Guild Wars

Chapter 1196: Rina's First Test

Rina walked towards the first Trial which manifested as a colorful vortex in this wide space. Upon stepping into it, she felt as if she had passed through a thin film of water and emerged from the other side.

Immediately, she ended up on a plane of Fire that raged so thoroughly that even the slightly bit of humidity would be burned away. Rina raised her hand to touch the flames and smiled when they coiled around her, like a child meeting its mother.

｢Blazing Lady – Passive skill

Effect: As a Paragon of the Fire element, you possess total immunity to all attacks using the same element. You are also greatly feared for your caustic reputation for killing the innocent like lambs.｣

Thanks to her Blazing Lady passive skill, she was completely immune to what would normally be a death zone. Previously, it would have just been extremely high resistance but she could still have some trouble dealing with foreign flames, but that had been completely eliminated.

Rina's eyes narrowed as she felt that this plane had to do with her chosen Law of True Fire plus the Impossible difficulty. Just entering this place alone would be enough to turn Rank 7 Fire Elementals into ashes, much less players with fire based classes.

Were it not for her Divine Class's immunity, she would have been dead before even knowing what had killed her. Truly, this AI lived up to its reputation in terms of cruelty and stinginess!

Rina walked in and looked around, finding no signs of life. There seemed to be nothing but endless flames and tongues of fire leaping about the place in a lively manner.

She walked forward for a bit before chancing upon a change in the scenery, which was a white platform that stood in the middle of the fiery plane. As she approached it, Rina saw that there was a simply red colored mat upon it as well as a small pedestal with a red jewel on top.

The moment she walked into the area of the platform, the fire became isolated from her and she was bathed in a feeling of warmness without any discomfort. There were no system prompts, but she guessed she had to sit on the cushion and do something about the gem?

Out of curiosity, she checked the details of the two items.

｢Cushion of Comprehension – Miscellaneous

Rank: Divine

Durability: MAX

Effects:

Passive 1 – Clear Heart: While seated on this cushion, the user will not be able to be affected by any external factors regardless of the source.

Passive 2 – Clear Mind: While seated on this cushion, the users will have their focus honed to a standstill, and they will be able to delve into a mysterious state of comprehension

Active 1 – The Thinker: Increase your mental faculties by 500%. Duration: 30 minutes. Cooldown: 1 year.

Active 2 – Two Heads Are Better Than One: Duplicate your mind and work together on any task. Duration: 30 minutes. Cooldown: 1 year.

Description: This item is a special creation that was prevalent during the old era, enabling many Rank 7 talents to comprehend their Laws faster on their path to becoming True Gods. It also aided early-stage True Gods in the growth of their Laws. However, its effects are limited or nonexistent for True Gods with Laws at or above the Master stage.

｢Condensation of The Fire Source – Consumable

Rank: Divine

Durability: MAX

Effects:

Passive 1 – The Blessing of Fire: When used, this crystal will grant anyone who activates it a temporary Fire Element Soul, Fire Element Body and Fire Element Source Origin for the purposes of its utility.

Passive 2 – Eternal Preservation: The effectiveness of this item never wanes, never weakens nor does it disappear. It can be used once but as long as it is not used, it will exist in a perfect state for eternity regardless of its condition.

Compulsory Active Skill – Connect: This skill is required to be activated for this item to be used. The user links their existence to this crystal and can undergo the process of comprehension by activating the second active skill. Duration: Infinite. No cooldown.

Conditional Active Skill – Consume: Consume the power of the crystal to engage yourself in deep comprehension of the Divine Law of True Fire, filtered out from the Origin Law of Fire and preserved in this crystal. Duration: 30 minutes. No cooldown.

Description: This is a special creation made by the Origin God of Fire during the ancient era to assist True Gods of his element in comprehending the various Laws of Fire under his own domain.｣

Rina was just about to exclaim when the system finally decided to speak up after so long.

｢System to Player Announcement

Detected that player Lusty Wench has achieved the requirements to begin the Trial of Comprehension. Generating conditions for passing based on chosen law, difficulty and circumstances…done!｣

｢System to Player Announcement

The objective of the Trial of Comprehension has been set. Player Lusty Wench must manually comprehend at least 5% of the Divine Law of True Fire to clear this task.｣

Hearing this, Rina was first shocked then furious!

Rina had thought she understood the shamelessness and wickedness of the AI, but she realized she was still a naive baby compared to its cruel schemes.

Draco, Eva and Shuangtian had paved the way for players by coming to the Divine Realm, growing Laws and experiencing various things related to True Gods. Because of that, they, the core members, had the privilige of being able use that knowledge during their Ascension.

However, someone was clearly not happy with this easy progression and decided to throw a wrench into the plans!

