The surrounding clouds of white fog transford into several stuffed dolls wearing small cloaks, each of them holding a confetti popper. They simultaneously pulled the strings and colorful confetti flew out all over, along with cheerful popping sounds. The largest one among them, the white silhouette who gave grades to Sila and his comrades, also transford into a woman in a white cloak.
Welco to Colossia Club, dear custors. How much money do you... She didnt get to finish her sentence as one of the stuffed dolls gently yanked the edge of her cloak. She looked at it and saw it shaking its head twice.
Oh, right! Introductions first, right? Thank you for reminding . Youre so cute~ The woman lifted the doll up, kissed it on the cheek, and put it down. That particular doll rushed back to join its friends, blushing.
Sila and his team slowly let their guard down. As a matter of fact, apart from Sila, Alpha, and Midnight, the rest of his teamMiki and Isaacdidnt put up energy reinforcent at all. This really proved how his squad ranked dead last. Putting up energy reinforcent was the most standard move when encountering an unexpected situation.
Ahem. Hello again, humans. This great one standing in front of you is the majestic Queen of the Fog Race, Fowl. She bowed her head slightly, albeit a bit unwillingly.
Nice to et you, Miss Fowl, Sila greeted the woman in a friendly manner.
Fowl leaned over and took a better look at Sila, her eyes squinting. Dont try to get friendly with . Your skill wont work on . I only care about wealthy people.
Sila was surprised. He was sure she was referring to the skill Monster Heir, which normally caused monsters to show more respect toward him and beco friendlier. This strengthened his belief that she must be a high-level psychic-type monster.
Where is this place? Sila changed his approach, asking directly.
Fowl snapped her fingers. The stuffed dolls made haste to fly up and unwrap a fabric sheet hanging from the ceiling, showing the words: The Skills Training Ground of Colossia.
This place is the Skills Training Ground of Colossia, a special place where humans can practice their skills in preparation to enter the Word of Ten... Hmm, wait a second. Fowl took out a note from her pocket and read it. Oh, so I can tell them now... but they have to be the ones asking . How annoying. Her last sentence was only a mumble, but Sila just happened to hear it.
Lets just say its a place where you can train yourself to beco stronger, She concluded and didnt fail to finish her sentence, ...for a trivial fee or two.
Aside from Sila and Midnight, the other squad mbers seed to be extrely excited. Now that the room was bright, they could inspect it better. Not only was this room spacious and had good ventilation, but it also had rows of shelves filled with various kinds of weapons and even automatic vending machines. All in all, it looked like a giant luxury recreation room.
This is a hidden quest, right? Are we getting a reward? Miki was delighted.
What reward? Dont spout random bullshit. You co first, you get to pay first. That is your reward, Fowl said, her expression unchanged.
Seeing Miki's face turning pale, Alpha asked Fowl, Shouldnt you first explain to us what kind of benefits this place will give us? How can we pay for the service when we dont know what it is?
Fowl nodded. Logical. Thats logical. Lets do this, then. Since youre my first batch of custors, I will show you around for free. Think of it as a reward. Do know that this service normally costs you. If anyone else cos here after you, I will charge them.
Sila and his people didnt know what to expect, so they readily accepted the reward. Fowl started leading them around the room, explaining the venues features.
Actually, this place has been partially opened for a long ti, but no one ever found it. Anyway, our facilities are fully unlocked once the Secluded Temple, the Psychic Refinery, and Magical Library beco available in their respective main cities. Together with this training ground, these four places exist for the sa purposepreparing humans to enter the Monster Realm.
Oh. The na of this place is the Skills Training Ground, so I take it that well get to train our skills here, right? asked Alpha.
Youre right. Still, this place is different from the other three places, which focus on advancent. The services of this place include going back to fix past mistakes, so Id say were more special.
Fix past mistakes? Sila beca interested.
Correct. The Secluded Temple tempers your body and qi, strengthening your foundation and guiding you to develop your own unique qi. Well, to be fair, if youre truly capable, you wouldnt need their services. Coming up with your own exclusive qi is a feat that one can do without entering the Secluded Temple.
Fowl secretly blinked at Sila. Maybe she possessed so inspection skill which had inford her that Silas qi was unique.
The Psychic Refinery is the sa. It helps humans refine and stabilize their psychic power, including elevating it through crisis stimulation. Unlike facing real crises, however, there is a limit to how high it can improve by utilizing this thod. Thus, those risk-lovers and adventurous types wouldnt require this place.
