“Vanessa, let’s drill on the left side! Please cover me!”

“Kay, Unnie!”

Ian had slipped out of the party’s range, but the twins were climbing the tower.

During the five minutes taken by Ian, they climbed three floors.

He climbed a floor every minute, and Ian’s speed hadn’t fallen.

But now, if one thought about it, with just 10 minutes away from the time, the situation seemed rather grim.

‘Heu, won’t… won’t we fail if we continue things this way?’

Sarah thought to herself as she looked ahead at the stairs.

They were now really expecting some kind of variable to be created by Ian.

“I should have brought a wand which had the unique ability of Blink…”

In fact, the gate they were all moving at was rather difficult, as all the skills excluding the unique abilities to the items were all limited.

If it was possible to use the skills, then they would have been able to reach the top part of the tower by using the teleportation spell ‘Blink’.

Just as Sarah said, it would have been easy for them if they had an item that had Blink as its unique ability.

Suddenly, Sarah’s mind drifted to Ian, who had moved up first.

Ian had smashed through with a strange way, taking advantage of the Bloody Revenge’s unique ability.

‘Since I didn’t get a party message, he couldn’t have died… where and what is he doing?’

Ian had gone up ahead of them, but their party message board was rather quiet.

They didn’t know what he was up to, and they didn’t even get a message saying that he had killed any spirit.

‘He surely is a great guy but… it is better to tone down my expectations on him, right?’

Sarah had a bitter smile on her face.

To think that failing a quest that can’t be cleared in a single try was a natural thing.

But then.

Ring-!

The sound of a system message notification came.

[Party member ‘Ian’ has defeated the fire spirit ‘Casa’!]

[Transcendence experience increased by 16.]

“Oh…?”

“Uh?”

Both Sarah and Vanessa looked up at the message and then looked to the ceiling of the tower at the same time.

It was unexpected as they had got a system message about Ian after 5 minutes of not getting any information about him.

“What could have happened?”

Mumbled Vanessa to herself, looking at the ceiling.

But then, a lot of system messages began to pop up in front of them.

Tring-!

[Party member ‘Ian’ defeated the fire spirit ‘Casa’.]

[Party Member ‘Ian’ defeated the fire spirit ‘Casa’.]

… Syncopation …

[Party member ‘Ian’ defeated the wind spirit ‘Silp’.]

“…!”

“What is this?”

At the incomprehensible situation, the twins were both wide-eyed.

In less than three seconds, messages started to come in front of them, more than a dozen spirits were killed off.

The messages were rather inconceivable for the two who never witnessed the battle of Ian.

“How is this… even possible?”

Vanessa mumbled to herself with a stupid expression, forgetting that she was facing an enemy.

At the moment, the shadow of a red figure appeared in front of the two sisters.

* * *

Sack- Swaswak-!

Along with the sounds of sharp objects that were cutting through the air, a red fog started to rise in all the directions.

In the middle of the steeple covered with white snow, a red shadow was flashing.

And where the shadow passed, the body of the spirits was falling down.

A picture that looked like a scene added an effect to the blood split ‘reset the cooldown on skill’.

It was a spectacular sight.

Tring-!

[Specific conditions have been met!]

[You have earned the title ‘Spirit Slayer’!]

Unexpected title, but Ian didn’t care for it.

It was hero rank due to the purple color.

Among the titles Ian had, a lot of them were legendary and that was why he didn’t care for the current one.

He couldn’t even afford to care.

The important thing for Ian right now was to break through the 25th floor.

Phat-!

Instantly annihilating the thirteen spirits, Ian leaped to the air.

He then looked up at the sky of the tower, which would go straight to the top floor.

‘If this is the distance… then it is possible enough!’

Wooong-!

With subtle vibration, Ian’s figure started to turn red again.

It was the beginning of a gallop.

Pang-!

Ian shot vertically with an intense sound.

Since it wasn’t a diagonal jump, Ian broke through three to four floors at the same time.

And that wasn’t the end.

Pang- papang-!

At the same time, the momentum of the Blood split that was activated disappeared, and the unique ability got activated again.

That continued four times in a row.

Swwooah-!

Ian’s shadow danced in all directions and soared to the top of the spire.

Ian managed to land on a place where two gates could be seen.

The 25th floor of the spire.

Tat-!

Ian landed lightly on the floor and sighed in relief.

“Wow, I did it!”

Ian smiled. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and looked proud.

Even this time, Ian wasn’t sure whether he would be successful or not.

But how did Ian managed to trigger Blood split four times in a row?

That too, in the air, where no monsters exist.

The reason why was the ‘Critical hit’ stacks.

Conditional option in the blood split that could reset the cooldown after 3 critical strikes.

Ian had accumulated more than 12 critical strike stacks.

In fact, building four or more critical stacks was impossible under normal circumstances.

When the critical stack was three, the cooldown of the skill would come back because the stack would disappear.

But there was an exception.

Despite three or more critical strikes, Blood split was active.

There was only one way to make that situation possible.

Killing an enemy at the moment of the third critical hit.

