Mornn
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Chapter 683 - Sofia the plague
🕑 Added 2025-05-26 16:00:16 +0000 UTC“Hey, Lepo, can I ask you something?” Sofia asked the shopkeeper.
“Yes?”
“Have any of the master items already been bought? Is that something you can share?”
“Hmm… It’s probably fine to tell yes. To this day, three of them have been sold. The respective shops have been closed so you will never get to see them,” he said.
“Three people have managed to get nine gold star pins yet nobody got the perfect run pin?!”
“That’s right. Can’t tell you who or why, but yes. So far, the master gloves, bracelets and dagger have been sold.”
“Did the three people all fail in the same event?”
“I’ve already told you all I could,” Lepo answered with a smile, returning to his game with Bookie.
“Alright, thanks…”
As there was quite a time before the next event, Sofia went on the hunt for the hidden shops again, and managed to find one hidden in the spiritual plane on the main deck. It took the form of a simple telescope pointed at the foggy white sky. There were no instructions and no help, but the telescope being inexistant in the physical plane definitely meant it was another hidden shop’s game.
Looking into the telescope showed a white expanse with some brighter spots like stars, and Sofia quickly found out that by feeding mana into the telescope and moving it around, it drew lines between the stars that passed by the center of the view for a short while.
It took a good twenty minutes of fiddling around before Mr.Scribe was the one who came up with the solution. There were spell patterns hidden within the ‘stars’ which had to be drawn with the lines. They started with the most basic pattern for the classless spell [Spark] which for many humans was the most ‘magic’ they would ever use, and harder spell patterns were hidden for the higher levels.
Still, as the patterns had to be two dimensional, once one had figured out the trick, unlocking them all was not too hard, and Sofia quickly got access to the shop’s last level and its unique item.
★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Spellbinder Monocle]:
Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master monocle can lock out your opponents of their spells.
Activate while looking at an active spell to instantly dispel it; its caster will not be able to use it until they leave the effective range of the Monocle or the Monocle is used to dispel another spell.
Effective range 15Km.
30 Seconds cooldown.
Can only dispel a spell you would have enough mana to cast.
Immensely enhances your vision and allows you to peer from/into the spiritual plane into/from the physical.
Cannot be destroyed.
Must be primed before use.
Price: 1 000 000 000 TP
Not great. I already have [Heat Death], also who really wants to wear a monocle?
… Am I just wasting my time? It really feels like we’re only meant to be able to buy one even if we get the nine gold star pins, and I cannot pass up the earring…
No, surely I can break another event or two and get more points than the maximum. Surely. Maybe with the bell thing, even? Nex did hint at a greater reward. I shouldn’t worry too much anyway, higher tier events give more points and we’ve yet to get a tier one even. The abyss god was tier two and it gave three times the points of a tier three.
I can only wait for more events to come… Let’s try to find all the shops!
Scouring the entire ark from top to bottom, except for the lowest level which was still closed, Sofia and the skeletons managed to find three more hidden shops before the start of the next event.
Pestle cleared one, Pareth another, and Sofia the last and hardest one, which involved finding spell fragments hidden in the patterns on the carpets and artworks of the Ark’s living quarters and putting them together into a ritual that opened a teleportation gate to the shop.
This gave her access to another three Master items, Sofia reviewed them as she shared a light meal with Pestle in one of the ark’s restaurants.
★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s trinketeer belt]:
Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master belt lets you activate the effect of attached consumables without depleting their uses.
Attached consumables cannot be destroyed.
Attached consumables cannot be detached.
Attached consumables gain a cooldown and or mana cost depending on the item.
The belt has five consumable slots.
Slots used: (2/5)
Phoenix blood Potion - Restore 33% of your health, stamina and mana. Cooldown: 10 minutes.
Vorgnam’s Undying branch - Breaks instead of losing your last health point. Cooldown : 30 seconds.
Cannot be destroyed.
Must be primed before use.
Price: 1 000 000 000 TP
Not my thing but this one would be really damned good for Alith…
Maybe I could find a way to give her a hint to the shop’s position? I’m pretty sure she could win the game, but can she get nine gold stars and a billion TP?
I could spend the year I need to repay my debt training her, Ihuarah, Astelia and Everelle specifically for the events, maybe? The system might prevent me from telling them anything but it can’t stop me from nudging their training in specific directions. The four of them would make a pretty incredible team. I’ll ask them when I’m out.
★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Adaptive Cuirasse]:
Carefully crafted from the rarest materials by a genius craftsman, the master cuirasse lets you gain various immunities.
On first equipping, you choose the immunities the master cuirasse grants.
You may choose one of each:
- Immunity to a status effect of your choice.
- Immunity to a damage type of your choice.
- Immunity to a stat regeneration impairment of your choice.