Lastly, the Magical Library is slightly different from the forr two, but their objectives are mostly the sa. You can sacrifice your basic Elent Magic in order to learn one Unique Magic. For the record, Unique Magic is generally better than Elent Magic and more difficult to acquire. Still, one can discover Unique Magic through other ans such as a hidden quest.
Fowl took a deep breath, causing her bosoms to lean forward. Isaac stared at them without batting an eye. Such a display of perversion prompted Miki to poke her fingers into the mans unblinking eyes.
The best of them all is here, the Skills Training Ground. No matter how hard you try, the service that this place offers is not sothing you can find elsewhere. Its quite difficult to explain. Let show you a demonstration.
Using Psychic Body, Fowl split her body into five identical ones. In each bodys hand was a neutral-elent magic arrow. Each of them shot the arrow to a different mber of Silas squad. The speeds of the arrows varied.
It was noticeably clear that the arrows flying toward Sila and Midnight were several tis faster than others. Their speeds were properly calculated, ensuring that each of the squad mbers couldnt help each other.
Sila shifted his body to dodge the arrow coming his way. However, the magic arrowwhich normally flew in a straight line or at a slight curvemysteriously swerved, following its forr target. In the end, he had to clad his forehead with qi reinforcent to directly receive the hit.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Explosions rang out five tis consecutively, but there was no damage. Apparently, these arrows only generated loud sounds upon hitting their targets.
The only one left standing was Sila while the remaining four fell to the floor. No one was injured though. They were simply confused.
I shall explain. Ranging from the scores, you, the 41 points one. Fowl pointed at Sila. Your movents were excellent. Your foundation is quite solid. Your mastery of energy reinforcent is also decent. However, you failed to realize that the attack was a re sound arrow. You would have discerned the kind of magic I was using by simply taking a look at ambient mana around . The essence of magic is wasted on you.
She then pointed at Midnight. It seed pointing at soones face was her habit. You, the 35 points one. You couldnt tell the arrow was harmless either. Still, you did a good job stepping back at the last possible mont, disturbing the point of explosion, and creating a defensive magic barrier in front of you. Anyway, its la that you stumbled because your control of magic power was poor, being pushed by your own barrier.
You, the 16 points one. You pulled a dagger out very quickly. You would have coped with the arrow as well as the forr two. Your decision-making speed was a bit too slow, however, so you failed.
Lastly, Fowl spared her glance at Miki and Isaac, the mood in her eyes changing. About these two, I dont have many things to say except...
Brilliant? Isaac tried to fill in the blank.
You suck! Fowl almost shouted. Your arrows were slower than the others yet you failed to defend yourselves. This girl thoughtlessly lifted her arms to guard against the arrow... without using energy reinforcent, no less! As for you, youre busy contemplating which skills to use. You should have instantly used whatever one! How terrible are you?! Do you think your opponent will just wait for you to take your turn, huh?!!
One of the stuffed dolls quickly ran to her before tugging on her cloak. Fowl stopped and stroked its head. Erm... Sorry, I was too emotional. Im always like this every ti I see a crappy... I an, a person still in developnt.
The stuffed doll seed dejected. Apparently, it had hoped for a better act of love, more so than getting a pat in the head. With its head hung low, it regrouped with its friends, who patted its shoulder to encourage it.
In conclusion, the Skills Training Ground will grade you based on how well you can make use of your skills. Those that are good with their skills will get high scores while those that are bad will get low scores. The average is 55 points, aning every one of you is below average.
Sila was shocked to know that his mastery regarding skills-handling was below average. What does the score portray?
Dont mind it too much. Its just the evaluation system of this place. Generally, you cant use Rhythm if your score is below 70. The score is evaluated by the average mastery of all your skills. You actually possess many skills with high scores. However, you also have several skills with very low scores. That is the reason why your score cos out low despite you believing youre not weak.
Sila realized that Fowl must have discerned his fighting strength and determined he was quite strong. For the record, if one considered only qi-type skills, Sila would have scored 75-80 points given his proficiency. His psychic-type counterpart would have been a bit lower, but should at least be average, so probably 50-55 points. The problem was his magic-type skills, which should be around 0-5 points, so the outco turned out the way it was.
So people lack training while so lack knowledge, or lack other necessary skills that will unlock their potential. The Skills Training Ground is the place where these problems can be fixed... with so trivial fees involved.
Sila already had Zarnak, who had been teaching him how to utilize skills, so he didnt think he would benefit from this place. However, it seed Fowl knew what he was thinking. She sent a sound transmission to him.
