John ran around the no longer wedge-shaped formation as fast as he could, killing demons with both sword and shield. Leading the firearm shots into the Woods discharging them became more of a hassle than just ignoring the shots and killing the demons himself.

John was surprised to find out that the outfits of the Woods he fought had some sort of essence-shield that activated on its own when the wearer was in danger. It wasn’t powerful, but the fact that Wood demons had such armor was impressive.

When only one Wood was left, John stuck the point of his sword into the ground. He thought the area he was in was familiar to him. He guessed it to be Saba as he picked up one of the strange handgun devices.

As he easily blocked the weapon discharges of the last Wood with his shield, John infused the handgun device with his strongest essence, aiming the weapon off into the distance. It blew up in his hand, luckily causing little damage.

John coughed up some blood and gripped the hilt of Fireblade, pulling it from the earth. He stopped using vital essence to enhance himself and sent it to heal instead. He walked to the last demon and cut its arm holding the handgun off. The demon attacked him with its shield, and John could barely feel the shield blows, so he ignored them and continued to plan.

Coughing up more blood, John sent vital essence to heal again. He still had a good bit over three-quarters left. He touched up [BB Buff] and checked his veil and tightened that too. He then grabbed the Wood and drained him nearly to death and placed the demon on the ground.

John sped away and started to move stealthily. He infused essence into his belt of hiding. He knew three of his items, the stealth cloak, boots of secrecy, and the belt of hiding, along with his tight veil and high [Stealth] [Skill], and the fact the stealth cloak scaled in effectiveness with his [Stealth] [Skill] and hid his essence from essence-sight, could keep him hidden from even Golds.

John sent more vital essence to heal as he waited for the demon to expire. As he looked around, he was almost certain he was in or near the area he thought of as Saba, far south of the lands he once lived in and ruled.

As a hundred and twenty-eight Coppers appeared outside the portal, John sent his vital essence to enhance his speed at the same time he felt most of his enemies cast body enhancement manifestations.

Stealthily approaching the formation of Coppers, John noticed they all wore the same slick and shiny black-leather outfits, like armor, but not like any leather John had ever seen. The outfits the Woods wore provided very good protection for such light armor, and the Copper’s looked a little sturdier.

The Coppers had the same or similar handgun devices and shields as the Woods did too.

Back before the Tree of Life, when John had to fight large forces himself, he’d often do so by trying to split them apart. He’d attack, escape and hide, and attack again, whittling them down in piecemeal fashion. He didn’t consider a hundred and twenty-eight a large force, but since he hadn’t used the tactic since the Tree of Life came to Earth, he decided to try it out on the Coppers.

Knowing the rules changed, John didn’t think he’d be able to slip away into the shadows when he could be sensed by his enemies. He was wrong, and he was able to. Either the low intelligence of demon Coppers, or the stealth cloak, or the poor senses of his enemies allowed it. He’d pop up and kill five or six enemies then slink away. Sometimes he’d be hit by a shot aimed at him as he sped off, but he was able to avoid or block most of them.

The burning in John’s chest and his need to occasionally cough up blood was no help to his attempts to hide and stealth either.

When only one Copper remained, John repeated what he had done the last time and drained the demon until it was near death. Then he prepared in the same way before infusing essence into his belt of hiding.

Thirty-two Bronze demons appeared outside the portal, and he felt them all cast body enhancements. About half cast weapon enhancement manifestations too. Two of the demons were in something John thought of as heavy mechanical suits of some sort. The suits couldn’t be considered armor since it left so much of the body exposed. Large cannon-like instruments were on the suit’s shoulders and forearms, and some sort of device was strapped to the suit’s back.

The thirty other Bronze demons all had various sized rifles. Their slick, black, sturdy armor had some sort of blade made of essence on the left arm that turned into a front-shield when they held their rifles a certain way. The armor had what looked to be hard plates covering various areas.

John coughed up blood as quietly as he could. The burning in his chest just wasn’t getting better. The Bronzes made a circle perimeter facing outwards and whispered into headphones within their helmets.

Easily entering the perimeter, John snuck behind one of the wearers of the mechanical suit and inspected it. It was mostly a hollow metal frame. The thing strapped to the back, if he had to guess, looked to be a launcher for one of the exploding types of missiles he saw flying machines called jets release at Ukaraaz. The small cannons on the shoulder were able to swivel and only had one discharge hole he could see. He believed the cannons on the arms were projectile weapons as there were large drums of ammunition attached to them.

John looked at Muzaran. The Gold was standing beside the portal and also looking around for John, the same as the Bronze demons. Muzaran had changed into a better and higher-tier form of the black-leather armor with plates the Bronze wore.

