Chapter 270 - 270 Climbing the Pole
A special entertainment task?
This was Song Jian’s first time encountering this type of task. With the flagpole reaching a height of eighteen meters, climbing it wouldn’t be easy. If he were careless and fell, the risk would not be worth the reward.
The Level 10 Monster Zone was where most players leveled up. Seeing someone entering the school and preparing to climb the flagpole, some spectators quickly gathered around.
“Bro, this task isn’t easy at all. Even though it’s classified as entertainment, so far, nobody has accomplished it!” warned a player who was holding a submachine gun and wearing a military green combat suit.
“Yeah, eighteen meters may not seem high, but it gets harder as you go up. What’s the current record again?” another player added.
“I think it’s thirteen meters. That’s already the limit. As far as I know, no one has managed to climb above thirteen meters yet.”
“I could only climb up to eight meters, then fell and almost broke a bone…”
“That’s because you’re clumsy. Don’t you know to wrap a safety rope around yourself? If you fall, you’ll only suffer internal injuries at most.”
“Are you stupid? Which is harder to treat, a bone fracture, or internal injuries?”
Song Jian frowned slightly. An eighteen-meter height wasn’t impossible for regular people to climb. Even if players could only gain one skill point each level-up, it seemed odd that among all these players, none had acquired a skill in agility. So why had no player climbed the eighteen-meter flagpole yet? Something was fishy here.
With that thought, Song Jian leaped and jumped over three meters high, grabbing onto the flagpole.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual, ” said Song Jian, knitting his eyebrows. After a brief pause, he started climbing enthusiastically.
Qi Yun stood at the base of the flagpole. After some hesitation, he waved his magic staff toward Song Jian, casting the “Light Body Skill.” The Light Body Skill improved his movement speed by 15% for five seconds. Even though Qi Yun had only leveled up once, the skill still provided significant help to Song Jian at this moment.
Qi Yun was positioned as an aid in their hunting team, but he didn’t want to depend on his teammates for his survival. Therefore, he also mastered some other attack skills. All of these skills, however, revolved around his silver- quality sniper rifle. Now that his sniper rifle was disassembled by Song Jian, those attack skills were useless.
Localized in Qi Yun’s skill set were five types of healing skills, and three other auxiliary skills, with the “Light Body Skill” as only one of them.
With the aid of the Light Body Skill, Song Jian climbed faster. In a short while, he reached seven or eight meters high.
“There’s no difficulty at all; I should reach the top without any effort,” thought Song Jian.
Just then, Song Jian suddenly felt his body become heavier, as though he was tied to a large piece of stone falling downward. If he hadn’t instinctively held onto the flagpole, the sudden increase in gravity might’ve caused him to fall off the flagpole.
“As expected, there’s something unusual!”
Song Jian quickly checked his status bar, and sure enough, there was a “Level 1 Gravity” negative effect. His talent skill “Thick Skin” could only resist mental negative effects and was useless against physical negative effects.
“Could it be that the higher I climb, the greater the level of this negative effect and the more obvious it becomes?” wondered Song Jian.
As expected, when he climbed to a height of ten meters, the Level 1 Gravity effect suddenly jumped to Level 2.
Song Jian frowned slightly. This level of gravity was as if his body weight had increased by about thirty kilograms. It didn’t impact him much, but as the negative effects continued to pile on, the difficulty of the task was undoubtedly rising.
He continued to climb. Every meter he climbed, the negative effect would increase by one level. By the time Song Jian reached thirteen meters, the negative effect had already risen to Level 5.
By then, he was essentially carrying over one hundred kilograms while climbing.
After losing the three-point strength addition from the Guardian’s Sword, Song Jian’s strength attribute had decreased to fourteen points. The burden of one hundred kilograms was clearly taking its toll. As he climbed higher, his stamina was rapidly draining.
Song Jian’s hands were beginning to tremble lightly.
“Immortal Sword Body, activate!” thought Song Jian.
A golden light emerged around Song Jian. The boost of five points to all attributes gave him the needed stamina to continue climbing.
Thirteen meters, fourteen meters, fifteen meters…
With just five meters left, Song Jian’s hands were shaking more violently, and his forehead was covered in sweat. Maintaining his current position was becoming torture, let alone climbing further.
Just then, Qi Yun cast another auxiliary spell on Song Jian to restore his stamina and another “Light Body Skill”.
Still, climbing further up had become difficult. Song Jian shook his head slowly. He had already climbed up to fifteen meters. Even if he used up all his strength, he could only climb one additional meter before he couldn’t hold on any longer. After taking some considerations, Song Jian sighed and was ready to give up the task.
“He’s at fifteen meters! This guy is amazing, he’s breaking records!” exclaimed the onlooking players.
In reality, climbing one meter and seventeen meters yielded the same result: no reward. But that didn’t prevent the players from using the task as a benchmark for measuring strength, and they enjoyed it thoroughly.
Some players even applauded for Song Jian, who had already climbed to fifteen meters.
“Just three meters short…” Song Jian sighed as he looked at the nearby school flag. However, the last three meters were tougher to climb than the previous fifteen.
Just as Song Jian was about to slide down, a light bulb went off in his head.
“Hmm, I wonder if this will work…”
Boom~
Song Jian’s body disappeared, replaced by a large dark cloud floating in mid-air;
This Dark Cloud Transformation skill allowed him to levitate and fly at heights of dozens of meters. For the eighteen-meter flagpole, reaching the top would only take a few seconds;
“Oh? My body is lighter…” noted Song Jian, who had transformed into the dark cloud. He realized the “Level 7 Gravity” negative effect in his status bar had disappeared. It appeared his physical immunity in the dark cloud status could resist even this physical negative effect.
“The task hasn’t failed. It seems like I can still complete the task in this state!” Seeing that the task in the task bar didn’t display “failure,” Song Jian was relieved and started heading towards the top of the flagpole.