Alex shrugged, uncertain of how exactly to describe it, “It was an impulse,” He stated, “It just seemed like a great idea at the moment. In hindsight, it was stupid, I don’t know what came over me.”
“Describe the impulse,” Jess replied. She had an intense expression on her face, but Alex knew that she was taking this seriously because she cared. It must have been frightening for the others to see him suddenly crash like that. The idea behind the maneuver probably hadn’t shown itself with how poorly things went. It must have looked like he twisted himself into an upside-down knot in midair.
“Well, I had gained some separation,” Alex started, speaking up as he walked over to collect his claymore, “And the adrenaline started pumping. I knew the fight was over, we’d basically already won. I decided to try out a one-handed handspring in combination with an attack. Figured it would let me stay tighter to the boar. I lost my grip and went tumbling instead.”
Jess frowned, but it was Anthony who spoke up, “That doesn’t seem right. Even in practice, you were never that outrageous. Is it your mana type?”
Alex hadn’t even thought of that, but Becca nodded before he could respond, “That makes sense. David did mention that Inspire tends to come up with grand ideas.”
Alex was unhappy with the idea, the last thing he wanted was to believe that his thoughts were compromised. He forced himself to look at the situation rationally, though. He’d chalked up the thrill hitting so hard as a natural extension of his love for a fight he was winning, but was that true? He was forced to admit that it was unlikely.
The impulse coming from his mana type fit too well with the part of Inspire that he’d taken into himself. David had built a mana type on his own greatness, and it was confusing Alex. The need to strive for greatness, and the constant drive to improve, fit well with him. The overwhelming confidence, the knowledge that he would win because he was better?
He liked the feeling, but it was dangerous. Overconfidence was something he’d been taught to suppress, but now it was more powerful than ever. It had to be a result of the mind-bending mess that was Inspire.
Alex had rejected the lie to the best of his abilities, but some of it had slipped through the cracks. It was worrying, was his current situation as safe as he’d initially assumed? Did he really have two weeks before things worsened?
The others let him think it over for a bit, but soon Jess grew impatient, “Alex?” She prompted.
“You’re probably right,” He sighed, “I’m going to have to work hard to keep control of it.”
“Can you?” Jess asked, “Be honest. If we have to adjust our strategy so you have more immediate support if you mess up, we can do it.”
Alex was forced to think again. He was a bit annoyed at her pressing the topic but knew it was for the best.
His mind turned to his two lowest rewards. The Trialbringer had mentioned both kinds of resistance, but only soul resistance had been explained. It described his soul learning to adapt and more successfully repel the foreign insight latched onto it. Mental resistance would probably help him maintain control of his thoughts.
If he was right then mental resistance was basically just self-control. Maintaining discipline to stay unassailable by thoughts that he didn’t want to follow through with.
The Trialbringer’s earlier note was even a hint. If he triggered a reward while the thrill was building, would it help him resist? It should at least show him how to resist, which was almost as good. The flaw was that it was a distraction. Fighting the boars gave him seconds of free time while he positioned himself to avoid a charge, but could he afford to go through prompts?
Could he afford to not go through his prompts? It was harsh, but the reality was that he needed all the self-control he could get if he was going to make it through not just this trial but nine others in the span of two weeks.
He couldn’t afford mistakes, which meant he had to go for broke and get the most benefit possible.
“I’ll manage,” He stated, “The boars are clumsy, and these didn’t even manage to capitalize on something that tricky. As long as I maintain better control of myself, I’ll be fine.”
That received several nods of agreement. His friends wanted to support him, but they weren’t eager to run into danger. Unlike him, they were all functionally the same as they had been a few hours ago. Muhammad had a new sight Enhancement, but the others only had attribute Enhancements that hadn’t yet shown their worth.
Ultimately, they were in nearly as much danger as Alex while fighting the boars, despite teaming up on them while he faced a majority of the monster. Those first few attribute increases were very noticeable.
