“Fifty one seconds!” Michael exclaimed excitedly. Heath pulled Eik’s arm over his shoulder as Sonja looked on with a smile.

“Solid strategy, Eiky,” she said.

“Yeah, that was nuts. He pummeled you good at the end though. What a treat,” Heath laughed good-naturedly.

“Fifty one!” Eik breathed, unsteadily trying to keep his legs under him. “Hot dog! I guess it’s time to go home then. I’m beat! Literally.”

“Nope, we’re going straight to the next one,” Heath said and dragged his toxic friend toward the stairs, Eik’s feet doing none of the work.

The crowd parted as they passed, all eyes on Eik whose performance had outmatched all other participants. “That was clever use of your ability Eik. Your Toxin is going in all sorts of interesting directions, I must say. It’s always fun to see abilities evolving in new ways,” Mikla praised.

“Does that happen often?” Sonja asked. “Seeing skills and their variations that you’ve never witnessed before?”

“There are countless abilities, traits, and evolutions out there, so yes, quite. In the lower ranks, especially on new worlds like yours, a lot of abilities are very similar because of both natural limitations but also because of a lack of knowledge. Fractures, for example, are not something you just stumble upon. Spatial manipulation to such a degree is a result of meticulous practice, study, and selection,” the B-ranker said.

“It’s not strange that Eik might have stumbled upon something special,” Mikla continued but paused momentarily. “Although I must say, what you have here Eik — the way you use your skills and the sheer destruction you’re capable of dishing out — I honestly don’t know what to say. It’s like you’re playing above your rightful power level. It’s very, very impressive.”

Halfway up the stairs, Eik began to walk on his own again. “Tell me again why we always do this test first?” Eik complained.

Mikla shrugged. “You don’t have to, but most people prefer to get it over with early.”

“Yeah…” he grumbled. “When we get to the damage test, it’ll be my turn to kick ass, at least.”

“You’re a pretty confident guy, huh, Eik?” Ihasu said as she came up on his side.

“Yeah, until it all goes wrong, sure. It’s a bad habit.”

She chuckled. “That was an interesting use of Toxin, though. I’ve never seen anyone turn it into a defense specialization.”

Eik glanced over at his friends who did their best to hold back grins. “What?” she asked.

“Well, it’s just not exactly… You know what, I’ll show you later,” he mumbled.

She arched an eyebrow in clear puzzlement but didn’t pursue the matter further.

The speed test for E-rank was about three times as wide as the F-rank arena had been. Otherwise the arrangement was largely the same. Eight pillars made up the course, the numbers one through eight painted on the surface in large, red characters.

The goal was simple. Reach each pillar in the order of the numbers painted on them in the fastest time possible. Like the endurance test, external beneficial effects, magical armor, or beneficial items were not permitted during the testing. The test taker was allowed no help except their own abilities and body.

Again, Heath stepped up as the first of the Earth team once everybody before them had gone through. He wasn’t particularly interested in this test so he simply wanted to get it over with.

When Eik had first met the tank, he’d been chubby and round faced with a large body that seemed unfit for combat. The guy that was running up there was still large but now that size was composed mostly of muscle. His red cheeks hadn’t changed at all though.

His form was alright. Neither clumsy nor particularly smooth. His speed did leave something to be desired though, compared to some of the other E-rankers they had seen up there thus far. The man was a born tank and he was lucky that that was what he aspired to be.

Heath, whose movement abilities could be counted on no hands, because the number was zero, ran the course in eighty one seconds — a score slower than any of the other participants they’d seen run it.

“You’re going to have to work on your speed and mobility, Heath,” Sonja said somberly as her brother rejoined them.

“I know, I know.”

“You’re doing my stretching routine with me starting tomorrow,” she ordered.

“Sis, I’m not sure that’s going to have an ef—”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“End of discussion,” she interrupted.

“Fine…” he grumbled.

Sonja stepped up and immediately signaled for the judge to count her down.

The moment the start was called she exploded forward with the same surreal grace as she’d shown before. Neither sibling had ranked up since they’d gone through the F-rank version of so not much had changed, but Eik still couldn’t look away.

The control she had of her own movement was insane to look at. Maybe he should volunteer for that stretching routine as well.

Like she’d done in the F-rank test, she utilized her Disengage ability to catapult her through the course a couple of times when the cooldown allowed it.

In the end she finished in fifty seven seconds, which was in the high end of average results as far as they could gather from the reactions of the onlookers.

“Well done,” Mikla praised when she came back. “That mobility will save your life many times in the future I imagine. Michael, you’re up.”

The healer ascended the platform as several golden strings about as thick as a pencil extended from his palm and hung down loosely. He too had no movement abilities but it seemed he had a plan to do something.

Due to the simple fact that most people tended to have at least one ability or evolutionary trait that could help them move faster in one way or the other, Michael’s speed was clearly below average. He was neither fast nor slow. When he ran, he looked like an ordinary man running on old Earth, but at a velocity that would have gotten him locked up in a research lab.

