Broken Tower Saga: The First Swordsman

|PART THREE: A LIE|

Sometimes I wonder how good it would be if all the people in power work together to break the castle of lies that had been built since the breaking. Such a fool I was.

They were living free in their ivory castle of delusions, as if all things would go according to their big plans. Such a diluted fool they were.

Yet I believe in people, I believe in the next generation, the youths of courage, passion, and dream. They would come and conquer the cancerous castle of lies. I just hope they won't be alone like I was.

I hope I will be there to assist them.

—Savor Til'emmens.

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WRIK RAN THROUGH THE tall trees in the wilderness. Behind him were dozens of ferocious infectors chasing with frenzy. 

Even though he was running for quite a time now, he was not tired. His breathing was even, and the posture was straight, with a new longsword in his arms. The sword was similar in physical body to the one he had chosen in the summoning room, but far better in quality. He ran overtaking rows of tall trees, uncaring about the infectors. It was about three hours, he was tusseling with them in the wilderness of the trial. 

Suddenly, after a few distances away, he stooped in his dash and turned around.

"Let's get this over with, shall we?" he said, grinning. 

Wrik pointed the sword at the incoming deadmen, as the blade glittered in sharpness. The reason he was running away from these Infectors till now was because he had exhausted all of his mana training the armament reinforcement for the last couple of hours. He was recovering the lost mana while running away from them, and it succeeded.

After wasting almost half an hour in running, over half of his mana had recovered. 

Power surged in Wrik's body as Wrik took a stance against the deadmen. He slashed right at the front of one of the infector as it dropped into two pieces, more dead than before. He pierced another one in the back of its head, lunging above its head. The result was the same.

The mad infector screeched before its life was extinguished as well. 

Another of those dead men was successful in dealing a blow at the right thigh of his, but the claw seemed to cause only five parallel lines to his armour, nothing else.

Wrik was still not good enough in armament reinforcement to totally disregard the attacks from those infectors. Well, it's about four weeks since he had practised it, so he could not expect it further. 

He cut the neck of the infection that was behind him and chose to run again. After only a few dozen steps, Wrik engaged with the Infectors again. The cold blade of the sword claimed the life of all the dead means before Wrik sighed in relief.

It takes more effort than he thought. He had taken the task to kill 100 infectors in four hours, and it took him almost three hours to do that. Well, that was because he was training the armament reinforcement during an actual fight.

[Congratulations. You have completed the task: Hunt A hundred Infectors (114/100)]

[6000 Omega credits were credited to your omega profile.]

A teleportation portal came in with the congratulatory message of the task. Without much to do in the wilderness, Wrik went into the portal, and in the next moment, he was in the main plaza of the sanctuary, just before the mission board. He walked forward to a familiar camp on the side of the plaza.

Only three days left before he had to take the test on the first floor of the tower. In these four weeks, Wrik had overworked himself in all the training methods Sophia taught him. Well, he was not the only one. Beside him, everyone did their best as well.

"You have finished it as well," Davin said, noticing his arrival near the camp. "Took you longer than usual."

"I was practising armament reinforcement a bit, so I have taken my time," Wrik said as he entered the camp. 

There was another person beside Davin inside, Kevin. The broad man was sitting on the ground with his eyes closed. After Sophia advised them to train together these two fellas never neglect it, be it in the gym, the special chamber or the quests in the wilderness. Even though they were not in the forefront of success.

"Why are you two waiting here?" Wrik said as he started to strip off the armour. 

"Oh, we're just a little tired after the task, nothing to worry about," Davin said again. 

Wrik raised an eyebrow. Davin looked totally fine, there's no sign of any tiredness in him, the one who looked tired was Kevin. Wrik was not much surprised at that. Even in the four weeks since Sophia left, Kevin made little progress in Maha mana applications, not to mention Kevin did not have much mana in the first place. The tall guy had to put in a lot of brawling in order to clear the task of the mission board.

''Still no luck, eh?" Wrik eyed Kevin. There was not much any of them could do for Kevin.

"I'm alright, I just need to regain my stamina," the broad man said, raising his head. 

"Are you two not hungry?" he asked. "Let's have some food in the cafeteria."

None of the two declined as the three of them walked their way towards the cafeteria, leaving all their armours in the booth. It was a place they have lent for this, there was no fear of it being stolen.

"By the way, we are going to the Omega store in the evening to buy a few essentials. Would you like to come," Davin asked. 

Wrik gave a hollow laugh. "No, if I go, I would just want to buy things, and I have no points for that."

"Well, we're the same as well, but Lady Sophia left some ways for us to buy things with her points." Devin sighed. He appeared to not like the idea of spending someone else's money, but he could not say no to that. It's all essential for the tower.

"Don't hesitate Davin, you can always repay her back," Wrik said. "Besides, you're from the same organisation as her"

"Hmm," Davin nodded. "But I think we all have to visit the store once before the trial."

"Why?"

"It is related to test, I'll tell you at the dine," Davin said.

The three of them reached the cafeteria. There were more people than usual. After the second phase was officially completed, a lot of the folks came in, yet the sanctuary was still not crowded. 

But now the cafeteria looked a bit crowded. That was not all Wrik felt, some sign of disturbance in the maha mana there. 

"Looks like some crazy fella started a fight or something," he said to the other two. "Let's take a look."

But the moment Wrik walked past the crowd, his lips twitched. The crazy fellow who was making a ruckus was none other than his good brother, Anton.

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Part Three starts here. It would be much longer than the previous two, and dark and crueller too. I'm so excited to write it.