The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 161

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 160: Sword of Judgment (8)

The swordsmith returned the sword on time, just before seven o’clock in the evening. The repaired [Sword of Judgment] looked no different from the original one, but without a doubt, its properties had been remarkably enhanced.

Even the naked eye could tell that the Holy Light of Judgment was gleaming more brightly than before.

But when he opened the system panel and took a look, Tang Cuo couldn’t help but frown.

[Sword of Judgment]

Classification: Weapon

Quality: Legendary

Status: Locked

Description: The sword of Theodore, Duke of the Kingdom of Hundred Flowers, with the blessing of the 13th Elf King Aimee. An enchanted weapon (damaged). Legend has it that when the Holy Light of Judgment shines on Earth, all evil will be exposed. Engraved skills: ‘Meteor’, ‘Phantom’.

Not counting the two additional skills that had been engraved on this sword, the word ‘damaged’ was literally right at his face. Did the swordsmith lie to him? Didn’t he repair it at all?

Tang Cuo shook his head and denied this. He was more inclined towards the possibility that neither Edwin nor the swordsmith could truly see the [Sword of Judgment]’s problem.

The name of this dungeon was [Sword of Judgment]. There must be a secret behind this. Could it be that the secret was hidden here?

Tang Cuo wasn’t able to figure it out for now, so he took the time to try out the two engraved skills. The system didn’t give much description, but Tang Cuo could roughly tell that ‘Meteor’ came from the Starry Sky stone that Edwin had mentioned earlier, and ‘Phantom’ came from the unicorn’s horn.

No. 14 Walling Street was too small to use this skill, so Tang Cuo directly headed to the secret realm to try it out.

‘Meteor’ was a skill that allowed him to jump and kill at the same time. When jumping down from a high place, 200% of the usual energy could be triggered to achieve the biggest critical hit.

‘Phantom’ was short for ‘Phantom Sword’. As the name suggested, the sword was like a phantom that blurred the enemy’s line of vision, making it impossible for them to determine the sword’s real direction.

Both of these were accumulative skills and could only be activated when the Holy Light of Judgment had been racked up to a certain extent. One activation of ‘Meteor’ was roughly equivalent to three activations of ‘Phantom’ and five activations of ‘Holy Light Shield’.

As for the improvement of the [Sword of Judgment]’s other aspects, the system didn’t explain, which meant Tang Cuo had to experience it by himself. He then pulled out the parchment Edwin gave him and started to practice his sword fighting skills without stopping at all.

The name of the sword skill was very long — ‘The Secret Sword Fighting Skill of the Holy Tucha Empire’. It wasn’t a single sword fighting skill, but a set of skills of a true orthodox knight. Each move was crisp and neat, making it very suitable for Tang Cuo’s style.

The Holy Tucha Empire should be the full name of the Tucha Empire. With Edwin’s status, it wasn’t surprising that he was able to produce such a document.

In addition to sword fighting skills, Tang Cuo also possessed new magic skills that Roger Reeds taught him. There were only two days left in this trial. He must seize the time and, like a dry sponge absorbing water, obtain all that was necessary for the final battle.

After practicing for about four hours, Tang Cuo found a secluded spot to gulp down a potion and rest for a while. Two hours later, half of the long night had passed, and he rushed to the battlefield with such zestful spirits.

On the other side, Jin Cheng wasn’t staying idle either. His choir has expanded from the original twenty-something to seventy or eighty people. More and more children couldn’t resist the temptation of beautiful candies and joined his team.

On this fifth day, Jin Cheng also established a new battleground — the tavern. He used the ‘temptation of money’ to borrow the mouths of drunkards and spread the heroes’ stories as quickly as possible. It was definitely too late to teach songs, and Jin Cheng didn’t have that many people who could sing well enough to put up live performances in big taverns; however, everyone could tell stories.

There was no need for them to pass on these stories exactly word by word. This was simply the starting point, and the rest of the stories remained open-ended. As long as the word ‘hero’ was in the title, victory was as good as his.

Jin Cheng needed to plant the ideas of a hero in everyone’s hearts, and the performance in the square on the last day was the catalyst for the ideas to become reality.

Day after day, time passed like this, and finally, it was the last day of the trial.

Tang Cuo got up in the afternoon and looked around the house but couldn’t find Jin Cheng. At that point, Old William came back from the back garden with a kettle and said: “Lancelot went out early in the morning. He did come back at noon, but the palace had sent a carriage to pick him up.”

“They picked him up?”

“Yes, he has gotten a name for himself as of late. I heard that members of the royal family love the music that he recently composed, so they extended an invitation to him. When he comes back from the palace, he won’t just have a name, rather, he’ll be known all over the continent.”

Old William surely had his unique sense of humor.

Tang Cuo didn’t expect that Jin Cheng could really squiggle himself into the palace. Or perhaps it was the plot. Lancelot should’ve gone through this as well.

For a while, Tang Cuo stood in front of the sofa and had a staring contest with Charles II in complete silence. Neither of them wanted to pay attention to the other, so Tang Cuo calmly returned to the second floor. Not long after, Roger Reeds came back through the teleportation formation in the study room, and Tang Cuo began his studies once again.

At dinner time, Jin Cheng finally came back. As the royal carriage brought him to the door, he attracted plenty of admiring gazes from the neighbours.

