CHAPTER 55: Stages within each Tier Suppression &

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Underground Maze near the Crystal Lake.

I watched everything that transpired 23 km away from me through Hobgoblin MJ's eyes.

Since the Trial Program was in its beginning stages, information such as the Evolution orb protection was unknown to most of the Alpha Chosen.

When someone was undergoing the Evolution process, they could still sense what was happening outside the Evolution Orb.

So, a few of the Tier-2 Alpha Chosen might have already learned about it if they faced a situation where they were attacked by a monster when they were in the middle of their Tier-2 Evolution.

As time progresses, such crucial information would be unravelled by the Alpha Chosen through trial and error.

That was also why the Alpha Program was more challenging than the Beta and Gamma Trial Programs.

But for me, who has a personal Soul A.I, I was privy to most of the crucial information regarding the Trial Program.

Thinking back to the clash between those Alpha Chosen and the Shadow Leopards, what caught my attention was Sergei.

Not just because of his combat instincts but for his sheer willpower to stand under the pressure of Hobgoblin MJ's Tier Suppression.

Even though MJ wasn't a Tier-3 lifeform, his overall stats were the same as one.

Thus making him able to use Tier-3 Suppression. That was the same case for me since my overall stats in were equal to that of a Tier-3 lifeform.

Tier Suppression was something any Being can use on those in a Lower Tier than them. But controlling it was not as easy as it looks.

There were even 4 Stages of using Tier Suppression. Them being, Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, and Perfection.

In the case of a Lifeform that just reached Tier-2, they would be able to use Tier-2 Suppression unconsciously, and such poor control over it was the Beginner Stage.

In the Intermediate stage, the Tier Suppression could be controlled well, but it can only be toggled like a switch.

With that, one could choose when to activate it and when not to, and that was the extent of it.

But in the Expert Stage, the control over Tier Suppression becomes even precise.

Thanks to the Rare Grade Skill , my Tier Suppression control was at Expert Stage right off the bat.

Back when I confronted the criminal syndicate members that kidnapped my brother, I was able to control the Tier Suppression without its pressure affecting Kay.

Such precise control was because of my Tier Suppression being at the Expert Stage. Even at that stage, it takes a toll on my mental capacity and limits the duration that I could use their Tier Suppression for.

After I merged with the Grade-2 Innate Talent , my control over Tier Suppression advanced further, but it was still not near the Perfection Stage.

Even throughout the universe, only a few individuals could reach the Perfection Stage that allows them to have absolute control in their respective Tiers.

As a Soul A.I, MJ's racial benefit was to have an unparalleled mental capacity and processing power. With that, his control over Tier Suppression was the Perfection Stage.

If I was in Hobgoblin MJ's position, my Tier Suppression wouldn't be powerful to completely restrict the movements of a High-Phase Tier-2 monster.

Even if I could do that, it would only be able to hold that for a few seconds at most, along with increased mental exhaustion.

But, Hobgoblin MJ was able to maintain Tier-3 suppression at maximum pressure throughout the fight while casting a few other fire Elemental attacks at the same time.

On top of that, his control over the Fire element was also at an astonishing degree where he could conjure and manipulate it to attack simultaneously.

Instead, what I wanted was dominance to establish fear within those Alpha Chosen.

That was why I had Hobgoblin MJ overwhelm the Shadow Leopards and had the Alpha Chosen experience their helplessness in front of MJ's Tier Suppression, except for Andrea since I don't want her to be terrified to the point she would be afraid to accept a deal with me.

Since she didn't experience Tier Suppression's effects, unlike Sergei and Kasim, she found hope when she saw Hobgoblin MJ.

So, she agreed to my deal as there wasn't any loss to her.

After that, by the time Hobgoblin MJ killed the last of the Shadow Leopards, from the looks on the faces of those Alpha Chosen, I could see that I had accomplished in establishing necessary fear within them.

