“How long have y’all been staring at me for?” Adam asked, his vision coming back to find the others just a few inches from his face.

“What the hell was that bright light?” Ava said. “Have you two seen anything like that?”

“I could have sworn I noticed a flux in the dimensional membrane surrounding Adam following those flashes.” Finn said as he adjusted his thick rimmed glasses. “It was brief, not enough to get any good sense of the dimensional forces involved, but present nonetheless.”

“What? Is that not supposed to happen?” Adam asked.

Caius crossed his arms and rubbed his chin with a finger. “No. But then again, neither was a native being pulled into this trial. I have a feeling that odd things just tend to happen around you, Adam. Did it work?”

“I don’t know. I guess…” He paused and focused on his skills like they had taught him before. A slew of messages popped up before him.

You are absorbing a Tier 4 Body Skill.

Your [Essence of a Primordial] skill is applying external factors that is interfering with the absorption of the skill crystal.

Skill Crystal has been transformed by your [Essence of a Primordial Skill].

Learned Body Skill: [War Regalia of the Primordial Titan]: Atlas held the weight of the world on his shoulders, and now, so must you.

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 effect. Taunting affect is more potent against species of lesser intelligence and those with less Primordial Energy than you.

He studied the prompt, eyes lingering on the name. The Primordial Titan. He had known he was in the presence of some great being. He could feel the power exuding from it. Still, the meeting had rocked him. That voice had been haunting him for years. Had he been watched by this being? This Titan? It had looked exhausted. Like he had been holding up the weight of the world…

Adam froze, re-reading the prompt, his stomach dropping as he read the name of the Primordial Titan. Atlas. The Titan who was forced to hold up the heavens and the sky. The Titan was… real. And Adam had just met him. But what did that mean? Why would the Titan have chosen him?

“Why are you just standing there like a simpleton staring into space?” Ava said. “What happened?”

“Sorry. I…” Adam read over the text from his new skill for what must have been the tenth time. “It’s just that…” He didn’t know where to start.

A moment later, a rush of energy filled him like he had been stabbed with adrenaline. He felt his muscles vibrating, itching to release the pent-up energy. He couldn’t stop a smile from splitting his lips despite the startling realization that Atlas was real and he had somehow inherited his burden. His body hummed with barely contained power.

“I know that look.” Caius said, taking a step back. “It’s the new rush of Primordial Energy with the skill. Go on then, activate it.”

An instinctive knowledge of how to summon the War Regalia flooded his mind, and he sent the Primordial Energy in his body circulating in a mad dash to activate the skill.

A warmth like he had never felt spread through him. The activation of the skill was euphoric. His body buzzed as the energy circulation rose to a crescendo. A roar like that of a train passing at full speed filled his ears as a fog clouded his vision. He felt suddenly weak as a burst of energy was spent all at once, and he instinctively knew that he had consumed nearly eighty percent of his Primordial Energy. Adam squeezed his eyes shut as pain flared in his head. He reached his hand to his head, halting when he heard a clanking sound when his hand should have pressed against his forehead.

“Well, it looks like we found ourselves a replacement frontliner.” Caius said, his voice excited.

“That is the most insane looking armor I’ve ever seen. Is that even still you in there, Adam?” Ava asked.

Adam lifted a hand in front of his face, a golden gauntlet with onyx stones inlaid over the knuckles appeared before him. He looked at his feet, noticing that he couldn’t feel the stone beneath him anymore for the first time since getting here. It felt more like he was standing on a cloud in the comfiest shoes of all time, only it was two golden greaves. He felt at his chest and legs, realizing he was wearing a full set of armor. And not just any armor, but that of the Titan he had just been in the presence of.

He ducked and moved around in it. Rolling and laughing as he did so. It felt like he wasn’t even wearing anything. Like this suit of armor had been made for him perfectly and he was finally complete with it on. He didn’t feel any more hampered than if he was only wearing his swim trunks. Even the helm that completely incased his head didn’t hinder his vision as the helm was essentially see through to him. He had never felt this good in his entire life and broke out in a giddy childlike laugh, overwhelmed with a euphoric feeling. Adam caught the others staring at him with amusement plastered on their faces.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Now you’re just embarrassing yourself.” Ava said.

