Today began with me watching over the first people taking on the Adventuring Tournament Qualifiers. Wendy, and the other organizers, had sent in some change requests, I had implemented them, we had run another two dozen test runs, and we were finally happy with it. But we still only have about 30 test runs in total, which really isn’t that many. Sure I trust my monsters to do their job, but there might be bugs, so I was looking over the first ones. And it seems to be working fine enough. But let’s quickly go over some of the changes. First of all, I modified how many quests you are given per level. Now you have four choices on each level, not just three. But one of them is always guaranteed to be a ‘companion quest’. Basically a mission that rewards you with a companion, but has no penalty for failing. Well you do have to pay for healing if you take damage, and your equipment does lose durability, and any potions or consumable items you use are lost. And naturally it doesn’t advance you through that level. It is just an additional thing you can do to gain an advantage. And a lot of these companion quests are intelligence based, so adventurers who are smart but might lack in skill have a better chance at getting further in the tournament. Which I somewhat questioned as this is the ‘Strongest Adventurer’ tournament, not the smartest adventurer tournament. But still, with the new and much more common companion quests in place, the entire Qualifier was even more varied. Thus meaning that the unlimited tries meant even less. You can get lucky with your first, get perfect companions and get up to level 7 or 8 and likely qualify. Or you can get mediocre companions and you will lose around level 5 or 6. Well, a skilled adventurer can solo level 6 quests, but you do basically have to be A-rank for that. Also, despite the extra tries, even with Wendy’s party members taking on the qualifiers, only she has reached level 10. Few have reached level 9, but no one has gotten to level 10 yet. And one more thing. Since I learned of the Soul Wavelengths thanks to the Demon God, I implemented it to the qualifiers. With a bit of work with Fantasia, she can now read people’s soul wavelength, so she can identify them based on that. We used to use the System screen to identify people, which works just fine, but there is a small issue. The System screen can technically be cheated. But only by someone with a Perfect System Support. But that does mean that with the old identifying in place, I could turn my name, race and other visible System info to match anyone I knew the name of, and basically log into the Factory as them. And no, I don’t actually have to change my race with One of Every Race. As a Perfect System Support, Laura can freely modify my visible System screen. Basically what others see when I open my status. And when I say freely, I do mean anything we want. If I want my status to say I'm a level 1000 World Eater, Laura can do that. Of course it isn’t actually true, but anyone who’d try to appraise me would see that. Unique skills can see through it though. But what it does mean is that I can hide away my skills if I want. Not that I feel the need for it. Sure I have some rare skills, but most of them are known. Not like I’m hiding stuff like One of Every Race. Oh yeah. Did I ever mention the fact that we do a status scan of anyone who enters the Factory? I probably didn’t, but I’ve implied it. I mean, you can use your skills here, and how do you think that would be possible if the Factory didn’t know what skills you have. But back to the soul wavelengths and qualifiers. With them we can even more perfectly identify people. No two people have the same soul wavelength. No matter how close they are, no matter how identical their status are. So with that I could basically guarantee that no run experienced by a person is ever the same. In fact, you will never even get a companion quest that you’ve successfully completed before. That does limit people on sequential tries, but that is a good thing. Things should get slightly more difficult as you learn the ‘game’. Still, I’m expecting at least a few people to reach level 10, and maybe even beat it. Probably not 11 though, as that is stupidly difficult unless you know what you are doing. And speaking of level 11, I introduced two alternatives for the Gate Guardian mission, not that they are any easier. The second choice starts with Stardust Dragon, Stardust Xiaolong and Majestic Dragon. I think you know what happens if you beat the three of them. Yeah. They tune together and you have to defeat the Majestic Star Dragon next. But wait, because there is more. If you defeat it, Majestic Dragon is resurrected and it tunes with Majestic Star Dragon, summoning out the Shooting Majestic Star Dragon. After you defeat it, you are done. And let me be honest. It is way more difficult than taking on Gate Guardian. The only way you can really beat this challenge is if you picked up the Dragon Destruction Sword at some point. It isn’t actually a sword, but an ability you can put onto any weapon. With it, you gain 1000 Strength and Magic for every dragon you are facing, as well as every dragon you've taken down during that level. So in the Majestic Star mission, since all the monsters are dragons, you will get up to +5000 Strength and Magic when taking on the final form of Stardust. The third choice starts with Indestructible Airship Hindenkraft and Unsinkable Titanica. Again, I think you know where this is going. You take the two massive ships down and they instead combine into Skypalace Gangaridai. It can easily devastate any companions you might have, and if you somehow survive that, and take the ship down, it evolves one more time. Into CXyz Skypalace Babylon. But that part is easy, right? Just another massive ship for you to take down. There are basically 0 good images of Indestructible Airship Hindenkraft and Unsinkable Titanica, so I’m not linking them. You can google them if you want, but they are nothing special. They are just level 10 Machines, one water, the other wind, with stats of 2900/2000 for Hindenkraft and 2800/3000 for Titanica. So yeah. Good luck. Take on the Gate Guardian. It is the easiest. Even if the beginning part of that fight is the hardest. Speaking of. Since you saw me taking on the Gate Guardian, you maybe want to know if I could take on the other two options. Well, I actually can just about beat the Skypalace Babylon challenge, as long as I give myself some of the best qualifier gear. But Majestic Stars, no chance. They can seal my skills and without things like Space Magic and Mana Flight, I stand no chance. And no, I can’t actually defeat any of the level 12s. They are still a bit too strong for me. For now. But I’ll get there soon. “Alright Varuna, let’s do this.” I told the Soul of the Ocean. {Try to hold on. This might be a bit much.