Chapter 45: Why Don’t You Do It?

Solar refused the help of his comrades, making his way off the arena by himself and going back to the Aquaflow camp.

“Those so-called saviors of the world… Sacred souls, was it? They’re so weak that they can’t even stand their ground for half a minute. If it were me, they probably wouldn’t be able to stand one hit!”

A knight that was carrying a spear went up to Solar as soon as he came into the camp. He was one of the three great knights of Aquaflow, the Spear Knight Kaermo, while Solar was the Sword Knight among the trio.

The three knights of Aquaflow represented the very pinnacle of martial prowess and ability in their country, and were their pride and glory.

“You can go try, if you want.”

Solar took off his helmet, revealing his strict looking and square face, and looked at the fickle-minded spear knight with a strict expression.

“With those childish skills and strategies, I wouldn’t even have a problem fighting three in a row!”

In the eyes of the spear knight, the battle between Solar and TeaLeaf seemed to be like an adult fighting with a child. TeaLeaf had a bunch of fancy sword skills, but in front of Solar, he completely lost in terms of battle prowess, grasping chances and even their grasp over sword skills.

“Then why don’t you do it?”

“Because you’re hurt.” The spear knight crouched down in front of Solar and stared at his old friend. “I’m curious…The number of times that chosen one’s weapon came into contact with you wasn’t more than four times, but you were so weak during the fourth battle… It was as if you had gotten some serious inner injuries.”

“That swordsman has a strange ability.” Solar thought for a bit, before retelling his experiences to Kaermo. “Every time that sword hits me, I feel like it drains me of my life force…”

“Life force?” It was the first time Kaermo had heard this term.

“I… don’t have any better way to describe it, but it was like he had a magical sword that could consume the very essence of life itself from me every time he hit me,” Solar described, and even now, he still felt a lingering fear in his heart.

The battle just now was just a simple spar, and if it were a no-holds-barred real battle, just this ability that worked to whittle his life-force regardless or defense or armor would be able to make him lose half his life.

In real life, armor could completely block the damage from an attack as long as it wasn’t broken, but in the eyes of players, armor was only an equipment that could add onto the defense stat.

“Sword qi?” The spear knight immediately thought of an old phrase. “I saw him create a blade out of thin air in his other hand, perhaps he learned magic to erode the life of the target itself?”

“No…I’m sure that it was an unknown power that all those beings called sacred souls have…” Solar was completely sure that what hurt his life force wasn’t magic or anything of the sort.

“Is this special power why they were all chosen as the saviors of the world?”

“Not only this power, but their attacks also have special effects, like that upper swing just now, for example, threw me up into the air even though he didn’t put much energy behind that thin sword of his. If I didn’t fight back, I would probably have been in the air for a while longer.”

The more Solar talked, the more he felt afraid of these sacred souls that completely went against common sense.

“But their battle sense is so laughable it could be compared to a child!”

Kaermo still felt that the battle force of these sacred souls still couldn’t be put into consideration in real combat, and according to the way TeaLeaf fought, their knights would be able to kill them with one hit.

“Sir Kaermo, I believe it is your turn to test out their abilities.”

The old mage came towards the two knights, and his pupils had been dyed a light shade of gold again. When the two of them saw him, they quickly gave a knight’s salute, but Solar’s injuries made his movements somewhat twisted.

A light golden flow of magical power flowed out from the fingertips of the old mage and entered Solar’s body, and the knight felt his lost life-force return to his body, along with his fatigue from his battles.

“This is a friendly spar, but you don’t have to hold back. I will heal you and your subordinate’s wounds and fatigue, and if you believe that you are stronger than them, then show them the power that you possess through battle!”

As he said so, the grounds of the resting area outside of the Tower of Trials suddenly started to shake, and fifteen stone platforms rose out of the gound.

“Alright. I hope there’s someone who can let me feel exhilarated from fighting again!” The spear knight left with his spear rested on his shoulder, and made his way towards the arena that Solar was battling in earlier.

At this moment, the players at the Tower of Trials all received a quest notification.

[Trial Quest: Provocations from otherworldly knights]

[This is a challenge letter from the knights of a foreign world. They believe that the existence of sacred souls to be too weak and frail to be of any use, so crush their pride using your strength!]

[Quest rewards: Reward of a different sum of magical stones according to the strength of the knight defeated, unlocking the Magical Stone Pool System]

This trial quest was designed by Jiang Qiao to be a gambling battle, and when a player was challenging a knight, they could deposit their bets into the reward pool.

