Alex barely had time to process the sheer horror of Anthony’s situation before the man in question vanished from the trial. He left behind a bloody mess of a boar. Alex’s enhanced attributes and the monster’s ridiculous Toughness had resulted in the neck being half-severed before the trial was considered complete.
Anthony’s spear, which protruded nearly a foot out of the boar’s back, was a mess of blood and viscera. Whatever Ability the boar had used, it didn’t seem to have been interested in surviving the effects.
That was something to keep in mind for the future. If trial monsters in harder difficulties used suicidal tactics, they needed to be prepared for them.
Alex’s immediate impulse was to follow Anthony out of the trial, but his friend’s well-being wasn’t in his hands at this point. Mr. Stirling would be able to heal the injury easily, so he wasn’t too worried now that his friend was gone. Leaving behind the spear and tusks would be wasteful, so he got to work on extricating Anthony’s weapon.
Alex started trying to pull the spear out but quickly chose to push it through instead. The wings would be annoying to pull back through the corpse. As he worked, Jess and Muhammad approached. Alex assumed that Becca had exited the trial like Anthony did, the difficulty of walking over on a sprained ankle wasn’t worth watching them remove the tusks.
The boss’s tusks were a relatively valuable material. The Hard Mode boss might be even more valuable. Trying to bring the entire body out unharvested would result in it vanishing, a quirk that led to the Defense Forces bringing along butchers to prepare the carcasses of beasts. Alex wasn’t interested in spending his time on that, but the tusks were accessible so it would be a waste to ignore them.
Hopefully, Muhammad would have something capable of removing the tusks. The extent of this boss’s Toughness had been surprising and Alex wasn’t entirely sure his sword was the tool for the job.
The other two joined him by the time he had the spear out of the boar’s body. It was a bloody mess, but the boar’s Ability meant that it wasn’t particularly damaged. It was probably in a better state than Jess’s spear, still worth more than the tusks he wanted to harvest.
“Anthony accepted the exit prompt without issue?” Jess asked.
“I assume so,” Alex replied, “I don’t think his situation was quite bad enough for an emergency removal.” In some situations, like when a traumatic injury led to someone passing out before a trial was completed, a person could exit without accepting the prompt. This only happened after a trial was cleared if medical attention was waiting outside but it was a universally appreciated feature.
Muhammad nodded, “Good thing his parents insisted on coming with us. Mr. Stirling will fix him up.” None of them felt like commenting on how much worse it could’ve been if the boar had struck him a few inches higher. Anthony had made a mistake, but it was hard to blame him too much.
Alex had been expecting a bit too much from his friends. They had incredible potential in their specialties, but neither Becca nor Anthony had plans of being a powerful melee combatant.
Their party had initially planned to clear Tier 0 trials by having Jess, Alex, and Muhammad fight their way through monsters while Anthony and Becca worked in a more supportive role. Out of the Hard Mode changes, the worst for them just might be the need to contribute to gain the level up. Jess had created a plan that underutilized her own talents so that she could watch over them, with Muhammad also holding back.
Becca and Anthony had some underlying skills from practice, they just didn’t have much illusion chamber experience. There was only so much time in a day, and dedicating her teenage years to melee combat wasn’t a good use of a future mage’s education. Alex hoped that the two would improve with the real-life experience they were going to get plenty of in the coming days, but today’s performance had been worrying.
The trio had fallen into a brief period of silence as they considered how bad things could’ve been if Mr. Stirling wasn’t around. Muhammad had taken out a serrated knife from its sheath on his thigh, “We’re going to need to figure out better ways to cover for them,” Alex sighed.
The others knew exactly what he meant, “Maybe,” Jess replied, “We’ll see what they want to do now that they have their first level and unlocked the soul attributes.”
Alex felt that two points in each of the soul attributes wouldn’t be a massive game-changer beyond mana control. While that would normally be incredibly important, they were on too much of a time crunch for designing massive Mana Body alterations. Unless Becca and Anthony had created blueprints ahead of time without him knowing, they’d be restricted to something weak.
“That’s not going to be enough,” Alex disagreed, “It’s not going to get easier from here.”
“Frankly, Alex,” Jess sighed, “That’s not our biggest problem.”
Alex paused for a second. He immediately knew what she meant, “You’re worried about my usage of the Inspire mana.”
