Along with that was the Law of Mystic Damage and the Law of Mental Suppression. Both of these Laws were new, but their uses were truly good. The Mystic Damage Law could add even more offensive might to a skill or ability along with Malevolent Darkness and Damage Enhancement.
Finally, Draco chose to upgrade the so far unused Law of Energy Barrier. This was a Law that allowed him to imbue anything with a potent energy barrier effect. It was a purely defensive Law that could turn one into a turtle shell, but since it was an energy barrier, it could be used creatively.
For example, it could be imbued into a trapping skill. This way he could trap a person within the energy barrier and then toy with them to death. He could also apply it to a Destruction Energy skill, turning it into an effective counterattack. Draco was already looking forward to seeing the face of anyone who would find themselves on the other end of that.
He was sure that it wouldn't take too long for that image to become reality when he would use it to resist the attacks of other True Gods. Kuiper was a poor representation of a True God's power because his Law was mostly supportive. By the time he faced offensive True Gods like Flashflame or Sunna it would prove its real usefulness..
So now, after the increases, his Laws looked like this;
｢Name: Draco
Class: Abyss Eternal
Race: Hybrid (Human/Ultima Sunt)
Rank: Demi God (5)/True God (???)
Level: 245
Exp: 4%
Law Rank: Basic Intermediate
Divine Essence: 9,910/10,000 9,910/100,000
Str: 255 (Current Total = 510,000)
Dex: 255 (Current Total = 510,000)
End: 255 (Current Total = 510,000)
Int: 255 (Current Total = 510,000)
Spr: 255 (Current Total = 510,000)
Cha: 255 (Current Total = 510,000)
Lck: 271 (Current Total = 542,000)
Law(s): Law of Malevolent Darkness (Intermediate), Law of Damage Enhancement (Intermediate), Law of Energy Fusion (Intermediate), Law of Energy Barrier (Intermediate), Law of Mystic Damage (Intermediate), Law of Mental Suppression (Intermediate), Law of Attack Velocity (Basic), Law of Dexterous Boost (Basic), Law of Movement Velocity (Basic), Law of Damage Avoidance (Basic).
Combat Skills: Necrotic Hands, Malevolent Spirit, Cruel Beast Summoning, Evil Curse, Life Steal, Divination, Sinister Shot, Dark Resurrection, Beckon, Subsume, Angel's Blessing (Corrupted), Mind Blast, Charm, Spirit Suppression, Soul Fortification, Mystic Conversion, Duplicate, Elemental Corruption, Soul Warp, Banish, Cauldron of Evil, Generate, Dark Transmutation, Crone Summon, Swamp Fae, Talent Swap.
Non-Combat Skills: Fae's Blessing, Soul Bond, Charm, Insight, Foresight, Flexibility, Illusion, Confusion, Evolution, Ultimate Stealth, Pinnacle Intelligence, Species Shift, Dragobond, Aether Conversion, Eternal Strength - Rank 5 (Passive), Eternal Speed - Rank 5 (Passive), Eternal Endurance - Rank 5 (Passive), Eternal Intelligence - Rank 5 (Passive), Eternal Spirit - Rank 5 (Passive), Eternal Luck - Rank 5 (Passive), Combine, Disseminate, Source Origin Stealer.
Tradeskills: Smithing (Semi-Divine), Alchemy (Semi-Divine), Enchanting (level 100, 0%), Magical Engineering (level 76, 21%), Scrivener (level 85, 64%), Privateering (level 72, 32%), Dungeon Creation (level 34, 40%), Skill Fusion (level 34, 40%), Refinement (Level 0, 30%).｣
Draco cursed. This AI was truly cruel, and his second assumption had been right, the increase in Divine Essence requirement was exponential! A player would already have spent countless weeks farming for Divine Essence by killing True God monsters in the Divine Realm.
Now you wanted them to expend almost ten times more effort to progress once more? Do you have any conscience?
Even if the player discovered this Divine Trial and luckily acquired a token, it did not grant success. If they had difficulty with normal True God monsters and had to party up for that, how would they manage against a carefully crafted True God monster used for this trial?
Taking another step back, even if they possessed a great talent on par with Umbra's core members, not every player could be like Draco and singlemindededly invest in Laws. Divine Essence was literally the bottommost tier of item you could purchase with Divine Trial Score.
For Christ's sake, there were literally Semi-Origin and Origin Grade items in there that could yield more value to a player or NPC than Divine Essence or Comprehension Scrolls that allowed NPCs to further their Laws.
Draco could only do so firstly because he and his babes had too many Laws to invest in and secondly, they had the Divine Draconic Treasury which had 90% of the items listed here, so they could withdraw it in the future if they needed to.
In other words, forget about rapidly progressing as a player after struggling through the first 7 Ranks of the Mortal stage. If you thought that point would unlock the end game content you would be sorely mistaken, becoming a True God merely meant that you completed the early game content and were now at the mid game.
The Origin level was likely the end game content and Draco could only imagine what the AI had planned for that level.
He then checked the leaderboard for the Nightmare stage.
｢Divine Trial Leaderboards
Level 1 Nightmare Mode Rankings:
1. True God Eternal Slumber
2. True God DarkFire
3.True God Sylvester
4.True God Galadron
5. True God Puthi
6. True God Leo
7. True God Damian
8. True God Moro
9. True God Parkinson
10. True God Daru
———————————
34. True God Draco
35. True God Lysis
36. True God Nightingale
Rewards will be privately sent to each True God accordingly upon refresh.｣
Draco tsk-ed with a cruel smile. Life was truly unpredictable. From being first on the rankings in the Easy Mode, True God Lysis had fallen to the 35th position on Nightmare Mode. Then again, they had been on a steady decline with each floor, so this was not a surprise.
