Ascension: Online

Since the boy refused carrying the girl, as she would slap the hell out of him when she woke up, I was tasked with doing it for some reason. She would probably slap me even harder, but the difference was I would be able to dodge it. He wouldn't.

I carried her on my back, but it was as if I was barely carrying anything at all. She weighed about as much as a bag of potatoes, which definitely wasn't normal. That said, she didn't particularly seem overly skinny either, so I doubted she was just naturally underweight. Perhaps this had something to do with her cultivation…?

I didn't know, and I really didn't care. We arrived at the Safe Zone soon after, where numerous other disciples were gathered. It was like a small town of some sort, in the middle of a rainforest. Certainly, it was far more hospitable than the wild.

"Which Zone is this…?" I asked the boy, looking around.

"This is Zone A," he replied. "There seems to be more people here compared to when we first set out to go hunting, though…"

"No shit. More and more people are finding zones and taking them," I scoffed. "This place, along with the other zones, will turn into a bloodbath soon. Right now, people are still trying to negotiate and such because they haven't met up with their teammates yet. But the moment they do, any 'alliances' they've formed in the past fall apart immediately."

I glanced at the boy with a sly grin, seeing if he would get the hint.

"You mean to say… my team actually has the advantage here?"

I nodded. "You're already all assembled together. All you have to do is challenge the others with brute force. Besides… if you can capture this zone for your team alone and drive out everyone else, I'm sure this girl here would be quite impressed."

"Mei'Er…"

I smirked and patted his shoulder. "The first step is to call in a meeting for everyone at the zone right now. Do it as early possible, since more people will start arriving as time goes on."

He quickly nodded in understanding. "I-I got it. Thanks for the advice."

"No problem."

The boy hurried off along with the other two in his team, and once they were out of earshot, Ming Yi chuckled.

"Brother Kaze… you're cruel."

"Am I now?"

"You're trying to make this place erupt in chaos… that way you can clean up the survivors by the end of it all."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," I said, keeping a neutral expression on my face. "For now, though, I'm going to just leave behind this burde- I mean, girl on my back. She's somewhat troublesome to walk around with."

It didn't take us long to find a lodging for the still-unconscious girl. Despite the Zone being quite large, only one building was made for residential purposes. It had12 spaces in it, but most were empty since it was just the first day and everyone was too busy stacking points to bother securing themselves a space to sleep. That, however, would soon not be the case by the end of tonight.

Casually tossing Mei'Er or whatever her name is onto the bed in a room, I headed out the door and shut it tight… or did I? I purposely left a tiny peekhole for myself to glance at the bed, where Mei'Er gradually opened her eyes, having faked being unconscious all this time. She probably heard what I was planning on doing earlier, but that didn't matter all that much.

After all… knowing what your enemy is going to do is only good when they don't know that you know.

*****

Later, I headed out of the Zone with Ming Yi to get some hunting done. Koroth decided to stay back to help their team gain points that way, since even if only one person was in a Zone, their team's total points would still increase by 5 for every day that passes. I don't know what classifies as the person being in the Zone, how long they have to stay there for for it to count, et cetera, but I'm assuming an hour is required at the very least.

I didn't really care about getting the Zone's points since hunting could give me far more with my Many Must Fall skill. With my current power level, most of the beasts in this forest were below mine and were therefore vulnerable to that art. The only ones I probably wouldn't be able to defeat with that skill are Tier Vs, the strongest ones in this forest, and of course the Tier VIIs that spawn only on the weekly flashpoint events.

In the end, I managed to get to Level 40 with all this, providing me with 50 SP and 20 AP to use. My stats now looked like this:

[STR: 330 -> 340] (Cost: 10 SP)

[AGI: 340]

[INT: 210 -> 250] (Cost: 40 SP)

[DEX: 200]

[MAG: 230]

[LUC: 15]

I spent 10 points on STR to bring it up to par with my agility, and spent the rest on INT. With this, I unlocked another universal cooldown reduction on all of my arts, since for every 50 INT levels, I gained a 10% cooldown reduction for all skills. The 10% applies to the current cooldown though, not the original one — which meant it was technically impossible to be able to use the same ability consecutively without any breaks — just a very short cooldown.

If I continued bringing my INT up, I could essentially use Blink over and over again, leaving my opponents completely fooled. Of course, such a method drains Essence, which is why it still wasn't ideal, but having the option in sticky situations was always nice.

And of course… my LUC stat went down again. Sigh…

*****

Since I had been keeping track in my head, I should have exactly 204 points right now on my wristwatch, which was — quite unfortunately — still broken. Since Elder Zhang was the one overseeing this exam, I doubt he would give me a new one if I asked, so I had no choice but to bear with it. Still… something seemed off. When using Many Must Fall, I had been using my right hand, but my wristwatch is on my left. When I was washing my armor, I had the watch tucked beneath my chin for security.

There should be no reason whatsoever why the watch stopped functioning all of a sudden… unless someone on the admin side manually did this on purpose.

I wouldn't be surprised if Elder Zhang manipulated this into happening, in all honesty. This way, no matter how many Beasts and Monsters I claim to have killed, my wristwatch is broken, so there is nothing that can be used as evidence. Since the sect was essentially on his side here, I doubted having witnesses or even the bodies of the beings I slayed would help my case.

If I could just find some solid evidence that he was manipulating this exam to target me specifically… wait, the map!

I hurriedly pulled it out of my inventory, but narrowed my eyes as it had turned back to normal.

Man, I really wish I had a phone or a camera… I wonder, does the System have a screenshot feature? Yeah, probably not.

I sighed. Either way, there were more concerning matters at hand here. The sun had just set, and everyone in the Safe Zone had gathered at the center of the little village, where the male disciple from earlier stood above the rest on a stage of some sort.

Ming Yi tapped on my shoulder. "The show's beginning."

I nodded and jumped onto the wall, then bounced myself onto the other wall on my other side, repeating this process back and forth until I made it to the roof. Ming Yi did the same, and Koroth… well, Koroth couldn't pull that off with his large frame and heavy body, so he took the long route and went up the stairs in the building.

Sitting down near the edge and dangling my feet over it, I waited patiently for the calm before the storm to begin.

*****

- Elsewhere, Also In Zone A… -

"Hm? On the roof… is that… hehe~ to think we would meet again so soon. It's truly fate," a girl giggled as she placed her hand just above her eyes and scanned the area. "Ah… we've been apart for so little time, yet I've missed you so much already, Kaze~"

She stood atop the tallest building within the zone, long black hair fluttering gently against the evening breeze. She held a large scythe that towered her own body behind her back, true form hidden by the cloak of night.

But the true form didn't matter. Just its shadow was enough — the embodiment of death.

The girl looked like an angel, yet her actions were that of a devil's. Her heart-filled pink eyes shone brightly as she licked her lips seductively.

She looked down at the crowd gathered below, ignorant and innocent.

"Fufu~ watch me, Kaze. There's going to be another massacre tonight~"