“Well, it is vital to know the limits of one’s own mobility, especially when armor is involved. It would appear that Adam has obtained a rather impressive armor summoning skill. Most skills like that don’t provide quite the same flexibility as his does.” Finn said.

“He still doesn’t have a weapon though.” Ava said. “Granted he should be able to soak up some good damage in that ostentatious suit of metal and stone, but he’s going to need something to attack with eventually,”

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot actually.” Caius responded. The group seemed to jump into analyzation and tactics immediately. Adam ignored them for the most part, just enjoying his new War Regalia. “The problem is that skills don’t give you an inherent knowledge of how to use a weapon. You still need years of training. We need a weapon that is simple enough that he can get by without completely exposing his lack of knowledge. At least for now.”

Adam realized he wasn’t holding the hammer and tower shield he had seen at Atlas’s side. He was disappointed briefly until a second later, he noticed the air grow frigid around him. His breath fogged inside his helm as Adam felt something condense in his right hand and a weight on his left forearm a second later.

He stared wide eyed at the golden shafted war-hammer in his right hand. The entire thing was as tall as he was with the head being nearly the size of a watermelon. If a watermelon was made of vicious onyx stone and metal and more in the shape of a rectangle with jagged edges. The handle was ribbed with grooves running all the way down to the onyx spike at the bottom. The weapon was surprisingly light. He felt like he was lifting nothing larger than a wooden stick when he held the massive weapon up. The tower shield was slightly heavier, but still nowhere as heavy as what it should be. He couldn’t help a broad grin from spreading across his face again.

“Very auspicious indeed.” Finn said, a smile of his own spreading.

“I think this should do nicely. Right?” Adam asked, though he honestly didn’t care what Caius said at this point. He was beyond thrilled.

“That’s probably the best weapon we could have hoped for.” Caius said, his brows raised as he examined the weapons. “You’ll still need years of training to master it especially with that shield on the other arm, but in terms of being able to utilize without any prior training, I’d say we got extremely lucky here.”

“Well, it can’t be that difficult to swing that monstrosity around and smash things.” Ava said.

Adam swung the hammer around, enjoying the whoosh of air that followed as he did so. He felt the long golden shaft slide through his hand till he gripped it just above the pommel, the weapon at full extension. He figured his reach with the weapon had to be extremely impressive, even if he didn’t know much about fighting this way. Still, he couldn’t help but feel it would be awkward to wield when closer. The shaft was just so long that even if he held it in the center it could get in the way.

Almost as if responding to his thoughts, the golden shaft closed in on itself, turning the five-foot handle into a two-foot handle in the blink of an eye, though the head remained the same size.

“Yeah, I think I could get used to this.” Adam said, doing his best to shove down the overflowing excitement. He felt invincible. “Caius. Give me a good strike with your swords. A nice slash straight to the arm.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t…” Finn started, but was interrupted by Ava

“That is a fantastic idea! Go on, Caius. We need to learn the limits of his new armor after all.” She stared at Finn as she said the last bit, using his own words against him.

Caius smiled, but not in a playful way. More of in a way that said he was going to enjoy teaching me a lesson. He reached his hands to the side as his two wicked swords puffed into existence.

“How about we start with a blow to your shield.” Caius said.

Before Adam could respond, Caius burst forward and leaped, rotating in the air with his swords forming in his hands as he spun in the air. It was all Adam could do to barely get his shield up in front of him in time. The tower shield was only about a foot shorter than him and easy to maneuver but still, Caius’s speed was frightening.

