Five days later, in the hidden underground chamber, Maximus looked at the ongoing rune inscribing process.
[Initial Virtual Colosseum complete (Tier 0-5)
Battle Ground Map Calibrating...
Battle of the Ancients Initializing...]
The Aethercore, after eight days, finally stopped vibrating, and Maximus had consumed 13 top magic crystals just to inscribe this unfinished Virtual Colosseum.
[Please insert name...]
After some thinking, he named it the Battle Colosseum.
There are two modes of Battle Colosseum.
The Battle Ground, where players battle against each other either in 1v1 or 5v5 matches.
And the Battle of the Ancients, where you battle against the AI program.
This is where he consumed most of the top-grade magic crystals, as inscribing this AI powerhouse required purer and more mana.
What was finished now was the battle AI for Tier 0 to 5.
As for higher tiers, it was still ongoing, but he estimated that it would take at least a month to finish the battle AI for Tier 6.
Tier 6 is on a different level, as it is the threshold between mages and knights, making them equal.
This special realm is achieved by combining the body and soul, making that mages and knights are on equal in strength and lifespan.
After he finished naming it, he inputted the rewards.
After all, without rewards, it would only be a game.
With rewards, it would be a way of life, the dream that you want to achieve in your life.
The first reward he thought of was all kinds of rare resources for mage and knight cultivation.
By setting this, it would provide invisible benefits for talented individuals, making them stronger than others.
The second reward was titles and land.
After he came to rule the entire Sunburn Plateau, all noble titles were abolished, leaving the powerless nobles frustrated.
These titles and land rewards held no real power.
The land was spiritual land for farming and building houses.
You know, spiritual land is usually rented monthly, and the houses people live in can't be arbitrarily changed, and they still need to pay a yearly fee.
Of course, it is affordable and cheap; otherwise, people wouldn't have the means to live in it.
But with these rewards, they would fully own the land and be able to do whatever they liked.
As for the titles, they would provide special privileges, such as tax discounts and other special benefits that would surely flatter these former nobles.
After setting these rewards, he set the price for these rewards, which were the battle points players would receive when they won a battle.
In the Battle of the Ancients, opponents were divided into tiers 0 to 5, with varying difficulties: easy, medium, hard, and nightmare.
For tiers 0 to 5, players would receive battle points in increments of 10.
For example, Tier 0 would earn 1 BP, Tier 1 would earn 10 BP, and Tier 2 would earn 100 BP.
Regarding difficulty levels, easy would earn 1X the BP, medium would earn 2X the BP, hard would earn 3X the BP, and nightmare would earn 10X the BP.
After setting all the parameters and configurations, he decided to import the Battle Colosseum to the Aethercore.
...
In the tavern, in broad daylight, Silver Atom was still drinking.
For Silver Atom, whether it was day or night made no difference.
The only thing that could stop him from drinking was being knocked out of sleep, which, for him, was the best feeling.
While he was drinking, his personal token vibrated.
[New Update...]
Seeing that there was another new update, Silver Atom became intrigued.
[Personal Information
Moonlight Forum
Moonlight Library
Moonlight Bank
Battle Colosseum (New)]
As he clicked on the Battle Colosseum, a pop-up appeared.
[Do you want to upload your consciousness?
Read Instruction Manual...]
"Upload consciousness? Interesting," Silver Atom smiled.
You see, consciousness-based functions on personal tokens are only available in the Origin Domain and some rich domains in the Arcane Continent.
That's because this kind of function consumes an enormous amount of mana.
For example in Moonlight Kingdom, with a multitude of Tier 0 to 3 mages and knights using the Battle Colosseum, it would cost one top magic crystal per year just to keep it running.
One can't even fathom how much mana it would cost in the Origin Domain, where there live billions of trillions of people with the most powerful and talented individuals in the entire domain.
Fortunately, the rich mana in the Origin Domain offsets the cost of running this kind of virtual world.
"This brat's teacher is quite interesting," Silver Atom murmured.
Thinking that Maximus' teacher is the one who made or instructed the making of this virtual function.
Without further ado, he uploaded his consciousness.
As for reading the instruction manual, who in their right mind would read an instruction manual?
...
Alister, who was having breakfast with his sister Amara before heading to a Tier 1 forest to earn money and train, was interrupted by an update on his personal token.
After reading the instruction manual, a battle intent shone through Alister's eyes.I think you should take a look at
"Battle? Battle Points? Rewards?" Alister questioned himself.
"Isn't this made for me?" Alister murmured excitedly, which startled Amara who was sitting next to him.
"What's going on, Brother? You've been on your token for a while now," Amara asked.
"Don't you know about the update?"
"No, my token is in my room."
"Then go get your token. I'll quickly earn our resources," Alister excitedly said without explaining anything, and he headed towards his room.
