Adam’s shoulder burned. He could barely lift his legs off the ground and didn’t have the strength to lift his hammer above his waist. His chest heaved, pressing against the cracked armor of his breast plate. His shield had been shattered long ago, the remnants scattered in pieces around the blackened soggy ground.
There was black ichor everywhere with small motes of Primordial Energy dissipating into the air. Adam was so tired he couldn’t even appreciate seeing the base units of the cosmos. He could feel the sticky ichor dripping down his leg from the holes in his armor. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t feel like it had been hit with a bat. Still, he couldn’t help but smile. He had taken on a horde of monstrous ants like a hero from a video game. At least fifty corpses lay scattered and smashed around him.
Finn had helped with the last few as he sent fire balls raining down from above. Their charred corpses sizzled as smoke filtered up to the odd deep blue dome above. The ants were so focused on Adam they didn’t bother looking for the source of the new attacks, even if they were by far the bigger threat. Adam guessed it had to be a function of the taunting ability of his War Regalia as the beasts went from focused on him to a deranged obsession by the end.
He focused on his War Regalia, using the instinctive knowledge the skill had granted him. Still, he was startled when a picture of his armor appeared before him in his mind’s eye. The entire upper body flashed red other than his gauntlets which were a deep yellow. The legs were orange, with a few spots of yellow. The shield wasn’t even present in the screen, but his hammer still showed a vibrant green color.
“Hmm. Some sort of durability measurement.” Adam murmured aloud to himself. He wondered if his Primordial Energy was framing things in such a way that he would have an easy understanding of it. This looked a lot like something he had seen games he had played. He shrugged, too tired to think about the intricacies of his new reality.
“You better get back up here before any more come out to see the atrocities you inflicted on their brethren.” Finn called.
Adam looked up to see Finn smiling at him. “Yeah… How am I supposed to do that?” Adam yelled back.
A second later, a rope fell down the cliff face. It was braided white, red, and gold with knots every three feet. Adam looked at it before shrugging. He’d learned in the limited time he’d been exposed to this new world not to question where things came from. He grabbed the rope and yelped as it wound itself around him. A second later he was being hoisted up the rock face. Adam crested the cliff to find a still smiling Finn as the odd rope coiled on its own. As much as he wanted to smack the teen for pushing him of a cliff, he couldn’t help but smile back. He looked over the edge at the impressive drop to the ground below.
“You knew the drop wouldn’t kill me, right?” Adam asked.
Finn rubbed the back of his head. “Well. I made an educated guess. Your armor would be useless if it couldn’t protect you from that. Besides, with each increase in tier your body gets more resilient. You have more vitality, strength, speed, and just about everything. If you didn’t survive the fall, you likely wouldn’t have survived more than a few weeks here anyways.”
Adam stared at Finn, dumbfounded. He couldn’t help his mouth from hanging open even as no words came.
“Ahh I’m just messing with you.” Finn said, chuckling to himself. “Of course I knew you would survive. Your armor dissipated the force of a direct attack from Caius with your shield barely even denting. The pure destructive energy in that blow far outmatched a measly fall where terminal velocity isn’t even reached. I’d wager you’d have to reach terminal velocity to even be damaged.”
Adam couldn’t help but to laugh. He didn’t take Finn for a jokester, but the kid kept surprising him.
“I guess my armor is pretty much useless now.” Adam said.
“Yeah. You took a pretty good beating down there. You did well though!” Finn said encouragingly.
Adam was ready to get out of the armor, if only because it stunk to high heaven with parts of ant that seemed wouldn’t break down into Primordial Energy. He thought of his [War Regalia of the Primordial Titan] skill and what he wanted. A second later the Regalia was gone, leaving behind only his boots and the hammer which he stashed in his dimensional fanny pack. “Well, that’s handy. Not sure the orange shorts go with my gold boots though…”
“How long until you can re-summon your armor?” Finn asked.
Adam wasn’t sure. His skill initially told him that it was only once every twenty-four hours, but he wasn’t sure how long it had been. He focused on the skill.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
[War Regalia of the Primordial Titan]: The Titan could stand before a collapsing star and be left unharmed as long as he had his armor, shield, and hammer.
Summon the war regalia of the Primordial Titan. Can only be summoned once every twenty-four hours for a large Primordial Energy cost. War Regalia cannot be repaired and must be dismissed before you can summon another set. The strength and constitution of the Regalia will increase with tier. The Regalia also has a taunting affect. Taunting affect is more potent against species of lesser intelligence and those with less Primordial Energy than you.
Cooldown: 5:32:07
Adam watched the cooldown clock tick down in front of him.
“Are you looking at your skill? I’m assuming you are looking at your skill.” Finn said.
Adam realized it must look like he was staring off into the distance. “Ohh right, sorry. I forgot that you couldn’t see my screen. Getting used to magic is weird.”
“Well. It’s not technically magic. You’re just influencing the Primordial Energy in your body to change to an aspect that is more appropriate for your understanding. It manifests differently for everyone. What I do is magic,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “How do you experience your cooldown?”
Adam couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take to get used to the new reality he had found himself in. “It looks like a digital clock that is counting down.” Finn stared at him, clearly not sure what a digital clock was. “Umm. Well, how do you keep time?”
