Ashley

Well that was rough, but I’d say it ended well.

Especially with this message playing on my interface.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a fellow competitor within System Event #1,279,131.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Blade Feather}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Feather Shot, is now unlocked for your usage.}

I have to wonder about that new skill… will my feathers contain the mutation effect that my blood has? No one has ever touched my feathers before, much less been cut by them. So I’m rather curious about this.

Either way, I’m starting to realize just how many skills I’m gonna end up with over the years if I keep using this regularly.

So many that there’s no way I will be able to keep track of them all.

Although I guess that’ll help for variety. No one will be able to guess which sorts of attacks I’ll use.

On another note, I got rather lucky with that random effect. It basically just made him a lot stiffer and slower in general. Which helped me win in the end.

Well, that along with the guy’s own feather bringing my wings’ blood into his body.

Can’t really call that a smart move by him, if he had any say in it at least.

Anyways, I can smell two people following after me right now. So the question is whether I should gather their Skill Trees too, or if I should go after the monsters now.

And after a few seconds, I decide to just go after the monsters.

After I do a little something to them, that is.

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Within the Maze

Both Taliara and Elyndor run as quickly as they can through the corridor, the two elves having previously entered a temporary truce. Deciding that whoever should manage to kill the Successor will get the reward for it.

Assuming she isn’t killed by the zyrian before they even arrive.

But after a few minutes, Elyndor signals for Taliara to stop running, confusing her in the process.

“What is it?” Taliara asks with a frown on her beautiful face. “Don’t tell me the bird already killed her, did he?”

Elyndor glances at Taliara with a frown of his own before he says, “No, but something’s wrong. I don’t hear anything anymore.”

That confuses Taliara even more. But after discussing it for a few seconds, the two decide to continue moving.

Meanwhile Taliara can’t help but worry that the two may’ve killed each other.

She wasn’t sure about whether or not the Successor would be able to win against Zephyr, who was not only several levels higher than Ashley but also more experienced in System Events, but she was at least sure that neither of them would lose easily.

Her original plan was to quickly finish off whoever was left alive between them. Then she would go ahead and attack Elyndor by surprise, completely disregarding the whole ‘brothership’ the two had decided on between elves earlier.

But now she’s not so sure.

The two elves continue moving through the maze, finding one dead monster after another until they finally find a corpse. And next to the corpse is a large, shredded body covered in mud and gore. One so torn apart that it’s difficult to tell what it belongs to.

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Taliara can only assume it’s the Successor.

“By the world tree…” Elyndor mutters, swearing as he looks at the two bodies.

Taliara begins to open her mouth as she briefly turns away from Elyndor, preparing her weapons to attack him. Only to feel something strike her leg.

Before she can look down to see what it was, she feels herself getting a little nauseous. Making her immediately turn towards Elyndor, believing him to have poisoned her or something.

But right when she begins turning, she feels something else hitting her leg, following which she feels her leg heating up before the cloth covering her greave catches fire and she hurries to put it out.

And without hesitating in the slightest, she focuses on Elyndor and moves her hands in front of her, palms out.

Sending two fireballs blasting right at the man.

At the last minute before the fireballs hit, the man turns and puts up a green barrier around himself. Protecting himself from the resulting explosions.

Taliara glares at him as she continues to send one attack after another at him. Meanwhile Elyndor protects himself from the attacks.

Both elves begin sending one attack after another at each other, with the two each looking furious at the other.

But Taliara doesn’t give a shit about how he feels. Not when he was the first to betray her.

They just keep sending attacks after each other for an entire minute, wasting away at both their mana and energy in the process. And once in a while, Taliara feels more strange illnesses and attacks slipping through without finding where the attacks came from.

Although she did feel a couple rocks hit her, likely having been kicked up in the aftermath of her own explosions.

It isn’t until another minute passes that she realizes she isn’t the only one looking sickly between the two of them.

But by then it’s too late as a loud screech echoes throughout the area coming from a large puddle where she sees a girl’s head peeking out of the water, making a flash of pain fill her mind with everything going white in her vision. Taliara instantly recognizing it as a mental attack, even after she manages to throw one more fireball at Elyndor before losing her vision.

Then, after a few seconds pass, she feels a flash of pain from her back, and everything goes dark.

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Ashley

Huh. That was easier than I thought.

My original plan was to just stack on a couple effects from Chaotic Surge while my wings finished regenerating. Mostly because I realized any sort of attack by me works for the skill.

Even if it’s just me throwing a tiny pebble at them.

But they immediately started attacking each other. Showing me just how trustworthy they saw each other.

Now, though…

I cross my arms as I look at the two corpses in front of me. One of which I killed myself, with the other having been killed by the female elf’s last fireball. After my Dark Howl stunned the male elf and made him drop his barrier.

A pity that I won’t be getting his skill, but this new Skill Tree more than makes up for it.

{You have been granted 2 Skill Points for killing a fellow competitor within System Event #1,279,131.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Basic Branch of the Fire World Tree}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Basic Fire Mana Manipulation, is now unlocked for your usage.}

Another magical affinity.

Cool.

Now I can use fire magic too.

I give a short nod of my head at that in satisfaction before flapping my wings once as a test. And after finding them to have fully healed by now, I begin flying through the corridor again in search of the elite monster.

Judging by the countdown in the bottom left corner of my interface, only about six or so minutes have passed since the System Event began. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t even care about winning or losing this that much. Strictly because of the benefits I’ve already gained.

I was right before when I thought Skill Trees from other users would be better than monsters. For the most part.

Except the mini boss that I killed before.

Still. Despite feeling this way, I still rush through the maze, killing one monster after another without stopping to do so. Passing from one branch in the path to another, finding multiple dead ends along the way. All the way till I find a strange room.

Elite monster, perhaps?

I quickly open the door and enter the room, only to blink when I see what’s inside.

Huh.

Inside the room is one of the other competitors fighting some sort of large, armored creature. One with a very large and thick carapace, some sort of dripping black liquid coming from the blade-like arms it has, and four pitch black eyes on its insectoid head.

I identify both the competitor and the monster.

♢ Azrion of the Stormcaller Clan – Level 12 Dragonborn – 491 Potential Skills – X ♢

♢ Level 20 Decayed Arxol – 171 Potential Skills – X ♢

Okay. Two things about this that are interesting.

I’m pretty sure the monster is the elite monster, for one. Considering the purple color in its identify result.

And for two, that dragonborn has a lot of potential skills. I noticed this before, but that really is a lot.

Also, his name still stands out.

But I can worry about that stuff later.

Because both Azrion and the elite monster are looking at me.

And to my surprise, the dragonborn doesn’t actually look antagonistic towards me.

Guess there are all sorts of people who enter these System Events.

The arxol is a different matter though.

Well, this ought to be interesting.