[Round 3, Day 0, 07:40]
My eyes opened instantly.
At some point, I started to immediately wake up as soon as I’ve had a specific amount of sleep.
Was it the result of my superhuman growth?
It was convenient that I no longer needed an alarm now.
After setting the quick clear of Tutorial as my goal, I reduced my sleep time to only 2 hours.
Since the Waiting Room could recover my body to perfect condition, it made sleep unnecessary. The act of sleeping was just routine at this point.
The reason I continued to keep that 2 hour sleep was for mental health and in preparation to have a functional lifestyle in an outdoor environment within the Tutorial.
With the extra 2 hours I’ve gained from reducing my sleeptime, I began to make a walkthrough from floor 1 to 3, remembering all the traps I had to go through.
It was for others who entered h.e.l.l Difficulty mode after me.
There may have been no one who entered this Round, but that wouldn’t be the case forever.
I’ve also began to research with others in the Community by sharing information.
[Lee Ho Jae, Floor 4: So I’m saying, don’t just stab your arm, but dig through it while trying to search for nerves. Your resistance skills go up faster that way]
[Kim Sang Shik, Floor 5: I’ve heard of many r.e.t.a.r.ded things recently, but your method takes the cake]
What was the problem with that?
It was not like I was telling them to heat the arrow in fire as well.
Some information wasn’t accepted, but with many people actively partic.i.p.ating, the process of gathering and a.n.a.lyzing have gotten much faster.
This was especially the case for those who were worried about their families.
Until now, sharing information was mostly done by the Rankers, as if to tell their stories and brag about the rewards they had gained.
With more information being released, more people became confident enough to advance through the Tutorial.
The greatest benefits went those in the lower floors – Floors 1 and 2.
It was to be expected, as almost all the factors in those floors had already been a.n.a.lysed and noted.
Those who specialised or had occupations in martial arts or sports released their training tips as well.
Those really came in handy.
Especially the tips released by a personal trainer. The exercises that could be done without equipments were like rain in the desert sands.
In the Tutorial world which we were all kidnapped into, we followed its instructions out of necessity, as the system requested it, but those who truly advanced through it were only a few ranker, including me.
But, most of the people have realised the importance of clearing the Tutorial.
They may not put their lives on the line yet, but at least it gave them a reason for doing so.
There were also those who didn’t jump to clearing like others, but instead supported others in their cause.
Not everyone had the same determination, but everyone was starting to ride the bandwagon.
And, these new information would help accelerate the growth of those who weren’t so dedicated.
The Tutorial Walkthrough started without an issue.
[Round 3, Day 1. 00:00]
I stood on the portal as soon as Round 3 began.
The portal’s light surrounded me, as I was immediately moved to the stage.
As soon as I had confirmed that the teleportation finished, I ran.
With the Wind Spirit’s Blessing’s 2nd effect, acceleration, my speed sped up at an exponential rate.
Had I been too rash?
I began to wonder, as the winds began to screech in my ears.
However, I saw the Goblin Instructor before I even finished that thought.
Kuwaaa!
I had gotten used to that warcry.
I’ve even become quite fond of him, due to the continuous battles I’ve had in the last few days against him. Now, it was time to say goodbye.
First, I had to reduce this speed.
The Wind Spirit’s Blessing may be effective while on the move, but I was still not used to fighting with such speed.
I closed the distance by blinking into the striking range of the Instructor.
His axe swung immediately.
A quick reaction as always.
Maybe he knew about my Blink skill already.
There was no need to wait for the axe.
In fact, I ran forward and raised my shield to the axe.
Thud!
With the strike hitting much closer than intended by the Instructor, there wasn’t much impact on the shield.
And without stopping, I stabbed the sword into his right shoulder.
All in a single motion.
I couldn’t take the sword out easily, but at least it would make one of his arms useless.
The Instructor screamed once more and swung with his right arm.
It seemed he would use his size if it came to it.
I use my arm to maintain distance from him while taking a quick step backwards.
And threw out a low kick as well.
Now, with my superhuman body, I would perform the impossible feat of doing a low kick whilst traveling backwards in mid air.
There was a theory about the Strength Stat in the Community – that Strength didn’t just improve strength in arms and legs, but in all the muscles in the body.
This included muscles that were usually difficult to train like the waist or joint muscles.
If it was not in the form of Stats, these muscles weren’t easy to improve along with stabilizing or improving the movement of the person.
Therefore, improving the Strength Stat was of utmost importance.
In conclusion, strength was best.
That’s how the theory went.
There were many who were for it and against it. Due to a lack of evidence, everyone eventually moved on from it.
I was the same, but I did think that some of those facts were in fact correct.
Because of the difference in height, my lowkick landed on the knee joint of the Instructor.
With a sound you shouldn’t hear coming from a body, the kneecap poked out the skin.
The match was over at this point.
In fact, the match was over before it had even began.
As the instructor lost his right leg, which was used to support his heavy axe and injured shoulder, his stance broke immediately.
I smacked the instructor’s face as he began to collapse.
Then pushed his chest while his head was stretched backwards, knocking him over.
I quickly took a mount position and threw a punch.
The instructor tried to block it by raising his arms.
As he wasn’t in a normal state at this point and having still had a sword stuck in his shoulder, he was struck in the head.
