The waiting area, unfortunately for Torin who was itching to boast, was separate for each person. Each room contained a couch as well as a table containing some bottled water and basic rations, the kind that were packed with nutrients yet still tasted like dirt no matter what flavor they were. Torin mustered the courage to try one that was labeled as chocolate and found that they did indeed taste like chocolate dirt.
Each of the participants spent their rest breaks in different ways. Some chose to meditate, some performed maintenance on gear, Torin went through every flavor of ration trying to find one that didn’t taste like dirt, and some even took a nap.
Ten minutes after the last participant finished the first round the voice returned.
“Please enter the portal to commence to the next round. All those who fail to enter within the next thirty seconds will be seen as forfeiting with no exceptions.”
As soon as the voice finished a portal snapped into existence in each of the participants room, with one of the participants accidentally falling through when the portal opened on the wall he was leaning against.
----------------------------------------
Melissa and Kern were thrilled, both Gloria and Johann’s fights had been featured in the arena. With over three hundred participants only thirty of the fights were actually shown so having two of their kids (ignoring the fact that Gloria wasn’t technically theirs) being shown in the main arena was amazing, even if they weren’t shown because of their amazing skills.
Whereas Gloria had been featured due to the bloody and thrilling nature of her fight, Johann had been featured as more of a light-hearted fight, the commentator filling the short fight with quips and the sort of tortured puns that were so bad they approached good from the other direction.
While it was a little concerning that they didn’t get to see Torin the fact that his name went up under the list of Participants for round two assuaged their fears. It simply meant he hadn’t done anything particularly outstanding or crazy. Admittedly, this didn’t particularly sound like him, but at least he was safe and through to the next round.
“ALL RIGHT FOLKS, after that exciting first round, let’s move on to ROUND TWO!!” The commentator was still as deafening as ever. “For those of you who have forgotten, this is the survival round! In this round the participants will face a monster FIVE WHOLE LEVELS HIGHER, and have to survive for ONE WHOLE MINUTE!!”
“NOW, let’s see how they do!”
----------------------------------------
The room Johann stepped into was similar to the previous in the materials that made up the walls and ceiling, both made from magically reinforced concrete. This room also had the ubiquitous light orbs dotted around, providing a decent amount of light in what was quite possibly an undergroundd space. That’s where similarities ended though.
The room was twice the height of the previous room as well as twice the length and width, making it eight times the size. The larger space gave more room to move around which was nice but it also meant that flying monsters were more likely.
The other change was the presence of pillars, half walls and small pits dotted around the room. They were obviously for those who were more Agility focused to use, the obstacles working as stumbling blocks to place between them and the monsters.
Not that it helped Johann. Yes, his Agility wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t enough to use the obstacles well enough to rely on. That being said, there was one new addition that was going to be incredibly helpful.
“In ten seconds a level five Monster will appear at the end of the room. Your task in this round is to survive a full minute starting from the moment the monster is teleported into the room.”
9
Johann dashed over to the area the monster would appear, his Mana connecting to his Inventory Ring as he went.
8
As he reached half way across the room he willed a packet to appear from his ring.
7
Skidding to a stop, almost falling in the process, Johann opened the packet he was holding-
6
-and scattered the contents all over the floor in front of him.
5
As soon as he did so he turned and dashed towards the other side of the room-
4
-dodging around a pillar, hopping over a wall-
3
- and swerving around a pit as he ran.
2
Finally stopping at the end of the room Johann leapt to the ground behind a waist high half wall.
1
He turned around and readied his Mana as-
0
-a large Ortrox appeared, a deep thump sounding out as it fell the three inches from where it appeared. Johann took a moment and just stared as his plans crumbled to dust. Still, no reason to waste good seed.
Johann activated his Grasping Roots spell, focusing on the seeds he spread around earlier. The magic encouraged the seeds to do what they wanted to do; grow, grow, grow. Supplying the raw nutrients and energy the spell merely asked that the roots grow in a specific direction. Namely, around the legs of whatever was standing above them.
Grasping Roots was an excellent control spell, growing thick and strong roots with astounding speed. The spells only issue was that it required plant life in order to function. This wasn’t usually an issue as plants were abundant even in dungeons, but then this wasn’t a ‘usual’ situation.
