I’m constantly being attacked by powerful monsters, and the king of the forest is lurking about somewhere - threatening to be even more dangerous an opponent than the others. Some of their attacks come as a surprise to me even now, and that’s not even counting the monsters attacking from the ground.

Even so, for me, it may as well be a mere formality.

I know the system has probably adapted the trial to my talents as it has with the others, but after all the training I did with Lissandra and the corresponding increase in my strength, I don't think I will fail.

Sure, the system is enough of an asshole to try and pull a fast one. There might even be some Rulers trying to mess with me here and there, but I still think my trial will be somewhat fair. The system won't give me anything too absurd for my 3rd trial - something around the level of an “average” Beyonder.

Probably.

A few wounds here and there are to be expected, but with my new passive I barely get any from physical attacks; instead, they literally make me stronger by replenishing my mana.

Mana-based attacks can be handled with by disrupting their structure, and that’s before I start teleporting and creating barriers, I can fly, and I can move quickly by flooding my body with kinetic energy.

It could be said I'm a goddamn sneaky little jerk who’s very hard to kill.

I’ve also discovered that the kinetic energy I absorb can’t turn into mana and overfill my reservoir. If my reservoir is full, it just absorbs the damage and produces no mana.

So I solve the issue by saving the mana in my body and relying on my reservoir, and by sending a constant stream of mana into my crown to keep my reservoir depleted by anywhere from 20-30%.

In an attempt to deal with some of the more annoying monsters, I also try setting the forest on fire. Inspired by my Avatar from the third event of the tournament, I put in a lot of effort trying to burn the surrounding trees and vegetation. I even try setting them in different places with bombs, flames, and by simply radiating as much heat as I can.

In the end, I do manage to start a few small fires, but the extreme humidity quickly douses them once I stop feeding them mana.

Currently, I'm surrounded by a massive suit of armor, allowing me to face the huge monster before me. It's made out of earth covered in vegetation. Its figure is similar to a human's, but there are no details, no fingers, no eyes, or other visible sensory organs.

[Vine Golem - lvl ??]

I’m trying to expand my passive’s effects to include the massive mana mech and use the absorbed strikes to generate more mana. If I can pull it off I should be able to keep the armor active almost indefinitely in combat. Of course, that would necessitate taking a constant stream of blows.

So as I face the golem, I don’t bother to dodge any of its attacks and keep trying even though it doesn’t seem to be working. The passives just refuse to expand into the realm of more active skills. It seems like the only real control I have over them is my ability to deactivate them, while any other effects are restricted by the “settings” of the passive in question.

Disappointed, I destroy the golem and take a quick look around.

Jungle and forest as far as the eye can see, and standing here on the ground makes me feel so small, even surrounded by massive armor. As I deactivate it and land on the ground, I feel even smaller. It leaves me in awe. Struck by the overwhelming sensation of being surrounded by the scenery of such an alien place.

I take a deep breath in and then out. And another one.

The trees creak as they sway in the wind, monsters scream somewhere in the distance, and I feel presences all around me. The flowers and plants around me tend to be colorful and taller than me, and a lot of them are poisonous.

Some of the trees have a bark that secretes a white liquid that is extremely sticky, enough so to trap monsters from time to time. Some of the leaves currently swaying in the wind are very tough, a lot of attacks can’t so much as pierce them. Others, upon taking damage, bleed an extremely potent mana-corrosive liquid.

I etch the scene into my memory alongside many of the others I’ve witnessed since this started.

Then I head towards the next group of monsters.

The system didn't say how much time I have to hunt the king of the forest. So let's try to sneak in a few extra levels.

----------------------------------------

A day passes, and the crown already has a nice amount of mana in it. The passive is working amazingly well, though at the cost of taking a bit of damage. The bones will grow together, right, so why should I worry?

I also learn more about the body upgrade I just went through, which almost seems to be complete.

My bones are tougher than they were, it’s not quite the same as getting free points in Constitution, but I would say the base is better.

That also means the moment someone with a high Constitution gets this body upgrade their body will probably get a significant boost.

The cellular regeneration part straight up means increased regeneration. It's not up to the level of average healing skill, but my wounds will continue to regenerate even if I don’t use my passive to do it.

I wonder if it would be able to regrow my limbs. Probably not, but I could try cutting off a finger just to see.

The muscle efficiency turns out to be the weirdest part, but I would say my mind-to-muscle connection is better while all effects of strengthening my body improve.

Overall, this upgrade straight up seems to be a massive improvement for anyone who relies on high level physical stats. Tacita comes to mind.

Still, there is a thing for me as well; when using my skills to a higher level, it's easier, especially the ones over level 50 or very close to it.

I also manage to confirm that by lacking the proper body upgrade and having a level under 250 I made it much harder to get my skills to level 50. It seems I leveled them up way too quickly, and that they probably shouldn’t be quite so high level.

But that's a good thing.

