In the end, Jack asked to enter the ancient battleground again. Myson gave Paytowin the authority to activate the machine and told his apprentice to accept Jack’s payment if he wanted to enter again. Myson couldn’t afford to stay here all the time.
When Jack and Paytowin were inside again, Jack said, “That Myson really trusts you a lot, didn’t he?”
“He is a good boss,” Paytowin answered. ‘But my faction points got subtracted a lot for this favor though,’ he lamented in his mind. He didn’t mention this point subtraction to Jack. If Jack knew, Jack would insist on paying him back in some way or decided to not enter altogether.
“So, I have to ask…,” Jack said as he looked at the familiar scene of the half-destroyed fort and the mass of soldiers. “Have you ever passed the minimum requirement mark and scored some points?”
“Uh, no…” Paytowin replied.
“Crap! So you don’t know how good the reward is for all this trouble?”
“I mainly use this place for exp farming when I am lazy to teleport out into the cities.”
“The exp is not that good.”
“I’ve said so before, right?”
“The most frustrating thing to happen is when we have lower down an enemy’s health and then suddenly a stray attack from those native soldiers comes and claims the kill.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it, it will be worse if you fight around those golden knights.”
Jack looked over at the golden knights. “You said before that we last the longest if we hang around them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. They were the last ones standing. Still fighting till the end even after all the others are down. Completely honoring their God.”
“So, they last longer than three hours?”
“Yeah, but it is no good if we hide behind them just to pass the time limit. We still need to…”
“Get one-thousand kill counts, yes. How about we kill one-thousand first and then we go employ their protection? If I didn’t count wrongly, we manage to kill one thousand in our first try, right?”
“Well, that might work. Never thought of that, I never got one thousand kills before,” Paytowin said. “Anyway, we killed 1151 from the run just now.”
“You counted till that detail? I’m impressed!” Jack exclaimed.
“Um… You can see the record over there,” Paytowin pointed to the distant sky. There was a big zero number made out of the cloud in the sky.
“Shit!” Jack uttered.
“Once we reach one thousand kills and break the three-hour mark, that notification will change. Our names will be written there and our scores added. We will be given separate scores then.”
“You never make it through there, right? How do you know?”
“I read the manual.”
“There is a manual? Ah… not important. Let’s go. We will try the plan we discussed just now,” Jack said. He took the lead and ran forward.
They fought as they had been. They were cooperating well due to their history. After getting to know each other’s skills better, they coordinated better.
Because of the chaotic battlefield, many times the incident where the enemies they had battered to near-death were killed by the other soldiers. After a while, Jack was getting tired of having his labor snatched. So he started to use his Inspect more, searching for enemies who were low from fighting the other soldiers and kill-steal from them instead.
Paytowin saw Jack’s fighting pattern and follow suit. They started to move around on the chaotic battlefield, stealing one kill after another.
Many of their attempted kill-steal failed, but at least they didn’t feel as frustrated compared to when they did all the work only to get it taken away at the last second.
Jack’s Lightning God Barrage had a five hours cooldown, so he couldn’t use it at once at the start of this second run. But passing their second hour, the divine skill came off cool-down. He immediately used it on the area with the most congested enemy numbers.
After the dust settled, Jack looked at the sky notification. They had passed the one thousand mark.
“It’s time! Let’s head over!” Jack told Paytowin. At that time, their backline had started to get overwhelmed by the enemies.
With help of Therras and Brave King, they forced their way through. They had paid attention to not wandering too far away from where those golden knights were. But after fighting their way through, they noticed these golden knights were not in their initial position anymore.
“Where the hell are they?!” Jack exclaimed.
Peniel flew up while trying her best to not get hit by stray arrows or energy shots. After looking around, she yelled, “They are further ahead! They seemed to be trying to advance.”
One of the flying beasts swooped down trying to catch Peniel, Jack fired his Mana Beam, knocking the beast out of the sky before Therras came stomping on it when it fell to the ground. Peniel hurriedly flew back down before another of the flying beasts decided to have her for a snack.
“What the hell are they doing advancing while we are being overrun here?” Jack uttered.
“Um, final struggle to demonstrate their braveries to their God?” Paytowin guessed.
“Argh…! Let’s chase after those fanatics!” Jack said and they again tried forcing their way chasing the trail of those golden knights.
After much difficulty, they finally catch up. Not without casualty though. Therras got killed when they met three rare elite armored trolls with spiked clubs, two rare elite armored mutated humans, and one rare elite flying beast. The noble pet even used its Imperious Pressure in its last thread of HP to allow Jack and Paytowin to flee. Brave King also got wrecked to parts. Good thing that these losses would be null once this simulation ended.
They finally managed to catch up to the golden knights. They charged into their ranks for protection, but their sigh of relief only lasted for a while. With how outnumbered these knights were, enemies attacked from all sides. Not only that, but the grade of the enemies also increased as they delved deeper into enemies’ lines. There was even one mythical-grade mutated human knight, currently in a battle against the lead golden knight who was also of mythical grade.
Although these two mythical adversaries were only level 50, the force of their impacts reverberated around them. Through his mana sense, Jack could feel the unusual mana fluctuation between the two. Even though the two only fought using standard attacks, the blows could crush the others around them. Both of them were using mana manipulation in their attacks!
The main reason that Jack had been so eager to enter this dimension after failing the first time, was not the exp points and not his curiosity of the rewards, but the environment. While fighting, he had been continuously trying to apply the basics of mana manipulation.
Now that he saw the two in a contest using this technique, he felt like he could glimpse some understandings. He activated his Dragon Eye, seeing everything in slow motion as he concentrated his mana sense to the maximum. All his thoughts focused on the mana within the two’s movements.
While he was at it, he somehow saw the mana take shape. It was as if a cloud of blue fireflies swarming around the two’s weapons. He was so transfixed by this sight that he forgot about everything else.
“Jack, look out!” Paytowin’s voice brought him out of his trance. His Dragon Eye’s effect ended. The cloud of blue fireflies vanished. At the same time, he felt as if he had been struck by a truck.
Jack felt himself become weightless. He looked down and saw Paytowin and the others become smaller. A black armored troll had barged into the golden knights’ rank and struck him while he was too absorbed by what he saw to sense any incoming attack.
The ground became further and further. He got smacked far away. He heard a shriek and turned to see a black flying beast coming at him. Its claws struck him but Jack also gifted it a Devouring Cross. The two fell to a sea of black.
All by himself, the enemies swarmed him from every side once he touched down. Jack tried to fight back as best as he could, but there were simply too many. In the end, he was sent back out of the simulation.
“Shit, it’s just a couple more minutes left!” He uttered, but his mind quickly returned to the feeling when he saw the mana manipulation at work. He focused his mind as he tried to communicate with the mana in the room. He tried to copy how the two mythical knights commanded their mana.
He was still immersed in his training when Paytowin materialized in the room.
Jack looked at his friend and checked the time. He then said, “Hey, you passed the three-hour mark!”
“I did,” Paytowin replied.
“So, did you get anything?” Jack asked.
“Well, I kill two elites and one special elite after the three-hour mark passed, getting a few scores from those kills.”
“And?”
“It said my score is too low. I get a complimentary reward, a healing potion…”