As the instruction manual said, you would be immobile when you uploaded your consciousness.
...
Maximus stood in front of a Tier 1 Official Mage with Nightmare difficulty, watching as the opponent disintegrated.
"I nearly lost," Maximus said to himself, patting his chest.
In his first battle, the Tier 0 apprentice knight with Nightmare difficulty was easily defeated by him, thanks to his transcendent Tier 0 soul spell mastery.
But in the second battle with the Official Mage opponent just now, he had almost failed.
If it weren't for his consciousness, which was already Tier 3 Nascent Mage, he wouldn't even have time to react.
In this virtual world, the mana and spells you use are the same.
The only difference is consciousness, as it can't be suppressed, with the current state Battle Colosseum.
In fact, winning a battle with a Nightmare opponent would make you practically invincible in the same tier and could easily fight across tiers.
So, he should be contented, that at least his strength is not made of water and he can still be invisible at the same level albeit lower.
But for him, a transmigrator with such an overpowered cheat, the fact that he nearly lost was embarrassing.
By the looks of things, he could only defeat Tier 2 opponents of high difficulty next.
To avoid losing, he upgraded his previous spells one by one to Transcendent mastery, which cost him more than ten thousand life points.
Ready for the next battle, he clicked on "Next."
Maximus found himself in a forest environment, facing off against a Tier 2 Great Knight.
When he fought the tier 0 apprentice knight earlier, his assumption that knights were weaklings was quickly overridden.
He realized there was no essential difference in strength between knights and mages.
His preconceived notion was a result of encountering mostly weak opponents, leading him to underestimate the knight's profession.
Furthermore, there are 10 times more knights than mages so it is more likely to encounter weak knights than trash mages.
Before the countdown of the battle is finished, Maximus cast a Tier 2 barrier spell on himself.
"3... 2... 1... 0... Fight!"
The battle commenced.
Suddenly, the knight opposite him vanished from sight.
"So it's an assassin-type knight?" Maximus grinned with excitement.
Slash...
A slash appeared behind Maximus, nearly shattering his barrier.
Fortunately, his transcendent mastery of the barrier spell held strong against the opponent's perfect mastery.
Maximus retaliated with an indiscriminate fire bombardment, but the assassin knight immediately retreated after delivering a strike, avoiding the fiery onslaught.
Determined to gain the upper hand, Maximus focused his concentration and unleashed a detection spell.
With newfound awareness, he cast a wooden vine-binding spell, attempting to trap the elusive assassin knight.
However, the knight proved to be as slippery as a fish, teleporting behind Maximus once again.
The assassin knight swiftly moved around him, slashing three times in quick succession.
The barrier broke under the pressure of the first strike.
Fortunately, he managed to hold against the second strike, thanks to his quick supplementation.
However, on the third strike, unable to react in time, he could only instinctively dodge, narrowly avoiding but losing an arm in exchange.
"Fuck!" Maximus screamed in pain.
Though it was a virtual battle, the sensations were all too real, evoking his combat instincts.
He cast a healing spell to mend his wounded arm, swiftly restoring it to its previous state.
Now fueled by anger, Maximus conjured a raging fire that continually enveloped him, forming an impassable barrier.
"Let's see how you can get near me now," Maximus taunted, his arrogance evident.
With the raging fire surrounding him, the knight assassin struggled to approach, rendered passive by the inferno.
He can do this indiscriminate bombing of spells because transcendent mastery only consumed a thousandth of mana required than normal.
After some time, employing a combination of indiscriminate bombardments, fort-like spell frequency, and his transcendent mastery.
Maximus managed to exhaust the knight assassin, ultimately delivering the fatal blow.
"Hahaha! Easy!" Maximus laughed and boasted, reveling in his victory.
Although he acknowledged his shortcomings in combat, he couldn't accept defeat.
Furthermore, until now, he hadn't used his more than 20X mana amplitude keeping it sealed.
Had he used his mana amplitude, his opponent wouldn't have stood a chance and brake his mana barrier, regardless if he stood still during the duration of the battle.
"Should I increase the difficulty?" Maximus pondered, questioning himself.
Even with Nightmare's difficulty he can't help but still cheat, preventing him from truly enhancing his battle consciousness.
He contemplated creating next-level difficulty, one that would incorporate transcendent mastery and mana amplitude based on the opponent.
This way, he would be forced to train himself, leaving him with no other choice but to rely on his skills and cheat less.
Reflecting on it, he decided to call it the "Invincible" difficulty since no matter how high one's battle IQ, it would be useless without transcendent mastery and the corresponding mana amplitude.
Satisfied with his victory over the Tier 2 nightmare difficulty opponent, Maximus clicked "Next"...