Death… And Me

Chapter 3897: Only One More

Absolute silence! The city below sounded as if it were a dead town, everyone looking at that result with wide open eyes! As for the network, it was on fire!

”Impossible!” The Bautuk Sect Master suddenly got up from his chair in the main building, near the Verjansy Country President. ”There has to be something wrong with that crystal!”

The others quickly followed.

”Bugel, what the hell was that?”

”So that’s how it is! You purposely changed their crystals so your Wisfreya would make it through, right?”

”That has to be the reason!”

Bugel was just as shocked, but he definitely wouldn’t take that quietly. ”Do any of you even have a brain?! We have done nothing with the crystal! First of all, look at that result! If I wanted to cheat to let Wisfreya get through the second test, do you think I would have made it so ridiculously obvious?! Would ANY of you have done it in such a manner?!”

The other leaders immediately went silent. Indeed, none of them would have done it like that. They would have controlled the output of the crystal, so their kids would have activated the levels one after another in a proper, delayed manner. Using such a method would only incur the rage of everyone else watching, which was exactly what happened now.

”Then there must be a problem with the crystal!” The Amefis Treasure Hall Owner spoke. ”It has to be broken. Otherwise, how would their group have done it?”

This was the point Bugel couldn’t deny. ”Yes, I agree with you, Tsolov. I will have that crystal tested straight away.”

”You will?” Tsolov snorted. ”No one here will trust your judgement. Let a few of our own formation masters take a look at that crystal. That way, we can confirm you were not trying to play us.”

Bugel nodded. He was the president and knew everything about this Martial Gathering. He truly hasn’t cheated during the entire event. The only thing he did so far was to hide Wisfreya’s powers, but other than that, she had to go through the same challenges as everyone else. ”Yes, that is acceptable. Everyone can send a representative of their own to check the crystal. The test should still take a few hours to end as the other teams try to activate the higher levels of the crystals they are working on.”

Everyone was satisfied with that result. However, before they sent anyone, a Demon Beast from the Pengen Alliance asked: ”What if there is nothing wrong with the crystal?”

He was the leader of the alliance, Klincks, although that position was somewhat symbolic. The Demon Beasts weren’t exactly known for having complex organizations, and the Pengen Alliance wasn’t different. Their experts worked together to keep this alliance, but everyone stayed away in their own territories.

Klicks saw very well who kept analyzing the crystal. That was Celis, the Demon Plant that his own Pengen Alliance had just recruited at the end of the Celestial Convergence Labyrinth. He obviously knew Celis was a World Swallowing Cedar, and knew that his race was famous for its great energy absorption abilities. Perhaps Celis was also good with energy manipulation? If so, then his Pengen Alliance truly acquired a great asset.

”You probably don’t know it, but Celis is a World Swallowing Cedar. You saw how the Demon Beasts did so much better in the Path of Endurance, thanks to their powerful bodies. The World Swallowing Cedars are just too good at Energy Absorption and obviously Energy Manipulation, even if they end up lacking severely in the other departments. For this one test alone, it might just be that it matched the abilities of his race.”

Klincks pointed at the screens. ”You saw how his group didn’t do anything for more than half an hour. The Cedar simply envelopped the crystal and kept analysing it. I was very curious about his approach. After all, I knew what race of Demon Plant he was, and yet, he was losing so badly to everyone else. Now, from what I’ve seen, he likely did it all on purpose. He didn’t care about activating one level after another. Instead, he focused on the entire structure of the crystal and only allowed the others to join him when he was certain he could control all the energy at once.”

Then, he shrugged. ”Of course, I might be wrong. You will all check the crystal, and so will I. Just don’t be so surprised if you find out that Celis did nothing wrong, nor that the crystal wasn’t broken.”

Demon Plants are rare everywhere. That is a rule in pretty much all Universes. So, even in big competitions like this one, there were no more than a few hundred Demon Plants within the hundreds of thousands who were here at the start. So, you couldn’t blame others for not noticing what kind of race Celis came from, since few ever paid attention to Demon Plants anyway.

”Hmph!” The Bautuk Sect Master still doubted it. ”Even if you are right, what he did was way too ridiculous. Anyway, let’s go there and take a look. You will see that there was definitely something wrong with the crystal.”

Klincks got up and nodded. ”Sure. Let’s go take a look.”

---

Back on the floating island, Celis stepped back and let go of the crystal. ’This should be enough to impress them, right?’

Roan confirmed. ’Yes. It is the perfect time for you to reveal your race once the idiots come asking how you did it or that you cheated somehow.’

Rean couldn’t help but sigh. ’Didn’t that make the rest of us look bad, though?’

’That’s not a problem for me,’ Kentucky stuffed his chest. ’I am already famous regardless of what Celis did. Hahaha!’

Roan ignored the minokawa. ’The rest of us just have to show some potential in the last part. We already built some name for ourselves in the first two events anyway. This just so happened to be the perfect opportunity for Celis. That’s all.’

Wisfreya didn’t know what to say. They included her in their Divine Sense messages, and it was obvious now that Celis could have done what he did even in his sleep.

Wait! Do Demon Plants sleep at all? She didn’t know.

’And here they come,’ Tanxan said, looking above.

Various experts came from the skies, landing on the island near the crystal.

”Wisfreya, tell your group to open some distance,” Eiruy, another member of the Verjansy Country, asked her. ”You can not have any contact with the outsiders during this test, so immediately tell us if someone tries to send you a Divine Sense message while we are here. The same goes for the rest of your group. Do you all understand?”

”Yes!” Wisfreya and the twins’ group quickly said.

And so, the various formations masters began to check the crystal. It even attracted the attention of a few of the other participants around, although not as much as when Celis got all ten levels at once.

The Trial of Resonance continued. A few teams finished it by the second hour, but the tenth one only appeared five hours later. The eighth, ninth, and tenth teams were actually quite similar to the twins’ group, as they weren’t made up of experts coming from the same background. Instead, they had quite a few random members from powers below the top ten. Naturally, their coordination was a little lacking, but they still made it.

As for the results of the analysis of the crystal...

”What do you mean? There was nothing wrong?” The Bautuk Sect Master asked, refusing to believe.

The others received the same reports, and for a moment, they wondered if their Formations Masters were blind.

”Hahaha!” Well, Klincks was absolutely loving it. ”My guy also said the same thing. There was nothing wrong with the crystal. I told you, didn’t I? You can not look down on the abilities of a World Swallowing Cedar.”

Then, he looked at President Bugel. ”Still, what really impresses me is your girl, Bugel. She was the captain. She was the one to select all the members of her group. Celis, as well as the others, were not part of your Verjansy Country. Yet, she was able to see through their potential and put together such an amazing team, even if they are mostly kids. I can feel a powerful bloodline in her body. Does it have something to do with this ability of hers?”

Bugel wanted to know the answer to that question himself. Of course, he wouldn’t tell them that. ”So what if it does? We poured a lot of resources into that girl. That’s all I can tell you.”

Well, he was obviously happy to find out there was nothing wrong with the crystal. ’When she said her team would win this event in the most dazzling way, she truly wasn’t kidding.’

In the end, without being able to prove any underhanded methods, it was accepted that Wisfreya’s group had genuinely passed the second test. At the same time, Celis’s name spread far and wide after his race information was deliberately released on the Werdlem Network by the Pengen Beast Alliance.

Now only the last test remained, the Core Seizing.