“I concede!” she screamed.
In mid-air, the tigers blinked their blue eyes and rather than radiating a killing aura, they… Logan could only describe it as hibernated, like flipping a switch. As one, they changed direction, landing on either side of her rather than on top of her, their amusement wiped away, their faces all business.
It reminded Logan of the way house cats would snub their owner when they’d done something they’d perceived as wrong. Logan remembered a particularly hilarious time when his ex-girlfriend had felt chagrined after house sitting a friend’s dog. Her cat had found it unforgivable, and for a week after the dog left the cat had turned its head or shown its butt at every opportunity.
Asthea continued to crawl backwards, but then stopped and blew out a breath of relief, a strand of hair lifting and then falling as she sagged. Blood soaked her armour-covered pants—a lot of blood. If her constitution weren’t high enough, she could be in real trouble.
“Arsen, leave me. I’m okay. Don’t let me ruin your trial. You can still advance.”
Arsen looked as if he’d aged a year. Even though this trial didn’t have real world consequences—if she’d died, Asthea would have come back—Logan could understand how he felt. If Lara or Tasha had been with him, no matter how many times he told himself that a swipe of those tiger’s paws meant nothing, his brain wouldn’t let him. Tell anyone who cared to sit back and watch a loved one get slaughtered and they’d feel the same.
Arsen gave the tigers a wary glance. To them, Asthea may as well be invisible, but Arsen and Logan were fair game. Their eyes glinted with a sadistic light as they turned their attention to Arsen, who jumped and jogged in a wide circle around Asthea, while the tigers barked and yipped, black-mold tongues dripping.
“And who’s going to patch you up if I abandon you?”
“You won’t be—"
“I concede.”
A tiger had been in the middle of an excited bark. At Arsen’s words, its bark turned into a mutter, a discontent, discordant yowl before its expression blanked and it averted its gaze.
“Oh, Arsen,” Asthea sighed, but she couldn’t hold back a small smile.
“You would have done the same for me.”
There was one problem. Arsen and Asthea may as well be invisible to the tigers for all the attention they paid them, but that meant Logan was their sole focus.
Oh shit!
A tiger managed to swipe him with a large paw, its claws slicing the back of his thigh, clanging against the top of one of his sandstone boots and cracking it so severely that bits of sandstone crumbled before Logan had a chance to deploy [Mimicry Armour] to reform it. Logan put on a burst of speed, digging deep, his thighs burning as he outpaced the monsters, concentrating while running as he sealed his boot back into a cohesive whole.
Even though sweat was pouring down his face, his eyes were stinging, and he felt like he had wind burn on his nose from the non-stop running, Logan grinned widely, letting out a laugh of pure adrenaline and pleasure. He’d done it! He’d ended the endurance trial for Arsen, and the tigers hadn’t hurt Asthea too badly. All in all, it was the result he wanted. Now, he could redeploy [Life Cycle Master] on the two tigers, make them mold-drunk, and then continue unimpeded.
Logan began a marathon.
***
[You have earned one endurance point!]
[You have earned one endurance point!]
[…]
[You have earned one endurance point!]
[Trial Update:
Logan: 50 Endurance
Arsen: 10 Endurance
Asthea: 9 Endurance
Errol: Disqualified
Thorin: Disqualified]
Logan had been at this for hours, his body going through an endless cycle of fatigue followed by an endurance boost. It was as if he’d bathed in a pool of sweat. His mouth was as dry as a desert, and his feet were swollen with blisters. But even after all of that, Logan felt a surge of pride, a savage satisfaction from achieving his goals and exceling.
When he’d entered this trial, he’d thought it would be useful, but he’d had no idea it would be this good. Better yet, he was increasing his endurance without having to worry about the tigers, coasting along as they stumbled into each other, tripping over their own feet, making yowls at the ceiling, even attacking the trees and boulders. By this point, it had turned into a workout rather than a life-or-death struggle.
But there was a problem.
Although the field looked endless, it wasn’t. It was as if he were on a treadmill—only the treadmill effect was in place for the spectators only. Although Logan perceived himself as running for miles and miles, Arsen and Asthea huddled against the black stone wall, watching him as if they were sitting in bleachers. There was some kind of warped room physics happening here, which meant that everything he did was under scrutiny.
