All my team besides Dan started using their allotted time in the Sanctuary of Revelations and began working on their Spirit Nexus.

That whole building is surrounded by doors. There’s never a wait to get in. Participants just walk around until they find an open door. As I said before, I have no idea what the inside looks like.

Becky would bring her little punk-ass daughter in with her. I can’t imagine reflecting on the revelation I’m working on with a little Karen whining at me the whole time, so I’m not sure the inside looks or works anything like I assume it does.

I do know participants are brought to their own secluded space to reflect and meditate. I’ve heard that said by a bunch of my prior team members, but they never really go into the details.

Oh, those two parties of my team members filled up by including a few new mortals.

Andrew, Hector, Ace, Leena, Chet, and Carlos were in one party.

Dotty, Austin, Nick, Becky, Luke, and Ida Mae were in another. Why that crazy bitch Ida Mae was added instead of someone much saner and better was a real head scratcher to me.

Dan specifically said he wanted only heavy hitters that could be trusted included in those parties.

I think Dotty thought it would keep Ida Mae out of trouble. And Ida Mae also had a stealth-focused build, and those weren’t all that common.

People would try out Stealth, but since this was Hell difficulty, they’d always get spotted by enemies and assume the Orbment was broken or just utter and complete shit.

The low-Star Classes that support a stealth-focused role are usually kind of shitty. The 3-Star versions start getting decent. 5-Star is where they really start shining, at least for Common, Uncommon, and Rare quality level Classes.

Anyway, Ida Mae was stealth-focused, and that opened opportunities to clear or grind Trials without the party needing to switch out Orbments or waiting until they hit much higher tiers.

Even on Hell difficulty, unless the participant does something really dumb, First Rank Stealth always works against the undead in the Trial of the Scouring.

Our side did a great job with that, setting up the Trials in such a way that participants switch out Orbments all the time.

Some Trials are only doable at lower tiers with specific Orbments. Participants think they’re supposed to switch out Orbments or change Classes to accommodate those seemingly necessary Orbments. They have no idea doing so hurts them in the long term.

Our side also did really great with the layout and flow of the Game. I’m guessing us having every lawyer that has ever lived is probably how that happened.

At a glance, it all seems fair, but it’s anything but. As they say, the devil’s in the details. Lawyers are great with details.

I can almost picture it in my head. The other side putting their foot down and making reasonable demands. We finally relent to those demands but only if they give us this large list of what seems like petty and frivolous nonsense.

They agree, thinking they got the best of us, not knowing, possibly never knowing, that they got royally screwed right up the wazoo. Stupid prude idiots.

Now, I probably know what you’re thinking. ‘Hey, these two parties seem pretty lopsided.’ One had all the mediocre losers, and the other had all the shitty losers. True. But for being such an old and such a fat, Dotty could really beat some ass and was a real wiz with that ash mana-type.

Becky’s mana-type and bow Orbment were pretty overpowered for their level and the Trials they were tackling. And Ida Mae wasn’t too much of a slob either.

Nick wasn’t happy that he had to tank, but them’s the breaks. And he didn’t really have to tank by himself. He operated more as an off-tank, and split tanking duty with Dotty.

Plus, that party got the only dedicated healer with Austin.

I’m pretty sure Becky was the instigator of the party changes. And I’m pretty sure Leena helped her out. Not much was said about it, but it was as if the two knew what had to be done.

I’m also pretty sure Becky was falling hard for Hector. Sweet, helpful, super-nice Hector. Every time she gazed at him, it basically looked like she urinated her pants.

I should add that I often have a very hard time distinguishing between lust and murderous intent, so there’s a chance Becky wanted to murder Hector, and I was just reading the situation wrong, much as I did when I first saw Dan and Nick together and thought they’d kiss with their mouth orifices.

And you never know. There’s still a chance Dan and Nick make out at some point.

Anyway, they didn’t consult Dan about any of the party changes. If he didn’t like the changes, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t let it show either.

Most participants can’t go more than four or five hours straight in the Sanctuary of Revelations. Because of that, and since sitting around getting fatter and stupider isn’t a good strategy, my team members started tackling Trials.

They started slowly, redoing and grinding the tutorial area Trials before moving on to the ones in the Boneyard they could handle.

They grinded the F rated Trial of the Shining One first, then moved up to C rating, then the Mausoleum of Bak'ung using the cheat, then the Trial of Savages since it isn’t so bad when done with a full party that knows exactly what to expect.

