CHAPTER 275 - PROGRESS

As they started to jog away, Tom took a moment to appreciate the destruction the group had just delivered against the leeches. Far away where the meteorite had landed he could see the charred, shredded corpses and closer to him the impact of their combined magics. It was impressive destruction and when he checked the quest counter, it showed that he had to do it another fifty to a hundred times.

Deliberately, he lengthened his stride. If they were this easy to kill, then ground speed would determine whether they could complete the zone in the day and a half they had planned. Rahmat was running beside him, acting officially as a scout. Tom wondered what skills he had purchased to help him fill the new role. He suspected they were mainly stealth tricks and abilities to allow him to avoid notice and if that failed, there were probably a couple of escape skills included. That is at least what Tom would have done in his place. Very few of Rahmat’s scout arsenal would be perception related, given that was Everlyn’s speciality.

Apparently, the spear man disagreed because he was taking the lead and searching for an ambush… One that was unlikely to exist. There were supposed to be no ambush predators in the zone and the geography itself was not challenging. But then again Tom was watching the world around him with just as much suspicion. His instincts and life experience demanded nothing less.

They reached their second ravine. Despite its length being nearly the same as the previous one, this was only a metre and a half wide, which was not even enough room to walk two abreast if they were going to enter it.

The leech like monsters were visible down below. Silently, Tom slowed down, and the others ran past him. Then they ran along beside the crack in the earth with half on each side. Two seconds later the magic started. Chaos bolts started to be blasted downwards and then fire and ice magic licked in the air at ground level that felled any monsters that got too close.

The depression was on the smaller side and they did not even slow as they cleared it. Tom took the lead afterwards and changed course toward the next target.

They fell into a routine.

For the bigger crevices, Harnessed Meteorite would announce their presence and kill most of the leeches. Unfortunately, the majority were not large enough. For those smaller, they repeated what they had done with the second ravine. The humans, excluding Tom, launched their chaos bolts and the sanatio’s chosen would clean up any monsters that survived. The randomised magical missiles seemed to either kill everything or nearly nothing. It felt like there was no in between, but with the backup of the powerful abilities of the fellow competitor race was providing that variability did not matter in the slightest.

Observing this, Tom made some mental notes.

Randomised magic had great bang for buck. Not only was the damage it delivered per mana point higher than similar tiered spells when averaged, it was also a wonderful get out of trouble trump card with some careful use of fate.

Theoretically, its advantages meant it was the perfect bedrock ability to build around. But… the precise cleanup magic the sanatio’s chosen took it from hypothetically useful to absolutely devastating. Witnessing their efforts first hand, Tom could see how random high bang for cost magic could work even without the application of fate.

He guessed Selena’s squad dealt with the monster leakage with their disciplined melee fighting, but he was sure they had other techniques to fall back on. They were too disciplined to be exposed to that much randomness. A number of ideas crossed through his brain. Potentially stacking high cooldown abilities to use when the chaos bolts had a down period might work. And not the ultimate abilities from computer games, which unleashed a localised Armageddon on all surrounding enemies. There were better and cheaper options both from an experience cost and mana efficiency. Weak abilities, which theoretically should be great for covering these gaps. Spells that could kill a wounded monster which was weaker than you were. Precise strike abilities or area of effect explosions, even crowd control like entangling vines would cover the issue. How the problem was solved didn’t matter, but Tom knew his team needed a method to compensate for when the random outcomes went against them.

It was an interesting idea that he would discuss with the others. Given the way both Michael and Keikain thought, he was sure they probably already had solutions in place.

When it started to get dark. They found one of the rare caves and then immediately reinforced the entrance.

The leeches spent the day in the artificial ravines and when evening arrived, they came out to hunt. Once it was dark, the creatures became significantly more lethal. So as per their plan they bunkered down for the night. Harry laid down a variety of rituals. They were primarily there to deter detection, and those combined with the occasional intervention of the chosen meant there were no large-scale attacks on their position and the few leeches that found their hiding spot were eliminated before they could summon others of their kind.

In the morning they continued with the same actions, with the only change being that come afternoon Tom monitored the quest. An hour before dark, they approached the exit cavern. The kill counter was a little short. If Everlyn was there, both teams would have to backtrack and find some more ravines to clear to get the last few kills. If she hadn’t arrived yet, it was likely that she would get the kills herself before arriving.

She was not there.

Thor immediately opened a portal and pulled out some letters.

Tom set about defending the entrance. Two mini cave falls later, and it went from being one so massive that the dragon could have used it to one only just wide enough for a human, which was a space they could easily defend.

Thor remained sitting on the ground, reading multiple letters, one after another. It was a very familiar routine and something he did at every stop and occasionally even in breaks between combat. Tom felt a little guilty. Selena’s squad had two people doing this, while his group had shoved all the management and the auction duties onto Thor. It felt like it was too much responsibility, not that the big man ever complained about the workload. He seemed to get a lot of satisfaction from his roles.

