So if Kuiper needed to end this battle fast, Draco needed to be even faster. Kuiper, as a monster, could not see Draco's Divine Energy consumption or it would laugh with glee and immediately pull back, cruelly waiting for him to exhaust his reserves.
However, if Kuiper did that, he would die foolishly, for players didn't only obtain the Divine Energy ability from having a Divine Source Origin, but also the Divine Points mechanic. When imbuing Laws into the body, the weapon or a technique, it can only be powered by raw Divine Energy from the Source Origin.
Well, not only Divine Energy in truth. Those Semi-True Gods who had access to laws but not a Divine Source Origin often used Worldly Energy or Aetheric to power their laws depending on their type of Source Origin.
It had far lesser effects and would suffer Energy Suppression if used in combat against a true God, but for anything else it was fine.
Back to the matter at hand, there were also Divine Points for players, and Divine Points were consumed by using a skill that was imbued with the Divine Point. This gave the skill the semblance of a Divine Skill in the sense that it was powered by Divine Energy, so it could effect Energy Suppression on any other skill without Divine Energy within.
But such a skill was useless against a True God as it would be suppressed by law. So then, what the player obviously had to do was imbue the skill with their law and then use Divine Points to cast it.
So yes, a player technically had two sources of Divine Energy compared to NPCs and monsters of the same Rank. However, it was only fair because NPCs and monsters actually comprehended their laws and derived many unique abilities from them.
Players could only imbue the laws in different ways or fire them raw, which was not nearly as versatile. The AI was not a completely far gone taskmaster. It had made players suffer in the early stages to build up confidence, discipline and skill, so now that they had worked hard to achieve this power, it could not make them bottom rung all the time.
Otherwise, where would the satisfaction be? Not everyone liked to bully the weak, some like to fight the strong and realize that they themselves are strong as well, and especially that they had worked hard for that strength.
Draco realized this and then had a glint in his eye. He pointed a finger forward and used one of his Mystic skills he got from Roma, Sinister Shot!
「Sinister Shot – Active skill
Effect: Fire a concentrated beam of Mystic Energy that deals 1500% Mystic Damage to a single target.
Cooldown: 1 hour or 0.001 Divine Points.」
He imbued it with the Law of Damage Enhancement which was a raw offensive boost law that came from the Warmonger active skill of the Fire of War. This would grant its already great power the right to contend against True Gods, and even severely harm them!
The originally greenish light that condensed into a beam became twice as thick when imbued with the Divine Points, and then changed to a darker green color with flecks of black within after the law was put in.
Draco had made sure to fire this spell at close range to Kuiper, knowing that the fellow could easily dodge with Extremespeed if he idiotically fired from afar. Since the two had been clashing in close range, crazily trying to take down the other before their energy came to an end, Kuiper was too close to avoid it.
When the beam condensed initially, Kuiper felt endless disdain. In fact, if Draco fired that weak thing, it would receive it head-on and use this chance to tear off his flesh!
As such, it even leapt forward with no regard for its life, aiming to end the battle now and forever! However, its heart sank to its anus when the Divine Point was added. The skill became different and could now threaten Kuiper.
Kuiper slightly regretted its actions, but it could definitely tank the hit. It would lose some life and be in pain, but the thought of Draco's head within its jaws filled it with endless greed and it couldn't help but begin to salivate.
However, the moment the law was added, Kuiper wanted to scream to the sky.
My brother in Christ, can't you do everything at once?! Why must you toy with my dog heart so?!
Feeling that raw power and energy, Kuiper's expression became ashen, and it was filled with endless regret. It should never have fallen into this guy's tempo and for this little trick, but it was too late to cry over spilt milk.
Draco fired the beam and it immediately connected with Kuiper's head. The wolf tried to avoid it at the last minute by moving its head away, but the proximity was too close and the beam was too wide. It was fully caught within, leaving a shadow that slowly turned into ash along with the beam's trajectory.
The beast was immediately killed and Draco received his clear rewards, along with his kill rewards.
「Congratulations on completing: Divine Trial First Level Easy Mode
Time elapsed: 0:9:44
Enemies Killed: 1/1
Assessment: B
Reward:
10 Divine Trial Score.
10 Divine Essence.
3 Divine Trial Tokens.」
Draco was satisfied with his rewards, putting aside the Trial Score, the Divine Essence were great. Since it was given to each party member, they didn't have to split it, meaning that he, Eva and Shuangtian got 10 whole Divine Essences when they should have split 1 into 0.33 each.
He also saw that he got 3 trial tokens, which he could either use to return here after he failed or sell/grant others to come and take the trial as well. He now understood how these tokens were acquired and he felt a strong desire to get more.