[You have defeated Mesmerwing - lvl 306]

[Lvl 251 > Lvl 252]

It seems like my attack from earlier - with the compressed javelin, really hit that damned bird flying high in the air. Likely wounding it enough to kill it outright or to get it killed by something else.

This place can be quite unforgiving.

----------------------------------------

Two more days pass, and I think I've located the king of the forest.

I know of an area that no monster will enter; they just straight up refuse. There is no other information confirming it, but I think I'm on the right track.

So I just turn around and head in the opposite direction.

A few times I even allow myself to fall from great heights to see if I can get any mana out of it. I do, but the amount isn’t really worth it, unfortunately.

Other than that, most of my mana gets funneled into a thermal orb that hovers over my shoulder.

Out of boredom, I’ve even created a few evil orbs to train with.

I can easily go a week or two without sleep, make preparations, and raise my level in the process. It's similar to the strain I just went through, and I find it quite funny. I think if I had come here before training with Lissandra I would have been a lot more tense and cautious, but getting here stronger has its advantages.

So I wonder.

How much thermal energy do I need to store in my orb to be able to set the forest ablaze?

----------------------------------------

A week has passed since I started the third trial.

My access to the Community has been cut off ever since the start, but I have leveled up twice. Some skills leveled as well, most notably [Mana Crown] by two levels.

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I am also getting used to my unique passive, and it works really well, but it’s better for melee combat and fighting huge monsters.

A few times, I got into powerful storms, trying to absorb kinetic energy from the wind to store in the form of mana. It did work but not as well as I had hoped.

As I’m fighting the monsters, I continue to use Mana Cycling to keep my mana under control. At this point, that technique runs in the back of my mind nearly nonstop, a part of my mind constantly maintaining the flow.

I think it’s one of the main reasons my control over my mana keeps increasing and a big part of why my body hasn’t been torn apart by my stat imbalance. I still remember what it was like before Lissandra taught me how. And now she’s made improvements to it. These improvements make it more difficult to use, but at the same time, they were desperately needed, lately I’ve been feeling that the original version has stopped being enough.

The king of the forest is hunting me now as well. It's a funny twist to my situation and my quest.

I figure that the monster is either doing it it because the system’s had enough of me using the 3rd trial as my private leveling grounds, or because the monster can sense my thermal orb and the terrifying amount of energy it contains.

Somehow, it makes sense that the king of the forest would try to stop me from setting it ablaze.

I can use that.

Well, just a day or two, and we will see.

----------------------------------------

Two days later, I think I'm ready.

I’ve placed a number of anchors over as wide an area as I can manage. The limitation is in the [Tether], I can’t use the skill over too great a distance. The sites I placed anchors on are the driest I found in this goddamn excessively humid place. I swear most of what I breathe is water rather than air.

I also created as big a sprawling web as I could, the threads having been tuned for the delivery of thermal energy, nothing else.

The king of the forest is somewhere far behind me, I used plenty of kinetic energy to put distance between us.

[Focus] activates, and my mind splits into multiple parts, each managing a different task. Then I start using [Infusion] and [Redistribution] to send thermal energy through the web and through my anchors.

The distance is so great that I can’t even see some of the explosions, but I know they’re going off.

Five of my anchors receive a huge amount of golden thermal energy, and the flames explode into the skies, the heat drying out the air and setting the huge trees on fire.

And more.

The orb near me starts to deplete its stores at great speed as I channel all that thermal energy through my web in an attempt to dry out the area and through my anchors to keep feeding the fires.

I also take the wind into consideration and time it so that it blows the fire in the direction of most monsters.

And just like that, I deplete all of my thermal energy, leaving me waiting.

Then the notifications come.

[You have defeated Thornbeast - lvl 306]

[You have defeated Dreadroot - lvl 301]

[You have defeated Thornbeast - lvl 301]

[You have defeated Mosslurker - lvl 303]

[You have defeated Dreadroot - lvl 304]

…

It looks like there is any number of slow plantlike monsters that happen to be highly flammable. Just not as many as I would have liked.

Someone—the king—is fighting against the fires.

Taking a step towards the beast I’ve been running from, I form a javelin over my shoulder and extend it to twice my height. Then I start making it as dense as possible, the projectile gaining weight. My domain expands into the area, and the pressure that was about to disrupt my projectile clashes against my domain reinforced by my subclass.

The king is coming.

I let kinetic energy flood into the javelin to give it more piercing force and store a huge chunk of power for the launch.

And the forest keeps burning despite all attempts to stop it.

[You have defeated Shadowvine - lvl 303]

[You have defeated Mireprowler - lvl 303]

[You have defeated Mireprowler - lvl 302]

…

[Lvl 254 > Lvl 255]

[Lvl 255 > Lvl 256]

It took me days to level up once or twice and now I'm leveling up in a matter of minutes. Not bad at all.

I boost my body away, and a stream of water as thin as my finger cleanly cuts through the tree I was standing on and several others as the beam follows me.

