Chapter 51 : : Hell Mode

Monster beasts or we can say monsters and beasts to be precise, both are mostly the same but the term monster is used when the creature has a deep murderous nature towards humane races. For instance, a creature that is seen as a beast outside the dungeon would be termed as the monster inside it, under the influence of the dungeon, monsters are born with almost no rationality. It was so that they can kill the outsiders entering the dungeon and turn them into nourishment for the dungeon to grow.

Monsters that are born inside the dungeon are deeply connected to it, the stronger they are, the more influence the dungeon would have on them, it is the reason why very strong monsters are never able to leave the dungeon while weaker ones can do it sometimes.

Beast Tamers can tame beasts but taming a monster is tens of times harder, and if they want to cultivate feelings then it's more than twenty times harder.

The monsters would rather die than being tamed, the only way to tame them is thoroughly brainwashing them, some practitioners bring out monster eggs and start taming monsters since their birth, those people are called Monster Tamers.

Beast Tamers and Monster Tamers are similar in some ways but their ideals make them often have frictions among them. Many of Beast Tamer's spells are designed in a way that they can only be used after gaining the desired affinity with their battle beasts while Monster Tamer prefers to only use monsters as battle tools than can be scarified at will and doesn't need to have any kind of affection.

***

At present…

Kale was facing six monster goblins.

All the six goblins that appeared weren't simple as the ones found in the wild, they were wearing thick leather armors and held a sharp dagger in their hands. Their eyes were locked onto him.

Kale didn't waste time in observing them and wielded the «Fallen Sakura» attached to the chain. Such a level of monsters wasn't his match.

Goblins specializes in sneak attack but in a place like this one, they lost their advantage, as a result, the battle ended in around half a minute.

Not a single goblin was able to step into his 5-meter range before the knife pierced their throat or sliced their throat.

Kale was using Battle Qi to enhance his physical strength further so how can Mortal-Rank Common-Grade like them match him?

..Pu chi...

Kale lazily retracted his knife from the head of the last goblin 'It was simpler than I thought, is it all this tower got?'

Once he finished killing the goblins, he noticed that their physical bodies disintegrated into light particles completely disappearing from the arena, even the blood on the knife vanished without a trace.

Kale didn't put much attention to it because right now something more amusing caught his interest, a green magic circle appeared below his feet, under the baptism of the warm light from the magic circle, his used Battle Qi recovered instantly, Battle Qi wasn't the only thing, his fatigue also disappeared and his muscles relaxed. Just from the sensation alone, he didn't doubt that if he was injured, the injury would have also recovered.

'Recovery without a healer, and using an external magic circle? Amazing, just what method did they use? Even my «Undying Flesh Seed» cannot recover fatigue,' Kale thought. His eyes were shining, if he could, then he wanted to disassemble the whole Tower Of Trials and study its mechanism.

A notification appeared in his vision and awakened him from the daze.

[1st Floor Trial Completed.]

[Please choose the reward category:-

1. Equipment

2. Consumables

3. Techniques & Spells ]

Kale couldn't choose a particular item but he could still choose the category and the system would randomize one according to his class, he started pondering over the three options 'Consumables aren't reusable so they are out of option, I have my own techniques and Tier 1 Spells are not that hard to get from the academy, on the other hand, I seriously lack right equipment for myself,'

In the end, he chose the 1st option, the Equipment category.

Ding...

[You obtained «Mulan's Earring».]

[Mulan's Earring:-

Rank: Enlightened Mortal

Grade: Rare

Type: Investigative

Description: It's an equipment that temporarily enhances your sense of hearing by several times, while also letting you extract desired sound waves to help you observe your surroundings in a specific range.]

A silver earring appeared out of nowhere and floated in front of him.

Kale observed the earring, it was a single left earring, the earring was in the shape of a sound wave having the appearance of a sword, a wave-like sword hanging upside down.

He took it and put it into his pocket. Kale was still thinking of advancing to the next floor when an unexpected notification surprised him.

[Congratulations! You have met the requirement to unlock the hidden difficulty level.]

'Hmm…' The notification caught his attention.

[Challenger can now choose to complete the 1st floor trial at ‹Hell› difficulty mode.]

[Hell Mode:-

Description: You will be faced with three waves of the monsters, if you pass all three of them then you will receive the extra rewards for completing the mission at ‹Hell› mode.

Rule1: You cannot quit the trial in the middle.

Rule3: You will be given 30-second break after every wave.

Rule2: You will not receive free recovery until all three waves are cleared.]

[Would you like to accept the trial: Accept/Decline.]

'The penalty isn't mentioned but it says that I can't quit midway like before if I accept, which indirectly means death on failure?' Kale's lips curled upwards, he chose to Accept.

He wasn't afraid of risks especially in choosing ‹Hell› mode when the ‹Hard› difficulty level trial wasn't able to make him serious. He had confidence in clearing the trial, he had a rough estimation of the trail up ahead and guessed that it wasn't meant to kill challenger but choose the talented ones, after all, the Tower Of Trials was made to nurture practitioners and wasn't some demonic inheritance.

[Choice confirmed.]

[Starting the trial….]

Kale looked around and saw another six magic circles similar to before appearing and releasing six new figures.

Five of the figures that appeared were the same goblins as before but the sixth was a hobgoblin.

The hobgoblin resembled humans in body shape, he looked like green-skinned humans, this hobgoblin didn't have any armour on him and only had a baseball-shaped tree branch as a weapon but his presence was like a general to the other five goblins.

The goblins didn't act blindly like before, they looked at him then just snarled at Kale without tacking a single step.

