Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The next moment, Simon opened his eyes, he found himself in a small room full of shelves with different kinds of items and treasures lining on top of it. There was no doubt in his mind, this was the treasury room of the fourth trail.

Just as he was about to move and check these items, to his surprise he realised that an invisible energy was holding him in his place and he was unable to get out of its hold.

"What is going on?" he murmured. Why would the trail stop him from getting his rewards?

He was thinking all that when suddenly a window appeared in front of him.

DING…

[The Challenger's rewards are being altered. Calculating the merit points earned during the trial].

A different kind of window, one that he hadn't seen in the third trail, appeared in front of him. Reading the notification, Simon was a little confused as to why his rewards were being altered; nonetheless, he still waited patiently for his trail to calculate.

It took a little time for Simon's contributions and actions to be calculated, since this was the very first someone had cleared a trial by themselves without the help of others.

DING… the trail finally finished calculating his merit points as a notification sound popped in his head and his rewards materialised in front of him out of thin air.

[Received, Radiant Crown of Brilliance], [10 Grade [5] mana crystals], [3 Black Corbius Stone], [1 Calamity Class Core Stone], [1 Zedar Wood Extract Elixir], [5 Blocks of Mythril Ore], [1,000,000 Empyrean Platinum coins], [1 Return Transit Rock].

Leaving the many items that he never heard of or seen aside, Simon was a little amazed when he saw that he was gifted the crown as a reward. It must be said that it was an [S] rank item, though it was damaged, it could still be repaired in the future.

Additionally, the trial information referred to it as Radiant Crown of Brilliance instead of Yela's crown which goes to show that the possession of the item no longer belong to Yela now and he can take the item without worrying about any curse going off.

Simon stored all of the things whose value cannot be measured by money into his inventory. with the Return Transit Rock in his hand, he can now leave the Forbidden ground.

Now that he thought about it, it was almost more than a month that he had spent inside the forbidden trial grounds. Not only was this trip extremely beneficial for his growth, but he had also acquired many items and treasures that would become the foundation of his strength in the future.

Although there were many a times during this period that he was pushed back into a situation where he was about to die, Simon doggedly held on and survived all his tribulations. One could even say that he was born anew after all the hurdles he had to go through.

Grabbing the return Transit rock in his hand, he inserted some of his mana into it and immediately the air around him started rippling and a black halo enveloped him. A feeling of weightlessness grabbed hold of Simon and before he knew it, the scenery around him had changed.

Feeling the fresh air of the night sky brush past his body and a scenery different from the vast wilderness and old tombs, Simon felt refreshed.

Next, he took out a map that Cynthia had given him and checked his position. If he were to believe the map, he was not far away from the Northern outlaw forest and if he kept true, he would soon reach its borders.

Simon unfurled his wings, donned on his Trinket of Grimlock, and descended onto the land of loess. Additionally, he also wore a black robe that covered most of his body and a bamboo hat. There was no way he would forget the humiliation he had to suffer in this place.

The area where he fought the Sea God's Trident Guild was not very far away from here. Simon did not know how long had passed in the outside world thus it was better for him to mask his appearance lest there were still members of their guild searching around this place for him.

-----

Five days later, inside the Black Town, in one of the bars located near the centre.

CREAK… a tall man donned in a black robe from head toe, entered the bar full of drunkards and rough people before finding a seat and unceremoniously seating down.

It was not unusual for a person to wear a grab like that, in fact, if you just look out you would find many such people masking their appearance like that. However, the man's height was more than enough to turn a few curious heads towards him.

The bartender approached the tall man and asked crankily "State your business and your order".

"Information" the latter tossed him a pouch which the bartender caught easily. When he looked inside the pouch, he was dumbstruck to find that the coins inside were not your silver or gold but platinum.

What's more, there were a couple of them inside the pouch. Seeing the wealth that was casually tossed out by the man, the bartender was forced to re-evaluate the latter. When he glanced at the man's crimson red eyes, his body involuntarily shuddered and his back became cold with sweat.

'This man is dangerous' The bartender thought internally before dissolving all thoughts of trickery from his mind.

"F-First floor… room 07" for some reason his voice shuddered and he had difficulty maintaining his composure.

The tall man immediately got up as soon as he heard that and started walking towards the stairs.

PHEW… the bartender sighed a breath of relief seeing the latter walk away. Room 07 was one of the soundproof rooms that was used to exchange information in this place. After all, in this place where information from all sorts of regions flowed in, information meant money.

The door to the room 07 was pushed open and a tall man in a black robe, walked in. The room wasn't very big and could only accommodate a few people at once.

At the centre of the room, were a set of table and chairs on which a person was already waiting there. He had a sly face with the right half of it burnt.

Seeing the tall man enter, the latter asked "So what is that you want to know?".

The man in black robes did not reply immediately, he walked towards the centre of the room, sat himself opposite to the other party and then opened his mouth.

"Everything you know about the event that happened in the capital city and any other thing related to it".

The scar-faced man wasn't surprised by the question of the other party on the contrary; he knew that the question would be related to that. After all, many people had come to him with the same question.

The events that had happened in the city of Ellesmere was just too big of a sensation.

"Well, are you aware of the 'Battle of the Finest' tournament that took place in the capital almost two months ago?".

The tall man had a peculiar reaction when he said that nonetheless, he nodded his head his head indicating that he was aware of it.

"It seemed that a demon noble from the demon continent snuck in at that time. He not only made a huge mess of the tournament, but also tried to assassinate the third prince and a participant from the foreign kingdom. Fortunately, Vouves the royal court magician of the Sanguine Empire was present in our kingdom at that time and sensed its presence.

"Together with Davis Hall, they discovered the identity of the Demon Noble. It was quite a surprise, the demon noble was able to morph its appearance and look just like a human. You would expect the demon to be caught when faced with titans such as Vouves and Davis Hall. But the surprising thing was that, it not only stood its ground, but also had a powerful ally capable of pushing the two of them back".

"After devastating the entire capital…" the scar-faced man stated, he was just about to continue on when the latter stopped him by saying he already knew all that and he wanted to know what happened later.

"If that is the case, then are you aware of the huge clash that took place in the sea city aqualin? It is rumoured that the Sea god's trident was chasing after the Demon Noble in full force, even their guild master is said to have been involved".

"Nevertheless, they still weren't able to catch him. In the end, though they came out empty-handed, they were at least able to identify the dungeon of the Demon Noble".

When the scar face man saw the latter show some interest in the second half of his story, he started contemplating about the origins of the man.

"The name of that demon seems to be Laplace and its dungeon is located inside the Ghastly Winding Forest. Hehe, it's not a secret anymore, and all the people of this kingdom know about it. What's more, many large guilds and factions are establishing their branch in the city of mountmend to tackle the dungeon".

"Though this information is not verified yet, but I got a report saying that the top five guilds of this kingdom are also thinking about getting involved. How about it? Did you get the information you wanted?" the scar faced man smiled and asked.

The black-robed man nodded his head, turned around and started walking towards the exit.

'All this information should be common knowledge by now to the people of this kingdom. Does that mean that he is a Foreigner or perhaps…'