BXBX NOVEL Chapter 123: Tower
"Only a hundred points, are you kidding me?" William had just spent 380 Potential Points, only to receive a small piece of ice.
After thinking about it, William realized he couldn\'t complain too much. After all, his Cold Resistance upgrade was permanent, and he even gained an Element Root that would raise the Affinity of his Ice Magic.
Of course, he could have avoided spending his Potential Points if he just spent some of his Mana wielding the Fire Element. He also could have raised his Ice Affinity, which would probably increase his resistance to cold as well.
It doesn\'t matter, I only wasted a few hundred Potential Points. I\'ll earn them back eventually.
William was slightly concerned about the future trials since he only had 1800 Potential Points left, but considering the trial creator was watching him most of the time, it might just be better to use up his Potential Points early.
I\'ll set myself a limit of 1500 Points for now. I have 1973 Potential Points, which leaves me just under 500 that I can spend on whatever I want.
With that thought, William continued forward through the Labyrinth. He was looking for the impossible trial that the Guild Master mentioned, the Enslavement Array on his shoulder urging him to move faster.
While William was improving his Array Puppets, the Enslavement Array began to act up, seemingly punishing him for not moving. He ignored it throughout the week, but now it would start sending slight jolts of electricity into his body every time he stood in place for more than a few minutes.
He investigated the Array while he walked, but he now understood that to crack this Array without killing himself, he would need a mental key that probably only the Array\'s creator knew. It wasn\'t a matter of skill with Arrays, but a matter of Cultivation.
The only weakness of the Array was that it functioned on a limited amount of Spiritual Qi, which was the converted form of Mana. It was tailored to William\'s Mana, which meant even if he used Mana to exhaust the Qi in the Array, it would only refill its reserves.
Physical attacks wouldn\'t work either, because it would trigger a backlash that would kill William instantly, even at his current strength. He thought about asking someone else to use Mana to exhaust the Array, but he would be kicked out of the Gravitas Ruins before someone managed to free him.
According to the System, the Array had enough Qi stored to function on its own for two years and would require a Core Formation Realm Cultivator eight months to release him!
William began to panic. At first it was only mildly concerning, but now William had gathered a ton of rewards from various trials. The moment he left the Gravitas Ruins, they would all be taken away by the Sect Master!
If that happened, William would be devastated. He realized it would be better to consume all treasures that were consumable immediately, to raise his speed of clearing the trials.
William stopped walking and pulled out the Ice Element Root and the second Mana Dragon\'s Blood Essence that he had saved up. He consumed both at once, letting the wave of Mana wash over him as both items interacted with his body.
The Blood Essence didn\'t replace his Mana like the previous one did. This time, it refined the Mana already inside his body, compressing it slightly to provide more space for Mana.
-Absorbed Mana Dragon\'s Blood Essence: +100 PP
There were very few impurities to expel, so William only received a slight boost, but it was still a phenomenal effect. While the Ice Element Root was still interacting with his body, releasing a slight cooling sensation, William checked his status and focused on one specific aspect.
Mana: 1420/1750
An increase of 250 Mana, I think the previous Blood Essence increased it by 350... So the effects are diminished after all, but this is still really good! William was more than happy about the effects of the Mana Dragon\'s Blood Essence.
He tested his Mana regeneration, finding that it had only increased by 75 this time, which raised his Mana regeneration to 300 per hour. With this, William would fully recover after only six hours of rest.
At this moment, the Ice Element Root finished taking effect. He didn\'t know how to check the rank of the Element Root, but he assumed it wasn\'t low.
After testing out his improved Ice Element, William found that its power had increased by about eighty percent, meaning this Root was even better than the Gold-Ranked Fire Root he received from the Alchemy Hall!
His Ice Magic was already S-Rank, but he felt that its power would be equivalent to...
System, what are the Ranks for upgrading my Magic? No one had ever mentioned a Magic Affinity above S-Rank before, but the fact that he could still upgrade his Magic meant that S wasn\'t the limit.
-Your Magic Affinities can currently be upgraded in this order: F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSR, and X.
X Rank... William didn\'t understand why the System would make the Magic Ranks so complicated. What was the point of S rank if it was only rank seven out of the ten ranks?
Doesn\'t that mean S-Rank is actually just another name for C-Rank?
-No. In your previous world the S-Rank was a rarely given grade representing the ultimate highest or peak, but how can the Potential System stop at the peak?
The System didn\'t explain further, and any requests made to elaborate cost William way too many Potential Points to bother. It seemed the true purpose of the System would remain hidden for a while.
Something appeared on William\'s Navigation Radar, but he could only see the edge of it. As William got closer, it was revealed to be a massive structure shaped like a cylinder that stretched hundreds of kilometers into the sky.
Is this what the Sect Master was talking about? William looked upwards but didn\'t see anything.
"That\'s weird, I should be able to see something that big from much further away than I am now..." he muttered. Was the structure concealed by Arrays?
He navigated the Labyrinth for another hour until he arrived at a five-kilometer courtyard where the unknown structure stood. It was a giant tower, over two kilometers in diameter and incredibly tall.
The entrance was a massive double doorway, but there was no door present. In front of the tower were a few hundred Cultivators, most of whom were drawing battle plans in the ground or sorting through their equipment.
It looked more like a group of Adventurers about to enter a dungeon rather than each Sect\'s most powerful representatives of the younger generation.
William took a peek into the open doorway to see a massive field of grass on the other side. He could make out a group of twenty Cultivators teaming up to fight a massive ogre that wielded a large bone club.
"Don\'t look too long, or you\'ll be pulled into the tower." a familiar male voice warned from a few meters to the side.