The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 336: The Trials begin?

One hour after Victor left on his adventure, Alpha arrived at the mansion with Nightshade, Mimi, and Candle. She just finished transporting the girls she found in the warehouse to the factory as Victor had instructed her to do. Camellia was now screening them and running background checks on them with the help of the chicks. However, Alpha already knew the results from what the girls had told her.

All of the girls were taken from orphanages around the country or sold by their parents.

The only reason that they were kept transported to Vein City was that Caspian was supposed to go get them, but he didn’t for some very strange reasons.

When she reached the door, Alpha was greeted by her sisters who seemed changed. It was as if they grew two times prettier.

When asking them, they answered that the young master showed them his cock!

It took the shocked Alpha a few minutes to realize that it was a joke when Theta couldn’t help but start laughing and tell the truth that their bloodlines were enhanced by some crazy rooster in the basement!

Those damn girls were definitely being corrupted by that Victor!

They were getting cooked slowly, but the fools had no idea that they were about to get eaten.

She really wanted to warn them, but the girls were too lost to be rescued.

Alpha wanted to go meet that damn cock, but she was interrupted by Hilda who handed her Victor’s letter.

Feeling the urgency, Alpha quickly read it and then left the Nightshade and the girls for Margret to manage before she quickly headed to the Gym, where a camping bag was waiting for her.

She considered her options for a second, but seeing that the moon was going down beyond the gym’s roof, she only had a few minutes to make up her mind.

Cursing at Victor, she quickly took the bag, then plunged into the pool.

Fssssssssssssssssssssssh!

She passed right through the gate into the cold water.

It took her a second to realize what happened then swim to the surface where to her surprise, the gate that was there a moment ago seemed to have vanished the moment she touched it, turning into a normal moon reflection.

Looking up, the moon was still bloody… Why did the fucking gate disappear then? Was this some kind of a prank or was she rejected?

She had no idea!

…

When Victor opened his eyes, he was laying on the surface of a lake that seemed to be as solid as glass.

“Am I dead?” he asked as he looked around.

No one responded.

Of course, no one would respond, but he had to make sure he was alone as he stood up and adjusted his clothes.

Where he was can only be described by the word ‘Strange’ It was like some part of a surreal painting. The kind you find videos online of people painting them with kitchen utensils.

He was standing on the water of an infinite lake that went in all directions. He knew that it was a lake because of its clear water, he could see the bottom where all kinds of strange stones were placed

Above him, there was a cloudless and sunless dawn sky that had colorful stars clearly visible.

“Now what?” he asked.

; ;
WELCOME TO THE MOON TRIALS!

ALL ARTIFACTS ARE DISABLED.

REACH THE TOP AND ACHIEVE GREATNESS!

YOU ARE ON LEVEL 1

LEVEL TASK: CLIMB THE INFINITE STAIRS!

TIME LIMIT : 3 HOURS

TERMINATION UPON FAILURE

As if waiting for him to ask. A message suddenly appeared in front of Victor.

The moment he read it, behind him, from the lake, a long flight of revolving stairs rose to the sky in a split second.

It was as if it was made of a single sheet of folded paper, it went up without any support!

Each of its marble fan-shaped steps was a foot and a half high, and 5 feet deep!

Victor knew about this one. It was the preliminary assessment of the trials. But he couldn’t help but frown a little as he read the prompt… Something… He squinted his eyes and then opened them in shock before his expression quickly returned to normal.

So that’s it…

“So a test… I am always ready!” he said as he flexed his muscles and then quickly approached the stairs. He carefully inspected it, making sure to look below the first step.

There it was, a small fist-sized Jade slab.

He quickly took it and began to inspect it before a prompt appeared.

; ;
ONE JADE TOKEN ACQUIRED

JADE TOKENS CAN BE USED AS SACRIFICIAL PAWNS IN CASE YOU FAIL SOME LEVEL!

Reading the prompt, Victor nodded. This thing was an extra life in this place and also a big headache. The prompt didn’t say it, but this thing was important for many things later on and others might be able to find his location because of it!

He tried to put the slab in his storage ring, but it didn’t work. He tried again but still failed.

Storage rings were useless in this place. All artifacts were!

He had to try though, just in case.

He nodded and placed it in his newly acquired storage space. It worked as the slab disappeared from his hand. Now, no one can track him using it.

Looking at the stairs he began to inspect it again, searching for more treasures and pondering if it was possible to dismantle it…. Sadly no, it was made of one huge piece of stone that would definitely not fit in his storage space.

What a shame…

Victor shook his head and decided to start climbing, so he quickly put all his bags in his storage space, took an energy bar, and stuck it in his mouth before taking his first step.

It was easy. So was the next one and the one after… though he was beginning to notice something different.

Victor knew about this, but many would not notice until the 10th step. As they climbed the steps one by one, their weight would slowly increase by 10% on every step in relevance to the one before!

So Victor carried on climbing and only began to feel a little tired after reaching the 25th step, where he was carrying 10 times his weight.

; ; PASSING CONDITIONS MET
DO YOU WANT TO TRAVEL TO THE NEXT FLOOR?

A prompt appeared when Victor paused for a moment to assess his position. He ignored it as he continued to climb. This was a trial after all and the more he could go on, the more rewards he would get!

On the 50th step, he was carrying his weight 100 times, so he had to take off all his clothes and the mask on his face before storing them in his storage space.

On the 65th step, he was carrying his weight 500 times and began to sweat. His power as a player was reaching its limit. He knew that his body would not be able to carry on! But he couldn’t give up!

