Chapter 655: Causality Alignment

{ Congratulations! The Final Wave has been successfully defended! }

{ The Trial of Defense has come to a conclusion. Calculating the Destruction value of the Defenders’ Castle... }

Unlike how it was with the first Encroachment Gate, the Destruction value, equivalent to the Encroachment rate displayed then, was kept a secret all the way until the second and final Encroachment Gate’s Trial came to an end.

No explicit reason had been stated in the novel, but Leo guessed that this was once again done in pursuit of realism.

While the first Trial was built to instill a sense of urgency that kept the Trial Challengers on pins and needles as they saw the timer tick away, the second Trial was more grounded in nature.

It didn’t matter how fast you did it, or how you managed to do it.

The sole thing at stake was keeping your ’home’ safe for the most part. Knowing the value of the damage dealt to it held no meaning, as one shouldn’t allow even the least bit of damage to reach it.

{ 2.89% }

"Haaa..."

Looking at the small number engraved into the sky of the battlefield, Leo let out an audible sigh.

He had truly given it his all, and this number was the crystallization of his, no, their efforts.

If not for the image he had to maintain, Leo would have willingly succumbed to his urge to celebrate.

Perhaps, saving the world of this novel wasn’t impossible after all!

’At this rate, my biggest worry might not even exist anymore.’

Imagining the best-case scenario, Leo was on cloud nine.

From the very beginning, his aim for a perfect clear of the Trial was just a kind of expectation leveling.

Just as the saying goes, aim for 100% so you can hit the nineties.

Considering how Aurora had been forced into getting the amazing score of 49.49% in the novel, 2.89% was practically the closest thing to perfection.

{ Special rewards will be given out to contributing challengers for keeping the Destruction value under 10%! }

{ Destruction value had been kept under 5%! The value of the allocated rewards increases by another tier! Causality alignment will be enhanced! }

’Oh?’

Given his past experience, Leo was already expecting the omitted setting to kick in. In fact, he was banking on it.

However, he didn’t expect that there was more to get than the basic rewards. Getting a higher score had actually strengthened the reward!

’Well done, Kara!’

Once again, Cassian’s aloof image was the only thing keeping Leo from singing praises in Kara’s way.

After all, if not for her timely save, getting these strengthened rewards would have been out of the question!

’Now I just need to pull the right one.’

Although Leo wasn’t sure what causality alignment actually meant, he felt like this mysterious reward enhancement was meant to serve his purpose even more.

{ Your contribution has been calculated. Please proceed with selecting your reward. }

All of a sudden, a sparkling golden red light shone at the top of the Defenders’ Castle before splitting into three portions and shooting off in different directions.

’Does that mean Aurora didn’t receive anything last time? Or was the first time more stealthy?’

Properly seeing that all three of them were getting rewarded, Leo wondered if this was due to the cooperative nature of the Trial of Defense.

Perhaps the first Trial could be attended by different parties, including opposing ones, while by the time of the second Trial, all forces were supposed to get together to face the looming threat...?

’Did it possibly gauge our emotions and behaviour to decide if we should see the reward being distributed or not?’

"Woah. This is..."

Looking at the golden red wheel taking form in front of Kara, Leo confirmed that the view he was granted was still limited.

Even when using shadows to observe the wheel from Kara’s perspective, he was still unable to see its contents. Only a blank surface was visible.

’It doesn’t really matter, I guess.’

Barely keeping his curiosity in check, Leo focused on the golden red wheel that was taking form in front of him.

Although knowing what Aurora and Kara would get was bound to be helpful in making a better plan for the finale, that would only work if they were open to taking more directions from him.

In Aurora’s case, no such thing was guaranteed, but in Kara’s case, as long as she didn’t have a change of heart, she was very likely to tell him everything he needed to know later on as well as accept the directions that followed.

’It does indeed look more enticing.’

Were the stronger colors meant to signal the enhancement of the reward? Leo did indeed feel that way.

’Is this what causality alignment means?’

Unlike last time when the wheel was split into eight partitions, this time, only three partitions were available in front of Leo.

Some believed that having fewer options was a bad thing in general, but it was rather relative.

And when it came to a game of probabilities like the one the golden red wheel presented, fewer options were an absolute win!

As long as the options that were eliminated were of lower quality compared to the present ones, the odds would only become more favourable.

Even if only two of the options were of the highest quality and the third one was a dud, it was still statistically a better deal compared to having to share the odds with options of less value.

’It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.’

If enhancing the reward meant decreasing options but keeping the same ratio of jackpots to duds, then they might as well have not enhanced it.

’We will never know without trying.’

Drawing back from his past experience, Leo familiarly let the stream of extended golden red light sting his finger, initiating the spinning of the wheel...

{ Reward selection in progress, please prepare to receive your reward. }

{ ’Enigmatic Eyes Of Influence’ has been chosen. }

{ The awakening of the ’Enigmatic Eyes Of Influence’ will be imparted to you. }