Alex shot towards the ghoul with enough speed that he would intercept it before it could reach his friends. The monster was naturally stealthy, aided by their focus on the fight in front of them, but it had called for reinforcements too early to make its attack an ambush.
Well, it would’ve had time if Alex had been comparable to a normal level one Pathwalker. Instead, Alex’s Agility could be compared to someone several levels into Tier 1. Opening his status to check the actual numbers would be a waste of time, and Alex had more important things to focus on.
As he moved, Alex’s mind raced as he tried to understand more about the specifics of Inspire’s boosts. He felt the mana flowing into his body. The mana sink seemed to know exactly what to do, as it absorbed more of the mana he naturally produced to compensate for the surge of high-tier power flooding his body.
The boost was generalized, instead of focusing on a specific attribute. Temporary strength gave Alex boundless energy, purging any exhaustion from the numerous zombies he’d already culled. It wasn’t just that his stamina was fully restored, he was suddenly operating at 200%.
The space between man and ghoul rapidly shrank, but Alex had spent quite some time pondering the effects of Inspire during his afternoon of failing to pierce illusions. His curiosity wasn’t sated just yet.
The mental effects were more frustrating. He could sense some of the mana that flowed in from outside of his soul moving towards his mind, and he could figure out what it was doing. Inspire wanted him to separate the monster’s head and shoulders. Alex wanted to separate the monster’s head and shoulders. The synchronization was near-perfect. The different sources were identifiable in part thanks to the Minor Guidance he’d previously used. It had shown him a key difference in the way thoughts were formed.
Inspire’s impulses weren’t exactly well reasoned, but they formed too complete to be a natural thought. Alex’s mind was far from slow-moving, but his brain didn’t naturally form ideas in the way that it did when Inspire fed him an impulse.
Perhaps it was a failure on his end, but Alex didn’t find any mental influence beyond the obvious as he took his final few steps. This was far from reassuring, He knew that there was something to be found, as the constant grip on his ability to panic had never gone away. If he couldn’t trace that bit of control, even as his Sensitivity was boosted significantly, what else was he missing?
Alex didn’t have time to wonder. There was a ghoul to kill.
Alex’s first strike came straight at its neck. Absolute confidence filled him, and he didn’t bother feinting. If he was going to borrow power, he might as well do it in style.
The ghoul was a Hard Mode boss, and it was focused on Agility. It ducked, and Alex would’ve done a terrible imitation of the illusionary kobolds he’d fought what felt like weeks ago if not for his own supernatural capabilities. He stumbled slightly, but the ghoul had ducked the strike instead of dodging. His stumble turned into an assault of its own.
The haymaker had left him twisted, but that just meant he could lead with his shoulder as he bore down on it. The ghoul realized its mistake and moved to get away. Its speed might’ve been enough to manage that, but it had reacted too slowly. Or maybe Alex had adjusted too quickly to give it a chance. Either way, the result was the same. Alex’s shoulder slammed into it and sent it sprawling to the ground.
Alex realized that he had taken this monster too lightly, relying on Inspire and focusing on its effects instead of on the ghoul. His eyes took in two Enhancements as he used the advantage he’d created to gather information instead of moving to finish it off.
Two Enhancements meant that it was unlikely this ghoul had an Ability. That was probably for the best. Even with the boost from Inspire, Alex couldn’t determine what the Enhancements did with his Sensitivity.
He could guess, though. The amount of mana that flowed toward the ghoul’s hands was a clear sign that he should avoid getting clawed. Its other Enhancement was sending mana toward its head, and he didn’t have a good idea of what that could be.
While pausing to take in the ghoul’s mana he also took in its appearance. While the zombies were dead people, with clear signs of necrosis that somehow didn’t prevent their movement, a ghoul was at least partially a necromantic construct. Its pale skin and humanoid figure made it clear that it was based on the sapients of Earth, but there were differences as well.
The being wore no clothes, but it had no genitalia to cover. Its body was unnaturally smooth, with sufficient musculature to prevent the emaciated physique you might expect from an undead monster. It wasn’t quite buff, but the ghoul gave the impression that it might not have fared too poorly if Alex had followed it to the ground for grappling.
The most obvious difference wasn’t the body, it was the face. There were no features upon it, besides slight indentations where the eye sockets should be. No sign that the creature had once possessed a mouth or nose in life could be found.
Of course, it was a trial monster. So it hadn’t ever been alive. It had been generated along with all of these zombies when Alex entered the Hard Mode trial with a single purpose.