He frowned as he took some rest on the steps where he ate another energy bar before he stood up and activated his bloodline!

His body changed as he grew taller, his skin paler, and two long horns grew from his head which was now covered by long silvery hair.

The feeling of heaviness disappeared as he carried on.

By the 70th step, he was carrying his weight 1000 Times, and he was fine but he knew this would not go for long as by the time he reached the 90th floor he was carrying his weight 5000 times, and he was truly exhausted.

Looking up he noticed that the stairs only reached the 100 steps, so he knew he only had a few more, but he was truly out of energy.

; ; PASSING CONDITIONS MET
DO YOU WANT TO TRAVEL TO THE NEXT FLOOR?

The prompt appeared again, maybe because Victor didn’t move a muscle for the last 15 minutes.

Victor shook his head and then took a berserker pill from his ring and ate it then in one swoop he decided to run to the last step, knowing that he might regret it.

Pooooooooooofff.

He failed, he only reached the 97th step and then collapsed down again. The weight here was 10000 times his weight.

 He knew his body would not take it anymore, he had to either find a way to reach the top, or just give up. But he needed to go there… He looked at the nearby last step with a greedy look, as if she was a naked woman wiggling her butt at him!

He considered using the shadow-shifting skill, but he didn’t dare to go into shadow space in this dungeon, as he had no idea if he would be able to return if he did.

Thinking for a moment, he had an idea and activated his flight skill.

Of course, it didn’t work, but it reduced the weight on him somehow by 20%.

Damn it! He should have thought of this earlier!

He quickly used all his power to climb on then got stuck again at the 99th step, where he was pushed to the ground again!

“Damn it!” he cursed. Why was this going like some lousy B movie plot being performed by a lousier actor? If he was at some cinema he would have long demanded his money back and then sued that damn production company for wasting his time!

Victor sighed and decided to use all of the rest of his power to climb onto that last step and finish with this, but the moment he prepared to crawl his way up slowly, he paused after noticing something. In his body, his blood seemed to be reacting by vibrating at a strange frequency.

This was totally unexpected!

He quickly sat down on the step and began to relax. He could feel it, something was transforming.

A sudden thought suddenly struck him, he needed to try this.

He took a deep breath and then began to make the blood in his body float according to the eternal arts he got when Alpha merged with the bead.

And it worked.

Slowly, Victor began to feel that his blood was getting thicker and more powerful.

He could see it in his analysis skill as his Primordial Demon blood’s purity climbed from 25% to 43% and then stopped.

During this, he could feel it as his body transformed, his muscles that were already rebuilt when he awakened his chase dragon bloodline, seemed to have begun transforming again, getting slimmer and more refined.

Too bad this stopped pretty soon when the gravity outside was no longer enough to stimulate his bloodline.

He slowly stood up… Then crashed again to the nearby step. Although the weight was much tolerable, it was still too much for him to stand up.

He cursed silently, then like a dehydrated slug, he crawled his way onto the final 100th step, where the weights on him were suddenly lifted and a bright light began to shine around him.

; ;
1 LEVEL PASSED 100%

REWARD : A JADE TOKEN,

“Just a jade token?” Victor sighed as he grabbed the token that appeared from thin air. “Could this have some other use later?” he pondered as he felt a sense of weightlessness.

He was getting transferred to the next level!

He smiled as he felt it… He was right!

; ;
WARNING: YOU ARE GETTING APPRAISED!

REQUEST HEADER : 

ORIGIN ???OBFUSCATED??

GET PROPERTY { NAME, CLASS, LEVEL, AUTHORITY, STRENGTH, AGILITY, INTELLIGENCE, LUCK, CHARM, ORDER, FATE }

DO YOU WANT TO ALLOW IT?

Victor, who was ready for this, quickly activated his disguise skill, changing his states before allowing the appraisal.

; ;
Name : Vic Volt

Class : WORLD MASTER, X

Level : 143

AUTHORITY: 30

STRENGTH: 638

AGILITY : 559

INTELLIGENCE: 773

LUCK : 19

CHARM : 80

ORDER POINTS: 105

FATE: SSS, RULE THE WORLD.

He couldn’t think of a more suitable disguise, he even made up an all-powerful class for it!

Even his looks now, from the moment he removed the face mask at the stairs, were completely fake!

From the moment he stepped into this dungeon, Victor noticed that something was very wrong!

The welcome screen that usually appeared when he entered the dungeon was not a system notification, as his screen should also display the dungeon’s map!

Here, it was an illusion, the same kind he uses on Tom!

Someone was using some kind of skill to fake this entire place as an authentic dungeon, and this could only be for one purpose, to scam players! And if Victor’s guess was correct, whoever is behind this, one or more entities, are probably searching for a suitable body to take over! This was the oldest trick in the book! He heard of this many times from adventurers visiting other worlds! 

There might be other reasons of course like searching for a hair or passing some old grudge, but the black fate thread that was hovering over Victor’s head proved that this was not the case… The moment he was appraised, it got a lot thicker, but it is like a snake, still probing not knowing where to bite!

From the moment he felt that something was wrong, Victor decided to act as the greatest bait, and lure whoever is behind this, not only to distract it from looking at the girls but to attract him instead.

And after that little theatrical play on the stairs, he seemed to have succeeded in earning that person’s attention!

Now, it was time to impress them so much that they would have no choice but to come and try to take a bite… Then whoever comes, would be the one getting eaten!