Nelligan hadn't shown a hint of despair all this time, but the moment he seemed to have deduced something, it felt like his world was crumbling. He spoke about losing to Leonel as though he tried to snatch candy from a baby and actually ended up failing.
Leonel frowned. From one of them? What was that supposed to mean?
"One of them? What does that mean?"
Nelligan stopped flailing about and looked Leonel dead in the eyes. He didn't seem like he was going to say anything at all, until Leonel suddenly lightly touched the spear pierced into his shoulder.
Although Nelligan didn't make a single sound, his jaw still set. It was clear that he was clenching his teeth quite hard, but he tried his best to hide it. Unfortunately, even without his Ability Index, something like that couldn't escape Leonel's attention.
"I'll ask again. What does that mean?"
Nelligan sucked in a cold breath and shook his head. "Go fuck yourself. If you don't know, then tell you. You tell me, what would you choose between dying and your family? You're not going to get anything out of me."
Leonel frowned. He didn't understand what these words were supposed to mean. Why did giving this information to him place Nelligan's family in danger?
Leonel looked into Nelligan's eyes, but he already knew that it was a futile expert. Of all the emotions he had seen Nelligan display, none of them had been fear, even when Leonel could have taken his life with a single stroke. It was clear that Nelligan, although weak, was someone with backbone.
"What a load of horseshit..." Nelligan mumbled beneath his breath. "... Since when did those places have someone capable of suppressing their Spear Force to this extent..."
Leonel thought about just taking Nelligan's spear and leaving. If there wasn't any information to be gained, then this was all worthless. He felt that it wasn't necessary to kill someone, taking his spear and kicking him out would be enough. But then Leonel realized something else.
"Alright, I'll let you go on one condition. Tell me everything you know about this tribulation. If you don't, or I catch you lying to me, your family can wait for your corpse."
Nelligan didn't seem to be as opposed to this, this wasn't a big deal. But then he lamented the fact that he had actually lost to someone who had no idea what was going on. Nelligan assumed that Leonel must be the first to trigger the complete tribulation, or else he wouldn't be so clueless.
To make matters worse, since Leonel was so clueless, then that meant that he had gained an idea of what to do by observing him back then. If not for Leonel spotting him before, he would have no idea that he could ingest Beast Crystals in this world.
Nelligan really felt like kicking himself. This was worse than dropping a weight on your foot or even shooting it, he might as well have nuked his entire leg off. He had basically created the man who kicked him out of this tribulation.
"This is the complete tribulation, it's different from the three sectioned tribulation as it will only appear once."
Leonel's gaze narrowed. Nelligan had corrected a thought he had almost immediately. He had assumed that there would be three of these tribulations exactly like this one. What had triggered this? Could it be what happened that day he lost consciousness in the Void Tower?
"What's the goal of this complete tribulation?"
"Territory conquering. You're already doing just fine," Nelligan said, his saltiness clearly evident in his words. "By clearing all the beasts in your territory, you gain the right to leave it and attack another. If you defeat the ruler of that territory, you get their spear and can upgrade your own. In addition, your territory will fuse with theirs. This will cause stronger beasts to begin to spawn, giving you a better shot at absorbing stronger Beast Crystals and benefiting more."
Leonel's irises flickered.
"How does this end? What are the levels of completion?"
"Clearing one territory is the basic pass and can grant you the Black reward. Ten for Bronze, 100 for Silver, a thousand for Gold. As for how it ends, that depends. Usually it's when there's only one participant remaining, sometimes it's when there's been a stalemate for too long, at other times it's when all of the remaining participants have decided to accept their rewards and move on. It's possible for you to leave right now if you wanted and just accept a basic pass."
"There are that many participants at once?"
"No. Humanoids aren't the only ones who command territories. There are special territories with King Beasts and there are some with powerful and unique spears in control of them that can spawn warriors. Any combination of these works."
"Humanoids? It's not just humans?"
"... Of course not. In fact, humans are probably the minority in this place."
Leonel's gaze narrowed. Nelligan's words seemed to imply something. It was likely that the people in the know about these matters were more likely than not, not human. It seemed that once again, the Human Race was lagging too far behind.
"What else aren't you telling me?" Leonel asked.
"For the rules, that's really all there is. The rest are little details. It would make no difference if I told you or not. If I tried to list them all, you'd be here all day and you'd only fall behind the others."
"Then what about the competitors?"
"If what you mean to do is ask for my advice, then I advise that after you claim ten territories, you cut your losses and accept the Bronze Reward."
Leonel frowned. "Why's that?"
"For one, the Bronze Reward is already enough for you to rule over your little corner since you come from one of them. And secondly, if you try to push for Silver, claiming 100
territories will definitely put you in their line of sight, you'll already be lucky to not run into them after claiming 10."
"Who's them?"
"The other Races, of course."
"Why should I fear the other races? Aren't they suppressed just like we are in this place?"
Nelligan looked at Leonel and shook his head.
"In this place, we're all stripped down to our baseline and left with nothing more than our Spear Force. You think about it, humans versus the other races, who has the higher baseline?
Without our Lineage Factors and Ability Indexes, we're screwed. However, their abilities are too ingrained into their very bodies to be completely suppressed.
"The Rapax will always have exceptionally strong bodies and no amount of suppression is going to remove the metal that coats their bodies. The Cloud Race's shifting ability is ingrained into their very person. Although they can't shift in this place, they can still analyze all of your abilities and counter them with a change in the battle style.
"And the worst cheaters of them all, the Spirituals, still have souls separate from their bodies. While their bodies are suppressed, the suppression to their souls is much weaker because it needs to be. After all, your real body is in suspended animation right now, it's your soul that's occupying this puppet body for you to use. If it was suppressed too, everything that made you, you, would be gone and then there wouldn't be a point to these trials.
"Some of those bastards can use their affinities and even portions of their Lineage Factors...
"You think about it, what chance do humans stand, exactly?"
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