[Welcome to the third floor of the Tutorial Tower!]
I found myself in a cube-shaped room with hundreds of holes in the walls.
"Shit!"
This next text was arguably the hardest test in the tutorial tower only behind the death rate of the final test, with only a 90% death rate on a player's first try which was much harder than agility test's 70% death rate and the perception test's 68% death rate.
This reminded me of the fact that this was data that I had gotten from the 200 beta testers that I had let try out my game which meant that there were 200 other people that had played this game, and although they had only been limited to the tutorial tower and the first floor, they still had a huge advantage compared to other players.
This was the Hp test, which was also the reason why I had raised my perception stat up to 20 points.
Again, this test had a simple concept, but executing said concept was a whole different matter. All a player had to do was survive 5 minutes against a horde of arrows that came from every single hole in the 6 sides of the cube, basically making dodging impossible unless you had a high perception stat.
At the end, the amount of Hp that you had left would be how much stat points you earned, so if you survived without getting hit, you would receive 10 points while if you got hit once or twice bringing your Hp down to 8, you would receive 8 points.
The hard thing about this test was that the number of arrows that were shot increased every minute, so at the beginning there would be 100 arrows shot in the minute, then there would be 150 for the next minute, and then 200 for the next and so on, so most people failed and died by the third minute.
Although this test was going to be extremely hard for most people due to the reasons stated before, I was probably going to pass through this easily as I had already memorized a pattern beforehand while beta testing and only raised my perception stat up in case something unexpected came along.
I confidently walked into the center of the room and began the test.
During the first minute, I just crouched down into a spot that I knew was a safe zone and waited it out.
In the second minute, I alternated between two safe zones, but had to get into weird positions while staying in them.
During the middle of the second minute a world wide announcement was made.
[World Wide Announcement: Player, "Zero", is the first player to clear a third trial in the Tower of Trials.]
"Fuck! They finished before me."
Although I was mad about this, I continued to move, as concentrating now was more important than worrying about my ranking.
During the third minute, I had to actively move to dodge all of the 200 incoming arrows, and at one point, I had to jump into the air and formed what could best be called a swastika with my body.
In the fourth minute, I did a tango, which I had put in as a hidden "safe zone" in the game, where all of the arrows never penetrated through the areas that the dancer would be in if they were following the exact movements and timing of a 60 BPM tango.
During the fifth minute, I just had to rely on my muscle memory of having gone through this a hundred times and just trusted the flow of my body.
[Congratulations on finishing the third trial!]
[You have completed the Hp trial in record time!]
[You have gained 10,000 TC]
[You are ranked 1st on the leaderboard.]
[You have gained 10 Hp points.]
[Your fame has increased!]
"Whew", wiping off the sweat on my forehead and neck, I felt a sudden surge in my vitality.
"Status Window"
[Player Shinubwa Lv. 1:
Strength: 17
Stamina: 10
Agility: 20
Mana: 10
Hp: 20
Perception: 20
Intelligence: 10
Extra Stat Points: 0
-------------------------------
Job: None
Titles: None
Skills: None]
'That's strange, I can actually feel the boost that that gave me just now.'
Just as I was about to check the leaderboard again, notification started popping out.
[Many gods are shocked at your inhuman feat.]
[Your fame has increased.]
[Some gods question the fairness of player "Shinubwa".]
[The One Who Carried the Sky, The Heavenly Demon, The Abyssal King, and The Blood Bathing Demon all smile down at you, they each gift you 1,000 TC.]
"Hey, thanks for the donations!"
[The Keeper of the Night takes an interest in you.]
[The Sovereign Queen has taken an interest in you.]
Looking at these notifications, I wondered if it was a good or bad thing that all of the gods that were interested in sponsoring me were all gods with some really evil sounding names.
'Well whatever, it's not like I can change which gods are interested in me or not.'
[The Creator frowns in disappointment.]
[The Creator hopes you can try to rely more on your own skills instead of just memorizing hidden cheats.]
"Hey! Those aren't cheats! They are perfectly legal moves, it's not my problem if I'm smarter than the rest."
I actually almost revealed that I had extra information there and exposed myself to the other gods.
[Some gods have grown suspicious of player "Shinubwa".]
I pretended not to see this notification, claiming ignorance and rightfully pleading the 5th.
I then checked the leaderboard again.
[Leaderboard:
1. Anonymous (Tutorial Tower 83) - 3rd floor | Lv. 1 | 35,000 TC
2. Zero (Tutorial Tower 3) - 3rd floor | Lv.1 | 16,815 TC
3. Liu Zhang (Tutorial Tower 61) - 2nd floor | Lv. 1 | 10,035 TC
...
7. Bam25 (Tutorial Tower 82) - 2nd floor | Lv. 1 | 8,331 TC
8. 876 (Tutorial Tower 82) - 2nd floor | Lv. 1 | 8,325 TC
...]
I guess I was still number one due to the fact that even though "Zero" cleared the third floor faster than me, they probably got a test like the strength test which I had already cleared, giving me the 10,000TC reward, while they probably hadn't taken the Hp test yet, making me the fastest one.
Also, I noticed that the people who I think are my sisters have both risen in rank, probably because some people higher ranked than them got the Hp test and died from it.
"Well, I better hurry up or Zero's going to catch up to me."
A bright light engulfed me as I opened the door to the next test.