The First Legendary Beast Master-Chapter 970: Cara Won
While everyone else worked themselves to the bone, Cara floated in a pool full of chaos energy, watching them in a mirror made of pure energy.
As far as rewards went, this one was pretty good.
The energy was soaking into her body and doing something, but more importantly, she didn't have to do all that. It looked painful.
Look at Karl, he was literally on fire and coated in ice at the same time, while being electrocuted. They could miss her with that nonsense.
Cara cupped her palms and drank a bit of the chaos pool, then sighed in relief at the cooling sensation. She really did make the best choice.
Karl's mind had nearly gone blank as he stepped onto the one hundredth step of the temple, and suddenly, everything stopped.
Was this a safe spot? A moment to recover before going on again? A test of willpower to see if he would voluntarily continue, now that he knew what was coming?
Karl shook the lingering electricity from the fur of his beast form, and then checked himself for lingering damage that might still be healing. It looked like it was all repaired now, so he stepped forward again and realized just how devious this rest stop was.
The effect still doubled on the next step from what it had been, but now, he had been given time to get used to not being under the effect.
However, with the innate healing of his body, Karl was doing much better than the others. Tessa and Lotus had made it to the thirtieth step, while Dana was at the sixty-first step, but she had to stop and rest every step so that her body could adjust.
Karl trudged onward, hardly pausing at every step. He knew from experience that it was impossible to skip a step, even if you were large enough to make it possible, so he simply kept a slow pace and focused on the feeling of his body being refined.
It proved to be a good way to block out the feeling of how the refinement was being accomplished.
Karl wasn't the only thing being refined, Hawk noticed. That cracked dragon scale was slowly turning into a real treasure. If Karl made it to the one thousandth step, it might actually be shiny again, and Hawk could give it a place of honour in his nest.
It was also getting shiny faster with every step. This really was a good spot, even if Hawk couldn't come out himself. Who knew that it would give him free treasure?
In the Totem Ranked space, the decisions had been very similar to what the ladies had been faced with. With an advancement at difficulty eleven, it hadn't even been an option for most of them. But every one of the Dwarves who entered had a base class, and had never had a chance to advance it before.
So, they had eagerly taken the opportunity, with only one mage choosing to take Karl's route and try to optimize his status, hoping that he would get an Epic Grade Physique out of the deal. He was already an older man, so it would do him a lot more good than a new class right as he was getting ready to retire.
Time was hard to judge inside the trial, as the sun wasn't moving in the sky. It could have been hours, it could have been minutes, or they could have lost an entire day already. With the trial itself filling everyone's minds, the passage of time was the last thing on most of their minds, except for Dana, who was focused on making as much progress as she could.
She had nearly wept tears of blood after she had passed the hundredth step, but she was still moving, and wondering how everyone else was doing.
The last time she had been in a trial like this, everyone had much different progress rates, but none of them had made it more than a few dozen steps up the temple before the trial had ended.
When Cara decided that it was time for a nap, Karl was at the four hundredth step, and the trial had changed the game on him. The refining effects had basically ceased to bother him, despite the increased intensity, but the trial had added hallucinations to the mix.
Images of failure, tragedy, the worst moments of his life, where weakness had overcome him. Then after a few steps, they would switch to moments of pride, arrogance, tyranny, where power had gone to his head.
There weren't too many of those in Karl's life, he realized. They were repeating much more frequently than the moments of weakness. But he was still moving upwards with the beasts as his guides, even when he was nearly lost in the illusions.
When Cara woke up from her nap, Karl was over three quarters of the way up the side of the temple, and Dana was past the two-hundredth step. That was better than anyone else was doing, but all of the ladies were past the first rest stop.
The mirror wouldn't let her watch the Dwarves to see how they were doing, but there was plenty of entertainment watching everyone else struggle while she sipped liquid chaos straight from the pool.
Just like the chaos dragon, it was both spicy and sweet, pleasant on the tongue, but without that uniquely dragon umami flavour.
Honestly, Chaos Dragon tasted better than pure chaos, but Cara had no intentions of becoming a dragon herself, so she would take the slightly less satisfying drink while she waited to find out what she was going to be rewarded with.
It had to be good with this much power available for the event.
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Dana might have cried if she could see how the Void Badger was simply relaxing in the pool of power instead of trying to actively take it in and improve herself. She had put everything into her efforts, even transformed into beast form when her human body began to fail her under the effects of the temple.
On the other three sides, the clerics were also in beast form, with Lotus struggling to climb the steps in her tiny green dragon form, but also unable to fly under the suppression of the Temple.
Ophelia was in Dire Bear form, using the logic that tiny steps were less daunting, even if the change was the same, no matter what form she was in.
Unlike the others, who healed faster in beast form, Ophelia would heal the same in both Dire Bear and Werebear forms. So, it was a primarily psychological advantage to the choice, not a physical necessity.
Cara failed to notice the amount of liquid Chaos that she had taken in like juice as she watched the spectacle. She didn't even register the passing of time as she decided to take a second nap and fast-forward the show.
What she did notice was when the Trial gave a one-hour remaining warning while she was practicing her back stroke.
Was there something she was supposed to be doing here? Probably not. The show was still on, after all. One more hour and she would find out her reward.
