King of the Mountain

59: Wrapping Up The Team Tournament

After Bruce had his fun attacking people in the open, we flew over to the second tower in the West. I had him repeat the same plan I did with Yonder. If it’s not broke don’t fix it. After the tower turned into a giant flaming candle I installed Bruce into the tower. One by one I continued. With each of my kids I let them express themselves and attack a group or two that might be out in the open. It did not take long and it was something fun we could do together.

Each attack took about 10 minutes. So right after I installed Melarue in the third tower I received a notice that I assumed everyone on the team got also.

You team has captured a second tower. All of your controlled towers will now glow green in your sight and enemy controlled towers will glow red.

That is convenient. Thank you Great Game. That will simplify things as I spread my reign of terror amongst the other teams. Eventually all eight of my team, excluding Walter who was in charge of defense at the original tower, were holding down their own towers. That makes nine towers in just over an hour and a half. The last tower took a little longer, because the las team had started to try and come up with a strategy to stop my giant fireball attack. They set a few traps on the roof which screwed me up momentarily and took me out of my groove. They actually knocked Esmerelda and I off the top of the tower we were attacking. When we hit the ground the group charged out the front door and tried to overwhelm us.

I was a little upset at this point because they could have hurt one of my little girls and I may have kind of tore them limb from limb. I mean that in the literal sense. My strength was over 1,500 and being as mad as I was I literally ripped some appendages off people in the attacking group. When I calmed down, the other team was defeated and Esmerelda was just repeating, I am ok daddy. I am glad I did not shift into my dragon form. I am saving that one for a big surprise when needed.

I decided to wait another 15 to 20 minutes and take a quick break while waiting for all of our towers to be officially recognized as being “owned” by our team. I told everyone my plan and retreated back to the central tower and checked in with Walter.

“Hi Walter, how is everything going?”

“Everything is good master. No one has counterattacked and the defenses are untouched.”

“Very good Walter, when we are done with this small break I am going to take you, Yonder, Bruce, and one person from each of the other directions and start going on a clearance rampage.”

“Very Well master, I look forward to working with you again soon.”

I think that I have intimidated the surrounding groups because while I was watching from the top of the tower I could see groups continually attacking and expanding, but always in a direction away from us. Well time is up. Time to gather up some of the others and start reducing the number of teams even more. I stop by each of the towers and either gather the person into the group or tell them to keep watch from the top of their tower. The West is a dead end so I take both Bruce and Yonder, and I decide to leave the kids at their towers for this round and take Rydel, Melarue, Hannah, and of course Walter. However, which way should we go?

We talk it over and decide to go either North or South keep the directions of counterattack down by traveling along the border. After flipping a coin, it is decided to go North. An hour later I have cleared the sixth tower to the North and have to stop for a break to allow for the ½ hour recognition period to acknowledge my latest conquest. This will make a total of 15 towers. No one is attacking us back and the conquests have been getting easier. In fact, two of the towers here in the North were empty. We saw everyone in the tower evacuate and go to attack someone to the East when they saw us approaching. I guess watching an approaching team make each tower up to yours into a giant flaming candle of doom inspires you to move and try somewhere else.

I have to respect their decision, so I will travel south next and leave them alone. I gathered up my four kids and Walter and did a repeat of what had just happened in the North on the South side of our conquered towers. That is a total of 20 towers. I know that this should be more than enough. I decide to wait at least an hour and see if there are any new developments.

After an hour of waiting I was bored. We did not need to control any more towers, but since no one even tried to counterattack I did not want to just sit here for up to another 20 hours just waiting. I decided to go east from our original tower more towards the center to see if we could stir up some trouble. I decided for this one to take all four of the friends and Walter and leave the kids behind just in case. With them being able to fly it would allow them to cover more distance if they are needed to defend a tower. I set Bruce in the middle tower, Elvira to the North, and Esmerelda to the South. Azure was going to take the first new tower to the East and the rest of us would keep attacking. We were in the middle of our attack on the 3rd tower to the east when we were teleported back to the common area and greeted with a message.

Congratulations, you have managed to be hold on and have qualified for one of the spots in the Team Tournament. You and your companions set a record for the greatest number of towers ever held by one team in the King of the Castle tournament. You are each granted the title Tower Master +5.

“Well that was easy.”

“It is usually more of a challenge lad, but you kind of skew things in our favor.”

“Shouldn’t it have taken longer though. I mean we had 23 or 24 towers when the Great Game booted us out. That means the other teams must have had an average of 8-10 towers each. I thought you said that teams usually could get to the next round with only 4 or 5 towers?”

“Once again lad, that is due to you. They each probably only had 4-5 towers. Remember no one counterattacked us. If a team is wiped out and no one occupies their tower it just becomes neutral until someone spends ½ an hour in it. More than likely the correct number of teams was wiped out and the number of towers per team did not change. It was just us that others did not want to tick off.”

