"Place your hand on the ball." The guard told me offhandedly

"What does it-"

"Measures yar lev'l. C'mon, I ain't've all day."

I placed my hand without further comment to prevent attracting too much unwanted attention, and in a couple of seconds ten little dots of light appeared inside the ball.

"Go on. Next!"

I decided against annoying the guard with trivial questions about the workings of the mysterious ball and went forwards, entering the charred black space, which was already filled with people, and found a relatively less crowded place to sit.

I stood out quite a lot with my conspicuously black cloak and the mask that covered my face, but there were a few dozen others dressed in similarly extravagant ways, so the most I got was a few odd looks.

What I did realise was that nobody wore backpacks or had anything bulkier than a jacket on them. There were no water canteens, no scabbards, not even knifes.

But then I looked over at the guard post and saw a small pile of the aforementioned things beside it, and as I was looking a man got denied passage until he put his backpack on top of it, which left little to no room for guesses.

The place of the tournament was called Charred Hill, but it was basically flat. It was surrounded by a circle of...something. It was a series of strange stones with complex shapes carved on them and placed in a uniform formation, the only clue as to what they did being the humongous amount of mana that was moving around between them.

'Probably some kind of barrier or detecting device judging by how people seem to avoid getting near, much less crossing it. There seems to be something else mixed in as well though...'

I was thrown out of my musings when a booming voice, not dissimilar to one amplified by megaphone, swept through Scorched Hill.

"Attention to all participants! Welcome to the Tournament of Grace! Please place yourselves within at least a meter of each other, don't worry, there is enough space for everybody! Our helpers are already inside, and will help you find a spot!"

Apparently no one wanted to get near me, so I was spared the afford of having to go to a less crowded spot. It took a while, but eventually everyone had been put into formation.

Soon, the voice continued. It came from a man on top tower placed just beyond the north side of the Scorched Hill. He was using a strange device. It looked similar to a megaphone, but I could tell it was magical in nature.

"Everything is ready! Now, the first of the three rounds of the Tournament of Grace will begin! As you all know, it is the Proof of Will! You must stand, unmoving, for one day and one night, until tomorrow's dawn! We have people watching, so anyone who sits down or moves will be expelled! You must brave through tiredness, thirst and hunger, endure the sweltering hot day and the freezing cold night, all amplified by the environmental array that surrounds Scorched Hill! You must also pray not to be smitten by the God of Justice once the thunderstorm comes! One thousand bolts will fall tonight, and it will be hard to endure being hit by even a single one! Good luck!"

And with that, the trial commenced.

To be honest, it was easy.

After an hour, I quickly became bored, so I decided to try to activate my smell. I was almost going to try touch, but decided against it after seeing how sweaty and uncomfortable people were starting to get from the (I assumed) blistering heat.

I was always super sensitive after activating new senses, and I didn't really want to feel like I was in hell, more so in a tournament where you have to stay still.

So, I settled for smell. The enchantment structure for this one was fairly simple, with only a divider of the magic power and almost identical places for those divided strands to go to, but there were hundreds of them. I could not even imagine how intricate one had to be to carve such small, detailed engravings.

I expertly guided just enough magic toward the enchantment, and braced myself for impact, actively retracting my mana from all enchantments other than my senses to prevent myself from accidentally moving.

And oh, how lucky I was to have done that. The smells hit me like a truck. I could vaguely recognize some of them, such as sweat, smoke, ash and even earth, but there were a plethora of other ones mixed in which I couldn't even discern. The stimulus from my nostrils wracked my whole body, and even shook my fortress-like soul slightly.

Fortunately, my foresight allowed that to be the whole extent of the impact, with no rolling around in the floor or clutching my nose business.

It was hard to resist the relentless attack of smells, as I physically couldn't hold my breath, since I didn't breath at all. I just constantly smells led whatever the air that wandered inside my nostrils brought, making me helpless in that regard.

Well, at the very least it quelled my boredom.

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The assault eventually sizzled out, turning into nothing more than I formation about what the air carried. Still, trying to decipher what the individual smells were caused by ended up making for a good pastime.

Well, some smells were kinda disgusting, (Like, if you're going to do a challenge where you have to stay in place for a day, go to the loo beforehand, idiots) but most of them were just curious such as the varied smells of diverse leathers.

As the sun reached the top of the sky, some people started to falter, but nobody had fallen yet. At least, not that I'd seen.

Some of the more heavily dressed people were looking pretty bad, though. None seemed very fazed by standing for several hours, but that was to be expected from people who had put at least 20 points into Endurance, making them several times tougher than average people.

People started giving up and falling come evening, some due to unlucky cramps, others from more mundane reasons such as thirst or backache.

Still, well over 90% of contestants were still standing come nightfall. Once the sun was gone, the heat quickly receded, and from the looks in people's faces, the temperature turned comfortable for a few minutes.

Well, just a half hour later many were already shivering.