Fear enough to psychologically affect them even at the thought of trying to mess with me.

Soon, Sergei and Kasim learned from Andrea that the powerful Hobgoblin monster considers me a master.

Meanwhile, I had MJ use the second slot of on the Lv.22 Greater Shadow Leopard.

Then, 485* Undistributed Looted Stats were transferred from me to Greater Shadow Leopard's corpse, and just like me, each of its 5 main Attributes had 97 Stats.

With that, I was left with less than 50 Undistributed Looted Stats.

Since the overall Stats in doesn't exceed more than three times that of my overall Stats in , I couldn't use the Undistributed Looted Stats even if I wanted to.

After coming to know that, I planned to stack up 1000 Undistributed Looted Stats to awake my third Innate Exclusive skill.

But, when I first saw the Tier-2 Shadow Leopard, I decided to invest my Undistributed Looted Stats to have MJ integrate with the Greater Shadow Leopard's corpse.

At first glance, it might look like a rash decision, but the crux detail that made me make such a decision was that MJ could control multiple bodies simultaneously.

Just like the last time, the injuries on the monster's Corpse healed entirely as if there were none in the first place.

Along with that, the Shadow Leopard's size grew a bit larger since its overall stats increased to the point where it could be called a Tier-3 monster.

With that, MJ could be in the Hobgoblin Shaman's body and the Greater Shadow Leopard's body at the same time.

Since both 'Hobgoblin MJ' and 'Shadow Leopard MJ' have the same amount of stats as me, they were unrivalled within the Trial Zone, at least until Day-7, when the System's restrictions would be lifted from the Low-Phase Tier-3 Monsters.

The process of corpse integration made some commotion, causing Andrea, Sergei and Kasim to look over.

As expected, they were shocked to find the once dead monster standing there without any wounds.

I ignored them as I sent 'Shadow Leopard MJ' to scout more areas for expanding the Virtual Map alongside hunting as many monsters as possible on the way.

I left 'Hobgoblin MJ' to stay beside Andrea to protect her and power-level her.

Even though she would only get 10% of Life Energy from making the final attack to kill a monster that Hobgoblin MJ incapacitates.

It would be enough for her to reach the level required for Tier-2 Evolution by the end of Day-2.

After that, I stopped sharing senses with 'Hobgoblin MJ' and turned my attention to the loot I obtained from that group of Shadow Leopards.

Overall, I gained 76* Looted Stats from those Shadow Leopards.

As for the four Lesser Shadow Leopards, most of them had the skills such as ,, which I already had.

Leaving me to choose their Innate Skill that was unique to their race.

I looked at its description once more.

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Lv.10 (Common Grade): Enables the user to dive into their own shadow and exit from any other shadow within a 1000 meter range.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

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It was a skill meant for escaping with similar functionality to teleportation, but its flaw lies in the duration to completely dive into one's own shadow.

It might just take a second, but against a skilled opponent who knows about the skill beforehand, chances of succeeding to escape using was hard.

The best example of that was the Tier-2 Shadow Leopards that tried to escape by diving into their shadow.

That didn't work out for them since Hobgoblin MJ already looked through their Skills before even the one-sided massacre began.

So, he was on the lookout for such skill, and when they tried to escape, he created several fireballs in the form of a net and used the light originated from it from several angles to weaken the shadow and thus delaying their escape.

After that, I looked at the notifications that were there before me ever since I looted the and from the two Greater Shadow Leopards.

[Do you wish to merge with the Grade-3?]

If it was just the , I would have saved it for later to merge with since it would take a lot of time to reach Stage-3 Mastery in Darkness element and inevitably delaying my Tier-3 evolution.

Still, I decided to merge with it after looking at the other notification that floated just below the Innate Talent notification.

[Do you wish to merge with the Lv.12 Greater Shadow Leopard's memory fragments that contain the comprehension of Lv.21 (Stage-3)?]