The man’s grin grew broader. “Tom, you want to read this.” He waved the paper and then jumped up and handed it across. “It’s from Selena. I think I’ve convinced her.”

“Of what?” Tom asked, taking the letter.

“That you’re not full of shit.” Thor answered with a chuckle.

The contents of the letter were brief. “That’s a lot of if’s,” Tom pointed out. “If the description of the terror races is accurate.” He read the sentence. “If we get proof. If we exchanged signed parlay scrolls.”

“That last one’s my suggestion and important.” Thor said immediately. “It will let us meet up with them safely for long enough to agree a formal contract.”

“If the chosen are travelling with us, then if we make contact, then they’ll have their evidence.” Tom observed.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m working on. But I need to be careful. When you are dealing with someone treacherous, I can’t give them a chance to ambush us. And of course, because they’re a bunch of snakes they’re paranoid about us attacking them. I have to bridge that divide and it’s difficult to do when I’m relying on exchanging post-it notes. They’re skittish.”

He patted the big man on the shoulder. “Well, you’re doing a good job. And Thor can I ask you a personal question?”

The other man grinned in his usual manner. “Of course. Happy to answer anything.”

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re very much a nerd.”

“I am?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Definitely. Look at this.” He waved at all the letters Thor had left behind. “You’re almost an intellectual.”

“Hardly?”

“So my question is why choose Thor? Surely the hulk or iron man would suit you better.”

The other man burst out laughing. “Why does anyone do anything. My teenage dream was to be Thor. And then I could, so why not? I achieved it in the tutorial, but it wasn’t fun showing it off to no one.” He flashed him a movie style smile while flicking back his hair. “But here in Existentia I’ll have an audience and by the end of this trial I’ll be wielding a lightning hammer and be even more awesome than the legend.”

At that moment, the quest dinged complete. The other team would be here soon. They would rest and keep going.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the help of the chosen, they blasted through another two zones and got the second treasure room on the level. They were all feeling good about themselves. They had thought they would be forced to level up to meet the increased threat, but with the chaos bolt and the support of the stronger competition race it was not necessary. The zone with the semi-sapients, a giant snail like spider had been treated the same as kobolds. In the harder battles, the chosen would buttress them with shields and healing, allowing them to challenge enemies they would otherwise have been unable to touch or at least have been forced to slow down significantly to plan each engagement against the larger forces.

The group progress had been impressive, but… Tom frowned. For himself, he guess he could describe himself as having been industrious. For the last five days, there had been no material breakthroughs. The entire time, in between fighting, he had focused on his domain. Both warding off rocks launched at him and getting his rock armour to work better.

There had been no substantial advancements in either direction. Yes, he had achieved a series of small wins, but they felt insignificant in the context of what he was trying to create. He could manifest his armour faster now, command stone to engulf him like a slime and then transform it into detailed armour that left him looking like he was wearing a mech suit. However, it was constructed from untiered stone and anything that could threaten him could shatter it with a single blow. It was useless, especially since it didn’t work properly, anyway. No matter what he tried he couldn’t get it to move with him. Instead, it made everything other than a walk or jog become slow and clumsy. His control over the stone movement was so poor that there had to be gaps between his skin and rock because, when he made it skintight, he pretty much couldn’t move at all when he did that.

It certainly looked cool, and in ninety years, when his younger cousins were around it would definitely impress them as a party trick, but as an item of war… it was completely unremarkable.

As for the throw rock adaptations, that so far was mixed.

If something was tossed at him, he could deflect it and then trigger the spell to have whatever rock was thrown accelerate away from him with immense speed. He could even go one step further and allow the thrown rocks to bounce off him and trigger the spell as they moved away from him. If he angled his chest just right, that could send the rock right back at the person who threw it two or three times faster than it had come.

Aiming using the method was nearly impossible, but Tom could see the battle applications. The problem was that in all cases all he was doing was amplifying the existing momentum of the rock just like the base spell. What he wanted was the ability to reverse the rock’s trajectory or redirect the motion. He didn’t want to have the missiles strike him before he could do anything.

As they travelled, he had spent hours pondering on how to advance either technique, but nothing had occurred to him.

They were between battles, and he glanced back at the golem he had created. The battle had been fierce, but it had suffered only surface level damage. It would heal itself in a few minutes.

The golem, at least, was a success and something to be proud of. It was rapidly becoming a fearsome part of their offensive capabilities. Both mana engines were tier two now, and the control orb had been upgraded. The extra mana gave the golem access to the power to maintain peak combat usage for longer and to keep up with the team when they were running from one group of enemies to the next. The control orb improvement, Tom thought had been the most useful. With the help of the earth elemental, who had done a lot of the programming the orb upgrade had made the whole thing faster and more deadly. The earth elemental, when it was puppetting the golem even used those programs to enhance its own control. From a one vs one combat perspective, it was rank eighteen and its battle deadliness might even be higher because of the final change he had implemented.

