Player Reached the Top. LitRPG Series. Book VIII, page 1
PLAYER REACHED
THE TOP
BOOK VIII
by Rick Scar
Text Copyright © 2021 Dmitry Mikhalek
All rights reserved.
No part of this book can be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Introduced by Valeria Kornosenko.
Translated by Ingrid Wolf
Edited by Sanja Gajin
Contents
Hello all!
Chapter 374. An Exchange
Chapter 375. Valuable Information
Chapter 376. The Blurry Future
Chapter 377. When the Predator Becomes the Prey
Chapter 378. The Information Flow
Chapter 379. A Strange Player
Chapter 380. The Diversity of Heroes
Chapter 381. A Mysterious Prisoner
Chapter 382. The Forgotten
Chapter 383. The Heroic Mind
Chapter 384. The Statue in the Water
Chapter 385. A Court Witness
Chapter 386. A New Power
Chapter 387. The Consequences
Chapter 388. Progress
Chapter 389. News from the Border
Chapter 390. A Late Confession
Chapter 391. Obligations
Chapter 392. Hidden in Plain Sight
Chapter 393. The Trace
Chapter 394. The Secret of the Ancient Scroll
Chapter 395. A Step Closer
Chapter 396. The Demonic King
Chapter 397. The Thin Line of Truth
Chapter 398. Meeting the Crown Princess
Chapter 399. Summoning a Legendary Creature
Chapter 400. In the Name of Knowledge
Chapter 401. The Wheel of Rewards
Chapter 402. The Servants of Death
Chapter 403. The Auction
Chapter 404. The Acquisitions
Chapter 405. A Solo Performance
Chapter 406. Too Easy?
Chapter 407. A Cliché
Chapter 408. The Ancient Creature’s Altar
Chapter 409. The Dead God’s Palace
Chapter 410. A Hero’s Descendant?
Chapter 411. The Genesis of a Phoenix
Chapter 412. Time’s Slipping Away
Chapter 413. A Global Message
Chapter 414. The Tower
Chapter 415. The Bloody Crystals
Chapter 416. A Woman in Need
Chapter 417. The Last Ace?
Chapter 418. A Leap into the Unknown
Chapter 419. Lucky One
Chapter 420. Far from Home
Chapter 421. The Progress
Chapter 422. A Special Day
Chapter 423. The Spatial and Spiritual Anchor
Chapter 424. Every Experiment Has its Risks
Chapter 425. Give it a Rest Already!
Chapter 426. The Downside of Fame
Chapter 427. Back to the Desert
Chapter 428. A New Level of Mastery
Chapter 429. The Rescue
Chapter 430. Summing Up
Chapter 431. The Forest Heart
Chapter 432. A Cheat
Chapter 433. The Power of Blood
Chapter 434. Waiting for a Savior
Chapter 435. Feeling Supported
Chapter 436. The Labyrinth of Fate
Chapter 437. Information and Problems
From the author
Hello all!
My name is Rick Scar and you are reading my adventure LitRPG wuxia saga.
The whole story is planned out and will have 1000 chapters. Now the story in Russian has almost 500 chapters spanning 9 books. 8 books are translated!
The beginning of the story is here (click the link):
Player Reached the Top >>> Book 1
Chapter 374. An Exchange
A s he ran, his mind wandered back to his recent discovery. It was known to everyone that Ascension welcomed people with well-developed real-world skills, such as running long distances or martial arts.
Up to a certain point, he had considered it merely a perk provided by the AI, forgetting it in favor of more urgent concerns. But now he saw it differently.
From the very beginning, this game had been a practice ground of sorts. Or rather, a competition. Those who had developed a strong will by constantly pushing their mind and body to the limits in the real world had secured themselves an invisible edge at the very start. Even those who hadn’t been placed on a high Floor eventually took the lead in this race. Like Kingmaker. Like Crimson Berserker. Like any other TOP.
Without stopping, Raven ran through the forest formed by unknown trees and giant plants, with treacherous quagmires and gorges that seemed to materialize out of nowhere in his way. Remembering that the Tortoise was probably not the only dangerous mob in this location, he kept a close eye on his surroundings. But no matter how closely he looked, there was no trace of any animal. The place felt long-deserted by any living thing.
There were no sounds at all.
He couldn’t hear the wind nor the rustling grass nor the running water. The forest was as quiet as a graveyard. He couldn’t help but succumb to the deafening silence, making no noise as he ran on, with nothing but his blurred shadow betraying his presence. His Agility and Speed were so high that, to an observer, he’d disappear from sight at times only to reappear on a different spot.
He often ran into stones covered in moss and unreadable ancient writing, sticking out from the ground or from the mires. There were many more such markers at the bottom of small lakes and among the tree roots.
At times, he reached out to Niarrah, but she wouldn’t answer.
She’s probably outside the comm range.
The day was nearing its end when he finally heard something — the song of combat, and a near one at that. He immediately contacted Niarrah through the Bead.
[Hey! Are you fighting?]
He got no response.
