SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 574: Measure of Worth

The chamber on the other side opened into a broad, brightly lit space filled with pedestals.

Every pedestal displayed something valuable. Leon moved through the room at an unhurried pace, inspecting each offering in turn.

The first held a healing elixir that gave off a faint glow, powerful enough to drag a cultivator back from the brink of death. Leon’s own regeneration made it unnecessary for him, but it could still save someone who lacked that advantage. Beside it rested an elemental crystal, raw power rolling from it strongly enough to reach him across the chamber.

Another stand supported a slab of high-grade weapon material, the kind a master smith might spend years trying to obtain.

There was also a compact storage artifact, refined and small, yet worth a fortune by itself. More treasures continued down the line, any one of them good enough to serve as the reward for an entire lesser trial.

The final pedestal stood apart from the rest.

A plain bronze disk lay on top of it. No aura surrounded the metal. It gave off no light and carried none of the pressure that came with power. Someone sweeping the chamber might have mistaken it for rubbish and passed it by.

Words of fire appeared above the row.

[Choose the possession you value most.]

[Only what you choose may leave this chamber.]

Leon called on the Cosmic System and examined every item. A room like this was almost asking him to look for deception. The simple answer would be that all the impressive treasures were fake while the dull bronze disk was the only genuine object. Anyone clever enough to see through that would take the disk and leave pleased with themselves.

Except the System confirmed the opposite.

The healing elixir was real. So was the elemental crystal. The weapon material and storage artifact were genuine as well. Every treasure in the chamber possessed exactly the worth it seemed to possess. Their authenticity wasn’t the trick.

That left the choice itself.

Standing among the pedestals, Leon saw what the trial wanted from him.

It was measuring what he considered valuable, and the rewards had to be real or the decision meant nothing. He could take the elixir. He could choose the elemental crystal.

Either would be an incredible prize, but doing so would force him to leave behind the bronze disk and the key he had come down this route to obtain. Something rare right now wasn’t necessarily the thing that mattered most. Each shining treasure offered him power in return for giving up his actual goal.

Leon ignored them all, reached the last pedestal, and lifted the bronze disk.

As soon as his fingers closed around it, every other pedestal became empty. The treasures vanished from the chamber, either erased or placed somewhere he could no longer reach. Which one hardly mattered. The dull metal in his hand began to change at the same time, stretching and gaining weight until it took on the familiar shape of a bronze key.

[Tower Key Acquired]

[Tower Keys Collected: 2/3]

Nothing appeared about an enhancement. Leon had refused the optional rewards, so the Gatekeeper received no benefit from the second key. He stored it beside the first just as the wall at the far end of the chamber began to shift.

The labyrinth moved around him immediately. This time, it didn’t place another puzzle in front of him or force him through some newly formed detour. The bronze route simply rebuilt itself toward the next trial, almost as if the labyrinth were rewarding him for continuing along the intended path.

While the walls rearranged, the three fragments tugged sharply downward again. The pull lasted only through the movement, insistent and aimed beneath the floor, but nothing opened. No crack appeared in the stone. No hidden doorway or staircase revealed itself. The fragments merely pointed with greater urgency than before, then settled once the labyrinth stopped changing.

Whatever the arrow marked, he was nearer to it now. The strength of the pull made that clear.

There still wasn’t a way down from here.

Leon continued toward the third key.

The next bronze door led into a small circular arena. Its floor was clean, the walls close, and the entire room had plainly been made for a single purpose.

[Mandatory Key Trial: The Borrowed Hand]

One guardian stood at the center.

Like the Tollkeeper, it was formed from bronze, though the resemblance ended there. This construct had a narrow frame built for speed instead of mass and carried a straight bronze sword. When Leon stepped inside, it turned toward him and flowed into a ready stance with far more ease than the heavier guardians had shown.

[Mandatory Guardian: Patternbound Sentinel]

The strength gathered inside its narrow frame carried the effective force and speed of a high Ethereal Initiate, then shifted subtly as the floor’s adaptive calibration measured Leon. It remained far below the uncounted Warden’s Ethereal Lord-class pressure. Its unknown trial mechanic was the real danger.

Leon drew his own sword and approached cautiously. His body and mana were recovered, but exposing greater abilities before understanding a trial called the Borrowed Hand would be careless. He began with ordinary swordsmanship, keeping every movement controlled and efficient while he tested the Sentinel through an initial exchange. If the construct forced the issue, he still had far more power available.

The construct caught his blade without trouble, retreated a step, and began circling.

So far, nothing unusual.

Leon entered a second exchange using the same forward step and high cut. Before the attack had fully formed, the Sentinel was already moving. Its answer wasn’t flawless, but the early reaction made Leon change the angle of his strike, and the construct’s low counter forced him back.

He reset, then repeated the same approach for a third time.

The Sentinel had already learned it.

It shut down the approach before Leon completed it and guided its blade toward the left side he had protected during both earlier exchanges. Leon twisted hard enough to keep the point away from the armor seam, then withdrew and created space between them.

The construct was adapting far too quickly. He needed to work out the method before it landed a proper hit.

They circled while Leon studied it, and the Mirrorheart tempering worked quietly behind his thoughts. The reflections he’d experienced during the absorption had trained his attention for this exact kind of problem.

The Sentinel wasn’t copying his techniques.

It hadn’t taken his cut and thrown it back at him the way the Covetous Reflection had. It didn’t possess his sword style or his individual moves. What it had learned was everything surrounding them: the step he repeated before opening, the angle at which he held his blade, the way he protected his left side, the rhythm of his feet, even the direction he preferred when evading.

It didn’t require the technique itself. It only had to predict what Leon would do next.

And Leon kept giving it the answer.

He tested the idea on purpose. First, he performed a basic sequence. Then he repeated it without changing anything: the same initial step, the same turn of his shoulder, the same opening angle of the sword.

On the first attempt, the Sentinel watched.

During the second, its stance shifted early. It began preparing for the sequence before Leon had finished setting it up, already committing to the counter it expected.

That was enough to prove the pattern.

The first repetition taught it. The second let it prepare. By the third, it would understand the sequence almost completely and answer it with near-perfect timing.

Its danger came from learning the shape of Leon’s habits.

That same commitment could also be used against it. Once it trusted a repeated pattern, a sudden break in that pattern would leave it committed to the wrong response.

Leon began teaching it exactly what he wanted it to learn.