The next morning Ignut found me waiting in the training room, reading through a book I had purchased along with my clothing. ‘A guide to mana for lesser souls from non-mana infused existences’ while a lengthy title had proved useful so far, at least reconciling a few things that were sticking out as feeling ‘wrong’ to me. Adjusting to new laws of reality required a lot more subconscious shifting then conscious for me thanks to Eterna’s blessing and my own detachment issues in my last life, so reading some more factual guidelines and differences was really helping to give my mind some new ground work to grab onto.
I had even settled on clothes that weren’t too expensive, the book itself had only been fifteen mana which wasn’t too bad but as an intro book was likely priced down on purpose, while the clothing I got had nothing special involved. Frankly the options were mind blowing, I could get cloth that was resistant to almost every element I could think of from fire to frost even including force and conceptual manipulation.
Instead I had gone for simple tear resistant cloth, in a nice dark blue colouration with some green edging, I had gotten some tighter pants and a shirt that had good flexibility but wouldn’t get caught on anything, plus a face mask that could be pulled up from where it covered my neck. I had splurged a bit and gotten a minor enchantment to purify any air breathed in, although I wasn’t sure how useful this would also be. I also had some gloves that were meant to have a high F tier general durability enhancement on them, but were fingerless for coolness points.
For boots I had given into aesthetics and gotten some calf length leather boots, not entirely clear what leather but it felt similar to the higher quality vegan leather I had owned previously, and had laces going up the front along with a zipper on the inside length of the boot, with a moderate hardened toe cap on them as well.
“Looks like you got some decent clothing, good good, so speaking to Eterna there are a few puzzle focused challenges so odds should be good for you to do your first entry today so let's go over how this all works” Looking over I could see Ignut walking off the transport platform, dressed in his usual robe but this time a deep maroon colour with some nice threading on the edges in a yellow that matched his skin markings.
“So fairly simple process, whenever you are scheduled to be able to enter a challenge you will have this option from the transport cube, simply touch it and select it. The divine gambit will then locate what it thinks is the best challenge for you. Just to clarify, it decides this based on not just your skill set and capacity, but also what will provide a reasonable challenge for growth and that it believes will provide the most entertainment to the gods watching. Engagement is part of its design and it's worth remembering you are a singular piece of its show set, it will not protect you or coddle you. However you shouldn’t be in excessive danger, you're a Mana-Morph user so you will be given something harder, but as a general rule your first three challenges are always gentler to the point where they aren’t even often watched by most sponsors if their own teams don’t have someone in it. This is to get your feet wet so to speak.”
Catching a small box thrown over I quickly open it to see a beautiful handgun. Made of an incredibly dark green mottled with reds and blues, it was almost the exact same design as the team weapon I had used of just being a rather large but moderately sleek looking handgun. Picking it up I immediately found the switch to move it to a rifle mode, and found the colouration the same but this one definitely changed more than the test weapon had. Suddenly I found myself holding a proper rifle, easily now triple the length it had been previously with a proper rifle barel, the stock was still a bit shorter then expected but it fit comfortably against my shoulder and allowed me to properly look down the sights and fire as needed. This was definitely an improvement, but being a morph weapon it was due to both the higher quality and my higher skill level based on what reading I had done.
“Thank you, this is a really beautiful colouration, hopefully I don’t need it but better to have it and all of that.” Collecting the box and bits of wood that had been inside the box holding it in place Ignut carried it all over and sat it down next to the transport cubes platform.
“Don’t get too attached, it is really common to get a weapon from the first few challenges you do if not the first one. Now come over and select the challenge option for the divine gambit, if you don’t get any questions feel free to simply accept as you see fit, but I will be here until you return watching your challenge. Any questions just disconnect from the cube and ask.”
Nodding and accepting there wasn’t any point delaying this, and it would be a lie to say I didn’t have some excitement at the idea of what I might get to do, so I walked over and placed my hand on the cube. This time getting a prompt instead of having to give it information on what I want.
Divine Gambit notice: Your sponsor has entered you into this cycle of challenges please confirm you are ready to enter? Please be aware not entering a challenge when entered into a round will result in penalties.
Letting go for a moment I turned to Ignut “Hey when it says there are penalties for not entering a round? What does that actually entail.”
“It's harsh I won’t mislead you, it will reduce your stats and overall soul power moderately, which is heavy enough as you then have to compete to regain them, but also because if your stats get too low your soul won’t be able to hold together. If you drop below an average stat count of 10 then you are at risk of soul dissolvement. This is rare but it can happen, so if your entered into a round we will let you know and you need to ensure you complete at least a single challenge to avoid the penalty.”
