Dan felt a little out of whack since he didn’t get the chance to really meditate and reflect on his revelation. Leena ruined the time he always set aside for that. Even Asmodon had let him meditate a little in the morning.
He really wanted to spend some time in the Sanctuary of Revelations to achieve a 6-Star Soul, but if he was going to have any chance at all beating Asmodon this time, he couldn’t afford to rush or make mistakes.
Every decision he made had to be the right one. So, he had to save all his time in that building until his gains slowed down to nearly nothing.
Dan knew what was on the day’s agenda. He just wasn’t looking forward to it. That usually meant it needed doing and shouldn’t be put off, so he headed straight to it.
If he had any chance of getting SS in other Trials at level 20, he had to eke out as many natural Stat grade increases as he could beforehand since he wouldn’t be ascending to Iron until he had a 6-Star Class.
He wouldn’t allow himself to get stuck again. He had the Gifted Trait, and he would abuse it all he could to get the max gains he could.
Gaining steps and grades naturally was a lot easier earlier in the Game and while at lower tiers. Somehow, the environment of the Game itself would tighten up and become more and more greedy, making any gains at all harder and harder the longer it went on.
Dan wouldn’t rely on tricks to escape from Asmodon this time. When he was at the right tier, he’d be able to stand toe-to-toe with the champion without needing to cut and run. This time, there’d be no retreating.
He was close to advancing his Soul-grade naturally. He could tell. He wouldn’t remain at level 20 for long.
The revelation he was working on was ‘obstinacy.’ Last time, once he had completed his ‘hate’ revelation, he had tried a million others. ‘Obstinacy’ wasn’t even one of the completed revelations people could look at for inspiration in the tattoo rooms or the Sanctuary of Revelations.
It had taken a long while to find a concept that resounded within him and his Spirit Nexus would accept. And he hardly revealed more than half of it after meditating on it for decades and decades.
But this time, he started working on ‘obstinacy’ immediately after he completed the Soul Trial while recovering in the tattoo chair. He didn’t get up until the start of it was added to his Spirit Nexus. He was certain that was why he had gotten magma as a mana-type instead of fire again.
This time, things were going to go very differently. He’d make sure of that. No more failing, he thought. It’s all on me.
He had been given another chance to make something of his life, another chance to put an end to his perfect track record of failure. He wouldn’t just be a cockroach this time. He sure as hell wouldn’t be satisfied with just a 6-Star Soul and Class again.
The best early Trial to grind on to give Stats a good workout was the Trial of the Rapture. He also needed to farm the tokens the last boss dropped. He could only use one on himself, but if he could clear it enough times and get enough tokens, it could help his brother and the other folks in his tutorial remain longer.
Also, this Trial was a good way to farm Orbment Fragments. It was one of only a handful of them that gave fragments for completing it after achieving SS. The fragment reward was based on points earned, so he could farm a decent amount of them.
He wished there were better things to buy in the store. He’d always have enough frags for his own needs, but he wanted to start a culture of helping, cooperating, and sharing. The frags, Orbments, and Foundations he collected were mainly for others, not himself.
It was possible to go up in difficulty, not down. There was no way to get information to the people on lower difficulties.
By the time everyone was on Hell difficulty, Dan wouldn’t be able to help them much. They would’ve already got SS on a lot of Trials and screwed themselves out of the best SS rewards such as the Soul Gem, some Soul step increases, and the Stat Grade-Enhancers.
He hated to admit it, but those folk had little chance of surviving the later waves. Unless things worked out much better than they had last time. He had some plans for that. He’d do what he could.
The Boneyard was like a wide rectangle. Participants entered between the Mausoleum of Bak’ung and the Trial of the Scouring along the bottom of the rectangle.
The Trial of the Scouring was in the bottom left corner, the Trial of the Savages was in the bottom right corner, and the Mausoleum of Bak’ung was between those two.
The Trial of the Rapture was on the top right of the rectangle, and the Trial of the Shining One was on the top left, with the Exhibit: History of the Game between those two. The Sanctuary of Revelations was in the very center.
On his way to the Trial of the Rapture, he avoided people as best he could while keeping an eye out for those that robbed him the day before.
He saw a corpse and ran to it. It was cleaned out pretty good, but the shoes were about his size. He put them in his belt. He wished he had collected shoes last time. There was no way to get new ones.
When he was in the Army and when he lived in California, for some reason, people thought country boys like him went around shoeless. Everyone wore shoes where he grew up. Everyone. All the time.
He checked the body to see if there were clues on who killed the guy. There were just knife wounds. It would be hard to pin it on anyone specific. If the guy had been killed by a specific mana-type or Orbment, he could’ve told Dotty and Andrew what to keep their eyes out for.
Since there was nothing that he could do, he continued on to the Trial, entered, and initiated it. His sight went black and white words appeared in the darkness.
Your world lost its First Cycle Game. Because of this, it endured a Rapture. Not many of your ancestors survived. Share their experience and know the price of failure.
