It took over two days, but eventually the four elemental beast elites were defeated, and they moved onto the next floor. The cores obtained from the four elemental elites were special, and would definitely be useful thanks to Lumos being capable of refining the materials.

Nick was even sure the many ice elemental gems he obtained could be refined and perhaps combined or enriched to be used in tempering his Soul Blade, later. Unfortunately, Birdy had started begging for them.

It would have taken them longer to complete the floor, if it weren’t for them getting lucky on several of the domains. First, the fire elemental elite was very aggressive. When they arrived in its domain, the fiery lion immediately gathered a herd of beasts and attacked within the hour.

In the battle, Fang finally formed her fragment, and it had a lot to do with her howl. What ended up being the tipping point for her was the party all adding to the howl, especially Nick. He was reluctant at first, but at her willful yet cute request he had to comply.

Combined with Luna’s Concept Fragment and Nick’s inspiring voice, it made the difference and helped solidify it for herself. When she howled, she could control the ice around her and shatter it, like some form of frost telekinesis. She could even shatter her own thick frost armor, creating a devastating yet self-weakening attack.

The attack she accomplished was devastating against the fire lion, as the party had already focused many of their ice attacks on it, and the surrounding area. There was plenty of ice shot into the beast when she triggered the shattering, despite its hot aura.

When the battle was over, Birdy had squawked at Fang with what sounded like respect, patting her on the head with Jasmine’s crafted wings. The rest of the party celebrated, everyone finally having a Concept Fragment.

The rest of the party hit level 15, grabbing their Convergence Skills. It may have been best to wait until they had fully established their Concepts, but just the fragment was enough to accomplish what they desired. Only Eirwen postponed it, still wanting to unlock her Ancestral Guide class first.

Sable received a sort of wraith form, which turned her into iceshadows for a time. She could then move freely through objects as if teleporting through the shadows, and physical attacks passed right through her–an interesting ability with many uses.

Fang received a surprising ability. With a low growl, her muscles were empowered with essence. Then, she leaped into the air in a near blur, as her ice armor and shield would bulk further with jagged shards protruding from it. She would then crash into an enemy like a meteor, shedding much of her gained coat of ice.

Thanks to her new Concept Fragment, she could then use the shards to attack her enemy, and spread the frost.

And Luna had earned a special spell for her totems. A new buff that allowed her to cast an elemental shield through her connection to the whole nearby party, based on the totem she used. The ice and earth totems actually produced a shield that was useful against most physical attacks, but were not quite as strong as Eirwen’s Omnibarrier.

They continued through the dangerous jungle to the next elite beast, and the ice elemental domain was easy enough thanks to their party actually being strengthened by the location. Then, Eirwen was able to get a proper reading on where their enemy was thanks to her own affinity being enough.

To Nick’s indignation, it was actually an elite wollywompus, and he received endless teasing once again. Part of him wanted to make it into a Soul Servant again just to shut them up, but he stuck to his guns that having more would be a detriment. Besides, the fire lion would have been more useful for his party.

They rested at the Safe Zone before they headed to the final battle as planned, only given 6 hours to rest in the simple hut. It was a bit of a let-down, as they were exhausted from so much travel–they had even worked through the jungle through the night, Jasmine, Irene and Rebecca easily providing light for the party.

Finally, they fought an earthen mammoth creature, which tried to crush them with a rock slide in the canyon it drew them into. But seeing the trap early, Jasmine was prepared and easily helped them escape upwards on her large spider back, the rest hopping on Jasper’s back or flying away. The party then rained attacks on the giant creature, slowly whittling away at it until it died, frozen.

With the four elemental beast elites dead, the archway portal rose from the ground. The prompt allowed them an hour to recover their essence stores, before they were forced to enter it.

Eirwen was looking through her pack, after handing out plenty of the high essence jerky and fruits she often packed for restorative snacks. “That wasn’t too bad! We got tons of loot.”

Rebecca nodded. “This floor is definitely going to be good for our Kingdom to get unique resources. There were tons of unique hides and gems of various types in those in-between areas.”

Fang grinned. “And we got some of that super deer! Kaya’s been drooling for a while now!”

Kaya’s eyes had a dreamy look, clearly imagining the meat in question. “It looked so good. Why couldn’t we have found it before the Safe Zone? It’d already be in my belly, then.”

Nick snorted. “Might not have been fast enough to get away from that rock slide, then. We’d have had to roll you out of the way.”

The party finished recovering and entered the portal. They arrived in a large arena, with many sections of iron. Nick could somewhat see through the fenced gates surrounding him, and saw his other party members much like himself: alone in their large fenced off sections.

