[You passed stage five.]

My mana was restored after its death, which allowed me to summon another, turning the next fight into a three-on-one affair. It almost made the lizard spearman trivial; even if its spear came nigh gashed me a few times. If they had to fight each other one by one, I didn’t think my orcs would prevail, the speed of the lizard matched my orcs, and it was ahead in terms of its physical prowess. However, numbers were favored in most battles for a reason, and it wasn’t able to handle the pressure of multiple orcs at the same time.

And just like that—a somewhat anti-climatic end to the lizard’s battle, I passed the fifth stage with flying colors, a first, and hopefully, the last time. There wasn’t any fanfare or any sense of accomplishment roaring inside my heart, my victories felt cheated, even when I understood that I only got this far because I’d persevered through extreme hardships and deaths before.

[The final stage will begin in 10 minutes.]

Here comes the orc…

I glanced over at the orcs that I summoned with a breath of anticipation. The only person who cleared the final stage was Idris—whose identity remained a mystery so far—thus the sole person who knew what came after was him. I’d expect an incredible reward if I defeated it, but knowing how the Observer felt about us, I’d be surprised if he cared at all.

I’m talking as if I’d already passed, A optimistic thought that did nothing but make me chuckle. But to say that it was a far-fetched dream was a severe underestimation too; with the tools and experience that I’d gathered so far, beating an orc wouldn’t be an impossibility. It would be hard, and it might be painful; but I believed that with a good enough strategy, I should prevail in the end.

What puzzled me the most about this test was Idris himself. There was no one that appeared stronger than Phillip, so Idris couldn’t have beaten it with his physical prowess alone. So he must’ve had a secret or two; he might be proficient with spells before he got here, but… that would mean that he either had the same ability that I did, or he was already capable of using magic back in the earth.

I summoned another orc, the archer, to my side, increasing our numbers to four. I still had a few more bolts to spare—bolts that would prove to be essential in the fight later, and if push comes to a shove… I planned to release the integrated soul and add it to my ranks.

But the main concern I should tackle first wasn’t my mana pool, it wasn’t the myriad of inquiries I had about the Sanctum and my legacy, nor was it about Idris, really. How do I use my summons better without gimping my own mobility?

My time was running out. Commanding this many entities proved to be a stumbling roadblock; the notion of each performing different, specific roles made it even more so. Multiple times I’d mistaken the archer orc with the spear one, and my body failed to move an inch, except for my furrowed and intense gaze.

At this stage, I wasn’t able to use the full effectiveness of my summon. It was fantastic magic, truly, but my lack of experience severed its limbs, downplaying a great spell into a mediocre one. Now that thought about it, controlling the summons was quite similar to how I played RTS games; but I had never liked those, nor was I good with those. No, it was more akin to a first-person RTS experience, a type of game I’d seldom played, dusting in my shelves, waiting for their turn.

Perhaps… I needed to control them in that same manner as well. Tasking each of them to perform their own duties without micromanaging every single weapon swing, maybe that would work.

The next few minutes were spent on the experiments I conducted with the orcs, pitting them against each other. From that, I acquired new pieces of information that would prove useful later. First, I was right, at least, I was almost correct; The tasks that I directed were performed autonomously by the orcs themselves, but they each had their own interpretation of it. If I commanded the shielded orc to defend a point, it would hunker down and plant its feet. Otherwise, if I asked the archer to do so, it would shoot at the aggressors that were at the distance instead.

With the reduced constant micromanagement, I could focus on my own movements and doing the things that I should be doing instead of standing still. I hoped that with time, and with enough training/experience, I would be able to manage both the summons and myself simultaneously.

Minutes passed like seconds before my free time had run out.

[The final stage has begun. Good luck.]

Behind the mist, I saw the massive silhouette of the orc from the eyes of my summons. My vision was clouded by the mixture of the fog and the images from the other orcs that stood beside me, looking through multiple blurry lenses all at once.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The orc broke through the distance fog, revealing its figure in its full glory. It was as imposing as I remembered, with its green skin and its red-hot eyes, and its obvious years of fighting experience were brandished from its stance; A picture of a true warrior clad in fur and steel.

Looks-wise, it was a replica of my own orc—or rather, mine was a replica of it — equipped with a shield and an axe in its arms. All of my soldiers were ready, bracing for its assault, with my archer’s bow drawn to its limits. I, myself, had my bolt primed since the sanctum had told me that the stage had started.

When it saw the squad of orcs gearing up for battle to each of my sides, it fired a questioning glance at them. It failed to understand what was going on, and yeah, if I was in its shoes, I’d be mystified as well, why was my own kind betraying me?