The minutes kept ticking forward at a torturously slow pace, and almost no one looked unaffected. Most had brought gloves, but the unlucky few who hadn't were desperately trying to breathe hot air into their hands.

A few more collapsed or gave up, some from cold, others from exhaustion or stress. I didn't really care either way.

By the time midnight rolled in—and I knew the time due to an indescribable feeling that I could use [Olden Knowledge] again—about 80% of the participants remained.

I wanted to ask [Olden Knowledge] a question along the lines of "What do the next two trials consist of?", but I held myself back. I had already learned my lesson with the whole regional code fiasco.

I instead spent the time analysing the enchantments inside me, going through them in detail and trying to understand not only what each set of engravings did, but why they did it.

I was so focused I didn't even notice the storm clouds rapidly forming overhead, nor did I notice the frightened expressions of the other participants as they did their best not to succumb to fear and crouch down.

I felt like I was starting to understand something, like I was on the verge of getting why the movement of mana changed its effect—

When a bolt of lightning fell on me.

"Gah!"

It didn't hurt me, per se, but it severely disrupted the flow of mana inside me and forced me out of my self-inspection.

Actually, it did hurt me, because as the energy made its way down my body, it carried some of my mana down with it, eventually reaching a saturation point inside my leg and causing a small explosion.

I fortunately managed to reel in my shock and didn't move too much, to the surprise of those around me, but as I reached up to touch the top of my hood, which was not noticeably charred only because it was black to begin with, I was once again stupefied by my own lack of foresight.

'Am I an idiot? Nobody here came wearing any metal garments at all, despite everyone being elites within the populace, and I didn't even stop to think that lightning tends to strike metal, thus making me a walking lightning rod!?'

I tried my best to find some way to deal with this issue, but as I tried to think of a solution,

WAAZAA

I was struck again.

ZAP

And again.

KSHHAAA

And yet again. Always in the same freaking spot. My hood now spotted a sizeable hole on the top, and even the metal on my head wasn't unscathed.

But, of course, the punishment of lightning continued. Fortunately I had a pretty sturdy connection with the ground, so the electricity was just running through me and dispersing below me, but the sheer amount of it was the real issue.

The top of my head was starting to become black, and I simply couldn't do anything about it.

Most of the bolts were falling on me. In fact, there were barely any that didn't fall on me.

Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but at least a third of them all hit me, and a lot more landed near me.

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The other contestants couldn't believe their eyes. A normal level 10 wouldn't be mortally hurt by a lightning bolt, but they would either fall unconscious or be shocked enough to lose control of their body and fall on their knees or butt, yet that shady man in a cloak had already taken almost 100 bolts and seemed unaffected.

Even if he'd put all his points into Endurance, he would at most have 120 points in it if he had trained his body to the maximum before reaching level 1.

Maybe he would be able to take 3, even 4 bolts without falling, but 100? It was impossible.

And yet, no one complained or reported him for cheating, as he was literally meatshielding all the potential dangers to the rest.

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The conductivity of my body's metal was really something else.

Barely any electricity from the bolts stayed inside my body wreaking havoc, and instead dissipated harmlessly into the ground, which seemed to have magically morphed to be able to take lightning in stride, most likely from being stroked by magical lightning repeatedly for years on end.

KAAAK

Another bolt hit me. I didn't even flinch. I had already retracted all my mana into my core to prevent the energies from colliding and causing more explosions, so I could neither move nor sense anything, other than what got near my soul.

It was risky, as I wouldn't know if I was about to fall over, but I had already suffered that mini explosion in my right leg. Thankfully the damage was minimal, but if it happened somewhere important, it would cause some serious trouble. After all, I couldn't heal like normal humans. Not even potions would work (duh)

I realised that, after the previous bolt, no more had fell in a while, and tentatively pushed some mana into an eye, activating it.

The sky was still dark, but the storm clouds had cleared, and it seemed like no more lightning would be falling down.

I finally allowed myself to metaforically slump down in relief as I satisfactorily made my mana connect to all the proper enchantments once again.

Thankfully no serious damage had been done, other than the missing top of my cloak and my blackened head, along with some minor melting on my leg.

After another hour or so the sun rose, and by then only about 40% of the people were still standing.

The commentator once again appeared on top of the tower, although he looked a bit stupefied. He took out that magical megaphone thing, and doing his best to hide his emotions, he explained,

"Incredible! This has been the edition with the most people to pass to the second round in the whole history of the Tournament of Grace! Now the participants will be led to their rooms to rest and replenish their energy, and they will be brought to the venue of the second stage, the Proof of Faith!"

He then started talking about some other meaningless things, so I tuned him out just enough he didn't bother me, but that if he said anything important, I would still be able to pick up on it.

I tore a piece of cloth from the bottom of my cloak, and tried to use it to rub the char out of my head, but most of it could not be cleaned out.

'My beautiful head...'