Speed Is King

Kara placed her hands on the side of the Drone just like Camelia did earlier, and the drone opened up with a loud BSHHHH.

"WHOA!" Kara shouted in shock and glee when she saw yet another transparent weapon's case lying within. "A GUNBLADE?! AIRFRIEDCRICKETSONASTICK! It's beautiful! Oh my god."

By her side, Elliot merely noted the Gunblade's beauty and nodded at its useful dual function. Its grip could be straightened to form a fully conventional blade, or lowered at an angle to turn into a long-barrelled gun. Like Camelia's rifle, it was laser-powered and could deal horrific damage at short to mid range.

The fact that it was a laser-powered gunblade simply meant that Kara's sword thrusts would have unlimited range.

Elliot could already imagine Kara's enemies jumping backwards to avoid her sword thrust, and then getting shot at by her laser gun. It was the perfect marriage between a melee and ranged weapon.

However, the fact that it was an extraordinarily beautiful piece of work that wouldn't look out of place in any museum in the world was completely lost on Elliot. He was too laser focused (pun not intended lol) on analyzing the strengths and benefits of the rewards, and extrapolating his findings upwards in an attempt to guess just how awesome his own rewards would be.

And judging by Camelia's and Kara's rewards, his would be pretty epic.

Kara got over her preoccupation with her reward's awesomeness much quicker than Camelia did, exhibiting a soldier's self-control and mastery over her emotions. After her initial outburst, Kara quickly gulped her power-up pills which consisted of 2 strength, 2 intelligence and 2 speed pills, and finished her tutorial device within seconds.

After that, both girls turned to look at Elliot expectantly.

Elliot smiled at their eager faces and beckoned for them to follow him to the 1st Drone.

BSH!!

The drone's side opened up.

"Huh?" Camelia couldn't help but blurt out in confusion. "A broken and rusted sword? And what's with the tiny vial? You can't even fit a single strength pill in it!"

A huge sense of Déjà Vu washed over Elliot.

He had experienced such a situation before in the previous iteration. Twice, in fact.

After he had gone through all sorts of crap and almost literally went to hell and back, he had finally managed to win access to his two Diamond Sponsors. However, he had been bitterly disappointed to discover that their boons did absolutely nothing and brought no immediate benefits to him whatsoever.

The situation he was facing was exactly like that. He had gone through so much in the past two days to win the Battle Royale with an overwhelming score, and yet his rewards looked like they weren't even worth a donkey's fart.

Still, he wasn't discouraged at all. If his past experience was any indicator, then the rewards would actually be stupidly overpowered instead of being useless.

The worse they looked, the higher Elliot's anticipation was. And at that moment, Elliot's anticipation was sky high.

"Check out the rusted sword first!" Camelia said excitedly.

"No, don't. Leave it for later. Check out that weird vial first. It must be the real reward!" Kara said loudly.

"What can such a tiny vial do? It's probably some advanced version of the pills we took. Check the sword first. It must be a supremely rare weapon used by some ancient warrior!" Camelia urged Elliot. "You'll definitely become truly OP with that sword in hand!"

"A BROKEN, rare weapon." Kara retorted back. "It won't even survive one battle in that state. It'll probably lead Elliot to a quest to repair it or something. I smell trouble. I say check the vial first!"

"Sword first!"

"Vial first!"

"Alright, alright, enough. I'll check the vial first. It's so tiny, I'll feel better once I've secured it properly." Elliot reasoned and shushed the girls.

Kara smiled and gave Camelia a victorious wink, who immediately stuck out her tongue at Kara very childishly.

Elliot ignored the two girls who were fast becoming best friends and picked up the tiny vial the size of his thumb nail.

The moment his hands touched the vial, a mini psionic wave entered his mind and informed him of the nature of the vial's contents.

Elliot gasped in shock.

"Red Dragon Blood Essence??" He mumbled to himself.

"What? What did you say? I didn't quite catch it." Kara said.

"I think he said dragon blood something…" Camelia said hesitantly. As a sniper, she had caught Elliot's lips moving and was able to catch more of his words than Kara.

"Dragon blood? And at such a small quantity? What can it do?" Kara frowned lightly. She was feeling rather confused.

Elliot was unequivocally first in the event, and by a stupendous margin at that. His reward should be stupendously wonderful as well! But how wonderful could a small drop of dragon blood be?

"Well in the light novels that I've read, blood is a critical component for… Evolution." Camelia said hesitantly.

"Evolution?" Kara's gaze turned to Elliot who seemed to have made up his mind. "Does that mean…"

Before she could finish, however, Elliot had already taken out a sharp knife from his storage and stabbed it into his own heart!

"EEEEEKKK!! ELLIOT!!!" Camelia screamed in shock.She was about to approach Elliot when Kara grabbed hold of her shoulder and stopped her.

"Wait. He knows what he is doing. Let him finish." Kara said calmly to her.

Elliot pulled out his knife and poured the contents of the vial into the wound.

The tiny drop of White Dragon Blood Essence quickly disappeared into his heart.

Elliot waited for three seconds as instructed by the psionic waves before pouring half a bottle of potion over the wound.

Instantly, his wound began to close and the blood flowing out of his body slowed to a trickle. Within five seconds, the chest wound healed and Elliot was as good as new.

However, although outwardly his body was healed, his internals were about to get completely overhauled.

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