Neffie had been afraid that she would be forced to explore this place with her Dad since she had entered in his arms, but the moment they entered the tower, she got her own number, number two, and an individual quest. As soon as she accepted, she found herself alone in open grassland, with the sound of Hyenas barking in the distance.
"Is this the first trial? They're not big on warnings or preparation time, are they? I guess they wanted it to have maximum reality." Neffie muttered to herself as she heard the Hyenas getting closer.
With her new class of Demonic Overlord, all her skills cast at the strength of her best defensive skill while in her own territory, which the tower conveniently was, making this possibly the greatest present she had ever received.
Since it appeared that the monsters were going to be attacking suddenly in here, Neffie decided that she would Mimic Vala, who was the strongest physical combatant she knew, as a preventative measure against getting jumped.
Taking out her sword and shield, Neffie braced herself for the arrival of the Hyenas. The first one came flying at her, leaping from a full-out run and Neffie smoothly removed its head with a [Slice]. That spread [Pestilence] into the crowd while Neffie knocked the still-flying body away with her shield.
With all the grace she had mastered through her combat training and the dance classes with her mom, Neffie tore into her enemies, making short work of Magical Beasts at her own level.
"Being Vala is fun. But she needs more ranged abilities." Neffie muttered to herself as the floor changed and she was set upon by a group of Naga Wave Casters.
She actually had to chase these ones, since they kept trying to get the range to cast. Neffie wasn't used to flying in Vala's body, and she was a bit awkward at it, making the chase more difficult than would normally be necessary.
"Wait, I'm an idiot. Vala has summons too. Oath Breaker, I require assistance." Neffie narrated her actions as she called for the eight Bonded Forces summons, which appeared at Mythic Quality thanks to her status as Overlord.
"How may we help, my Queen?" Oath Breaker asked when they appeared. The Demons were all excited to see what she would do since Neffie hadn't summoned them before.
"Will you please kill those danged Naga? They keep running away and it is becoming more than a little bit annoying." Neffie pouted.
"It would be our pleasure." They agreed, before vanishing and reappearing beside the Naga. Within the span of a single second, Naga Blood was flying in every direction while Neffie cheered.
"Yes, this is the life. Stupid Naga." She cheered as the scenery changed again, leaving her and the summons standing in an empty ballroom.
Cain made a tower full of challenges for us to play in. Or, he ordered his Watchers to do it, so pretty much the same thing. We just need to find the enemies and kill them until the scenery changes." Neffie instructed while looking around for a clue as to what the challenge here was.
That tactic worked amazingly until the eleventh floor when she appeared in an open field with five Dragons flying above her. Oath Breaker could do many things, but the demon couldn't fly.
"Sorry guys, but it is time for a change. Record Keeper, you're up." Neffie switched her summons with a smirk, unlike the Oath Breakers, these ones were very good at flying.
But the dragon that it cloned was Laura, and Laura was never known for fighting fair. The Dragons all tried to freeze her at the same time before the Demons could get their bearings and begin to act.
They responded quickly, freeing Neffie and attacking the Dragons, but they were injured too, and not heavily Armored in a way that could resist the claws of the shimmering Opal Prismatic Dragons.
Neffie and her forces were defeated before she could mount a proper defense, and the little Demon Queen realized that Laura was a better fighter than Neffie had given her credit for.
When she left the tower with a huge smile on her face, shifting back into her own form, her dad and most of the off-duty guards were waiting for her, eagerly anticipating her results.
"Well, how did it go? What took you out?" Cixelcid asked, picking Neffie up into his arms.
Five copies of Laura. I was mimicking Vala, and they ate my demons way too fast." She explained, her fluffy white ears twitching with annoyance just thinking about it.
"Every battle is a learning experience. Think about what you could have done better, and then apply that the next time you are in a similar situation." Cid told her with a smile.
Neffie was excited to fight, while her dad was excited to see her lose and have to learn to adapt and strategize on the fly. The tower wasn't just a test of skill, it was an incredible teaching resource of the sort that Cixelcid had been lacking to keep his overly ambitious daughter's ego in check.
"Did you get anything good from the Quest?" The city guard captain asked while Neffie tried to come up with a way she could have won that fight. She still hadn't completed the Quest, so Neffie quickly checked her interface and selected to retrieve her random daily quest reward.
