Today began with the first test drive of the Factory adventuring tournament preliminary fight gauntlet. The name is not final, by the way. FATPFG is not a good acronym. We’ve just been calling it ‘the preliminaries’ in our communications, so I’ll also be calling that. The Factory has been busy preparing for them. The number of smiths who came wasn’t as many as I wanted, but still a decent number showed up. And everyone who didn’t yet have Mental Visual Designing, especially those who haven’t seen the skill, were blown away by the design tables the Factory has. Sadly smiths really haven’t been big visitors, but maybe now more will show up. But thanks to the uncommon visitors, I got some data on how quickly someone can level up their Designing skill when they have access to a design table. And the answer is really fast. If your skill level was under 3, you could gain a level in Designing with 1 Factory session. Which, as a reminder, is 2 real life hours. Of 10 Factory hours with the current active time dilation. Sadly I didn’t get anyone who didn’t have the skill, so I couldn’t measure how long it would take them to get the skill, but I can probably get one of the dhampir students to come to the Factory. I’ll teach them all about the Designing skill, and we’ll see how quickly they can get it. Anyway. Back to testing the preliminaries. And my first test subject is the main host of the tournament, Wendy Hero. She was starting where everyone will start. Picking equipment. “Wait! How do you have this sword available?” Wendy asked, pointing at the Factory replica of Demon's Pride and Fall. “It is just a replica. It isn’t the real deal.” I told her. “Oh, and it doesn’t have the limit of only being usable by a Hero, so feel free to test it.” “No, not that. I know you can do that. But how do you know the sword well enough to replicate it?” “I can … wait. I need to confirm something.” I said to Wendy, stopping myself from telling her what a perfect System Support holder can do. Instead I had Laura send an inquiry on how much I’m allowed to tell people, and can I tell them that I can access all the appraisal results. But instead of getting an answer, I got a Factory visitor. Laura warned me of the incoming System Agent and I asked her to guide them here. This happened via a portal Laura opened next to me, and the materialized System Agent walked through. “Oh, hi Tamaki.” I greeted a third of the Goddess. “Didn’t expect you to show up.” “I had the time. And I heard his descendant was here, so I came.” Tamaki responded. He then turned to face Wendy, who looked both confused and … actually, she is just extremely confused. Flabbergasted, some might say. Yeah, I know. Tamaki looks like the Hero. Most System Agents look like their holders. Sure most of ours have their own appearance and personality, but that is because of the Factory. So unless the holder was someone with a vivid imagination, System Supports often just take their appearance when the holder dies. “T-Ta-Tamaki? As in the System Support Tamaki? The System Support of the Hero?!” Wendy asked, her voice raising as she talked. “Yes, that would be me.” Tamaki confirmed. “And you are Wendy Hero, correct? The 67th generation descendant of the Hero?” “... y-Yes, Sir.” Wendy responded, sounding very prim and proper. It almost caused me to laugh, since Wendy actually appears older than Tamaki. Wendy looks like she is almost fifty, while Tamaki is something like 25. … That is actually something else interesting. The three Agents that make up the Goddess. Tamaki, appearance vice is 25-ish. Sicily is like 14. She looks very young. And Joan is around 40, I’d say. So why those ages? Are they important to the holders in some way? I’ll try to ask Tamaki before he leaves, but I don’t want to ask in front of Wendy if I can. Maybe, if Tamaki sticks around, I can ask when Wendy is testing the monster gauntlet. I let the two speak for a bit while ramping up the time dilation of this area of the Factory with Time Magic. Tamaki noticed I did so and looked at me, to which I responded with a shrug. I just tried to give them more time to talk. Not like we aren’t all busy. Sure some of us are more than others, but still. Eventually the two of them were done with their talk, a lot of which was just Tamaki saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘you don’t have the permission to know that’ to Wendy. Luckily the Hero’s descendant didn’t seem to mind. So with their talk over, Wendy headed into the test qualifier. And she began by choosing her equipment. For her weapon, she picked the replica Holy Sword. That is actually what I called it in the display. Though as said before, it was just a replica. It looked correct, but the stats weren’t there. It has an even +300 Strength boost, and if you have a ‘Warrior’ based race, you also get +300 Defense. Basically any sort of job race counts for the race part, by the way. Changing the boosts is just a way of balancing the weapons for qualifiers. Basically everything gives a boost of +300 in some stat. And if you meet some sort of requirement, you get a bonus +300 in a different stat. Now, as I wanted to add more strategy to the qualifiers, I also allowed you to preview your next opponent, and you could change your equipment to counter them. Actually, I should just go over