“We have clocks, but they’re powered by Primordial Energy.” He answered. “I don’t know what ‘digital’ is.” He said the word digital with an odd accent as if it was difficult to wrap his mouth around the word. Kind of like when Caius said the word tank.
“It’s essentially glowing numbers that show the time.” Adam said. “And that’s how I see my cooldown, only the timer is constantly ticking down. Just over five hours left until I can re-summon it.”
“Whatever works for you I guess.” Finn said with a shrug. “Come on, let’s get back to Caius and Ava before it gets too late.
They started to walk back toward the barn. Adam looked down at his shirt, seeing the black stains of ant ichor covering the white linen and frowned. He had just gotten the shirt and it was already ruined. He began to pull it off, becoming acutely disgusted by it. It seemed he would be back to just his orange swim trunks unless he was wearing his armor.
Finn pulled a bottle from his fanny pack and offered it to Adam. “Here, this should clean that right up.” He said.
Adam took the bottle. It was an opaque green, about the size of a water bottle with a twist off cap. He opened it up and sniffed, getting a strong whiff of lemons. It smelled like his home growing up after his mother forced their family to do spring cleaning.
“I just dump it on?” He asked Finn.
Finn frowned. “I keep forgetting you know nothing.” He sighed and took the shirt and bottle from Adam, who for his part decided not to fight it. Finn proceeded to push the shirt into the bottle, holding onto just one little section. The shirt was clearly too large to fit in the bottle, and yet it just kept going until the entire thing disappeared.
“Let me guess.” Adam said. “That’s some sort of dimensional storage bottle as well?”
“Now you’re getting it!” Finn said enthusiastically. “People used to go out on hunts or to war without any way to clean their clothes or armor, leading to a hygienic nightmare of body odor and blood. Eventually an alchemist created a solution that not only cleaned gear and clothes, but left them smelling fresh. The real trick was creating a dimensional bottle that could be stored inside another dimensional storage device.”
“Naturally.” Adam said.
“That’s where the green glass came into play. It’s not actually glass, and don’t ask for the recipe to make it because my father would kill you if you ever found out. And probably me as well.” Finn continued as he shook the bottle up, the sound of sloshing coming from the bottle. “I’ve stored enough of the solution in here so that we should be good for the rest of the trial, as long as you don’t just bathe in Eldari blood.”
Adam couldn’t help but be amazed as Finn pulled a now perfectly white shirt out of the small bottle, a strong scent of lemon coming with it. “I’ll do my best. No promises though.” He said.
“What’d you do before this? In your Kingdom, I mean,” Finn said.
Adam was a little caught off guard by the sudden change in topic but went along with it. He was noticing it seemed to be a staple of Finn’s personality. “I guess you could say I was a scientist. I researched the ocean and changes in the reef surrounding southern Florida. Before that I was a Navy Seal though.”
“You were a seal? You used to be an animal?”
Adam didn’t miss that Finn knew what a seal was, and figured most animals must be universal. That or his translation power adapted the word to fit something that was similar to what Finn would understand.
“No, no.” He chuckled. “It means I was a warrior. Someone that fought for my country. Or faction I mean. I spent most of my time working in smaller teams like this one actually.”
“Well, that is interesting. I guess that explains why you didn’t shy away from that Stone Sentry.” Finn said, looking pleased. He didn’t go on with the topic and instead seemed content to just keep walking in silence.
“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Adam said after a few minutes. “Why is there only four of you on a team? I mean why not make the teams much larger? Seems to me like it would be much safer than trying to deal with the Eldari alone.”
Finn nodded. “A logical thought. I appreciate that. It seems not many people these days have those. Though it wouldn’t work. Not for people with skill sets that are sent here anyways.” He said. “For some reason, Primordial Energy works in such a way that there can only be four people on a team. Skills that have an area of affect won’t affect three others that are deemed to be part of the users group, but add a fifth person to the team and that person will suffer the constant harm the skill causes. Same with healing abilities or any ability that has a positive bonus for the team. For some reason, four people is the limit.”
“Then what about armies?” Adam said, immediately going to the large-scale wars that Caius and Finn had told him about earlier. “It can’t be made up of a bunch of individual four-man battles?”
Finn shook his head. “No. The members of the army have skill sets that are suited for large scale battles, though they do still work in teams, but they are filled with eight people. Two frontliners, two healers, and six damage specialists. Anyone who unlocks an area of effect skill that can damage their team is moved to a special unit.”
“Then wouldn’t everyone still be going for one of those units? Where I’m from the more specialized the unit the more prestigious. They’re much more difficult to get into, don’t get me wrong, but still.”
“The specialized units have a much higher causality rate.” Finn said.
Adam nodded, seeing how that could be the case. “Wait, aren’t you, Ava, and Caius considered a specialty unit?” He asked, a little concerned.
“We are.”
“And… Does that not concern you at all?” Adam got being confident. You had to be. He and his men were always confident taking on any mission they went on, but they still knew any mission could be their last.
“Nope.” Finn said, nonchalantly. “We’ve been training for this for years. The soldiers in the army who get skills like ours are thrown onto teams with others in the army with hardly any training and barely enough time to get to know each other. They’ve only been trained in how to fight as part as a massive army, not alone.” He grabbed a corn off a stalk and shucked it, biting into the violet kernels. “Besides, we have Caius on our team.”