[3rd level: 3 opponents of the same level.]
Zane didn't need to hear more. He grabbed the golden heaven and golden earth sword while pulling out a black dagger from the saint dragons treasury. This dagger had a cloaking skill. He activated its cloaking ability, only he knew its whereabouts right now.
This scene shocked many, while a few had grave expressions.
'He's not just a nobody, so why have we never heard of him before?' A few people thought.
*BOOM!*
He shot forward at blinding speeds with the wings on his back.
*BANG!*
*CLANG!*
*BOOM!*
*CLING!*
*CLANG!*
*DING!*
*BOOM!* For the first time, Zane was knocked back.
He flicked his golden earth sword upward masterfully deflecting an incoming sword strike causing it to skim past him. He performed a similar move with the golden heaven sword.
His floating dagger blocked another incoming strike.
Zane didn't hesitate to flap his wings and fly upward.
*BOOM!*
2 sword strikes collided with his 2 swords from both sides causing him to grit his teeth as his arms felt numb.
2 hazy knives came flying towards him, his floating dagger could only block one. So he made it block the one he couldn't dodge and twisted his body to avoid the other before flying backward after escaping from the deadlock of swords.
He blocked the 3rd flying dagger that was incoming.
'I need to separate them. Otherwise, I will fall into a bad position.' Oliver thought gravely.
Slashing his sword out he sent one of the 3 Specters flying with another slash he was knocked back but he managed to knock one of the Specters attacking him from the side back. He tapped his foot on the invisible floor blasting forward in this instant.
*SHING!*
*BOOM!*
Thus the specter that blasted him back previously perished.
*CLAANG!*
A deep clang resounded as he blocked another strike this time coming from above. Meanwhile, his hidden dagger shot through the air silently killing another specter.
'Fuse'
The golden heaven and golden earth swords fused once more and slashed through the remaining specter.
Quite a lot of people were astounded outside. "Such a sudden change!"
"No, it wasn't sudden." Another more keen-eyed spectator said.
"Huh?"
"The moment he separated them was the moment those specters lost, previously they were coordinated like a well-oiled machine. However by blasting them away, he disrupted this machine, and their teamwork drastically. This significantly reduced the pressure on him and allowed what just played out to happen." The keen-eyed spectator explained.
"That makes sense…"
Meanwhile, Zane took a moment to recover his energy as that battle actually managed to exhaust a sizable chunk of his energy.
Due to having 32 meridians, his energy was restored in just half a minute.
[Congratulations for clearing the 3rd level, your performance has been rated as sky grade. Your reward is a low martial grade sword skill. Would you like to reject this reward and use your performance on the next floor to get a better skill?]
'What's the skill?' Zane asked.
[10 fold slash, it will allow you to strike 10 times at once, once mastered.]
'10 fold slash? Does that mean there's a 100-fold and 1000-fold slash?'
[Correct. There is even the legendary million-fold slash in this tower. However, you must get heaven-grade performances from the 4th floor to the 12th floor consistently or above to obtain it.] The tower's treasure spirit responded.
'I think I'll settle with the 10,000 or 100,000 fold slash then.' Zane responded. He knew it was impossible for him to get heaven-grade performances on all the floors from the 4th onward.
[Acknowledged, to get the 10,000 fold slash skill you must get earth grade performances from now onward, for the 100,000 fold slash it is sky grade performances that are required.]
Zane nodded, he had one final question before moving to the next floor.
'How many sky grade performances is a heaven grade performance worth?'
[2 mortal grade performances are worth 1 earth grade, 3 earth grades are worth 1 sky grade, 4 sky grades are worth 1 heaven grade, and 5 heaven grades are worth 1 divine grade, and so on.]
Zane nodded, he had no further questions so he stepped on the teleportation pad and ascended to the 4th floor.
…
Meanwhile, Anne was using this as an opportunity to temper herself since she already had decent treasures.
*DANG!*
*DING!*
*BANG!*
*BOOM!*
2 rapiers collided with their tips touching causing sparks to fly and an explosion with a rippling shock wave causing space to crack slightly. This scene shocked everyone.