Fortunately a certain demon teacher had thoroughly and far too enthusiastically ensure that they would always prepare for any situation, hence why Johann would forever more always carry packets of seeds on him. He even had an emergency packet on a necklace that he never took off.
What Johann wasn’t prepared for, was the appearance of an Ortrox. A large quadruped with thick black scales and horns on their head and shoulders, the Ortrox looked like the unholy offspring of a dragon and a bull. Coupled with high Strength and Vitality, the Ortrox had a nasty habit of bulldozing buildings for fun.
And right now it was tearing through Johanns roots like they were made of string.
The annoying thing was that Johann could have captured it, if he’d used his full power. As it was he limited the spells strength by roughly 70%, using an inordinate amount of mental effort to restrict the amount of Mana that flowed into the spell, all to make sure he didn’t look too strong.
On some level Johann knew he was probably being overly paranoid. After all, there was no reason he’d be hunted simply because he used a stronger than normal spell. Sadly, after his friend Marek died at the hands of a Trait hunter two years ago Johann wasn’t going to take any chances.
The Ortrox ripped through Johanns spell in two seconds flat and immediately searched for the spells originator, who was currently bravely crouched behind a wall. It wouldn’t help, the Ortrox had an excellent sense of smell, but it gave him the illusion of safety.
Right up until he heard the Ortrox sniffing. Mustering his courage, Johann peeked over the top of the wall, just as the Ortrox leveled its gaze in his direction. For a moment time seemed to stand still as their eyes met, almost like in the movies. Sadly, this wasn’t a rom-com, this was a horror movie.
The Ortrox roared and, lowering its head charged, completely ignoring any and all obstacles that stood between it and its new mortal enemy. It is important at this point to note that Ortroxii, whilst they were essentially anthropomorphized landslides, they are not exactly the smartest.
It is also important to note that this particular Ortrox was still only level 6. That meant that, while it could crush Johann like a bug, it was still a little too weak to crush reinforced concrete.
The Ortrox bounded towards Johann like an angry Magi-train, jumping over a pit as it went. Johan, having taken several steps back, waited for the Ortrox to get close. Trying to run at this point would be useless, the only way to avoid a grisly death would be to dodge at the last second and get away in the time it takes the Ortrox to turn around.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Of course, just because he was waiting for the oncoming four-legged boulder of doom, didn’t mean that he couldn’t do anything. Johann was still a Mage after all, even if he was technically a Druid. Pulling on his Mana Johann fired off a [Basic Mana Bolt] at the Ortrox’s eye, the package of Mana speeding through the air and impacting the monsters eyelid, the Ortrox having noticed the danger and closing its eyes in response. Like every other part of the Ortrox its eyelid was annoyingly tough and shrugged off the attack.
With no more time and no more weak spots to aim at Johann dived to the side, for a very brief moment thankful of his fathers hellish training. The dive was perfectly executed, every part of him cleared from the Ortrox’s path well in time. With its eyes closed the Ortrox didn’t notice, exactly as Johann planned. Well, he had actually planned on destroying the Ortrox’s eye, but he wasn’t going to complain.
Sadly though, the dive was completely and utterly unnecessary. The Ortrox, its eyes closed and its head down ready to decimate its enemy with its magnificent horns, completely ignored the presence of the low wall that stood between it and the sack of meat that it would soon gorge itself upon.
This was a mistake.
The Ortrox’s horn impacted the wall and, rather than obliterating it in a glorious fashion, as was the expected outcome, it stopped.
A commonly known thought experiment in philosophy is the paradox of the unstoppable force and the immovable object. If an unstoppable force were to meet an immovable object what would happen? The answer, as displayed in the second round of Johanns Trial, is that the unstoppable force changes direction.
In this case, rather than going through the immovable object that is a reinforced concrete wall, the unstoppable Ortrox flipped. Its back half, filled with terrible momentum, found that the front half wasn’t going anywhere and decided it didn’t like that so it went up and over. The front half was then dragged along, quite confused but willing to find out where this was going and, in a double front flip that would make an Olympic gymnast proud, the Ortrox flew over a dumbfounded Johann before crashing to the floor with a sound usually only produced during earthquakes.