- Immunity to a sub-stat impairment of your choice.
The physical protection the master curiasse grants increases with your class level.
Cannot be destroyed.
Must be primed before use.
Price: 1 000 000 000 TP
If I picked health regeneration impairment this would let me heal through the unlife runes I’m pretty sure. And the other immunities are also great. If I pick strength for the sub-stat and I keep Olympian as my title that means all my physical sub-stats cannot be lowered, which is also a bit ridiculous.
I might have wanted to seriously consider this instead of the earring… If not for the other one.
Alternatively, it’s fine for Pareth too.
Definitely one of the better master items. But this!
★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Mana Mirror Catalyst]:
Carefully crafted by [Redacted] with their own essence, the master catalyst reflects its recipient weapon instead of enhancing spellcasting.
Doubles all magical effects of the recipient weapon.
Doubles all physical damage inflicted by the recipient weapon.
Recipient weapon cannot be destroyed.
On first inserting into a recipient weapon:
Grants the item one random powerful magical effect.
For spellcasting weapons only : Vastly improve performance as a physical weapon.
For physical weapons only : Vastly improve performance as a spellcasting weapon.
Cannot be destroyed.
Must be primed before use.
Price: 1 111 111 111 TP
This I have no word. The essence provider and crafter must be Anna or Creation, basically, which is already saying a lot.
Erredis said she would be able to improve my Scepter with the Odalite blood. If I also had this for it?!
Halving my channeling timel again, halving sustained mana costs again!
It’s just… A tiny bit expensive…
Anyway. The next event is about to start. Solo and group have been alternating until now so I expect another solo event now. Any second now…
[Fifth wave: Individual trials]
[For the fifth wave of tournament events, you must choose to compete in one of four individual events. Tournament points and Star Pins will be awarded individually.]
[Current Mana heart Awakening progression: 8%]
Wait… Eight percent? That’s it?! I would have to duel Tartaros ten more times to awaken it fully?! I might need to focus on picking battle-heavy events now…
[Available fifth wave events:
King of the mountain - Lonely thrones
Advent of the war mages - Battle of the three kingdoms
Mystery in Sunless city - Rise of shadows
Ripples of knowledge - Competition of scholars]
[EVENT: King of the mountain - Lonely thrones]
[At the top of the holy mountain sit three lonely thrones. Can an heir with no kingdom like you claim them? TvT enabled.]
[EVENT: Advent of the war mages - Battle of the three kingdoms]
[War rages between the three kingdoms, how much can a mercenary like you contribute to the war effort? Will you side with the winners, or will the winners be whoever you side with?]
[EVENT: Mystery in Sunless city - Rise of shadows]
[The sun is gone. Under the mounting assault of the sunless, can an investigator like you piece together all the secrets and bring the sun back before it’s too late?]
[EVENT: Ripples of knowledge - Competition of scholars]
[Scholars forms the realms have gathered to share knowledge, each bringing with them an apprentice to compete in a battle of the wits. Can a vagabond like you beat the scholars at their own games?]
The descriptions are getting shorter… If I want to fight the first two events are the way to go. The way to go though… Yeah, probably the thrones, right? Other people can only claim one but with Pareth and Bookie I could monopolize all three!
The only issue is that Tartaros and Saria are both likely to pick this, not to mention the others… This could quickly evolve into a big mess, especially if alliances start to form. Also if others decide to come with their teammates… Ezerid could possibly come with his entire team, that would certainly be troublesome.
Still… I can’t let that stop me. I’ll quickly go confirm with Mornn and Kuli that they aren’t picking the same event, just in case.
The event started, and people started disappearing from the Ark, but Sofia and Pareth were not teleported.
They looked at each other wondering what had gone wrong, when finally the scenery changed around them. They were at the bottom of a gigantic mountain, and they got a few system prompts about the event. There were three thrones at the top of the mountain, a golden, silver and copper one, sitting on the gold throne for a second gave three points, the silver two points and the copper one point. People would get ranked by their number of points, and would get a bonus if they were still sitting on a throne when the event ended.
People would fight for their place on the thrones, potentially make alliances, share the throne with teammates, or wait until the end to ambush the weakened defenders of the thrones and get the end bonus. That was what the entire event was about.
But from the start things were strange.
Sofia and Pareth rushed to the top of the mountain, and they saw nobody. Perhaps it was because they were too fast, they thought, as they used everything they could to gain speed.
When they reached the thrones fifteen seconds later, there was no one. Sofia hurriedly sat on the golden throne, while Pareth prepared to defend against incoming contestants.
“What is going on?” Sofia asked Pareth as she looked around, after sitting down. She had expected people to get there quickly, but a few seconds had passed already, and as a point counter slowly started to rise up in the corner of her vision, nobody seemed to come fight her. “Is there a trap? Something that we’re missing? Where is everyone?”