Jess frowned, but nodded, “We’ll revisit the issue, later.” She declared, “That fight went well enough that I’m comfortable keeping to the strategy. Your situation wasn’t that bad even when the mistake was made.”
“Where’s the next group?” Becca asked.
“That way,” Muhammad pointed to Alex’s left. “Looks like another group of four.”
In the normal trial, the boars were scattered across the field with only a few groups of two. As long as you were smart, you could avoid engaging multiple groups at once thanks to the relatively low Perception of the boars. They had decent hearing, but it wasn’t particularly impressive.
No one else had anything to say about the fight, and Alex led the way towards the next group of four boars.
As they started to close in, Alex split off from the others. The initial fight had been a bit fraught at the start, as his friends had needed to avoid drawing the boar’s attention as they followed him into the trial. By separating, Alex could draw the boars towards him while his friends were positioned to the side ready to draw one away.
He moved closer, and eventually, the boars took notice. He’d made it within thirty feet of them, proof of their poor Perception. Even while the boars charged, an arrow slammed into one’s side. That boar grunted but didn’t falter as it continued to run at Alex.
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Alex couldn’t keep a slight smile off his face as he stared down the charging boars and tensed himself to jump. A small voice told him to leap over the middle boar and try to stab into its spine as it passed, but that was so outlandish that he didn’t even bother reaching for Guidance as he swatted the plan away.
His friends were off to the right, so he went left, wanting to avoid messing with Muhammad’s line of sight. He knew what to expect from the first engagement, and smoothly ducked away as the boars ran past him. He didn’t bother going for a slash as the animals passed, knowing that he had a better opportunity to come.
They passed him by, and he turned to chase immediately after jumping out of the way. He went for the same attack as last time, trying to damage a spine enough to disable one of the boars from the start. This time, the boar got away fast enough that he only managed a deep cut.
Another arrow slammed into the boar furthest from him, but it ignored the wound to come after Alex with the others. Alex slashed at the legs of the boar he’d already injured and managed to land a good cut on its thigh. The monster wasn’t quite disabled, but he’d hobbled it enough that it couldn’t keep up as he was forced to backpedal.
He’d overextended slightly for the second attack and had to weave in between two charging boars as they came after him. He narrowly avoided a tusk, but the two boars were forced to quickly split off so that they didn't slam into each other
A third arrow struck, finally drawing the ire of Muhammad’s target. Alex was left in a one-on-three, but his situation was good. The two boars that had split off weren’t close enough to interfere as he moved to dispatch the already wounded one.
The hobbled monster proved little threat, as he’d apparently severed an important muscle in its front right leg. Without any mobility, it couldn’t resist as he maneuvered around it to put his sword through its neck.
As he looked to find the other two boars, he found that one of them was heading to engage his friends. Muhammad had noticed the approaching beast, and Jess was moving to engage it while Anthony and Becca finished the first boar. They hadn’t yet finished off their first target, so Alex couldn’t risk bringing a third opponent to them.
He moved to engage the last boar, but the thrill was absent. He’d screwed up, going to finish off the hobbled boar. It had been more injured than he thought, and wouldn’t have been a real threat if he left it alone. Now his mistake was directly endangering his teammates.
An impulse struck him as the last boar ran straight at him. If he let it run past him, it might continue on to his team instead of slowing down. That was unacceptable, it had to die here. He would face it down, and it would lose.
That last thought was alarming. It was the same overconfidence that had put him in such a terrible position last time. The boars were easy opponents because they were less numerous than many trial monsters and had terrible maneuverability, but that didn’t mean he could meet a charge head-on with just his sword. It would be even more dangerous than risking the boar leaving him behind.
Would you like to use your Minor Skill Guidance on your mental resistance?
Alex said yes as soon as the prompt appeared. Time didn’t slow down, the boar was still charging, but he was struck by a sense of clarity. The impulse was stronger than it had been last time, but it was at least partly correct. Inspire was egging on thoughts that were already present. Why would he resist his own thoughts?
That was stupid. He ignored intrusive thoughts all the time.
