Chapter 21
Tutorial 2nd Floor (Part 2)
The poison crept up my bloodstream.
As time pa.s.sed by, more symptoms arose with greater intensity.
But, I was still able to withstand it.
It may probably sound like my usual boasting, but I have a special ability.
A special ability I received after being on the verge of death time after time in the last month.
It’s like sensing death.
I could tell, at any current situation, how close I was to dying.
Really.
Hm, this time I crossed the Styx river, greeted my ancestors and came back.
Oh, I only came back half way this time.
Seems like I just washed my face on the river. Good.
I was just doing warm ups for the swim in front of the river now.
After describing each danger I came across like this, I managed gain the ability.
Although to say, it’s lacking in credibility.
Anyway, from what I feel, I am quite far from river Styx.
Like the final stop before the Styx River toll gate?
All these symptoms I’ve never felt before, paralysis, headache, stomach ache and edema were apparent, but the pain wasn’t significant enough to be lethal.
What would probably be serious for me to cause a swift death would be from getting into a state of shock.
And with this body equipped with the highest pain resistance skill available, mediocre pain like this wouldn’t even come close to causing shock.
It’s still somewhat bearable.
Let’s stay like this alittle more to get some poison resistance skill, then drink the potion.
I closed the potion’s cork, after planning my actions from here.
Hm… actually, it was such a waste to drink the potion now.
This trap happened to be the first trap of the 2nd floor.
I was still fairly close to the waiting room.
If I could, I would just go back to the waiting room, without using the potion.
I briefly thought about how probable it was.
[You have received Poison Resistance Lv.1]
Nice timing.
I pulled out a strap from my inventory.
I brought it in case if the bleeding got out of hand, to survive alittle longer by tightening the blood vessels.
I strapped it on the calf above the ankle, to prevent any more poison from spreading.
But, it has probably spread everywhere by now.
Slowly after, I stood up.
I remember the instructions I was told in the case of getting bitten by a poisonous snake in the mountains.
Maybe it’s from the end of the year Workshop I went to in my pro team back in the day.
I moved my body slowly to not raise my heartbeat, just as I was instructed.
I picked up the poisonous darts on the floor.
Including the one that was on my ankle, there were 5 in total.
I began my slow walk toward the waiting room.
During the walk, I found the situation I was in quite funny.
Here I am, with a giant arrow piercing through my arm and all sorts of symptoms coming out from being poisoned, but I look like I’m just having a walk in the park with the way I’m walking.
Maybe in the near future, I would really become something like a troll.
Or perhaps, an amoeba that was able to simply duplicate when cut in half.
As I snickered at myself, I felt something abnormal in my body.
The paralysis suddenly became worse.
Waht was bearable before now became much more intense. The paralyis which was simply spreading across the body before, changed.
With the intensity greater, moving my body became much more difficult.
It wasn’t to the point of being unable to move, but very difficult.
There were times I just kicked the air without walking, and I almost fell over once as I stumbled my way back.
My breathing became quicker.
Ah, the poisons gonna spread quicker this way.
I’m slowly seeing the parking lot for the Styx River.
Cold sweat appeared all over my body.
I’m gonna be dehydrated on top of everything now.
At some point, I managed to reach the portal to the waiting room.
Rather than entering straight away, I sat right in front of it.
I took the strap on my leg off.
Then regretted immediately.
The rate at which the poison spread and it’s intensity increased dramatically.
My hands and feet began to shake.
I was having trouble breathing.
The paralysis became much stronger.
[You have received Paralysis resistance Lv. 1]
My vision became much more narrow aswell.
My thought process began to slow down.
It’s the opposite of the effect when I use battle focus.
I can only hear my heartbeat in my ears.
Bab.u.mp. Bab.u.mp.
I was listening to the sound of my heart without a thought, as if it was a lullaby.
I raised my right arm, and twisted the arrow on my left.
The pain woke me up slightly.
At this moment, I thought I may die with the portal just in front of me.
Did the paralysis reach my brain aswell?
Wouldn’t it be so sad to die without entering the waiting room, just because my brain slowed down.
With the portal just a hair’s breath away?
This was the end for the dangerous game.
[Will you enter 2nd Floor waiting room?]
Yes.
I felt the portal’s lights wrap around me, then lost conciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, what I saw was the waiting room’s ceiling.
Phew.
I was scared for a second.
When the poison spread to a certain point, the body’s state deteriorated at an extreme pace.
It seems I need to be careful when raising the poison resistance by withstanding the poison in my body.
But at the same time, it’s not like its to a point where I don’t want to do it again.
I’ve done it once now, and with the resistance skill aswell, I should be able to stand it much better.
[Poison resistance Lv.1]
[Paralysis resistance Lv.1]
Seeing that poison resistance was received, I can say for certain that it’s poison on those darts.
The paralysis resistance is because of the paralysis symptom from the poison.
Once I reached the portal, the paralysing effect of the poison became stronger.
Not just the paralysis of the body, but breathing stopped, and conciousness dropped.
In my honest opinion, rather than the poison, it’s the poison’s paralysing effect I’m more worried about.
Ah, what happened to the poison darts?
I found the 5 needles next to the giant arrow on the ground.
Regrettably, perhaps because of the waiting room’s effect, the poison was completely purified.
I saved the needles in the inventory, just in case I needed it later.
I stood up and reached the portal again.
There’s no point in waiting, so let’s venture more.
In the 1st round, I left without conquering the floor completely because I was short on time.
I won’t let that happen again by wasting the time away.
Telling that to myself, I advanced into the 2nd floor once more.
[Welcome to Tutorial Floor 2, h.e.l.l difficulty]
My first aim was to attain Poison or Paralysis resistance to Lv.3, if not both, by the end of today.
The required experience to level up increase exponentially with each level, so I need to hurry.
If I reach my aim, or the day has gone past, I will stop the poison resistance training, and reach beyond the 1st trap.
It’s important to raise the resistance skill from the 1st trap for safety, but it’s also important to progress through the tutorial in the given time.
Pang-
I twist my body to dodge that ballista of an arrow.
I didn’t make any wasted movements beforehand like parrying with a sword, not to mention I knew when it would come aswell, so I was ready to dodge it before it was even coming. I didn’t even need Battle Concentration for this.
This is why information was important.
Ping- Ping-
Lastly, the poison darts coming from behind.
It was easy to block with the shield, since I turned around as soon as I dodged the last arrow.
But this was not the end.
I took out the needles on the shield, and took it to the portal.
“Of all things I’ve done until now, I’m doing something like this now.”
I mutter to myself as I lean on the wall next to the portal.
I don’t usually talk to myself when n.o.body was around, but with the situation I’m in, it just came out on it’s own.
It wasn’t something new to me.
I’ve already been cutting myself in the past in order to raise my resistance during spare time.
But it was quite different to poison myself by stabbing poisonous darts into myself.
It felt like I was taking the right steps into evolving into a troll.
I picked one of the darts and stabbed it deep into my right hand.
It was pierced much closer to the heart, compared to the time at my ankle.
The spread of the poison may be different because of that, so I needed to be careful.
And I needed to know and differentiate between each limb when they are poisoned.
I began to feel the effects after a while.
Pain on the area and paralysis.
Cold sweat appeared, while having a sick stomach.
My head began to spin with dizziness, and conciousness dropped.
The paralysis spread, and soon it began to intensify.
It’s definitely the same as before.
Everything was going smooth.
Let’s try my best and finish it by today.