Sofia extended her mana senses as much as she could, and aside from Pareth and Peslte who was invisible beside her, she only felt one other presence, coming from the other side of the mountain.
She prepared to fight, throwing a bone token to observe the incoming contestant without leaving the throne, only to see Cinthia leap up the mountain alone.
A few second later, she made it to the thrones.
“Woah! Saria was right!” she exclaimed as she approached the thrones.
“Cin?” Sofia asked bewildered as Cinthia ran up to the copper throne and sat on it. “What do you mean Saria was right?”
“She predicted no one would want to fight with you after seeing you destroy Tartaros in the casino,” Cinthia answered with a giggle. “It was easy to predict you would go for this event so everybody just avoided it. Even Saria picked another one because she didn’t want to compete with you for the gold pin. Pareth, you should sit down on the silver throne, you’re wasting points!”
Sofia was at a complete loss for words, and so were the Seraphs and everyone watching the event from the spectator rooms.
Sofia had a long chat with the fake Cinthia, and the event ended an hour later, literally nobody else showing up the entire time.
When the results came, they confirmed that indeed, there was no error, only herself and Cinthia were in the rankings.
What the fuck.
Comments
Jonathan Wint
Other contestants are smart.
Cyclone001
My money is that at least one of the items is on ms Rotfallen and/or the people in her group trying to recruit Sofia.
Matt Grayson
I'ma be honest here. The first time through, there were sections I thought dragged (Sorrow's temple) and parts I just plain couldn't follow (Hidden Moon Arc). On rereading, though, not only was everything mesmerizing, but it kept getting better. Almost 700 chapters in and it's still this good! It certainly doesn't have the "ok, time to wrap it up" feeling that almost every series gets by this point. Sure, it looks like we're seeing hints of a Final Boss, but I hope we're in no hurry to get there. @Mornn, I salute you!
Matt Grayson
Since none of them chose the three thrones this time, we can assume so.
Inv7ctus
Well, that's going to make it more difficult to awaken her mana heart, this might be a real problem.
Clara
Considering she's on her way to beating Tartaros, she'll probably only show up for someone who also manages to at least fight Victory for the crown, if not win
Clara
Pauldrons were ch651 and I'd personally argue they're better than the catalyst. She can apply them to passive skills (for example if she makes unlife runes passive, which makes the staff not reduce their cast time)
Pexezz
thanks for the chapter ! would have thought at least Tartaros would be interested in rematch but maybe not when the points gained are timer based 🙂↔️
Malphir
Would be nice to have a condensed list to show the different Master items in one spot. Just for the ease of theory crafting the best combo and making it easier to see the whole picture. Current top three for me are the catalyst, all-in earing, and cuirass. Someone mentioned the pauldrons as their third, but I honestly forgot what they do and what chapter has the info.
steamrick
There's absolutely no way it's a one-to-one payout, not with how people are expected to fight over sitting on the thrones.
Sanetless
OH GOD I JUST REALIZED SOFIA IS GONNA SHOW UP IN OTHER PEOPLE'S TRIALS
Matt Grayson
Twin ruleset balances that advantage against taking double damage. If there WERE any competitors in this trial, they'd have a "better" chance of dislodging Sof or Pareth. (Twice zero etc.)
forwad Nothing
Well. Mornn next chapter or two we had better get a reaction. I don’t care who or what. I NEED A REACTION to this.
E
Surely this has to be historic first. I assume her plan of sitting Bookie on the copper throne would've never worked since Bookie isn't registered as a contestant. That would be like if Sofia put her hand on the seat of the throne and it registering her hand as sitting on it. One could argue twin ruleset provided an unfair advantage in this event by allowing claim of two different thrones as one contestant. Only other contender for historic first would be another set of twins and they would've had to teleport there right at the start. I wonder how the trial would account for triplets. Maybe historic first is the Powerpuff Girls.
Whyer
LOOMING
Emily Gurnavage
What damage type is a black hole? Lmao. Wear that and send her in to see whats up down there.
Matt Grayson
System therapists were swamped in the ensuing weeks by Seraphs stricken with anxiety and depression.
Amythyst
She can already get immunity to the damage from channeling them but poking herself with it early or channeling to the point where it starts to hurt, letting it lose some mana below that threshold, and then channeling as much as she wants. Both versions from Singularity Edict.
Amythyst
Sophia's Recessed mother is Sorrow, not Suffering
Songy
(Edited, thanks for the save @Amythyst) Leave it to the Daughter and Saintess of Sorrow to have to lament her own success ^^
Songy
Yeah, who again said they are not blood related? XD
Clara
I frankly think the cuirass is better than the catalyst for her, enables more broken combos. Surely the status and damage type immunities can be cheesed really hard, too. I'm certain Erredis or Richard have some very good ideas on what to pick for those
Silver Dawn
No chance they ever let an image of Sofia in another trial. Her presence just warps everything too much.
