Wolf

A bright, blue light shines out of the totem as soon as I touch it.

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Expanded System Store:

Skills Store

Items Store

Consumables Store

System Access Store

Daily Necessities Store

Administrator Dungeon Store

System Restriction Break

(System Favor: System Restriction Break lasts only while you are standing within ten meters of the Grand Totem)

System Phantom

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My eyes immediately focus on the red text before I purse my lips in thought.

Which of the features to try first; restriction break or phantom…

After a few seconds of thought, I shake my head and close out of the menu entirely.

On second thought, it would be better to leave this for when my eternal ice is strong enough to defend me against everything on this floor. Just in case a monster shows up that can hurt my ice.

After all, it would suck to die just because I was attacked while using the System Phantom option.

I turn around to look at the dozens of teleport pads scattered around me in a ring before walking towards the one to the right of the one that I had originally arrived through.

Right as I reach it, a menu appears in front of me, startling me for a second.

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Are you sure that you wish to select arena 99J?

You may only select one arena for every default challenge you have cleared.

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Hmm…

I step away from the pad before going to the other side of the one I arrived on.

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Are you sure that you wish to select arena 1J?

You may only select one arena for every default challenge you have cleared.

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If I remember correctly, the one I had cleared was arena 100J. Seeing as the ones next to it are arenas 99J and 1J, does that mean that there are 100 total arenas on this floor?

Also, what’s with the letter J? Does it have some sort of significance, or is it just a random letter?

I frown at the menu for a few seconds before shaking my head and stepping onto the pad, causing another menu to replace the confirmation one.

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You have chosen to unlock arena 1J.

Now teleporting you to the arena.

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Before I can even finish reading the menu, a bright blue light begins to shine from the teleport pad below me as everything around me begins to disappear. I then find myself appearing within a nearly identical hallway to the last arena’s entrance hall.

Wait, so all of the arenas look the same…?

That’s just boring.

Ignoring the lack of creativity in this floor, my attention quickly shifts to the two system guardians standing at the entrance to the bleachers.

Sapphire – who had entered my shadow at some point – suddenly hops out of it again and begins to walk beside me.

Just like last time, the system guardians begin their little process of slamming their staffs everywhere before the exact same message from the last arena appears in a menu screen in between them. After skimming through the message again, I ignore the two guardians as I continue walking through them into the arena bleachers, focusing on the sounds of combat that I can hear from within as I do so.

Just like in the last arena, the bleachers are filled with thousands of monsters, all roaring their own variations of cheers as two combatants fight within the center of the arena. The monsters within the bleachers are the same species as those in the last one, meanwhile one of the combatants is a normal desert warrior and the other one is a fire jinn.

Considering the poor state of the desert warrior’s armor, the fire jinn is likely winning. But that makes sense, considering the weakness that undead generally have towards fire.

I glance at Sapphire before turning back around and walking up to the one of the system guardians stationed at the entrance.

“Sign me up for the default challenge,” I tell the guardian with my arms crossed. It then slams its staff on the ground five times just like the last arena.

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You have now been signed up for the default challenge and have been temporarily labeled a challenger!

Your challenge will occur in ten minutes.

If you willingly enter combat of any kind before your challenge, then you will automatically be disqualified from challenging this arena again.

At the same time, if another Competitor attacks you during this time within the arena grounds, they will be disqualified from challenging this arena again and dealt with accordingly by the guardians.

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I give it a brief nod because why not before going back into the bleachers to wait for my turn.

This is going to be a strange theme to compete in.

Sapphire suddenly screeches quietly and begins to climb my shoulder, shrinking in size as she does so.

I glance at her before focusing on the center of the arena again.

The theme is practically the opposite of the last one. Instead of being tested on our endurance, we’re just being straight up combat tested, with a rather large number of breaks.

The ten minutes pass by rather quickly before I begin to float over towards the arena grounds.

I guess I’m gonna be doing a lot of challenges for the next week or so…

Four hours later

I glance at the desert scorpion’s corpse as I use my ice element to clean my gauntlets of blood.

This floor… isn’t taking very long to clear.

I mean, I wasn’t expecting it to take all that long, but to only take a few hours to reach level…

System Notification

Congratulations!

You are now level 460!

…460 is just incredible. At least, it is when compared with my leveling speed on the last floor theme.

Each arena only takes around fifteen minutes to clear, and most of that time is just the ten minute wait for my challenges to begin. That along with the fact that each arena has fifteen monsters that I have to kill for the default challenges makes this floor theme rather short.

I even continued leveling past what I normally would stop at just to make sure that I can deal with the mini boss!

Although that was mostly due to the difficulties with using my ice element in this damned place making me a tad bit less confident about my chances against the mini boss.

My thoughts are interrupted as I find myself floating out of the stadium before landing on the bleachers, close to the entrance.

I glance at the arena again before turning around and walking towards the teleport hub.

Time to check out those features for the grand totem.

Without any pausing once, I make my way through the two system guardians into the teleport pad before continuing my way straight towards the grand totem.

There still hasn’t been any people on the floor but considering my lead of around two to three floors, that’s to be expected. Especially considering that the other Competitors are all still on the hazardous floor theme.

As soon as I arrive at the grand totem, I create a large dome of ice element around it and myself. After that, I touch it and immediately select the System Phantom option.

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System Phantom

Project to Player

Project to Safe Zone

Project to World via Coordinates

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“Oh?” I mutter with a hint of surprise after reading through the options. “Well, this makes things a bit easier…”

I select the ‘Project to Player’ option before pausing as a search menu appears; one asking for the player’s name, race, and world. Just like the System Message and System Call’s search feature does.

Although considering the number of people that go by the same names under the same races, it is rather surprising that the System somehow always finds the correct person as the first option to show up.

Makes me wonder just how powerful the System really is.

I shake my head to clear the distraction before changing to my neutral form and entering in dad’s name, human, and Aegis as the input for the search.

Just like with the other search menus, dad shows up at the very top of the results list.

I’ll visit a viewing room after this to test out the other new feature.

I select dad’s name before a strange feeling spreads throughout my body. The feeling only continues to grow until I actually feel my vision getting pulled out of it somehow.

After that, everything goes black for a very short moment before quickly getting replaced with exclamations of surprise as I hear several chairs scooting back against the floor.

Not even a few seconds later, my vision clears up and I find myself staring straight at dad, who has a smile on his face.