Chapter 59: Whale Segman

Were these sacred souls all monsters?

This was the spear knight’s thoughts for the past few days.

After fighting with the players for three days and three nights with no rest, even if he had the spirit of the tower replenish his fatigue and life force he still felt quite mentally tired.

He didn’t have enough mental prowess to fight for seven days and seven nights, and what made it worse was that these sacred souls really had a bunch of strange powers.

In the past three days, the spear knight had been bombarded by all types of magic and spells, fought with swordsmen and gunslingers, bashed in the face by shields, and been cast with all sorts of debuffs and status effects like bleeding, poison, and curses.

What made him feel the most flabbergasted was how these sacred souls started to challenge the first floor of the Tower of Trials like crazy.

The spear knight had challenged the first floor of the Tower of Trials before when he was young, and had created the record of the seventh ranking at forty-five minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

This record was maintained for a few decades, and it became one of the highest records of their world.

The spear knight thought that his prince was already skilled enough to clear the first floor with thirty-nine minutes, but ever since the arrival of these sacred souls, the Sacred Records of the first floor entered a whole new era.

They could defeat the dungeon that required an average of an hour to beat in a mere fifteen minutes.

The current fastest record was thirteen minutes and twenty-two seconds by the Jumping Nucleons guild.

This already wasn’t a record that could be touched by the natives, but thankfully the first floor didn’t reward any precious sacred relics because it was only for youngsters of thirty-five years old and below.

But the problem was that these crazy sacred souls started to set their sights on the Sacred Records of the second floor! These records could be seen as the lifeblood of the four great countries in their world.

The sacred relics rewarded on the second and third floor were all strategic resources for each of the countries.

The speak knight didn’t know what the higher-ups were thinking, but he could finally leave that damned battle arena.

He received orders from the king himself to escort Prince Segman to challenge the second floor of the Tower of Trials.

The second floor of the Tower of Trials was limited to only people below seventy years of age, and the spear knight was forty-seven years old with a past record of clearing the second floor himself.

For the ambitious Prince Segman to challenge the second floor wasn’t out of the spear knight’s expectations, but the other contents of the king’s decree confused him greatly.

‘Never, ever let the prince touch an alchemical device called an Enhancing Machine. If he has any intent of touching it, please knock him out and bring him back to Aquaflow immediately. This is a decree of the highest order by the king, the elder mage, and the sacred relic management vault!’

An Enhancing Machine? What was that?

The spear knight read over the letter thoroughly, and in these three days he hadn’t gotten to know anything other than fighting, so he had no idea what an Enhancing Machine was.

He didn’t even know why the sacred souls wanted magical stones in the first place.

“Sir Kaermo, I’ve kept you waiting.”

Segman appeared behind the spear knight, and after glancing at Solar who was fighting on the arena he bowed a knight’s salute to the prince.

“You’re already the most excellent of your age, Your Highness. You don’t have to rush to challenge the second floor…” The old mage trailed behind Segman with a worried expression.

“Then what about within them?” Segman pointed towards the players who were having an impromptu party again, then looked back at the old mage.

“This…Prince Segman, these are sacred souls and the chosen saviors of our world, you don’t have to compete with them.” The old mage knew that Segman had been pressuring himself to become stronger in order to become the strongest not only within the natives, but the players too.

“Why can’t we be our own saviors? Aquaflow has never lost to anyone!” Segman shouted, before realizing he was speaking out of line and lowering his voice. “I don’t think that it’s a given for us to be weaker than those sacred souls.”

“Your Highness…” The old mage wanted to continue, but the spear knight blocked his way respectfully.

“Great sage, please have some rest. I will take over from here.”

The spear knight had an admiration for the prince, because he saw his own ambition in the young prince.

The old mage sighed and nodded, knowing that Segman was so stubborn not only because of his personality, but because he had fallen in love.

Prince Segman had already challenged the dungeon twice with the Jumping Nucleons guild, and even though it was true that they had cleared the first ranking together, but the more Segman came into contact with the players, the more he realized his own weakness.

Segman’s actions were that of a hormonal teenager who was thinking of how to show off in front of the girl he liked, and in their world it was completely normal for a person to reach puberty at around thirty years old.

But now the problem was, how could Segman show off in front of a sacred soul girl while he himself was just a mortal?

The answer lied in the Enhancing Machines.

“Your Highness, are you going to look for those Enhancing Machines?” The spear knight asked, seeing the prince walk towards where the players were dancing around.

“Are you going to stop me too?” Prince Segman threw a sidelong glance at the spear knight.

“As long as you don’t tell His Majesty, I will not stop you. I was a rebellious child in the past myself, after all.” The spear knight was quite open on the topic, and as long as this alchemical device did not harm Prince Segman, he had no reason to stop him.

“Very good!”

Segman brought the spear knight into the area where the Faerie Merchant set up shop, and as soon as he stepped in here he thought he stepped into some strange cult with all the players wearing strange animal headmasks.

Solar had deduced that these sacred souls might have wanted to get magical stones to buy these strange headmasks, but it was so absurd that most of the people who heard it thought that it was impossible.

When Segman walked into this area, all the Sacred Souls smiled meaningfully at Segman, and the spear knight didn’t know why that was.

“Your Highness! Another one of your sacred relics is going to be blown up!” A player that was wearing a horse headmask shouted from far away.

Segman only continued walking towards Enhancer Ellie with a resolute expression, and cleared his throat with a cough.

“I want to use machine number three!” Segman handed several magical stones to Enhancer Ellie.

“How many pieces of equipment do you think he’ll blow up this time?”

“I’m betting five! He’s way too greedy to want to enhance every equipment of his by thirteen times.”

The players that were watching at a side said loudly as they saw him hand over the magical stones.

“I haven’t even started yet! Why must you people be so rude?” Segman shouted towards all the people surrounding him.

“Rude? I saw you try to enhance five sacred relics to +13 with your own hands! They all blew up, didn’t they?”

At this point, Segman blushed brightly and lowered his head in a mix of anger and embarrassment, before suppressing his emotions and shouting indignantly.

“I-It was just a bunch of small sacred relics! Don’t you sacred souls do the same to test the waters? The stuff that I used was just a trial run, how could you say it blew up!”

In the past two days, Segman had either been battling in the Tower of Trials, or ‘feeding’ his country’s sacred relics to the Enhancing Machines.

The enhancements that the machines brought were way too addictive for him. The staff that he was holding right now was a +13 enhanced Burning Staff, and through the enhancements made to it, the destructive capabilities had tripled!

“Prince Segman…What are you going to do?” The spear knight had a bad feeling as he listened to the comments of the sacred souls.

“Shut up and watch!”

Segman had already entered a state of focus, and took out a red statue, placing it carefully into the machine.

Serial number 213, the Flame-Converging Statue!

The spear knight quickly recognized the important sacred relic of their country as the prince threw it into the machine, before the machine shook and spit out a pile of charred fragments.

“Your Highness…Where did that sacred relic go?” The spear knight was stunned, not wanting to believe that the exquisitely made statue had been turned into a pile of charcoal.

“It’s broken, don’t you see?” Segman seemed to be quite bummed out as he took out an azure crystal ball.

Serial number 327, the Magical Sphere!

The spear knight had managed the sacred relic vault for a while in the past, so he could remember the serial code, the name, and the preciousness of every sacred relic in there.

As Segman threw the crystal ball into the Enhancing Machine, his heart was filled with fear, knowing that it was just the start.