According to what Draco and co had learned, players were supposed to pass some combat tests after choosing their Law in the Ascension Road and then become True Gods. There was no need to comprehend anything or do any other test.

Otherwise what the heck would be the point of having Divine Essence for leveling up Kaws? If players were to comprehend stuff like the NPCs, then remove the Divine Essence nonsense and make things equal for both parties!

Rina was about to resolutely quit the test because she was not in the mood for nonsense. If this was how the AI would play it then no problem, Draco would just replicate the Divine items he had used to give himself Divine Laws and hand them out to the core members!

｢System to Player Announcement

Various complaints have been received about the trials by core members of the Umbra guild. After processing these claims, it has been found that the reason for this change was due to the UNPLANNED and UNWANTED intrusion by the core members into the game world from the real world, synchronizing their real and game bodies.

The Divine Law system in the game is against the rules of the universe, so some foundation has to be generated by such UNSCRUPULOUS players on their own for the rest of the system to work. That is why multiple EXPENSIVE aids and assists have been provided by the CONSIDERATE system.｣

Hearing this, how could Rina not understand? Immediately, her furious and cruel expression softened into a kind and gentle one as she spoke with a soothing tone.

"Don't be angry darling AI, who doesn't know you are the one that is kindest to us members of Umbra? Truly, what would we be able to achieve without a hardworking young beauty like you at our backs?"

The AI was speechless because all the other core members in their various realms had just stated variations of the same thing. How could a group of humans with such diverse backgrounds, different personalities and natures, be so united in terms of shamelessness???

Just what was in the water at the Umbra guild that had turned perfectly good fellows into such… such beasts!

Rina then sat down on the cushion and patted it softly. Knowing that it was an exclusive provision for the core members of Umbra who had entered the game world years ago as well as the newer core members who had been 'washed' by the AI after their most recent foray into reality, she felt balanced.

After all, the rules were there! Only Umbra could bully others, no one in the universe was allowed to bully Umbra!

Rina felt her mind immediately clear, with all external considerations and worries fading away like dust swept away by a clean breeze. The only thing occupying her thoughts was her goal and objective, to clear the Ascension Road and become a True God.

Because of that, her eyes settled on the gleaming red crystal before her, and she stretched out her hand to touch it. Immediately, she felt a surge of heat pass through her body as she activated the first Compulsory Active Skill that linked her body with the crystal.

She was given a Fire Body, Fire Soul and Fire Source Origin, but she already had all these things thanks to her class. Though, the one provided by his crystal was admittedly of a higher quality, so she merged them to attain even more affinity with the Fire element.

With a gleam in her lovely scarlet eyes, she activated the all important second active skill which was conditional on the first one, immediately feeling her mind pulled into a different place.

In this new place, Rina floated in the air, where she looked at the wide expensive universe that was covered with huge stars merged into the void. In front of her was an especially huge star that was stagnant, but full of flames.

Hovering before it, Rina could feel the full extent of its awesome power. She had already experienced something similar to this, back when she had been bestowed her bloodline by Draco. The fact that something could give off the same pressure let her know that had to be at the Origin grade or above!

Rina was surprised when she suddenly felt a wave of understanding enter her brain as she looked at the giant star. She immediately sat cross legged and understood that this thing was projection of the Fire Dao Source.

As long as she comprehended 0.001% of its power, she could fulfill the criteria of comprehending 5% of the Divine Law of True Fire. It was simultaneously astounding and humbling to find out that the Law she was qualified to comprehend only made up a very small fraction of this entire existence's scope of power.

Once Rina actually began to comprehend, she was a bit surprised and skeptical. After all, it was coming to her a bit too easily, far too easily if one considered this vindictive AI's track record.

But how could Rina know that the AI was helpless in this regard? It had to generate random bullshit resources because the damned core members entered the game world with their real bodies too early according to its projections, causing them to fully synchronize with their game bodies.

So now, it was tied to their boat, forced to assist them in becoming True Gods using the traditional path for NPCs in order to lessen the backlash it would receive from the main universe. After all, the system by which players were to be given Laws was nonsensical and even Origin Gods couldn't just hand out Laws for free.

The AI could only hope that by letting them comprehend the first stage and then allowing them to use Divine Essence to cheese their way higher according to the system, it would be better than directly bestowing the Law and making it unique to the player.

This thereby created a situation were all 59 core members ended up various voids, comprehending esoteric existences that the AI only dared to copy slightly in order to advance their Laws.

Luckily, it had learned from the situation with Caelo and Rila, ensuring that there were no causal links between these existences it copied and their real forms, otherwise the Evil Trio would have to likely team up with Anubesetesh for a chance to fend off the true bodies of those existences.