[Tests of Weakness: You and each of your party members must face tailored challenges: Tests of Weakness. Once all have completed their challenges, should they succeed, they will be allowed to recover and join for the Boss Battle for the 15th Floor Test of Strength.]

It was named after the challenges in his Heritage. It made Nick a little worried about his wives and mother-in-law, but his people were relatively used to facing their shortcomings. “I wonder what it thinks my weakness is.”

Birdy squawked, looking around at the arena. Jasper growled and grew crystals of ice on its fur, preparing itself for battle.

When a humanoid golem appeared, Nick’s eyebrows rose in surprise. It almost looked like the ones within his Heritage–the underground mall. It was a bit taller than Nick, and held a mace and shield, and its body was a purple color. The golem was radiating an odd energy, and Nick’s magical senses hadn’t felt anything like it before.

“Get ‘em, Birdy. Stay away from it if you can until we see what it can do, Jasper.”

Birdy squawked and formed a dozen feathers of ice, and Jasper created a large spear of ice. Nick called upon three sets of chains from his Frost Aura, and sent them to wrap around the golem.

All of this was launched at the golem as it dashed forward, and Nick and Jasper split up, strafing to the side. Its speed was surprising, its movement as it jogged toward them with its shield raised fluid and swift.

As the chains, feathers, and spear of ice collided with the golem, there was a distortion before it barreled through the ice unbothered. The chains bounced off the barrier and failed to wrap around the golem, and the oncoming projectiles shattered as they struck the shield, the golem hardly slowing in its approach.

Birdy once again squawked, this time in anger. Nick’s Frost Aura now encompassed the golem thanks to its approach, but the surrounding distortion was like a powerful aura of its own of some kind, rejecting the effect. Watching it with his senses, he thought the power was quite unique.

Since a recovery period was mentioned, he figured he could go all out without worry. He donned his Heroic Cloak of Twilight, his body flooding with strength as he stacked his heroic essence with chains of body essence, bulking up slightly.

Nick raised his Soul Blade in a two-handed grip, dashed forward and brought it down at an angle as the golem arrived. As his blade neared the shield, he felt it–a barrier of some kind slowed his blade. When his sword struck the shield, it was like most of its inertia was removed. His sword merely skittered off the shield’s angular surface, nearly all of the power behind his attack gone.

The golem had set its stance properly as Nick had attacked, so it was ready to bring its mace to bear. With a distortion like a droplet of water causing ripples on a lake, the mace swung at Nick’s exposed shoulder with surprising speed.

Nick’s cloak wrapped around him to the front and was brought up, hardening like a shield, and he retreated quickly. Despite that, his cloak was struck heavily, his intention to test the power behind the blow.

And it was significant. The power was transferred to the cloak, and Nick could feel if he had taken it head on without Harden Skin powering his armor, he’d have broken bones. The energy transfer caused Nick’s body to twist and be brought low, but he continued his retreat as he countered low, aiming for the golem’s legs.

Angry, Birdy blasted a cone of frost at the golem, and Jasper swiped with its claw from the side. The cold washed over the soldier-like golem, and it caused the transparent barrier to be visible as Nick watched. The golem twisted and took the meaty paw on its shield, Nick’s blow landing nearly simultaneously.

Nick’s blade of white light and blue flecks from the frost struck the dense metal, sending a small amount of freezing energy inside. His attack left nothing more than a tiny scratch, and the paw from Jasper had a larger effect than Nick’s previous blow, but only knocked the golem back slightly thanks to the distortion. Nick’s chains once again skittered off the golem’s barrier, causing Nick to grunt in annoyance.

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It was some kind of barrier made of force.

“This will be a tough nut to crack.” Nick noticed, thinking about the best way to go about it.

Birdy didn’t give up. Its cone of cold continued shooting out of its staff, blasting flakes of ice at the golem as it continued to squawk angrily. The golem was starting to freeze over, but didn’t seem to impact the enemy’s movements yet. It turned to Jasper and Birdy with its mace, ready to lash out.

But Jasper took the creature’s attention and backed away, trying to expose the creature’s back to Nick as Birdy continued its assault. Nick dashed in with a series of slashes with his blade, doing his best to combine both speed and power.

The golem swiveled, blocking with its shield and parrying with its mace with surprising agility. But Nick and Jasper coordinated their assault, and each eventually landed blows, Jasper’s claws raking across the golem’s back, and Nick’s blade cleaving into the back of the golem’s leg.

The fighting and positioning continued and more blows were landed against the golem, and it didn’t take much longer for the golem to slow, both from Birdy’s blasts of cold and the damage they had dealt. Despite the barrier of force, Jasper was large enough to destabilize the enemy’s footing and grant Nick free attacks on the enemy’s body. The golem just wasn’t fast enough to deal with the two of them.

