33: Ranked among the top 100 in the country

Another 10 minutes passed, and Director Hou rushed in, even forgetting to knock.

"Curator! Good news! Great news!"

The joy on his face grew more intense with each passing moment.

This kid, Shi Li, really has strength; he actually passed the 8th stage!

In his estimation, Shi Li passing the 6th stage was already the maximum.

He didn't expect him to directly reach the 8th stage!

Such a score would definitely be outstanding even among C-Level Contract holders!

Moreover, it has already met the assessment line for a C-Level Contract!

As expected of the genius chosen by the Curator!

"Sorry, Baldy, it seems I'm destined to win this time."

Xiu Qingshan adopted a victorious posture.

For the opponent to win, he would now have to climb past the 11th floor at least.

[Hehe, don't rush.]

Shen Yuanhu was now seriously doubting the authenticity of this score.

After all, this score was too exaggerated, making him believe that Xiu Qingshan had conspired with his subordinates to put on a show for him.

The purpose was to entice him to open the monitoring to watch the live broadcast, and then lose the bet through a violation.

The Xiu family's penchant for crooked ways was not a new thing.

At this very moment, Shi Li had already begun the battle on the 9th floor.

His deck's order, starting from the ace, was:

[Red Blade Maiden]

[Fluorescent Vine]

[Thunderhorn Deer]

[Stone Demon]

Relying on Red Blade Maiden and Thunderhorn Deer to take turns releasing output skills, he could consistently kill 1 monster card from the opponent each round.

Then, the Stone Demon would continuously use Defense, and the Fluorescent Vine would use Treatment whenever available.

This playstyle was actually a very conventional way of playing cards.

After all, a 3+1 deck, due to its limited number of cards, made it difficult to form overly complex tactics.

But Shi Li's advantage lay in Red Blade Maiden's strong burst damage; other people's decks might not be able to consistently kill 1 monster card each round.

Another point was that his hand size was larger than that of players in the same tier.

Especially in today's card game, 2 Treatment cards greatly improved the survival ability of the front-row cards, which was very important.

Relying on these two advantages, Shi Li very painstakingly defeated the monsters of the 9th stage.

"My luck is still good; the randomly generated monsters don't really counter my deck.

If a control-type or strong-recovery monster type appeared, I would probably be finished."

Shi Li wiped the non-existent sweat from his forehead, waiting for the monsters of the 10th floor to appear.

In fact, similar to the free-for-all mode of the college entrance exam's top 32, this Climbing Tower Competition also tested endurance.

The opponent's monsters would continuously replenish, and the player would continuously heal.

Once one side became unbalanced, the card game would conclude.

[Monster generation in progress...]

Under the AI's prompt, five rays of light fell onto the opponent's card table, and new monsters were generated again.

The monsters that appeared this time were a group of winged people wearing light armor and wielding various weapons.

Their skin was dark, and their wings were pure black feathers.

[Crow Warrior]

Chasing Wind, Attack 30, 100/100, 10/30

[Son of Wind - Passive]: Crow Warrior gains 10 energy upon appearing.

[Dive Strike - 30 Energy]: Crow Warrior attacks 1 target, with a Stun effect (T2).

"Oh, wow."

Shi Li spread his hands.

Look at his jinx; he really got what he feared.

He couldn't possibly defeat an opponent with such a full lineup of hard crowd control!

However, despite saying that, his actions did not stop.

Because even if the assessors were on the same floor, their scores still varied.

Several factors determined this difference in scores.

One of them was the number of enemies killed.

The more Crow Warriors he eliminated, the better his score on the 10th floor would be.

"Since I'm going to be instantly killed anyway, there's no need to protect the Stone Demon."

So Shi Li decided to change his tactics.

Ten minutes later, the data panel began to settle under the announcement of the AI's voice.

[Congratulations, you have conquered 9 floors in total.]

[Time taken: 1 hour 17 minutes 32 seconds]

[Enemies eliminated: 51]

[Your current ranking in this group is 52nd.]

[You can choose to wait for the final results or log off and leave.]

"This score should be pretty good, right?"

Since he wasn't in a hurry, Shi Li decided to stay for a while.

Because the virtual space specially created by this Show Card Hall was not only for Climbing Tower, but also had many other functions.

For example, checking information that only internal members were qualified to view, and so on.

Taking this opportunity, Shi Li planned to consult some relevant learning materials.

He found that D+ level authority was enough to view the entire university curriculum.

Crucially, it was also free.

Immersed in the knowledge from the books, another hour passed unknowingly.

[Ding dong!]

A crisp ringing sound interrupted Shi Li's thoughts.

Immediately following was the AI broadcast.

[The contract line assessment for this group has ended.]

[Your final ranking in this group is 93rd.]

"Not bad, I didn't drop out of the top hundred."

Shi Li didn't know what this ranking specifically represented.

But being able to rank in the top 100 among the national high school contract geniuses in the Show Card Hall, he thought it shouldn't be too bad.

"Can I check the scores of the top three?"

He asked the AI with some curiosity.

[Below are the top three scores in your group for this assessment.]

[First place: 53 floors.]

[Second place: 32 floors.]

[Third place: 28 floors.]

"53 floors? That's insane?"

The first place's overwhelming lead was striking.

However, Shi Li could roughly guess the reason behind it.

In reality, whether it was killing 53 monster cards in one game or 32 monster cards in one game, the fundamental difference was not very significant.

It simply meant being able to maintain zero losses when facing 5 monster cards focusing fire simultaneously on the field.

That is, the front-row cards must have strong damage-taking ability, and secondly, recovery methods must keep up every round.

If these two points are achieved, no matter how many monster cards the opponent has in this mode, they can be eliminated; it's just a matter of time.

But the crucial issue is that different monster combinations may require different decks to cope.

For example, if the opponent has [Ignite] and [Isolation], the player needs [Dispel].

For example, if the opponent has hard crowd control, the player needs super armor or strong health and damage reduction to tank it.

In short, it greatly tests the depth of a player's deck.

[According to the rules, your contract will be upgraded to a C-Level Contract.]

[After logging off, the local Card Hall manager will contact you immediately.]

[The top one hundred will receive a 20,000 cubic coins reward, also distributed by the local Card Hall.]

Since he hadn't expected Shi Li to achieve such a ranking, Director Hou hadn't mentioned the reward.

"Awesome."

Shi Li only hoped that this kind of Climbing Tower Competition could happen once a month.

Unfortunately, the headquarters wouldn't organize it that frequently.

He had originally planned to read an e-book for a while longer, but now knowing there was money to collect, he immediately logged off.

...

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