Chapter 10 : Could It Be That Vivian Has Been Hiding Her Strength All Along
Chapter 10: Could It Be That Vivian Has Been Hiding Her Strength All Along?
And this clear time… was way too outrageous!!
Beside her, the way Lilith looked at Vivian had completely changed.
Without a doubt, in Lilith’s eyes right now, Vivian was a genius—a true genius.
Back in their hometown, Vivian had been pretending!
“Wuu…” Thinking of this, Lilith couldn’t help but cover her face.
What had she done not long ago?
She had actually gone to ask Vivian whether she had, like herself, paid goblins for promotion.
Now Lilith understood—Vivian had never done any promotion at all. Only she herself had spent money on it.
She had even just been dragged along as an extra.
Thinking back on her previous behavior… it was so embarrassing!
………
While Lilith was still lost in her thoughts, Jiang Chen calmly looked at the leaderboard time.
“Not bad. Barely acceptable.”
At the same time, a flash of light appeared on the screen.
The scene changed, and Vivian appeared in a white space.
In front of her, three glowing orbs appeared.
【Congratulations: In the first floor of the Eternal Tower, you dealt 100% of the damage and broke the fastest clear record. You have received a special reward: choose one of three permanent blessings.】
【Magic Blessing: Increased mana】
【Dawn Blessing: Health regeneration】
【Hope Blessing: Weapon Blessing】
Seeing the prompt, Jiang Chen’s eyes lit up.
“Permanent stat increase?”
“This is kind of like early tower-climbing game mechanics.”
Faced with the three choices, Jiang Chen hesitated.
To be honest, all three rewards were extremely tempting.
The higher his mana attribute, the stronger the power of C4. Health regeneration increased his sustain, while Weapon Blessing enhanced weapon damage.
According to the description, this type of tower reward could only be claimed once per floor.
So the choice had to be made carefully—each decision would affect future progress in climbing the tower.
“Choose Hope Blessing!”
Jiang Chen made his decision immediately.
The reason he chose this was because Weapon Blessing was a special skill that did not consume mana when used.
It could be used three times a day, each time lasting ten minutes, increasing weapon damage by 10%.
First of all, C4 could also benefit from this bonus.
Although increasing mana was significant, based on Jiang Chen’s understanding of games, regular attributes like mana were not too difficult to obtain later.
On the contrary, special skills like Weapon Blessing were much harder to acquire.
Moreover, the additional damage from Weapon Blessing belonged to a separate damage type beyond skill-based bonuses, making its priority much higher than mana.
In addition, this skill could be applied to other weapons as well, making it extremely versatile.
That was the reason behind Jiang Chen’s choice.
As the selection was completed, the glowing orb representing Hope Blessing merged into Vivian’s body.
At the same time, her attributes changed.
【Vivian Violet】
【Magic Ring: First Ring】
【Class: Peace Princess】
【Health: 200, Mana: 300, Defense: 10, Strength: 15, Agility: 14, Intelligence: 42, Perception: 24】
【Skills: C4 Shaping LV1 - Weapon Blessing LV1】
【Total Combat Power: 1136】
Seeing the change in his attributes, Jiang Chen’s eyes lit up.
“Got the Weapon Blessing skill!”
“Right now, C4’s base skill damage is 1000. After mana scaling, that becomes 3000 base damage.”
“Plus 1200 true damage from intelligence, and an additional 300 bonus damage.”
“So my total skill damage right now is 4500.”
“The only pity is that I don’t have crit rate or crit damage yet. Not sure if tower rewards include those attributes.”
“If I can get those, damn… my damage would instantly double.”
As he spoke, Jiang Chen became even more excited about the rewards on the next floor.
……
Meanwhile, while Jiang Chen was still analyzing his skills, the outside world had already exploded into chaos.
As more than fifty people entered the Eternal Tower, the students watching in the plaza began discussing heatedly:
“What Twin Stars of genius? I think it’s all hype.”
“They sure talk big, daring to challenge over fifty people at once?”
“They’re probably going to fail hard this time. Those so-called geniuses are about to embarrass themselves.”
“I remember the freshman record was set last year by Beatrice’s team—1 hour 5 minutes. The senior record was by Veyron’s team—10 minutes 20 seconds. How long do you think these ‘Twin Stars’ will take?”
“The senior team were all Second- and Third-Ring Mages, of course they were fast. Freshmen are at most First-Ring. Beatrice’s team even had a full five members to achieve that result.”
“This pair of Twin Stars… they won’t get out in under three hours. They might not even pass.”
“They both probably have First-Ring classes. Maybe they can barely pass?”
“Hard to say. Haven’t we seen plenty of ‘geniuses’ in recent years? All hyped to the skies, but in real combat they’re just greenhouse flowers with zero experience.”
“True.”
……
Just as everyone was talking excitedly, the leaderboard at the center of the plaza suddenly refreshed.
【Goblin Nest · Freshman Ranking】
1st: Lilith, Vivian | Team Size: 2 | Time: 3 minutes 45 seconds
2nd: Beatrice, Karen… | Team Size: 5 | Time: 65 minutes 21 seconds
……
【Goblin Nest · Overall Ranking】
1st: Lilith, Vivian | Team Size: 2 | Time: 3 minutes 45 seconds
2nd: Veyron, Kovit… | Team Size: 5 | Time: 10 minutes 20 seconds
……
Both rankings updated simultaneously, and the entire plaza fell into dead silence.
Then, shock erupted like a tidal wave:
“H-how much?!”
“3 minutes 45 seconds… I didn’t read that wrong, did I?”
“How is that even possible?!”
“Two people, 3 minutes 45 seconds? Are you kidding me?!”
“No way! How could First-Ring Mages achieve that speed?!”
“Is the Eternal Tower broken? That’s not even enough time to run the map!”
“Back then, Senior Veyron pulled the entire map of monsters and still took ten minutes. Three minutes? How did they even do that?!”
……
Almost no one could believe their eyes.
Originally, many had come just to watch the show, waiting for the Twin Stars to fail miserably so they could mock them.
But instead, they were met with a result so absurd it defied logic.
The news spread like wildfire. More and more people gathered in the plaza. Even those who hadn’t cared before were drawn in to watch.
Even… some of the academy’s instructors were alerted.
For a time, everyone was discussing Lilith and Vivian.
“How long do you think they’ll take for the next stage?”
“At least an hour, probably,” someone guessed.
“The second floor is full of ghouls close to Second-Ring strength. With a whole ring gap, they shouldn’t be able to go that fast.”
Even Beatrice’s team had taken nearly two hours on the second floor, mainly due to the strength gap. The difficulty there was essentially fighting above one’s level, so slower progress was normal.
However, Veyron’s team had only taken about five minutes, mainly because the second floor’s area wasn’t large, and higher-ring mages could handle it much more easily than the first floor.
This was also the floor where the gap between freshmen and senior students became most obvious.
At this moment, everyone was eagerly anticipating what kind of result Vivian’s team would achieve under such circumstances.
……
Inside the tower, Lilith and Vivian were completely unaware of the storm outside.
When the pale blue leaderboard appeared, although they already knew the result from the system notification, they were still deeply shocked.
“S-so strong… Lord God!” Vivian’s eyes sparkled.
“So this is the power of a god…” she thought.
Breaking the record held by senior students so effortlessly.