how an entire ‘round’ of the qualifiers go. So, as you know, it starts with picking equipment. Sword, armor and additional things such as potions. You have a limited number of ‘money’ to get all of that, and more powerful things cost more. You then beat the first opponent, which will be the same for everyone. And that monster is Gigobyte. It is a weak vanilla level 1 with stats anyone who has trained can take on. And after you defeat it, you get some money. And then the first choice comes up, you get to pick between a few ‘quests’. Like defeating Petit Dragon, or fulfilling a ‘wanted dead or alive’ poster of Spellbook Magician of Prophecy or Kagemusha of the Blue Flame. Now just accepting any of these jobs will get you a bit of money. Kagemusha the most and Spellbook Magician of Prophecy the least. You can use that money to get more equipment, more potions or even hire one of my monsters to help you. Then you hopefully beat the quest, which is just a fight really. And if you can take in ‘dead or alive’ targets, you get a bonus pay. With monsters, if their materials are in good condition, you get a bonus. And I think you get it now. It is simple, but there is a ton of strategy involved. And there is also some RNG involved, as the quests beyond the first one aren’t set. You always get an easy, medium and hard choice, difficulty vice, but they aren’t always the same monsters. This is just to make sure people can’t communicate or warn others too much. But at the same time, I didn’t limit the number of times an individual can try to qualify. They can run the preliminary gauntlet as many times as they want, as long as they have turns in the Factory. And don’t worry, I made sure people can’t hog the machines. I learned from what happened with Myla. But let’s continue Wendy’s test run through the gauntlet. She went against Kagemusha for round 2 and successfully brought him in, so she got the biggest payout possible. So she moved to round three and her choices were. Easy: kill Familiar Knight, capture was also allowed but came with no pay bonus. Medium: Capture Night Wing Sorceress, killing was also allowed, but came with much less money. Hard: Hunt a Sonic Duck. This one might seem the easiest, but Sonic Duck is super fast. And the quest has a really big penalty if you damage the duck any more than necessary. You’ll get nothing except the accepting money. This is basically to simulate a quest put out by a noble who wants to impress his guests with a roasted Sonic Duck, and he can’t serve something that is damaged. So if you damage it, you get nothing. Wendy kept going with the hardest choice, picking the Sonic Duck. She spent some of the money she had to purchase a trap. A Trap Card to be more specific, and to be even more specific, she picked up the Shadow Spell trap. Now, the way these trap cards work is that you set them where you want them to activate, and also add in when you want them to activate. So when Wendy appeared in the battlegrounds where Sonic Duck was just running around, not minding her, she checked the routes the bird was running and set the trap on one of them, making it activate when Sonic Duck runs over it. She then scared the duck into running into the trap, which captured the duck and Wendy brought it back in near perfect condition. It did suffer some damage to its legs because of the sudden stop caused by the trap, but it was still accepted and Wendy got paid. Level 4 is where the difficulty really ramps up. Probably because level 4 monsters are serious business. To the point where the ‘easy’ choice is stopping Shadowpriestess of Ohm. Like most ‘easy’ choices, there is a bonus for bringing her in alive, but it isn’t a big one. Medium is stopping The Bistro Butcher. Now for him there is an interesting interaction. A secret way of beating him. And that is that you can sacrifice ‘villagers’ to him and he will actually pay you more than the quest will. He will also help you fake that you ‘killed’ him. But take that deal and you will regret it later. Hard is defeating Berserk Gorilla. Nothing to it really, just beat the monster. It is destroying a town. It took Wendy a while to pick between the options, but eventually she did go after the hard target. As she picked it, Tamaki told me that Lucia would have gone after the murdered, while Arcadia would have focused on the Shadowpriestess. Naturally the Hero would have done the same as Wendy and would have gone after the Gorilla. That did give me some nice insight on the members of the Hero’s party, so I appreciated it. Also, I learned why the three supports look like they do. They picked an important age in their holders lives and looked like that. For Sicily, she looks like Lucia during the age she gained the Lifesaver title. For Tamaki, he is the Hero at the age he defeated the demon king. And Joan is Arcadia when she founded the Sage’s tower. Also, I think now is a good time to bring up an interesting fact. If you have the skills for it, you can tame the monsters you fight. Or even mind control the ‘people’ you fight. And they will follow you to the future quests as long as they live, or stay under mind control, or however you turn them to your side. You can technically even confess your love to them and get to them that way. Wendy hadn’t run into any of the ‘high value tames’ that