About a dozen skills were displayed before Nathan, but only a couple caught his attention.
Skill: Eagle's Eye
Eyesight is the primary way humans experience the world around them. This skill removes the biological shackles limiting your sight, significantly enhancing it.
Skill: Blood Regeneration
In a knife fight, the loser dies on the spot, while the winner dies in the ambulance. This skill increases your blood production and improves overall bodily regeneration.
Skill: Inspect
Scan an item to gain information about its name, grade, and effect. Inspect may not be able to reveal all available information.
Blood Regeneration would synergize well with Sanguinomancer, but I can definitely get that one later. For now, the choice is clear. “I choose to take Inspect.”
Opening his eyes in the real world once more, Nathan saw that the cottage was completely unchanged from when he had entered it almost a week ago. The hallway present during the trial was gone, just like the cup he drank from to enter it.
Taking a look at his spear, he immediately used his new skill.
Uncommon Item: Assassin's Spear
A sturdy and sharp spear rewarded by the tower to one who completed the Assassin's trial. While expertly forged and lightly self-repairing, this weapon boasts no unique abilities.
By now, Nathan had stayed on the first floor far longer than necessary, to give himself a strong foundation, and he was impatient to finally ascend the tower. He had planned his route carefully and was currently only about a day's travel away from the floor's guardian.
It would be prudent to make some small preparations before actually entering the guardian's chamber, such as stocking up on food and water. However, the way of the tower was to simply teleport climbers to a random location, so the most impactful thing he could do was to improve himself and his equipment.
Perhaps acquiring armour would have given him another advantage, but Nathan liked to be flexible, to use the terrain and move about as he fought—there was simply nothing available yet that allowed him that ease of movement while still being significantly more protective than his current attire.
Most of the following hours were spent descending the staircase of the trial mountain and entering the same valley he had stood in just days before.
Just one more day, he thought with excitement.
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Nathan stood in front of a cave, stalactites hanging from the roof while stalagmites reached toward their counterparts in the air. Every few minutes, stagnant air escaped, producing a haunting melody as it passed over the stone formations.
The maw of the mountain, Nathan thought. We would have never even found this during the first timeline without being guided by the natives.
Steeling his resolve, Nathan ducked down and entered the cave. Immediately, the sounds of nature were replaced with the rhythmic dripping of water and haunting echoes originating from deeper underground.
Glowing moss grew on the cave walls, their light enough to reveal the general shape of the surroundings, while shadows obscured the cave's details. Nathan knew no actual danger was present here, but he still found himself stepping with care, reacting to every noise with uncharacteristic flinches.
His steps echoed loudly in the unsettling environment, and he unconsciously softened his footfalls. The cave led him downward, and the further he continued, the more both the temperature and humidity in the air increased, until Nathan started sweating despite his reinforced body.
He knew he was getting close when he began breathing heavily and soon stood in front of a giant cavern, dimly lit by glowing moss and magical ores.
The backside of the cavern was cast in shadow, but from time to time, a mysterious glint could be seen. When he listened closely, Nathan heard heavy breathing.
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Composing himself, Nathan finally took a step inside, and immediately, the space that had been shrouded in darkness lit up.
Four enormous chains were anchored in the cave walls, their heavy links densely inscribed with runes—the very runes that had activated and bathed the space in light. Likewise, runes lit up behind Nathan, and the heavy rumbling of moving stone could be heard.
He didn't look, but he knew that the way back had just been closed off. It was not impossible to leave a guardian fight, but it would take more effort than just turning around.
The creature bound by the chains on each of its limbs finally stood up, allowing Nathan to take a good look at it.
It was unmistakably a goblin—in the same way a tiger is unmistakably a cat. It stood about two meters tall, slightly larger than Nathan himself. Its whole body was emaciated, with no muscle or fat to be seen, and horrendous scars riddled its frame. The eyes in its skeletal face were gray and dull, yet madness still burned deep within them. No equipment adorned it, but despite all that, the aura it gave off told a different story.
Nathan found himself in the presence of a predator, as the hair on his arms stood up and he felt the urge to run. He wrestled down that feeling; that presence might have once belonged to the goblin before him, but that was a long time ago.
Taking back control of his faculties, he quickly used Identify.
