Dan told Nick, “I’ll be back,” and started limping off at a trot.
Nick huffed for a moment and called out, “Where you going and when you getting back?”
Dan just held his hand up and started shuffling at a slightly faster trot.
Did you want me to tell you the drivel the rest of my team discussed after Dan took off?
[Not unless it’s relevant.]
It was just the usual. Going through the info available on the Profile Reader and piecing things together. Or thinking they were. I don’t know exactly what the reader tells them or what info they’re given at initialization, but no one ever seems to believe the fate of their world is truly at stake.
Participants usually take comfort knowing only a small percentage of mortals from their world were sent to the Game, but believing the outcome determines if their world will be Raptured or not seems like too much for them to swallow. Maybe it’s too big of a concept for mortals to fully grasp.
Dan was heading over to the Soul Trial, which was weird since that’s usually the second to last Trial done, not the first. It’s one of the easiest Trials in the tutorial area and one of the few that doesn’t scale with level or tier. Even the fat gimps and the weakest of children can pass with an F-rating.
It progresses through simulations of the focused weight higher tiers can put off. In all difficulties besides Hell, it starts at Gold tier. In Hell difficulty, it starts at Knight tier.
To pass, the participant must last a certain number of seconds under the focused weight of a Gold. If any part of a participant’s torso touches the ground, they die. Higher ratings are given for lasting an additional amount of time through each subsequent tier up through Fiend. At Hell difficulty, its 60 seconds for F and 30 seconds for...
[You said focused weight?]
Yes.
[Impossible. Gold, Knight, even Captain have no real weight. Commander – no problem. Sovereign –dangerous, but I can see it. But how could an Origin-tier mortal be expected to survive the focused weight of a Fiend?]
They’re not supposed to. All the Trials and events are first meant to be completed at F-rating. When participants hit higher tiers, they then come back to try for higher ratings.
Most don’t have a chance of hitting SS-rating in any Trial until late Iron or early Jade even in lower Difficulties. Top participants could get SS on some of the Trials at Origin or Foundation tier, but the ones that end up remaining the longest do so by not taking big risks.
People good at a Trial also sell party slots to run others through for Orbment Fragments but doing that comes with its own risks.
In general, it’s better to think of SS as a trap. It gives our side a huge advantage since a ton of the highest-risk participants try for SS and die horribly. Want to see footage of some of my prior team members dying while trying for SS? I’ve saved the best ones. They’re all very hilarious.
[No.]
Well, okay. And remember, Dan would start at Knight and had an F+ Soul. For SS, he’d need to last 30 seconds under the weight of an Archfiend.
[There’re a lot of factors contributing to the focused weight a cultivator can put off, as well as someone’s ability to tolerate it. I believe nearly all level 0 Origin tier mortals would instantly die if an Archfiend or Prelate truly focused the full weight of their soul at them.]
I’m not disagreeing. Even at Sovereign, the weight becomes very dangerous to a Level 0. At Fiend it can be deadly, though unconsciousness is far more likely than death. Ruptured capillaries, collapsed alveoli, tissue and intracranial ischemia and perfusion, cerebral hypoxia, bone fractures, all that. Keep in mind, unconsciousness means death in this Trial, so it works out the same.
But maybe that’s only when the level 0 isn’t prepared. And everyone at Level 0 is usually a child. Children are very soft, squishy, and stupid. I’ve seen a few Coppers and a level 10 Foundation from turd-worlds hit SS on this before.
[They had Classes, some defenses, and at least the beginnings of a Spirit Nexus. Level 10 is peak Foundation tier. Most are at or close to having a 1-Star Soul.]
Agreed. You don’t know how it went for Dan yet, so let me get through this part first. Maybe he dies.
[I know he’s still alive.]
True. Just pretend you don’t so I can make things more dramatic for you.
Dan started this Trial huffing, sweating, and out of breath. Standing upright for the Soul Trial is about the dumbest thing someone can do, and fat Dan was doing that. If this fool tried for a decent rating, he was sure to die.
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Dan was hurting. His arms and legs felt like jelly. He decided he’d stand in the Trial for as long as he could take it. It’d make it a lot worse, but his body was weak and needed to be conditioned. Getting strong was neither easy nor cheap. It came at a steep price. A price he needed to pay again.
There were no rest days in the Game. There was no recovering. There was going. Only going. Always going. He couldn’t stop. Stopping meant death.
He wished he could impress upon his brother and the others the truth of things. They wouldn’t understand until they moved on from the tutorial area and saw the truth firsthand. They needed to realize it’d all get progressively worse and keep getting worse. If they wanted to live, they had to change. Change everything on a fundamental level, down to their very core.
