The crystal-lensed youth stood frozen in place.
Never in his life had he imagined he would end up as a member of a world-first-clear team. One glance at the mocking post he had just made on the Cross-Realm Crystal Council, and his face went from pale to green in an instant.
The post's heat was skyrocketing, the comment section a roaring storm. Deleting it now would be the same as jumping up and shouting his own name.
Play dead. Just play dead.
He ground his teeth in silence. Fortunately, the Council's communications were all under the soul mark's projection alias system—no real names attached.
Still, he couldn't hide the shock in his heart.
Six hours.
The outside world would think they'd only cleared it by piggybacking off the intel Wind and Thunder had made public.
But he knew the truth—their entry into the trial had been long before Wind and Thunder ever set foot in Calvin Castle.
Thinking back to the four companions he'd had, he quickly struck the blond punk and the clingy apprentice couple from consideration. Inside that hellish dungeon, only Kael had a steady presence—at least far more reliable than the other three.
Most likely… the first clear was entirely his doing.
[Congratulations! You have cleared the Realm of Trials: Blood Battle of Calvin Castle. Evaluation – A. Rewards: +50 Growth, ×5 Strength Crystals, ×5 Agility Crystals, ×5 Constitution Crystals, ×5 Mind Crystals.]
[First Clear Bonus: ×10 Strength Crystals, ×10 Agility Crystals, ×10 Constitution Crystals, ×10 Mind Crystals, Skill Scroll – Sword Mastery, Rare Material – Frost Marrow Crystal.]
The cold chime echoed in Kael's soul sea, the rewards automatically sliding into his soul coffer.
Fifty growth points… from just a single Tier 0 trial?
Kael raised an eyebrow. If he cleared it one more time, his growth would break a hundred—enough to step straight into a Tier 1 trial.
An A-rank evaluation didn't surprise Kael—after all, he had spent far too long inside the dungeon. If not for personally taking Seth's head in the end, merely surviving until dawn would have earned him nothing more than an E or even an F.
The Calvin Castle trial had only two ways to clear it:
Endure until daybreak—survive through sheer evasion. Low evaluation, low rewards.
Kill the lord before dawn—high evaluation, high rewards.
His run was barely a pass at the second method.
Kael began inspecting his spoils one by one.
Four types of attribute crystals—each permanently raising the corresponding stat by one.
Without hesitation, he refined them all. Radiance poured into his bones and blood, and his four attributes leapt upward:
Strength: 108
Agility: 107
Constitution: 108
Mind: 107
He had already broken past the Tier 0 limit (0–100) and stepped into Tier 1 strength.
Next came the Frost Marrow Crystal—mined from beneath the North Sea glaciers, unbreakable, and a prime material for forging ice-etched weapons.
Kael recognized it at a glance—Seth's greatsword had been forged from this very substance. A pity that items inside the dungeon couldn't be taken out… otherwise, that blade would already be his.
Last came a scroll glowing with a faint golden sheen:
Sword Mastery (Fine · Passive)
You have mastered the use of all sword-type weapons. Sword techniques deal +10% damage.
Kael's eyes lit up—this was a combat art dropped straight from the boss! Seth's swordsmanship had left a deep impression on him.
Fine-quality was already the ceiling for Tier 0 loot—even most Tier 1 trials rarely dropped anything better.
A big win.
Tier 0 allowed for three skill slots, with three more unlocked at each rank. Kael's skill list was still empty, so he learned it without hesitation.
In an instant, countless sword-wielding scenes flooded his mind—one year of harsh training, ten years of tempering the blade, a hundred years of obsession with the sword…
When the visions faded, a shard of cold light glimmered in his eyes.
Now, with a longsword in hand, he was confident he could take Seth's head within three strikes—even at the darkborne lord's peak.
All I'm missing… is a good sword.
A pity—the greatsword he had shattered with his fist had already dissolved along with the trial.
"Exit Trial."
Back in his modest stone townhouse, Kael immediately activated the teleportation array, intending to dive back into Calvin Castle and strike while the iron was hot to push into Tier 1.
But—
The minutes ticked by as he waited for matchmaking, the runes on the stone disc utterly still.
He switched to a different trial. No response. Tried another—same result.
Checking his soul mark's notifications, he understood the problem:
At present, nearly every trial was being entered by full five-man squads. Solo players were rare, and even if he did get in, advancement trials often required a five-man team.
Even if he maxed out his growth points, he'd still be stuck waiting for teammates.
And most strong players already had fixed rosters—they weren't going to take an unfamiliar face.
At this rate, I'll be waiting until the end of time just to rank up.
His conclusion came quickly:
He would have to build a team of his own.
On the Cross-Realm Crystal Council, the frenzy over the Calvin Castle first clear was still snowballing. The bespectacled youth's earlier "hot take" post had been debunked by a mountain of evidence—the six-plus hours on the clear timer alone proved it had nothing to do with Wind and Thunder.
Analysis threads piled up, all insisting the same thing: Kael's party didn't win because they were absurdly strong, but because one teammate had an insanely powerful stealth talent that kept Seth from tracking them. Some even speculated there were plenty of other "rats" hiding in trials, waiting for sunrise to auto-clear.
Kael's team, they said, just got lucky—went in early and snatched the first clear.
As for prestige? Practically zero.
"Yeah, sure, whatever."
Kael couldn't be bothered to argue. Instead, he registered an account under his real name and put up a recruitment post:
[First-Clear Captain Recruiting]
1-carry-4. Clear guaranteed. First come, first served. No holds.
The headline had enough punch—but dozens of replies later, not a single real signup.
Scrolling, Kael found a "leak" and understood why: the blond punk and the clingy apprentice couple had already told everyone they'd spent the entire run lying flat while someone else did the work.
The result? The outside world slapped Kael's party with a loud, shiny nickname—"The Death Party."
Plenty of people wanted a clear.
Very few wanted to get dragged to one.