Tang Cuo and Charles II looked at him together. Crossing his arms, he asked: “Is the princess beautiful?”

Jin Cheng pondered carefully for a moment and replied: “A little bit.”

Tang Cuo: “.”

Jin Cheng chuckled: “If the Prince is willing to change into women’s clothes, I think the people of the Kingdom of Hundred Flowers may be very happy to have a princess.”

Tang Cuo didn’t understand what this man was smiling about.

You are gay, have you forgotten?

A prince wasn’t any less worrisome than a princess, okay.

Jin Cheng, who was actually straight and just pretended to be gay, was confused for a moment, because Tang Cuo’s expression now showed an even bigger full stop than a usual full stop, like a full stop to the power of 2. Only after they entered the house did he manage to solve the mystery with his own intelligence. He grabbed Charles II and rubbed his head hard, as though it was Tang Cuo.

Charles II: “Meow?”

“The prince is only 1.75-meter tall. Probably only a little taller than Edwin.” Jin Cheng abandoned Charles II again and moved closer to Tang Cuo.

Tang Cuo threw him a sideways glance and couldn’t tell whether his words were addressed to the Prince or Edwin.

Edwin wasn’t tall. The Duke of the Kingdom of Flowers was only about 1.73 meters in height. When they met that day, Tang Cuo was surprised to find that he was a head taller than Edwin.

His Excellency the Duke must be an honest man. He didn’t even put on insoles.

Speaking of which, the Elf Prince McCow wasn’t tall either. Was this a distinctive feature of the noblemen of the Sicilit continent?

Tang Cuo slandered inwardly with a calm expression on his face. He picked up the milk tea brought by Old William and took a sip full of sweetness before turning around: “The palace didn’t keep you for dinner?”

Jin Cheng: “No, they wanted to have me as a musician for the court, but I refused. The queen asked me to say hello to you.”

“Did you trigger any side mission?”

“No.”

There had been two consecutive missions where no side mission was triggered, which made Jin Cheng a little worried that they might’ve missed some fragments of the movement. But then he thought about it, since Yan Ye reminded Tang Cuo to exchange the Golden Movement for an Easter egg game, it proved that she did see Tang Cuo obtain the movement in her divination. If nothing was triggered, it might simply mean that the movement wasn’t in this dungeon.

As the two talked, the topic naturally and harmoniously turned into a serious matter. When Roger Reeds came downstairs and saw a scene of two young men sitting and discussing things, he couldn’t help but show a trace of relief in his eyes.

“Dinner is ready.” Old William exclaimed loudly with a smile, and the three of them moved to the dining table and enjoyed a sumptuous dinner together.

This was probably their last meal at No. 14 Walling Street.

While eating Old William’s secret-recipe grilled dried fish, Charles II looked up from time to time at the people at the table. The most serious one was its master, and the one with the nice smile was its new favourite. They all loved him very much.

It was just that every time that white-hair creature appeared, their eyes would be lured towards the him, which made Charles II a little bit envious. It lowered its head and licked its own fur again — the one with black hair is obviously more handsome.

Humans really don’t know how to appreciate true beauty.

After dinner, the final trial commenced. Tang Cuo had nothing else to hand over, so he turned around and left with Roger Reeds. After a few steps, he heard Jin Cheng’s voice from behind.

“Remember to come to my performance?”

“.”

Tang Cuo coolly turned around and shot him a glance.

Jin Cheng knew. It meant Tang Cuo understood.

Ten minutes later, inside the secret realm.

Roger Reeds began the last lesson of his trial: “At this point, let’s release a magic strike that you think is the most appropriate, and that you are best at. Use the shortest amount of time and leave no room for error.”

Tang Cuo thought for two seconds and released — a fireball.

Roger Reeds wasn’t surprised: “This is what you think is most appropriate and that you are best at?”

Tang Cuo: “Yes.”

Roger Reeds: “Congratulations. At the very least, you’ve got a passing grade.”

In a battle where every second counted, not overly pursuing high-level magic was an important quality of a mature warrior. What mattered more was that Tang Cuo was still a knight, and Roger Reeds didn’t want him to give up close combat and focus solely on magic.

This would be a huge disadvantage against The Rose.

“The last thing I want to teach you is compression. ‘Fireball’ is the most basic among all the basic skills. Any wizard apprentice can learn it, but few people know that it can be upgraded. Use your mind power to compress the fire element; if there are one hundred fire elements in a basic fireball, after compression, it may contain five hundred or one thousand. Its damage will become multifold.”

Roger Reeds stood on the ruins with his cane, raised his hand, and a fireball leapt out of his palm. He immediately clenched his hand to tightly grasp the fireball, opened it again, and before Tang Cuo’s eyes was —

The light on the outer layer of the fireball was dancing, and the colour of the flames had suddenly turned from ordinary orange to red, forming a small, bright red fireball that seemed to be condensed with extremely high temperature.

“Watch closely.” Roger Reeds threw the fireball. The fireball lightly flew across the night sky and leisurely landed on the broken wall not far away.

“Boom —” There came a loud noise, and a large crater with white smoke appeared on the ground.

“What you have to do is not just compression. Did you see my casting speed just now? To achieve a high-level fireball like just now, you need to reach the speed of an instant release. Only then could it be helpful.”

Otherwise, other high-level magic skills could completely take its place.

Tang Cuo nodded.

This would be fine. He was a professional at shooting fireballs.