Chapter 191 (2/2)

Today was the day of the start of the Preliminaries. Already, Randidly was nervous, but he tried to breathe those nerves away, slowly inhaling and exhaling. As he did so, Randidly opened his status screen. Due to his earlier suspicions, he had ceased the black potion since they had arrived at Deardun, but it did not appear that any changes had happened in his body.

Randidly now basically could ignore the notifications anyway, but the small golden locks in his body remained. He still remained barred from his soul skill. Perhaps they were related, and perhaps they weren’t. But Randidly decided that he would no longer take the potion, unless it was necessary. He believed that his two years with the notificationless system in the prison had done enough to change his mindset. Now, he was focused on improving his actions, and skill levels would simply follow. It was that simple.

Over the past few days, Randidly had gained 2 Skill Levels in the Inevitable Phantom Arrives, 1 in Eyes of the Spear Phantom and Phantom Half-Step, 4 in Battle Intent, 3 in Struggle, 6 in the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil, 2 in Body Control: Freeze, 3 in Physical Fitness, 10 in Extract, and 2 in Mental Fortitude.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Randidly gritted his teeth and put the PP in the Weeping that Falls like Rain Path. His chest heated up, and he viciously smashed against it with his Battle Intent. Unfortunately, the restriction on his Soul Skill prevented him from influencing the process, so it spun wildly, a strange force building up in his chest.

Groaning, Randidly got up and stumbled to the other side of the room, where he knelt over a basin filled with water. Slowly, carefully, as his body began to tremble, he dipped his face in the water, sinking into the cool liquid.

The pain was vicious, just as vicious as what happened the first time this occurred. It felt like he would slowly be torn apart by it. His whole body would rupture, he would collapse…

But Randidly knew, deep in his heart, that he wouldn’t die from this pain. After all, someone was directly influencing his growth, and he had grown quite a bit to reach this point. That person would not likely spite Randidly into dying, just for extracting that strange emerald wisp from a crystal inside of himself.

Or at least, Randidly hoped that individual wouldn’t. Because if they did, there really didn’t appear to be anything he could do. Although he had some ideas of how to spite the process for that individual when they tried to put it into action, he wasn’t sure how to force the other to move, other than finishing this path.

Sure enough, after a time, the pain started to fade. Randidly slowly removed his face from the liquid, which had warmed quite a bit as he held his face there. He grimly smiled; if he had still been on Earth, if things hadn’t changed… he probably would have crushed the world record in holding your breath about 10 times over.

There were more things that Randidly wanted to do before the tournament, but they could probably wait. He waited to attempt to create armor with the Shadow IV rune, but Randidly didn’t think he had the technical skill, the mana, or the proper armor for it yet anyway. He also wanted to immerse himself more deeply in the Spear Phantom’s diary, moving towards the 5th skill, but the mental strain, even with the Weeping Cloud, was such that he hadn’t attempted it too seriously over the past few days, allowing his body and mind time to reach its optimum state.

There was a knock at the door.

“Are you prepared?” For once, Helen’s voice was low and serious. Randidly stood, stretched, and gathered his items. They had already been informed that the only thing you could bring to the Preliminary was a spear. All other items had to be left behind. One by one, Randidly removed his rings. He had wanted to create more of these, too, and focus on improving their efficacy. But for now, this would have to do.

“Yes.”

Randidly went with his spear attendants, proceeding to the area of the preliminaries, which had been surrounded by guards for months, according to Claptrap. The area was covered by a huge dome, and only after he had said goodbye to his spear attendants and been searched for any other items, was he let inside of it.

His large, black obsidian spear was given some knowing looks, but the people running the preliminaries appeared to be professionals, for they said nothing.

Inside, there was… a series of what Randidly could only describe as half constructed buildings. There were huge edifices of stone, but they were surrounded by scaffolding. There were also other areas where laborers appeared to be still working, throwing up walls at a visible speed. It all seemed… honestly rather haphazard, for the tournament that was the highest level tournament for the younger generations in the Northern Region.

But Randidly was swiftly whisked away, and brought to another area where he was weighed and measured. Most interestingly he was measured, not by pure height, but height to his shoulders, and then also to the tips of his fingers when he stretched his arms directly upwards. Then he was brought to a room and told to wait.

He looked around. Over 100 men and women waited with him, all meditating or stretching, as more continued to trickle in. There was an aura to the room too, swirling, of power and tension. So this…

This was his competition.