Nick saw a path to victory unless something drastically changed, but he narrowed his eyes.

“Back off, Jasper, Birdy. I need to beat this thing on my own.”

The two backed off, the angry demon squawking indignantly, but complying. Nick had begun to think that his weakness was merely not having experience with this energy, but maybe it was more than that.

Just what was it this Test was trying to teach him? Either way, fighting to go beyond his limits was what climbing the Ordeal was all about–and what walking the Hero’s Path was all about.

Nick led the golem around the arena to allow the cold from Birdy to slowly recede. It wasn’t long before it was back at its full speed, and so he once again began his duel. His chains clacked against the ground and each other as he tried to gather them up, getting ready to use more to surround the golem.

With the creature back to fighting form, Nick began round two. Nick was faster than the soldier golem, but thanks to its skill using mace and shield, Nick had a hard time adding anything significant to its previous scratches and gouges on its surface. Even with him dodging by twisting his torso and whipping his arm and sword out, the surface scratches did nothing to wound the golem.

He tried linking the chains of his brethren to wrap around the golem, but struggled to direct them in a complicated manner. He could use Winter’s Grasp, but realized this was good practice.

Thankfully, his Heroic Cloak of Twilight had a long duration, efficient with its usage of his Concept energy. He barely had to feed any in to keep it going when used lightly like this battle, but he would be at his limits in a few minutes if nothing changed.

So Nick increased the ferocity of his assault.

“Fight with skill.”

Following his kata, he built up more light and darkness within his body. As he continued through each stanza, he began wearing away at the golem’s defenses. Eventually, he combined feints with his Blade Wave, aiming high and forcing the block, to switch and swipe low with a well-positioned wave that pierced through the protective barrier and cut deep into its leg.

As Nick’s speed and strength increased, he began to overwhelm the golem’s defenses further. The black essence billowed off of him like smoke as he entered the fourth stanza, and he started trying numerous things.

This was not the first enemy that his Aura couldn’t even influence, and he knew there must be some way to overwhelm it. He pushed his mana aura further, trying to weaponize it against the golem.

With powerful blows that matched what Jasper could accomplish, he kept the golem on the back foot, adding wounds and cutting deeper with every strike. Then things came to a rapid close, when he finally managed to direct his spiritual helpers driving the chains to twist and link together like a rope of chains.

Thanks to this, he managed to get the bound chains to wrap around the golem, overwhelming its barrier finally. Tugging on the golem’s arm holding its shield, Nick triggered Power Strike at the same time.

His body moved in perfect sync, bringing a strong overhead blow down on its shield arm, cleaving it off from its body. From there, defeating the creature was simple, binding it up and piercing its central core.

“That took a lot out of me.”

It was challenging, but Nick learned a lot about this mysterious energy, and how to deal with it. If he faced it again, he would have a much easier time overwhelming it. Piercing attacks worked better, but he was stubborn and wanted to push himself. Then, towards the end, he had even managed to get his Frost Aura to start influencing it.

The key to both successes was his mana aura. Driving the chains of mana and essence around his body, he used it to direct the chains created by his Frost Aura. Of course, he had been able to guide the chains previously, but a complicated maneuver like twining them together was far beyond his vague directions or will could accomplish.

Then, to try to weaponize his aura, he had spun the mana chains around him rapidly, picturing more of a chainsaw than chains alone. When this pierced through the barrier of force, the Frost Aura managed to seep through.

Nick had utilized his mana aura for defense at Rebecca’s instruction, but it appeared that attacking was an important aspect of control. He would need to work on this further, as his method of attacking was far too crude.

Having won his battle, he was transported to a waiting area, where most of the girls were waiting. It looked like a simple living room, a number of sofas and chairs facing a central table. Jasmine was pouring tea into cups, and handing them out to the others. Fang looked awfully proud of herself, regaling her victory over a flying creature, and Luna was looking on with a warm smile, while Sable gave Fang head pats and ear scratches in Nick’s absence.

Eirwen spotted him. “Hubby! That was an interesting battle, near the end.”

Nick realized she must have been watching him at the end, through her Enhanced Soul Pact Connection. He chuckled. “Took me a bit, but I learned some things. What about you?”

Eirwen grimaced. “It made me fight a lot of little creatures, that were quite fast and deadly. I pretty much had to use everything I had to win. My Omnibarrier, my kick and Retreat, firing my bow, and even catching a lot of them with a blast of cold… Thanks to our strong party, I haven’t had to use them so rapidly before, the enemies overwhelming me. It was… a good Test for me, but I still took a few nasty cuts.”