were possible, but she still could have gotten someone like Shadowpriestess of Ohm or Night Wing Sorceress to her side. And of course a tamer could have tamed Gigobyte, Petit Dragon, Sonic Duck and even the Berserk Gorilla, but you wouldn’t get the bonus pay for their materials. Wendy did beat the Berserk Gorilla, so to round 5 with her. The easy for round five was taking on Allure Queen LV5. She was actually deceptively difficult, as she could use people from the generated city as hostages or shields. And she could potentially mind control the person attempting the challenge. But if you hired a companion, she was easy pickings. And she was decently easy to turn to your side, and you could potentially evolve her into her LV7 version with an item you can purchase. Medium was impressing Combo Master. You didn’t have to kill him or anything, in fact you’d fail if you did. You just had to fight him and show him a good fight. And he wouldn’t kill you, nor would failing end your run. But you get no money for accepting the quest and if you fail, you have to pick the hard one in order to continue. Also, actually impressing him wouldn’t earn you any money either. You’d just get Combo Fighter as a companion. Then you’d get to either pick another level 5 quest, or go straight to level 6. I didn’t realize how good this would be for the Allure Queen quest, but it isn’t guaranteed to work out like that. By the way, I didn’t come up with all of these. Most of them come straight from my monsters. The hard level 5 for Wendy was taking on Giga Gagagigo. And outside of ‘punishment’ level, it is the most difficult level 5 you can face. Especially since the fight will take place in Wetlands. And while that Field Spell doesn’t boost Giga Gagagigo, it limits most people’s abilities. For the first time since she began, Wendy picked something that wasn’t the hard difficulty. She actually went for the easy Allure Queen, and purchased herself an anti mind control accessory before doing so. With it she easily beat the Queen, but she did pay more for the amulet than she got for defeating the Queen. For level 6 easy, Wendy had General Raiho of the Ice Barrier. He may seem easy compared to Giga Gagagigo, but he can drain your mana if you aren’t careful with your skill use. Medium was Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6. This is an absolute no go for a Spellcaster, as Horus is just immune to all spells. Thɪs chapter is updated by novęlfire.net And hard was Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch. He drains mana and burns. … frick. I just realized I didn’t add any sort of protection from having three quests that all counter either a magician or a warrior. I should probably prevent that from happening. And this is why we test things. Wendy went after Thestalos, using some money for fire resistance potions. With them, she defeated the Monarch. Level 7 easy was Fallen Angel of Roses. Medium was Dark Magician, because of course I had to include him. And hard was Ultimate Insect LV7. And yes, it has its effect, unless you negate it, making it extra challenging. But the effect is in the form of a powder it releases, and you can buy equipment to keep you safe from it. Wendy once again took on the hard one. And she didn’t even buy the equipment to counter Ultimate Insect LV7. Perhaps because of that she really struggled, but she did eventually manage to bring the insect down, but at the cost of massive damage to her armor, and losing most of her potions. Oh, and level 7 had a little surprise for those who aren’t that nice of people and use ‘NPCs’ as bait. If you’ve done bad things, on top of the monster you face, it will also spawn Gorz the Emissary of Darkness as well as an Emissary of Darkness Token for each NPC you purposefully killed. Not for once you let die, that happens, but those you intentionally killed. And yes, this can be quite devastating if you run into a mind controlling opponent and you are forced to kill a lot of townspeople who are under their control. Because they do count for Gorz. The people living in a city or town won’t like you if you kill many of them to capture a mind controller. Going to level 8, Wendy had a choice to make. Either get her armor repaired or get a new set. Or go without, but that isn’t a good option. She decided to scrap her current one and purchase a new, slightly stronger set. She then looked at her quests. For easy, she just had to take down Cosmo Queen. No problem, right? Well, it isn’t getting any easier. Medium, premium was Black Luster Soldier. At least it was the Ritual version, since you could also face one of the Envoy versions, either Beginning or Evening Twilight. And the hard one was a trap. A devious one. You just had to take down two Galaxy Tyranno. Easy, right? No, absolutely not. Because as soon as you try to attack one, a third spawns. And then all three of them overlay into Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon. And there is no warning that it could happen in the quest info. And I don’t think you need me to tell you, but Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon is serious business. Lucky for her, Wendy didn’t go for it, instead challenging Black Luster Soldier. The fight was long, but Wendy did just barely manage to defeat the warrior. But again, her armor got