Chapter 453: Chapter 202 Demon Tower_2
Given his current physical condition, it seemed he couldn’t complete even a B-rank test for the final trial. No wonder the Trial Takers here chose to flee.
"I don’t know, but the highest I’ve reached was the thirty-sixth floor, and I still didn’t reach the top," Chu Qi replied.
Upon hearing that even the thirty-sixth floor wasn’t the top, Li Xiu knew he definitely couldn’t make it to the top either. He decided to climb as many floors as possible, earn some physical enhancement rewards, and forget about the final rewards.
Li Xiu gritted his teeth and continued upward. His physical condition didn’t allow him to keep climbing, but once he activated the Blood Boiling Skill, he immediately felt much lighter.
With the doubled physical enhancement, the sense of burden wasn’t an issue anymore.
Every time Li Xiu climbed, he needed to activate his skill, while Chu Qi beside him never used his skill, showing how strong his physical condition was. He claimed to be S-rank, and it seems he wasn’t lying.
"Chu Qi, did your S-rank status come from improving here?" Li Xiu asked curiously.
"Yes, I grew up in White Night City and never left. I’ve only entered this one Trial Gate," Chu Qi answered truthfully.
"Impressive!" Li Xiu couldn’t help but give a thumbs up. To climb this tower multiple times and achieve S-rank using ordinary enhancement rewards, Chu Qi was rather tough.
"That’s odd. You haven’t been to other Trial Grounds and haven’t reached the top. How did you obtain a Symbiotic Contract?" Li Xiu suddenly thought of a question and asked while observing Chu Qi.
"I once killed a Trial Taker and got the Symbiotic Contract," Chu Qi replied expressionlessly.
Li Xiu had to admit, to reach S-rank this way, this guy must have put in a lot of time and effort.
Understanding that his Symbiotic Contract was once someone else’s Parasitic Contract, a Symbiotic Contract dies with its owner while a Parasitic Contract does not. Generally speaking, the quality of a Parasitic Contract is not as good as a Symbiotic Contract. Achieving S-rank with a low-quality Symbiotic Contract in a Trial Gate is unimaginably difficult.
On the subsequent stairs, the burden increased immensely just on the first level, so by the time Li Xiu reached the twenty-third floor, he had to activate his Dual Skill. Only under the enhancement of the Dual Skill did he reach the twenty-fourth floor.
Using the Triple Skill support, Li Xiu managed to reach the twenty-seventh floor, but his body was already struggling.
Even though he only needed to use skills when climbing stairs, the burden of three skills was too overwhelming on his body. Li Xiu felt that continuing like this would damage his body, and going further up seemed meaningless.
The slight enhancement rewards were not worth the bodily damage.
As Li Xiu was about to give up, he suddenly had an idea and looked at Chu Qi, asking, "Chu Qi, have you ever tried going down?"
"No, why would I go down?" Chu Qi shook his head.
"You see, the rule says to enter the next level before the countdown ends to complete the trial. This next level, in normal terms, means the place which hasn’t been visited yet counts as the next level. But looking at it separately, the next level can also mean going down a level, right?" Li Xiu said with a smile.
"Seems... it could be interpreted that way... but what’s the point? Even if we could go downward, what’s the point in returning?" Chu Qi asked uncertainly.
"Let’s go ahead and try. If we can’t go down, we’ll just climb another floor upward," Li Xiu said.
"Alright." Chu Qi nodded and didn’t say anything more, although he felt it was pointless.
With the countdown ending, a new round of testing began, still with sixty seconds to enter the next level.
Li Xiu and Chu Qi moved toward the stair entrance leading to the twenty-sixth floor and followed the stairs downward.
Without obstruction, they smoothly climbed onto the stairs, indicating it was possible to go down.
However, going down seemed useless, as the octagonal room on the twenty-sixth floor remained the same as when they ascended.
The burden on the stairs leading from twenty-six to twenty-seven was identical, without any differences.
"Let’s return to climb the twenty-eighth floor. There’s nothing different here. If we descend now and return to the twenty-seventh floor, climbing the twenty-eighth floor might leave you with insufficient time," Chu Qi said, following behind Li Xiu.
"You’re here, aren’t you? Let’s descend the stairs and see," Li Xiu checked the light screen on the twenty-sixth floor, also displaying a countdown, allowing them to see the time, which made Li Xiu feel something was off.
Chu Qi grabbed Li Xiu and said, "Stay here, don’t move. I’ll go."
With that, Chu Qi bypassed Li Xiu and descended. His speed was much faster than Li Xiu’s, slightly slower than normal stair descent, and shortly he reached the bottom of the stairs, returning to the ground of the twenty-sixth floor.
The moment Chu Qi left the stairs, his timing appeared unexpectedly on the light screen, suggesting he had completed the trial.
Chu Qi was slightly stunned, while Li Xiu nodded slightly, as he had envisaged this possibility but wasn’t entirely sure; Chu Qi had now validated his guess.
Li Xiu no longer hesitated and slowly descended from the stairs, moving much more gingerly, as even with the Triple Skill, he could only inch forward step by step.