“Of that makes sense.”

“Well me and the kids are off to rest.”

“See you in the morning lad. Remember the next rounds are all one versus one with a twist.”

“What kind of twist Yonder?”

“You first have to conquer the tower in the center of the arena and then withstand monster waves for 30 minutes before being declared the winner. If you cannot last the 30 minutes than the game is reset and you try again until someone conquers both the tower and resists the waves of monsters.”

“How high are the levels of the monsters?”

“My understanding is they will never be more than 50 levels above the lowest leveled member on the team. This is why many teams will try and get nine strong individuals and one weaker newbie to keep the levels of monsters down.”

“That means with the dragons at around level 240 we can expect that the monsters will be no higher than level 290. That is easy enough to handle.”

“Only for you lad, only for you.”

After some goodbyes I made my way to an empty room and went to sleep. Just like Christmas, the earlier I go to bed the earlier tomorrow will come. The next morning I woke up and talked to my companions about what to expect. We came up with a few ideas between us. Walter as always would be on defenses and traps. Each of the kids would have a direction where they would be in charge of long distance attacks with their breath weapons as needed. Each of them would be paired with their new “uncle” or “aunt” who would be in charge of close in defense. I would get to wander around and just cause general mayhem and destruction.

At the beginning of each round Azure and Elvira as the fastest would fly straight to the tower to claim it before the other group could get there. Bruce and Esmerelda would scout and slow down the opposing team until the rest of us arrived to deal with them. If they ran into a problem, they were to retreat immediately. We only had to get through 4 more rounds to get to the final. If possible I wanted to save my Elemental Dragon King Form and true level until the finals. This would shock everyone watching and force them to reconsider any rash moves they may try to make against the earth for how well we did this year.

Everything for once proceeded just like we had planned. Azure and Elvira took control of the towers in each of the next four rounds and Bruce and Esmerelda harassed the other team until we arrived and smashed them. After the second round we all earned another title.

You have set a new speed record for the Team Tournament. Your team is granted the title Team Speed +5

Soon enough it was time for the finals. We convened our final meeting inside my room. Before anything else I distributed my points for the individual round bets I had won. Status.

Name: Mark Anderson

Level: 954 - 91%

Unspent Attribute Points: 0

Str: 1,755

HP: 17,550

Int: 2,035 +250% MP

MP: 142,450

Wis: 2,035 +250% MP/Regen

HP/Regen: 1,000% per 15 min.

Agi: 1,755

MP/Regen: 1,000% per 15 min.

Con: 1,755 +250% HP/Regen

Luck: 1,755

Affinities: Earth - 100%

Water – 100%

Primal – 100%

Fire – 100%

Air – 100%

Resistances: Earth - 100%

Water - 100%

Fire – 100%

Air – 100%

Please show me the status of my Companions.

Name: Elvira Race: Elemental Air Dragon

Level: 262 - 20% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Esmerelda Race: Elemental Earth Dragon

Level: 264 - 57% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Azure Race: Elemental Water Dragon

Level: 263 - 84% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Sir Bruce Shadow Flaming Ember of Doom Race: Elemental Fire Dragon

Level: 266 - 1% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Walter Race: Incan Wak’a Spirit

Level 346 - 31% Status: Familiar of Mark Anderson

It looks like Walter is eating up most of my personal experience from kills until he catches back up to me. He gained an extra 12 levels past his bets and I only moved 50% of one level after my bets. If things go well he will catch up sometime in the next year dependent on how much dungeon diving we do.

“Alright, welcome to our final meeting everyone. We have been able to dominate the competition throughout the tournament and I have no doubt we will win again. If you do not mind though I would like to propose a change in how we do things for the final round.”

Hannah spoke up.

“Well everything else you have come up with has worked well for us Mark so please continue.”

“I am most concerned with what happens after the tournament. You have well established planets and can probably easily deal with any challenges. However, my planet is new to the Great Game system. Even though I have earned enough World Perks to grant us immunity for over a decade and let us develop and grow stronger I am worried that it might not be enough. My personal strength is quite high, but I cannot be everywhere at once. Since I am no longer able to represent the Earth at the competition it may be a while before my replacement is strong enough to earn more World Perks.”

“That makes sense lad. Do you have a plan to overcome this problem?”

“Yes Yonder I do. I want to scare them so bad that by the time they even think they could deal with my planet we will have been ready to fight off any invasion for several years. For this final round I will show my true level and Elemental Dragon King form and devastate the other team single handedly. I would still like you all to help with the monster waves as it is hard to focus on all directions at once, but I will take care of everything else.”

Rydel said, “That sounds fair Mark. You have done so much for us personally this is the least that we can do for you.”