Ingut looked really awkward delivering that news, but it wasn’t a shock there was a stick to go with the carrots I had been shown around this system. It was the other shoe I had been waiting on to drop, but at least it was relatively reasonable. It seemed the whole system was focused on getting gods with good abilities to work with others to tier up into becoming Titans, and while doing so it actively encouraged lesser souls to become demigods, then gods, to replace those ranking up to titans or themselves eventually reach that. While I was curious about why more titans were needed I instead accepted that was beyond my current pay grade and went back to the transport cube.
This time I accepted the prompt and got ready to see what I got for my first run.
Entry accepted, please wait while a suitable challenge is matched with you.
Great, even with my limited gaming experience I knew the hells of matchmaking queues and it looks like that couldn’t even be escaped by death here.
Challenge found:
Acidic pathways. Challenge found: Acidic pathways. Transport in 30s.
Well that sounded fun, but hopefully it wouldn’t be to bad or ruin my new clothes.
----------------------------------------
The landing area wasn’t too bad, I appeared instantly between blinks on another transport platform, however I noticed the cube was dull and didn’t provide any connection when I touched it. So I guess not opting out that way.
Acidic pathways: Each room contains a puzzle and a choice, you must decide between growth or ease of passage.
At least the room prompt was helpful in a small way, I knew I would get choices to make and what the differences were that I would be weighing up. Puzzles weren't too surprising if it was trying to ease me into things either with my recent skill gains.
Looking around I was in a small cave space, there were some softly glowing moss growing along the ceiling and upper walls, while the stone itself was a dark rock. There was oddly no smell of mildew, which was surprising looking at the trails of water creeping down the walls. There was only the transport area I was standing on with a tunnel opposite where I was otherwise in the room.
“Sooner started, sooner finished, time to get moving.” Making my way down the tunnel it was thankfully high and wide enough to accommodate me easily, and I was thankful I had thought to get a hip holster for my future gun that was adjustable as well so I didn’t have to hold it in my hand the entire time.
Only a minute later I stepped out into another room, this time better lit with a softly glowing yellow orb in the wall above the exit to the tunnel I had just stepped out. In the middle of the room there was a small table made of stone at waist height, otherwise there was a door made of stone with no visible door handle on the opposite side.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Walking up to the stone table I found on the surface of it there were lots of gears together, with a small crank on one end of the table and a piston on the other end. It looked like spinning the crank should in theory make the piston move, however I could see several missing gears in the mechanism that made up the contents of the table. Looking around I found a small bag at each of the corners that contained a few gears each. The odd part was when I tried to pull more then a single gear out it was physically impossible, they just slid straight out of my hand in the bag, but if I returned the gear in my hand it would let me select another.
Looking at the missing spaces I went through each gear in each bag, and on the fourth gear from the second bag found one that I thought would fit one of the five missing spots. Placing it in and moving the crank I could see it worked well and got another small section working.
I was able to grab another gear now, but when I tried to remove the one slotted into the table I found I couldn’t, even if I didn’t have any other gears from the bag. If it only locks correct pieces that would be a way to brute force it, but this wasn’t a particularly difficult puzzle as it boiled down to match the shape to the empty space, so I simply worked my way through each bag for each empty spot until I had finished filling in the table.
Once I finished the table and turned the crank the stone door moved to the side, revealing yet another stone door. However this one was split in the middle, and had a symbol on each side.
The left side showed a sword and a chest, while the right hand side showed a figure walking along a path. I hoped I was interpreting this properly, so the left side meant I would face an additional challenge but get a reward, while the right meant I could go onto the next puzzle but wouldn’t gain any additional reward.
Putting my hand against the left side I watched as it slid over pushing the right side into the wall until I was faced with a door with a panel for a hand to push it open on the far left, where it would have been hidden by the wall.
Pulling out my Morph in its handgun configuration still, I pushed on the door and walked through a small entryway. Once in the next room I found it had a small orb at each of the corners, all a gentle blue colour this time, and in the middle of the room was a slime. About a foot tall, and slightly wider than that, I could see a core in the centre and nothing else really distinct.
As much as I would have loved to work out how a slime even worked in this reality, the cubes had been a favourite when I planned D & D. After all, I was a pragmatist about where I was so I aimed for the core and fired.
Immediately the slime exploded with the core being hit, and I quickly got to find out why this challenge had the name it did, as I felt a weak acid splatter across my face and acid stain my clothes. Thankfully no holes so far at least, I really didn’t want to finish a challenge without my pants if I could help it.
Walking into the middle of the room I spotted a doorway off to my right, and walking over the door slid into the wall and let me through. The moment I stepped through I had to turn to the left to continue along a tunnel into what I assumed was the next area.
Challenge update: For completing an additional challenge you are rewarded with a bonus reward added to your final reward on completing the challenge.
Bonus reward pool: 1D4 Stat Dice (Strength)
I had no idea what shooting a slime had to do with strength, but I would happily take an additional reward as I intended to complete the challenge either way. Moving through the tunnel I could see the next room upcoming again lit by a yellow orb over the doorway I was coming out of.
