Chapter 58: Leaderboard

Chapter 58: Chapter 58: Leaderboard

Strength training increases Strength, and speed training increases Speed. One requires equipment, and the other requires space.

So, what Seraphina Sinclair had been doing was Constitution training, and her Constitution had indeed increased.

’But training is ultimately a slow, cumulative process. For it to increase this quickly... it must be the fish meat taking effect, right?’

She raised an eyebrow slightly and sent a vague reply to Miller to brush him off.

After closing the private chat, Seraphina Sinclair decided to focus on her current training. No matter what, exercise was always useful.

Time quickly passed. At nine in the evening, Seraphina Sinclair ate her simple, homemade dinner while keeping an eye on the Zone channel’s activity.

That player named Julian Lowell seemed truly dead set on not choosing a path. He was still in the channel, bantering with the others.

[Julian Lowell]: Three hours until midnight, everyone! Just you wait and see! I’m betting my life on this today!

A clamor of voices rose up from below his message.

"Dude, you’re awesome! A real man never looks back at an explosion!"

"Julian’s got this! If you really can exploit a bug, you’ll be number one on the whole server!"

"Waiting for midnight! If it works, I’m doing the same thing next week! Go, Julian! We in Zone 888 are counting on you to pave the way!"

"LMAO, the people above are really hyping him up. Are you going to take responsibility when he ends up dead?"

"What’s to be afraid of? Fortune favors the bold! If Julian pulls it off, he’ll be way ahead of everyone!"

"Exactly! What’s the system going to do? Erase him directly? That would be so lame!"

"@Julian Lowell, bro, if you really kick the bucket, I’ll burn paper for you (doge)"

"Hahahaha, the guy above is savage!"

"Julian, don’t listen to them! I support you! What’s the worst that can happen? We die? Living in this crappy world is exhausting anyway!"

"Haha, the person above is even more ruthless..."

Seraphina Sinclair took a bite of fish, propping her chin on her hand as she watched the spectacle.

It was, after all, quite the spectacle.

Before they could see the result of not choosing, the crowd was greeted by a summary of the end of the novice protection period.

Ever since it was mocked last time, the system hadn’t sent any more pretentious messages. The text popping up now even had a hint of sass to it.

[Greetings, survivors! How is everyone doing? Still alive?]

This message seemed to be synced across the entire server, and its update speed was a bit slow. Seraphina Sinclair read the system’s text while watching the Zone’s reaction.

"Why did it suddenly get so personal?"

"It’s hard to imagine this thing used a formal ’we’ the first time it spoke."

"Who taught such a cute little thing to be like this?!"

[The novice protection period will end in one hour, at precisely 12:00 AM. Your performance has been... a pleasant surprise.]

[Current survival rate: 59.3%. This is 2% higher than our expectations. It seems some of you have been secretly working hard.]

"...I can’t believe this. That survival rate isn’t even a passing grade! What the hell is going on?"

"So how many people are left now?"

"In Drakonia, the population between 15 and 59 years old is just over sixty-three percent. People outside that age range basically don’t have the ability to kill a single Rotting Corpse on their own. This means that this Black Mist World survival game, in just the initial novice trial, eliminated 40% of the population! Those of us who survived are both lucky and unlucky..."

"By that calculation... with a global population of 7 billion, the number of people eliminated at the start was 2.8... billion! Is it really that many billion people?!"

"Holy crap... this damn thing is pure evil."

"And now another forty percent are dead. Yep, another forty percent."

"What are you trying to emphasize? Bragging that you’re still alive?"

"Some people would be better off dead."

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t voice her opinion. It didn’t matter what they said, or what the system said. She was going to live, and live well.

[The leaderboards in our Black Mist World are divided into the Advancement Board and the Accumulation Board!]

[Now, you novices, let me first explain the meaning of these two boards.]

[Advancement Board: The total distance in sunshine a survivor has traveled by powering their moving cabin! Ranked from highest to lowest value!Accumulation Board: The total value of all materials a survivor has obtained, whether directly from the influx of black mist, by killing monsters, or through other means, after being converted to a value score! Ranked from highest to lowest value!]

[After compiling these two boards, a composite leaderboard is generated.]

[Starting tomorrow, the composite leaderboard will be updated every two weeks. Rewards will be distributed according to rank after each update! Remember, the higher your rank, the richer the rewards.]

[This time, the leaderboards are calculated server-wide! After the novice protection period ends, each Zone will be calculated separately.]

[Survivors... and now, we will announce the ten players with the best performance during the novice protection period!]

The text froze there.

Seraphina Sinclair took a deep breath, but still couldn’t stop herself from standing up and clenching her fists.

’They’re doing this on purpose, aren’t they!’

’Stopping right here on purpose!’

But the effect was undeniably good. The Zone channel had already exploded.

"Holy shit! Top ten on the entire server?! Isn’t that a clash of the titans?"

"Can anyone from our Zone 888 make the list? Please, let some whale carry us!"

"Stop dreaming. How many people are on the whole server? And how many in our Zone? Getting into the top hundred would be amazing enough!"

"The top ten must all be psychos, right? The kind of badasses who tear through hordes of Rotting Corpses right from the start..."

"Speaking of tearing through hordes of Rotting Corpses... uh? I think we actually have one of those in our Zone!"

"Huh??? Holy crap! He... he really might be on it! He’s the only one who’s ever gotten a server-wide announcement! He’s not actually on the list, is he?"

’Who are they talking about?’

’Who is this "he" they keep going on about?’

Seraphina Sinclair muttered under her breath, "Can you just say the ID? Just say the ID."

The Zone channel granted her wish.

"Blacktiger Ford?"

"He’s definitely a beast in our Zone, but number one on the whole server? I don’t think so."

"Why not? He’s a total beast! Didn’t we go over this before? Even on a server-wide scale, very few people could have pulled off his achievements, right?"

"That’s way too much hype! No way! It’s the whole server, there are too many people, too many variables. No need to hype him up like that..."

’Yes, no need to hype him up like that...’

Seraphina Sinclair remained calm and unhurried, quietly waiting for the system’s announcement.

She was cool with it. As long as there were rewards, it was all good.

"By the way... did any of you notice the system said ’best performance,’ not ’farthest traveled’ or ’most materials’?"

"Yeah! Does that mean the judging criteria isn’t just simple numbers?"

A flicker of understanding crossed Seraphina Sinclair’s eyes.

’True, the system said "performance," not just "advancement distance" or "accumulated materials."’

’So... what exactly are the judging criteria?’

’Is it a simple sum of the two? Or some kind of hidden scoring mechanism?’

As she was pondering this, the system’s text finally reappeared—

[Novice Protection Period · Server-Wide Top 10 Performance Leaderboard Announcement!]

[NO. 10: Drakonia, Zone 13, Fierce Dog Smashes Great Boulder]