InfernalDrake
With the Armor she could get full immunity to lightning damage! NO more limits on channeling her bolts! Although at the current point she can make them, maybe she needs heat damage immunity instead…
Matt Grayson
These are secret shops. You can get non-unique items elsewhere, I’d think.
ArtTheGreat
The shops closed after the unique items were sold? That… doesn’t seem great to me. What about people who might have wanted to buy the non-unique items? Why would they close the shops?
Matt Grayson
BTW, that's under 20,000 throne points for team Sof. I hope the payout isn't one-to-one.
E
I want to know what mechanism levels up the heart. Does the heart gain experience from the conclusion of a battle or the actions taken during? At some point a Seraph will have to go into an instance and just beat the crap out of Sofia 'til her heart evolves. It would be funny and a nice stress relief for them.
Tom Asciola
Oh wow, so that's what you meant by Plague lmao But this brings up an interesting point - do the copies have enough agency to pick different events than their originals did?
Cyclone001
Lol. Poor Sofia - a perfect score and no closer to awakening her heart than before. The spectaters of this event probably want their money back. Training Alith to get the belt is definitely the way to go. It's the least she can do as an appology for her likely presence in their trial. Both the other 2 master's items are really good. With these outrageous costs though, I can see why Mornn is doing so much mathing.
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter! Oh my Lord, so she needs to get 11 ish more Saint T level fights while everyone is getting the hell outta dodge. Suffering from success.
Matt Grayson
She couldn't take the dagger, alas.
E
"So far, the master gloves, bracelets and dagger have been sold." Darn they took the exact items Sofia needed most. She'll need to figure out how to divide by zero if she's going to afford 3bil of items. A shame Sofia didn't think to pull out the table and tea for some tea time with Cinthia. Maybe get some comments from simulated Recessed (even better if the real Recessed could speak through the imprint Cinthia).
Lazy Monster
TFTC. The items are really interesting. The best 3 items for Sofia are the catalyst, earring, and the pauldrins, excluding the perfect run star. The points themselves appear to be the biggest issue, hopefully the perfect star gives a major discount or something. It’s really funny that she’s doing so well it’s actually getting hard for her to get fights to progress her mana heart.
Vettu
Fake as he is, remember that he's still trying to clear the trial. To him, this is fully real
Matt Grayson
I hope Mornn (the Saint) gets her Tournament Master's Sword... No one loves swords like she does. (And I hope it's 8 feet long, changes colors like a Gamer's keyboard, and has "FAFO" in ancient runes floating above its surface.)
Mornn
Optimizations can take more or less space depending/ Ever seen a schematic of the human veins and nerves? It's a bit like that, there may be 'plenty of space' in between the veins, but not everything can fit in there. / not a typo or oversight no :p
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the chapter! Looks like Sofia will have a harder time making progress than expected
BOT
The woes of being too OP, no one wants to compete with you
Vettu
That's actually really funny, I didn't expect that but it 100% tracks. Getting the earrings and Mana Mirror Catalyst might not be too far of a stretch at this rate
Mornn
Not quite? It just means debuffs can't lower the substat
Daemion
Well, guess she's too intimidating now.
OmniGlitcher
>To this day, three of them have been sold I wonder who these could be? The system hiding things in the spirit plane again I see. Oh wow, I see what you mean about this being the most Sofia. She really is suffering from success, considering she needs to fight.
Clara
Some thoughts I built up over the weekend: Do skill optimizations take up more slot space? Maybe she should avoid grabbing stuff like the spine turning into a sword upgrade in that case. Adding up false lord, active, passive, classless, wildcast, and free slots, she's got about 42 class slots total. Nex said she had 60%-70% of her blueprint filled (before the fusions, with 6.2 slots showing as available). Wonder what's missing from this calculation; wasted space in her existing skills? Commenter Malphir mentioned the following on the last chapter: "Just realized Crystallized Suffering doesn't lose potency of the buff when healing, meaning she doesn't have to trigger her False Immortality marks to overclock it anymore." Is this a typo/oversight, or did her skill become completely busted?
Clara
It is a bit surprising Tartaros wouldn't just come back for another round, he seemed like that kind of guy
Matt Grayson
Hahahahahahah! I thought she was shunted to the mysterious back-up trial from the Casino level, but no....
Shelbo
Aw just Iike grandma
Clara
Immunity to a sub-stat impairment of your choice. A bit of a long shot, but would choosing aura mean her aura can't be suppressed by others?
Quentin Cozzi
Thanks for the chapter!