A quick scene played showing a few people falling dead as their worthy souls were brought to Heaven. Then portals to Hell opened and its forces streamed through as the undead rose from the ground.
If Dan was in a party, one member would be picked to complete a different phase. Since he wasn’t, he had to do them all himself.
A countdown from three started. When it finished, the first phase of the Trial began.
He was in a city of stone and clay buildings. Ashen Ruin wasn’t with him. He’d get it back later. It wouldn’t be allowed to help him until the last fight.
Undead corpses crawled their way out of the ground and attacked the first person they saw. Dan tried to ensure that was him, and he got to work killing undead.
It took a while, but when he finally cleared the street of the damned, he ushered all the survivors into a building a lot of other people had taken refuge within.
The more people he saved, the more points he’d earn. The other people were all NPCs with faces blurred. They weren’t there to help fight. They were there to die, not lend a hand.
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As soon as he closed the door, undead rushed it and began to bang upon it. He put his full weight against it and struggled to keep it closed. His arms burned with effort. His legs began to shake from strain.
Just as he was about to reach muscle failure, all the people in the building started fleeing through an exit in the back. He released the door. As soon as the undead broke through, he invoked Lava Stomp and STORM. His whip finished off the remainder.
Dan ran out the back door to find a mob of people huddling together, initiating the second phase. He ran in front of them and the mob started slowly walking down the street.
Very fast moving undead began running out of side alleyways, popping up from behind barrels, or crawling out of the ground before charging at the front of the mob.
Dan would lash each in the head when it got in range. He often only had a split-second chance to kill an enemy before it attacked the NPCs. Sometimes undead would come from different sides of the street at once. He’d get one with a ball of lava and the other with his whip when that happened.
He only had to worry about the front of the mob. The undead never attacked the rear or sides during this event. Just the front. And he had to cut them down quickly. If any of the mob died, he’d earn less points.
Dan got lucky. No one died before he made it to the fortress and ushered everyone within. Once the last person cleared the gate, the third phase began, and a high-level lost soul jumped in front of him.
From how he understood things, lost souls were souls that eventually ended up in Hell through other than normal means.
Because lost souls weren’t usually punished as the damned were, they could ascend tiers and move on to higher layers. Some held high positions in the staff of important demons and devils. Some even became named lords themselves.
This lost soul looked like it had taken over the corpse of a general or someone important, as it was well armed and armored and had a haughty air about it.
Dan couldn’t afford to be injured here. If he were, the chances of him making it through the next phase dropped drastically.
As the lost soul began to pounce, Dan invoked Lava Stomp and STORM. It survived both, but not by much. Dan stomped on its skull a few times. That did the trick. Since this Trial gave an extra fragment reward based on points, no enemies dropped any loot, so he just waited for the fourth phase to start.
Dan’s vision turned black again. A new countdown began from three.
He was in the same city, but demons and devils were flying or riding machines that looked straight out of a cheap sci-fi film. He ran. He dodged their attacks as they chased him. He ducked down alleys, jumped over obstacles, and took cover under overhangs or other protrusions for a couple of seconds before sprinting away again.
The phase lasted way too long. It was good exercise and a big help working out Stats, but extremely tiring.
When Dan was so out of breath that he was starting to slow way too much, the phase ended, and the demons and devils flew away.
Phase five began. Off in the distance, an abaddon appeared. It didn’t look all that different to the one he fought the night before besides its much larger size.
The abaddon was at the end of a very long street. It started sending locusts at Dan. Not swarms. That would’ve made this event impossible.
The locusts were huge and would dart at him like a hawk. If he had a shield, it would’ve helped protect him from damage, but if a locus hit the shield, it counted as him taking a hit, and he’d lose points.
The locusts could be killed, but that wasn’t the best strategy. The more locusts that were killed, the more the abaddon would send out at Dan.
The goal was to make it to the abaddon. The best strategy was to haul ass and not get hit by a locust. No side streets. No tricks. Nothing smart or fancy. Just running and not getting hit. So, he started sprinting and dodging locusts.
Dan was already out of breath before this phase started. He was sucking air hard. His body was trying to force him to slow down and catch his breath. He couldn’t allow it. He forced it to keep going. He tried dodging the locusts as efficiently as he could with the least amount of movement and energy expenditure, but the locusts didn’t make that easy.
He had to dive too often, or roll, or do any number of movements that required expending more energy as his body used up more oxygen. Getting down that street was hell, but he made it.
Once he reached the abaddon, phase six began, and he had to start fighting it immediately. Unlike the Sortilege abaddon he fought earlier, this one stayed stationary with only half its body out of its abyssal hole.
Being so close to it, the locusts it sent darting at him were extremely tough to avoid, and if Dan got too close, the boss would smash an arm down at him, making giant craters in the ground.
Dan skirted around the monster while spraying lava at it, but most of his attention had to be spent on dodging locusts sent out at point blank range.