My punch went in between his arms and struck cleanly into his face.
His head had hit the floor hard, before bouncing back into the air.
He was completely dazed.
Forget moving, he probably wasn’t even conscious at this point.
No need to tire myself out at this point.
I grabbed onto his head and chin and twisted them.
The end.
The difference in speed had created this outcome.
It had not just increased my chances of dodging and accuracy like in games, I could also perform multiple actions during my attack.
Another way to explain was that there was no way I could lose, as long as there wasn’t too much of a difference in other factors. However, those situations were extremely rare.
The instructor’s body twitched for a moment, then began to fade away completely.
Sadly, his axe disappeared with him
I wish that was a drop that I could get from killing him.
The birthstone did not drop this time either.
I wiped the oil from the instructor’s hair onto my armour and took my sword back.
And I marched on forward.
I knew what the next challenge was.
I didn’t complete it, but I had scouted it out of curiosity.
The next challenge was also goblin, but this time, not 1 but 5 of them.
1 to 5 goblins.
That sounded about right.
Seemed to be a good increase in difficulty as well.
However, advancing in such a linear way was not how h.e.l.l Difficulty did it.
These 5 goblins had made a trench to wait for their enemy.
There was even a wooden roof on top of the trench.
The lineup was 2 spearmen, 2 archers, 1 goblin with a weird staff.
I guess the goblin with a staff was like a wizard or a shaman.
Considering that a trench was used to reduce the amount of exposure from bombardment, I could imagine that staff goblin would fire something in a straight line, similar to a gun.
I could easily pierce through arrows and spears from a trench.
The problem was that the users of the bow and spear were h.e.l.l Difficulty special muscle goblins.
I would have to get into the trench as quickly as possible and fight in close quarter combat, surrounded by 5 muscle heads, in an arena called the trench.
I guess there was no need to fight with a disadvantage this time.
They even had the mystery weapon called the staff.
[Blink]
I used the Blink skill 3 times in a row straight up.
Wow, that was quite high.
If I didn’t have the memories from the 3rd Boss room, I would have gotten cold feet for a second.
[Talaria’s Wings]
The crystal wings spread behind me.
And the gliding effect took place.
I began to glide through the air, as if paragliding.
The winds. .h.i.tting my face felt refreshing.
Instead of this dark Tutorial Corridor, I would have liked to fly above a field or on the beach in sunlight.
I should try that out in Kirikiri’s hills after finishing Floor 4.
[G.o.d of Adventures feels satisfied]
...Hm, it had been a while.
He hadn’t made much of an appearance after giving me the the wings.
To be honest, I thought that was because he was embarra.s.sed by the description for Talaria’s Wings.
Just as before when I tested it, there was no noise from flying.
Maybe it was because I was gliding using a skill and not actually flying using wings.
I raised my alt.i.tude, sticking close to the ceiling.
The corridor of Tutorial was dark.
Even with night vision, it was still dark.
I wouldn’t be detected easily, unless I was closeby, especially since I was not even in their sights.
I could begin to see the trench.
Usually, being on standby in this situation would have meant that the goblins would slack off or play around with each other.
But these goblins were constantly on guard, looking for intruders.
Thankfully these goblins weren’t looking to the sky as well.
As long as they didn’t look up, I wouldn’t be in their field of vision.
Plus the wooden roof on top of the trenches made flying above them even easier.
First, I remained in the air and looked at the position of the goblins.
It wasn’t easy because of the roof, but with continued effort, I eventually found out.
[You have received Sneak Lv.1]
Oh. An unexpected reward.
I should try to grind my Sneak skill later.
I managed to bypa.s.s the trench in secret.
I began to wonder what would happen if I went on, ignoring the trench.
I let that thought slide for now.
It’d be annoying if I got detected later and got pincered from the front and the back.
I lowered my att.i.tude towards the back of the trench.
The Glide skill allowed me to take flight in which ever direction I wanted.
Such a convenient skill.
There was an exit at the back of the trench just like the one at the front.
The formation of the goblins was:
2 spear goblins,
2 archers,
and a staff goblin.
The staff goblin was at the very back.
As soon as my feet touched the ground, I immediately folded my wings and jumped into the trench.
The staff goblin quickly turned around, but it had been too late.
“Puek!’
The sword found its mark – his throat.
I think I had talent to be an a.s.sa.s.sin as well.
I had already managed to take down who I imagined to be the most annoying opponent.
A good start.
The 4 at the front quickly turned around to face me.
The archer goblins ditched their bows and took out their daggers from their pockets.
The spear goblins fell backwards, as their long spears were getting in the way.
While the goblins were busy trying to make a formation, I blinked towards them, only a small distance away.
To be precise, in front of the 2 spear goblins, and in between the 2 archer ones.
[Talaria’s Wings]
I summoned my wings again.
The blue, beautiful crystal wings spread wide in both directions.
Stab!
The two archers next to me were stabbed by the ends of the wings and pushed into the walls of the trench.
Since the wings had the density of a metal and their edges were sharp, I could use them in offence like this.
It seemed that both archers didn’t die immediately and instead struggled.
I think I’ve suppressed those 2 for now.
I undid the Talaria’s Wings as it restricted my movement in the small trench and threw a throwing knife at one of the spear goblins as I ran towards him.