them did, but had yet to unlock such an ability from the physical root skill tree and could only watch it.