Despite his surprise Johann still ran to the other side of the room, he just did so laughing his head off.
The laughter died pretty quickly as the Ortrox roared with an intensity that dwarfed its previous roars.
Now it was personal.
The next thirty three seconds Johann spent weaving through the various obstacles, desperately wishing he had a higher agility and deeply regretting his earlier dismissal of the obstacles. He vowed that he would never again dismiss any advantage, no matter how small, and he prayed to any gods that would hear him that the time would run out before his stamina did.
It would seem that someone or something heard him as, moments before he would collapse, the timer elapsed and the Ortrox, now foaming at the mouth in pure mindless rage as it desperately sought to destroy its new forever enemy, was teleported out. It appeared in a separate space and was immediately executed by a high level adventurer.
Johann immediately collapsed, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. With a flex of his will his Status sheet opened up before him, showing the twelve points of Stamina he had left. It also showed him something that had never appeared before, an Achievement.
Mark of eternal hatred.
Whether by cruel slaughter or something silly, you have managed to earn the title of the Ortroxii’s forever enemy, marking you as one to be hunted and killed no matter the cost.
-All Ortroxii will immediately become enraged at the sight of you.
-Any Ortroxii attacking you will gain a 1% bonus to their attributes for each Ortroxii you have killed.
-100% increased experience gain from Ortroxii kills.
Johann blinked and swiped the notification away. He had neither the ability nor the desire to dissect that particular Achievement, he was just happy to get an Achievement. Achievements were rare but pretty much every high level adventurer had at least two or three. Getting one this early on was admirable, even if the Achievement itself was very much not.
After a few moments of rest Johann picked himself up and walked through the portal, collapsing on the couch in the resting area on autopilot.
----------------------------------------
Torin looked around the room as the announcement rang out and smiled. With the amount of obstacles his high Agility would likely make this an easy round. He spared a moment to worry about Johann, his brother wasn’t exactly quick and if he met a monster that his roots didn’t work on then he would be in trouble.
Still, Johann could take care of himself. If nothing else, the demon trainer had made sure of that. Torin quickly scouted out the room as the countdown began, trying as much as possible to memorize the layout of the room.
He didn’t managed to memorize much before the Matroxi appeared. Matroxi were essentially gigantic spiders with armored skin, venom spitters and face not even a mother could love. They also had a nasty tendency to leave paralytic spider webs absolutely everywhere.
Most, when seeing the Matroxi, would at the very least be mildly perturbed at the sight. Torin however, was beyond happy. Like most bow wielders he had a side interest in the various venoms with which he could dip his arrows in before firing them into the fleshy faces of his enemies.
As such, it was only natural that he make a list of the Monsters he would most like to face in order to harvest their venom. The Matroxi was ninth on the list. Eighth on the list was a basilisk. Tenth on the list was Martin Glohan, a guy he’d met once who was so toxic Torin was absolutely sure he could harvest something venomous from the guy.
That being said, this was very much not an easy battle. Matroxi were fast, agile and had a ranged attack, like Torin, but also had a body that was 80% covered in subcutaneous armor plates, unlike Torin.
Torin immediately fired an arrow at the Matroxi’s face and without hesitation dove to the side, narrowly avoiding the venom spit, before firing again. Neither of the arrows hit their intended target, the Matroxi shifting to the side each time to protect its vulnerable face, instead they hit the creepy spider Monsters creepy spider thorax, the arrows tips just barely penetrating before stopping cold thanks to its subcutaneous armor.
Torin wasn’t sad though as the arrows did have an effect, they made the Monster mad. Might not have been what he wanted, but Torin was a firm believer that something was always better than nothing. Besides, if he couldn’t kill the spider, at the very least he could annoy it and, as his teachers could firmly attest, he was very good at annoying things.
Moving through the room, barely dodging the venom, Torin ran behind a pillar and immediately jumped backwards, the stream of venom spit continuing on the other side where he would’ve emerged if he had kept going. With the half second the maneuver gave him he nocked and fired another arrow.
