As Lotus settled down to advance, Ophelia set Tian down on Tifa’s back.

"You two behave while I advance. I can feel the tribulation already, it’s been waiting a while," she explained.

Tian giggled. Ophelia was too kind. She had been waiting to advance until Lotus was ready, and she had finally found the right trigger for her. But Tian suspected that if she had just brought an unbonded fluffy thing, she could have convinced Lotus to advance just to have an open slot.

The residents of the Tiny World gathered to watch the caffeinated duo advance, bringing the core group of the Darklight Host up to Immortal Rank.

Soon, the bunnies knew, the girls would start heading out into the Immortal World for the sorts of opportunities and knowledge that would be needed to continue their growth. So, this might be the last chance that they had for a while to make a good impression on them and convince them to come back with the good stuff.

Rue sat with Tessa and Thor off to the side of the grasslands as the advancement of the two began.

"Ah, this brings back memories. Did you know that those born here don’t get a proper tribulation? It’s a shame. I think that hitting them with Divine Lightning a few times would help build personality.

The ones who come from the mortal worlds might get looked down upon by most of the locals, but I have to say that they definitely have the better personalities.

I mean, they’re mostly losers and loners. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

But they’re not quite as insufferable as those who have never had to suffer or struggle for anything, you know?"

Tessa laughed. "I think that I know what you mean. A teenaged child is as powerful as a newly advanced Immortal who hasn’t started building their Immortal Spirit. But those new Immortals from the Mortal Worlds have years of struggle and actual combat experience behind them.

So, while others look down on them for being old and weak, they actually have the best base out of everyone.

We were already thinking of giving the hatchlings some harder training in the trial tower so that they actually have to work for their progress."

Rue followed her gaze to the Trial Tower that Karl had created for the residents of the Tiny World to practice in.

It wasn’t going to be enough for very long.

They were all reaching for Immortality, and even though Karl had pushed the power level up, it was still a Void Immortal Stage construct. However, when she examined it, Rue realized that she understood how the runes worked.

It wouldn’t actually take much to advance the tower, she would just have to overlay the existing runes for peak power and capacity with her own power, then let it settle into the tower.

Then, it could generate barriers and enemies right up to early Supremacy.

That would be enough for even a Peak Immortal to test their powers inside. The dragons could train right to adulthood in the Tiny World, in a tower that could recreate massive battlefields, entire forests full of enemies, or a million other scenarios that Karl’s mind could envision.

A trial tower was limited by the innovation of the creator, but Karl had used Runecrafting with [Illusionary Domain], [Randomize], and [Reality Warp] to create anything that the System thought would be an appropriate challenge for a combatant on that level of the tower.

It wasn’t the same fight every time, like most normal people would create a trial tower to be.

That sort of construct was normally left by powerful mages to determine an inheritor for their powers if they thought that they would die without a disciple worthy of them. So, the trial was set to eliminate anyone who wasn’t worthy of their very specific sort of inheritance.

"I think that I will give that thing a little tweak while we wait.

I promised the Karl that I would help the Guild with my powers, now that he’s given me such a wonderful crafting skill. So, I will upgrade the Tower to Supreme Ranked, and your clutch of baby dragons will be able to use it like a dungeon that doesn’t drop loot."

Tessa laughed. "Well, not exactly. You see, we give the ones who take the trial rewards for the levels that they clear. So, there is loot, it just doesn’t come from the tower itself."

Cara thought about the possibilities. With just a bit of work, they could definitely turn a new Trial Tower into a loot vending machine. The system might stop her from continually raiding it for shiny stuff, but they could definitely get the System to give everyone who tried it a reward on their first time through.

That could wait. Once Cara had all the details of the loot dispenser worked out in her mind, she would get Rue and Karl together to make it, and it would be glorious.

They could put it in the courtyard of the town, and charge people to enter.

If you could get more loot by beating your personal record, they could even get people to pay more than once. What could be better than that.

All they had to do was make sure that the vast majority of contestants would get something good enough to get them to the tower, but not good enough that they wouldn’t need what the store was selling.

After all, what good was a loot vending machine if it cut into their other businesses?

Maybe they could stock it with the items that they didn’t deem worth selling? That would be better than letting it make its own, and they could set the item tier by the level that the contestant cleared.

The first time a particularly powerful Peak Immortal got a Peerless Grade item from the upper levels of the tower, it would bring them from all over, dumping cash into the Darklight Host for the chance at loot they could never afford on their salary as Elders.

People really underestimated her financial genius.