The pale purple Zero-Type Mecha stood on the edge of the rooftop, gazing down at the vast sea of glowing purple below. The sight was both mesmerizing and foreboding, as if the city itself had been consumed by some alien pulse.
Without hesitation, Raleigh took a step forward. For a split second, it seemed as though he would plunge from the thousand-meter-high building straight into the heart of the glowing abyss. But it was merely an illusion. With a subtle adjustment of his balance, the Zero-Type Mecha fell only five floors before catching the edge of the wall and springing back into the building.
"Whew… jumping from this height never gets old," Raleigh muttered, a thrill running through him. "The passage on this floor should be clear of corpses. Time to start hunting again."
The adrenaline coursing through him reminded Raleigh why he loved these trials. Darkness no longer held him back,he had complete control of the Zero-Type Mecha, and the thrill of testing his new limits invigorated him.
Currently, the Zero-Type Mecha functions as light exoskeleton armor, essentially an auxiliary mecha. It amplified his physical attributes while integrating seamlessly with his own body's abilities. Normally, a MechWarrior's personal strength was negligible compared to the mecha's. But Raleigh was different. After absorbing the Zero-Type Mecha's power, his body now displayed a panel akin to a Mecha interface:
Attributes: Strength 4, Agility 3, Defense 2, Mystery 0
Ability: Uncontrolled Mutation
Now, wearing the Zero-Type Mecha in Balanced Form, his combined attributes reached staggering levels:
Attributes: Strength 8, Agility 6, Defense 2 (+2), Mystery 0
To put it bluntly, if another Muscle Mutant appeared, Raleigh could crush it effortlessly.
"The Zero-Type Mecha can only carry three modules, and attributes have an upper limit," he thought. "But now, I'm effectively wearing two Mechas at once, with six modules in total. I've completely shattered the limit!"
Even among the Mech Warriors in the Elementary Trials, he wasn't claiming to be the strongest,but in raw power, he had already reached T0 level. Clearing the basic trial would be almost trivial. The real challenge now was optimizing his strategy to maximize his score.
Raleigh moved down the emergency passage with quiet purpose, ripping down emergency lights along the way to use as handheld illumination. These lights ran on small, independent power cells and provided barely enough light to see, but it was better than nothing.
At first, the lower floors were almost eerily quiet. After clearing a few floors aggressively earlier, only a handful of Primary Mutators remained. They were casually crushed under Raleigh's hands, his movements smooth and precise.
It wasn't until around the fiftieth floor that the number of mutants began to noticeably increase. That's when a new special mutant appeared,a creature vastly different from the Muscle Mutant.
Its body was only about twice the size of a Primary Mutator, but its arms were long, slender, and spider-like, growing from both sides of its torso. It moved with uncanny speed and could cling to walls, making it almost impossible to track in the dim, purple-tinged light.
Before it could even react, Raleigh grabbed it by the arm, slammed it to the ground, and stomped on its head. In a flash, the mutant was gone. Eight points of strength and six points of agility? In the face of absolute attributes, even special mutants were nothing more than obstacles to be swept aside.
As expected, the creature dropped rewards.
[Killed a special mutant, obtained module: Spider Arm]
"Spider Arm"
Tier: Zero
Quality: Excellent
Type: Back Module
Effect: Adds two spider arms and slightly increases mecha operation range and weapon capacity.
Description: They… they are communicating in my mind!
This module was incredibly practical. With two additional mecha arms, Raleigh could operate more tools and handle multiple weapons simultaneously. A four-armed dual-wielding weapon setup was now theoretically possible. The catch: he didn't have any weapons yet.
Mech Warriors could only enter the Elementary Trial with their initial Zero-Type Mecha and standard-issue clothing. This ensured the trial remained challenging, even for the most capable participants. The Spider Arm module would have to be stored in his Abyssal Mark until the right opportunity came.
The building itself was staggering,over a thousand meters tall, with at least four hundred floors. Earlier, his noise on the rooftop had only drawn mutants from about fifty floors. Now, as he descended further into the emergency passage, the mutant population grew denser. Special mutants began appearing with increasing frequency: bloated brutes, alien creatures with scythe-like arms, and other grotesque variations.
Raleigh didn't linger. Unless a mutant could be killed in one blow, he pressed forward. At this rate, lingering would only allow the countless Primary Mutators to overwhelm him. One floor could contain over a hundred Primary Mutators, and by his estimation, the building housed nearly a hundred thousand of them in total,a staggering number. Hesitation here could be fatal.
The reason for descending further was clear. Both the term "root tendril" and the plant-like mutant classification suggested that the most powerful entities were likely near the base, close to the root system. His observations in the passage confirmed this: the further down he went, the more numerous the mutants became, and small root tendrils began creeping along the walls. Over time, the walls themselves became covered in these writhing, fibrous growths, forming a natural tunnel woven from living plant matter.
Then, he paused. Below the emergency passage, a solid path no longer existed. Instead, a massive opening revealed a giant plant cavity, illuminated by pale purple fluorescent liquid, spanning at least three or four floors in height.
Inside, there were no primary or special mutants,only a colossal humanoid figure, six or seven meters tall. Its skin was verdant green, textured like root tendrils, giving it a strikingly plant-like appearance. Its hair cascaded down its back in thick, root-like strands, intertwining with the ground below. The circular black shadows Raleigh had glimpsed earlier flowed along these roots into the giant's head.
The Root-Vine Giant noticed Raleigh almost immediately. Its massive right hand transformed a root into a long, whip-like appendage, lashing out with terrifying speed and precision.