Its distraction gave me opening to strike first, and I did. Two projectiles flew, one from my death bolt, and the other came from the archer, trailed by the two other summons that charged along with them. The enemy orc groaned when it raised its shield in defense, shouldering the arrow with it shield, then my blast collided against its shield, yanking it away, and covering its frontal view with the smoke.

My melee orcs took this opportunity; The commands I gave them were simple, to use my distraction and strike when its defenses were down, and they followed it quite admirably, I must say.

Although their—our —strikes landed, neither were able to penetrate both the fur armor and the thick green skin behind it. As much as I would love for the fight to end now, the difference in the attributes was too much for my soldiers to do mortal damage; at best, they were able to draw a streak of blood and scab its skin. There was a massive gap in terms of toughness between the Mage and the Warrior variant, although, the mage had been battered by its own spell when my orcs reached it.

My Orc Archer provided continuous support from the backline as I navigated my way around the battlefield, before securing a spot behind the enemy’s back. Once the enemy orc Warrior regained its footing, the tides turned as its strength overwhelmed both my orcs that were hunkered around it, nearly chopping one of their limbs off as its strike pushed through the shield like it was nothing.

That was when my support came in. Another death bolt zipped through the air, blasting the back of its neck, and corroding its surroundings as it festered. The orc wasn’t happy about it, heralded from the scalding scowl it shot while it turned its head around; which proved to be a mistake as the strike of a spear ripped its left ear apart as it grazed the side of its skull.

Its anger reached its boiling point. Our attacks were mere annoyances at best, but even tiny, trivial damage would wear it down if we kept piling on its wounds. And at this point, I realized one more thing that my summons seemed to have — or in a better word — lack thereof.

They never showed any signs of exhaustion. Well, they are apparitions, after all.

Seconds turned to minutes while I observed the dance between a single, mighty, and fair orc facing its own, untiring kin. Its anger helped prolonged its life, sure, but fury could only carry it so far. My orcs were hurt as well; The shielded orc was shieldless once more, and the spearman was… well, it didn’t have a spear anymore. The archer had never been threatened a single time during the entire battle, and its unending amount of arrows was essential in keeping the momentum of the enemy in line.

And… the battle which was epic and calculated, filled with virile strikes and blocks, had degraded into just another brawl between one exhausted strong man, and three teenagers throwing hands at it.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, my final bolt cracked its maimed skull open, seeped into its brains—a nasty sight—netting me a scrambled victory.

[You cleared the final stage of the aptitude test.]

A message screen I’d never expected to witness in my entire lifetime appeared, congratulating me for my achievements, which despite the cheat-like start I had after dying, still felt great nonetheless. Different was a strong word for what I did, my fighting style after obtaining the summon skill pushed me towards this direction of battling; I fought like a conductor, as opposed to being the one on the front lines like how it was.

My points… How did I rank?

[Aptitude test completed. Bonus aptitude score: 210. Total points earned: 310 pts.]

Second… I’m second. Idris had 312. It was close—way too close, but the fight did end up becoming a slog, and I won due to its exhaustion and the barrage of small cuts I inflicted. But still, 310 was a great number, and I could restart the day with a spell book right out of the gate.

I released the summons and fell onto the ground, letting out a massive breath as I closed my eyes. It was nice to have some peace and quiet after all that had happened; My death and rebirth, and the array of visions that I had to maintain while my soldiers were up and running. To be frank, it was nauseating to see so many things at once.

Then there was the dream. Of Cassian and his friends. Something told me-

“Congratulations.”

My nerves jumped from the unexpected voice, coming from none other than The Observer. I clambered my way to an unsteady stance, my face whitening as I faced it.

Its masked figure stood right on the edge of my vision, partially shrouded by the fog, but visible enough for me to see its mask. This did not happen in my previous life, was it due to my completion of the Final stage? Or… Don’t tell me, it knows?

“Don’t be so alarmed, my dear friend.” It said, chuckling, “My, my, You are perhaps the first hunter with a capacity for soul manipulation before entering the trial…” Crooking its head, it approached, thinking, “That… book, too. Innate. Interesting.”

Shit.

There were no two ways about it, the spells and the innate skill I had was way too extraordinary for a mere fat human to possess before the shop and missions were shown.

“You’re like the other one. What’s his name again, Uh…” Searching through his invisible screen, I waited for it to continue, “Right. Idris. He’s like you too… Someone with an innate ability right out of the gate.”

That revelation eased my tension, and my gut untwisted.

Then, its head turned towards mine, studying every twitch of my facial muscles, “While it is strange, I couldn’t be happier that we have a few intere- No, talented — individuals.” It then relaxed its stature, appearing to be smiling. “I… have hopes for you, Mr. Gray. Although, at a glance, you look rather…”He paused, “forgettable.”

I smirked. He was right.