Oh, I should mention that they didn’t go into any Trial blind or ignorant either. No one really did.

More cameras and transmitters were collected and…oh, I should also mention Dan told Chet a better way to connect multiple transmitters to a camera. That bit of knowledge lends credence to the Carnegie Hall theory.

So, most Boneyard participants were able to see Dan run through every Trial.

Besides the Trial of the Scouring. Leena ran through that with a camera. Solo. There’s a way the rest of a party can hide in the lobby or form a circle and fight the damned while one member quickly stealths towards the goal, but that’s risky, especially at the tiers these stupids were all at.

And with the multi-transmitter setup, Dan didn’t have to exit a Trial and freak out like a coward wussy because a huge crowd was gathered around its reader. All the crowds were watching at the readers of the other Trials.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

And that’s how things went for the next three weeks. The parties slowly ground out the Trials, doing the ones they could over and over again, spending four or five hours a day in the Sanctuary of Revelations, moving on to the Trial of the Rapture and higher-rated Shining One grinds.

They were all sticking to the Boneyard. Dan didn’t want them moving on to the Castle area or ascending to Copper until they all had 2-Star Souls and Classes.

Dotty’s party almost wiped a few times. They’re all super lucky they didn’t. And they’re very, very lucky no one died.

Dotty really got Austin under control. Maybe her large chest-groin had some sort of magic pulsing through it. Whatever the reason, Austin stopped being such an asshole, and not just when Dotty was around either.

Hector was a huge hit. Everyone loved the guy. I’m sure that’s not leading up to something horrendous. Not at all. What a great actor he is. Man, I’d really love to see that guy star in a remake of ‘Over the Top.’

Since I’ve never had a member of my team swear to a high pantheon bigwig, I’m not all that familiar with what powers they get. A well-known and common one is being able to burn life essence to stay fresh without rest, and Hector definitely had that one.

When everyone else was sleeping, he’d sneak off to solo Trials. Or I assumed that’s what he was doing. I knew he was holding back a lot when around my team members, lying about having a Rare 2-Star Class.

He had at least three Orbments and as many Slot Bonuses. He may have been good at hiding it from the filthy stupids, but not the trained eye of Acesso LaBlacky.

You see that? Only after I changed it was I finally able to use my name at the end of a normal sentence.

Dan was also running around doing his own thing most of the time. He spent less and less time with the other losers in my team. I should mention he got along famously with Hector, and both spent time giving personal training to Chet. Leena too.

Carlos and Hector became pretty close since Hector spoke both Spanish and English well. Plus, they were both big guys. Hector wasn’t a fat though.

Now, Leena could say whatever she wanted about staying true to her ex-husband, but it was clear she had the hots for Hector. No chance I was mistaking murderous intent with lust there. She was way too flirty for that.

And Acesso LaBlacky knows when a female is flirting. Broads flirt with me all the time, just waving their large bulk in front of me as they hem and haw at my terminal, seducing me with their five strange orifices leaking some sort of weird discharge.

Oh, Acesso LaBlacky knows flirting when he sees it. He knows it well. Very well. He will learn the function of those holes. He will learn their function better than even their owner.

I really wished you were more into that dumb broad Zixy’s message exchanges with me. There were some real doozies. Interesting stuff. Enlightening. There’s a lot of great pictures I could show you too.

You don’t have to say it. I’m moving on.

Dan kind of set shit up in the other areas. Not like in the Boneyard, but basically along the same idea.

I think he wanted Andrew to take over the Castle area once those two parties were ready to move on. He had four people he gave copies of the book to in exchange for keeping things civilized in that area, but I don’t think he trusted any of them to do the job right.

Oh, I should say that a new book was going around. Remember when Ace said the contents of the book could fit in ‘Game Tips’ with a bunch of blank pages left over?

[Yes.]

Dan worked with Chet on a new book with tips and advice for the Castle, Court, and Crucible Trials, and warning everyone to stay out of the Boss area. Information was included on all the Trials, including those he hadn’t completed.

It was filled with information. It barely fit in ‘Game Tips.’ People had to start writing really small near the end.

There was a shitload of copies of both books by then, and the cost to read either was making a copy of it.

Those four people in the Castle area weren’t so great, but they were available. He then put the time into finding solid participants to entrust with the other areas.

He found a lady he seemed to trust to run the Court area. She was decently powerful too.

The two guys he found to run the Crucible were about as good as he could hope for.

