Chapter 155: Third and Final Trial
[Notice!]
[The third trial has now begun]
[Welcome to the "Age of Convergence"]
A slight sense of trepidation filled Uhtred the moment the name of the next trial flashed across his vision. An inkling of an idea started to form in his mind about what the title implied, but he held the thought back as the System text continued rolling out line after line.
[Throughout the continental trials, modern humans and ancient variants have clashed as enemies and opponents.
The initial "Age of Hunger" tested base species survivability under extreme environmental pressure, forcing both strains to endure a complete lack of ambient cosmic essence.
The subsequent "Age of Abundance" shifted the toward development, testing your ability to adapt to extreme essence density, derive original techniques, and advance your cultivation bases.
The third trial introduces an entirely different test: unified adaptability in the face of a singular, external threat]
[An Otherworlder force has occupied the central region of Zone 3. These invaders are well into the Nascent Realm]
[To be entirely clear, for the third trial, a complete victory involving the full expulsion or eradication of this Otherworlder force is statistically impossible]
[Therefore, for the final two weeks of the continental trials, performance will be evaluated based on cooperation between both factions, total damage inflicted upon the Otherworlder force, and territorial suppression achieved within Zone 3]
[Should trial participants somehow achieve the impossible and completely exterminate the Otherworlder presence, the System will issue unprecedented world-tier rewards to all surviving participants of both factions]
Uhtred paused for a moment to analyze everything the System had said.
First, the trial’s name alone had already given him a hint about what was coming. Even so, seeing the System spell it out so bluntly was an entirely different matter.
The prospect of cooperating with the ancient variants didn’t sit well with him in the slightest.
Where Krijn was concerned, Uhtred could at least work with it. The Neanderthal general was someone he had already spoken to directly.
There was no warmth between them, and there probably never would be, but there was a workable level of mutual recognition, and perhaps even respect.
The female ancient variant general, on the other hand, was an entirely different situation.
She had walked into a guarded camp in the dead of night without triggering a single person’s perception. She had used an Esoteric spell he still couldn’t fully identify, paralyzed him completely, and then hesitated to finish the job of killing him at the last second.
He still didn’t know why she had held back. That bothered him more than the assassination attempt itself.
The idea of standing on the same side as her against a shared enemy did not fill him with any sense of ease.
Right now, the only thing stopping him from treating her as a threat to be dealt with the moment they found themselves in the same place again was her expertise with Esoteric magic.
Watching someone who actually wielded it in real combat... watching them up close over an extended period, was going to give him direct insight into the branch of power he had barely scratched the surface of.
He still had the Homo erectus general’s blood-red essence core sitting untouched in his spatial storage. He hadn’t used it yet because he refused to waste it without first building a solid foundation in the Esoteric branch.
Observing her in the field could build that understanding faster than anything else available to him. That was the only saving grace in this arrangement.
In any case, Uhtred could still work with that. It wasn’t something that occupied his mind for long. Instead, what truly made him pause as the System notices continued was what the System had said at the end.
...Should trial participants somehow achieve the impossible and completely exterminate the Otherworlder presence, the System will issue unprecedented world-tier rewards to all surviving participants of both factions.
This was the very first time, not just within the trial grounds but ever since the integration began, that the System had explicitly dangled rewards for completing an objective!
The System was openly stating that if they defeated the Otherworlders, it would issue world-tier rewards!
The only reason the System would make that kind of promise upfront was because it was genuinely certain the outcome wasn’t going to happen.
Uhtred felt a flicker of competitive heat at that. Then the logical side of him immediately pushed back and grounded the feeling.
The System had said the Otherworlders were well into the Nascent Realm. He had seen on his own status panel that the peak of the Nascent Realm was Level 74. He was only Level 25 right now. That was a gap of nearly fifty levels, and he was currently the highest-leveled individual in the entire trial grounds.
Even accounting for his Primordial-grade class and every cultivation advantage he had accumulated, gaining ten levels over the next two weeks was probably the ceiling of what was realistic.
He didn’t see himself leveling faster than that. The Nascent Realm demanded vastly more essence for each breakthrough than the Mortal Realm. He could already feel the difference.
He wasn’t going to close a fifty-level gap in two weeks.
No one was.
This isn’t about victory, Uhtred thought, refocusing his mind. It’s a trial of attrition. We just need to do as much damage as possible, hold our ground, and keep people from dying to the Otherworlders...
He clenched his jaw and kept reading as the System continued.
[To maintain operational integrity during the Age of Convergence, all inter-faction sabotage is strictly prohibited. Any direct attempt by modern humans or ancient variants to undermine, betray, or eliminate members of the opposing faction during this trial will result in immediate System penalties]
[These penalties will not be restricted to the individual responsible. Significant point deductions and additional disadvantages will be applied to the offender’s entire faction]
Uhtred read through the anti-sabotage terms without much reaction. It was the obvious move. If the System was going to force two factions that had spent the last two weeks trying to kill each other into a cooperative structure, it had to impose severe consequences for betrayal. Otherwise, the entire trial would fall apart before it had even begun.
The rules made sense.
The interface shifted, and a private notice appeared, visible only to him and Zara.
[Notice!]
[The following information is accessible exclusively to modern human participants who secured the Zone 2 victory reward]
[Your faction has been granted: The Andronian Inheritance Shard]
[Historical Record: The Andronians were a civilization that, during their own integration trials, came closer than almost any other recorded world to successfully repelling the Otherworlder invasion force.
They did not succeed. However, the System has preserved the complete record of what they learned, including their tactical observations, documented behavioral patterns of the Otherworlders they faced, and the intelligence they gathered throughout their campaign.
This information has been compressed into the Andronian Inheritance Shard and passed on to your faction as part of your victory reward from the second trial]
[Note: The Andronian Inheritance Shard can only be accessed once you physically cross into Zone 3]
[Wishing you good luck on the final leg of your trials!]