the top 3 and 9 of the tutorial appear

I'm in 289st place. I had started late, but I was finally catching up with the top finishers. Although no one would believe that he had managed to accumulate 6,700 points before passing Block E, his joy was short-lived.

'I'm glad I'm ranked, but why is the gap so big?'

Elliott narrowed his eyes as he reviewed the list again.

'Maybe the top Climbers are pretty strong.'

Before the Tutorial was over, there were already three people with more than 50,000 Points. 'Aria, Sasha, Val Who are they?'

If they had joined the Tutorial in different rounds, each of them would have easily taken first place, but now, Elliott had to compete with all of them in the same round.

Elliott closed the ranking list as he burned their names into his memory.

'My progress is still not enough I have to improve my score.'

There was a 50,000-point gap between him and the top qualifiers.

'First things first, I have to finish this block.'

While organizing his thoughts, Elliott sheathed his sword at his waist. Then, he started moving toward the start.

* * *

"Mmm?" As he ventured down the hallway to exit the dungeon, Elliott narrowed his eyes and looked in the direction of the exit. He drew his sword and held it tightly in his right hand. He could feel two unfamiliar figures beyond his line of sight.

'Climbers?'

The sounds the monsters and the climbers were making were quite different, so he was sure he wasn't mistaken. 'But I've never seen any other climbers here.' He wondered if anyone else had found this place.

Elliott hoped not to run into anyone as much as possible, but since there was only one way out, he moved cautiously.

What made Elliott nervous were their skills. They might be tough. His senses told him they were at least as strong as he was. Even with the Vampiric Sword and the awakening of his bloodline, he wasn't sure he could kill them.

'Maybe they're after me.'

Elliott gripped his sword.

He wondered why experts like them were still in block E. It wasn't likely that they had stumbled blindly into the hidden dungeon, and it made more sense to him that they were out for revenge.

It was possible that they were Climbers from Creed's Castle family hoping to avenge the Climbers he had injured when he had arrived in the waiting room. Though why such powerful Climbers would be after him, he didn't know.

Elliott couldn't let them kill him easily, so he kept his presence hidden.

As soon as the two Climbers rounded the corner and showed their faces, Elliott swung his sword, aiming for the head of the nearest one.

It was a woman with a beautiful face, tousled hair, and sleepy eyes.

Swoosh!

The woman noticed the attack, and her eyes widened like saucers. Instinctively she tried to pull away, but it seemed her actions had come too late.

-Rachel! At that moment, the young man walking beside her swung his sword as he pulled the woman to his side.

Metallic sound!

Elliott's sword was blocked.

Elliott realized that his ambush had failed and jumped away from the two Elliott's.

Rachel, the woman who had just been attacked, collapsed to the ground, gasping for air with a pale face.

Val, the other young man, snapped and screamed at Elliott.

"What the hell are you doing!"

Elliott looked at them with narrowed eyes.

"Are you from Creed's Castle?"

"What do you mean 'Creed's Castle'?"

Elliott realized that the two had nothing to do with Creed's Castle. If they were here to attack, they wouldn't be talking to him. Besides, the reflexes that saved Rachel and blocked his sword were those of an expert. Of course, it was possible that they were acting to make him lower his guard, but an expert like this didn't need to lie.

"So why were you following me?"

Val was a little surprised to find that Elliott had realized what they were doing, but frowned immediately.

"That doesn't mean you should attack people without asking why."

"Puff... Seriously what if you were being stalked by a stranger with unknown intentions, would you like it?"

What he said made perfect sense, and Val was struck dumb by his reasoning. 'What the fuck, why is he so good at talking? He had thought Elliott would be the crazy type, but not very talkative and with a horrible temper. But he couldn't just chicken out.

Meanwhile, Rachel got over her surprise and stood up. Although she had been taken by surprise, she had also been shocked by Elliott's cold eyes with no feelings whatsoever, whose insanity was even more intense than in the waiting room.

For a second, Val looked at Elliott but soon sighed. Even though they were the ones who had been ambushed, they were the ones responsible for the problem in the first place. She owed Elliott an apology for that. Besides, he couldn't make a bad impression of himself when he was here to recruit him.

Thud!

Val stuck his sword into the ground and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't think it through." Rachel bowed her head as well.

Elliott realized they had no ill intentions and relaxed. As he put his sword away, he said, "It's okay. State your business."

Val smiled mischievously and shouted with great confidence, "You should join my group!" It was a brief statement without any reasoning or logic. Rachel turned her head away in embarrassment.

