The test on the 11th Floor was a team battle.
Normally when you think of teams, you think five, maybe ten people on each side, but that wasn't how the 11th Floor's test was conducted.
It was a test where there could be as few as 100 to as many as 200 people on each team, with the teams randomly formed from a pool of test participants.
"Please this time…" the player Halimun mumbled while praying. He didn't believe in God, but around his time, he would always magically end up being religious.
Currently, he was waiting for the test schedule.
Ding—
He heard the ring of the message, and soon after, a giant screen popped up in front of him.
The screen was dense with letters.
[208 : 208]
There were a total of 416 participants in this test. Since on average about 400 people participated, this was neither a large nor small number. This was actually better than having too few or too many participants and honestly not a bad number.
'Please…'
However, that wasn't the important part. The really important part was the 'members' that participated in the test.
'I'm on Team A. Naturally, Lars and Melly are on the same team as me. As for the other guys…'
While looking around at the other names on screen, Halimun started to sweat.
"Who are all of these guys?"
After going through over a hundred names, he had only heard of a few of these guys, and all of them were pathetically unskilled.
There was even someone that was blacklisted from trolling in the last test, putting their own team in danger.
"Holy fuck…"
Halimun naturally ended up looking through the names on Team B.
The first name was already not looking good.
Lo'el. As a player with a rare healing-type skill, she was already quite famous on the lower floors. And since Lo'el was on the roster, that meant that her teammates should also be on Team B.
'Of course those guys are with her… Wait, what's this? NamGung Hoon*?'
*TL/N: Hoon is his first name and NamGung is his last name.
This was also a terrifying name to see. Hoon was a direct Pure-Blood of the NamGung clan. It was said that there were few who were capable of rivaling him on the lower floors. That very man was a part of Team B.
He was a competitor easily capable of passing the 11th Floor test. As a Pure-Blood from the Martial Realm, born from the great NamGung Clan no less, he was fundamentally different from players that first stepped into the world of the Tower through the Tutorial.
"What the hell is up with this?"
It was impossible for him to not complain about this.
The 11th Floor test was what some referred to as a 'game of RNG.*'
*TL/N: Random Number Generation – A process that produces numbers which are used to determine randomized elements in a game, such as team draw.
The test was ultimately decided by how many skilled players were randomly selected into your team.
Halimun had already failed the test three times. Not only did he lack skills, he also had shit luck when it came to his teams.
But…
'This test is going to be the worst one yet.'
… None had been as bad a draw as this one.
Since this test was a team battle, he knew quite a few of the players' names on the 11th Floor, but somehow all the somewhat well-known, skilled players had ended up on Team B.
On the other hand, it seemed that Team A was entirely comprised of useless players.
"What kind of deranged coincidence is this…?"
It honestly made him doubt if the teams were even really decided at random. Still not giving up yet, he continued to look through the team roster, eventually coming across a familiar name.
'Huh?'
It was a name that he could never forget, having heard it so many times recently.
Halimun tilted his head, staring at the three-syllable name at the end of the Team A roster.
'Kim YuWon?'
It had been quite a bit of time since YuWon first got to the 10th Floor. From what Halimun had heard, he was attempting the test of the Heavenly Demonic Cult, but as it was a test that no one had managed to pass yet, people thought he must have been struggling with it a lot.
'Maybe it's just someone with the same name?'
For YuWon alone to be on Team A while all the other skilled players were on Team B, it seemed quite unbalanced.
'If it actually is him, he's also pretty unlucky.'
It was certain that YuWon had great skills. Halimun had never seen them with his own eyes, but this was a guy that had broken record after record starting on the 1st Floor. And seeing as how he was now on the 11th Floor, he had probably also cleared the test of the Heavenly Demonic Cult.
But regardless of all that, this wasn't an individual-based test. It was a team-based test with over 200 people on each team.
And Teams A and B had an unprecedentedly large gap in the quality of members.
'Which is going to cause that many people to give up…'
This test was doomed. Halimun was certain that even YuWon wouldn't be able to turn the tables by himself.
Having confirmed all the members, Halimun turned back with no energy left in his body.
The test was set to start in a week.
* * *
"That's really childish," YuWon said, sighing deeply after checking the members list.
There were quite a few familiar names on Team B. A few of them were even talented enough to become a Ranker in the far future.
On the other hand, Team A had no one he recognized.
It wasn't hard to figure out why there was such a large difference between the two teams.
'If I remember correctly, the 11th Floor belongs to Olympus.'
The 11th Floor was one of the floors that Olympus had the greatest amount of influence over, and there was no way that Olympus would look kindly on the culprit that stopped them from capturing Hephaestus.
'The test examiner is Hypnos, one of Olympus's Rankers.'
Though the teams were supposed to be sorted randomly, it wasn't much of an obstacle for a skilled examiner to make some changes.
Of course, this was something that if caught by an Administrator would cause them to suffer severe consequences, so it was unlikely that they'd get caught by doing it once or twice. And even if an Administrator found it suspicious, they could claim that it was merely a coincidence.
'Ro'el, NamGung Hoon, Salamov… Spyros? I think this guy is an Olympian Pure-Blood. There's also a guy from Asgard as well.'