Draco chose to return to the lobby in order to check the rewards he could get and the leaderboard. When he returned, he was still seated where he had been and he sunk into it with comfort. In truth, the battle with Kuiper was not easy and was Draco's first use of the laws.
But what was good news was that not only did he gain experience from that fight, his long dormant Innate Technique Generator had began to run again, and it was forming Draco's third series of Sword Skills based on the usage of Divine Energy.
However, if it was just this, the Innate Technique Generator would not be something that even Eva and Shuangtian coveted. The new set of sword skills also featured ways to imbue laws into swords skills!
And all of this as techniques! That's right, this strange feature Draco possessed would allow him to use the laws even without the systems help if it succeeded, but he needed to practice over and over again with the laws.
The first sword move alone would take more than a hundred high intensity fights to form. Even though this was so, Draco was not impatient. Just like his technique generator, he also wanted to experience more True God level fights and familiarize himself with the rules and the dos and donts of this system.
With that in mind, he saw Tomodachi come to hover beside him and requested to see the leaderboard. When the leaderboard appeared before him and Draco checked the one for the level 1 easy mode, his expression froze and then became extremely ugly.
「Divine Trial Leaderboards
Level 1 Easy Mode Rankings:
1. True God Lysis
2. True God Moro
3. True God Damian
4. True God Daru
5. True God Flashflame
6. True God Eternal Slumber
7. True God Sylvester
8. True God Parkinson
9. True God Leo
10. True God Nightingale
———————————
123998. True God Draco
123999. True God Marion
124000. True God Jockto
Rewards will be privately sent to each True God accordingly upon refresh.」
When Draco saw this, he was filled with confusion and embarrassment. Even though his score was not the highest, it definitely wasn't to the point where he would be ranked so low, right?
However, if other True Gods heard his thoughts and knew the circumstances of his power, they would slap their foreheads and wonder if this guy was intentionally dumb or was generationally dumb.
Seriously, what did he take the Divine Trial for? This was the elitemost testing ground for all True Gods that had existed since the old era, and countless geniuses as well as titans had passed through.
Apart from those who died and were removed from the active leaderboards since rewards were continuously sent out, the rest were still alive somewhere in the Divine Realm or the main plane assuming they were in the unmapped zones.
When they entered any level, they were alert and ready to fight, using their full power form the start to test their law against their opponent. None of them were like him, going into a trial to test meaningless things like the utility of Divine items as well as stats on a True God.
Not to mention, Draco was making a foolish and shortsighted assumption that every True God who chose level 1 easy mode was a True God with a Basic Law like him.
Every God who took the trials had to start from level 1 regardless of their power, so the top 10 probably contained Semi-Origin Gods, True Gods with Tier 8 Supreme Laws and Origin Grade State of Beings.
Such fellows, the moment the entered the stage, they were immediately sent out because Kuiper or whatever equivalent had died from one breath. In the top 10 for example, the time difference was calculated in nonaseconds.
Someone like Draco with a whole 9 minutes of time spent on the stage wanted to enjoy a higher ranking? Haha.
Since he was perpetually connected to Eva and Shuangtian, the three of them came to this conclusion after passing around some messages. Eventually, Draco's expression became clam and a small smile played on his lips.
The more it was like this, the more fun he found it to be. The Tower of Babylon had been boring because from the very outset, a mere Rank 3 Draco had been able to suppress Rank 5 powerhouses like Gavin Guy with a little effort.
However, it would not be easy to surpass these true gods unless he honed his skills a bit more and took thing seriously, which was what he immediately planned to do. With that in mind, he glanced at the Divine Trial Points he got and turned to Tomodachi.
"What are the points received after completing each stage per rank?"
"F Rank = Fail, No Points. E Rank = Poor, 1 Point. D Rank = Below Average, 3 Points. C = Average, 5 Points. B = Above Average, 10 Points. A = Excellent, 20 Points. S = Superior, 50 Points. SS = Extraordinary, 100 Points. SSS = Unparalleled (but not after Ten Consecutive Draws), 200 Points. EX = Universe Controller, 500 Points. EX+ = Kotario-like, 1000 Points and more." Tomodachi answered slowly but surely.
Draco's expression became dark. He got a B Ranking and 10 points. He initially thought that this was good, and that the Divine Trial probably limited the points gained by everyone from entering the triple digits and above.
However, he now realized he was severely wrong. The Divine Trial clearly did not care how much points you could farm, because it likely had an infinite amount of rewards to give, unlike the tower back then.
The only thing the Divine Trial cared about was your capability! If you had to skill, feel free to farm points as much as you want and redeem what you need to empower yourself and progress, then come back and farm more!
It was straightforward, without tricks and without bullshit.
Draco looked left and right, and finally understood why so many True Gods around were so busy with their own matters they hardly paid him any attention, otherwise they would find it weird for a mortal to have entered this place.