Jason and Roy were stunned at the unexpected visitor. Olivia simply gave the man a glance before inspecting the ring. As she read its stats, she froze.
(Celestial) Enchanted Diamond Ring
+5% Attack Speed
+5% Critical Damage
+10 Damage Added To Each Attack
+200 Health
Requirements: Level 50
“Celestial grade!” she muttered aloud. This was the first time she had seen celestial grade equipment. How rare was this? If sold, it would probably sell for over a hundred thousand gold! And this man was simply giving it to her because she was pretty?
“What?” Both Roy and Jason went wide-eyed upon hearing Olivia. Their thoughts were the same as hers. Jason himself had never expected that a piece of Celestial grade equipment would appear so soon. It wasn’t that it couldn’t happen, but that it was just so rare. Celestial was only one grade lower than Divine, and Jason had only ever seen one Divine grade piece of equipment in his entire life.
“My lady, your hand, please.” The man said softly, his voice bewitching.
Still shocked, Olivia cautiously extended her arm, prepared to react at any sudden movement. The man slipped on the ring before gently kissing the back of her hand. By the time everyone recovered, the man was already walking down the stairs. They watched as he tossed a large bag onto the counter next to the kitchen. Coins fell from the bag and covered the counter. Surprisingly, it was full of gold coins.
The man glanced around with a charming smile. “Thank you for the delicious meal. This is just a small token of my gratitude. I hope you accept it.”
A well-dressed elderly woman exited the kitchen upon hearing the commotion. When she saw the bag of gold coins, she connected everything together and bowed. “Of course we will accept. Thank you for your patronage!”
The man swaggered out of the restaurant, leaving everyone wide-eyed from his flamboyant display of wealth.
An excited babble rose as everyone in the restaurant began to discuss what just occurred. Up on the second floor, Roy leaned forward. “This ring really is Celestial grade!”
Olivia held her hand up to the candle on the table. The ring glittered with colorful lights, as if it knew it was Celestial grade.
Suddenly, a shriek came from below. “Where’d the gold go?!”
Roy, Olivia, and Jason glanced over the balcony, where they found the well-dressed elderly woman shaking the bag back and forth. “All of the gold coins just dispersed into light! What happened? Is there a thief?”
“A thief?” Roy glanced around warily.
As the restaurant burst into motion, Jason fell silent. His train of thought was interrupted by a gasp from Olivia. “My Celestial ring disappeared!”
“What?” Roy widened his eyes. “Wow, it really is gone!”
Jason felt like he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. He shot to his feet, ran down the stairs, and exited the restaurant. He gasped for breath as he glanced left and right, but was unable to find the handsome man from before. A moment later, Roy and Olivia appeared by Jason’s side. “What’s wrong? Did you see the thief?”
“That was no thief.” Jason smirked. “It was the champion of Alister, the god of tricks!”
Roy and Olivia gasped in shock. “A champion?!”
Jason nodded as a carefree smile spread across his face. He had finally met yet another comrade from the alternate-past. Alas, he just missed him. Finding the champion of Alister was harder than finding a needle in a haystack. It was a futile effort.
Roy was confused. “What abilities does that champion possess? He can make items disappear?”
“No.” Jason shook his head. “The champion of Alister specializes in illusions. The Celestial ring and gold were fake.”
“Oooh!” Roy’s eyes lit up. “So he’s basically a scammer!”
Jason coughed lightly. “Uh, yeah. I suppose you can say that.”
Unable to find the champion of Alister, Jason, Roy, and Olivia split up. Jason and Roy went to manage their kingdoms, while Olivia made her way to the colosseum.
Chapter 7
Inside one of the pocket dimensions in the colosseum, Olivia was surrounded by a horde of monsters. Ten goblins and ten orcs, to be exact. In other words, she was taking on the fifth challenge of the colosseum. Unlike the previous challenges, these monsters weren’t just melee combatants. A significant portion of them were mages and archers. This only added another layer of difficulty when fighting. One had to pay even more attention to their surroundings lest they be killed by a long-range attack.
Olivia had been stuck on this challenge for the last few months. Every death was caused precisely by those long-range monsters. It was either an arrow through the back, or a fireball to the face. Olivia was a quick learner, and soon realized the trick to the floor. Stay on your feet. If you kept moving, it became harder for long-range attacks to hit.
That was her strategy for the past few months. Even so, she had yet to beat it. Running around allowed her to survive longer, but it quickly exhausted her.
Only in the past three weeks had she once again begun to progress. Her movements had become quicker and her attacks sharper. It was only to a small degree, but it allowed her to kill a few more monsters. All of it was due to her training with Jason. From him, she learned a core element of battle: conserving stamina.
At long last, she finally caught sight of her ultimate goal. She saw the wall that was the three realms. It was still foggy, but it left her exhilarated. Olivia knew that once she perfected control over her body, she would be at the border of the first realm.
Unlike Jason and Roy, Olivia barely focused on her kingdom. She instead spent all of her time in the colosseum challenging the fifth floor. To her, the kingdom-building floor didn’t offer anything valuable. Strength was what she sought. And for that, she’d fight, and fight, and fight.
