Chapter 7 – Epic Challenge

Hundred Flow City, Colosseum:

The Colosseum was a massive building that occupied an area spanning six sports stadiums and extended over 300 meters into the air. It was without a doubt the most prominent building in Hundred Flow City. Just by approaching the Colosseum’s metal gates that measured several dozen meters in height, players could feel a strong bloodlust radiating from the building.

When Shi Feng arrived before the Colosseum, over 200,000 players had already flooded the place. Among these players, only a small part of them were players who had recreated their accounts and entered Hundred Flow City, while most of them were players who had teleported from the main continent of God’s Domain.

As Shi Feng made his way into the Colosseum, he saw many players hawking their wares by the entrance.

“Selling six-piece Level 100 Dark-Gold Set Equipment for cheap! Each set only costs 2,000 Gold Coins or 200,000 Credits! You can use it up to Level 120! It is a must-have for new accounts!”

“Level 150 Epic Equipment going for only 2,000 Gold per piece! Level 150 Epic Weapons going for only 5,000 Gold each! These are must-haves for those challenging the Colosseum! Stock is limited! First come, first served!”

“Six-piece Level 120 Epic Set Equipment for only 20,000 Gold! Ten percent off paying by Credits!”

Hundreds of players continuously hawked their wares in front of the Colosseum, adding even more noise and liveliness to the crowded establishment. This was a rare sight in God’s Domain nowadays. It was as if the game had reverted to its launch day.

Only, not many players took these hawking players’ offers. Instead, most of them looked at these hawking players in contempt.

“These merchant players must be insane! Level 150 Epic Weapons are only going for 2,000 Gold outside, yet they’re asking for 5,000 Gold here! This is daylight robbery!”

“I know, right? Thankfully, I bought myself an eight-piece Level 150 Epic Set Equipment before coming here. Also, players can only bring up to 1,000 Gold and not a Copper more to the Miniature Ancient World. These people must’ve lost their minds!”

Ten years had passed since God’s Domain launched, and players had already explored over 90% of the game’s available maps. Hence, currency in God’s Domain was no longer in as high demand as it had been initially.

At launch, players could exchange one Copper Coin for up to 30 Credits. Now, though, one could get one Gold Coin, which was the equivalent of 10,000 Copper Coins, for just 90 Credits. Meanwhile, the exchange rate had remained like this for two years without changing.

Although the Miniature Ancient World’s release had affected the recent pricing of God’s Domain’s currency, the change wasn’t particularly drastic since players could only bring a limited amount of money into the Miniature Ancient World. Hence, the exchange rate had only gone up from 90 Credits to 100 Credits per Gold Coin.

Of course, currency wasn’t the only thing players were limited to bring into the Miniature Ancient World. The weapons, equipment, tools, and materials they were allowed to bring were also limited. For example, items at the Fragmented Legendary rank or above were prohibited, and some powerful Epic items were barred. Moreover, players were only allowed to bring up to Level 150 Epic Weapons and Equipment. For expert players seeking to explore the Miniature Ancient World, this was a massive restriction. After all, only items at the Fragmented Legendary rank or above could allow players to transcend tiers.

However, most players entering the Miniature Ancient World welcomed these restrictions. After all, even in this day and age, the number of players in possession of Fragmented Legendary items and above was few and far between. Not to mention, over 90% of them were the executives or peak experts of the various Guilds. If these players were allowed to bring such powerful items into the Miniature Ancient World, ordinary experts would stand no chance against them.

With these restrictions, though, everyone would have a fairly even starting point since even ordinary experts could get their hands on Epic Weapons and Equipment so long as they were willing to put a few holes into their wallets. Hence, Guild experts would no longer have as much of an advantage over independent experts in the Miniature Ancient World. These restrictions had undoubtedly created an opportunity for many players seeking to explore the Miniature Ancient World.

Meanwhile, Shi Feng was also one of the beneficiaries of these limitations.

Before returning to God’s Domain, Shi Feng had even thought about selling his mansion to exchange for Coins. After all, a six-piece Level 150 Epic Set Equipment alone would cost over a million Credits. He also had to buy individual Epic Equipment pieces and Epic Accessories to fill the rest of his equipment slots.

At the end of the day, he was merely a Level 100, Tier 3 player right now. Even if he had amazing skills, without having a bunch of Epic items to support him, he would still have a difficult time getting by in the Miniature Ancient World, let alone reaching the apex of this world.

After looking at the various items the merchant players were selling, Shi Feng shook his head and made his way inside the Colosseum. He had to admit that these merchant players were exemplary businessmen. The prices they sold their Epic Weapons and Equipment at were truly reasonable. After all, the prices were only two or three times higher than those found outside the Miniature Ancient World…

If Shi Feng had to rely on these merchant players to fully equip himself in Epic items, the Credits he currently had on him wouldn’t be enough at all. He would have to sell the mansion he had as well…

Not to mention, the priority of players who had just entered the Miniature Ancient World wasn’t to spend all of their funds on weapons and equipment. Instead, they needed to spend their money on supportive consumables.

In the Miniature Ancient World, the areas outside of NPC cities were filled with a strange and corrosive energy. So long as players left the protection of NPC cities, this strange energy would immediately start corroding their bodies. Once the corrosion level reached a certain point, not only would players lose Stamina and Concentration rapidly, but they would even have their Basic Attributes reduced as well. Eventually, they would even lose their lives to the corrosion.

For this reason, players could only spend a very limited amount of time outside of the confines of cities.

