Chapter 380 Stage Two

Chapter 380 Stage Two

[First Advancement Trial] Stage 1 Complete

[Stage 2 Begins In 10 Seconds]

"Seriously?" Karl muttered as he saw the notification.

But the notification seemed to be serious, as the world around them was changing, morphing into a large cavern, similar to the one where the Dark Elven City had been located, except that it was filled with glowing green pools of what Karl could only assume was toxic goo.

[This place does not look fun. Not even being green makes it look better.] Thor noted.

At first, there didn't seem to be any opponents here at all, they were just standing in a toxic field.

Then the monsters began to appear, walking up out of the glowing pools, a shambling wave of toxic sludge covered zombies.

Hawk immediately began pelting them with fireballs, while Remi brought up a [Blizzard] hoping to freeze them so they would stop advancing.

For a moment, it seemed like it was going to work, and the zombies ground to a halt before a new boss appeared in the centre of the largest puddle and began to cast spells, causing the downed zombies to regenerate while summoning more of them.

The boss didn't look all that impressive, just a sludge covered zombie woman in a black dress, but the shining black eyes weren't vacant, and everyone in the group could feel the power of its magic.

[Those pools will be an issue. Rae, can you send the Golems to deal with the boss? Either kill it or lure it out into the open where we can fight it properly.] Karl instructed.

Ice didn't seem to kill the zombies, they just froze for a bit and then started moving again. Setting them on fire was much more effective, whether it was fire or lightning that burned them.

Once their head was destroyed, they would die, Karl noticed, right before Rae came up with a zombie hunting strategy.

Firing small stones, half the size of their heads, caused the skulls to burst like melons, and killed the zombies reliably in a single shot.

They were weak, but it was beginning to look like they were endless, and they just kept coming out of the pools as the old bodies vanished.

The Golems reached the boss, lunging forward with their forelimbs, but the creature simply dove into a pool, and appeared from another.

For a split second, the Golems were confused, then they began to chase the boss around, hunting it relentlessly as it continued to run away.

"The first one I touched was the purple one, and it asked me if I wanted to start an Epic trial."

Tessa nodded. "That must have been a Tier 3 Trial, with a random set of rewards. Of course you couldn't resist the urge to touch the box that was clearly and obviously not meant to be safe to handle."

One after another, the others arrived, none of them looking too badly injured, and in Dana's case, she even had [Refreshing Lightning] still active.

The only one missing was Lotus, and Karl began to wonder if something had happened to the little Nature Priestess.

For half an hour, they waited, with no sign of her hologram changing.

Then, it suddenly shifted, and a startled Lotus was in front of them, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

"Oh, hey guys. What's going on?" She asked.

"We've been waiting on you to finish your trials." Karl reminded her.

"Trials? Oh, they're starting already? I was playing with the box. Did you know that the contents change if you close the lid?"

Tessa stared at her for a few seconds before anyone spoke.

"Are you saying that you've been playing with the box for the last hour, and you never did the first trials?" The War Cleric asked her lifelong friend.

Lotus just shrugged.

"Well, that's one way to do it. I guess there is a time limit. But the rest of us are on trial number three." Tessa explained.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it was a group thingy. Alright, what are we doing? Is it a gladiator tournament?"

Karl shrugged. "It looks like it, but I don't know yet. Nothing was happening while we waited for everyone to arrive. There were just those transparent mannequins holding our places until we all finished our trials."

[Team Trial Three Begins In 10 seconds]

[Modified Difficulty Increased For Incomplete Trials]

[Epic Difficulty Chosen]