Crazy Necromancer in the Ruined Tower

"The Colosseum"

For the people of the lower floors, it was akin to the Olympics back on Earth. A stage where the strongest newcomers fought for glory and reward only offered by competing well in the Colosseum. It was run and overseen by the Administrators, Tower officials who were selected to oversee the first ten floors. The colosseum was held only once in ten years. It may seem like a long time, but for the people in the Tower, whose average life span was two to three times the lifespan on earth, it just seemed like a passing season.

Be they Guilds, Organizations, or aspiring Rankers, everyone is equal in the Colosseum. Regardless of a difference in class or ability, everyone is given an equal 'chance' to participate in the Colosseum.

That was it, that's where the privilege for the weak ended. If an individual is weak of spirit, then he has no place in the Colosseum. Dying from a fight was common here, no one mourns the dead, but the winner gets adulation and attention from the guilds and organizations watching the fights, scouting for talent. The Colosseum works under a "Winner takes All" basis.

The big groups of influence use the Colosseum as a culling ground for their rival groups' new talent and a testing ground for their own new recruits for them to rise above their peers by performing well and showing their worth. Once you enter the arena, your life will be hanging by a thread, ready to be cut at a moment's notice. Yet, despite all the risks, there will still be at least a hundred thousand participants at each of the Colosseum's events, why? Simple! The more they risk, the more the Tower will reward them.

The rewards for the previous event winners have always gained super desirable rewards that guilds have fought wars just for something similar too. It's a known fact that even the High-rankers send their children or disciples to participate in the Colosseum, even after knowing for a fact that they may die.

It is said that the previous event's winner of the Colosseum is now an elder at one of the big guilds, a position he rose to in just 10 years. If we consider the fact that to be considered as a "Big Guild" it must have rankers who have gone beyond the 50th floor and at least 1 high ranker who surpassed the 75th-floor challenge. Becoming an elder at such an organization within just 10 years was an unbelievable achievement and yet no one knows what reward he even got as a reward besides himself.

"I heard that this event's participant's list number has already risen above one million and is closing in on the 5 million marks," a random guy who was watching the majestic Colosseum from afar said to the individual standing beside him.

"Hmm… apparently, all the testing areas are busy filtering out the weaklings trying to become challengers, or so I heard." Of course, it was not possible to let everyone from the masses participate in the Colosseum, so the Administrators decided to create testing areas all over the 10th-floor so that whoever wishes to participate in the Colosseum must first make it past the screening process, and the ranking of the participants are thus created from that process and are recorded, giving them their initial ranks in the trials to come.

Among millions and millions of people, only exactly 524,288 individuals are selected to compete against one another. After the selection, they will participate in 1v1 duels with the other fighters, the only rule for the duels on who wins and who loses in the arena is whoever is the last one standing/living once the match is over.

Did you get hurt? Well, you can die for all they cared, your own life is in your own hands and it's up to you to keep yourself alive and know when to retreat/forfeit.

The other party is cheating? How can one cheat at a game that hasn't set any rules on what's allowed and what isn't? The only condition for victory was that you win, no one cared how you achieved it.

The testing areas were of a couple of different types, for example, you can take the test in the church or the one in the graveyard. Depending on which you decided to pick, the test is completely different and of course, one whose best suited for the testing location has a higher chance of passing, and maybe even getting a high score.

Today was the last day to get access to the Colosseum as it would be opening after two days. But our MC, the friendly, neighborhood necromancer, was only now coming out of the 9th floor, and if he wanted to make it to the testing booth, he'd have to speedrun over. "Shit! This floor took way too much time, I'm going to be f*cking late! " To be specific he has been on the 9th floor for four days now, far longer than he was hoping his stay on that floor would be.

At first, he thought he'd exit the floor quickly since his skellies had already completed and then curb-stomped the challenge, but Kapali advised otherwise and insisted on every other member, including Shiva, learn a skill since the tower was basically just handing them out like they were candy.

One person was limited to only one skill on the 9th floor, but due to him being a necromancer and the Tower somehow recognizing his summons as different entities, enabling everyone to learn a skill for free, but due to all the easy skills being learned by the skellies, the rest of them were forced to choose among the remaining hard ones, which take a lot of time to practice in order for them to gain the basic mastery over the skill.

Kapali choose the 'Cleaner' skill, which literally just helped the individual to clean things better. When Shiva asked him why he chose that specific skill he simply said that he wishes to keep his bones and weapons shining.

"…", Shiva seriously doubted whether there was any need to learn the specific skill just to do that much.

Bhima got really into singing a while back and picked up the 'Singer' skill, he managed to learn a unique skill called 'Song of Twilight', and even got a subclass "Cantor of Twilight". Only God knows what use it has or will have.

The more unique... ok, honestly, it's just weird. Ugram, he choose a butcher skill(don't ask me how would he hold a knife now), who learned the 'Butcher' skill. Along with that, he gained a unique skill, "Butcher dragon". He seemed to have a great hate for everyone with big meaty muscles and would act with extreme prejudice against anyone with such mass...

Shiva himself choose the 'Dancer' skill to practice, which drained the hell out of his stamina. He finally managed to get a skill called "The Dance of Death", which has a hidden activation condition with no description, so he ignored it completely.

Among all of them, Virupa seemed to be the most normal one as he chooses to practice 'Culinary' and gained a subclass "Culinarian", which was a higher version of "Cook".

And finally, after one and a half days of continuous stress and grinding, they came out. And here they finally realize that their time was already ticking, fixing to run out for them to participate in any of the testing areas to qualify.

[The testing sites nearby:-

1. Church of light(109km)

2. Temple of Urd(210km)

3. Church of the Moon Goddess(453km)

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.

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76. Graveyard of Apollyon(999km)]

"Fu*k my luck." Shiva groaned.

It appears that his new title is already taking effect.

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(Edited by JokeDagger)