Owen was grinning from ear to ear as he raced up the stairs and towards the courtyard. He had managed to level up to level thirty faster than he had thought possible. The benefits of fighting alone, but he was more than bone tired now and couldn't wait to get too bed. The only thing he had left to do now was fight through as much of the training gauntlet again. Though this time he was certain he could make it much farther than before.

When he arrived, Xerxes only gave him a brief nod, before gesturing towards the gauntlet. Nodding back Owen stepped in and prepared while he saw the prompts appearing.

*Would you like to attempt training gauntlet 1? Y/N?

Current record is round 6*

Owen felt his heart begin to race. He had only managed to clear the first round. Turning back to Xerxes, Owen asked. "Is the record something that you have or Lucas has?" Xerxes smiled, "Oops, my mistake, you weren't supposed to be competing quite yet, but that is Lucas's current record." Owen hadn't ever been very competitive in the past. He had always been the one to seek to avoid anything he had deemed as conflict.

This had been one of the many factors that had led to his life being miserable before the system. Owen hadn't been built for the office environment and the constant competition for raises, bonuses or even promotions, left him doing his best to avoid them to any extent. However, for the first time in his life, Owen felt like a fire had started in his chest and rippled across his body. He stared at the record, "I can beat that easy." The words came out of his mouth before he had even truly considered what he was saying, but the realization after was like he had been shot full of another batch of adrenaline.

He was excited and wanted to do his best and make sure people knew he had done his best, by beating them in the process. He gave himself a full minute to stretch and think of how he would approach every fight. Once he felt like he was ready, he selected yes and watched his first opponent appear. Preparing for the goblin to appear first, Owen began pushing some mana into his spear as he prepared to strike.

Less than a second after selecting yes, a goblin appeared and screamed as soon as it saw Owen, while charging at him with a club. Owen didn't hesitate and thrust forward skewering the goblin through the eye, before pulling his spear back and preparing for the second round. He was feeling confident that he would blaze past the first several rounds, but as soon as the hobgoblin appeared, mana stopped channeling into his spear. He almost panicked, but forced himself to focus on the hobgoblin.

Not wanting to die to the same monster a second time, he rushed forwards dodging each attack the hobgoblin threw his way. He had felt several taps on his shoulder, growing frantically in pace, but there was one downside to the ability. If the target was moving the tapping didn't make much sense unless someone was able to match their movements exactly. Keeping that in mind Owen dashed forwards, as he dodged the monster over extended with a large overhanded swing. Owen immediately thrust his spear through its side entering its armpit and exiting just under its ribs on the other side of its chest.

He threw a look to the notifications and smiled.

*First round cleared. S grade achieved.

Second round will begin in 5 seconds.

Second round cleared. A grade achieved.

Third round will begin in 5 seconds.*

Owen prepared and felt like he whole body had gotten somewhat heavier. Looking through, he pulled up his status page for the gauntlet and groaned. His title bonuses were now also restricted. His stats had fully reverted to back when he was a level one and he was almost shocked by how much they had changed since the beginning.

*Owen - Level 1

Vitality = 4

Mana = 2

Strength = 6

Perception = 9

Agility = 3

Resilience = 4

Dexterity = 9

Luck = 5

Chaos = 0*

With all of his titles locked he had been technically locked out of his chaos stat, though it was still displayed. Still he didn't feel great about his chances against the later rounds and just as he had the thought, the enemy of the third round fully formed. It was a lizard enemy that stood on two legs standing barely taller than a child. It had red scales that snaked down its entire body and it had a snakes blank look while it stared at him.

Own immediately felt his nerves begin to rise, since with a monster like this, he genuinely couldn't even begin to guess what it was thinking. Brandishing his spear, he had an odd feeling as he stabbed forward. It wasn't the weight of the spear, but something felt off about the spear as he wielded it against the monster he now recognized as a kobold. Instead of trying to immediately kill the monster he chased the feeling he got from his spear. He wasn't sure what was wrong, but as the fight continued he felt like his hands slightly adjusted how he held the spear, trying to make it feel more comfortable to hold.

The kobold ended up dying without landing an attack, which was lucky since the daggers it had looked like they had some type of liquid coating the blade.

