Chapter 16: The Third Test x Path of Choices
Lorin lay on the floor for a full half hour before he barely regained enough strength to stand up and walk out.
"Huh? Kid, you're done playing?" Netero casually dodged Gon's attacks and glanced at Lorin.
Without turning around, Lorin waved his hand at Netero. "I'm done. I surrender—"
It wasn't just the excruciating soreness throughout his body, but also his original intention.
He had initially planned to mess around in Netero's game for a whole night to farm as much experience as possible.
And now, even though he had grasped a fairly powerful high-speed state…
He had suffered a huge loss in terms of experience points.
He'd already taken one loss tonight, and he couldn't afford to take a second!
If he continued playing with Netero now, that old man would undoubtedly force him into that high-speed state again.
Having entered that state twice already, especially the second time, which lasted over ten seconds, Lorin had already grasped the methodology for entering it. He… didn't need any more sparring!
Watching Lorin's retreating figure, Netero didn't pay much attention.
With his sharp eyes, he could clearly see Lorin's current physical condition.
Besides…
Netero swiftly dodged another one of Gon's lunges.
Tonight, he didn't have to worry about being bored!
Airship Cafeteria.
Though it was already the middle of the night, as a private airship of the Hunter Association, the cafeteria operated 24/7 without interruption.
After devouring a large meal, Lorin finally regained some strength.
However, his body still felt weak, and after a moment's hesitation, Lorin decided to give up on continuing his training tonight.
Although he was eager to level up soon, a thousand experience points weren't something he could gather in a short time, and training wasn't something that could be rushed.
Judging from the fact that his body had been pushed to its limits in the high-speed state just to gain six experience points, his system clearly wasn't one that rewarded excessive strain on the body.
And a lot had happened today.
The sudden transmigration, the activation of the system, the Hunter Exam… Though he appeared calm, all these events had stretched his mental state thin.
Maybe he really needed a good night's sleep.
Walking along the corridor on the outside of the airship, Lorin looked up at the full moon in the sky and sighed softly as he made his way to the rest area of the airship.
"Let's just get a good rest tonight!"
…
The next morning.
Lorin opened his eyes, feeling refreshed, with none of the fatigue and soreness from the night before.
"Sleeping was definitely a good idea!" Lorin stretched his body, feeling his fully recovered strength, and smiled.
They didn't have to wait long. Right after breakfast, the Hunter Association's airship arrived at the destination.
It was a towering cylindrical structure that seemed to reach into the clouds. The Hunter Association's airship appeared minuscule as it landed on the top of this building.
"Candidates, this is the top of what is called the Trap Tower, and it is also the starting point for the third stage of the Hunter Exam," the association's head secretary, Beans, announced to the group of candidates.
"The examiners have instructed me to inform you that the objective of this test is to reach the ground alive. The time limit is seventy-two hours."
As the Hunter Association's airship departed, the forty remaining candidates heightened their vigilance.
The test objective… to reach the ground alive.
This clearly indicated that the upcoming challenge would be extremely dangerous.
Almost simultaneously, the candidates dispersed to search for clues.
Most of them approached the edge of the Trap Tower and looked down. The tower's side walls, more than a hundred meters high, were completely smooth, without even a single window.
Clearly, this wasn't the route the examiners had prepared for reaching the ground.
So…
There had to be some kind of mechanism to enter the tower from here.
Nearly all the candidates understood this and began searching the platform for a mechanism.
However…
There was always someone who refused to accept it.
A self-proclaimed rock-climbing expert, grinning smugly, did indeed have reason to boast.
The Trap Tower appeared to be seamless, with gaps between the large stones too tight to even fit a blade.
Yet, somehow, this candidate managed to climb down, moving at a rapid pace. In just five or six minutes, he had descended twenty to thirty meters.
"Haha, I'll be waiting for you all at the bottom!" the candidate laughed triumphantly.
But at that moment, several black dots in the distance began to grow larger.
Those were… a flock of monstrous birds!
And they clearly had ill intentions.
A few minutes later, with a shrill scream from below, the candidate who had boasted about being the first to pass the test was devoured completely.
Standing at the edge of the Trap Tower, watching this scene, Lorin silently abandoned the idea of climbing down from there.
Hmm.
That's right.
Lorin had actually considered climbing down as well. After all, it seemed much faster than taking the test inside the tower.
As for his climbing skills, while Lorin wasn't a rock climber, brute force often worked wonders. With his strength, he could easily dig his fingers into the stone and climb down.
The only thing he hadn't been sure about was that flock of birds from the story.
But after seeing them just now, Lorin immediately dismissed the idea.
Not because he couldn't fight those birds; unlike the poor guy who was just devoured, Lorin could kill that flock of birds with one hand lodged into the rock face.
But…
They were disgusting.
Lorin had never seen creatures so repulsive.
Each had a large, grotesque head resembling a child's, with human-like arms growing out of their bodies like bizarre tentacles. Lorin's sharp eyes could even see the wrinkled skin under their sparse feathers, covered in large, unsightly bumps.
No way was Lorin getting anywhere near those things.
Ugh.
Lorin wasn't going to follow the main group, either.
Although he had considered the idea of using the dozens of hours the main group wasted as training time, after some thought, Lorin gave up on that.
The confined room they'd be locked in was too small. It was better to head down to the forest and train there.
Wandering around the top of the Trap Tower, Lorin quickly discovered that the stone slab beneath his feet could be moved.
"Got it!"
Without hesitation, Lorin stepped onto the mechanism, and as the stone slab rotated, he was sent into the interior of the Trap Tower.
Landing smoothly.
Lorin scanned the room. It looked much like the place Gon and the others had landed in the story, with three doors in the walls around him.
On the wall directly in front of him was a sign with the rules for this floor.
"The Path of Choices—"
"From here, only when three candidates each choose a door will the doors open. The doors from left to right represent easy, normal, and hard, indicating the difficulty of the challenges behind them."
"Each path can only accommodate one person, and after each level, you must regroup to choose the difficulty of the next challenge."