Meanwhile, players would need to rest inside NPC cities to expel this corrosive energy out of their bodies. And if players wished to expedite this process, they would have to consume expensive foods or potions.

In addition to supportive consumables, players also needed to save their money for the crucial services offered in NPC cities, and one of these services was the Colosseum.

The process of acquiring the opportunity to reconstruct one’s Mana Body in the Colosseum wasn’t free. On the contrary, players had to spend a fortune to acquire this opportunity.

The Colosseum was split into five floors, with the first floor being used as a reception hall and the second to fifth floors being used for challenges. The challenges were split into four ranks, namely Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Epic, and each of the four floors corresponded to a particular difficulty. The rank of the challenges also corresponded to the rank of the Mana Body players would get to create. Meanwhile, the cost of the challenges ranged from 10 Gold to 500 Gold per try. It was undoubtedly an exorbitant expenditure.

It should be noted that new characters created in the Miniature Ancient World were only provided with a starting fund of one Gold. This wasn’t even enough to pay for a Bronze Challenge.

Hence, after entering the Colosseum, Shi Feng spent the two million Credits he won from Luo Tiancheng and bought 20,000 Gold from a few merchant players. He would use this money as his starting capital in the Miniature Ancient World.

After acquiring his starting capital, Shi Feng headed straight for the fifth floor. The fifth floor only housed a few arenas, and each one was almost the size of two football fields.

Currently, in one of the few arenas, a player was fighting against ten eight-meter-tall, four-armed Sea Giants. The player looked like an infant in front of these Sea Giants. Moreover, these Sea Giants possessed a special Bloodline, and even the weakest among them was a Level 100 Great Lord, while the strongest was a Level 100 Grand Lord. There was no doubt that the Sea Giants had the upper hand when it came to speed and power. So, the player fighting these Sea Giants dared not confront the Sea Giants head-on at all.

To make matters worse, all ten Sea Giants were armed, with some of them wielding shields, some wielding longbows, some wielding spears, and some wielding greatswords. They also synchronized their movements with each other, moving as if they were of one body. They attacked the player continuously, giving the player no opportunities to catch his breath. The player would be besieged from all sides should he make even the slightest error while dodging.

Eventually, faced with this constant pressure, the player wearing Epic Set Equipment crumbled in less than twenty seconds, his body perishing to an arrow the size of a ballista bolt…

“That’s another one…”

“Isn’t the Epic Challenge’s difficulty a little too high?! I know that guy, and he’s a Tier 4 expert who had long since reached the Refinement Realm already, yet he didn’t even last 30 seconds! Can anyone even survive the one-minute requirement?”

“That’s right. Over a hundred Tier 4 experts have taken the challenge already, yet none managed to succeed. It seems we’ll have no choice but to go for the Gold Challenge instead.”

“A Gold Mana Body is plenty good already. Some Tier 5 experts only have Silver Mana Bodies.”

After seeing one expert after another fail the Epic Challenge, the thousands of experts present started changing their minds about going for the Epic Challenge.

However, just when some of the experts present were about to leave for the fourth floor, the spectators on the other side of the hall suddenly burst into gasps and cheers, attracting the attention of everyone in the hall.

On the other side of the hall, a beautiful woman with her silver hair tied into a ponytail slowly walked out of the arenas there. The woman was clad in seductive black leather armor and wielded two crescent scimitars in her hands. As the woman left the arena, the words “Challenge Successful – A-rank” appeared above the arena.

“What?! Someone succeeded?!”

“Crap! A-rank?! She lasted two minutes?! Who is that person?!”

“I know her. She’s the first-rate Guild Mysterious Moon’s Nightingale Zhuo Yalin. She’s the vice commander of Mysterious Moon’s Third Legion. I heard that she was only half a step away from reaching Tier 5. I didn’t think she would come to the Miniature Ancient World as well…”

The spectating crowd was in disbelief when they saw the silver-haired woman named Zhuo Yalin completing her challenge. They also couldn’t help but grow envious of the woman. After all, her success meant that she had earned an opportunity to construct an Epic Mana Body for herself.

For an expert of Zhuo Yalin’s caliber, if she could successfully construct an Epic Mana Body, then her future would be limitless.

While the spectating crowd discussed Zhuo Yalin’s success, several experts from Mysterious Moon excitedly approached the silver-haired woman.

“You’re amazing, Big Sis Zhuo!” a female Oracle dressed in white robes exclaimed as she looked at Zhuo Yalin with sparkling eyes. “You’re the first person to ever pass this Epic Challenge! With this, our Guild will become famous in Hundred Flow City!”

“It’s only the challenge that I completed. It’s no big deal. The important part has yet to come,” Zhuo Yalin said, smiling while shaking her head. She did not grow prideful over her recent success at all. This was because completing the challenge was only the first step to reconstructing her Mana Body. The truly difficult part was the actual reconstruction of her Mana Body.

However, despite Zhuo Yalin’s words, many of the experts present in the hall still approached her to strike up a conversation and ask for pointers. Everyone present was well aware of the Epic Challenge’s difficulty, and it definitely wasn’t as easy as Zhuo Yalin made it out to be.

Meanwhile, during the time the many experts were crowding around Zhuo Yalin, Shi Feng approached an unoccupied arena in the hall.

“Each challenge costs 500 Gold,” the arena’s manager, a Level 150, Tier 4 NPC, indifferently said to Shi Feng. “You will receive varying rewards depending on the evaluation of your challenge. Do you wish to proceed?”

“Here’s the money,” Shi Feng said, nodding. He then handed 500 Gold to the manager and walked into the arena.