After William and Chiffon had left the First Floor of Babylon, Xod had started to feel uneasy.
This feeling was very uncomfortable, so he decided to return to the Guardian Hall, where the other Guardians resided.
Each Guardian was tasked to become the administrator of a floor. Naturally, the floors that had already been conquered had “owners” who had made a contract with the Guardians after clearing their trials for the first time.
Among all the floors, the Genesis Floor which Xod supervised was the only exception to this rule. Since it was the floor that tested whether the challengers had qualifications to climb the tower or not, no ruling family could claim it as their own.
“Oogwei, I need your wisdom,” Xod approached a foot-long black turtle who was busy reading a book. “I want to use your Index.”
The turtle gave Xod a side-long glance before casually flipping the page of its book. “That is Master Oogwei to you, Xod. What is it this time? I thought I told you to stop bothering me.”
The small turtle was the Guardian of the Third Floor of the Tower. Among all the guardians, he was the most well informed and knew many things about the multiverse they were currently in.
“I want you to check on how rare a Goblin Paladin is.”
“You and your fetish with Goblins. Scram and leave me alone!”
Xod coaxed the little turtle by promising to give it a bowl of lettuce. Oogwei reluctantly agreed to the green-skinned man’s request, after a bowl of lettuce was placed in front of it.
“What do you want to know again?” Oogwei asked as it summoned a black book in front of it.
Xod repeated his request about finding the rarity of the Goblin Paladin that he had seen earlier. The little turtle snorted and the black book opened by itself.
It stopped at a page where a Goblin, wearing dazzling armor, a sword, and a shield, was seen polishing its weapon.
—–
< Goblin Paladin >
Rarity: SSR+
— Only one Goblin Paladin is born among a billion goblins.
— A Goblin Paladin’s Rank after evolution will start at the Millennial Rank.
— It’s next form, Goblin Sovereign, pushes its rank to the Myriad Rank.
— This is the strongest Goblin in Existence
—-
“That scammer!” Xod shouted in anger. “He tricked me!”
Xod’s shout was so loud that Oogwei and the other Guardians looked at him with dumbfounded expressions. This was the first time they had seen their colleague act this way, and their interest was quite piqued.
“You got scammed?” Oogwei asked with a smirk. “Who scammed you? I want to meet that person.”
‘Oh, Sh*t!’
Xod had completely forgotten where he was and acted on impulse. The other guardians approached him as if they were paparazzi looking for juicy gossip.
Xod’s green skin wasn’t able to help him from turning beet-red out of shame and anger. He hastily returned to his own Domain to escape the inquiry of his acquaintances, and to think of a way on how to take his revenge on the Half-Elf that was currently out of his reach.
After seeing Xod leave, the smirk on Oogwei’s face widened as he shifted his attention to the book in front of it.
“Hack the visual records of the First Floor for the past 24 hours,” Oogwei ordered. “Find the reason why Xod became upset.”
[Understood.]
The pages turned and stopped on what seemed to be a war that was about to begin. Oogwei scrutinized the red-headed teenager with curiosity and watched everything unfold. The little turtle chuckled when it saw Xod try to break the deal that he made with the Half-Elf, due to the latter’s first-class acting skills.
“This person has guts,” Oogwei muttered before giving out another order. “Find his location on the second floor.”
[Understood.]
[Target not found on the second floor.]
[Cannot do a full sweep due to the floor’s restriction.]
The little turtle frowned. If the book told him that William wasn’t on the second floor then it means that he really wasn’t on the second floor. It then asked the book to check if his target had already appeared on the Third Floor, but the answer was still negative.
Oogwei pondered for a bit, before giving out another order.
“Inform me as soon as his presence is detected inside the Tower. It doesn’t matter what floor he is on. Notify me as soon as a match is made.”
[Understood.]
—–
William was currently sleeping inside his Villa at the Thousand Beast Domain. Setting up the place where the Goblins would stay took most of his time and energy.
As soon as he was done, William had dinner with Chiffon and went to sleep. Chiffon was also tired from playing with B1 and B2 inside Atlantis, and accompanied the boy to sleep. They had been together for more than a month already, and they usually slept by each other’s side.
The next day, the two reappeared on the Second Floor of Babylon, to take the test to proceed to the next floor.
“The test will begin in ten minutes,” a pretty lady said with a smile. “All challengers, please proceed to the Grand Arena.”
The Second Floor of Babylon was ruled by the Agnis family. This family prided themselves on being the first family to clear the tower. Because of this, the Guardian of the Second Floor gave them the rights to conduct their own trials to test the challengers of the tower.
As a Martial Family, they believed that only the strong were qualified to climb the tower. This was why their test required all the challengers to fight each other in a Royal Rumble.
There was only one trial held everyday, and all participants who wanted to proceed to the next floor must participate in it. No substitutions were allowed.
Everyday, only five people were allowed to pass this trial. Those who failed were allowed to take the test again the next day.
If the First Floor was called the Genesis, the second floor was called Champion’s Den, for only the champions were allowed to leave this place.
Most challengers weren’t able to climb past this floor because of the sheer difficulty it presented. This was why teams of five were quite common in the second floor, to give themselves a higher chance of passing the trial.
Those who had given up climbing the tower had settled as residents of this floor. They would always go to the Grand Arena to look at the new batch of people that would fail, just like them. Because of their experience, some of these people had developed a crab mentality.
This was a mentality that the Agnis family had encouraged and even gave the losers a way to vent their frustrations.
The time limit for the Royal Rumble was two hours. If after two hours, there were more than five people remaining inside the Grand Arena, the audience was given the permission to enter and eliminate the players, until only five of them were left.
This was a very unique, and brutal way, to ensure that all the players would fight each other to the fullest. Getting ganged up by spectators who numbered nearly half a million, was not a fun way to get beaten to a pulp.
“Don’t leave my side no matter what, okay?” William said as he patted Chiffon’s head.
Chiffon nodded while putting on the Devourer’s Gauntlets that William had crafted for her. The Half-Elf had given her permission to attack anyone that came near her striking range.
The pink-haired girl’s rank was Platinum. This meant that she was more than capable of fighting half of the participants in the Grand Arena. William wasn’t too worried about her safety because he had already seen how Chiffon fought during their Dungeon Exploration.
Fighting against opponents of the same rank would not pose any difficulty to her.
‘Fifteen,’ William rubbed his chin as he looked at his status page. ‘Nine Mithril, five Adamantium, and one Black.’
These were the strongest people who posed against William, and Chiffon, inside the Grand Arena.
Since only five were allowed to survive, these fifteen individuals would definitely do their best to secure a slot. William had asked the system to put a marker on these individuals depending on their ranks.
The Half-Elf knew that they must avoid the Black Ranked person at all cost. This was why he moved to the location that was farthest away from the person.
‘I just hope that you don’t go out of your way to come to our side,’ William thought as he led Chiffon to the corner of the arena. ‘I don’t want to use my Heroic Avatar so early in the game.’