On his way to the battlefield, he tried to reach her again. The result was the same.
Is she ignoring me?
Hiding in the shadow of a tree, he knitted his brows as he saw the combatants.
It is her. Why was she not answering me then?
Habitually, he used Identification on the quest mob, but the System message reminded him that he couldn’t use any skills the workings of which he didn’t understand.
Muttering a curse, he stayed aside, observing the battle to learn more about the Tortoise’s strengths and weaknesses — as well as Niarrah’s. He hadn’t thought much about how strong the aliens actually were. If those two half-dogs he met in the Space Store were anything to go by, they could turn out to be formidable opponents — especially after they had equipped themselves with some items.
The Tortoise didn’t look particularly dangerous. Although its size made Raven frown, most of the time it was just sluggishly dodging Niarrah’s attacks, as if it didn’t care much about its life.
Watching them for another minute, he had to admit that the Tortoise was acting wisely, if not cautiously. Niarrah’s attacks were hardly doing any damage. Her sword could barely scratch the skin on its head. Most of the time, it just bounced off its horn or its strong shell.
Niarrah, to his surprise, used no magic items, scrolls, or artifacts. Only a few skills similar to those she had used on him at their first meeting.
I’d better help her.
Stepping out into the open, he summoned Kharses. Fortunately, the Arena seemed to impose no restrictions on using any inventory items, gear, or pets.
BOOM!
Kharses tipped the scales with a single blow of its tail, smashing the shell into several large chunks.
As Niarrah saw the reinforcements arrive, she broke away from the Tortoise and, holding her sword at the ready, watched an amazing scene unroll before her.
The wounded Tortoise let out a mighty roar full of pain and fury. Craning its neck, it spat a clot of black substance at Kharses. Hitting the bones, the liquid began to eat them away.
Niarrah swallowed nervously as she imagined herself in the pet’s place.
It has just been playing with me, she realized, glancing at the colossus looming above them.
Paying no mind to the damage, Kharses aimed at its opponent’s head but the Tortoise dodged, escaping the snow-white fangs by an inch.
The mob wasn’t stupid. Facing an opponent as formidable as Kharses, it played cautiously. Its horn flashed brightly for a moment, emitting black smoke that covered its whole body, transforming it. The damaged shell regenerated in a matter of seconds, becoming even stronger and shiny like black diamonds.
The new armor even covered the mob’s head. Raven, who was about to leave the fight to Kharses and ask Niarrah a few questions, realized that it’d take more than a strong pet to kill the Tortoise.
He watched the battle unfold, looking for weak spots, when he heard Niarrah’s voice.
“It’s the horn.”
He glanced at her.
“The horn?”
“Yes. It ignored most of my attacks and only dodged those that targeted the horn.”
Raven recalled the fight and nodded to himself.
Kharses! Hit its horn!
Having given the command, he observed the Tortoise try its best to shield its horn from the incoming attac
She was right. The horn is the weak spot.
Ten minutes later, he used Wings to distract the Tortoise so that Kharses could attack. No sooner had he leaped into the air than he heard a low, dying moan.
Canceling Wings, he landed next to the carcass and put his hand on it. By doing this, he hoped that the automatic loot collection would work the way it normally did — and breathed with relief at the pop-up message that flashed in front of him.
At least I don’t have to actually tear the horn off its head.
Checking his loot, he noted several pounds of shell and a shapeless clot of energy that he couldn’t identify, which the System described as Mental Essence.
You have killed the Black Tortoise.
+ 1 Glory Point
The message didn’t explain what Glory Points were or how he could use them, which made them entirely useless to him. For now.
Dismissing Kharses, he headed to Niarrah who felt sick to her stomach as she remembered the disposed Bead. At least she had been smart enough not to throw it deep into the woods.
“We’re done here.” Stopping six feet from her, Raven glanced at the dead Tortoise and handed her a large item covered in bony bumps. “You weren’t of much help, but I’ll honor our deal. The horn is yours. Let’s go back together. And, please, give me my Bead.”
“I... I threw it away,” Niarrah admitted, although she was aware that he might refuse to give her the horn after hearing that. “I don’t mind if you keep the item.”
“You... You did what?” Raven asked, wondering if, perhaps, he had heard her wrong.
“I dropped it and it fell in the grass. Next to the altar.”
“Next to the altar,” he echoed with a still face. “Not bad. Not bad. I didn’t expect that, but I don’t mind.”
As he thought about her reasons for doing that, he breathed out slowly and, hiding the horn in his Ring, turned to where he guessed the altar was.
Niarrah looked down at the sword she still held in her hand and sheathed it. Raven smirked at seeing that as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Could we talk?” he asked.
She actually wanted to have a chat with him from the moment she saw him summon a huge monster in the blink of an eye.
“Yeah.”
She was so much more talkative before. Did I really leave such a terrible impression on her?
“What server are you from?” he asked again.
“Kriagor. The Kingdom of Litrah.”
“Litrah?” He stopped at hearing the name and stared at her. “Does Litrah have the Gilliam Server, too?”
