Lily POV

She took a deep, calming breath once she saw the notification that she had cleared the conditions of the third floor. The wraith had disappeared once she had taken care of it, but still, this rift was very odd.

The first floor had been simple enough. Goblins were a common monster amongst rifts, and defeating them was expected. They weren't some special variation or powerful species either. They were simple, weak goblins that weren't that hard to deal with.

Despite her lack of offensive skills to handle large crowds, her psychic skills and telekinesis were more than enough to defeat them. It required her to sneak around a bit as she quietly killed each monster, but it was an easy task in the end. It wasn't like they had powerful senses in the first place.

The second floor was a bit more intriguing, at least. The Ironblood Boar was an impressive monster for Tier 3. Its natural defenses were something she suspected would make it difficult for many of the participants. It was likely not a problem for anyone in their friend group, but this was likely the floor that stopped most people from moving forward.

However, it was to her good luck that she was ideally suited to fighting enemies like the boar. While she didn't have explosive skills like Julius's fire magic or Derek's lightning magic, she was very comfortable when fighting a singular strong opponent. You could say that it was her specialty.

The Ironblood Boar didn't stand a chance. She blended the monster's mind so badly that it couldn't even get up from where it was lazing around to attack her. She made sure not to cause too much pain in the process, but by the time she was done with the monster, it was in a comatose state.

It only required another concentrated effort to kill it completely.

What came next was the most surprising. If she thought the second floor was the floor that would prevent people from progressing, then the third floor would be much more challenging.

The fog itself was a scary thing to deal with. She doubted that many people had the requisite skills to handle such a sinister environment. Just the ability to hinder mana control was a difficult thing to overcome. Not to mention how much the fog affected one's perception.

If not for her protecting herself with a makeshift barrier of aura, she doubted she would have been able to see or hear anything outside several feet in front of her. Even when she was protected, she had to rely on her psychic abilities to keep an eye out for things.

Some people choose not to acquire a perception skill. Instead, they decided to acquire another skill that helped them in other aspects of fighting. She disagreed with that, but to be fair, in a team setting, you really only needed one or two people with a perception skill.

With a heavy restriction on how many skills people could choose, sometimes there were skills you had to decide to give up on.

However, this rift was obviously testing the participants on how well balanced their skillsets were. The first floor tested their ability to handle a large number of weaker opponents, and the second floor tested how well they would fare against a singular strong monster.

This past floor tested their perception skills and made sure they had a way to hit a monster without using mana. She had heard of such creatures from her father.

Mana-based attacks were almost always useless when fighting these kinds of monsters. A person was required to use some other means to hit a monster like a wraith. Aura was usually the most common ability to deal with it.

Or sometimes, like in her case, she was able to use her psychic ability to rip apart the wraith's mind. She had sensed it with her psychic abilities before it could ambush her in the fog, something she was glad for because she almost didn't have enough time even with that.

The thing came out of nowhere and she almost panicked, but luckily her training had paid off. It let her maintain her composure enough to protect herself. Once again, she was jealous of Julius's focus skill.

While she had a focus skill of her own, it was more specialized in helping her control the load of her psychic abilities. Julius's skill helped him control his emotional responses with a much firmer hand. It gave him the unparalleled ability to remain calm even in the most chaotic situations.

Thankfully for her, the wraith's mind defenses were weaker than even the Ironblood Boar from earlier, allowing her to deal with it very easily. Despite it being a much more dangerous floor than the previous one, she arguably had a far easier time.

However, she worried about how the others would deal with it. She had confidence that Derek and Julius would be able to handle it. They both had offensive-leaning auras in the first place, but she was more worried about Aubrey and Edgar.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Actually, on second thought, with Aubrey's current strength, she would be able to deal with the wraith with just her clones. Her friend had become quite skilled in aura in the past year and should be fine. She would likely just need to blow one or two clones up in the wraith's face to defeat it.

Edgar was still a worry, though. Although her big friend had worked on his own aura skills since Julius showed him how to exploit this weakness, he was still quite new to it. It was never his strong suit, but she hoped that just the sheer power of his aura would be able to protect him.