When Kale was looking at the hobgoblin, the hobgoblin was also assessing his opponent.

'Killing a humanoid creature is much more interesting than dealing with these idiotic beings,' Kale stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles, he hadn't had a serious fight with a humanoid creature since reincarnating in this world.

A duel where he needed to care about his opponent's life wasn't really his thing after only fighting to kill for all his life before.

In the next second, he dashed at the hobgoblin.

The hobgoblin reacted, he pointed his think wooden branch at him and shouted. All the goblin moved to intercept him.

The short goblins were like bloodthirsty monkeys with a dagger in their hands, they were surprisingly agile but due to their low intelligence, their movements were highly predictable in his eyes.

'Wood Hammer'

Kale didn't use a knife this time and punched at the nearest goblin with a fist, the goblin was hit in the chest and was thrown back at another approaching goblin.

The other three goblins jumped at him, attacking with their dagger without worrying about their safety. Just when their dagger touched his coat, Kale's body turned illusory and he disappeared on the spot

'Illusory Phantom Walk'

The goblins fell on the ground, they suddenly noticed another silhouette of him and attacked but it too disappeared like before making them overly confused.

Suddenly, they heard the hobgoblin' shout, they turned and saw Kale closing up the distance with him, they hurried but were too far away to intercept him.

The hobgoblin angrily screamed, he lifted his thick wood branch and confronted his enemy.

Kale saw him coming and smirked.

'Vanishing Ghost Step'

The hobgoblin was only a few meters away from his target, but just when he blinked and opened his eyes, there was no one in front of him.

He was stunned, he checked on the side and found no one, but then he heard the screech of the other goblins from afar warning him about something and got confused.

…Clutch…

Out of nowhere, he felt someone stepping on his back then a green rope-like thing flashed in front of his eyes and grasped his neck, he hurriedly reacted, trying to pull the rope.

But before he could think or do much, Kale stepped on his shoulder, tightened his grip on the «Wild Vine» then with a jolt, threw his body back while kicking his shoulders with his legs.

..Kac cha….

A crisp sound of bone breaking came and the hobgoblin stopped moving, Kale jumped back and skillfully landed on the ground.

...Thud...

The lifeless hobgoblin fell to the ground.

‹Vanishing Ghost Step›, a movement technique designed for frontal assassination, unlike ‹Illusory Phantom Walk›, it's highly effective when facing only one opponent.

When an observer looks at something, its eyes only focus on a single target, the rest of the things are taken as unimportant background by its brain, due to that some changes in the background remain completely unnoticed.

For example, when we see an idol's picture, we only focus on the idol itself and doesn't even know the number of people standing around them most of the time, much less their expression or looks.

Even if an observer stops looking at the target and focus on something else, they will subconsciously turn to look in vertical and horizontal directions, the rest of the area would be their black spot.

‹Vanishing Ghost Step› is a set of movements that makes the user move in a way that they can avoid being the target in the eyes of the observer, moving diagonally and approach the observer without getting noticed.

But the technique has two big flaws, it requires the observer to get distracted for at least once, like a blink of eyes. Secondly, due to the first condition, the user can only focus on one target at a time, even if the user successfully deceives the eyes of one opponent, the same thing can't be done with multiple opponents at once.

Kale looked at the group of goblins rushing towards him and chuckled.

The situation was simpler than before so the result was the same.

Normally, goblins are shrewd creatures, they would try to retread or escape when the opponent is too strong but maybe it was due to the tower's effect or the goblins weren't real, but they all chose to fight to the death instead of fleeing.

It took him less than a minute to take care of the remaining goblins.

[1st wave cleared.]

[The next wave would be in 00:29.]

Kale controlled his breathing and used ‹Mana-Resilience Cycle› to recover some of his stamina.

Right now he was in perfect condition but it wasn't a good thing to be careless, there was a high chance for more hobgoblins to appear in the next wave.

The 30 second time passed quickly, and the next wave started.

This time, eight magic circles appeared in the arena,

Kale observed the newly appeared monsters.

Six of them were normal goblins while the rest two were hobgoblins. The two hobgoblins were different from before, they were wearing thick leather armour, one of them had a stone ax in his hand and the other was holding a stone hammer.

They were warrior goblins.

Unlike normal hobgoblins, warrior goblins possess more physical strength, moreover, there was a 50% chance for a warrior goblin to possess a battle skill similar to Martial Artist.

Kale didn't take it easy this time, he quietly stuffed his hands into his pockets and wore his transparent plastic gloves.

Like before, the goblins were used as cannon fodders by their leaders and ran towards Kale to attack.

Kale also made his way towards them, he didn't engage in hand-to-hand combat this time, he kicked the ground and jumped into the air when there was still some distance between him and the goblins.

'Wind Chasing Knives'

Six knives were shot out at the six approaching goblins, each aiming for their head, due to close distance, the goblins found it hard to react and failed to dodge.

..Swoosh… x 6

Three goblins died the moment their heads got pierced by the knives, the other four although also got hit on the head but the knife failed to penetrate their skull under the thick leather helmet.

They screamed in pain but didn't die, Kale used this opportunity and made his way towards the two goblin warriors.

The two goblin warriors simultaneously made their way towards him, Kale again leaped into the air and threw six knives, three at each.

Unlike the goblins from before, the goblin warriors used their broad hands and weapon to block protect their head, Kale had only aimed for their head and neck because their armour was tougher, the knives pierced their neck and shoulders but weren't enough to kill them.

'This ‹Hell› mode doesn't seem like it was meant for a solo challenger, well whatever,' Kale raised his hand at the leg of the goblin warrior with a stone hammer in his hands.