That was exactly what she did. Over the past three weeks, she had challenged the fifth floor over a hundred times. Each time she fought to her fullest, seeking perfection. Slowly but surely, she inched ever closer.
Olivia glanced at her stamina and frowned. It was empty. Once again she was out of gas. I’m still wasting stamina. She reviewed the battle and found several moments where she had wasted too much movement. Exhausted but still aware, she habitually tilted her head to dodge an arrow.
Olivia’s breath rasped as she glanced around, her vision was blurry. Only when she strained her eyes did she gasp. Shockingly, there were only three monsters left. Two goblins, one of them an archer, and one orc.
The archer was actually out of arrows, so it was basically useless. The other goblin was missing a leg. It crawled along the ground, slowly making its way over to Olivia. The biggest threat was the orc. Or so she thought. Only after her vision grew clear did she realize that the orc’s eyes were missing. By the looks of it, a fireball from one of the goblin mages had accidentally collided with its face.
Olivia’s heart shook. Realizing the state of her enemies, she thought, I can win! For the first time, an opportunity to beat the fifth challenge appeared. She stepped forward, only to stagger and nearly fall to the ground. Her legs felt like jelly. They could barely support her weight.
Her iron will kicked into motion. Like an emperor, it commanded her muscles to move. They twitched and moaned, but the emperor’s command was absolute. It could not be disobeyed. Step after step she drew closer to the crawling goblin. She looked down at it, a grin tugging at her lips. Victory is mine.
The goblin seemed to understand what she meant. Enraged, it swung its sword at her ankle. With a simple kick, she sent the sword flying. That was the last straw. Olivia’s legs collapsed, utterly exhausted. As if expecting this, she fell forward and used the momentum to shove her daggers into the goblin’s back. It cried pitifully before dispersing into light.
Once more her will reached out, but no
longer did her legs respond. They had already been pushed past their limits. Olivia glanced over at the blind orc and sighed with relief. It was swinging blindly at the air. It was no threat to her. That only leaves the-
A high pierced shriek interrupted her train of thought. She spun her head to the left and found the goblin archer sprinting towards her. Olivia could only lay there, powerless. The goblin pounced onto her, its hands clasping her throat.
Olivia tried to raise her dagger, but it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The goblin screamed, saliva covering Olivia’s face. The last of the air in her lungs was used up. What came next was a pain so unbearable most would have cried out. Olivia clenched her teeth in defiance. It was futile. As the seconds passed, her vision grew dark. Am I going to die here, when I’m so close?
The goblin laughed gleefully, but even that could now barely be heard. Just as her consciousness was about to go dark, her father’s voice echoed in her mind, taunting her. Are you giving up? I expected as much.
Her broken will, exhausted from the long battle, started to move. The broken pieces came together, their bond growing stronger than before. It was being refined. The more you beat her down, the stronger she would push back. That was the quintessence that was Olivia.
Even so, no matter how strong her soul, her will could not overcome reality. She could no longer see, hear, or feel. But that didn’t matter. She knew where the goblin was. It was on her chest, choking her. That was all she needed.
Her dagger moved, slicing across where she thought the goblin’s eyes were. Instantly, a flood of air entered her lungs. Her hearing came back, followed by her sense of touch. Last was her vision. She found the goblin clutching its face on the ground next to her.
Olivia struggled to her feet and looked down at it. She was grateful that it had no weapon. If it hadn’t spent the last minute choking her, she wouldn’t have regenerated enough stamina to turn the tide. This was probably the closest she had ever been to death. She shivered. Even though she knew she would be revived, it certainly didn’t feel that way when she was at death’s door.
With the two monsters blinded, Olivia backed off and recovered. When she regenerated enough stamina, she easily finished them off.
A ten-second timer appeared which quickly hit zero. Olivia prepared for the next challenge, but when she saw the monsters that spawned, she chuckled bitterly. It just keeps getting harder, huh?
Twenty goblins and twenty orcs. Twice as much as the last round. Considering she had barely any stamina, this battle would be futile, but the thought of giving up disgusted her. It just wasn’t in her nature.
She kicked off the ground and charged forward.
Chapter 8
Earth Armor - Level 4 - Veteran
Reduce the damage from all attacks by 130.
Reflection - Level 2 - Novice
When you are attacked, deal 25 damage back to the attacker, no matter the distance.
Pierces 10% of target’s defense.
Troll Regeneration - Level 4 - Novice
+10 Health Regeneration a second.
Satisfaction filled Jason as he inspected his skills. During the past three weeks since he began his masochistic training, his skills had gained multiple levels. Most significant was reflection’s pierce damage. Against monsters or ascenders with any defense, reflection wouldn’t deal any damage. Now, though, the true potential of the skill was beginning to show.
It had been around two weeks since the first training session with Olivia, and three weeks since he’d begun his village.
Jason closed the screens covering his view and glanced down at his village. No, perhaps it would be better to say town now. His goal of expansion, expansion, and more expansion was coming to fruition. After farm technology was researched, Jason made use of all the free land around his town.