If the Blood split was triggered, and the enemy died, the cooldown would return regardless of the critical stack.

Ian used the system to collect the spirits without killing them.

Over a couple of death crisis.

The strategy of waiting for the blood split’s cooldown on a tightrope, as one could see, the situation worked out perfectly.

“Well, then… should I finish it now?”

Mumbling to himself in a small voice, Ian quickly moved toward the destination of his.

There were spirits rushing in, but he had no time to deal with them.

It was because the contribution would be high if it was cleared a little early.

25th floor.

A white portal in the north direction.

Arriving there, Ian jumped in without hesitation.

The system messages that he had waited appeared in front of Ian.

Tring-!

[Successfully broke through the second gate!]

[Contribution calculated.]

[Ian: 1,765 SS+]

[Sarah: 497 C]

[Vanessa: 510 C]

[If your contribution is below D, you will be dropped from the gate.]

[If you got dropped out due to lack of contribution, you can try again.]

Pleasant messages about the successful breakthrough appeared.

As expected, if just one person arrived at the gate, the test would be cleared.

The system messages were still going.

[You have successfully completed the quest ‘Summoner Pan’s Test II (Career) (Linked)’!]

[Earned transcendence experience of 125.]

[Acquired fame of 100,000.]

[Time left: 8 minutes 26 seconds/20 minutes.]

[Clear grade: S+]

[Cleared as S or higher]

[Gained 50 Spirit magic (Transcendence)]

[Gained 30 summon magic (Transcendence)]

Seeing as much as 50 spirit magic and 30 summon magic, Ian was on Cloud 9.

‘Surely, the A-class clearing and the S class clearing are highly different.’

And Ian’s view brightened as more messages came into his sight.

Tring-!

[You have met the transcendence level requirement.]

[Transcendence level has risen.]

[Transcendence level 5!]

* * *

[The quest ‘Summoner Pan’s test III (Career) (Linked)’ begins.]

[Sprit ‘Undine’ will be summoned.]

[Spirit ‘Gnome’ has been dismissed.]

[Spirit weapon ‘Fire wand’ will be destroyed.]

According to the Prettybbook, who was the guardian of the Frost cave, the gates of Pan were three.

And that meant that Ian was finally at the last gate.

“Phew!”

After taking a deep breath, Ian took a step forward.

At the same time, two shadows appeared right behind Ian.

Woong- Woong-!

It was the shadows of the twins who were staring at Ian from the 8th floor.

“That was… that was awesome!”

“What kind of spell did you do?”

The twins.

Vanessa took the hand of Ian and was shaking it violently.

“Ian, that was amazing!”

“From today onwards, I have decided to respect you!”

“You are really something!”

In fact, the linked quest was much more important and meaningful for the summoner Vanessa than her magician sister Sarah.

The chance to get ‘spirit magic’ that was similar to the summoner’s new content depended on the success of the quest.

Ian smiled at the twins and told them,

“I’ll take your thanks after we clear it till the end.”

“Okay. After I finish all the quests of the spirit, I’ll say that again!”

“Right right. Come to Frankfurt to play. I’ll feed you meet till your stomach burst.”

Looking at the two excited twins, Ian just shook his head.

‘Frankfurt huh… I haven’t even been to Jeju.’

For Ian who hadn’t taken a single flight yet, Germany was too far away.

In any case, the three of them arrived at the final gate and looked around the map.

The first gate was a long passage.

The second gate was a spiral stair to the top.

The third gate was a large vacant lot.

In the middle of the large vacant lot was a huge crystal of sort.

‘What is that?’

A crystal made of a translucent material, much similar to that of ice.

There was something inside of it, but it was hard to make out what it was as the light was being refracted.

“Would we go there to that side?”

At the question from Sarah, Ian nodded.

“Yes. I feel like there is something in there… in it.”

Ian and his group took a careful step forward toward the crystal.

The third quest hadn’t come up yet, nor did they know about the kind of variables that would come for them.

The three of them reached forward.

Woong-!

A white light began to shine from the inside of the crystal.

Tring-!

The final quest came to the sight of Ian and his party.

-Summoner Pan’s Test III (Career) (Linked)

The final test of Pan awaits you as you safely passed the second gate of the Frost cave.

At the third gate, you will be given a new spirit (Spirit weapon).

You must survive the last gate using the given spirit, and if the spirit given to the party dies, the test of the party will be failed.

Survive from the contaminated spirits till the end, and let’s take the vision of the spirit left by Pan.

Quest difficulty: B

Quest Condition:

The user who cleared the quest ‘Summoner Pan’s Test II’.

A summoner class or a summoner in the party.

Time limit: None

*Survive all the monster waves and kill all of them, and the quest clearing conditions will be met.

Reward:

Transcendence experience 200

Fame of 200,000

‘Is this a survival quest or an annihilation quest?’

Ian quickly read the quest window and mumbled to himself.

At the same time, a message came up that informed them of the conditions of the last gate.

[Flame Spirt ‘Ignis’ has been summoned.]

[All the constraints have disappeared]

And with that, the final battle in the Frost Cave had begun.