Chapter 429: Clear Condition...

All eyes shifted to the speaker...

Who suddenly realized he had yelled out loud and not inwardly as he had intended.

Heck, at this point even Seth had his eyes on the weird-looking figure a few steps down.

It was an elusive candidate who refused to join heads with the others.

But he couldn’t climb higher than the 81st floor either.

A few candidates near the step he was on inched closer and closer towards him.

He felt the weight of the gazes boring into his frame from all sides, the tension and anticipation rising around him.

He wanted to slap himself hard for fumbling like this.

Though he also had to put some blame on his strained mind, which, pushed to the limit, was clearly losing the ability to regulate thought from speech.

He had just had an epiphany about how to possibly clear the trial, and he had mistakenly broadcast it and placed a target on his back.

Now he had placed himself second only to Seth as a target.

The poor folk from the Palud race, a race of lifeforms that dwelled in swamps.

The entire area was silent, but the pressure was suffocating.

The Paludian’s pale green skin slicked over even further, his frame beginning to drip with repulsive, mucus-like substances.

His webbed feet trembled from a pressure that was beyond the strain the stairs had placed on his body.

But the creature, despite the pressure from the silence and the building auras flaring up to intimidate him, decided to keep its lips sealed, its eyes darting from left to right as it geared up to make its next step, fulfilling the condition it perceived to be the only way to win this.

Everyone remained silent, watching him with bated breath.

Those who had been conversing and exchanging ideas had long gone silent, observing the Paludian’s every move.

Seeing that they couldn’t intimidate him enough to speak, this was the next choice on the option list.

Watch and deduce his every move until they could infer a hint from his actions.

Even Seth was focused and invested...

The creature once more shivered under the pressure of the newly gained attention.

Steadying its shaky breath, its eyes narrowing in focus, it slowly but still functionally reviewed its calculations over and over again.

And the clue it had inferred from the system’s briefing.

The exact words relayed by the system were...

[The Sin measures Appetite, not Gilt. Appetite will not be displayed.]

Clearly Appetite was the crucial requirement needed to win this!

They needed to showcase a greed-driven hunger worthy of the greed mantle to win!

That was clearly what this meant, but the system had also said something else that was a very vital clue.

[The staircase has a ceiling. It has never been passed...]

So it meant climbing this grand flight of stairs wasn’t as important as they had been made to believe.

No, it was simply required for them to prove their greed.

Now what better way to display an insatiable Appetite for greed than a dauntless, unwavering advance despite the promise of guaranteed death!

’I knew investing more into intelligence would pay off eventually!’ the Paludian cheered himself on inwardly, ready to make a move.

Meanwhile, back above on Seth’s end...

He frowned as he stared down at the swamp dweller several steps below him.

His brows tucked tight together, doubt etched across his face.

Somehow he felt something was off; he didn’t feel too trusting of the swamp folk’s words.

A doubt stemming from confidence in his own intellect.

He couldn’t simply believe that a frog could deduce the workings of this trial faster than he could.

Despite the strain his mind suffered under, Seth was still confident it was superior to all within this place.

But precisely because he was of superior intellect, he simply couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the swamp folk really had found the clear condition.

It didn’t feel right, but it was possible.

Though he felt bad about a possible loss, Seth was still all for scavenging what he could out of any situation.

His condition was a ticking time bomb, and he had to find a solution before it went off.

So that priority came before his ego...

He shifted his focus from the swamp kin straight away, fixing his sights on the flickering shop icon at the edge of his vision.

The icon responded to his mind, enlarging into a bright, flickering screen, holding his balance points and the list of available items.

A list he hadn’t checked in a while, since he ascended to the 100th floor.

So he was expecting the updated contents to take him by surprise.

Alas, he still underestimated the value of the items he would find.

Seth’s eyes went wide, his breath catching, as he stared in shock and read the details of the first item on the list.

Blinking repeatedly to be sure that neither his vision nor his strained mind was playing a trick on him.

And it wasn’t... no matter how much he blinked, the details remained the same, not a word misinterpreted.

[Pill: Will Forge Elixir!]

[Grade: Unique!]

[Rank: ??]

[Details: A medicinal pill brewed by a saint, said to spark enlightenment in one’s will and instigate an evolution of will...]

[Price: 1,000,000 CT]

Seth swallowed hard, his breath rising by the pitch every second.

His pulse leapt as he wondered: could this be what he had been searching for?

An elixir that instigates a natural evolution in will...

Seth had never known exactly what he was searching for since he accepted the system’s offer and was brought here.

He had an idea but didn’t know exactly, per se, and now something that looked like an answer to his problem lay before him, yet he wasn’t sure it was what he was looking for.

He glanced at his balance...

[Covetous Tokens: 1,329,228]

Sure enough, he had more than enough in balance to redeem it.

Now the only question was: should he?

...

Meanwhile, back at the center of everyone’s focus, the Paludian had readied himself.

His abnormally lanky, long arms rose as his webbed foot showed signs of strenuous movement.

Everyone frowned on detecting this movement, and right away they realized what the swamp kin was doing.

He was taking another step...

Heads swung from one to another as everyone searched for answers in each other’s eyes.

After all, from their point of view, this guy taking another step was tantamount to suicide!

The confusion sat with them for a few seconds, before the sharper ones among them seemed to realize something.