Suddenly, he couldn’t waste time thinking anymore. He dove away from the boar, barely managing to ignore the impulse with the help of his Guidance-enhanced clarity. He would worry about how well Inspire synced with his personality after the fight.
His dive had put him in a bad spot, but he rolled back to his feet quickly. He charged after it, and luckily it slowed down to turn towards him instead of joining the battle against his friends. He had no interest in fighting safely this time and attacked the boar aggressively. It died with a sword in its neck after only a few seconds, having failed to keep him back with its tusks.
The fight was over before he reached his friends to assist. “My bad letting an extra boar reach you,” Alex apologized, “I was too aggressive.”
“It was fine,” Jess replied, “The boar that came after us ran straight into my spear. Muhammad finished it off easily. We’d already injured the first one, so it wasn’t a problem.”
Their tendency to pick up too much momentum and not see a spear until it was too late was the reason that boars were such an easy trial. The increased numbers made that tactic far less feasible, but Jess knew what she was about against a single boar. Hearing how things had been handled made Alex feel better, he couldn’t forget that his friends knew what they were doing.
They quickly made their way to the next group that Muhammad spotted, this one was only three boars. Alex stepped forward to draw their initial charge, and the team got ready.
The beasts came right at him, and the desire to do something a bit extra was louder than ever. They’d found a functional strategy but he wanted to push himself further. He couldn’t face down a charge, but maybe he could try to cripple a leg as the boars passed? It wasn’t that different from what he’d attempted the first fight, but this time he’d be prepared.
He tried to focus as the impulse grew increasingly loud. Maybe he could leap onto a boar’s back like he considered last time? His thoughts threatened to drift, but the boars were still charging. He tried to focus on the proper strategy. Get out of the way, and follow the charge to try to abuse the window where they slowed to turn around. Getting fancy was unnecessary.
He felt it coming, as the boars approached. The impulse wasn’t going away, he had to do something abnormal in this fight. How could he settle for good, when the world needed him to be great? When he wanted to be great?
Alex leaped a solid eighty inches into the air from his ready position, a feat that even his attributes should’ve failed to manage. The plan had been to land on the back of a boar, but his attempt to resist the impulse had broken his concentration slightly. Even if it hadn’t, he might not have descended quickly enough. Now he was in no position to make any sort of attack on the boars and just had to try and land properly while holding a sword.
The burst of strength happily granted by his mana type seemed to evacuate his body, leaving him slightly weaker for the effort. His legs creaked as he landed, and he ended up falling to his knees. The boars started to slow, ready to turn and run him down.
He heard a shout from Jess, and his friends charged forward, worried that he might stay down. Alex struggled to his feet. A four-against three-fight was bad news for his friends, Becca and Anthony weren’t practiced enough melee fighters. He moved to join them after only a second.
The ensuing fight wasn’t as organized as the ones before it. His friends didn’t have the numbers to corral multiple boars, and they reached the monsters before he did. Jess had coordinated them for a strike against the one furthest from Alex after seeing that he had gotten up, and he moved to engage the one closest to him.
The shock and confusion of what had just happened threw him off his game, and he didn’t dispatch the boar nearly as quickly as he hoped to. Was that sudden boost a result of his aura?
The thought was interrupted before he could explore it, and he turned a dodge into a neat pivot that ended with his sword hitting the beast’s ribs. Without enough momentum, his strike didn’t break through the ribs, and his sword wasn’t thin enough to slip between them.
The boar grunted in pain, and he stepped back to assess the situation. His friends had engaged another boar, but that left one unaccounted for. The last monster was currently being kited around by Jess, and Muhammad trying to assist Becca and Anthony as they pushed the other boar back.
Alex had to turn back, as his own opponent chased after him. He maneuvered around it again, but didn’t try to pierce its ribcage. Instead, he slashed at its hindquarters. His weapon wasn’t ideal for attacks like that, but he still left a good cut as he pivoted after it once again.
Before he could start working to finish off the boar, his fight was interrupted by a fearful scream.
It was Becca’s voice.