NOVPUBTeam Eryndor would always look for a good spot where they could rest, with the obvious minimum requirement being that it should be clean, but Eryndor always used a few more pieces of equipment before sitting on the ground.
Tundra is really troublesome for resting.
Eryndor thought. They had to find a place with no snow on the ground, else it would often melt when they camped at the spot. This would create quite an inconvenience.
He placed the bag beside him. At his level of physique, even the travel bag which would be heavy for an untrained human was quite light work for him.
At times he even felt like fighting with the bag on him due to how light it felt but knew that he couldn't.
There were two reasons, the first one being that one could never guarantee the full safety of the bag. What if the beast reacted unexpectedly, and damaged the bag?
The second one being that his bag contained a few delicate items. The battle movements weren't always smooth and fluid, which meant there was a high chance that they might get damaged.
As the team began discussing the two new hidden rules, they also began applying healing sprays.
All this while they mainly engaged with the peak stage Latent realm beasts, so being hurt a little was inevitable, no one had Passive Regeneration like Eryndor here.
Peak stage Latent realm beasts were also 'almost' the peak combat prowess of the beasts in this secret realm.
It was so that the influence of second year seniors, the majority of whom were in the second level of their power systems, could be minimized.
The presence of Stable realm beasts was rare, and the number of Active realm beasts could be counted on one hand.
Maybe when the tournament reached its end stage the average strength of beasts would increase.
Eryndor glanced at them discussing the two new hidden rules but didn't participate, instead leaning against a tree and closing his eyes, preparing to head into his Mind Palace.
Even until now, he didn't know what happened to his body when he entered his Mind Palace.
If his body became an empty shell, like a puppet without strings, then it was better to lean on the tree and close his eyes so that no one would suspect a thing.
As his consciousness drifted, his ears were still picking up the sounds of discussion of his teammates.
The two new hidden rules they had figured out were -
First, just like how Eryndor deduced that using the same element skill in the fight to defeat the beast would result in bonus points, if the teammates used the same set of physical actions to defeat the beast, then they would get bonus points.
For this to trigger, just like the previous hidden rule, they would have to defeat the beast roughly at the same time with not too much of a gap.
If one used an uppercut to defeat the beast in the morning and another team member used an uppercut to defeat a beast at night, they wouldn't get any bonus points.
The second hidden rule was quite frankly difficult to find, and if not for Eryndor, it would take a lot of effort to even trigger it.
This rule would only trigger when the team was divided in three groups and were fighting three different species of beasts at the same time.
Once the above conditions were satisfied, a random object in the vicinity of their fight would expose a tiny design.
Eryndor only found this when he was messing around in his eldritch form and zooming in at random places.
Once the team was divided in three groups and were fighting different species of beasts, one member from each of the three groups would have to place their hand on the design which would pop up on a random object in the vicinity of their fight.
It could be on a stone, on a tree trunk, on a leaf, or even on a random place on the snowy ground.
This second rule in particular gave a lot of bonus points.
"Nothing seems to have changed."
Eryndor muttered softly, seeing the outer layer of the Mind Palace.
Keeping the speculation he had still in his heart, he entered the massive structure.
No change in the three orbs.
The orb of Telekinesis was still on the verge of breakthrough, but no significant difference yet.
With a sigh, he headed towards the second room and gazed solemnly at the closed door.
Long ago, he had a few guesses on how to open these doors, one of them was that since he unlocked the first door after breaking through to the first level of the cultivation power system, would he now be qualified to open the second door now that he was on the second level of his power system?
Time to test it.
Eryndor closed the distance with the second door and pushed the door with one hand.
It didn't budge.
His expression faltered as he took a few steps back and rammed into the door with his shoulder first.
It moved a bit, but refused to open. Eryndor wasn't unfamiliar with this.
I can't open this. So the conditions have still not been fulfilled huh?
Eryndor narrowed his eyes and thought about his second guess, but it was way way wayyyyy more difficult than this first guess.
If the mechanism of opening was indeed that second guess, then the difficulty would exponentially increase each time.
His second guess was, if the first door opened when he broke through to the first level of a single power system, could it be that the second door would open when he reached the second level in two power systems?
Similarly, the third door would open when he reached the third level in three power systems and so on.
If that is indeed the case, it would be way too difficult man what the fuck.
Eryndor massaged his head, feeling his stress levels rising.
Shaking his head, he put that to the back of his mind and entered the first room, where his Sovereign's Cloak lay.
As soon as he entered the room though, he was quite surprised.
In the past, the only notable thing in the room was the Cloak, but now? Dense golden runes covered every inch of the wall.
What are these?
He approached the wall, and carressed those runes. Unexpectedly, those runes pulsed faintly whenever his hand passed over them.
Unfortunately, nothing was happening.
He tried 'thinking' of various things, hoping to trigger them, but nothing was taking place.
It wasn't a foolish attempt. Past incidents had repeatedly demonstrated how sometimes, even an 'intent' was enough to set off things.
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed.
My earlier thought process about the second guess might be true.
The first condition might be the first level of a single power system.
The second condition being second level in two power systems.
Naturally, the third condition would be the third level in three power systems and so on. These might not just unlock the doors.
Since the first condition unlocked the first door, the second condition might not unlock the second door but instead bring about a transformation with these golden runes.
If nothing extraordinary pops up again, the third condition would be to unlock the second room, then the fourth condition for the golden runes inside the second room.
But there are only eight power systems.
If I go by what I just listed out, with two power systems per room, I'll run out of power systems by the fourth room.
There are eight doors in total, how would I unlock the last four doors?
Eryndor thought a lot, but in the end he could only shelve these thoughts.
He was at second level in a single power system, there was no use no matter how many hypotheses he made if he couldn't verify it.
I better climb to second level in another power system quickly to verify these facts.
He thought, then left the Mind Palace.
The majority of the beasts in the secret realm were in the Latent realm, so the progress of Sovereign's Cloak hadn't increased by much as it was in the Stable realm.
As soon as he arrived in the outside world, he looked around and heaved a minor sigh when he realised the team were still eating their food and were in the same place.
It would be quite awkward if they decided to move for some reason and he wasn't responding.
He had already told them not to disturb him so no one would've called out to him. Even if they did, he could just say he ignored them since he wanted to rest.
Letting out a fake yawn, he regrouped with his team and joined in their discussion. As for his hunger, he only popped in a food pill.
"Eryndor's surveillance skill is really goddamn useful. The most important part about it is that he can even look at things which are small and difficult to spot through normal surveillance methods."
It was Edward who was talking, explaining why Eryndor's surveillance skill was so good in almost every aspect.
At the beginner levels, no matter what surveillance skill you used, it was borderline trash.
Majority of these skills only allowed one to see a black and white version of a limited range around them.
Exceptional ones would allow a certain range of colors.
They couldn't zoom in on the target and so on.
Those at the absolute top had a function or two extra which gave them an edge, but that was it.
No one had ever seen a surveillance skill like Eryndor which seemed to be good in almost all aspects.
Eryndor didn't respond, but was lost in his own thoughts. He wanted to test one thing related to the tournament.