As he approached the first pillar, his plan became apparent. Whipping the strings out and around the wood, he caught the ends and swung himself around with a momentum that must have gained him about a second.

He repeated this at all subsequent pillars and finished in sixty nine seconds. It was neither a bad nor a good time. He looked satisfied as he hopped down again, Heath clapping him on the shoulder.

“Don’t use Backflow, Eik,” Michael muttered as he passed. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Of course not! It’s too difficult to control without almost killing myself. I’m not totally out of my mind, you know.”

“Uh huh,” Michael said cheekily.

“Jerk,” Eik chuckled as he stood on the starting point.

Surely, if he learned to control the trait a little better, he could use it even in less extreme situations. Back in the fight with Rock Fist Bart, Profound Toxin must have flooded his system in order to produce an effect so powerful that it effectively raised his strength by a whole power rank.

Clearly that meant that a lower dose would result in a softer power up and thus a more forgiving erosion of his body. Perhaps a renewal of his old daily poison drinking routine was in order. Although he’d definitely have to up the potency of his collection if it was to have any chance of benefitting.

He took another chunk of poison, fighting off the momentary drowsiness. For a second the wooden plaque inside his shirt began to vibrate as something was etched into it before the passive aura suppressed it.

He pulled it out and lifted the effect of the aura.

[Acquired Resistance: Toxin – Lv. 30]

Speaking of. A sign from above, if one believed in such things. He let the aura return and got ready to run.

He started off strong with Movement Boost, dropping the ability only when he was about turn a pillar. It wasn’t until he’d passed the fifth pillar that the cooldown forced him to run without the boost.

As a D-rank equivalent Awakened, nobody was particularly surprised when Eik crossed the goal in sixteen seconds.

Even before they had left the arena, Eik’s heart was racing with excitement for what was coming next. Just like on the F-rank floor, the platform for the damage test was surrounded on all sides by people, numbering more than thrice the other arena.

Because this was where a lot of Awakened could really unfold in spectacular ways, it drew in people like bees to a can of coke. That also meant that the wait was considerably longer, which gave them the opportunity to watch other Awakened fight.

The monster this time was a gigantic armored, amphibian-looking beast measuring at least twenty meters in length. Shackled, it sat frozen in stasis like a sphinx while E-rankers wailed on it endlessly, even less capable of harming it than the F-rankers had been against the B-rank ogre.

Of the Earth team, Michael went first and bashed away furiously with his heavy mace, but walked away with a score of 5134, which showed that he had definitely become stronger after the rank up. Relative to other E-rankers, however, he actually placed lower than he had at F-rank.

Heath’s strategy also hadn’t changed. Aiming for the softest spots between the impenetrable body armor in the monster’s body, he hacked and slashed with all his power, weaving in the occasional Unerring Strike whenever cooldown allowed for it.

With training and experience he’d managed to pump his numbers up by a few hundred points, coming in at a 7206 compared to his previous 6748.

Sonja was the only one of the three E-rankers with new offensive capabilities to test out since last time. Both her new Bow of the Squall from the rescue mission reward, which pushed her arrows to greater velocity and penetrative power, as well as the evolved trait of the Archery ability, Boosted Arrow would hopefully inflate her score significantly.

As she waited for the judge to announce the beginning of her one minute, she pulled back Bow of the Squall to its full length, the string digging into the flesh of her fingers. When she activated the Boosted Arrow, an immaterial arrowhead of energy overlayed itself onto the projectile. It hummed and shimmered in the air.

She let it fly and the arrow ripped audibly through the air and slammed into the soft skin of the monster with a loud thud, burying the shaft up to a quarter of its length. She followed it up with an absolute barrage of arrows, most of which barely managed to penetrate.

Presumably the extremely precise readings of the damage would still translate it into accurate numbers. When her minute was up her face brightened like a sun when her score was announced. 10208.

“What a jump in power!” Mikla told her when she returned. The rest of them joined in with enthusiasm, even Ihasu applauding her form. She ate up the praise hungrily, her usually controlled demeanor falling away.

“Think you can top that, Eik?” Ihasu asked.

He side-eyed her. “You do know I’m D-rank, right?”

“I don’t know, man,” Heath commented, barely suppressing a grin. “That Boosted Arrow was pretty gnarly, not gonna lie.”

“Plus,” Ihasu added. “Sonja’s an offensive specialist.”

“Right, that’s true,” he said, the others holding back laughs as he stepped up onto the platform. “Take a look at this then, I guess.”

After facing down C-ranker Bart in a real fight and winning, Eik hardly felt intimidated by the stasis bound monster, despite its rank and size. He drew Viper Fang and waited for the minute to start.

At the rank of Acolyte of Toxin he’d managed a record breaking score of 72496. Now it was time to find out what he could do at Instinct of Toxin.