This time the table contained two pieces of paper and a pencil, with some simple instructions laid out.
Solve the below equations. You may remove an answer by striking it through twice, this may be done at most two times. You must answer at least four of the six questions correctly in order to continue. You are also free to use the remaining space on this page for working, only providing final answers on the question sheet.
Looking at the questions sheet I could see why I might need some space for working out, thankfully despite not following higher education I did do well in advanced mathematics during high school so this shouldn’t be too bad.
“Alright, first question, 37 x 12, nice and easy. That should be 370 plus 37 times 2, which is 74, so 444 nice.” Writing the first question, I was glad at least the first couple should be a definite win.
“Second question, at the cost of 5% of your total mana pool every fifteen minutes with a regen rate of 3.6% per hour, how long would it take to no longer be able to sustain this spell rounded to the nearest hour?”
Now it was time to pull out the paper, and hope no one was watching as I talked myself through this.”Okay so it's more logic than maths, lets see, the per hour loss is actually the 5% times four then minus the regen. So we are losing 17.76% per hour. This means it would take five hours to only have 12.2% left, which could sustain you for another half hour, but you would regen in that time. So let's round to the sixth hour and hope that is right.” Writing that answer into the question sheet I moved onto number three.
Number three was just a magic square with sample numbers to fill it in, I remembered doing these in primary school, so that was a quick one at least. Alright three sorted, as long as one of the last three is manageable this should be fine.
“Calculate the following. If you are able to conjure an object with a cost of 1.1121 per gram of mass and you need to fill a space with a mass capacity of 1.989e+42, how much mana would this cost?.” Staring at the page I was confused, what the fuck was this actually trying to ask? “Alright, bring it back to being a puzzle, it is trying to find out how much mana it costs, but really I can just skip the mana part right? Just how many times does this unit go into that unit, its really just division really.”
Grabbing the piece of paper with the instructions I started to lay out my logic to try to work my way through it. “Okay so, e+42 is just 42 extra zeros right? So that is Tredecillion I think, so its dividing that by 1.1121.” After spending an embarrassing amount of time working through and consuming most of the paper I got to the end of it, and hoped it was right. “Okay so 1.7885082e+33 should be it.”
Looking at the next two questions I just gave up, they were really complex questions that I didn’t know the formulas to even try to work out. Hell I didn’t even recognise any of the symbols in the last question let alone what type of maths it was.
Hoping I was right I placed the page back down, and wrote in unable to answer on the last two places figuring that should count. Once the paper was down I watched yellow pen ink appear going down from the first to the last questions correcting it. I doubt I have ever had a more anxiety inducing maths exam before, but with relief I watched it mark the first four as correct. Although the note, ‘At least try’, on the last two wasn’t great to read.
Moving around the table I found the same prompt on the door again, and without even hesitating I pressed my hand against the side with the sword. Even if the combat was harder I knew I needed to maximise my early rewards as much as possible, the fact that if Eterna wanted he could just keep entering me into rounds until I had to skip some to recover and that would make me lose stats, and in theory even eventually die properly and finally made me very interested in earning additional stats.
Pulling my weapon again I made my way down the hall, and again found a slime in the centre of the room, stepping forward I shot out the core again and covered my face with my arm. While I was lowering my arm to wipe off the goop that was marking my clothes I stumbled forward as a weight hit my back and right shoulder. Looking over I screamed as I found a smaller slime, about the size of a house cat, on my shoulder lunging towards my face.
Shoving my hand inside of the goop of the slime, and panicking tried to push it away from my face. Quickly finding the slime just moving up my arm I grabbed the core and flung my arm around trying to pull the core out.
I have to admit it would later be a very funny recording if I could get my hands on something like that later, but at that moment I was just screaming and throwing my arm around trying to pull this damn core out.
Eventually by momentum I had shaken off enough mass from the slime that all it could do was curl up around its core, giving me a moment to calm down and realise how stupid that panic had been.
Dropping the core and shaking the slime off my hand and wrist, I quickly shot the core, before looking at what was left of my sleeve. My skin was only splotchy like a bad sunburn, so that was a definite win, but my sleeve was ragged but at least my glove was fine. The durability enhancement holding up as promised.
With a sigh I made my way through the doorway as it opened into the new walkway, and yet again went left to head into the next room while reading the prompt for my new additional bonus.
Challenge update: For completing an additional challenge you are rewarded with a bonus reward added to your final reward on completing the challenge.
Bonus reward pool: D4 Stat Dice (1 x Strength, 1 x Dexterity)
Oh cool, I guess it's just going to give me one of each stat dice in the order it displays in my stats, hopefully there are enough challenges to get at least a few more if not enough for all of them. Although judging by the last puzzle I might be screwed trying to pass another four.
Accepting it was what it was, and shaking my arm hoping my arm would stop stinging like a cut rubbed with lemon soon, I made my way into the third puzzle room.