John then inspected the various rifles his Bronze opponents carried. Some were longer and thinner; some were shorter and stouter.

For his daily training, John took a class on [Self-Propelled Projectile Weapons]. It was a [Skill] he didn’t possess, and a [Skill] he needed to know more of. He believed the longer and thinner firearms were sniper rifles and the shorter and stouter ones were automatic or half-automatic.

Semis, half an ‘as,’ a coin used back in Rome. Semi doesn’t mean half now – it means something like partial, or somewhat.

There was also a [Skill] called [Essence-Infused Projectile Weapons]. Both [Skills] could be merged together, but merging wouldn’t give him knowledge in firearms or essence-rifles he didn’t already have, just more harmony. He left them unmerged to track his progress and knowledge of his new [Skills] better.

John found it strange the Bronze demons brought sniper rifles. From what he was taught by Avatar, sniper rifles were for long distance accuracy and to kill an enemy very far away. He wondered if he was doing the challenge incorrectly and was supposed to fight from far off. He did have bows in his ring. With his new body [Perk] and [Stats], he could handle a higher-tiered bow with a much tougher draw strength than the one he picked out for himself before.

Having learned what he could from inspecting his foes, John got back behind one of the wearers of the mechanical suits. He bashed the suit-wearer’s head in with his shield, having to pass through, and not break, a strange type of essence-shield to do so - an essence-shield that greatly slowed his attack.

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Once his first enemy was dead, John quickly turned and threw his sword at the second suit-wearer on the opposite side of the perimeter about forty paces away.

The sword was slowed too greatly by the strange essence-shield the suit created before clanging harmlessly off the back of the helmet and falling to the ground.

John charged across the perimeter, rolling canted once. It was a very short distance and not many of his opponents had a chance to notice or react to his appearance yet, and none got a shot off at him before he snatched his sword up from the ground. He shoved it into the eye of the demon wearing the mechanical suit just as the demon managed to turn around and see the sword coming at its face.

Feeling danger, John dodged sideways as many shots peppered the area he stood in a moment before. As he gained his feet, a powerful shot hit John in the back. He rolled to the side and came up slashing. He ran around the perimeter killing Bronzes and, luckily, didn’t take any further shots from any of the rifles.

The last five demons were left alive and disarmed. After coughing up blood, John stopped enhancing his speed and sent vital essence to heal then checked his back where he was shot. There was a big bruise and a scab already. He held ten light-green crystals of a Gold out to the Bronze demons and said, “I can kill you. Or, if you do me a favor, I’ll give each of you two of these crystals.”

Muzaran called out, “Don’t listen to him, cadets.”

[Stay out of it, demon. You’re not part of the challenge yet. I let you observe. Don’t interfere.]

John waited a moment to see if Muzaran or the Sublime would add anything further as he watched the confused Bronzes look around. He said, “It’s fine. You can feel I’m of the ptagmog. Now, do you want two of these crystals each or not?”

All five Bronzes wanted the crystals he offered. John figured the crystals of a Gold would be hard to resist for Bronze demons. He had them collect all the crystals, arms, and armor that had gathered all over the desert ground and bring all the loot to him as he stood near Muzaran.

“You’re a real prick, you know that, Copper John?”

John smiled. “Me? A friend of mine has been calling me a similar name recently. I am what my enemies force me to be. And I believe the Sublime told you not to interfere.” After a bout of coughing and spitting up blood, he added, “Excuse me, I forgot to tack on Preceptor Muzaran. This prick would hate to be considered ill mannered.”

John continued to smile as crystals and equipment were brought to him while he occasionally coughed and spit out blood. He took all the firearms he could into his ring. After the firearms, space in the ring was tighter than he hoped it would be. He checked the armor and outfits. Even the outfits for the Woods he faced during the challenge had the [Minor Resize] rune.

The two mechanical suits were far too big and needed too much room to go in the ring. Bronze demons were only a little bigger than John, so he tried to wear one of the mechanical suits. He couldn’t figure it out. He did notice a place on the lower back of the suits held something called a battery, an energy source the suits drew power from.

After testing the weaponry, John found the Copper handguns exploded when infused with his strongest essence but would survive if he used a minor essence. Only the Bronze sniper rifles could survive being infused with his blood essence, and only if he didn’t charge the attack up any.

John only took twenty each of the armor sets for Wood, Copper, and Bronze. He removed about half of the handguns the Woods used to fit the armor in. He included some other strange tech, like vision and ear devices. He’d figure the rest out later.