Let tell you that this place can teach you better than your Demonic Armant. You dont even realize the real importance of the Blade-Sharpening Dragon. Its vast knowledge is rely a small feature. There is so information that Demonic Armants themselves cant directly impart to the users, but expect the users to realize on their own. What makes the Blade-Sharpening Dragon truly dangerous is not its ability to train its master, but its ability to negate downsides.
How? Sila thought, but he believed Fowl could hear him.
Consider this my first and last free service for you, Fowl conversed with Sila through ntal connection. Monsters or humans can wield a maximum number of three Demonic Armants. Wielding the Blade-Sharpening Dragon ans you can wield two other powerful Demonic Armants, which always co with fatal downsides, without receiving any negative effects. That is its most terrifying ability.
Silas thought process sparked like it was hit by a lightning bolt. He finally got it. Zarnak had tried to hint at it many tis, but he always failed to notice. He only realized it now that Fowl had directly revealed the answer.
Sila quickly asked Zarnak to reaffirm his theory, Zarnak, what is the downside of the Dichotomous Crucifix Sword?
My slow-to-realize master, once soone wields the Dichotomous Crucifix Sword, they shall lose all of their power, undoing all of their efforts and sending them back to the start. Qi, psychic, magic power, special skills, and basic skills will all be erased. Lucifer acquired it in order to reset himself to Level 1 Squire Rank, restarting his life as a qi-type being instead of a magic type.
What will happen if Im the one who wields it?
Zarnak continued its usual monotonous speech, but Sila could tell from its tone that it was quite proud of itself, Nothing will happen. You shall acquire its power without receiving any side effects. Conquering ans you dont have to worry about the negative effects of any equipnt you wear.
Now that he understood Fowls capability, Sila asked out loud, Can you please explain it clearly how this place will help us? Please dont say sothing vague like fixing mistakes, be specific.
The rest of his team also looked forward to an explanation. Fowl pointed at arena rings all over the place. These ten rings are teleportation circles, leading you to training grounds. Although there are only ten rings, each one splits into a hundred rooms, aning we can serve as many as a thousand custors at any given ti.
In each room, you will find my Psychic Body ready to coach you and go over which skills you need to obtain and which you already have but should improve. As long as you pay a... moderate service fee, I will teach them to you. By demoting your rank, I can even teach you the skills that you are normally unable to learn anymore.
Demoting our rank? Everyone exclaid, surprised.
I have a certain skill that will temporarily demote the targets rank. It can be used in combat, of course. Due to so necessity, however, I intend to use it here.
Why does rank demotion beco necessary? Alpha was interested.
You humans are really ignorant creatures, aren't you? The majority of you are already Marquis Rank, but your strength is subpar at most. Its to be expected though, for those too focused on leveling up without caring about skills, Fowl irritably explained. Listen. A higher rank is beneficial for increasing your health points and energy reserve, unlocking higher-tier skills, entering special locations, and wearing better gear. Those are obvious advantages. However, there are downsides that you humans always fail to notice.
What downsides?
So skills specify the rank you have to be in order to obtain them. There are many support skills that are only obtainable if you are Squire or Knight Rank. The smart ones wont be in a hurry to promote their rank. They will stay at the sa rank and grind until they have all of the support skills before ranking up. While its true that higher-tier skills are better, so of them require other low-tier skills as prerequisites to learn them. Do you get it now?
No one ever knew about this. Sila finally understood the reason why he didnt get other mastery skills aside from Bare Hands Mastery. He had easily gotten Dagger Mastery after killing a few slis in the past, but never got other weapon mastery skills despite trying various weapons.
The other mbers also ca to a realization. It was natural that every player wanted to level up faster in order to equip greater battle gear and access better skills. However, such a mindset led to the path of a character with a poor foundation as they overlooked a certain serious problem. So high-tier skills required lower-tier skills in order to learn them, aning they lost the rights to acquire them by ranking up too quickly. To fix this problem, they would need to deliberately get themselves killed by boss monsters and demote their rank. Thus, the service provided by the Skills Training Ground was extrely valuable.
The chance for them to acquire important skills and consolidate their foundation had co. They would be willing to pay no matter how expensive the service fee was. The price wasnt a problem at all.
How much is the service? asked Alpha.
Including registration fees and miscellaneous expenses, its not expensive at all. Fowl held up her hand with all of her fingers spread out, smiling. Only this much.
Five gold?! Wow! Isaac exclaid. He didnt expect the trivial fees to be this trivial.
Its five thousand gold. No discount. FIVE-THOUSAND-PER-PERSON. Fowls voice beca serious. She even emphasized the fact that it was the price per person, not per group. Pay it, or get out. The exit is there.
Or maybe the price was a problem... for poor people such as their squad.
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