“You know that server?”
The mutual astonishment would’ve been funny if the situation hadn’t been serious.
“Yes. I haven’t been there, though. I did meet two players from there, however.”
This bizarre piece of information shattered Niarrah’s theory that Raven was from an Imperial System. Utterly bewildered, she asked another question.
“And where are you from?”
“It’s complicated.” Raven wasn’t sure if he could tell her the truth. He didn’t want to get the entire human race in trouble. Eventually, however, he figured out which piece of truth he could trade for more information. “I’m from Earth. Ever heard of it?”
Niarrah frowned, trying to remember any server with this name, then shook her head. The servers were way too numerous for anyone to remember all their names.
“No. Is it a Royal System?”
Raven shrugged.
“I don’t know. Actually, I don’t even know what a Royal System is.”
“You can’t be serious,” she retorted with a frown and looked at Raven who walked on her left. The only thing she could see on his face was sheer curiosity.
“I’m as serious as I can be. Like I told you — it’s complicated. Honestly, I didn’t even know about the other servers — and about players like you — until recently.”
“Stop.” Niarrah shook her head in disbelief. “You told me you have nothing to hide. But you keep throwing more and more blatant lies at me.”
With a snort of disappointment, she broke into a run, hoping to leave this nonsense behind and complete her mission as soon as possible.
Raven shook his head but didn’t argue. He wanted information, and he knew better than to give up. Running after Niarrah, he took the horn out and waved it to get her attention.
“Let’s do this differently. I see you really need this item. I’ll let you have it if you answer my questions. Even if you don’t believe in my story, you lose nothing from this deal.”
Niarrah looked at the item and nodded, doing her best to conceal her emotions. For the Heavenly Stone of Wisdom, she could endure much, much more than a bunch of stupid questions.
Reaching her hand out and seeing the ease with which he gave up the horn, she thought that he could actually be unsuspecting of the Stone’s true value.
“Very well,” she said and put the horn into her bracelet’s pocket dimension.
Chapter 375. Valuable Information
A s they jogged toward the altar, Niarrah did her best to fulfill her part of the deal, answering Raven’s questions as patiently as she could. However, when, five minutes later, he asked why she was so weak, she lost her temper.
“Is this really coming from a man who had his pet do all the dirty work?” she sneered, her voice dripping sarcasm. “I saw the fight, you know? All you did was fly and shoot crossbow bolts at the mob to distract it!”
At some point, she had even felt sympathy for the poor beast.
Raven snorted but said nothing. He couldn’t show her any of his skills in action as they were unavailable here. As he remembered that, he realized that Niarrah was actually stronger than he was. She could do more with far less.
“Forgive me. It was a poor choice of words on my part. Things are very different in the world I come from. Had we been there, I would’ve taken a more active role.”
He filled her in on how different things were on Earth, explaining that he had come here through a game in which Fireball was the most basic skill learned by any novice who played a spellcaster character. In passing, he mentioned Ascension’s great mission and the fact that Earth had no System at all.
To back up his words with proof, he searched his inventory for the Fireball scroll. It turned out to be difficult to find as no item descriptions were displayed anywhere. This was one of the reasons he hadn’t used any of his scrolls against the Tortoise as well as why Kharses had been doing a good job on its own.
Eventually, he located the scroll by its fire seal.
I hope it’s Fireball, not a stronger spell.
Breaking the seal, he unleashed waves of magic that formed a fiery tornado. It burned down a large area of the forest, reducing it to ash, blazing stumps, and lumps of charcoal.
Well, it could’ve been worse.
“That’s how magic works in our world,” he told Niarrah. There was a strange mix of emotions on her face. Denial. Disbelief. Confusion.
“What tremendous power,” she finally muttered, snapping out of her daze. “Is it... Is it a scroll from the Game?”
“It is.”
“And... And you don’t know about the System?”
“We don’t.”
“But how... How’s that possible? Even the abandoned servers haven’t been forsaken by the System.”
This wasn’t the first time Raven noticed that Niarrah seemed to ascribe some divine powers to the System.
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean. But we’re not abandoned nor forsaken.”
Niarrah stared at him in shock and explained, regaining her composure as she did so.
“Abandoned servers are inhabited by monsters and supernatural beings. They were abandoned for a number of reasons. Some were taken over by a powerful beast, too strong for players to defeat it. Few players would visit these servers to risk their lives for glory and lavish rewards, and even fewer would come back. But still, these servers remain a part of the System. I must say, what you’ve told me sounds too fantastic to be true. When you summoned that monster, I thought you were from an Imperial System. But now I see that I was wrong... I have many questions.”
Raven couldn’t help but smile at the curiosity showing on her face.
“Well, ask away then.”
Three hours later, they returned to the altar. In the meantime, Niarrah asked him many questions about Ascension, its skills, and the leveling-up process. Luckily for her, Raven was willing to share this information. She took a strong interest in attributes, character classes, and specializations. In return, she told him about alien worlds and races, about a different system of player development, about their dungeons, magic, combat, and many, many other things.