When she arrived on the fourth floor, she was somewhat relieved to see a bright and welcoming forest in front of her again. The previous floor had been a bit eerie and if she was being honest, she was already getting tired.

She suspected this was what prevented a lot of people from getting that far. As far as she knew, there weren't any safe places to rest in between floors other than the ten minutes. It was also what she believed would be the thing that prevented her from going that far.

She was getting distracted, though, and paid attention to the rift. She also took the time to read the message she received. She held in the sigh of exasperation that bubbled to the surface. She wasn't good at stuff like this.

Just because she had good perception skills didn't mean she knew how to track a monster. She felt that this floor would be much more difficult for her than the previous one. However, she suspected that Julius might have an easy time with his stupid, broken perception skill.

***

Julius POV

When he arrived at the fourth floor, he was welcomed by a similar message he had received on the other floors.

Fourth Floor Clear Condition: Find and defeat the Evergreen Trolls.

He squinted his eyes as he reread the message and it was only when he made sure that he had read it correctly did he let out a giggle. He hadn't come across a troll since his very first rift. It brought back some memories.

He also noticed that these ones were called Evergreen Trolls. Did this mean these ones were a more advanced species? Or perhaps just a different variation?

He extended his senses outward, doing his best to see if there were any of these trolls in the vicinity. He wasn't able to feel anything around, though. All he was able to sense were some weaker monsters that were roaming around.

The floor remained the same forest theme that the other floors had been so far and he was glad to see that there wasn't any nasty fog blocking his view.

He didn't see a reason to keep on waiting and went on his way searching for these Evergreen Trolls. The condition seemed to put an emphasis on finding the trolls, which led him to believe that just finding them was one of the main hurdles.

He buckled up, though, and put his detective hat on as he searched. However, after some time, he frowned. He had been painstakingly searching for half an hour, but to no avail. Wherever these trolls were, he wasn't able to find them easily.

It was only after he had looked all around the area he had spawned in that he finally came across something that might be related to the trolls. There were small hints of life mana he could sense on a trail. Unlike the more common life mana he usually sensed, this mana had a weird flavor to it.

He remembered how trolls had the innate ability to heal, which the life mana could be a sign of. He didn't know for certain. But seeing that he didn't have anything to lose, he decided to go and investigate it.

He followed the trail for some time. Sometimes, he lost track of it and had to backtrack until he found it again. It was actually surprisingly relaxing to do. It was bright out, and the gentle sounds of the forest were all around him, making it a very nice experience.

He took this time to appreciate the downtime. He also decided to practice the new aura-weaving technique simultaneously. It wasn't too hard to do. While [Sage of Savagery] wasn't a skill specifically for multitasking, it was a skill that still allowed him to focus on other things simultaneously, albeit at a lower efficiency.

He found himself having difficulty weaving the aura with his mana in a timely fashion. The technique was too slow to do in the heat of battle. He had only been able to do it with the wraith because he could easily take whatever damage it dished out.

He was aware that there were many things he was already working on, and this didn't help matters. But he couldn't resist testing out a new shiny toy. He promised himself that he would focus back on his kinetic energy and Sharpness Concept soon.

After some tracking and patience, he finally felt something ping with his perception skill. It was a little valley hidden in the forest, and he carefully inspected it. There was a small creek flowing through the valley, and he found what he was looking for at the very edge of the creek.

Dozens of trolls were camped out just down below. Each of them was somewhat similar to the trolls he had encountered before. But the main difference was that these trolls were of a much brighter green. Not only that, but they didn't seem as grotesque as the other trolls.

If he was being honest, they looked somewhat like a large green version of a human. Not only that, but they clearly had some intelligence if the little village and extensive farms placed throughout the valley were any indication. The entire situation down below seemed very calm and serene. He spotted a large handful of trolls carefully harvesting some kind of plant alongside each other.

Even their clothes seemed to be of a decent quality.

He didn't think agriculture was a common thing amongst monsters, especially the feral kind. He also didn't think they would usually take the effort to make such clothing. It made him pause in hesitation as he thought about what he was going to do. He was well aware of the conditions the floor set for him, but he didn't like the idea of killing such peaceful creatures without provocation.

It was why he wanted to investigate a little more before he decided to do anything.