The Twin Daggers of Rot were wrapped in a stinger like appendage that rose from the middle of the spider golem’s back. It made the spider look like a giant devastating scorpion and gave it extra avenues of attack. Better still, the rot effect had turned out to be combat useful, despite his expectations. The stinger would stab lightning fast at enemies. Land a blow and then move on to the next. Within twenty seconds, the infected monsters would start dropping.

He had thought twenty seconds would be too long, but the lethargic effect of the infliction meant that they slowed before they died. It was also deadly and now that they were fighting higher tiered monsters, the engagements were lasting for minutes not seconds and in that context a twenty second damage to death timer was not much of a concern.

It was extremely effective.

“There won’t be any major fights against the Zorca’s for a couple of hours.” Everlyn said. “Tom, you should take the opportunity to have a sleep.”

He glanced up at the sun. It still hadn’t reached the peak in the sky. Which meant it was mid too late morning at best.

“This will probably be the last chance before we finish the zone. There is going to be non-stop fighting all afternoon.”

“Fine.” He clambered onto the cart they were bringing with them and settled down. As much as he wanted to object to the need to do them, he needed the daytime rests. He had not forced any true dreams, but one hit him whenever he slept. Through them, he knew where all the competitors were. The dragon was in the centre, the insects marauding through Ring four, with Phil and the giant somewhere in the inner three rings. He hoped those last two had not reached the centre, but if they had, he guessed he was going to dream about it shortly.

All the other parties were taking it slow.

While it was nice to keep tabs on all of them, it was exhausting. He slipped off into sleep and was shocked when a true dream immediately seized him in its embrace. The last time that had happened was when the insects were hunting Vidja.

He was once more in the giant. The body he was in felt good. There were no wounds, and the heavenly scent of roasting meat reached him. He glanced down at the snake that was baking on the fire pit. It was not very large, maybe just enough to fill him up.

Tom’s human brain finished the mental calculations, and he mentally blanched when he realised how warped the giant’s perspective was to his own. The serpent’s remains were six metres long and thicker than a human’s torso, and the creature was thinking of it as being barely a meal.

The giant’s eyes slid to the side, revealing the body where the meat had come from. More bits of the puzzles fell together in Tom’s mind.

There were seven more snakes waiting to be cooked and then the main host to the body. Tom recognised exactly what it was. Back in the puzzle zone they had all speculated endlessly on the creature’s make up because of how bizarre it was. It was not a hydra, though the picture suggested it was something like that. Instead, this creature was more like a mobile snake incubation platform that could launch giant snakes at any enemies it spotted. The snakes, at least from the glimpse he had caught were fully formed as opposed to the partial version they had suspected.

It was a bit weird.

Tom focused his attention on what was important. The giant had reached the second last ring of the trial.

The creature naturally remained unaware of Tom’s racing thoughts and happily turned the spit to avoid it burning. Subconsciously, it was doing the human equivalent of humming by pumping air from one of its lungs to another to create a whistling noise. From context, the behavioural pattern was a sign of joy.

Then its attention returned to where it had originally been focusing on. A large cave entrance in a cliff wall. The rock surrounding it was a yellow sandstone where everything else was a dark red rust colour.

Tom was not there, but having gone through ten of them he recognised an exit to another zone.

A sense of duty strummed within him. A singular desire to do his duties, finish the trial and to keep stronger to earn ranking points.

His gut screamed a different message. It told him to wait, but he could not work out how that would help. A large part of himself was concerned that he had been tricked somehow… That the gods were playing a prank by making his gut feel the way it did. He could imagine the GODs watching someone of his power being paralysed with indecision. They would be laughing their heads off.

The whole situation was confusing. A month ago, it would have been inconceivable that there was anything strong enough among the competition races to kill him. He was the strongest of a people of impressive and immense strength. He had met natives of this place and crushed them so how could a fellow competitor defeat him. However, he was also a man of logic and he remembered the words of the priestess who had tried to shape his path. She has stated that if he didn’t bend to the god’s will, then he would go into a trial that would only result in his death.

His gut had believed her at the time, which was important, but despite that he had not bent. Honour and tradition was sometimes more important than the life of a single warrior no matter how mighty.

That memory and how his gut was reacting now told him that somehow there was probably something stronger than him beyond that door.

Once more, he lent down and readjusted the snake, turning it to ensure it roasted evenly on all sides.

Then, as had been the case for days his eyes once more returned to the exit.

Death was behind it, or death was not. There was no point waiting, and he was no coward. He would eat this snake the other seven and then go face his destiny. If he died, he would do it being true to his ideals with a weapon in his hand.