"They cracked space! Holy crap! Is she really a 3rd martial realm and not a 3rd profound realm!?!" An amazed spectator shouted in disbelief. Space was stretched in the tower to expand the space inside it, so it was weaker than normal space. However, it doesn't change the fact that it was still not something a 3rd martial realm should be able to break.
2 figures were constantly colliding with Anne's hair flailing with her movements. However, it never got in the way of her sight or in the way of her movements as if it had a mind of its own.
A similar figure made of darkness was fighting her with a rapier identical to hers.
Anne had a calm but determined expression as she and the specter collided over and over.
She shot forward once more, this time a golden glow shined at the tip of her rapier.
The specter tried to deflect her strike, but Anne deflected the strike herself allowing her to slip past the enemy's defense while twisting her body to the side as the specter's rapier brushed past her.
Once her tip came into contact with the opponent's chest…
*BOOM!*
The golden light exploded knocking the specter back and stunning it. She took advantage of this and stabbed straight through its head with another golden light on her rapier.
*BOOM!*
Its head exploded.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead shaking her head causing a gorgeous scene.
She knew people were watching but didn't care. As far as she was concerned if anyone got too overly confident she would just pierce their hearts or heads.
[Congratulations for passing the 2nd floor, you have been rewarded with a 3-petaled bronze hell shock lotus for your heaven-grade performance.]
Hearing the tower spirit her lips curved into a dazzling smile stunning the crowd.
"That's the royal favored grace of the hell shock wyvern clan alright… So beautiful." A human man couldn't help but mutter. He was a genius amongst humans but rather average amongst wyverns and dragons. So how could he not admire Anne who was a genius amongst the wyverns and was beautiful on top of that?
A young bronze dragon snorted "You can look but you can't touch, remember that. She won't be married to a mere human like you."
The young man retorted "Yeah? Then why do you dragons take human form if were so lowly, huh?"
The bronze dragon and many in the surroundings were stunned by this before a few grimaced.
The man was right, the thing was many species took human form because of its convenience. When you are in beast form you don't have a lot of ways to apply the massive amount of strength a beast has which becomes important at higher levels.
However having a human form changes this and opens up the possibility of swordplay, spear play, musical instruments, etc. In short, the human form is very versatile compared to most beast forms with the exception of apes and the likes.
"We merely do it out of convenience, rat." The dragon snapped snarling.
The human snorted and brought out a sword "Alright, let's fight then, ill prove to you a human is not lowly! The winner gets Anne!"
Someone in the crowd laughed "As if Anne would take an interest in you 2 brats! If I had to say she's probably more interested in that Rudman than anyone else!"
"Fine, the winner fights Rudman for Anne's heart!" The youth fixed his statement.
The dragon nodded "You're on!" People backed up to give these 2 from to fight, they formed a ring 250 meters in diameter to give them room to fight.
*ROAR!* The dragon roared and shot forward with his hands transformed into claws.
*PUCHI!* That dragon instantly killed the young man before he could react. That was how this world worked, people could be alive one moment and dead the next.
Meanwhile, Anne was making her way through the 3rd floor dividing and conquering the 3 specters similar to how Zane did.
*BANG!*
*DING!*
*CLANG!*
*BOOM!*
*SHING!* Her rapier pierced through one of her opponents almost immediately however she didn't kill the other 2 immediately and instead used them as training. Suffering a few scrapes and cuts in the process. However, despite this, she didn't give up. A little pain was nothing to her.
As blood dripped down on the invisible floor from her figure she was moving rapidly, colliding with both opponents several times in a few seconds.
*BING!*
*CLING!*
*BANG!*
*DING!*
*CLANG!*
Despite being outnumbered 2 to one she wasn't at a disadvantage, besides suffering a few scrapes and cuts, she wasn't losing out much.
This was due to her keen battle sense which was slowly being honed like a sharp blade through the tower's trials.
A few minutes passed and…
*BOOM!*
*BOOM!*
Both opponents died a second apart from each other.
She flicked her rapier getting the black rolling gas off of it.
[You have passed the 3rd floor you have earned an Extreme Yin Lightning purity pill for your heaven-grade performance. it will remove all hidden impurities in your body.]
Performance was graded by just that, your performance in how you dealt with the trial. She smiled and took the pill into her ring before going to the 4th floor.