To die so that Alex’s attributes could climb higher.
That was enough reconnaissance. Inspire was itching at Alex to attack, and he was only too happy to oblige.
As the ghoul caught Alex’s sword, he realized that it was a good thing that he had Inspire’s help for this fight. Alex’s Strength was so high that the ghoul was sent staggering, but no wound opened on its hands. That Enhancement didn’t seem to be the attacking method he’d expected.
It was almost funny, the undead boss was the one that had abilities keeping it “alive” while the boar had gone full kamikaze. Mana Bodies had more alterations than Alex could hope to imagine, and the Trialbringer was the greatest master of the craft. Making assumptions about what a monster’s powers would be was a great way to get himself killed.
The ghoul tried to wrench Alex’s sword out of his hands, but he was the one to hold on for longer. Its high Agility wasn’t matched by its Strength. While Alex was marginally slower, he was significantly stronger. Its Enhancement let it bridge the gap to an extent but Alex wouldn’t be disarmed so easily.
Instead of catching his next blow, it moved its hand fast enough to block. It had flowed naturally into a strong stance as it did so, but still nearly fell over from the transmitted force.
Alex realized with some horror that he was fighting a ghoul pugilist and wasn’t immediately winning. The other Enhancement must be feeding it knowledge of how to fight with its odd specialty.
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The superiority of the sword had to be proven. Alex wouldn’t be able to deal with the shame if he needed help from the team to handle this creature. He had high-tier mana boosting him and he was struggling with a pugilist. Ridiculous.
The advantage of a sword over fists was borne out over the next few clashes as Alex maintained an ideal distance to unleash vicious attacks without leaving opportunity for counters. The ghoul was left struggling to recover in between attacks, barely managing to defend itself.
The ghoul attempted to close the gap between them, but Alex smoothly avoided its lunge and landed his counter. The monster knew how to fight as a defensive pugilist, but its instinct to attack was still too strong for its limited intelligence to overcome.
Alex knew what to do. He started to bait it.
An obvious opening was left as he brought his sword around for a one-handed sweeping slash at the level of its waist. The monster was only too happy to lunge at him again, but Alex hadn’t fully committed to the attack and pivoted away. A cut was opened on its back for its troubles.
The monster’s Toughness wasn’t that high, but the magic animating it would last longer than any zombie of its tier. Both of the blows Alex had landed opened up decent wounds, but without a beating heart pumping blood there wasn’t much to show for it.
It seemed that the boss was just a continuation of the trial. It would wear you down until you made a mistake.
Alex didn’t plan on making any. The boosts from Inspire were fading slightly. Still present, but not as overbearing. Perhaps Inspire was fading out of dissatisfaction with Alex taking a few exchanges to wound the beast instead of executing it in a domineering display. Regardless, his shrinking advantages forced him to approach the fight differently. He held onto the momentum by exploiting the ghoul’s animalistic instincts.
Alex started to act as a puppeteer. His enemy was predictable and slow to learn, allowing him to draw it into mistakes that kept it on the defensive. After a few more strikes the ghoul learned to not take obvious bait, but that just meant that Alex could commit to a few attacks that should have left him too open as the ghoul learned caution a bit too well.
After a few more exchanges, Alex finally found his moment. Sword struck spine and a fundamental truth of the human form was shown as the ghoul was left staggering where before it had moved smoothly. It had enough magical empowerment to move despite a blow that should’ve paralyzed it, but that was far from enough to keep up.
The combat transitioned to its final stage as Alex began the work of dismantling a weakened undead. Where zombies could be defeated with a few crippling wounds, the ghoul was made of sterner stuff. Alex vented his frustration with the effectively invulnerable hands by partially severing the forearms before moving on to its legs.
The execution ended up taking longer than he would’ve liked, as the ghoul refused to stop moving even after several blows that would’ve been lethal on any other Aspirant monster.
The trial wasn’t over when Alex’s fight ended, but it was close. His friends had initially been put on the defensive by the largest of the waves, but his aura had empowered them to be even stronger than he was before his own boosts. With such high attributes, they’d steadily found openings they could use. As the number of enemies diminished, they grew far more advantaged.
Now, the fight was under control even as Alex’s aura faded.
Soon, all that was left were stragglers or crippled zombies that posed no pressing threat. The trial wasn’t kind enough to consider that a clear, and Alex moved to finish off the last enemies.