Goblin Lord – Summoner [30] [8]
This was the guardian of the first floor—a fallen goblin lord, imprisoned for eternity, its power slowly waning under the unceasing enchantments of the chains, its sanity broken long ago.
The chains held it in this chamber, but did not limit its movement, a fact Nathan became increasingly aware of as the goblin started sprinting toward him.
Its movements were slow and lumbering, allowing Nathan to dodge without a problem while he left a shallow cut on the guardian's body. The creature let out no sound in reaction, picking up the chain binding its left arm and swinging it toward Nathan. Once more, the movement was too slow to hit him, and he vaulted over it easily.
The guardian took that time, however, to raise its other hand to the sky, the heavy chain binding it rustling as it did so. It performed a quick gesture before bringing the arm back down.
Ghostly figures started heaving themselves upward from the floor throughout the chamber, their arms appearing first. They pressed their hands to the ground, the rest of their bodies quickly following.
Just like that, about a dozen goblins had joined their lord. Their bodies flickered, and they moved with total silence, but Nathan knew they could fight just as well as their real counterparts.
Taking the initiative, he immediately confronted the first of them, landing a stab that punched clean through it while ducking under a swing of its sabre. The summoned monster burst into a cloud of mist that started reforming just seconds later, but Nathan had already changed his target by then.
He danced through the goblins, their meagre skills not enough to wound him until a chain once more made its way toward him. Nathan was currently locked in a fight with two of the little creatures and had to abort his block, catching a glancing hit on his forearm while ducking under the chain.
Just then, the first goblin he had dispersed fully reformed, its body now slightly less substantial.
There are two ways to win this fight. Destroy its summons until they can no longer reform, or kill the lord directly. If I had a party, I would attack the guardian, but I can't kill it fast enough on my own.
Nathan had distanced himself from the monsters after the guardian's attack, but immediately rejoined the fight. The number of enemies had swelled to four now, more summons joining the ones he had been fighting before.
Nathan's spear blurred, its movements impossibly fast as he countered, stabbed, and sliced. His feet seemed to glide over the floor, his entire body moving with incredible grace.
Every attack served also to block, wounds were dealt with both sides of his spear. Continuously, holes were punched into the summons' bodies, their feeble attempts to fight back too weak to even touch him. The cuts he left were not enough to entirely disperse them, but enough to weaken them bit by bit.
As soon as he heard the rattling of chains once more however, Nathan broke out of the encirclement, one of the attackers finally landing a hit on his leg as he did so. Nathan gave no attention to the wound, a small trickle of blood now running down his body.
He dodged the chain, one of the summons taking the full brunt of the attack and being dispersed in response.
Nathan kept on retreating after that—too many of the summons had congregated for him to take on at once.
Using his superior speed, Nathan kept a lead on the summons, refusing to be encircled once more and landing fewer attacks now that he had changed his tactic. The guardian started attacking more often now, the chains still more of a hindrance than an actual danger - until two of them came at him at once.
Nathan grimaced as he jumped, stepping upon the first chain and propelling himself further upward. He let out a cry as he felt his foot twisting, the telltale crunch of broken bones marking this as the worst injury he had sustained yet. The second chain passed just barely below him, but when Nathan tried to land, his now-wounded foot could not carry the weight, and he crumpled to his knees.
One of the summons was upon him immediately, a sword striking toward his torso. Nathan blocked the strike with his spear, but that threw him further off balance. More of the goblins were making their way toward him, many of the summons almost dissipated and a number of them missing, dispersed by Nathan's previous attacks.
Nathan gathered his strength and stabbed his attacker, the goblin trying to block it. The summons strength was too low, however, and the spear first broke its ghostly sword before inflicting a grievous wound, resulting in its dissipation.
Nathan regained his feet, his stance now unsure and his speed severely hindered. Eight summons left, most of them almost dead, he counted.
In consideration of his wound, Nathan changed his strategy once more, foregoing defence to destroy the summons as quickly as possible—another attack from the guardian would leave him in a horrible position right now.
He erupted into a flurry of blows, advancing unceasingly toward one goblin after another, catching glancing blows all the while until he once more heard the telltale sign of chains being swung. Accepting the reality of the situation, he disembowelled his current foe while taking a hit to the gut in retaliation.
Immediately, Nathan dropped to the ground, feeling the heavy chain passing through the air just above him and watching as it destroyed the last summon.
Just me and the guardian now.