The arrow sped through the air and just barely grazed one of the Matroxi’s eyeballs before bouncing of its thorax. The sudden and sharp pain made the Matroxi hiss as it went from mad all the way to murderous hate in 0.23 seconds. Abandoning its long range attacks the hideous spider charged towards Torin, intent on ripping him limb from bloody limb.
Torin held his ground, firing arrows as quickly as he could. In the four seconds it took for the Matroxi to reach him he managed to fire 13 arrows. None of them hit the Matroxi’s head, but then again, none of them were meant to. As the thirteenth arrow thudded into the Matroxi’s thorax an event Torin had been waiting for finally happened, his bowstrings special effect finally triggered.
The Basilisk’s venom, beyond being highly paralytic, is also highly magical. As such, it only needs to touch its victim for the venom to completely paralyze them, rendering them helpless as the snake slowly but surely swallows them whole, frozen yet still very much alive.
With Torin's bowstring being made from the tendon of a basilisk it gave it a low chance of imbuing his arrows with the basilisks famous venom, as is the case here.
The monstrous Monster completely froze and crashed to the floor, a mere three feet from Torin's feet. Though he had a wry grin on his face, as if he had never had any doubt over the outcome, a very astute or somewhat perverted observer might have noticed Torin’s butt cheeks trembling and come to the very correct conclusion that the calm looking young man was actually somewhat terrified.
Not willing to waste any time, and unsure how long the Matroxi would stay paralyzed, Torin immediately began firing arrows into the Matroxi’s face. It took an impressive eight arrows delivered directly to its brain before the horrifying spider finally died.
As soon as it did Torin sprang to action. Pulling a knife and an empty vial from one of his many pockets Torin immediately grabbed the Matroxi’s mouth and carefully cut the flesh below the chelicerae, the part responsible for venom injection, until the venom glandwas revealed.
Carefully squeezing the gland he collected the venom that came out the chelicerae until the vial was filled before he moved on to the back of the Matroxi. He was busy trying to figure out how to get to the venom gland that had the paralytic venom when the Matroxi suddenly disappeared and a voice appeared.
“Congratulations on passing the second round. Please go through the portal and wait for the next round.”
Torin picked up his jaw from where it had dropped and shouted to the ceiling “Hey! I wasn’t finished with that!”
The voice returned. “As per the contract that you signed you have no legal claim on any resources that remain on the Monster bodies after death, you should be glad we allowed you to keep the venom. Also, the break room is now stocked with better snacks.”
“Oooh, never mind.” Torin said as he quickly made his waythrough the portal.
----------------------------------------
Gloria was having fun. She’d been worried that the monster that she would face would be overly large or capable of flying or something like that and she’d have to spend her time dodging or running. Those were the kinds of fights she hated.
Her ideal fight was a straight up slug fest where the winner was the one who could take and dish out the most punishment. That’s where she shined, where she felt most alive.
It would seem that the heavens, or at least the organizers, had listened to her heartfelt prayers. For the creature that appeared in the circle was a ghoul. Ghouls were classic undead that moved fast and hit hard. Their claws were savage and their desire for flesh unending.
Gloria was thrilled. Admittidly, the ghoul was a tad faster than she would have liked, but Gloria was used to dealing with an annoyingly fast opponent. She kept her shield up, her feet moving and her mace ready. Whenever the Ghoul left an opening she made sure to punish it with swift and brutal strikes designed to inflict as much damage as possible.
That being said, the fight was slow going. The Ghoul had plenty of health and ignored both pain and injuries. Even with carefully aimed strikes and a liberal use of her shields enchantment the Ghoul wasn’t showing any signs of slowing.
Gloria was though. Despite her excellent fighting skills the Ghoul was simply too strong for her to face on her own. Even using her stamina sparingly she was still running low and even though the Ghoul had only landed two hits they still took a large chunk out of her health, with more draining from the bleeds. If nothing else these Trials had really hammered in the importance of having a healer back her up.
Fortunately for Gloria, she didn’t have to kill the Ghoul, merely survive it. When the timer finally hit zero and the Ghoul disappeared she almost collapsed, her armor stained with her blood and sweat pouring from her. The healing spell that landed on her was a welcome relief but what Gloria really wanted right now was a cold shower and a large steak.
Walking through the portal Gloria wondered if the break room would have either.