After the boss had taken enough damage, it began roaring as it thrashed about, giving Dan a chance to run past it and climb the wall behind it. As soon as he crested the wall, the abaddon stopped roaring and started sending out locusts again.
On top of the wall were five very conveniently placed boulders meant to be rolled down onto the boss. The last would always knock the abaddon down its abyssal hole and plug it up.
Once Dan got behind one of the extremely heavy boulders, he was safe from the abaddon and its locusts. He leaned against the rock and was spent enough he couldn’t do anything besides catch his breath.
Dan whispered, “Just push through and stop being a little bitch,” to himself. “Pushing a few boulders ain’t nothing. There’s no quitting.”
Dan put his back against a boulder and started pushing. It wouldn’t budge for some time. Then it shifted. Inch by inch, he pushed it closer and closer to the edge of the wall. Once it was over the edge, he ran back and dove behind another.
It wasn’t easy and took some time, but that boulder eventually rolled over the edge of the wall too. Then the next. A minute after the fifth boulder rolled over the edge, Dan’s vision turned black and a new countdown from three began.
This was the last part of the Trial. If he was in a party, they’d all be together for this fight. Just a straight up boss fight against a devil clone.
Once Dan’s vision returned, Ashen Ruin was by his side again. He had fought this devil more times than he could count. He knew all its moves.
But Dan was used to his old level, Stats, Class, build, and Orbments. He needed to relearn how to fight. He also needed to relearn how to fight the Iron tier version of this boss. Since this devil was so tough, he expected the fight to take at least 10 minutes.
Without thinking, by force of habit, Dan tried blinking towards the devil. He mentally chastised himself and cast Molten Armor as he charged at his enemy while creating a whip.
The devil invoked a blanket of flame. Dan knew it was Hellfire. Even with his heat resistance from Aspect of Magma, Hellfire would kill him or cause him significant damage. He dove and rolled forward, avoiding the flame. He tried commanding Ashen Ruin to avoid it too, but the infernal got bathed in it.
Dan invoked Lava Stomp as he stood. Next came STORM. Ashen Ruin cast Incinerate.
That surprised Dan. He expected his summons to be dead. Then he remembered its mana-type wasn’t magma anymore. It had changed to Hellfire when the Orbment was upgraded.
The infernal was completely immune to all heat effects in the Game, including Hellfire. But the devil was also immune to Hellfire too, so Incinerate wouldn’t have done any damage either.
Dan didn’t have time to lash his weapon before he had to dodge a long spray of needles while Ashen Ruin made its way to the boss and smashed its arms down. A chime sounded, and a point total flashed in Dan’s eyes. He got a perfect score.
Dan wondered what happened. He became worried. He thought this must be a trick or some sort of trap. The devil had died way too easily. This boss was extremely tough and always took a long while to kill.
Guess not at this level, thought Dan after a minute passed. Looks like all it took was one STORM and a good hit from Ashen Ruin.
The devil didn’t drop a token. That was fine. Dan would be grinding this trial all day. It worked all his Stats in a lot of ways normal exercise didn’t. He’d have at least a couple tokens when all was said and done.
He collected his rewards, still a little leery that he was being tricked. He received 54 Common Fragments for SS, another 100 for a perfect score, and a Spirit-Enhancer which increased his Spirit Attribute by 1 point.
Then he drank a little water and meditated while waiting for the Trial to reset, glad no one was around to bother him.
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As you can imagine, watching Dan grind a Trial and meditate was very boring to watch. My other team members were training under Ace’s stern eye, and that was pretty boring too.
I should mention Chet tore through that book in hours. He read it super-fast. Leena asked him if she could read it when he finished. Chet said she could, but she had to stay next to him as he had to make notes and would need the book back for a few minutes here and there.
Chet also kept trying to scoot closer and touch her leg with his knee, and she kept moving her leg away when he did.
Ace knew Chet had special permission to goof off and not train. I think he thought Leena did too, because he didn’t get all up in her ass about slacking. Or it could’ve been due to Leena always giving her all when exercising. She was the only one besides Ace that exercised on her own without being forced to.
She still took her rotations in the Core Trial for instructions, and she still did her two daily yoga classes Ace forced everyone to endure.
Thankfully, Bob, Az’ga, and I didn’t have to watch these losers be boring either. Our attention was on something much more interesting.
We had received the deep dive of Dan back and shifted our focus to the new info. And it was juicy!
You know how I mentioned those smartphones earlier? The ones all mortals of Earth carry around?
[I do.]
Well, the companies that make those things record everything. These phones are not the only things to do this either. The mortals of Earth have many items in their abodes recording them. Supposedly for the purpose of targeted advertisement.
All these companies swear up and down that they don’t record everything and don’t save everything they don’t record. Thankfully, they do! May our Dark Master bless them for such a service!
The normal trauma profile is made from public and government data such as articles and official records – criminal, death, marriage, all that. Who would’ve ever imagined the real dirt is held by all these corporations. We hit the jackpot!