Their members were stacked. Even though there weren't any High Pure-Bloods like Hargaan, there was a direct Pure-Blood of the NamGung clan, as well as countless formidable players.
A test with a roster of this caliber should even grab the attention of various guilds.
'So they're really going all out, huh.'
It was as plain as day to YuWon. They wanted YuWon to fail the test as payback. And as testing sites were extraterritorial zones* where murder was allowed, they might even have a more sinister plan laid out for YuWon.
*T/N: Extraterritorial zones are places such as embassies or military bases where the laws of the local region do not apply.
However…
'Well, whatever.'
After checking the lists of team members, YuWon simply turned away.
'If this is all there is…'
* * *
The 11th Floor was a world named Tahklan. With over 90% of the land being mountains or forests, it wasn't all that great of an environment for people to live in. Due to that, the majority of the residents of the 11th Floor were races of the forest like Elves or Dwarves.
"30 points? Why does the inn cost so much?"
"You seem to have just arrived, but that's how things are around here. The land is flat, close to the testing site, and has good infrastructure. Did you come here without doing any research?"
"Still…!"
"If you don't like it, you're welcome to go elsewhere. I highly doubt you'll find a place cheaper than here."
This was a typical conversation you could overhear at the inns in the village near the testing site. Between the players visiting to take the test and the players that hadn't managed to buy a house yet even after obtaining a residency permit, it inflated the price of the inn to be much higher than other places.
It was only natural as land that was good to live on was expensive, considering most of the land was forest or mountains.
"Next customer," said the inn owner Khalif, greeting the new customer with a hand on his chin.
It was a new face he hadn't seen around. From his experience, most players that had just arrived on the 11th Floor had a similar reaction to the previous guy. They complained about the expensive cost of food and lodging before having no choice but to accept the facts.
"Are there any rooms left?" the newbie asked.
"Of course we have rooms, but the bottom floor's full. So what do you want to do?"
Most of the rooms on the bottom floor were small and shabby but cost the least. In comparison, the rooms on the upper floors were larger and better maintained but were pretty pricey.
The guy from before was the one who took the last 30-point room.
"If that's the case, give me a room on your top floor."
"Top top?" Khalif responded while straightening his pose, taking his hand off his chin. "A room on the top floor costs 100 points."
"It doesn't matter."
For someone to not care about a 100-point room… That was an amount that, unless you were a Pure-Blood from a top guild, you could never even dream of spending on just lodging. Khalif could smell the scent of money.
"By the way, this is the largest inn in this town, right?" the guy asked.
"Yes, that's correct."
"So you guys can do currency exchanges, right?"
Khalif's eyes twinkled, quickly nodding his head in response, "Of course, sir. What bills are they?"
Not only did this customer want the most expensive room, but he also wanted to do a currency exchange. Realizing that this was a big-shot customer, Khalif's attitude did a 180, bringing his hands together and showing respect to YuWon.
"Asgardian," YuWon replied.
Asgardian bills were the most trusted and reliable currency. Because of that, it had a low exchange fee and was welcomed practically everywhere due to there being basically no risk.
"384 1,000-point bills. I'd like you to exchange all of it into points, minus the exchange fee of course," YuWon said while handing the innkeeper a thick white envelope.
A whopping 384 Asgardian bills. Seeing them made Khalif's eyes turn white from shock.
* * *
[You have obtained 376,320 points.]
Exchanging the bills netted YuWon a large sum, but even without this money, he was already rich because of the obscenely large amount of points he had obtained from each floor.
[Total Points: 931,420p]
930K points. It was an amount that even most Rankers couldn't obtain.
YuWon was a bit disappointed he couldn't hit one million points, but he still thought it was plenty.
"Hey, Lackey."
[Would you like to call a Lackey?]
Speaking into the player kit, a message popped up.
YuWon responded to the player kit, "Yes."
[Please wait a moment.]
The wait wasn't long. Lackeys had an exceptional ability to sniff out money.
"> Heyo! What can I help you with?"
With a bright voice, what appeared was not a pierrot, but instead was a finger-sized fairy with wings.
YuWon thought the taste of the 11th Floor's Administrator was better than that of the Tutorial's Administrator. A fairy was much better to look at than a pierrot with a sickening, smiling face.
"Is the Shop usable right now?"
"> Of course. Please tell me what you want. We have everything there is, except for what we don't."
The fairy was overtly friendly. It was completely different in every way from the Lackeys of the Tutorial.
'It's probably due to the points I have,' YuWon thought.
A Lackey's main objective was 'points.' For providing various conveniences to a player, Lackeys took points as payment. What this meant was that as long as you had the points, you could make Lackeys do whatever you wanted.
"> So what do you need, sir?" the Lackey asked with a twinkle in its eyes.
YuWon already knew what he needed, but he pretended to think for a moment.
One of the ways to buy things cheap from a Lackey was to appear that you didn't actually need the thing.
'Or else they'll jack up the prices,' YuWon thought.
"First let me peruse a bit."
"> Of course, sir."
With a flick of the Lackey's hand, a hazy screen popped up in front of YuWon listing thousands of varieties of items.
Looking around the screen nonchalantly, YuWon searched for a single item.
'Adamantium.'
It was the only material that could complete the 「Dark Divine Crystal.」
'I hope there's some available for sale.'
____