VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne

Chapter 305: The Heat is melting my brain

"Hey guys and girls, Especially the girls~ I’m here at the Monument of Power, waiting for my turn to show these guys whose boss." A young man with a dashing smile and an even more dashing face, both of which cost him a pretty penny to get with a few surgeries, said to the small, spherical drone that floated alongside him.

He winked at the camera, causing many of his fans to squeal in delight and send a few extra donations, just to show their love.

"I know, I know. I can’t believe I need to wait either. But we need to give everyone a chance to show their stuff. Even if they aren’t as amazing as your man, that’s nothing so shame them about. Besides, the more people that come, the more people that your man can beat and show them all whose the ma-"

The streamers smug camera flirting was interrupted, thankfully, by a deafening boom that shook the entire building. The people inside let out screams, as for a moment they considered that they were under attack. Perhaps by the crystal cult, under some misguided belief that magic belonged to them.

After a few moments though, they remembered where they were and why they were here, and amongst the stunned silence, someone voiced the question on everyone’s mind.

"No way... You don’t think... that was someone’s power, do you?"

The building and those outside it waiting for their turn, exploded themselves. With excitement! They immediately started to exchange questions and theories with each other.

"Who do you think it was?" "What class could it be?" "It has one of the beta testers, right?" "I saw Reaper of Stars come in, I bet it was him!" "Isn’t Reaper of Stars a necromancer? How could he do that? Idiot." "You’re the idiot! It was probably one of his summons!"

A few fights broke out between squabbling individuals, whilst a few others started to fix themselves up at the mention of Reaper of Stars. Surely a powerful man needed a strong lady by his side, right? Maybe he would choose one of them, right?

While they were all focused on chatting with each other, a particularly dashing streamer - after checking his camera was okay - immediately turned to the leader-board and waited with baited breath.

Theories were great, but confirmation was better. He just had to wait for the right moment, just when it changed, and give the camera a perfect reaction to go viral so that he was always the clip people used whenever they talked about this moment. He knew it would happen, because anyone who could do that should ever be lower than the top place on the power ranking.

The nano-machines composing the wall came to life, as the entire list shifted. Including the previously immovable spot at the top. The Streamers eyes widened and a wide smile spread across his lips, as he prepared to turn to camera and give his totally authentic reaction. However the moment the nanomachines settled down and the name cemented itself on the wall, he froze.

His face paled, his smile melted from his face and his eyes trembled with terror at the two paltry words at the top of that list.

’Belladonna Walachia’

Images of a woman soaked in blood flashed into his mind. Her crazed smile, those wicked and utterly insane crimson eyes, and the dagger sticking out of her throat.

The Streamer, who played Dawd under the name of Ladiesman217, shuddered in abject horror. For the first time in his life he gave a genuinely authentic reaction, as he simply muttered under his breath with a trembling voice.

"She’s here. The Baroness is here."

***

When the smoke cleared, as it was pulled out of the room by cycling vents, Valerie lowered her arm. The magic rune in front of her dissolved into the air, like cotton candy in water, as did the shield that it conjured.

The circle for the fireball spell had already dissolved, and a shield was easy to construct with a large enough rune and a good influx of mana. She didn’t think she would have needed it, but it seems she had misjudged just how effective her new magic form would be, especially when combined with the refined mana of a level two source.

Still, as she stared at the result of her spell with a wince of pain, Valerie realised she might have gone just a little overboard for a simple test.

The Dummies were completely destroyed, and a large chunk of the wall had been carved out from the explosion. The wall that remained was slowly being relieved of its glowing red aura, as it rapidly cooled down from the cycling air currents.

With the objects that were supposed to measure her damage levels completely obliterated, it was probably safe to say that she passed that test with flying colours.

Valerie turned to the examiners, who were staring at the smouldering crater she had left in their testing range, and gave them an awkward smile.

"So uh, I really hope those were insured or something."

"I-it’s fine. We can repair it." One of the examiners said, peeling his eyes away from the damage and putting on a forced smile, which just looked creepy with how passive their expressions had been up until this moment.

"Don’t you worry about it Miss.... Ashcroft." He continued, having to check his notes for her name as he kept up the sycophantic act, "It is our fault for not being ready for someone of your calibre. You have set a new precedent of power for the Monument."

"Right... Okay... Well, You’re welcome I guess." Valerie said with an awkward and half hearted laugh, rubbing the back of her neck.

It was one thing for people to fear her as Belladonna, the terrifying Baroness of Blood. But as Valerie, she had been looked at with pity for so long that all she wanted was for people to look past her. To just be another face in the crowd and be accepted.

But now she stood out from their fear. It was so bad that when she shifted her cane, the examiner flinched ever so slightly. It didn’t matter that she had saved them just moments before, because it was only the destruction that had a lasting effect that their eyes kept drifting back to.

Valerie couldn’t help but glance at Beans, who was sitting on the table and staring at her with pride in his emerald eyes. She could only imagine how they would react if Beans transformed.

With creepy smiles on their faces, the examiners had Valerie approach the table again and, after giving Beans some ear scratches, she was made to measure her mana levels again. This was their countermeasure to people power loading before the initial test.

It measured efficiency in spell-casting, as well as gave a better indication at your mana levels and even possible regeneration.

So, when Valerie’s result came back almost exactly the same, with the only difference being the blue light had shrunk down to the size of a pin head, whilst the green light stayed bright as ever, the examiners had little to say about it.

It was the least surprising thing they had seen all day.

They quickly tallied up her score for the tests, simply putting a max score for the third test, before sending it off to update the leader-board, as well as sending a copy off to another individual through secure channels along with recordings of the entire test.