Noah found himself in a blurry environment, he tried to move around but found that this was currently only his consciousness. During his trial to move around Noah heard a soft female voice,
"Please hurry there is no time," the voice said, and then the scenery changed, as Noah snapped his eyes open.
Immediately sitting his body up, Noah glanced around his environment. Shock filled his mind, when he saw that he was currently in the massive room they were in, right before the first stage started.
The whole place seemed like a graveyard, since Noah could hear wails and cry's, he also noticed that the numbers of people present had dropped immensely.
Memories of what happened flashed in his eyes, as Noah immediately got worried, searching frantically for James he found that he was lying next to him, asleep.
A relaxed sigh escaped his mouth, as then did Noah notice the floating panels right in his retina.
[You have completed special missions]
[You have been advanced to the peak of tier 2, and gained a weapon]
[Analyzing users need of weapons....]
[Analyzing complete...]
[You have gained unique weapon: Daggers of Withering]
[Daggers of Withering]
[Grade: B]
[Tier: 3]
[Ability: Wither]
[Wither: When utilized the Daggers have the ability to absorb energy and nutrients from whatever they are embedded in, to boost their other abilities which is. Slash of Withering]
[Slash of Withering: When activated, the daggers can send out etheral slashes that drains whatever was hit, of their energy]
[Note: The highest level of energy that can be currently absorbed is energy at the peak of tier 3, any more, and the daggers will be badly damaged]
[Dagger can be upgraded to tier 4]
[Upgrade requirements: 50 tier 3 Mana cores. 7 horns of tier 3 metal rhinoceros. 1 tier 4 poisonous plant]
[You have levelled up 9 times]
[You have gained 45 points to all stats]
[You have received 90 points to distribute]
[You are now level 48]
Noah couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at those messages. It seemed he had actually killed the monster. Glancing at his right hand, he saw that it was totally fine.
'It was so easy to kill,' Noah thought, 'What exactly is the speed force,' he couldn't help but ask himself. He had cast spells on the monster for over a minute, in a domain that amplified the elements power.
Shaking his head, Noah closed the panels, he thought of distributing his stat points, but decided against it. Instead he decided to check the daggers since they were in his inventory.
Though as he was about to do so, he heard a voice call out to him. "Hey!," the female voice said, as Noah couldn't help but glance upwards at the angelic figure at his front.
"Isabella!," Noah blurted out. Isabella raised her eyebrows at this, "I never told you my name," her sweet voice that could make even the best singers envious, rang out.
Noah gave a helpless smile, while trying to come up with an excuse. Seeing his struggle, her voice rang out. "That doesn't matter. How are you feeling," she said.
Noah furrowed his eyebrows at her question, "Good. Why?," Noah asked visibly confused.
Sitting beside Noah, causing people to glance at their figures, Isabella replied,
"When you attacked the beast with your ability. It exploded, but your right hand withered and fell off," She explained glancing at his right hand, seeing that it was as good as new, her eyes widened.
Noah's mouth also fell open, as he couldn't help but clench his fist to make sure it wasn't actually damaged. "It's totally fine. How many hours was I out?," Noah asked.
"Around five?," Isabella said, her gaze still on his hand.
"Just five hours," Noah muttered, but when he thought to how fast his healing was, and the fact that he also levelled up, it didn't feel so surprising. Although his hands had never fallen off before, it was a weird experience knowing that such actually happened.
A slight sigh eventually escaped Isabella's mouth, "Let's re-introduce ourselves. Hello, I'm Isabella, first daughter of Sir Thomas, head of the Molosk noble family." Isabella stood and performed a bow.
Noah immediately stood, "I'm Noah, I don't belong to any family important," he said, while his gaze fell on her outstretched hand, then he glanced back at her. Seeing that she nodded, he took it and kissed it lightly.
Multiple gasps resounded in the area, as Noah couldn't help but shoot a glance at the people in the hall.
Seeing that most of the men had gawking expressions, Noah shot cold glances at them, some tensing up when his gaze met theirs.
A chuckle sounded in front of Noah, shooting a curious glance at the angel like human, she immediately stopped. "Nice to meet you sir Noah," she said, turning and leaving.
"I hope we meet in the last round, though we probably would, how can anyone here beat you with your strength," She said without glancing at him.
Noah simply smiled, 'Oh, we'll definitely meet," he muttered. Glancing at James's still unconscious figure, Noah tried to search for his other teammates, but he couldn't find them.
Opening the illusory panel that showed the leaderboard, Noah saw that his team had accumulated a bit over 7 thousand points, placing them at third, there was also the word 'Qualified' on their names.
A sigh escaped his mouth when he saw that Mark had also died, leaving his team at only three members. "I guess we aren't teammates anymore," he muttered.
Eventually an hour passed, and James woke up. He was a bit Injured, but nothing too bad. The two talked a bit, James explaining to Noah what happened after he passed out.
Apparently, immediately each person killed their opponents, or got killed by them, no other monsters would attack them. And after a bit over an hour, all the monsters seemingly disappeared, and they were teleported back here.
Noah had many ideas on that matter, he actually went back to his videogame experience. It seemed those monsters were like avatars of a player, since before the peak stage beast attacked him, he heard a voice.
But he wondered why he was attacked by three of those monsters, when others only fought one.
He also found that Matthias had been killed in the small event, only Lilia managed to survive, only that she had multiple patches of withered skin, though it would eventually heal.
Noah wasn't sad at the news, he only regretted that he didn't pay the man back for what he did when they met a few months back.
Noah had asked James how he killed the monster, and he said he had magaged to place an inscription that dispersed energy, and the monster simply dried up and died, it body not being able to find a suitable amount of energy to keep itself together.
Noah's thirst to learn inscriptions increased, if he could do that, he would have easily killed the monster, heck that could actually kill most people, unless they had unlimited energy.
"How long do you think we'll have to wait until the second stage starts," Noah asked, his gaze on the lighted ceiling of the massive room.
"I don't know. I just hope it's soon, I'm already tired of the whole event" James laughed.
Noah only smiled in return. They had to wait for three more hours, during that time Kayla visited the two of them, while also informing them that she was quiting, apparently the number of deaths had scared her, and she didn't want to be one of those dying in the next stage.
At some point something eventually happened, the floor lit up with blue inscriptions, then Noah found himself out under the sun's radiance, it seemed the sun just rose.
The loud cheers of the spectators filled his ears, but he didn't care about that. No, the mulitiple big craters in the VIP area, the arena itself, and even in the spectators area, caught caught his full attention.
It seemed a fight had gone down, a big one at that, since Noah could still sense traces of strong aura's in those craters. But surprisingly he could see those craters begin to close up, though incredibly slowly.
The figure of Elder Malachi, floated freely above the arena, as Noah wondered how that was possible, so far the only way a person could actually go that high, was to create platforms of whatever elements they had, but this man was simply hovering up there, like it was the most normal thing in his life.
"I welcome you all from the first stage, a bit over 500 of you survived or didn't quit, and only a bit over 400 are left, since the others didn't meet the requirements, but you did," Elder Malachi paused, while the screams and cheers of the spectators increased.
"Now it's time for the second stage. You all will be sent to separate places where you'll survive multiple waves of beasts. You only qualify for the next stage if you manage to survive it." he explained
"I assume you all have chosen a partner by now, so do the same thing you did when forming a team of five before, only that this time only two Individuals are allowed." Elder Malachi continued.
It took only about a minute for everyone to be done. No points section this time, since all they had to do was survive the whole stage.
"Now without further ado, the second stage will commence now!," He said. Inscriptions immediately lit up beneath their feets, as they were teleported away.