BXBX NOVEL Chapter 156: Stairs
Alas, Rin was faster and finished off the Minotaur by disappearing to a bolt of lightning and executing another one of her most powerful refined skills.
Frenzied Blade Storm!
Arriving before the Minotaur, who roared and swung its fist. Rin dodged it with a hair's breadth and swung her Katana into a full circle as it shone with violet lightning, just like her eyes.
-500 mana!
In a second, a storm of tiny violet lightning blades formed around Rin, with a whirling of violet lightning spark around her.
All those were blades, so their attacks automatically increased by 50%!
*Crackle! Chreee!*
The monster was brutalized by the small storm of violet lightning blades and died before attempting another attack on Rin.
"Darn it!!"
Lizmet cursed as her attack landed, but she still had to make another attack to kill it. However, the challenge competition finished, and her Minotaur vanished.
Rin chuckled and landed at the black forest's edge.
"That was easy."
Lizmet turned towards Rin and asked, "Do you have Blade Concept?"
"Yep."
'Tsk,' Lizmet clicked her tongue.
"But your attacks were still more powerful than mine, slightly," Rin laughed. "Basically, it was a skill issue from the beginning."
"I know," Lizmet snorted.
Both of them vanished afterward and appeared outside the treasure temple.
Rin got the best reward, a high-grade elemental fruit. She quickly ate it and ignored Lizmet, who also didn't bother to say anything, and quickly left to find another treasure temple.
'It looks like she wants to pass this round,' Rin thought as she saw Lizmet ignoring her and quickly leaving.
Rin had fought with the previous treasure temple challenge's opponent since he wanted to snatch the fruit reward from her and kill her. Of course, that guy failed and ran away when Erix arrived.
Rin flew towards the direction Erix told her after eating the fruit and soon arrived there, but was surprised to see Melissa waving at her while smiling.
"Melissa."
"Hi," Melissa smiled as she sat at the temple and waved at Rin, whom she had sensed her right. "So Erix is here, eh? Glad I waited."
"Did you just arrive here?"
"Right when I sensed your presence appearing two kilometers away."
"Yeah, I just finished a challenge. The last one," Rin grinned.
"Good. I'm also done," Melissa smiled. "Let's leave together if Erix wins this one. I suppose this is also his last one."
"Yep."
Thirty seconds later, a bunch of Chaos Monsters arrived that Rin and Melissa obliterated within seconds.
Another thirty seconds later, Erix exited along with a burly man with a rough green body—It was a two-meter-tall muscular Hobgoblin.
"Damn it!" the Hobgoblin growled, but his mouth suddenly shut tight as he sensed two more presences in the area.
"What? Do you want to fight?" Erix smiled and clashed his gauntlet's knuckles.
The Hobgoblin saw two pairs of eyes on him and just silently left after conjuring a pair of wind-elemental wings.
"So this is the pathway," Erix turned to the North and could faintly see the blue line that suddenly appeared, leading towards something giant far away.
"Yep. So, let's be quick," Melissa said as she flew up.
Rin appeared beside Erix and held his hand. "It seems that this race is only halfway over."
…
The trio followed the blue path that they could suddenly see after getting 1000 points and arrived at a giant snowy mountain that was roughly five hundred kilometers in height.
There was a giant blue crystal gate at the base of the mountain and stairs.
The requirement to enter through the gate was 1000 points, and even though there was an open area around it, it was impossible to enter the snowy mountain and step foot on the stairs.
They had to go through the gate.
"It's so tall…" Erix mumbled as he walked towards the gate while looking at the mountain that went on for so long that he couldn't see its peak.
"If this mountain was in our world, how it would have affected everything," Rin said with a wry smile.
"This is going to test our endurance and willpower," Melissa said and sighed. "And if we are not careful, others behind us might catch up to us. Damn it, I hate this type."
"So there are going to be obstacles, eh? Fine by me," Rin chuckled.
The trio went through the gates, and their points were reduced to 0.
[Your feet must touch every single stair of this mountain to reach the top.]
"Alright, the teleport is not working," Erix declared a second later as he failed to teleport.
"We can't fly," Rin said.
"Don't tell me we have to climb this big mountain on foot?" Rin asked, her left eye twitching.
"Run," Melissa said in a dispirited voice as she exerted her full physical strength and started climbing.
Rin and Erix quickly followed up.
The stairs were a kilometer wide and large.
"Haha, I am faster here," Rin chuckled as she buffed herself with Lightning, increasing her cell activity and increasing her agility as she also stepped on each stair quicker and climbed faster.
"Babe, can you buff me as well?" Erix asked with a wry smile.
"Alright," Rin grinned.
Both of them overtook Melissa, who had higher physical stats than them.
But then, Melissa smirked, and veins protruded all over her body as she quickly caught up to the duo before turning into a shadow behind them that attached to their shadow.
"Yo, what?" Erix was dumbfounded. "You can't call this your feet touching the ground."
"Nope. I am touching each stair," Melissa chuckled as her head popped out of the shadow. After all, she had refined her body 100% with the Darkness element!
"Tsk," Rin clicked her tongue.
But this climb was not without obstacles. After they climbed 10,000 stairs as fast as possible, seemingly completing 10% of the distance as indicated by the floating texts before them, the trio encountered three doors before them.
[Select your door]
Door 1: Stamina recovery 50% for 10,000 stairs.
Door 2: Increase Strength and Agility by 200 for 10,000 stairs.
Door 3: Increase Magic by 250 for 10,000 stairs.
And these were not the only type of doors waiting for them ahead.