One of them was the nephew of Maksim Zamotin. A guy named Valentin Klyugin. The other was named Jun Huang. Neither spoke English, so communicating wasn’t easy. It was mostly a pantomime with Dan eventually going back to the other areas looking for anyone that spoke the right languages.

It eventually worked out. Dan got copies of the books translated and handed them over to those two. Neither seemed all that interested in doing what Dan wanted them to do, but they did want the information in the books. Both of those guys were well known and liked, so they didn’t have many issues running the Crucible.

He also put some effort into getting the books to participants in other instances of the Boneyard, Castle, and Court. Participants in lower difficulties were shit-out-of-luck.

Then Dan got to knocking out Trials. He already cleared all the Trials of the Boneyard. In the Castle area, he had already done Asmodon's Castle, the puzzle Trial.

The Trial of Endurance, the Trial of Might, the Trial of Power, and the Trial of Skill were left. I’ll briefly cover each, and its reward. You fine with that?

[I am.]

Just checking. You get mad about silly stuff sometimes.

Oh, in case I forget, I should mention Az’ga left for about a week during this time. The Seventh Asmodite Legion returned for R&R and all the dumb Asmodite broads are legally required to spawn get with the legionnaires for a week. I think it’s to keep their numbers up.

That would’ve been the perfect time for me to sneak away and kill Zixy but it gets real murdery out there when those legion pricks are around. I hate those guys.

[Why did you not join the legions? It would make ascending easier and faster.]

What? And be angel fodder? Acesso LaBlacky wasn’t spawned to be killed in a war he doesn’t care about, following the dumb orders of some bigwig from a fancy layer that couldn’t care less about him. No thank you. They can’t make me join. Not us Kobalites.

How about you? Have you fought in the war?

[For most of my life.]

That sucks. Sorry to hear that. I just don’t see the point of it. We have the Games. No one seems to know what the war is even about.

[I believe the archangels are trying to force an end to the Games. As you’ve noted, the other side doesn’t have a winning record. They win the occasional First Cycle Game, but not enough, and no others. Once a world loses, it always loses.]

So, the war is just the other side being sore losers? That’s ridiculous, but I’ve got to respect it. If you can’t win honestly, murder is always a great backup plan.

I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard the weakest Angel is equivalent to demons from much higher layers, and archangels are on par with our high pantheon. It’s bullshit they make any of us from my layer fight in the war. We probably all get slaughtered just being near any of those hotshots fighting.

[Heaven’s forces are dwindling. Throw enough of your kind at an angel and overwhelm with numbers. Maybe a more powerful demon or devil must finish the angel off, maybe not, but it works.]

Not for Acesso LaBlacky, it doesn’t. No, thank you.

And that was nice of you to say. ‘Your kind.’ Bigwigs usually call us filth or trash of the lowest layer or some such. Like we don’t know what we are. Like we aren’t constantly reminded of it just by living as we do.

[I’m sorry to hear that.]

Oh, it’s no problem. If I was of the second layer, I’d still remind all the scumbag trash of this layer what pathetic filth we are too. That’s just how it is and should be.

Oh, I should…jeez, have I been saying ‘oh’ a lot? I hope not. I should say Dan also somehow magically figured out another advanced mana technique. Some crazy area of effect attack. Not impossible at all with his mana-type, but impossible to invoke at his tier.

When we posted a clip of Dan doing it on the forum, Mystozagan replied and said only those at much higher tiers could control or have enough mana to pull that off. It wasn’t just a question of technique, but also complexity, power, and available mana.

We’ve been calling that invocation Eruption. It costs Dan a decent amount of mana, but nothing like Mystozagan was saying it should. If what he said was true, Dan’s core couldn’t hold the amount of mana required to invoke Eruption even once.

[How big was the invocation? At what distance and size of area affected? Never mind. Show me the clip you showed Mystozagan.]

I don’t…actually, give me a second. Um, okay, I can pull up the forum from here. This is supposed to be a secret forum but I’m assuming you have clearance. Give me…okay, here it is. I can’t see you so I don’t know if you can see this.

[I can.]

Jeez, you’re a sneaky one. You almost made me leak some discharge. I felt one of my nipples come close to exploding too. Have you been behind me the whole time? That’s the only way you could see this.

[No.]

Well, you’re great at stealth, I’ll tell you that. I’m hitting play now.

.

.

.

[Mystozagan was correct. This is a technique only Pontiffs could pull off. I’d say it’s power and complexity comparable to that of a Crown Orbment.]

What tier is a Pontiff?

[Tier 16. The one after Supreme Chief.]

Really? Jeez.