[Master is proposing a mock battle to 'Serafina (★★★★)'.]
After the sixteenth floor, I now perceived both Sigyn and mock battles in a brand new light.
It was through my mock battles with Master in the Tactical Post that the mission went smoothly.
I was getting worried that Sigyn might not have the tactical skills to properly help us in the trials.
The way they would always lose in the dozens of mock battles that we had.
It did start to seem that Sigyn had no tactical sense at all.
But by the Serpent's blessing, apparently Sigyn intentionally forfeited the mock battles so that I would be familiar with the tactics they were presenting.
Sigyn did not just use any tactic during the mock battles.
It turned out they were implementing the tactics that the enemies would use in the trial, in this case it was the sixteenth floor.
The numbers slightly differed. But the enemies' army compositions, formations, and strategies in the sixteenth floor were exactly the same as what Sigyn used against me in the mock battles.
That was the reason Sigyn built the Tactical Post and began sending scouting parties to regular floors.
Master wanted to ready us for the upcoming trials.
After Master sent a scouting party to a trial, they would be able to grasp most of the things that happened in that particular mission.
Then Master would relay such valuable information through mock battles which could simulate scenarios similar to the trials.
The Tactical Post was a mean for Master to communicate with their army.
As Sigyn's Vice-Master, I must not ignore this precious facility.
Our survival might depend on my exchange with Sigyn in here.
If Sigyn could warn us on what would happen in an upcoming mission, we would be able to prepare a proper plan to counter any scenario presented to us.
Oh how I wished Sigyn had built this facility even before we climbed to the fifth floor.
We could had planned better. Prepared better.
All the casualties we could had prevented…
No!
What had passed, had passed.
There was no use regretting the past.
What mattered was the present and our intention for the future.
We simply needed to make every opportunity counted from this point on.
I turned to the map of the mock battle in front of me and surveyed the battlefield.
It had only been a day since we cleared the sixteenth floor trial.
Not an hour since we completed that mission, Sigyn immediately sent another scouting party from the Evaluation Center to the seventeenth floor.
The scouting party was consisted of a couple of second floor trainees that had been skipping training constantly and several failed first floor trainees that could not learn supporting skills on time.
They did not return from the seventeenth floor, as expected.
But it took a few hours before the entire party was annihilated.
I assumed the seventeenth floor was not a simple brief subjugation mission.
Likely it was an exploration mission which could be quite extensive in duration.
Party 1 still needed to frequent the sixteenth floor to level up some more before we could move on to the next floor.
But Sigyn had started informing me through mock battles on what might happen on the upcoming mission.
The intel exchange was not as straightforward as before.
Since we cleared the sixteenth floor, Master and I had held another fifteen mock battles with each other.
From the fifteen matches, Sigyn had showed me at least three different formations and several tactical stunts.
They only implied that our enemies would be using such tactics in the seventeenth floor.
The Tactical Post had been upgraded since we had been having a number of mock battles.
The improvement provided more terrain maps and enabled a wider selection of commands that could be issued to the pawns.
We could now implement more advanced tactics which would give more depth to the mock battles.
Supposedly Master should be able to relay more complex information through the mock battles, which would provide us more insight on the trials.
But I still did not precisely know the exact goal in the upcoming mission.
I had been doing my best to capture all the messages that Sigyn wanted to convey to us.
Any sort of information we could get about the trial would be very valuable.
So far, in my interpretation, Master had only been showing us the combat tactics that the enemy would use.
But I wondered if Sigyn would also relay the tactic that they wanted us to use as well.
If Sigyn indeed decided to convey their own strategy, I needed to be able to recognize it from the enemy tactics they would usually show me.
Learning how to know the difference should be on the top of my priority regarding the Tactical Post.
I did not want to miss any vital information by the time Master was finally relaying intel on the Quintal Trial.
Regarding the twentieth floor itself, however, we still had not obtained much useful clues.
The sixteenth floor only told us that the Quintal Trial might take place on an island and that we would be finding more humans as enemies.
I still could not figure out the exact location and timeline of the mission.
The higher we climbed the tower, the more I thought information was more crucial for survival in comparison to weapons and strength.
Though I supposed even knowing those types of information did not make us fully ready for the fifteenth floor.
The third Quintal Trial still took us by surprise.
I doubted we could ever be truly ready for a Quintal Trial, even with the existence of the Tactical Post and the presence of the other 4-star heroes in our army.
We should just anticipate all the scenarios we could think of and prepare the best we could.
['Serafina (★★★★)' wins!]
I stared at all the pawns that were discarded in the mock battle.
In a real mission, those discarded pawns would be lives lost. Heroes lost.
One wrong command in a trial could cost lives.
Even the right command still risked losing lives.
Despite what I thought earlier, having information would definitely increase our chances for survival.
The more information we had on a trial, the more likely our success was, hence the more likely we would live through it.
I just wondered how much information it would take to ensure everyone's survival in a Quintal Trial.
Considering the Quintal Trials' great difficulties, regular scouting party would hardly survive long enough in such mission for Master to collect useable information.
How many scouts would it take until we could obtain enough information on the fourth Quintal Trial?
Would Master be willing to sacrifice their heroes just to scout a Quintal Trial thoroughly?
If they would be willing to do so, then how far would Sigyn push their army to collect the information they needed?
How many pawns would Master be willing to break to achieve their goal?
Shingg!!!
A light from the rift of space-time penetrated through the window on the Tactical Post facility.
Immediately walked out from the rift was a familiar scarred muscular man carrying a heavy sword on his back.
The man and the four other people accompanying him were each carrying huge luggage in their hands.
Zecht's exploration party had returned.
Well, it was about time we obtained another type of information.
One pertaining to our climb as a whole.
Something that could enlighten us on our true purpose in the forged land.