Large tan fields surrounded the town. A hundred farmers wielding iron sickles worked tirelessly under the sun. A hundred farmers. That was around a quarter of Jason’s current villagers. The food produced every day from such a colossal workforce was incredible. Jason had to upgrade his warehouse two times to store all the grain, lest it spoil.
With such a large supply of food, Jason began his plan of rapid expansion. He purchased two hundred villagers. The town was filled to the brim. Jason immediately felt a wave of complaints coming from his connection to the kingdom. His new villagers complained that they had no home.
Sheesh , hold your horses. I’m working on it. Jason used up all of his wood to build over fifty homes. Like magic, the town nearly doubled in size as the houses spawned in. Jason was no architect, so he just used a simple square block design. The layout of the town was reminiscent of modern cities.
The complaints of the villagers fell drastically. The only ones remaining left Jason with a headache.
I want to be a soldier.
I want to be a woodcutter.
I want to be a farmer.
This was what gave many ascenders trouble. Some even ignored this aspect of managing a kingdom because it was too annoying.
Every villager of a kingdom had desires. You could ignore them, and there would be no major problems, but that wasn’t ideal. Jason sought efficiency and speed. The pressure he felt had slowly risen in recent weeks. In the alternate timeline, Jason had ignored this aspect of managing a kingdom. This time, however, he would not do so.
By changing the role of the villagers to match their desires, they would gain a slight increase to their efficiency. A bonus to their skill levels. It might seem simple to manage, but villagers were annoyingly fickle. Their desires changed frequently. And, it wasn’t just limited to what job they wanted either.
I want some damn alcohol.
This town is a little too boring. Can I get some entertainment around here, huh?!
I don’t feel safe enough. Someone might break into my home during the night.
The complaints were endless. Jason could imagine how a god felt when billions of people prayed to them on a daily basis. The thought left him chuckling. Jason spent the next few hours satisfying his villagers’ desires. By the time he finished, two new establishments appeared in the town. A tavern which sold alcohol and a theater which held performances.
In addition, Jason dedicated some soldiers to patrol the town during the night in order to prevent crime. As more villagers spawned in, crime would slowly become a problem if it wasn’t responsibly managed.
Now on to the military. Jason shifted his gaze towards the research center. During the past week, he’d unlocked the archer unit. Horse breeding was currently being researched and would be done in a few days.
Jason had around six hundred villagers, with half focusing on gathering. Almost two hundred villagers were spearmen, and a hundred were archers. In total, he had hundreds of units. For the third week, this was unprecedented.
After doing all this, Jason’s resources were basically depleted. There wasn’t anything he could do for a while.
“Awooo!” Howling came from all directions, interrupting Jason’s thoughts.
“How foolish.” Jason grinned as he watched a horde of goblins exiting the forest. Several wolves accompanied them.
As the monster horde entered the fields of wheat, they began to set it aflame. This was the problem of expanding too rapidly without building up your defenses. If Jason wanted to build a wooden wall around his entire farmland, it would require tens of thousands of wood. He just didn’t have that much wood at this stage.
But it wasn’t a problem. He had around three hundred soldiers; more than there were monsters. The wolves would be a bit of a problem, but that was where spearmen excelled.
Instead of fighting atop the wooden wall surrounding the town, his soldiers rushed out in all directions. A human could already fight a goblin one to two. With the fight being one to one, it was a massacre.
Some monster horde that was. Jason laughed to himself. He had to thank the monsters for coming
to him. Almost every soldier gained a level.
The fires were taken care of as quickly as possible. In the end, the goblins just didn’t have enough time to lay waste to the farmland. There was hardly any damage.
It was deep in the night, and he had just spent the whole day micromanaging his kingdom, so he was exhausted. It was time to sleep.
The next morning, Jason awoke to a startling report from one of his scouts.
Level 15 Hobgoblin Dungeon has been found.
Jason jumped to his feet as his face lit up. “A dungeon?!”
This was great news for his army. Much like the dungeons on the thirtieth floor, the dungeons on the kingdom-building floor could be entered and farmed for loot and experience. If Jason hadn’t found an iron mine to create iron equipment, he would have needed to find a dungeon to acquire loot. There was only one problem: a level 15 dungeon would be slightly difficult for his current army.
Jason flew over to the location of the dungeon, which happened to be about a mile south of the iron mine. The dungeon was above ground, and was located in the middle of a destroyed human settlement. A hobgoblin tribe had taken it as their new home.
Jason opened the interface for the dungeon.
Level 15 Hobgoblin Dungeon.
5/5 Entries left. (Resets Daily)
Maximum of 10 units allowed inside at a time.
Each dungeon run takes 30 minutes.
Once Jason selected ten units to enter the dungeon, he would no longer have control over them. Their chance of success was based on their current level, skills, equipment, and team composition.
Jason selected his strongest ten units. The team was composed of Ronald, five spearmen, and four archers. Unfortunately, Jason had yet to research magic, so he had no priests. The chance of success would rise drastically if he had one. Oh well. Jason shrugged and checked his chance of success.
Towers of Heaven 2 Page 4