quite damaged and she didn’t have all that much money. So she couldn’t purchase a new set, instead just having to suffer repair costs. The easy for level 9 was Naturia Leodrake. And when that is the ‘easy’ choice, you realize things might be getting difficult. … okay, admittedly Leodrake is easier than Cosmo Queen, at least in my opinion. Wendy can curse her luck. Medium is House Dragonmaid. Technically your job is to sneak into a manor, steal some documents that prove the noble living there is doing something evil, and get out. But good luck doing that without Sheou on your tail. And don’t even try harming her master, as she will go full dragon mode and eat you. And hard was … you know, just Sorcerer of Dark Magic. He isn’t undefeatable as you can hire the LV.8 Horus to assist you, had Black Flame Dragon makes him a simple opponent. But good luck having the money needed to hire the dragon. It is possible, but you have to have saved most of your money. Wendy went with the easy choice and took on Leodrake. And she managed to defeat the beast. And she had an easier time than with BLS. So to level 10 with her. And it wasn’t getting any easier. I mean, her ‘easy’ was stopping Jurrac Meteor. It was going to crash into a city. You’d have to stop it. Medium was Supreme Arcanite Magician. No problem there, right? Just hire LV.8 Horus again or face a Spellcaster with basically infinite mana. And hard was nothing that bad. You just had to take down Gaia Drake, the Universal Force. Again, easy. On level 10 you also had a guaranteed special offer. You could take on Yubel. If you get her to your side, great. If not, you’d better run. Because even if you kill her, Terror Incarnate and Ultimate Nightmare will ruin your run. Wendy did try to negotiate with Yubel, but the two of them didn’t get along, and after realizing that all damage she inflicted on Yubel was just reflected back to her, Wendy retreated. Sadly healing from that cost her the very last of her potions, so she had to try and stop Jurrac Meteor with nothing but her sword. Her sword that, while looking perfect, was just an inferior copy of the Hero’s sword, so while trying to break the meteor with it, it broke. Which Wendy should have realized, had she paid attention to the sword’s durability stat, which she can see after each round. So Wendy’s run ended, together with an entire cities worth of people, as Jurrac Meteor destroyed everything. “So, how was it?” I asked Wendy after she recovered from her literal death experience. Well, the pain is a lot less actually. Not 0, as that would be too unrealistic, but greatly reduced. “... It … the beginning was nice. But … I don’t know. Maybe it is … too difficult towards the end?” Wendy said. “And those last quests. Who do you think could do anything about them?” “I could.” I answered honestly. “You also could have, had you not underestimated Ultimate Insect on level 7. That near loss kind of led you to a spiral of losing money. If you still had the money, you could have picked up a weapon that can vaporize the meteor in one go. You also could have picked up ‘the book of Yubel’ and read up on her so you could have worked with her.” “... alright. And how many levels were there again?” “Thirteen. But no one is taking on thirteen. Even I couldn’t. Well technically I could because Pack Opener, but not without it.” “So I made it almost to the end. How difficult is 11?” Wendy asked. “Do you want to try? Or maybe I should, to show you?” “... go ahead, I’m done for today.” I did just that. For level 11, there was just one choice. I don’t have many level or rank 11 monsters. But know which one I do have? That’s right, Gate Guardian. Because of that, level 11 is actually a near perfect copy of HomeBase floor 50. It starts with a fight against Sanga of the Thunder, Kazejin, and Suijin. Once you take them down, Gate Guardian forms. And if you defeat him, you face the Dark Guardian. It isn’t an easy fight for me, by any means. I had to get some of the more expensive equipment you can obtain in the preliminaries, and even then it took a lot. Though Pack Opener or the stuff I have in Storage would make it simple. I was just sticking to the rules of the preliminaries. Well, if you have Inventory or Storage, you can technically bring out a copy of anything stored in there, so using stuff wouldn’t be against the rules. For level 12, you actually had a choice. You can take on Malefic Truth Dragon, Dragon Master Knight or Five-Headed Dragon. None are a good choice, but you do have a choice. And level 13. You know what is coming. I have one rank 13 monster. And no one is taking on Numerounius Numerounia. But it is technically the final boss of the gauntlet. And technically it is defeatable. If you purchase the Moon Mirror Shield, which you can only purchase at the very start of the preliminaries when you pick your starting equipment, which takes most of your starting money and which only has a single use. If you bring it all the way to Numerounius Numerounia, you can technically defeat him. Oh, and you also need another item to prevent him from using his ‘negate the attack, and if you do, gain LP equal to that monster's ATK’ effect, or he will negate your Moon Mirror Shield attack and the shield will break for the ‘one time use’ that failed to kill the imaginary Chaos God.