} He warned me, before his watery body crashed into me. Nah. I got this. I handled the burning soul of Pele already. This can’t be much worse, even if Varuna is a lot older and a lot more powerful. Is what I believed until I felt the crushing pressure of an entire ocean pushing my body. And that was just my body. As Varuna’s soul began synchronizing with mine, it became even worse. Varuna really was everything. It is no wonder people called him a God. A soul born from something not even alive. A concept given the ability to think for itself. And I was trying to contain all of it within my body, both the ocean and the soul born from it. It was an idea I came up with while studying soul wavelengths. Spirits can adjust theirs to reasonably match a person when they synchro with them. This allows for a near perfect symphony between the spirit and the soul of the human, one enhancing the other. So I had the crazy idea of testing that with Varuna and Pele. The two of them are literal souls, and their souls are malleable like the souls of spirits. So they should be able to adjust their own wavelength to match a person's. That was the theory. So I tested it with Pele, but at first it didn’t work. The body of the Souls got in the way. Unlike spirits, they still have their physical ‘core’. Even if that core is just a bit of water or lava that the Soul has picked to be their body at that time. So, how do you merge your body with that of a monster? Not that Varuna and Pele are monsters, but you get the point. And no, that isn’t a trick question. It is actually quite simple. It is called Beast Union. … and can I admit something about the skill? Because I had it figured out all wrong. Beast Union is a skill to become one with your monster, using either your body or the monster's body as a base. When I first got the skill I assumed it would only work one way, you giving your power to the monster. That is because that is how it is used on this continent, so all the texts said it worked like that. That is until Unika figured out she could do it in reverse, having one of her tamed foxes enter her body, powering her up. … But now that I have access to even more System info, I learned that that is how people use the skill on the other continents. Especially the Divine Lord’s continent. There they apparently don’t even know the skill can be used in the way that is ‘traditional’ on this continent, same as we didn’t know you could do the reverse union. So for them, the ‘reverse union’ is just the Beast Union, and what I call Beast Union is actually their reverse union. But I won’t be changing how I call them just because some other continent deals with names differently. So I think you realize the path I figured to go further. Not only would I synchro with Varuna or Pele, I would at the same time perform a reverse union with them, bringing all their power into my body. And with Pele, it was manageable. Pele is strong, no questions about it, but she is only around the 3k mark when compared to my monsters. And that is when she is at her most powerful. Varuna on the other hand, even while holding back, is over 4k. And in terms of pure destructive power, Varuna can get his attack to around 15k. We actually tested that using Equip Spells and other stuff. But just because a monster’s attack is 15k, doesn’t mean that it is actually that powerful. Attack points get complicated in the real world, okay? It isn’t like setting off bombs. You can’t just say that 15k is more than 12k, because when I actually have the two monsters with those stats out, there are things other than attack stat that decide which monster is stronger. And also, equip spells aren’t actually equally as effective on all monsters. Mage Power is a good example. In the TCG, it boosts all monsters equally. But in my use, monsters that specialize in magic like Spellcasters can actually bring more out of it than monsters that don’t. So for example, if I were to equip 1 copy of Mage Power to Maiden of the Moonlight and 1 to Queen's Knight and have the two fight, Maiden of the Moonlight wins every time. Despite the fact that they have equal attack, and that Queen's Knight has higher defense. But yeah. Attack points aren’t as solid as they are in the card game. The distraction of going on a tangent helped a ton, but my body is being crushed as if I just put myself under a 100x gravity. To hopefully counter some of that crushing force, I instant casted a Gravity Magic spell to negate all of my own weight. Sadly it didn’t help at all. I struggled under all that crushing force, continuing to stand up to Varuna’s might. But eventually, I had to call it quits and began undoing the union. Varuna felt it and pulled back his soul. Then his body began pulling out of me and I finally began to feel like myself. I had a quick feel of my body with Mana Control. Yes, you can feel damage within your own body with your mana, if you know what you are doing. And to be honest, I wasn’t doing too hot. My entire body had been compressed. Bones had been crushed, muscles pressed into themselves. More than half of my HP had been drained in what must not have been all that long. Luckily Regeneration was already fixing the damage, but it didn’t feel good. After I was whole again, I turned to the Soul of the Ocean. “Let’s not do that again. At least not until I’m stronger.” {As you wish. But it might be good training. You never know when you get another skill.} Varuna said. Follow current novᴇls on 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⁂𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⁂𝔫𝔢𝔱 “... true.” I agreed. “... fine. Let’s do that again.” {Right now?} Varuna asked. “Yeah. Before I chicken out.” And so, Varuna once again entered my body while I tried to contain his everything.