Chapter 293: The Graveyard Is Full, Bombing His Way to the Fifteenth Floor!

Outside the Heaven Reaching Trial Tower, the dark-gold lettering on the black stone monument slowly stabilized.

[First Place: Zich Grave, Fifth Floor.]

[Fourth Floor Trial Evaluation: SSS.]

The plaza fell silent for a moment before breaking into fierce discussion.

Every challenger was inside an independent trial space, and the trials encountered on each floor were not fixed. Because of this, no one outside knew what Zich had just experienced, much less what method he had used to obtain an SSS evaluation.

The only thing they could confirm was that Zich had already entered the Fifth Floor ahead of everyone else.

A recorder from the Players Association immediately noted the exact moment the monument changed. Yet only eleven minutes and forty-seven seconds later, the golden light that had barely faded appeared once more.

[First Place: Zich Grave, Sixth Floor.]

[Fifth Floor Trial Evaluation: SSS.]

"Eleven minutes and forty-seven seconds."

The recorder stared at the interval between the two changes, his expression becoming noticeably more solemn.

This was not an official internal clear time announced by the Heaven Reaching Trial Tower. It was merely the external interval he had calculated from the changes displayed on the monument, meaning it could include the time Zich spent recovering mana, reorganizing his equipment, and passing through the teleportation gate.

Nevertheless, the interval was still astonishingly short.

While the crowd discussed it, Nadia Voss, Helen Magnus, Jayden and Austin Locke also began climbing one after another. Their rankings shifted several times, making it obvious that all three were advancing steadily and doing everything they could to close the distance separating them from first place.

But the name occupying the highest position never stopped.

[Sixth Floor Trial Evaluation: SS.]

Upon seeing his evaluation drop, some guessed that Zich might have encountered a trial poorly suited to a summoner, while others believed he had deliberately sacrificed a higher evaluation in exchange for faster progression. Since no one could see inside the independent trial spaces, however, those explanations remained nothing more than speculation.

What they did not know was that, inside the Sixth Floor, Zich had been stripped of both sight and hearing.

Unable to depend upon his own senses, he positioned the four Undead Skeleton Soldiers in different directions and reconstructed the surrounding space through the information transmitted across their contracts. Each Skeleton provided only a narrow fragment of the battlefield, but Zich continuously corrected their positions, compared the movements they detected, and pieced those fragments together until an invisible map took shape within his mind.

The method was not flawless, and the time required to adjust to it had cost him the SSS evaluation, but it had also forced him to develop a more precise command style.

Once that trial ended, he did not linger.

He cleared the Seventh Floor, advanced through the Eighth Floor, and entered the Ninth Floor without surrendering first place.

As the number beside Zich’s name changed repeatedly, more people shifted their attention away from the other challengers and focused entirely on the top of the monument.

This time, however, Zich’s name remained on the Ninth Floor for much longer.

As time continued to pass, Nadia, Helen, Jayden, and Austin kept climbing, gradually covering the distance between them and first place.

At the same time, several names lower on the monument gradually darkened, indicating that those challengers had either withdrawn or been eliminated.

.

Inside the Ninth Floor trial space, the reason was simple.

The trial required him to defeat three bosses, and the creature now standing before him was the last of them.

The final boss staggered beneath Iron’s descending bone greatsword, but before it could recover, the Silverback Ape Grunt struck its exposed flank. Slimy’s Silk Barrier sealed its only available path of retreat, while the four Undead Skeleton Soldiers spread apart and attacked from different angles, forcing it to divide its attention until Zich’s Frostgrave Scythe cut through the opening created by his summons.

Its enormous body finally collapsed and dissolved into motes of light, while the lingering energy left behind by the other two bosses dispersed with it.

[Ninth Floor Trial Completed.]

[Clear Time: 01:49:52.]

[Trial Evaluation: SSS.]

The teleportation gate ahead slowly opened, but Zich did not step through it.

The moment the final Spirit Orb from the boss merged into his body, a familiar notification appeared.

[Current Tombstone Slots: 75/75.]

Ever since entering the Heaven Reaching Trial Tower, the Spirit Orbs Zich obtained on each floor had continuously transformed into new tombstones. Now, the final empty slot inside his Graveyard had been occupied.

It was time to use once again!

Zich glanced at the teleportation gate leading to the Tenth Floor before sitting cross-legged and closing his eyes.

Cold black rain immediately fell across his body.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing inside the Graveyard.

Tombstones densely covered the black earth. Among them were the important tombstones he had already protected, along with a large number of low-level tombstones possessing only ordinary value.

The options before Zich were not complicated.

He could merge tombstones into a new summon, or he could directly absorb their power to increase his attributes.

But he chose neither.

This was the Heaven Reaching Trial Tower. He did not have enough time to study the strengths, weaknesses, and compatibility of an entirely new fusion, while the improvements obtained by absorbing these low-level tombstones would not immediately transform the battles ahead.

Compared with those two options, the third choice was far better suited to his current circumstances.

[Spirit Bomb.]

[Available Mode: Manual Selection / Batch Selection.]

He selected Batch Selection.

Every protected tombstone was automatically excluded, while ordinary tombstones with the lowest value and no immediate tactical use began lighting up in separate batches.

He checked the marked tombstones one final time before confirming the selection.

The chosen tombstones sank into the black soil and disintegrated one after another, transforming into vast quantities of gray-white soul particles. Beneath the ceaseless black rain, those particles gathered, compressed, and gradually condensed into black-blue spheres filled with unstable soul energy.

Before long, multiple Spirit Bombs of varying sizes floated silently within the Graveyard.