That also meant that he could hear them.
“That’s not normal,” murmured Arsen to Asthea. He had his arm around her shoulders, trying to give her warmth. They’d taken care of her wound by wrapping it with an odd-looking bandage, but she was pale from blood loss. When they’d first taken refuge against the wall, Logan had seen her twitch, her limbs looking locked. As the hours passed, that twitch turned into her wiggling her toes, and then gradually straightening her legs. The paralytic must be wearing off.
Asthea stared at Logan with ice blue eyes, her stare penetrating as if she wanted to pry open his skull to learn his secrets. “It’s unnatural.”
“How can he be still going? Its like he’s a machine. There’s no way… no way someone who’s level 34 can do that. I don’t trust him. He told you he wasn’t a stealth player, but that’s a lie.”
“But you can’t cover up your level. That’s the one thing you can’t hide.”
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Arsen brushed a strand of hair away from Asthea’s face and tucked it behind her ear. “You know anything is possible. Haven’t we learned that by now?”
Asthea made a murmur of agreement.
Arsen’s expression was like a rock-face: hard and uncompromising. “Is he even from a newly integrated world? He could have given us false pretences so you’d feel sorry for him. He came dressed to look unprepared by entering the trial in his underwear. Meanwhile, he coasts to a victory and robs you of your prize.”
“That’s… no. He was too earnest, like a bumbling fool. There’s no way he was acting.”
Logan grimaced. Well, he’d soured that relationship. At the same time, he hadn’t gone into this expecting to make friends. His planet was in the middle of a world-ending event; his family and friends back home were relying on his actions now. Logan didn’t have the luxury of treating them with kid gloves.
Still, it might be time to consider moving on to the next attribute trial. They only had 24 hours and he wanted to make sure he had enough time to advance dexterity and perception to the same degree.
“How much time do we have left?” he panted on his way past.
Arsen curled his lip. “Not long, little man. Better pack it in.”
Logan passed them and did another loop. Lowering his voice so they couldn’t hear, he murmured, “System, how much time is left?”
[Trial Progress: 11.20 hours remaining.]
Logan’s eyes widened. This was a 24-hour trial—that meant they’d been at this for over 12 hours! 12 hours of non-stop physical activity. If they had that much time left, that was plenty of—
“Before you think about continuing,” Arsen said on Logan’s next loop past, “consider that we’re going to need sleep before we move onto the dexterity trial. And if you’re thinking we’re not doing that, consider again that all must leave and enter the room for the trial to reset. You want us to cooperate, soncontal. If you’re really level 34, your supposed level, then think about your next action carefully. The others are dead, but they’ll be back. A level 34 human against the might of the Silverdagger clan.” Arsen tsked. “I don’t like those odds, little man.”
Logan stared. Was that a threat? He was pretty sure the asshole had just threatened to use the other guards to gang up on him and do something not good if he didn’t give up.
Logan blew out a breath of air, letting one more endurance bonus kick in before stuttering to a stop. Then, with a furrow of his brows and his lips pressed into a thin line, he said, “I concede.”
The mold-drunk tigers seemed confused, as if their heads were so stuffed full of mold that they could no longer hear. But they finally shook their heads and sat on their haunches with great big yawns, their mouths pouring out black mold like a faucet.
Ding!
[You have completed the endurance trial! As the winner of this section of the trial, you will receive an extra reward. The reward will depend upon your results relative to the other members of your party.]
[Calculating rewards…]
[….]
[…]
[Rewards calculated!]
[As the weakest person in the endurance trial, you have defied the odds. Well done, Idiot! You have been granted double the amount of endurance achieved in the endurance trial—51 bonus endurance attribute points.]
[In addition, you have been granted a boon.]
[Endurance Ring of Pure Grit. B Grade. When worn, this ring will grant the wielder double endurance. The Endurance Ring of Pure Grit is part of an attribute set. Upon ownership of all five rings, the rings will dissolve into your skin and become part of your body. Thereafter, the doubling power will turn into tripling power.]
It was the same bonus from the last trial, as expected, until…
[But that’s not all!]
[You have been granted the title, Run Until You Drop! Where fools rush in, you’ll find the user! Ruler of idiot users, accomplisher of feats beyond what’s possible for an intelligent human being. This title results in a 50% reduction to your wisdom attribute#!3!...]