A white, stuffed dragon plushie appeared beside her, which Cid quickly caught. It was cute, fluffy, and looked just like Laura, but Neffie glared at it like the stuffed animal had insulted her honor.
Then she grabbed the toy, snuggling her face into the soft fur and letting out a sigh of contentment.
The onlookers hid their smiles and went to line up for their turn in the tower, leaving Neffie to be carried back into the house for breakfast.
All over the Central Continent, similar scenes were occurring as the towers were finished and the Watchers organized the first day of visitors.
Most of the time they changed appearances to blend in with the locals, but they quickly found that a pair of full-grown Ancients at the door of the tower was much more effective at keeping people from misbehaving. That also gave them back their Tentacles, so they could easily grab people at a distance to sort and organize them.
Plenty of transfers were upset about being manhandled like that, but there wasn't much they could do about it. Even if they didn't care about the tower, none of them could challenge the Watchers, so they had to just put up with whatever they decided to do.
Once they saw the rewards, including the experience earned during the trials, the animosity towards the Watchers' heavy-handed behavior quickly evaporated. Most transfers didn't realize or didn't believe, that the Quest was a daily reward, making it infinitely more valuable than a one-shot event.
The residents of the Long Fang Valley had learned that the rewards granted by subsequent attempts weren't as good unless you improved your previous best, but it still gave bonus experience and sometimes items.
The loot wasn't as reliable as the dungeons were, but it was better matched to you personally and you didn't have to argue with group members about who got what share, a source of great relief to many transfers who mostly adventured with random groups they met outside dungeons.
Even the pure healing classes got something to challenge their skill set. It was more in the nature of a workout though. If the system determined that they had very low combat ability and high healing, it would reverse the scenarios and have the applicant heal a copy of random challengers while they were attacked.
Avoiding being killed was part of the challenge, as well as keeping your ally alive while they killed the attackers, and the further up the tower you went, the harder the System made it to do both of those things at once.
Unlike many others who simply got overwhelmed, the healers were usually exhausted by the time they left the tower.
The consensus among the defeated clerics was that the tower was biased against healers. They insisted that they got only the most incompetent allies, but more than a few warriors thought the bias might be personal. They too had been mocked by the System inside the tower and cruelly beaten by enemies that were a hard counter for their class.
While most of the Continent was becoming accustomed to the presence of the training towers, in the Demon Kings castle, Chaos reigned. The tiny Blood Dancers had every bit of self-confidence and arrogance that the Demons with Ancient blood were famous for, and they had made it their personal mission to "liven up the place".
The guards thought they knew what to expect since they had dealt with Neffie. But as it turns out, ten sisters were exponentially more trouble than ten individuals. They gathered, they plotted and they coordinated with each other. You didn't have to deal with the intelligence of one child ten times, but all ten of them all the time.
Just a few minutes before King Aggramor finished his daily meetings with the Nobles they had managed to help some of their group escape the castle grounds entirely. One of the particularly ornery nobles had told them that little girls should be seen and not heard, and they didn't take it well.
They had infiltrated his house and set a curse that would cause bagpipes to play whenever someone entered or left a room. At the time when the King left his throne room, none of the Royal Guards had yet managed to find the core of the spell so they could disable it.
Where the girls got the curse from was secondary, the sound of bagpipes could be heard for blocks around the unfortunate Noble's manor, and the combination of Staff and Royal Guard searching for the source was only making things worse.
In the end, it took an order from King Aggramor to get them to admit that they had layered the curse on the Hell Hound that guarded the property. He had spells on him already, that were intended to alert the owner of the property to trespassers, so nobody had noticed the one extra spell.
"Brat Pack, assemble." The former King called, drawing all the young Blood Dancers to the living room near their quarters in the castle.
"I have been fully appraised of your latest effort and I must say I am disappointed. I will give you a solid B for creativity, and barely a D for execution. Revenge should not involve outsiders, a tarnished reputation is impossible to repair. Plus, every time someone passed through a doorway? Far too predictable and easy to circumvent. I expected better of you all.
I want full-page apology letters and individual two-thousand-word reports on how your plan could have been improved, following the guidelines for discrete revenge that I have given you. No sweets or desserts until both punishments are done.
Dismissed."