*Third round cleared. A grade achieved.

Fourth round will begin in 5 seconds.*

Owen pulled his spear from its chest and the movements still felt wrong. He had adjusted his grip on the spear dozens of times without it ever feeling truly comfortable to hold. When the next fight began he was fighting another kobold, though this one was much closer to his own height and held its own spear that it raised towards him. Owen almost let himself forget he was in a fight as he stared at the hold the kobold kept on its spear. Curious he tried mimicking the hold and it felt like everything clicked.

It hadn't been exclusively the way he had been holding the spear, but it had partially to do with both how the spear was balanced and what the spear had been made to do. The kobold held its spear, while holding a shield in its off hand. It was holding the spear exclusively for short stabs. Owen had been wielding it like it was a two handed spear, despite the weight having not been made for that type of combat. His spear was also made for short stabs. He knew it wasn't as simple as that, but something felt nicer about how he was holding the spear.

He was almost distracted as he received a system notification, but focused on the fight again. The kobold stood at a distance waiting for Owen to approach. As Owen inched closer he tried to see if he could see a way around the shield, not seeing any openings he threw several test stabs and was rewarded with his spear being trapped inside of the kobolds shield, but as he tried to pull his spear back, it didn't budge and before he could react, he had been stabbed in the gut with a spear. He did his best to try and heal it, but was stabbed again, this time in the head and everything went black.

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*You have lost.

Synergistic Wielder of Chaos Spear Mastery has reached level 6*

Owen opened his eyes and instead of being frustrated like he had expected, he immediately pulled out his spear and tried following the movements that Xerxes had shown him so long ago. Everything felt harder than it had while he had held piercing heavens, but it felt less wrong than everything had felt in the gauntlet. Almost as if he understood the issue Owen was having, Xerxes appeared next to him with a gentle smile, wielding his own spear.

"So, you have started to learn not to depend on your stats for weapon mastery." It wasn't said as a question, but Owen nodded anyways and tried to describe what he had been feeling. "The spear just felt wrong in my hands after my titles got cancelled out, I tried switching grip and it only started to feel okay when I had copied the hold the kobold had on its own spear." Owen said, while looking at Xerxes hoping for answers.

"I might have the answer, but send me the list of stats you had while at level 1." Xerxes said and Owen obliged. "I see, the reasoning is partially because your dexterity and perception are as high as they are. These are important to keep track of while in the beginning as it helps keep track of where you have the most potential." Owen had to fight back a groan and Xerxes smiled even wider. "So, you already know a little bit about your potential?" Owen nodded and first before shaking his head.

"That was one of the things the guild store could both help with and not actually help at all with. I took this thing called the Pill of Potentiality and it told me I had the most potential with both my perception, dexterity, and mana." Xerxes was nodding along, before his face took on a shocked expression. "You took a pill of potentiality without being told precisely what it did? You really spent your guild points on it despite the cost?"

Owen was confused now, but answered honestly. "Well I suppose a thousand credits is a bit much in the beginning, but I hadn't had many other ideas as to what I should purchase. We were about to go into a big fight and I had hoped it would make me stronger." Xerxes reeled back and Owen almost laughed as this was the most emotion he had seen from his master. "Do you at least still have access to sharing what you got from the pill?" He said sounding defeated. "Really, only a thousand credits now." He mumbled under his breath, while Owen searched for a way to pull up the notification.

Finally finding it, he shared it with Xerxes who nodded while looking through the stats page.

*Here is the listed value of your potential compared to the multiverse for each of your stats on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being highest.

Vitality --> 4

Mana --> 9

Strength --> 3

Perception --> 9

Agility --> 5

Resilience --> 4

Dexterity --> 10

Luck --> 2

Chaos --> error, not applicable*

Owen waited patiently for Xerxes to respond, but after several seconds without response, Owen wasn't sure if he had accidentally broke him. But another couple second later Xerxes spoke. "We are going to need you to train with more weapons. Though I supposed since we are at the end of the day I can quickly explain what I mean." Xerxes said as he guided them to a table and chairs.