The trees, as tall as skyscrapers, start falling, and I absorb their kinetic energy, slowing their falls until they seem almost suspended in the air.

A lot of my mana disappears at that point, only to be replaced by the absorbed kinetic energy which flows through my body and into my projectile.

The king of the forest moves closer. It’s not that big—really, an unassuming monster with three orbs of water trailing behind it. It seems distracted by the fires, trying to put them out even from this distance.

I can sense how much effort it takes for the monster. It’s an immense feat to weaken multiple massive fires over such a vast distance and without any preparation.

Good, that should make it more difficult for the monster to face me, now that I’ve managed to divide its attention.

[Flood Tyrant - lvl ???]

The creature has a streamlined, eel-like body covered in dark, wet scales and a sleek appearance with four nimble-looking legs.

All three orbs fire at me at once, thin streams of water cutting through my barriers with ease, and I just manage to block one of the streams with Flamebearer, as the force makes the weapon vibrate in my hands.

When another two streams reach me as well, I fight against the pressure trying to stop me and teleport to one of my anchors, my javelin moving with me.

I keep dodging and avoiding its strikes as the notifications from the burning forest sound off, but after a few minutes, they slow down. The presences of the many monsters rushing closer.

[Lvl 256 > Lvl 257]

What a weak king, calling for help before we’ve even gotten started.

But the fight should be over before they can even get through what’s left of the fire.

The Flood Tyrant’s three orbs of water fuse together and launch a stream of water at speeds too high to track, boring a hole as thick as a pencil in a damaged section of my ax.

Another attack pierces me, streaming through the new hole in my ax and destroying my shoulder in the process.

The monster shoots again, this time aiming for my heart, but the stream hits the undamaged part of the axe, and the immense energy contained within the attack throws me back.

I return fire with a concentrated stream of thermal energy, lightly scorching the monster without truly damaging it. Instead of taking the brunt of the damage, the monster turns into water and quickly seeps into the ground.

My senses shoot into the area to detect the monster, but another attack of concentrated water burrows into my chest and tries to move diagonally to cut me apart.

I teleport before it happens and immediately after another attack cuts into my leg, trying to repeat the strategy. I burst into action, blocking the attack with my ax, and teleporting away as I lift the ax once more.

As expected, the monster is tracking my anchors, and another attack crashes against my ax, following up with another and cleaving through the dense barriers I put in its way.

I create as many anchors as I can, keeping my mind sharp and eyes peeled, looking for any trace of the monster. It’s created multiple presences all over the forest, but only one of them is the real body.

I receive more and more wounds, the creature’s attacks moving at impossible speeds, and hitting too hard for me to deflect them with anything other than the ax.

The forest and the giant trees around us fall apart, sliced by three streams of compressed water as if they are nothing.

My heart is beating wildly, the forest loses all color and sound, and everything is only black and white as I slide into my skill. Mana alone retaining its beautiful vibrant hues.

I fail to detect the original and am punished with another hole in my foot.

My use of the anchor is too slow, and I lose a finger—thankfully, only a finger.

The ax in my hand moves too slowly, and a jet of water carves a deep wound in my side, nearly cutting me in half.

Nothing I do can stop these attacks; they slice through my fires, my mana, and my body.

But I detect the original.

I block the first attack with my ax.

I tilt my head to avoid the second stream and then duck under it when it swings back. The trees behind me fall down as they are cut cleanly in two, and I absorb a bit more kinetic energy, adding to my reserves.

Before it can launch a third strike, I've readied my aim and release my javelin, boosting it with my heavily inflated pool of kinetic energy in a single powerful push.

The javelin disappears with a loud boom, piercing through everything in its way.

I don’t even see the path of its flight, and neither does the Flood Tyrant. The only visible result is a fist-sized perfectly round hole bored through the length of the monster’s body and a similar hole behind it, who knows how deep.

A powerful disrupting wave erupts from my body, directed at the monster and preventing it from turning into water like it did before. Looking through my enhanced eyes.

I match its wavelength perfectly, nullifying the monster's attempts at escape.

Even so, the monster tries to move, as the flesh around the wound bubbles up and begins to regenerate. In response, I use [Tether] activating the anchor I left on the javelin and pulling it back.

It flies back to me from a much deeper point in the ground than I expected, but it dislodges itself nonetheless, burrowing its way through the body of the monster. As it does, I release the stored kinetic energy, causing it to explode.

The explosion cuts through the forest, the threads that made the javelin untangling and rapidly slicing through the surrounding trees, while the highly compressed kinetic energy tears through everything in its path as the shockwave expands through the area.

[You have defeated Flood Tyrant - lvl 339]

Congratulations, you have successfully completed Beyond’s 3rd Trial and may now enter Beyond.

You can now buy Beyond Stay Tokens from the system shop. They will also be included as rewards for certain floor and side quests. You may also earn Beyond Stay tokens within Beyond itself.

After entering Beyond, you will receive more information and be assigned a handler.

Well done!