Chapter 2309: Fourteenth floor
Sam's hand is in a partial fusion mode with wind element as he moved his pen.
His opponent, actually the second fastest finisher who wanted to become Sam's opponent is trying to his best to add more runes to the runic barrier, but just looking at the speed, Sam is going, he is cutting it really close.
At that moment, a third person came out of his own runic barrier and joined in with the second to make it difficult for Sam.
They thought both of them working together will give them an edge. However, they realized the situation... remained exactly the same. They are cutting it really close. Sam is clearing the runes just as fast as they are making them.
Their lead is just a few runes.
When the fourth opponent came in and joined, they finally saw a change in expression in Sam's face. Until now, he has been doing it with one hand, but with this new added opponent, he had to work with both of his hands.
Once again... they are cutting it really close.
The spectating elders outside and even the Viswa karma student who finished it first, looked at Sam and his three opponents with a weird expression.
Even though it is these three people that are messing with Sam, for some reason, weirdly they felt that Sam might be the one playing around with them.
When the fifth person came out of the runic barrier, he is unable to join in these people.
The saying too many cooks spoil the broth seemed to be apt for this situation. Even that guy knew that if he intervened, he might just make this unnecessarily complicated with no positive results.
So, instead he looked at the rest of the opponents and focused on one particular woman. She is from Sanatan region. Not from Viswa Karma's academy, instead she is from Vinayaka's academy. A god known for his wisdom, intelligence and knowledge along with a level of battle expertise.
He has other names which is not relevant at the moment.
She is one of the tough opponents in the top sixteen, so this fifth guy went after her. When she saw this guy coming at her, she immediately increased her speed of solving the runes.
Just one look and anyone can see that she was obviously faking before. She deliberately underperformed a bit. To ensure that she doesn't become a target. But she became one anyway. Either that guy has a keen perception or he did his homework before the test.
When she noticed that sixth person is also out, she gritted her teeth and took out another pen, working with both of them at the same time.
*BOOM*
As her inscriptions merged with the barrier, it exploded. Particularly at the spot where these guys were trying to interfere.
That threw the sixth guy away and made him fall on the runic barrier of a different opponent. The fifth guy gulped nervously and stepped back.
*BUZZ* *BUZZ* *BUZZ*
Within the next minute, she broke through her barrier and looked at these two hatefully.
But she also didn't go after anyone else. These two still didn't learn their lesson and went after someone else.
Like this, only two people were left. One is Sam and the other is some random guy who wouldn't matter anymore.
Only then did the sabotage stop.
Sam finished at fourteenth place, while the fifteenth finished right after. Now, Sam has the right to issue the challenge.
"The same thing that we did now. A runic barrier. You create one in fifteen minutes, I will do the same. Then we will break through, whoever comes first wins."
As one might expect, the challenge didn't take much time and it was very predictable. With the expertise Sam showed many people with some reasonable perception guessed what will happen and it did.
He won.
The fourteen people moved to the next round.
The time, the challenge is different. There are fourteen rings set up in the area. All fourteen of them have a puppet inside. They need to get on a ring and fight with the puppet. They can once again sabotage each other.
trust their own ability to deal with Sam individually in the fifteenth floor, they cannot take the
chance.
What if... what if Sam pulls off another card?
What if they failed?
So, they tacitly agreed to team up.
In this round, as soon as they arrived in the fourteenth floor, they were transported into the middle of three different formations. These are pure formations made of nodes and they have several complex layers and structures built into it.
Their goal is to break out of that formation. Whoever comes first, wins.
Sam felt that this could be the first actual difficult test in this tower. The rest of the tests are
just some added variables, while this one... whoever comes first actually might have a better chance to win the whole finale.
The formation is indeed a work of art and it seemed like it is made with at least a beginner third grade student in mind. Which means, it is a lot more powerful than them. They cannot
just brute force it.
They have to understand the nodes, destroy them one by one and then destroy the formation
after that.
However, Sam is not concerned. Because in the formation test he had most of his senses blocked, including his observation ability and energy vision.
But now, he doesn't have any restrictions and especially not on his resources.
He can use whatever he wants as long as it is not some cheat like ability or tool.
As soon as the test began, he activated his observation ability through one of the identifiable
nodes. Then several ink vials fell out of his storage and it obeyed his commands.
Runes, thousands of them are formed with just a mere thought and they arrayed together with
perfect sync.
And Sam was stuck in that state for the next fifteen minutes.
Meanwhile, the other two candidates ignored him and were hard at work.
*CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*
As they destroyed one node after another in matter of minutes, they progressed fast and
smooth, leaving Sam behind.
Until the fifteen minute mark.
*BUZZ*
Sam's formation vibrated along with the runes which suddenly became stagnant and just like
that...
His formation collapsed.
Surprising the other two, he broke through first and those two are bound to fight it out among
themselves whether they want it or not.