True God Nightingale had always been at the 10th spot and dropped to such a low level. Not to mention True God Moro who had been low and charged upwards with endless grandeur and momentum, only to fall back down like a bitch.
Now that he had done what he could, it was time to challenge the final difficulty: Impossible Mode. Draco closed his eyes and steadied his mind before choosing to begin. Sent to the same small world, he casually glanced at the now six Kuipers who trotted over with the same vigilant look on their dog faces.
｢The First Level (Impossible Mode) – Origin Quest
Description: You have undertaken the Impossible Mode difficulty of the Divine Trial's First Level, Noble God. Prove yourself worthy. Defeat your allotted foes within the time frame and according to the limitations placed on you.
Limitations: Item, ability, skill and equipment usage are banned. All Laws are reverted to the Basic level.
Provisions: Increased Divine Essence and Divine Trial Token rewards. Reduced time penalty. Slight increase in Divine Energy recovery speed. Increased Divine Trial Score.
Rewards: Divine Trial Score.｣
Draco's expression changed many times in a shot while. He was thoroughly shocked that the AI could be so limitlessly cruel to both players and NPCs, especially the latter.
He had initially though that by limiting skills, the AI had reached peak maliciousness, but Draco now realized that he had been too optimistic. This was a whole new level of cruel.
Not many True Gods who came here had Basic Laws. Only players would probably do that. Most True Gods in existence were above the Basic Law stage and were at least at the Intermediate level.
With so many things stripped away from them, the only way to get a good score on previous difficulties was to rely on their Law that was one tier higher than Kuiper. This was why despite Draco's good result, he still hadn't entered the Top 10.
Those other True Gods likely had Laws above the Basic level and could suppress Kuiper even with those restrictions placed on them. However, now that too was taken away and left them at the basic level?
To compare, they were not fighting one True God monster with a Basic Law, but fucking six of them! Even with a higher ranked Law, that was hard enough, much less with a Law at the same level.
The amount of Divine Energy needed to face all of them even if you had the technique to avoid their blows and weave through them…
Yeah, from every corner he could look at, this was truly impossible. You'd need to possess some things that were almost possible to have otherwise, like the Mage God Title which granted Subjective Magic, and the ability to use multiple Laws along with a top-tier Source Origin with plentiful energy.
The AI didn't factor in banning Titles for the Divine Trial, because literally who else had them apart from Draco? Most Titles in existence were auxiliary and provided small bonuses like raising the owner's crafting success or reduce item ship prices, or granted reputation.
Literally only the Mage God Title granted a whole subset of power that could be used freely, and there was a limit of two for the Title.
Draco shook his head. He was not too bothered because what was impossible for others was simply routine for him. Literally apart from there being an extra Kuiper now, this round was no different to him than the one before.
As such, Draco activated the same combination of Laws and got to work taking down his foes. Since there was one extra Kuiper, he had to limit his energy usage, resulting in this battle getting more drawn out so he could recover some energy in time.
This naturally caused his final time to be significantly longer, but Draco was not worried. After seeing the requirements needed to pass the stage, he was confident that even if he wasn't in the top 20, he would definitely be in the top 10.
He panted heavily as he checked the results after returning straight to the lobby.
｢Congratulations on completing: Divine Trial First Level Impossible Mode
Time elapsed: 0:10:51
Enemies Killed: 6/6
Assessment: EX+
Reward:
3,400 Divine Trial Score. (Note: This is the base amount. The extra reward from the level provisions will be added later.)
20,400 Divine Essence. (Note: This is the base amount. The extra reward from the level provisions will be added later.)
50 Divine Trial Tokens. (Note: This is the base amount. The extra reward from the level provisions will be added later.)｣
Draco was surprised by his exceedingly high score. Just by successfully completing the impossible difficulty of the first level, he had gained more Trial Score than all the other difficulties combined!
Not to mention that when boosted by the provisions, his Trial Score was increased by 340%, meaning the final amount was a whopping 11,560!
After that was his Divine Essence, which was also boosted by 340%, making 69,360! Split between the Evil Trio, each person got 23,120 Divine Essence. Added to their remaining 9,190 Divine Essence, they now had a total of 33,030 Divine Essence each!
As for what Eva and Shuangtian spent theirs on, that was for them to figure out. Draco though, was torn between raising some more Basic Laws up or saving up for an Advanced Law. If he had known that the Impossible Difficulty would payout this much, he would have just waited!
Then again, it was not entirely impossible to get an Advanced Law since he had 11,560 Trial Score which meant that it could be exchanged for 1,156,000 Divine Essence! Theoretically, if a Basic Law cost 10,000, an intermediate cost 100,000 and an Advanced Law cost 1,000,000, then with these points, one single person could jump straight from a Basic Law to a Master Law!
Just what kind of concept was this? That was like going from Rank 1 straight to Rank 4!
Before Draco could decide what to do with his 'wealth', he noticed that a screen appeared before him. When he read the details, he became speechless as his mind almost exploded.
｢System to Player Announcement
Congratulations Player Draco. You have set a new Universal Record for clearing the First Level Impossible Mode of the Divine Trial and have been given 10 chances to draw from the reward pool!
Keep working hard!｣
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