[Error!]
[Recalculating…]
[This title results in a 30% reduction to your wisdom attribute#!3!...]
[Error!]
[Recalculating…]
Logan gaped as the messages scrolled by. What in the world?
[This title results in a 10% reduction to your wisdom attribute#!3!...]
[Error!]
[Recalculating…]
It was as if the System were trying to give him a penalizing title, but it was glitching, forced to make a correction each time. Was this a sign of the glitching AI minion that Asthea had mentioned?
Finally, he received one more message, a grudging message.
[You have been granted the title, Run Until You Drop! Where fools rush in, you’ll find the user! Accomplisher of feats beyond what’s possible for the normal human being. This title grants 5 bonus points to all attributes.]
Logan didn’t have a chance for any further speculation as the surge of the upgrade rushed through him like a hurricane. A five-point bonus didn’t seem like much—and he suspected it was a grudging bonus at that—but an increase to everything at once was a hell of a rush. And he hadn’t even put on the ring yet!
Logan ground his teeth as his muscles expanded; he bounced on the balls of his feet as his agility exploded, and he rotated his wrists as his dexterity surged. Gasping as his perception opened up like a bottomless cup, he lurched to the side as the constitution upgrade managed to heal the remaining scratches and gouges on his body.
With a grin, he put on the Endurance Pure Grit Ring, and then waited for the show.
Holy freaking shit. The only way he could describe it was a rocket-ship. Logan stood up straight, his chest out, and then lifted his arms towards the ceiling. If he could fly, he’d be soaring right now. Logan could take on the world; give him a marathon, hell no, let him swim around North America! He’d pummel the sharks and Rabid Humpback Whales on his journey.
A lightness in his limbs made him feel as if he were floating as he pulled up his dynamic view stat sheet. He couldn’t hold back a wide smile as he reviewed the changes.
Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]
Rank: 399 out of 6,058,225,529
Titles: Eager Beaver; Mass Murderer; Audacious Corpse; Run Until You Drop
Karma: 540/540
Intelligence: 90
Constitution: 46
Strength: 91x2* = 182*
Agility: 121x2* = 242*
Dexterity: 26
Endurance: 147x2* = 294+50% = 441
Perception: 25
Wisdom: 85
Luck: 55
(*Pure Grit Ring)
Everything had gotten uneven. To a ridiculous degree. His dexterity and perception were so low against the Pure Grit Ring attributes that they weren’t even in the same stratosphere. His rank had increased again—to 399. Rank 399 in the entire world! Even better, the five-point bonus meant that his Karma pool had gone up from 510 to 540.
And even with those increases, he was still level 34. Logan was starting to think he might be this ‘Stealth Player’ that Asthea had mentioned after all. Once he returned to his world, everyone would underestimate him, especially if he had to put himself up against someone ranked in the lower thousands.
He had no idea what kind of levels were out there; yet he knew his level hadn’t changed, and his rank kept increasing.
And he wasn’t finished.
Logan had two more attribute trials left—dexterity and perception—not to mention part two of this whole thing—leading an army to victory, which even now seemed absurd.
It was possible that at the end of this, he might be beyond a powerhouse. So powerful that he could challenge the serpent, save Ernie, and then swing over to Hope’s End for Lara and the kids.
Logan took a deep breath.
Not to mention that he needed to save everyone else. There was a quest pending, a constant quest that he could pull up whenever he wanted, a quest with a ticking time bomb.
[Quest: Save Humanity! Save 5.9 billion people in less than one year by catching and storing 930 billion tons of carbon. This is a running Quest, and your progress can fluctuate up and down.]
[Reward for completing the Quest: You will save 5.9 billion people.]
[Penalty for not completing the Quest: You will kill 5.9 billion people.]
[Quest Progress: 0% complete. 359 days remaining.]
Logan ran a hand through his hair as his excitement faded, the weight on his shoulders feeling immense. He had billions of people who were relying on him to save them, billions of people just like Lara and the kids. Just thinking about it made him feel hollowed out with the pressure of the responsibility.
He looked at Asthea and Arsen and frowned. That’s why petty squabbles like this were beneath him. He needed to give them whatever time they needed to rest—hopefully only a couple of hours—and then get through this trial and return to the real world.