Dan had met a lot of folk capable of controlling their mind enough to completely tune out pain. Even if he could, he’d never do that. Pain let him know he was alive. Pain meant life. Pain was life. Embracing it was the only way to remain. His mind and body had to accept this new reality. How things would constantly be and never not be again.
Dan wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve, coughed up a bunch of gunk, and spit it out on the ground as he took a moment to further catch his breath. His body and mind were begging him to go ask Nick for a cigarette.
Instead, he entered the Soul Trial. The inside lit up as the door closed behind him. He walked into the center of the room – a room much larger than the outside indicated it’d be – and initiated the Trial.
There were some whirring noises as the Trial began. A spotlight beamed down on him. A pleasant voice said, “Knight.”
After 60 seconds the light became slightly brighter and the pleasant voice said, “Captain.” The pressure around him increased to an uncomfortable level. He braced his stance to bear it.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
At Commander, the pressure began to hurt. Dan’s back, knees, and ankles began to throb. He was almost forced to take a knee but managed to keep standing through the 30 seconds the tier lasted.
Sovereign immediately forced him to a knee, with that knee digging painfully into the ground. Slowly, he began maneuvering his body around until he was sitting on his ass with his arms wrapped tightly around his legs and his forehead pressed forcefully into his knees.
He knew it would get much worse from there on out. This Trial was the most important for his plans. He had no choice but to achieve SS, so he would.
----------------------------------------
I was certain Dan would pass out during Sovereign. His vitals were wild. His nose was bleeding.
At Fiend he was barely conscious. I assumed he’d quit and just take the A-rating like any sane mortal would’ve. He had to know Archfiend was surely a death sentence if Fiend failed to kill him.
Dan was doing me a big favor and killing himself. I would’ve bet anything that he wanted to yell out, “Stop,” but just couldn’t under all that pressure.
I have no idea how he made it through that tier, but as you said, such a weak, soft, and pathetic Level 0 couldn’t survive Archfiend. It’s an impossibility.
His vitals showed he was practically dead when the voice announced, “Archfiend.” Even if he didn’t die, he couldn’t stay conscious. He just couldn’t. And if he lost consciousness, he’d tip over and the Trial would kill him.
When I heard a chime signaling the Trial had ended, my jaw was on the floor. My mind wouldn’t accept what I had just seen. It was completely unbelievable. This crazed fat somehow lasted through Archfiend. He achieved an SS-rating. I can only assume the F+ Soul helped more than expected.
Dan slowly opened and closed one then the other hand. He shrugged and rolled his shoulders for some time before leaning back on his elbows and doing the same to his feet and legs.
When he opened his eyes, they were completely bloodshot. Every piece of skin I could see looked like it was covered in a horrid rash. He must’ve stayed on the floor for fifteen minutes before he was able to stand and collect his reward fragments. When he did, a door to a secret room slid open.
There’re four different Trials of the Game giving this same special reward for SS-rating. You know the Game takes place in…I’m not sure what it’s called, but the qi’s unnatural?
[I do.]
Well, this reward assists by adding a bit to a revelation and the creation of a Spirit Nexus since…
[Of course. Anima and all noumenon would be difficult to reflect upon in such a controlled environment with artificial qi. Touching upon a concept of the greater unifying powers would be impossible, or nearly so.]
Exactly. So, working on a revelation and Spirit Nexus as we do isn’t all that feasible. In the next area, the Boneyard, there’s a special building called the Sanctuary of Revelations that helps get it going, but there’s a limited amount of time any one participant can spend in it.
That building’s necessary since participants wouldn’t be able to ascend to Copper tier without a 1-Star Soul.
Once the revelation is known and the Spirit Nexus started, this SS reward paints…uh, probably more like tattoos a small piece of it on a soul, revealing more of the revelation to them, furthering the Spirit Nexus along.
A Soul Gem Fragment isn’t the reward since those can give more or less than a step increase.
The walls of these reward rooms are decorated with a ton of full revelations. I’m guessing the Sanctuary of Revelations is too, but we can’t see into that building at all. We can barely see into these reward rooms. Our camera gets left outside, and we have to twist it around to see in.
Just so you know, I used to be on a Scourge crew. I originally switched to this job after a Game tech at a pub told me about this room. I can’t see all the revelations from my camera, nor can I see them well, but I can see enough. Looking at these completed versions has been a huge help to me and my own revelation and Spirit Nexus.
Anyway, all these rooms are the same. They have decorated walls and a big reclining chair. The participant sits in the chair. A mechanical arm comes out of the ceiling and gives an injection that knocks the participant right out cold. Then a different arm comes down and tattoos a small piece of the revelation they're working on onto their soul. I’m guessing it uses divine essence, but I have no idea really. It raises Soul by a step.
If a participant gets all four of these SS rewards, their Soul goes up two full-grades in total. That building in the next area usually gets them a step increase. Often, not even that. If they’re very lucky, a full grade.
