Chapter 177 First Trial [Singularity]

Trials

Inside the Dungeon of Trials, everyone has to go through a trial every 5 floors.

The difficulty of these trials increases as one clears more trials.

However, you can also choose the starting difficulty.

It goes like this…

[Normal] will give you 1X Difficulty in 1st Trial -> 1.5X Difficulty in 2nd Trial -> 2X Difficulty in 3rd Trial ->2.5X Difficulty in 4th Trial, and so on.

[Hard] directly jumps to 1.5X Difficulty in 1st Trial, then 3X Difficulty in 2nd Trial, 4.5X Difficulty in 3rd Trial, 6X Difficulty in 4th Trial, and so on for every trial.

[Expert] would be 2X Difficulty in the 1st Trial -> 4X Difficulty in the 2nd Trial -> 6X Difficulty in the 3rd Trial, and the difficulty will continue to increase in the same order.

Of course, these comparisons weren't accurate, but they were to give an estimation of how different each [Difficulty] is from the other.

Lastly [Singularity], the poison I chose, would be 5X Difficulty in the 1st Trail, 10X Difficulty in the 2nd Trial, 15X Difficulty in the 3rd Trial, and further.

Don't misunderstand, the trials are called trials for a reason. They aren't impossible to clear, probably.

Only the chances of success dwindle with each increase in [Difficulty].

In [Singularity] the chances of success are lacking enough that they might as well not exist.

[Please choose a Trial type]

[Wave-type] [Puzzle-type] [Objective-type]

My fingers moved swiftly.

[Puzzle-type] would need one year at the minimum, and that is if you are a genius. It was a relatively safe choice but took too much time.

[Wave-type] had the highest compatibility with me, nevertheless, at this moment when I was only Lvl.5, I would be exhausted long before I can clear 100 waves of monsters.

[You have chosen [Objective-type] ]

[Generating Trial…]

[Trial generated]

The void receded, and I was standing on cold rugged ground.

Salty air stung my nostrils, and noises of waves struck my eardrums.

I could feel my mana fluctuating as I tried to focus on the surroundings.

There was nothing but an empty wasteland everywhere around me.

[Defeat Lvl.10 Sea Overlord]

Hot, humid air struck my face, making me wince.

That was the smell of salt.

"Huuuu….Let's calm down first"

I exhaled loudly.

Katrina, the shadow, Anna, Leon, the backers of those shadows, there were a lot of things ongoing at this moment.

But I needed to focus and clear my mind.

Even [Normal] Trials are very difficult. There is a reason they are called Trials.

Among the combat cadets in the 1st year, the Golden generation, 40% will fail their first attempt.

And I chose something 5 times more difficult than them.

If even those who were born in this world and had years of training could fail, then so could I.

I can't afford to be careless.

"I should check my surroundings first."

[Singularity] difficulty had one advantage over other difficulties. The stage of [Singularity] Trials were all Stage-0. Time here passes 25 times faster than the outside.

It wasn't without reason that I brought 6 months of ration with me for a 3-week Dungeon exploration.

"Where is the… sea?"

It should have been hard to miss it since I was standing on the shore. But the sea was nowhere to be seen.

There was only a desert-like land, except the ground was made of dry hard mud.

"This is weird. How come I don't see the sea?"

I looked around the area, searching for the ocean. Regardless, I didn't find anything.

The ground was dried to the extreme.

Let alone the sea, I couldn't even find a drop of water.

Did the sea evaporate?

No matter how I thought about it, it felt wrong.

"I can hear the waves crashing into each other."

The noises of waves crashing onto each other, the humid climate of the surrounding sea, the dryness of the coast.

Everything was here except the sea itself.

"Underground?"

Perhaps there was a hidden sea somewhere below?

Closing my eye, I crouched and put my right ear against the surface.

"I don't think it..."

I opened my eyes when I couldn't find any noises coming from underneath, and looked above… the sky…

The sea was in the sky.

No, the sea was the sky itself.

How could I not notice that?

High above me, perhaps thousands of meters above, the blue sea was replacing the sky.

The blue sky stretching endlessly into the horizon was actually the sea.

It didn't make any sense. Where was the light coming from? Why wasn't the sea falling? Was I standing on the wrong ground or was the sea?

Waaaaaooooooooo-

A gigantic monster came out of the sea.

It had a slender body like an eel, and was probably the size of a large ship.

The monster's head was the length of a small building, its tail was over the height of a train.

Its body was covered in thick, dark blue scales. While its pectoral fins were long and slender, no different from a bird's wings.

The monster was a leviathan, but that wasn't the surprising part.

There were a shit ton of them!

I could count 15 that were going in and out of the sea!

And this was without counting those under(above) the sea!

*

I was going to spend a lot of time in the trial, thus I decided to write about how I spent my days in the blue diary.

It wasn't necessary, but I did this to keep a record of the time that passed and my daily activities.

*

Day 2

The initial surprise passed quickly. I didn't need a whole day to bring myself out of my stupor, definitely not.

Putting the sheer magnitude of size, the issues weren't any less small.

1. My trial was to defeat 'Sea Overlord'.

Let me ask you, do you think those 'small' fishes, which were more numerous than the number of peaceful days I spent in this novel's world, would be the Overlord?

2. (Shitty bastard) Dear creator of this beautiful trial.

The Sea Overlord is Lvl 10, so I'll try to act with common sense and deduce all other monsters to be at most level 10, if not lower.

So (bastard) Sir, what made these leviathans, that had jagged spikes in place of scales, long ass wings in place of fins, and completely white eyes, below Lvl.10?

Please don't tell me that they were locked at Lvl.10 but had overwhelming stats, or they had a dangerous [Trait]?

[Singularity] difficulty is almost impossible, right?

Where is 'almost'? Why do I only see the impossible?