Pfft.
The spear fell.
The tip of the Scorpion King Tail Needle Spear seemed to pierce an enormous balloon.
A soft pop.
The Flame Demon Overlord's massive body shrank at an incredible speed, and its terrifying pressure quickly faded.
"Fragile as a sheet of paper!?"
Ling Zhan was stunned.
On instinct, he activated the Archer skill [Flash Step], then frantically chained together other skills.
[Speed Up]
[Shadow Stealth]
He retreated like a bolt of lightning.
Ling Zhan emerged from Shadow Stealth, his eyes warily fixed on the Flame Demon Overlord. He gripped the Town Portal Scroll tightly in his hand, ready to teleport out of the Trial Stage at any moment.
The Flame Demon Overlord's huge body shrank until it had become a four-colored demon flower the size of a washbasin... then burst like a bubble.
Ding!
"Congratulations, examinee Ling Zhan, on successfully clearing the Endless Trial!"
"Trial ended!"
"Your trial results have been recorded in your file."
"Examining your battle record and calculating your final score based on your data and performance..."
"I-I cleared it?"
"Why?"
The final boss, the red monster, was dead?
All right.
At that moment, a string of monster information appeared above the shattered four-colored demon flower.
[Monster: Dream Illusion Demon Flower]
[Level: 10]
[Skills: Transformation, Pressure]
[HP: 100/100]
[Defense: 10/10]
[Status: Dead]
[Potential: Blue]
"An imitation?"
"What was that 99% death rate about?"
"Damn, was that thing just pretending to be dangerous?"
Ling Zhan was baffled.
Before Ling Zhan could think it over,
the mechanical announcement for the stage sounded again.
"Based on examinee Ling Zhan's completion time, combat performance, and other factors, the final trial rating is: SSS rank!"
"Your trial results have been recorded. Calculating your provincial ranking..."
At the same time, his rewards arrived.
[Trial Clear Reward ①: Level +3. Current level: 14.]
[Trial Clear Reward ②: +38 allocatable four-dimensional attribute points.]
[Trial Clear Reward ③: Crab King Fang Spear (Purple).]
[Trial Clear Reward ④: Fearless Heart title.]
[Trial Clear Reward ⑤: Trial talent 'Magic Resonance' unlocked.]
All rewards have been distributed!
Ling Zhan quickly opened his personal panel.
[Name: Ling Zhan.]
[HP: 1000/1000.]
[MP: 2700/3000 (recovering over time).]
[Talent: 62.]
[Age: 18.]
[Race: Human.]
[Level: 14 (2920/10000)]
[Class: None.]
[Strength: 35; Constitution: 35; Intelligence: 35; Agility: 35.] (No bonuses from items or equipment.)
[Innate Talents: Equipment Controller (F), Mana Controller (E), Omnipotent (F)]
[Trial Talent: Magic Resonance (B+).]
[Owned Class Skills: Prairie Fire (F+), Freeze (F+), Shield-Breaking Sword Sweep (F+)...]
[Allocatable Four-Dimensional Points: 58.]
[Allocatable Skill Points: 1018.]
A new entry, [Trial Talent], had appeared on his panel.
His free four-dimensional attribute points had increased from 20 to 58.
His free skill points had gone from 1010 to 1018.
Ling Zhan distributed his four-dimensional attribute points evenly across his stats.
[Strength: 50; Constitution: 49; Intelligence: 50; Agility: 49.]
As for skill points... Ling Zhan had no use for them for now.
All the skills he currently had were basic skills, and basic skills couldn't be upgraded.
Unless the system specifically assigned skill points.
Only the system could break the rules.
Of course, the skill points he received from the system's daily quests didn't count as special skill points. Only those awarded by achievement quests qualified.
"This trial clear was really rewarding!"
And that was not all.
The real prize was the trial talent!
Trial talents, as the name suggested,
could be obtained by those who cleared trial stages.
Of course,
the odds depended on how well you did.
In other words, the better your results, the higher your chance of obtaining a trial talent!
If your results matched the best record for that secret realm, you were guaranteed to receive a trial talent!
Some extremely lucky people could even trigger the low odds and obtain one despite a poor score!
One thing to note: each trial stage's rewards could only be claimed once.
In other words, once you cleared a stage and claimed its rewards,
you wouldn't receive any rewards for clearing that same stage again.
It didn't matter if you did far better than the first time.
You would still get nothing.
The rewards could only be claimed once.
Ling Zhan looked at the trial talent "Magic Resonance" and began reading its description.
[Magic Resonance (B+): Reduces the cooldown of all your magic skills by 30%, and reduces the cooldown of all your basic magic skills to 0 seconds.]
For many magic-class users, only the first effect—the 30% cooldown reduction—was useful.
But for Ling Zhan, the first effect was the less useful one!
The second effect was the real prize!
The cooldown of all basic magic skills became 0 seconds!
In other words, no cooldown at all!
"Magic Resonance" + "Mana Controller"...
He was taking off!
He was really taking off!
And then there was Fearless Heart...
That was a title reward.
Title effect: Increases your courage and grants a degree of immunity to "Intimidation"-type skills used by enemies of the same level.
Outside.
A little earlier.
Meanwhile,
many examinees had already emerged from their stages safe and sound.
Some looked dejected, probably because their scores had fallen far short of what they'd dreamed of.
Others were all smiles, brimming with confidence. They must have achieved results they were happy with.
"Su Rou's out!"
But no one paid her any attention.
Everyone was staring intently at the images on the giant screen.
Su Rou was quite famous at City No. 1 High School.
First, she was very beautiful.
Second, her talent value was 78, she had changed class to Assassin, and her test scores usually ranked in the top ten at school.
With her delicate beauty and exceptional talent, Su Rou naturally had no shortage of admirers.
At that moment, she wore a gentle smile.
Clearly, she must have gotten a very good score.
Not every top student had a poor mentality.
Those with a strong mindset had also earned excellent results.
"Ah, I was so close to defeating that monster. Still, I got an SS-rank rating. Getting into a key combat academy shouldn't be a problem."
Su Rou's radiant smile lit up her porcelain features. Ordinarily, it would have left the boys around her swooning.
But now, aside from her teacher, no one spoke to her.
Su Rou: "..."
She turned to look toward the examinees' seats.
At a glance, she spotted Bai Wushuang.
She was a little surprised. "This trial really is difficult. Even Bai Wushuang didn't defeat that boss monster."
"Hm? Why is everyone looking up at the screen? Could Sun Ze be mowing down enemies?"
As she wondered,
she turned her bright eyes toward the screen in midair.
The figure that appeared on the screen wasn't Sun Ze, as she'd expected.
Instead, it was Ling Zhan, whom she hadn't expected at all!
"Why is it him..."
Su Rou's brows lifted slightly, and confusion flickered in her bright, gemlike eyes.
Ling Zhan.
He was in her class.
Su Rou got along well with her classmates and remembered everyone's name and face.
But as far as she could recall, Ling Zhan was an utterly ordinary student.
He sat in the very last row and was close with Lei Feng.
As classmates, Su Rou and Ling Zhan had exchanged exactly one sentence: "Hello."
They hadn't said anything else to each other.
That alone showed just how much of an invisible presence Ling Zhan was in class.
And yet today, it was this near-invisible student whose figure appeared on the screen.
Before you continue