“Have fun with that,” Muhammad sounded a bit too happy to leave the cleanup to Alex. He seemed to have already planned out his actions as he made a beeline for ground untouched by zombie blood or flesh and took a seat.
“Don’t you have arrows to salvage?” Jess asked him. She was still in team leader mode, and didn’t appreciate his dramatics.
Soon, the group was working on salvaging what they could before exiting the trial. Alex didn’t bother rushing, but it didn’t take long before the last zombie was finished off. He was surprised to see that the arrows had held up nearly perfectly.
Further proof that Mrs. Stirling had requisitioned the good stuff for them.
The trial was soon over, and the group exited without bothering to salvage any monster parts. Undead constructs in later tiers could be worth dismantling for valuable parts, but Necromancy was a banned topic in New Chicago. This made even high-tier loot undesirable.
Just another reason that most adventurers avoided undead trials. The increased number of them might be good for Alex in the short term, but it was bad for the city in the long term.
It was easy to picture a scenario where the Liches began to extend their reach further South using overflow monsters. A single Attuned combatant could scythe through swarms of Aspirant monsters, but what about any higher-tier trials?
Alex opened his status screen to chase the pointless thought away. That wasn’t his problem, not yet at least.
You have cleared an Aspirant Trial of Zombies! Rewarding 1 level.
You have cleared a Hard Mode Trial! You contributed significantly to your team’s clear! Rewarding +3 Capacity.
Alex felt some relief at the sight. It seemed that his one versus one fight with the boss had been enough to make up for his lesser impact on the rest of the trial.
Alex had been slightly worried that it would move down, but this result made the most sense. If anything, taking the boss out all alone should be worth even more of the contribution.
Maybe it was, but there were additional requirements to receive more than three attributes as his reward.
“Have you all checked your rewards yet?” Alex asked, “I got three Capacity again.”
The news prompted a tired grin from Becca, “That’s good! I received a Lesser Skill Guidance.” She sounded just as excited about her own reward. Alex noticed the implication of Becca receiving guidance, but he looked to the others instead of assuming.
“Skill for me as well,” Anthony stated, “A bit worse than last time, but I’ll take it.”
“Mana Guidance,” Muhammad smiled, “Kind of disappointed honestly. I have no idea what it will do for me.”
“Doesn’t that make it a better reward?” Alex asked.
“I guess,” Muhammad said, “I had a plan for improving my mana control, though. Need to improve that before I can make good use of a mana type.”
“I got the Lesser Mana Guidance as well,” Jess brought them back to the original topic, “Which means that the Trialbringer is still giving us good rewards despite Alex monopolizing so much contribution.”
That had been Alex’s immediate thought. One more Lesser Skill Guidance might not seem like that much, but it was a significant increase for a Tier 0 trial. It might be that his perception was too skewed by years of expectations that the real rewards wouldn’t kick in until Tier 1 at the earliest, but he was glad to hear that his friends were reaping the rewards of coming with him.
“It’s probably because things went so much more smoothly than the boar trial,” Becca theorized, “The trials aren’t rating us on clear quality, but I assume it’s still measured.”
As your tier increased, and trials grew more complex, the Trialbringer would begin to rate how well your team performed. Some Tier 1 trials, like the city’s source of chicken eggs, did so, but it wasn’t ubiquitous until Tier 2.
“Muhammad, back to your mana type,” Anthony started, “Have you thought about Deng Jing’s Imprinting at all?”
“Oh?” Muhammad asked, “Because it had more of an effect on me than the rest of you?”
Anthony nodded. Muhammad’s face turned thoughtful for a second, “Honestly, I haven’t considered it much. It’s worth a shot.”
Using Mana Guidance on a more specific area was far more effective than just generally searching for a mana type that you had an affinity for. The problem was that if you were wrong, it was wasted. Their team wouldn’t have to worry about that as much, with a ready source of Mana Guidance available in trials.
And this was at Tier 0. Who knew what Tier 1 Trials had in store for them?
Alex opened his status screen to look over his new attributes with another trial completed.
Name: Alex Moore
Level: 2 (Tier 0)
Mana Body Quality: Legendary
Mana Type: Inspire (Rare)
Achievement: Tier 0 - Unique (Realm)
Attributes:
Strength: 11 - Power: 8
Agility: 11 - Speed: 8
Perception: 10 - Sensitivity: 8
Toughness: 10 - Durability: 8
Capacity: 14 - Connection: 74
Abilities:
Enhancements:
Notifications:
Mana Sink Duration: 12:2:36:08