Elliott furrowed his brow. 'Who the hell is this asshole, did he fall down as a little kid''

Not only had they appeared out of nowhere, but they were asking Elliott to join their team.

Elliott examined Val with an expression that clearly wondered what kind of person she was.

Rachel elbowed Val in the ribs.

"Ow! Why?"

"Stop doing that, aren't you embarrassed?"

"Of what?" Val was puzzled, not understanding what she had done.

As Rachel sighed deeply.

Elliott decided it wasn't worth talking to them and began to walk past Val and Rachel as he adjusted his clothes.

"Hey, buddy! Where are you going? We're not done talking yet." Val grabbed Elliott in a hurry.

Elliott stopped and looked back with hostile eyes. "What, you got something else to say?".

"You haven't given us an answer, I want you to join my team!".

Elliott let out a small snort. He didn't want to talk to them anymore and replied indifferently, "No."

"Why?"

"I have no idea what you guys are doing and I don't care about anything you say."

Val looked genuinely surprised. "Wait, you don't know who I am?"

"No."

"What, why?" she spoke as if it were very obvious. "But... What, you really don't know who I am? I mean, it's me! How could you possibly not recognize me? I'm like the biggest star in the Tutorial." Val fussed at Elliott's reaction as if she had just experienced something incomprehensible.

Elliott's indifferent expression was gradually replaced by anger.

Rachel watched Elliott's reaction and began to worry that they might end up with nothing, so she decided to step forward and speak to Elliott in a polite tone. "I apologize if we have offended you. My brother is very passionate about himself, so he tends to be self-centered and act a little silly. Sometimes it's really exhausting to talk to him. But he's not a bad person, so I hope you understand."

Val's expression clearly showed that she didn't know what she had done wrong, but when Rachel frowned at her, she shut her mouth.

The younger girl seemed much smarter than her brother. Elliott nodded as he looked at Rachel, thinking they could continue the conversation now. "I'm listening, but keep it short."

"Let's introduce ourselves. I'm Rachel, and this fool here is my brother, Val."

"Rachel? Val?" their names sounded familiar to Elliott. "Ninth and third-grade tutoring?"

Rachel smiled shyly. "It's a little embarrassing when you say it like that."

Internally, Elliott was a little surprised.

Val was in third place and Rachel was in ninth, but why were these high-ranking climbers, who should have been way ahead in the Tutorial, in a place like this? For a moment, he wondered if they would be frauds.

"Well, I understand your suspicions about our presence here. You're probably thinking we should already be in Section C or B..."

"No. I think it's Rachel and Val."

"Huh? Really?"

Elliott nodded silently. They had no reason to lie to him, and besides, he had the Dragon Eyes to help him find out if they were telling the truth. He examined them with his ability, which he had recently realized could show that those with negative or hostile thoughts had darker and more numerous imperfections compared to those who were friendly.

This helped Elliott to better understand people's thoughts and emotions and was also useful during monster hunting. Val and Rachel's weaknesses were light in color, which meant they were telling the truth.

Elliott asked with his arms crossed, "Why would a climber like you, who should be busy cleaning up the Tutorial and racking up points, come back here in this section to recruit a novice climber like me?"

Rachel scratched her cheek. She wanted to keep the motive a secret, but since it would be difficult to persuade Elliott, she decided to share as much as she could. She was prepared to subdue Elliott if he tried to do anything foolish. "Before we get into this, I have to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"Do you belong to any Teams, Clans, or Families?"

"No."

Rachel's beautiful face lit up at Elliott's answer.

"Oh!" Val also said in surprise.

"That's great. You see, there's an artifact we want to get in B Block, but we need at least three people on our team."

"Why don't you recruit someone from B block?"

"By the time climbers get to the last sections, they've usually joined a team or clan."

Elliott was starting to get a sense of what was going on. Since they were first ranked in the Tutorial, they had to move cautiously to avoid spreading information about the artifact. They couldn't risk recruiting climbers from other teams because their plans might leak out, so they believed they had a better chance of finding solo players in Section E.

'Did they use tickets to travel back to the previous sections?' Elliott guessed it wasn't the same reset ticket he had used before.

They probably had a pass that allowed them to travel freely around the Tutorial. It was likely that they had purchased a single-use one since it was also expensive.

"It's hard to verify the skills of the climbers in Block F. They must have found me during their search in Block E." Perhaps since he passed block F on his own and defeated David's team, they had noticed him. Elliott didn't know he would get attention like this, but he had no regrets.

So he chuckled a little. "So, there is an artifact in block B so difficult to acquire that even the third and ninth ranks need extra help. is that correct?"

"Yes, though I can't tell you the details."

Elliott nodded

...