His swords fell in perfect sync, colliding with Adams shield with an ear shattering clang. The stone ground beneath Adams feet cracked beneath the pressure, a reverberation of air bursting out around them from the impact that forced him to a knee. His arm groaned in protest, a shockwave of pain shooting from his wrist to his shoulder as he held his shield above his head. He was shocked from the blow, nearly losing his grip on the hammer in his right hand. The shockwave even caused the damaged section of the barn wall to fall in on itself. Luckily the roof held.

Caius stepped back, inspecting the shield before him. “That’ll do nicely I think.”

Finn rubbed at his ears, wincing. “You couldn’t have let me step outside before doing that. Goodness Caius. I mean, I know we have magical healers and all, but I still don’t like ear damage.”

“Now we just need to teach him how to respond when taking a blow instead of retreating inside of himself. You didn’t piss yourself? Did you?” Ava said.

Adam was still stunned from the blow but slowly coming back to himself. He turned his shield to look at the front where Caius had struck. A large dent sat in the middle, a crack running through the center. He was shocked to see such damage to his new shield.

“You already damaged it.” He said, feeling unreasonably saddened at the sight.

“You’re lucky he didn’t completely shatter the whole thing.” Ava said, her brows raised. “I know you’re new to our world and still have no idea who any of us really are, but a blow like that from someone of the Arconius family is not something so easily dismissed.”

“You could always just summon a new shield.” Finn said. “That’s one of the perks of summon abilities.”

Adam felt a slight sinking feeling as if the War Regalia wasn’t as good as he thought if he couldn’t just resummon the armor at will. “I actually can’t. I can only summon it once every twenty-four hours and I have to completely dismiss all of the Regalia if I want to re-summon it.”

Caius whistled and Ava’s mouth dropped.

“What? Is that bad or something?” Adam asked.

“Not at all.” Caius said. “In fact, I’d say you hit the jackpot. Summon skills that have time restrictions are often far more powerful than those that can just be used at will. There’s a natural checks and balances to these kinds of things that’s been well studied. Same goes for extremely powerful abilities of any type. I’d wager that’s why your shield didn’t just shatter in the first place.”

“Let’s hear it then?” Ava said, looking at Adam expectantly. He had no idea what she was talking about so just stared back. “The full description of your ability, dummy. If we’re going to be working as a team, we need to know everything about each other’s abilities.”

“In general, it is best to keep the true details of your abilities to yourself, but Ava is correct. In this setting, we need all need to be fully aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each of our skill sets. It is paramount to understanding our limits as a team and knowing how far we can be pushed with our skills.”

“Ohh, right.” Adam said. He had no objections to them knowing everything. He preferred it as he had no idea what he was doing and needed all the guidance he could get. He read off the title and explanation of his skill to the others, studying them while he mentioned Atlas.

“I mean this just keeps getting more and more ridiculous by the second.” Ava said, looking increasingly exacerbated.

Caius just laughed and Finn looked like a little kid on Christmas that just received a gift he had been wanting for years.

“I’m starting to wish I actually had organized leaving Ellis out of the trial so I could take credit for this.” Caius said.

Adam removed his helm and looked at the others with blatant confusion on his face. “I know y’all are probably getting tired of me having no idea what you’re talking about, but could you please tell me what’s going on?”

“What’s going on is you inherited a Primordial’s skill. The most powerful beings in existence. It’s the tier above King that we don’t even count as they are almost more myth than reality. The only reason we even know they exist is because we have detailed records of interactions with them from the beginning of our Kingdom.” Ava said.

“I didn’t realize it was possible to get such a skill from anything other than a Tier 5 skill crystal. My uncle has one but he’s the only other one that I know of even in all of the other Kingdoms.” Caius said. “And he only got it from a trial like this one.”

“The strange thing is I know who Atlas is. Or at least there’s a legend about him on my world. That he was cursed to hold up the sky and the heavens for eternity. When I saw him… He looked so tired. Defeated even. He mentioned something about hoping it had been enough time for the others. Do you have any idea what that means?”

This time Ava didn’t even have a snarky response. She just turned and left the barn, head shaking from side to side as she muttered to herself.

Finn was practically frothing at the mouth. “Tell. Us. Everything.”