“This trial came incredibly close to fulfilling all of my nightmares about our first delve,” Jess frowned, “You’re a complete loose cannon. The aura makes things easy, but you act like you’re immortal when you’re not.”
Muhammad agreed while he moved to the second tusk, “She’s right. It’s concerning.”
Alex immediately wanted to go on the defensive, but he struggled to find the right words to say. Hadn’t he spent half of the trial worried about the mana himself? It would be a lie to say he had things under control.
“I’ll talk to the Stirlings about it,” He replied after a few seconds, “I don’t know if I have an answer other than getting stronger, though.”
Jess frowned at him, “Really?” She sounded actually surprised at his admission. Her expression had turned from thoughtful to worried.
“You have to have an idea, at least,” Muhammad stated, “You’re always planning something.”
Alex considered for a second. Ultimately, there was no reason to conceal his thoughts before the trial from his friends, “Well, there is one thing.”
Jess stared at him, and Muhammad looked up from his work for a second before going back to finishing off the second tusk. He was working on the one that had impaled Anthony, and Alex grimaced at the sight of his friend’s blood for a second before continuing, “Well, when I used my Minor Mana Guidance, I learned a few things. Only a part of the Inspire mana is a part of me, the rest is still stuck outside my soul. That’s a massive reservoir of power, and I had an idea to use it.”
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Muhammad laughed a bit at that, “Of course you did.”
Alex didn’t grace that with a response, “Well, I have a bunch of much more useful Achievement rewards to use still. I want to trigger my Grand Mana Guidance inside the Greater Mana Baptism at some point. See if I can use that mana for anything.”
“Is that how that works?” Jess asked, “I get that mana is malleable, but messing with the power of an Imprinted is… unlikely to go well.”
“I’m hoping to use one of my Grand Mana Guidances to check the viability,” Alex reasoned, “If it’s not possible. I have to hope that reaching Tier 1 fixes the problem.”
Jess shrugged at that. Muhammad had finished sawing off the second tusk and handed the relatively clean one over to Jess. There wasn’t a limit of one extra item per person or anything. The tusks were large, and carrying two would be unwieldy.
“All set.” Muhammad declared. And then he vanished. Alex and Jess swiftly followed him.
On the outside, they were immediately faced with the other four members of their party. Alex had never really doubted that Anthony would be completely fine after he left the trial, but the sight of him without a massive hole in his stomach was still a relief. Becca was also completely healed. The Stirlings stood behind them.
Alex was struck by the realization that harvesting the tusks might’ve been unnecessary. Mrs. Stirling’s tower was glowing resplendently only fifty feet from the trial entrance.
Alex immediately went over to clap Anthony on the shoulder and give Becca a hug. He struggled to find something reassuring to say, but couldn’t think of anything. The trial had gone poorly, and he was quite certain that the conversation about his mana type was quickly coming due.
“You feeling alright?” Muhammad asked Anthony.
Bizarrely, Anthony smiled, “I’m doing great. Did you guys check your trial rewards yet?”
“Yes,” Jess replied. Unlike Anthony, the rewards weren’t quite enough to raise her mood, “I got the level and a Lesser Mana Guidance. It upgraded my Achievement to Rare, too.”
Lesser was the lowest form of Trialbringer reward, slotting in below Minor. It was the most common level to receive as a trial reward, with outstanding performance in Tier 1 trials regularly offering Lesser Skill Guidance. Lesser Mana Guidance was very generous for a Tier 0 trial clear.
Alex was suddenly much more excited for his own rewards.
“Not yet,” Muhammad replied, “I didn’t realize it’d be anything exciting so I wasn’t in a rush.”
“I just got the level,” Becca didn’t look overly disappointed as she’d probably expected that result in the first place. At Tier 0, the level and any materials you salvaged was all you would receive from a trial unless you did something truly exceptional. Alex had been a bit worried that she wouldn’t level up at all, considering she’d gotten injured early on.
Alex opened his notifications while Anthony explained that he had received the same Lesser Mana Guidance as Jess.
You have cleared an Aspirant Trial of Wild Boars! Rewarding 1 level.
You have cleared a Hard Mode Trial! You contributed significantly to your team’s clear! Rewarding +3 Capacity.