“Thank you everyone for your help and guidance through this competition. Without you, things would have been much more difficult and I may not have been able to obtain my goals. You may contact me at any time for help and here is contact information for you to be able to reach my kingdom for trade and alliance information after the competition.”

I handed out the communication crystals and names of my ministers so they could know who to contact for a variety of things. It was time to end this competition and set a record that no one else had managed. They should talk about this competition forever after this. Here we go.

As soon as I shimmered into the final arena for the Team Tournament I turned off my false status so everyone could see my real level and then transformed into my Elemental Dragon King Form. With my level as high as it was I was close to 100 meters long and looked intimidating beyond belief. I took to the air to find my victims, I mean opponents. I soon spotted them rushing towards the center tower. As I was about to swoop down and spray them with fire I had a thought. I was able to combine all four types of elements and received the Primal Element as a reward. Since I can use all four types of breath weapons in my dragon form can I combine them to get a Primal Breath Weapon?

As soon as I had this thought I knew I had to try it. I went into my breath weapon dive and concentrated on trying to combine all four elements together. I could feel a terrible pressure start to build in my gut. Focus Mark, remember what worked before. Do not force them together rather weave them together to compliment each other. I felt a little pop inside my mind and a snap inside my body and released what I can only describe as Purple, Flaming, Lightning Breath of doom.

Several messages started to flash past me and I concentrated on landing safely so I could review them. The rest of the group had caught up to me and I growled out in a gravelly dragon voice to please wait before claiming the tower. I have some Great Game stuff I need to deal with first. I willed the messages to reappear now that I was on the ground and safe.

You have successfully merged all four elements and have unlocked Primal Dragon Breath. For being the first to unlock the Primal Dragon Breath in the last 10,000 plus having 100% affinity with the element you have the choice to upgrade your race to Primal Elemental Dragon King. If you choose this upgrade you will receive a one time boost of 100 points in each of your attributes. If you decline the boost will be upgraded to 250 points in each attribute.

Well that was unexpected. I signal the team to move on to take over the tower. As soon as we enter we get a slightly different version of the message we had received for the last 4 rounds.

Congratulations on making the final round. If you are able to survive longer than 30 minutes you will be awarded greater prizes. Maximum time allowed in simulation is 24 hours.

The next 24 hours were long, but wave after wave of enemies broke against us. We would not give up and we would prevail. Finally, the time and the tournament was over.

Congratulations on winning the Team Tournament. You have been awarded the title Team Champion +10, you have been awarded 10 levels, you have been awarded 3 World Perks.

You have placed winning bets on the outcome of this tournament. You have been awarded 75,000,000 mithral coins, you have been awarded 150 levels of experience, you have been awarded 3 World Perks.

Your companions have placed winning bets on the outcome of this tournament. Your companions are each awarded 125 levels of experience.

You have earned all three champion titles, you have been awarded an additional title of Tri-Tournament champion +30

You have earned all three championship titles in your rookie year, you are granted the title of Supreme Rookie +10

For surviving the entire 24 hours in the final round of the Team Tournament you are granted the title Survivalist + 10

I must distribute points.

Congratulations you have managed to bring all of your stats to 2,000 or above you have walked further on the path of the Gods. You are granted the title High God +30.

Status.

Name: Mark Anderson

Race: Primal Elemental Dragon King

Level: 1115 - 31%

Unspent Attribute Points: 0

Str: 2,245

HP: 22,450

Int: 2,425 +250% MP

MP: 169,750

Wis: 2,425 +250% MP/Regen

HP/Regen: 1,000% per 15 min.

Agi: 2,245

MP/Regen: 1,000% per 15 min.

Con: 2,245 +250% HP/Regen

Luck: 2,245

Affinities: Earth - 100%

Water – 100%

Primal – 100%

Fire – 100%

Air – 100%

Resistances: Earth - 100%

Water - 100%

Fire – 100%

Air – 100%

Please show me the status of my Companions.

Name: Elvira Race: Elemental Air Dragon

Level: 414 - 71% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Esmerelda Race: Elemental Earth Dragon

Level: 416 - 24% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Azure Race: Elemental Water Dragon

Level: 415 - 66% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Sir Bruce Shadow Flaming Ember of Doom Race: Elemental Fire Dragon

Level: 418 - 81% Status: Companion/Pet of Mark Anderson

Name: Walter Race: Incan Wak’a Spirit

Level 530 - 67% Status: Familiar of Mark Anderson

Unfreaking believable. I have no words at this point. I say a quick goodbye to my new friends after being transported back into the competition waiting room. Which was filled with people staring at me, mainly because I had not switched back into my dragonkin or more human form. As I felt the teleport starting to grab hold of me I knew that after I answered some questions and took care of things back home. I was going to have to start finding some answers for myself.