If I wasn’t so certain that my advancement had been successful, the dry man’s ominous statement would have upset me slightly. Turns out that worry would have been for nought anyway, because he went on to assuage any lingering doubts I might have had.
“Sorry for catching you off guard, child. I was simply surprised, is all. Such speedy trials aren’t unheard of, mind you. Just… a little odd. Do you remember how time passed in your trial?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I don’t remember much from my trials, regardless. Except for a vague idea that the more times passed in the trial itself, I can’t think of anything.”
The gaunt man rubbed his stubble for a moment, humming in thought.
“If everything else happened as intended, I suppose I don’t have any reason to suspect side effects. Keep an eye out for your next trial, however. This system isn’t usually this generous. I would bet half of my left foot that it’ll collect its proverbial due when it gets the chance. For now, I would like to congratulate you on your advance to the fourth tier. I daresay you’ve set a new record.”
I nodded, happy to take his word for it. The part about the system put me a bit on edge, but it would be a long time yet before that particular issue mattered, or so I hoped. I couldn’t help but ask, if only to satisfy my curiosity.
“How much time would I need to advance to the next tier, do you think?”
The old man snorted.
“Years, if you’re lucky. Decades, if not.”
“…Really? That long? It only took a year to-”
My sentence was cut off as he raised a hand to silence me.
“Your level cap has grown by fifty, for a start. Secondly, tier 4 monsters only provide slightly more experience to tier 4 classers than tier 3 ones do for their respective tier, despite being far fewer in number and, therefore, far harder to find. Finally, fighting above your tier like you have been doing until now will be far more difficult. At the fifth tier and beyond, monsters gain a significant boost in strength and become far smarter, and more sentient. Expect powerful, tactical fighters.”
“Right.” I nodded, thinking of the multi-floor dungeon I had stumbled across. While it might’ve become more difficult now, the adage ‘difficult but not impossible’ still rang true.
The dry man sighed as if he had read my thoughts, shaking his head.
“Just take your time, child. Don’t you have a large number of skills to tier up? They’re trailing behind your current class tier. Focus on them, first. A strong foundation is needed to prevent tall buildings from collapsing under their own weight.”
I stared back at him, unable to stifle my ambition. I had never accepted the expectations of others, why start now?
Seeing that he wasn’t going to get through to me, the new ruler of the between lands decided to bring his focus back to his work. Happy to leave the matter at that, I left him to it. I had work to do, after all.
I returned to the clearing that I had used as practice for [Dark embodiment], determined to get the full measure of my new skills. While I wouldn’t be able to test [Greater curse resistance] within the near future, the other two skills needed to be examined. Besides, curse resistance sounded pretty straightforward. As a passive skill, I didn’t see much value in testing its limits until necessary.
The first skill I decided to look at was [Unstable breaking swipe]. As an active attacking skill, it hadn’t piqued my interest at first. However, when I thought about it a little more and considered that this would be my first skill that activated within melee range, I became a little more interested.
My first tests were conducted on some old, rotted trees that I found nearby. The dry wood made for an excellent first target.
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Before I began, I left a simple cut with nothing but a sword itself, leaving a thin horizontal gash where the weapon had passed. I didn’t cut all the way through for several reasons. One, for the sake of the test it was better to use the same, preferably intact target. Two, the shitty tier 1 sword would break if I swung too hard.
The dry man had agreed to loan me a weapon temporarily, but had only given me a low-tier sword. When I asked for something better, he scolded me, saying I shouldn’t have broken my own by using it as a sledgehammer against armoured monsters. Naturally, I had to cede to his argument and settle for buying a replacement before I left the between lands. Surely, necropolis would have a suitable weapon laying around somewhere. A serviceable one, at least.
I digress. In summary, the sword had left a long, thin cut on the wood. After this initial strike, I went straight for a breaking swipe and watched in awe as my mana rushed to coat the flimsy weapon. The sword became enveloped by a hue of black light, which shone as my swing accelerated. I thought the light was going to explode right before I hit the target, but it stabilised instead, allowing the skill to activate in full effect.
With a distinct cracking sound, the wood splintered before shattering and blowing apart. A distinct imprint had been left in the remainder of the plant, though it was wider than any blade could have left. Instead, the mana coating the weapon had hit the tree like a hammer, breaking it in half. I hadn’t even used much strength, for fear of breaking the sword I had loaned! Yet, the skill had amplified the amount of force that the weapon should have made contact with, as described in the skill description.
I did a few dozen more tests, repeating the same routine over and over on different objects. Younger, tougher trees hadn’t fared much better than the rotted wood. In fact, even boulders had spider-web-shaped cracks originating from a single hole where I had struck. This was despite the fact that the tier 1 sword couldn’t even leave a scratch on the stone in question.
Eventually, I got my first ‘explosion’. The lights had coalesced around the blade with determined fervour, getting more and more bright as the swing sped up. Right before contact, the light seemed to… reverse. It turned pitch black, before exploding with a loud crack. The explosion itself seemed to leave three times as much damage as breaking swipe on its own, but would have hurt me too, if it weren’t for my constitution and tier 5 bracers. A bit of a double-edged sword, but effective nonetheless.
After a bit more experimentation, I decided to move on to the second and last skill that I wanted to test today. I was hesitant to show it to Dalius and his crew, after all, so I would have to practice here and then keep the skill as a hidden card.
After finding a wide-open spot in the clearing where I was sure the [Dark pursuer] would be able to fit, I activated the skill.
The same tear in reality appeared, before widening bit by bit. It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but after a minute or so a large black portal had appeared. A massive hand shot out, gripping the side of the portal as if it were a door and pulling the rest of its body into our world.
The giant could be mistaken for a suit of armour, if it weren’t for the purple lights that shone where its eyes would have been and the purple haze that emanated from the separate pieces of carved plate armour. Runes that I didn’t recognise shone lightly, keeping the armour from feeling dead, so to speak.
The creature was easily as large as Revan would be standing on its hind legs, but was far less sentient than my reptile companion. It stared out into space, unresponsive to my presence or even its surroundings.
Remembering the skill’s description, I thought about giving it the ‘single command’ that it would follow until summoned again.
A gleeful smile spread across my face. The instinct to unsummon the elemental at any time was there, meaning that I could let it go wild.
“Destroy everything within the near vicinity!”
Instantly, the creature’s demeanour changed from one of indifference to one of channelled fury. I hadn’t let it copy any skills yet, but the carnage that it created in seconds nearly made me second-guess myself.
It had summoned a sword out of the black, swirling abyss that was its portal and started to use it to tear into everything it could find, even the earth it stood on.
Trees were uprooted, boulders were sent flying and a crater was being formed swipe by swipe. The creature fought in an animalistic way, possessing just enough intelligence to know which end of its weapon to hold, but its power was a sight to behold.
Unfortunately, its lack of direction quickly bit me in the ass when the knight found no more clear targets near it. Other than myself, that is.
I had to jump to the right, just barely dodging the house-sized sword that had sunk halfway into the earth, leaving a large gash where I had been standing just moments earlier.
I considered fighting the creature myself to test its power, but discarded the idea when the elemental was just a second away from turning me into a fine paste. I hurriedly unsummoned the creature and watched as it dissipated into black smoke which was sucked back into the portal.
The tear closed by itself, leaving no evidence that it had ever been there.
As cold sweat slowly slid down my neck, I could only think of one thing to say.
“Cool… Let’s try that again!”