After both had sat, Xerxes first poured Owen tea and then himself before taking a sip, scowling and then pointed a finger at his tea and then Owen's causing them both to start bubbling. He stared at the setting sun for several seconds before it looked like he had gathered his thoughts.

"I'll will go in order and explain why I was so surprised. The pill you took is often worth several million credits when you get to a certain level of power. The resources the guild store sells are always randomized when the guild is first created, so having access to a pill of potentiality this earlier on is an incredible boon." Xerxes said as he sipped his tea, still gazing at the sunset.

"You have only a slightly higher potential than average, but the important part is the chemistry with your potential." Xerxes turned to Owen with a serious expression on his face. "You have the perfect chemistry for a weapons master and with having a high potential of mana in the mix, you would make for the perfect essence swordsman."

"But what about the way in which I wan to be strong, is it only worth focusing on what I am good at or can I focus on what I enjoy?" Owen interrupted and Xerxes seemed confused. "You can always focus on what you'd like to do, but the path is far more difficult and incredibly unlikely to take you the distance to godhood." Xerxes answered. Owen immediately felt conflicted. He hadn't ever wanted to have a specific "build" per say, but the idea that he should focus on things specifically just because he was good at it felt weird to him. He wasn't opposed, but it felt rather limiting, though he was also aware that in the eyes of something like the system or even Xerxes he was several hundred times less experienced.

Focusing on Xerxes again, he decided to listen, but regardless of what his master said, he would take it with a grain of salt of focus on what truly interested him. "Potential is a tricky thing to fully describe what it means, but an example might be that reaching a masters level of mastery in a weapon might take a millennium, but with a higher level of potential in the right stats could make that journey of mastery take less than half of the time."

Owen listened but started to pay less and less attention as his fatigue began to catch up with him. Xerxes seemed to mix up the exhaustion with Owen not being convinced. It was only after a couple minutes of Xerxes reexplaining how potential roughly worked that he said something that caught Owen's attention.

"It is hard to put into words, but your potential is also slightly tied to your soul. The more focus you place on boosting the stats tied to your potential, the faster you will reach equilibrium with your body, mind, and soul. It will boost your performance across the board. So it isn't that you are blocking off certain paths, but as you become more attuned to your body and soul, you will be more easily able to push yourself into any path that suites you."

By the end Owen was starting to get confused, but Xerxes came in with another example. "If you were fighting a master swordsman, without ever having wielded a sword yourself, even with skills boosting mastery, you body will become slow and movement will become harder due to your unfamiliarity with the weapon. However, when you are in sync with yourself, the movements will feel natural and you will be able to demonstrate the full level of mastery available to you." Xerxes said, his eyes looking imploringly at Owen as if begging him to understand his reasoning for why he placed so much importance on following your potential.

Owen took a turn staring as the sunset as he thought about what Xerxes was claiming. "So, I would essentially have a built in muscle memory for any weapon that I had mastery for, just so long as I was in equilibrium?" Xerxes smiled wide and nodded. "Exactly, I'm not sure how to explain it perfectly, since it is something that you would need to experience to fully in order to fully capture the differences."

"Aren't I close enough to that equilibrium while at level 1? Can't I just practice with a tone of different weapons and other things in there and see if I can tell the difference?" Xerxes grinned wider than ever before. "You already have, but we can place more focus on it. Your experience with your spear feeling off was an example of you being in equilibrium, but perhaps trying with a separate weapon every time would help more than I thought it would."

Owen agreed that they sat in silence for the next several minutes, watching the sun fully dip down past the horizon. After it had fully set, Owen placed his teacup back on the table and exchanged a few more pleasantries, before excusing himself. He stumbled back to the room he had used when he was first sponsored and smiled and he closed the door behind him. Collapsing into bed he sighed as he got comfortable. His thoughts were still all over the place. Something about how Xerxes had described potential seemed almost too good to be true.

He had known that's why it had felt wrong to him, but if the trick to him getting stronger was to keep raising his highest potential stats, then he would focus on them for now. Seeing as he now had 9 stats to allocate, he quickly split them evenly between his dexterity and perception, with the extra point going to dexterity. He closed his eyes after that, his mind continuously replaying his fight through the gauntlet as he began to think of ways to defeat the spear and shield kobold.