But, until Earth, I had only seen participants from garbage and turd worlds. These mortals had no idea what a revelation or Spirit Nexus even was.
Let’s say these mortals got the usual step increase from the Sanctuary of Revelations and all four of these secret-room SS rewards - they’d go from F to B+, a 2-Star Soul, the Jade-tier bottleneck.
Since Dan’s Soul was F+ due to his Trait, this Spirit Nexus piece would push that Stat up to C-grade.
I had a feeling this wasn’t going to go as normal. How would Dan even know about revelations yet. Even if he did, he hadn’t had enough time to have started on one. How would the machine even know what to tattoo? I was interested to find out what would happen.
[That’s not how it works. What do you think his Trait did? Start a revelation for him?]
Hmm, no idea. I hadn’t thought of that, but I’d love to know how it really works. I’m all ears if you want to tell me, Boss.
[I’m not here to answer your questions. Continue.]
Jeez, okay.
Most participants tentatively and hesitantly enter this reward room. They look at all the revelations, always pausing at their own to study it.
Participants can spend up to half a day in a Trial before it closes on them. Spending all that time studying their revelation on the wall doesn’t really matter since the artificial environment makes them much harder to touch upon. I love when they stay in this room, but only if they aren’t blocking the view of the revelation I’m working on.
The first time a participant walks into this room, they listen to instructions and always ask the voice some questions before getting in the chair. Not Dan.
He took his outer shirt off, bunched it up in his hand, walked in without even glancing at the walls or listening to instructions, and sat right in the chair.
The mechanical arm that gives the knock-out injection can’t be grabbed. It has these little needle-spikes all over it filled with whatever’s in the needle. There’s no safe place to grab it. That shirt he had in his hand wouldn’t stop anything if he grabbed the arm anywhere.
The arm shot down quick as lightning and Dan somehow managed to break the needle clean off it with a swipe from one hand. His other hand placed the bunched-up shirt right over where the arm decided to inject the shot, preventing the little stub of needle remaining from puncturing his skin.
This injection is meant to protect the participant. Getting divine essence or whatever’s used tattooed onto the soul has really got to hurt. I mean, hurt a tremendous amount. Enough where even our side agreed unconsciousness was necessary for this reward to work.
After ten seconds or so, the injection-arm retracted, and the tattoo-arm came down. Dan grabbed it, broke the tattooing part off, ripped the cord out of the arm, and aimed the tattooer at his chest.
I honestly started laughing. What kind of fool would waste this reward? Only a crazy doing crazy stuff. Was he going to try and give himself the reward? How? It couldn’t work. He couldn’t see his soul, he couldn’t see what he was doing or what he was tattooing, and he’d have to put up with intolerable pain the whole time. Pain no one could function through.
Why not just let the machine do it, and do it right? The only answer was that he was a complete nut.
After doing the impossible by living through the weight of an Archfiend and achieving SS, this idiot was flushing one of the best rewards in the Game right down the toilet and destroying his own soul at the same time. I’ve only laughed harder a few other times in my life.
Dan bit down on the shirt he had used to block the needle stub as he tattooed. His eyes were still completely bloodshot from the Trial, his vitals hadn’t really recovered yet, his mentals were still as deep red as ever, but I stopped laughing.
A good hour later, covered in sweat, tears rolling down his cheeks, hands shaking with pain, voice hoarse from screaming so much, Dan tossed the tattooer aside and sat panting in the chair.
I checked his status. His Soul was now S+ graded, a 4-Star Soul at level 0. He somehow completed a full revelation. And correctly.
I’m Silver and I don’t have a 3-Star Soul. I almost have it. Almost. I’m so close.
A 4-Star Soul is the requirement for Captain tier. It gives 5 Stat points per level!
[In case I’m assuming incorrectly, do tiers work the same in the Game? Ascension? Same requirements?]
Yes. Origin, Foundation, Copper, Iron, Jade, Silver, Gold, Kni…]
[I know the tiers.]
Okay. Same requirements and bottlenecks too. At the time, I honestly thought a 5-Star Soul was the maximum it went to, like how Orbments can’t go above Fifth Rank after Commander. Since, I’ve learned a 6-Star Soul is the requirement for Archfiend, and Soul goes up to SSUR++ like Stats do.
We just don’t hear much about bigshots down here. There’s none on my layer. I’ve never even seen a Sovereign in real life. We hear rumors of tiers higher than Archfiend, but we don’t know much at all about any of it. What tier is Kobal? Or one of the Grand Generals? Do you know?
[I do.]
.
.
.
Well, are you going to tell me?
[No.]
That’s just rude, you know?
Anyway, I was freaking out to the high Heavens. The only possible explanation of what I had just witnessed was metempsychosis. Those prudes of the other side had planted a transmigrant in my team.