"Are you doing a face exercise? Your face keeps changing every second."
Hearing Alex's voice, Paula opened her eyes and looked at Alex.
"Did you just say something?"
Since she was deep in her own thoughts, she didn't really hear what he said.
With a smile on his face, Alex repeated, "I was asking if you are doing some sort of face exercise."
"Face exercise?" Paula said, feeling confused at Alex's words.
Seeing that, Alex chuckled and said, "You were thinking too deeply earlier and your face keeps on changing every second. That's why I asked if you're doing a face exercise."
Immediately, Paula came to a realization and her face suddenly reddened a bit.
Paula felt embarrassed for some reason.
From the way Alex is reacting, Paula can guess that she probably looked funny earlier when she was thinking.
'Arrgggg! What was I thinking! I'm too embarrassed now!' She thought.
It took a few seconds before Paula recovered.
When she raised her hand back up, she acted like nothing happened and said, "Let's go back to our talk."
Saying that, Paula suddenly grabbed one of Alex's hands and handed him the golden cup.
Alex accepted the cup without saying anything and looked at Paula with questioning eyes.
In response, Paula looked directly in his eyes and said, "You wanted to drink it, right? Then I'll give it to you."
Alex raised an eyebrow and said, "Really? Then is it alright if I take it now?"
"Wait, listen to me first."
Seeing Alex's impatient attitude, Paula let out an exhausted sigh.
She doesn't know why, but Paula already feels tired even though it's only been a few minutes since she started talking with Alex.
Shaking his head, Paula said, "Anyway, I just want to talk about your reward if you ever succeed and live after taking the blood essence."
Hearing that, Alex started paying attention to Paula.
Seeing that she finally got his attention, Paula started talking,
"After some deliberation, I decided to give this to you as a reward for this difficult… suicidal request of mine."
Paula raised her hand just right in front of Alex and showed him a rectangular card.
Alex looked at it curiously and waited for Paula to explain.
Without making Alex wait, Paula said, "This card is a very precious item called [Upgrade Card]."
ƥandasnovel·ƈom "From its name, you can probably guess already what it does, right?"
Alex nodded.
Then he asked, "Does it have any restrictions or limits?"
Paula shook her head, "There's no such thing."
"However, since it's a consumable, you can only use it once and after that, it will disappear."
Hearing that, Alex nodded in understanding.
"Yeah, that makes sense. If it's an item that can be used multiple times, then that will be too fraudulent."
"It's good that you understand that." Paula said.
Then, she suddenly started fiddling with the air and the next second, a quest alert showed in front of Alex.
[Suicide Quest]
[Difficulty: SS]
[Details: You are tasked with consuming the item 'Pureblood Dragon's Essence Blood' which has a 90 percent probability of death when taken. A quest that is just pure suicidal. But in the small chance that your luck works out, you'll get a great benefit in your whole being.]
[Reward: Upgrade Card]
…
Alex only took a short glance at it before saying, "What is this quest for?"
Shrugging, Paula looked at him and said,
"To give you some assurance that I will follow our deal, I will give you a quest so that the system will guarantee that you will get your reward later."
"This is the least that I could do. After all, you're literally risking your life here to do this task I gave."
Alex stared at Paula for a few seconds before turning his eyes away, saying, "Don't worry. I can also confidently tell you that I will survive this and I will also get the worth of this essence blood."
"Even though I don't know why you need it, I will help you because I can see the despair in your eyes that you're hiding inside."
Hearing that, Paula snapped her head eyes back to Alex and looked at him in surprise.
Before she could even say anything, Alex raised his hand and poured all the golden blood directly into his mouth, not leaving even a drop of it into the cup.
After that, Alex put down the cup while licking his lips, making sure that nothing gets wasted.
He smiled and was just about to comment on the taste of the essence blood when suddenly…
Dugdug!
His heart started beating faster.
Dugdug!
At the same time, it also became more and more powerful.
Alex immediately shut his mouth and placed one hand over his chest.
A frown appeared on his face and he started sweating hard all over his body.
Knowing that this is all caused by the essence blood, Alex hurriedly turned on [Fortune].
After contemplating for a while about his new unique skill, Alex started walking out of the Trial Tower.
On his way out, he passed by the stone monument's ranking and saw that it had changed.
At the very top, the name that was written became 'Zero'.
That means, Alex has just become the one that cleared the 2nd Tier trial with the highest points!
"It seems like choosing the Abyss difficulty was the right choice. I don't know how the Trial Tower scores its trialists though."
Alex fell silent for a moment before saying, "I wonder if anyone else can really complete the Abyss trial…"
Alex thought about that for a few seconds before shaking his head.
"Well, since I'm the first one who was able to do it, then I guess not."
Next, Alex opened his inventory and saw that his other reward, the [Random Treasure Chest] has also arrived.
"Since there's nothing else for me to do here, it's about time I leave this place."
Taking a step forward, Alex soon saw the outside of the Trial Tower.
Closing his eyes, Alex took a deep breath.
"Hais~ I'm back~."
When he opened his eyes again, Alex turned his head in a certain direction and saw Ferri and the Flame Lion already looking back at him.
Smiling, Alex walked towards them and said, "It took me a while to clear the trial. I hope you two didn't cause any problems, huh."
Hearing Alex's words, a serious expression appeared on Ferri's face and he barked,
"Woof!"
It seems like he's telling Alex that they didn't do anything while he's gone.
Alex smiled more and rubbed Ferri's furry neck.
After playing with Ferri for a while, Alex looked at the Flame Lion next and said, "I guess you also didn't cause any trouble."
Unlike Ferri's enthusiastic mood around Alex, the Flame Lion seems to still want to maintain the last bit of dignity that it has by acting calm all the time.
It gently bowed its head to Alex in response to his words.
Alex nodded and didn't say anything more to it.
After that, Alex decided to go back to Kupido Town.
"Well then, let's try to journey back to Kupido Town on foot this time."
"Ferri, I will be riding on your back again this time."
Hearing that, Ferri began to get excited.
"Woof! Woof!"
Alex patted its head that was lowered in front of him.
"Let's go. We have to go somewhere first before we really leave Nagels."
Saying that, Alex started moving in a certain direction.
Behind him, Ferri and the Flame Lion both stood up at the same time and followed Alex.
When Alex left, a lot of eyes that had been looking at him the moment he left the Trial Tower also headed back to their respective places.
Shadow, the one that the King has ordered to gather information on Alex, has also come back to the castle.
At the Castle's throne room.
The King looked at the kneeling man wearing all black from top to bottom and said, "So, he has already come out, huh."
"Hmm, it only took him less than 24 hours to clear the 2nd Tier's trial. I'm curious as to what difficulty he chose…"
Putting on a thoughtful expression, the King tapped his finger on the throne a couple of times before turning his head back to Shadow.
Then, he said, "Shadow, continue watching Zero until you come to the conclusion whether he's someone we should recruit or dispose of."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Shadow bowed at the King before he suddenly disappeared.
Slowly looking out the window, the King muttered, "You're making me interested in you more and more, Zero…"
…
Just like the King, other factions have also received the news of Alex's completion of the 2nd Tier trial.
Exclamations came out from various directions as leaders of different organizations and family learned about Alex's trial completion.
Usually, even when a player chooses the easiest difficulty in the 2nd Tier trial, it still takes them 2 to 3 days to clear the trial.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter