Draco and co settled down and decided to enter floor 71. This was the floor where the top guys had stopped like a truck, not able to take a step forward, to the point where they had given up, opting to focus on creating their own dynasties in the safe zone.
Just how bad could it be?
The first thing Draco noticed was that his new location was an island covered with greenery. Including himself he counted 100 individuals, though Qiong Qi and Clarent were strangely absent, despite having accompanied him.
He missed them for a grand total of 0.134 seconds before deciding to focus on the task at hand. The other 99 individuals were all members of other species, elves, warlocks, gypsies, ogres, orcs and many more. They were all clamoring about and fooling around, seemingly waiting for something.
Draco didn't have to wait long to find out what it was, as the floor details conveniently appeared before him that moment.
｢The Seventy-First Floor – Divine Quest
Description: Drop, shock and rock! It's time for you to dive into the wonderful world of Forkknife and experience the legendary Battle Royale! Drop in with a hundred other fighters into an open world with nothing but the clothes on your back and your will to win. Pick up gear, kill and loot your enemies to become the last man standing! Claim that Epic Victory Royale!
Note: This floor is part of a continuous set. The floor ends once 10 out of the 100 fighters have perished.
Limitation 1: This is a Battle Royale! All stats are harmonized - except Luck - to the same level for all fighters automatically. Movement speed, attack speed and the like will only be modified by equipment effects.
Limitation 2: You may retreat from the floor at any time, but upon re-entry, you would have to resume from the exact situation you were in at the time.
Limitation 3: There is a void outside the battle area that will close over time. The damage it deals to those caught within increases greatly with each closure.
Limitation 4: You cannot use any class skills, equipment, titles or abilities. The only way to acquire power is through loot.
Provision 1: Everyone starts with a basic level 1 shield, level 1 helmet, level 1 floor shield, level 1 backpack.
Provision 2: You are able to select two of any of your abilities or skills to turn into your special abilities and ultimate with mitigated or enhanced effects depending on their power.
Provision 3: This match is played solo, so you cannot summon any helpers to assist you. However, this allows you to have an extra passive skill that no one else is allowed to.
Rewards: Score Points, 1 Platinum-Tier Reward Selection.｣
Draco's lips twitched. A fucking Battle Royale? And not just a random one, but THE most popular FIVR game in the world before Boundless was exactly this game, Forkknife, a feat it had accomplished with a mere 25% realism!
Of course, Draco had played it many times, he had after all been a gamer during his youthful days.
Tsk, tsk, to think this AI was cruel to dig up the content of the game whose livelihood it had shattered to the point it had closed down due to bankruptcy.
That was why one should always fear the AI even if you were a fearless bloke!
Whatever the case, Draco was prompted to choose what abilities he wanted as a passive, as a special ability and as his ultimate. He looked through and pondered deeply before nodding his head, having selected the most awesome sounding ones.
As such, the choices were augmented and shown to him.
｢Passive Skill - Draconic Regeneration: Your recover 1 point of health every second when out of combat. Using healing items yields 100% extra effect.｣
｢Special Ability - True Sight: You can activate true sight to see all the qualities of loot within an area as well as identify all enemies and traps. Cooldown: 30 seconds.｣
｢Ultimate Ability - Dragon Form: Transform into a giant black Dragon that can fly, spit destructive flames and is invisible for 5 seconds. Cooldown: 120 seconds.｣
Draco was immediately dragged onto a small, ramshackle bus that was popping with rock music. Eventually, the bus driver honked his horn, and Draco was made aware that he could not freely dive onto the map. He first checked the map and saw that there were 10 areas.
They were Loot Lagoon, Haunted Cliffs, Pleasant Neighborhood, Tomato Village, Tilted Skyscrapers, Retail Column, Shifty Mines, Salty Lake, Wailing Forest, and Moisty Swamp. Draco sneered when he saw fellows jumping out asap, since the first area the bus passed was around Moisty Swamp.
As for him, he knew these areas like the booty of Zaine because they were ripped from the game by the cruel AI without any alteration. As such, he knew that the one place he should not go to was Tilted Skyscrapers, for that was where tryhards and noobs went to die like dogs.
As such, when Draco jumped out of the bus, he smirked as he headed right for Tilted Skyscrapers.
Sigh... you just can't fix stupid.
Draco ostentatiously landed on top of the highest tower and opened a chest to reveal some items. Out came five of them which he inspected calmly.
｢Steel Sword – Weapon
Rank: Uncommon
Uses: 100 Swings
Damage: 10
Enchantments: Attack Speed +2｣
｢Magic Wand – Weapon
Rank: Uncommon
Uses: 100 spells
Damage: 10
Enchantments: Evasion +1｣
｢Steel Armor – Shield (Lv.2)
Rank: Uncommon
Durability: 75/75
Enchantments: Movement Speed +2｣
｢Health Pack – Item x4
Rank: Average
Uses: 1
Value Restored: 25｣
｢Health Kit – Item x2
Rank: Uncommon
Uses: 1
Value Restored: 50｣
｢Shield Regenerator – Item x4
Rank: Average
Uses: 1
Value Restored: 25｣
Draco collected all the items with a sneer and obviosly equipped the sword. While he wouldn't mind using a wand, it sure as hell wasn't his first option. Also, since he had landed on the top of the most conspicuous tower, it stood to reason that there were definitely other retards who landed with him.
Case in point, a fellow roared as he swung a white-colored axe down. Compared to Draco's green colored sword, it looked mighty inferior and weak. Draco simply sidestepped and performed a casual overhead slice.
The fellow's eyes widened in panic, trying to bring his heavy weapon up to bear, but failed. He was struck right on the head, which counted as critical damage, a bonus of x3.
Draco's sword did 10 base damage, which was multiplied by 3 to become 30. Taking in the fact that the fellow had a level 1 helmet which reduced head damage by 10%, the total damage done was 27 points!
The enemy staggered back with horror, his face warped in pain and anger from his loss. Everyone had 100 Health and 50 Shield Points upon landing, and he had just lost about half of his shield points! Another strike like that and Draco would be eating into his health!
Draco saw this and smirked. He then rushed forward and began assaulting the enemy head-on. Even though his speed had been reduced to an average human's, it didn't change the fact that his skill remained. Not only that, his current sword and shield boosted his Attack Speed and Movement Speed.
What was even more interesting was that even though the fellow occasionally parried and defended, he still took damage since the value of Draco's uncommon sword was higher than his common axe. With the continuous and brutal onslaught, it was natural that the fellow with the axe eventually roared in anguish as he turned into pixels.
As Draco expected, once he fell, his items also played out on the ground for him to pick up. His inventory had limited space, so he only took some of the misc items he deemed was useful.
When he checked his Steel Sword, he saw it had only 62 more uses left, which made him tsk. He needed to loot more and find better equipment so that his battles would be easier than before. In light of that, Draco decided to finally stop playing around.
He first channeled his bloodline... only to find that it had been removed. He sneered at this, realizing that the tower spirit had finally wised up. Since it could not remove Draco's bloodline from his body, it had circumvented the issue by putting his consciousness in another body.
In other words, his 'real' virtual body was still on that island, while this one was a clean slate body with his exact looks. This was a clever loophole for the tower spirit and the AI to find, but it made no difference.
Draco liked his bloodline and it was OP for sure, but he didn't have as much familiarity with it as he did with Control. And no matter how the tower spirit switched bodies, Control would always follow him as it was a technique, not an ability.
With that in mind, he wantonly expanded his VoP and grasped the entirety of the map with ease. However, a powerful suppressed force came down and combated this sense, making Draco frown. Both his VoP and BoG were being suppressed, until the VoP could only cover a single area while his BoG no longer augmented his strength passively, but he could still move around force in his body to temporarily increase power.
In other words, he had been suppressed from Tier 5 to Tier 2 pretty much. The tower spirit could not go any lower because Draco's skill at Tier 2 Control was too potent. He had spent a huge amount of time at this level and most of his achievements had been completed at this level.
The only reason it had even managed to reduce the Tier 5 Control was due to the fact that Draco had achieved Tier 3 and above rather recently in this life and had not had enough time to perfect his mastery over them. This was yet another reason why Draco needed to settle down and find time to explore his various powers proper ply instead of running around and adding more to the roster!
Still, having his VoP cover the entirety of Tilted Skyscrapers was enough for him. With that he knew the locations of all the chests, his True Sight let him see all the loot on the floor and the various fights and battles ongoing as people were reducing each other's health slowly.
Draco smirked and jumped down from the tower he was on. He would have liked to autonomously open all the chests and loot them, but the psychic abilities of Control only started from Tier 3 VoP. Tier 2 VoP didn't have that or he would have been even more godly in the previous timeline.
He spun in mid air and stuck his sword through a window, piercing through the back of a person hiding there. As they screamed in agony, Draco used this to break his momentum and jumped into the window after the person.
That attack was treated as a critical trike and a fatal one, too, so the person's Shields had been totally ruptured, leaving them with 97 HP. Draco swung a few times using Control which enhanced his speed so much that he left a blur, and the person died faster than they could even feel pain from the cuts.
He then kicked a door open and found a room with four chests glowing with golden light. Draco gazed at them one by one and laughed uproariously, not caring if anyone could hear him. He then walked over to each of the chest and opened them, letting their items spill onto the floor before him.
Looking at the pile of purple-colored - Epic tier - and orange-colored - Legendary tier - loot, Draco knew that these set of floors were about to become his playground. However, before he could make a move, the floor suddenly decomposed and ejected him before he could take another action.
｢Congratulations on completing: Tower of Babylon Seventy-First Floor
Time elapsed: 0:05:49
Objectives complete: All
Assessment: EX+
Reward:
75,000 Score Points
1 Treasure Selection Reward - Peak Platinum Grade｣