Different level and different difficulties of knights would have different rates, and taking Kaermo as an example, his rates would be 2.3 times along with a prize of 500 magical stones on the side.

500 magical stones were enough to exchange a normal skin item from the Faerie Merchant, and the normal player would have to use four to five days before getting that amount.

This generous reward immediately attracted the attention of every player outside the Tower of Trials.

“Did the developers release this quest because we were working so hard on grinding for magical stones?”

“I’ve always thought that they were quite nice towards players…”

“Nice my foot! I haven’t slept for almost five days grinding for the Rainbow Unicorn Headmask! Not to mention the entire set…Wait, you can gamble on this quest?”

“I smell the scent of scamming in the air, I won’t gamble, or else I’m a dog!”

Jiang Qiao saw the bunch of players gather next to the arena, where a deep purple magical stone prize pool had appeared, bubbling like a witch’s cauldron.

The players would only have to throw magical stones into this pool, and if the challenging player won, they would be able to get 2.3 times the amount of magical stones as a reward.

These experienced players wouldn’t bet so easily, because the magical stones they had were the fruits of their labor, and also because they knew that this sort of event was normally designed as a trap to cheat players.

There were a lot of gamblers within the players, and while the liver emperors(1)(2) were still undecided about it, a player called SilverBullet immediately threw a hundred magical stones into the pull, and stepped onto the arena.

“F*ck! Didn’t you say that you would be a dog if you continued to gamble?” One of SilverBullet’s friends shouted indignantly now that he couldn’t challenge the spear knight anymore.

“Yes, and what about it? I’m not as undecided on this whole deal as you are, and this NPC doesn’t look as tough as the earlier one.”

SilverBullet’s avatar wore a black trench coat and a black top hat, and his class was a Roaming Ranger, which was the most flashy class within the class advancements of the Gunslinger class. Their battle style was based on guns, and two revolvers appeared in his hands as soon as he stepped onto the arena.

His first action upon walking onto the arena was to cast buffs on himself. There was a skill called the Death Smokescreen that could increase attack damage, and as soon as he stood on the arena he snapped his finger, and a buff window appeared above his forehead.

Kaermo wasn’t one of those dumb NPCs, and as soon as the enemy stepped onto the arena he entered combat mode, staring cautiously at this sacred soul in front of him.

But he hadn’t expected this strange enemy to be full of openings and even try acting cool, and the spear knight didn’t let this chance go. His arm that held his spear bulged with muscles, and a blood-red rune appeared on the spear, and the next second he threw the spear towards the flashy player, and SilverBullet had barely finished buffing himself before his heart was impaled.

“Drat!” He had never expected this sacred soul to be completely defenseless, because however weak, they were still the chosen saviors of the world, and it would be a great bother to accidentally kill one of them.

As his spear pierced SilverBullet, a ‘-1389’ floated out from SilverBullet’s head, and even his body was pushed out of the arena due to the immense momentum.

[Victory: Spear Knight Kaermo]

A large rune that said so appeared in the air above the arena.

Did he win just like that? Kaermo couldn’t even believe it himself, but could these fellows… really be called warriors? He didn’t have any sense of caution on the battlefield!

As his mind was filled with these thoughts, the man that was impaled with a spear stood up like nothing happened, and turned around to joke around with his friends.

“This NPC didn’t play fair! To attack me like that before I was finished with my buffs…” SilverBullet grumbled in dissatisfaction.

“Players wouldn’t give you the chance to cast buffs when you PK with them either… Ah, why hasn’t that spear disappeared? Do projectiles in this quest stay on the player for a longer time? Huh, it has physical effects too.” His friend even reached out to touch the blood-red spear.

“Oh yeah, can I hit someone with this?” SilverBullet seemed to be quite an eccentric person too, and he even spun around so that the spear hit the faces of his friends.

The spear knight’s eye twitched as he watched this scene. They could even joke around with a spear pierced through his heart? Were they all monsters?

But it was still true that they were still too weak.

The spear knight’s hand waved, and the spear that was in SilverBullet’s chest turned into particles and returned to his hand.

This spear was one of the sacred relics of Aquaflow.

“Next!” Kaermo shouted towards all the players that were spectating.

T/N:

Liver emperors: Players who spend lots of time grinding for items and levels in games

Liver: basically means that grinding so much it hurts their livers from the lack of sleep(it’s a common term, keep in mind)