Name: Alex Moore
Level: 1 (Tier 0)
Mana Body Quality: Legendary
Mana Type: Inspire (Rare)
Achievement: Tier 0 - Unique (Realm)
Attributes:
Strength: 10 - Power: 7
Agility: 10 - Speed: 7
Perception: 9 - Sensitivity: 7
Toughness: 9 - Durability: 7
Capacity: 10 - Connection: 74
Abilities:
Enhancements:
Notifications:
Mana Sink Duration: 13:18:42:17
Hard Mode rewards were no joke. An extra three attributes was a full third of one of his levels, and he was getting the maximum increase possible with all of his soul attributes already unlocked. It was half of what Jess and Muhammad had received from their own levels. Receiving a total of twelve attributes was already great, but having the extra reward funneled into the attribute he needed the most was just icing on the cake.
If he received this same reward in every trial, he’d have forty-two Capacity at level nine. At level eight, he’d no longer need to worry about his Connection problem, thirty-eight Capacity would be enough to handle his mana throughput. He smiled as the numbers raced through his head, this was the good stuff. Hard Mode was looking pretty worthwhile.
“Alex!” Becca called, breaking him out of his progression-induced stupor.
The others had all turned to Alex in suspense, knowing that he must have received the greatest reward considering how integral he was to every single fight. They’d been forced to wait as he opened his notifications and then stared out into the air with a grin on his face.
Whoops.
“Three extra points of Capacity,” He replied. The others stared at him in surprise for a second, but the Stirlings reacted the quickest.
“I’ve received a direct attribute increase from a Hard Mode trial before,” Alice nodded, “Three points in a stat at Tier 0 is a lot, though. Congratulations.”
“That’s good news,” Mr. Stirling added, “The Trialbringer rewarding you with Capacity is our best-case scenario because it means you can outlast the mana sink if necessary. With your aura, you might even be able to survive without it when you’re near twenty Capacity.”
Alex could understand why that hadn’t been mentioned before, since nine levels would normally have left him with only fifteen Capacity. Mr. Stirling just hadn’t expected it to be relevant.
His friends all looked significantly happier at his news, even though only Anthony had been excited over his own rewards. Receiving direct boosts to Capacity really was ideal, even if they failed on the timeline they still had a solution to one of his problems. Alex was struck, not for the first time, by just how worried they all had to be about the events of the night. They were keeping it together well enough, but his trial antics couldn’t have made things easier.
He wondered if his own ability to panic was gone permanently or if it would return later. David’s need to be invulnerable took no breaks, but it was starting to wear on Alex. He didn’t want to break down again in the slightest, but he was fully aware that his unnatural state had everyone on edge.
His friends were under no delusions that he was perfect, so the entire thing felt hollow. If not for the influence, would he be in a state to grin at the rewards? If he could choose, would he shed the influence if it meant he’d suffer through his panicked state again?
He had a lot to think about.
“Anthony and Becca didn’t have time to tell us everything but it sounds like you all had a rough trial,” Mrs. Stirling said. She had a reassuring smile on her face as she spoke, “Would you all join us for a cup of tea? I’d like to go over things and see where you can improve.”
Alex nodded his agreement, and he wasn’t alone. The group started heading over to the tower, and Alex saw that the concealing formations were still active on its exterior. The rainbow patterns reminded him of the conversation they’d had after Councilwoman Deng’s Imprinting and the prompts he’d received more recently.
Mental resistance could be trained, he didn’t need Guidance to make improvements in his abilities. Mrs. Stirling was perfectly capable of pitting him against compulsions to let him train his mind. The second half of the trial had gone well as he’d synced up with the impulses but maintaining control of himself was considerably more important than immediate power. If she was willing, he had a path to improvement.
He stared at the tower for a second before entering the door. The compulsion to look away would normally divert his sight by now, but he only felt a twinge. The runes on the tower began to grow in clarity, but he looked away of his own volition.
Pitted against David’s mana, he was so overmatched that failure felt like an inevitability. He’d seen no real progress in his ability to fight back and thus had no evidence that he was improving. But now he had that proof. He was sure that the compulsion on the tower wasn’t the most powerful in Mrs. Stirling’s repertoire, but he’d managed to resist it for longer than he could have this morning.
Today was going to go down as a bad day. He’d taken losses during his time in the Academy, but none could compare to this. Falling just short in a duel or screwing up in an illusion chamber couldn’t really compare to having his soul force-fed insight that he found repulsive.
But Alex knew what to do after losing.
He’d get up tomorrow and he’d train until he could win.