Surprisingly, an NCS message forced its way into John’s vision.

World Quest Update: The World Quest has been completed. A big thanks goes out to all participants.

After the message disappeared a new message forced its way into John’s vision

User was one of three contributing participants. Majority contributing participant is incapable of accepting stated rewards. User’s participation rating was the second highest. User will receive the following rewards.

1 Nano Control Unit expansion slot

1 Nano Control Unit upgrade up to Tech 1 grade C

Nano Control Unit expansion slot unlocked. User is to see Avatar for Nano Control Unit reward selection.

John was glad to receive the rewards. He wondered exactly what he did to win the contest or quest or whatever it was. He didn’t think he did anything notable. He certainly put no effort at all into solving what the NCS asked him to solve. He tried to enter his Mind’s Eye hoping the NCS didn’t consider him to be in a hostile environment, but he wasn’t allowed to.

Once all of the crystals were collected and put in his ring and the rest of the gear was put in different piles, John handed two light-green crystals to each of the five Bronze demons. He then killed four of the demons and drained the last to near death before re-collecting his crystals.

Preparing as he did before, John wondered if he should move much farther away and switch his sword out for a bow or rifle or sniper rifle. He decided to stay with what had worked so far and kept his shield and Fireblade in hand and tried to get as much coughing out of the way as possible before the Silvers appeared.

After temporarily relieving his need to cough and clearing his mouth of blood, John felt into himself with his blood power. He knew he couldn’t cast [Blood Heal] without losing the challenge, but he wanted to see if anything in his chest had changed since he last checked. He couldn’t find a reason for the coughing or burning. Even if he could cast his heal, he wouldn’t know what to heal.

Thankfully, the way John healed with vital essence required no direction from him or knowledge of what needed to be healed, so he sent more to do so until eight Silvers appeared outside the portal, and he sent his vital essence to enhance his speed.

All the Silvers cast body enhancements and some cast weapon enhancements too.

Six of the Silvers had mechanical suits this time, and not the hollow outlines of ones the two Bronze demons had. The suits covered most of their bodies in stout looking metal.

Three of the Silver demons in suits had melee weapons. One had what looked like a whip made of lava in his right hand, a large hammer in his left hand, and the weapons were attached to or part of the suit instead of actually being held in hands.

Another suit wearer had two long and somewhat transparent blades that looked to be made of energy. The last melee suit-wearer had something like a giant crab claw and a tower shield.

The three other Silvers in mechanical suits had various types of firearms or arm and shoulder mounts and what John guessed to be missiles too.

The two Silver demons without mechanical suits had slick and shiny black armor with plating. One had the biggest and stoutest rifle John had seen so far and the other had a large two-handed sword and wore a blindfold. Every demon but the one wearing the blindfold had a mechanical device covering their eyes he assumed provided some sort of enhanced vision capability.

Three of the demons disappeared from sight, and all three of them were melee demons, including the blindfolded one, but John could still see their souls. Half of them started placing devices on the ground or in the ground while the others kept watch.

John changed his mind. He moved far away from the circle perimeter of the Silvers to a dune ridge spotted with tamarisk shrubs. Some movement in the distance caught his eye and he noticed it was an oryx and dismissed it. Taking out weapons from his ring during battle was much harder than putting them in but putting them in wasn’t easy by any means either. He took out some bows and tested the draw.

One bow took far too much effort to draw so John put it back in the ring along with all the ones he could draw too easily. Of the two left, one created its own arrows when it was drawn, and he liked that feature a lot, so he put the other one back. He had no idea what runes were on the bow, but he hoped they did something besides making essence-arrows.

John had always been good with a bow. Good enough where at some point after gaining the power, killing opponents in ranged combat felt too unfair, so honor demanded he avoid doing so. But the rules had changed since then. His opponents weren’t so easy anymore.

John would probably always prefer killing opponents with a sword over a bow, but he would give much to be able to kill them with flames he controlled from afar. And he had never shot a sniper rifle outside his Mind’s Eye and wanted real world experience with the weapon.

The war cry and motto of the tribe John was born to so long ago contained only two words. He couldn’t remember the exact words, but they roughly translated to ‘I was born for war.’ In his case, those words held true throughout his life. He had only ever felt at peace while meditating and warring. He was good at many things, such as smithing and the like, but the only thing he always excelled at, even before he accepted the power, was combat. It was the only thing he truly understood.

After taking out a Bronze sniper rifle, he placed his shield back in the ring, sheathed Fireblade on his back, and placed the bow down at his feet. John prepared to do what he was born for.