Her armor had a few gashes, her flesh exposed around her belly and her legs. But Rebecca had been sitting next to her, so it appeared she likely helped heal her. Eirwen was already holding an essence pearl, working her skill to repair the damage done to it even while she wore it.

He joined her, taking a seat. Grabbing some tea, he listened to Fang’s story. She had used her new movement ability to crash into the flying enemies, and send the shards swirling around her, much like Birdy had done.

Nick was nearly the last one to arrive, but it only took a minute before Irene appeared in a flash of light before he could learn much about how the other girl’s battles had gone. Clearly fine, with them present in the room.

[Test of Weakness Complete – All party members successful. Recovery will be enhanced, you have two hours to begin Boss Battle. Enter the portal when ready.]

The essence in the air became denser, reminding Nick of his Princely Chambers.

Irene was breathing heavily, and her scholarly robes and skin underneath were covered in cuts and torn away at the sides and legs. From that, Nick could see her figure was just as impressive as Rebecca’s, but she was covered in blood splatters as well.

She let out a breath. “Wow, that was rough. I haven’t had to fly so much since–”

“Mother! Are you okay?” Rebecca stood abruptly, and rushed over to heal her mother.

As white faith healing covered her, closing her wounds, Irene replied, “I’m fine, dear–just exhausted. I wish I had the diligence you do with your staff, or–”

Eirwen wrapped a blanket around her, and handed her some essence fruit. “Let me fix those robes, Irene. I have a skill for it.”

Irene looked down at herself, underneath the blanket. “Oh! I suppose so. In the Ordeals, this kind of thing is to be expected. The little goblins with their sickles chased me all over the arena. I flew, but I couldn’t do it forever, nor thin their numbers much with my Light of Wisdom. It took me way longer than I should admit before I realized it might be best to take one of their sickles and…get my hands dirty.”

Rebecca now looked tired. “Does that mean you’ll finally train with me when we get back? I’ve been trying to get you–”

Irene smiled teasingly, “Aw, I’d be happy to spend some more time with you, daughter–but shouldn’t you be spending every moment you can with your dear husband?” She chuckled. “In all seriousness, I’ll place a little more importance on training my body after that–I don’t ever want to be so frustrated again. But I think it’ll be a while before I am joining you again on any Ordeal runs, anyway. I’ll be the archivist, so I’ll be holed up in the library for some time.”

Kaya had been telling her story after Fang, and it was an awful lot like hers. She had faced off against many flying enemies, and was forced to use her Essence Carry, throwing axes, and at one point climbed up the walls of the arena and leaped to catch some of the aerial combatants. She spoke up from their group, “We should definitely have enough for the archives after this run, right, Nick? I know there are a lot of excited priestesses waiting for it!”

Nick nodded. “You bet. We probably have enough already–thanks to us being in here a week already.”

Irene looked giddy, her wings fluttering and her smile wide. “I can’t wait. Makes me want to leave right now.”

Rebecca groaned. “I know, Mother. But please be patient. The second half of the Ordeal is likely to be far longer.”

Eirwen finished working on Irene’s robes and the leather underneath, and returned to sitting down. “That’s the way the first stratum was, too. I’m a bit worried about running out of bag space though, as I’m well over half, despite my skills, already.”

“Damn, that’d suck if we had to leave because we don’t have enough room for our loot! I’d hate to leave any of it behind.”

The party rested up, chatting about their Tests. Jeffrey’s Test was a mystery as nobody could understand him well yet, but it seemed it was somehow simple for him–at least compared to what he usually dealt with. For a full-blown supporter, perhaps the Ordeal’s expectations for him were low. It had Tested Eirwen a lot harder, perhaps due to how much she participated in combat in comparison.

Luna had been forced to use her whole repertoire of totems, flowing through her elemental attacks quickly. She faced elementals that spawned, requiring her to be much more aggressive than she normally would be. Being forced to fight without her pack was a different experience for her.

Jasmine faced a special golem that was a lot like his, but with some form of gravity control instead of force. But she was one of the first to actually arrive, as she overwhelmed it with her Concept. It seemed the Ordeal wasn’t really able to Test her, her mastery over her Concept well beyond what someone of their level should be able to accomplish at their level.

Looking over at her, he noticed she had taken out a few light gems from the elemental jungle, and was absorbing them into her Nexus Core to recharge it.

Rebecca was forced to fight an earthen golem, where she took a while beating it to death with her staff. She tore it apart bit by bit, and ended up having to use what Nick had worked on–using aura offensively, to fully break through its defenses.

The party had gained quite a bit to think about and work on, to try and shore up their weaknesses. Several had made gains throughout the fight, finding new ways to use their powers.

Next was the Boss, and Nick hadn’t fought one on Orion yet, that went down easily.