Once a workable plan was in place, Axel tried to sneak up on the Tormenter when its back was turned, giving everyone else time to spread out to limit the Crimson's ability to fling everyone around. Axel made it about halfway through the room before the Tormenter turned, as if sensing something, and noticed the group. When this happened, Axel roared at it and charged, only to see the Tormenter point at him and then at a far ceiling.
Suddenly, there was no ground under his feet as Axel seemed to be pulled like a magnet to the corner, slamming into it with a speed and strength that left bruises and a fracture on his right rib section. Axel also felt all the air leave his chest. At the same moment, he saw Aria land several arrows against the Crimson’s weak point before she was flung into Sky, ruining the shot Sky had lined up. Aria flared her wings as she began to move, and Axel saw swirls of air catch her open wings, slowing her impact. As Axel hit the ground, he could see Sky and Aria tumbling together, but this gave Lyra time to get in range to slash the weak point, making the Tormenter scream in frustration more than pain.
The Tormenter then pointed at Lyra, and she was flung to the ceiling. Axel used the reprieve to catch his breath, then charged forward, throwing several knives. He scored one hit on the weak point and two that looked like they sunk into soft clay as they hit its body. Axel noticed that this Tormenter was tougher than the texts stated, and if they did not finish this quickly, injuries were going to start to accumulate.
The Tormenter pointed at Axel, but he was better prepared for it and threw his discharge chain at the Crimson. As the chain wrapped and locked in place, Axel felt the pull again, but it was much weaker than the last time, and he received a surprised look from the Crimson as it came for the ride.
As Axel hit the wall again, he was ready and moved his body to land against the wall with his feet. Axel then yanked the chain with a strong swing, cleaving the Tormenter in a diagonal slash, killing the Crimson. This had the issue that he was no longer being held to the wall and needed to make a rolling landing to reduce the damage he took.
The crimson orb bounced around the room due to its momentum until it landed near Lyra, who was getting up off the ground. As Axel walked across the room, Aria and Sky untangled from each other, and Lyra picked up the orb before heading over to where Aria was looking at a broken wing with a pained expression.
“Owwww, this hurts,” Aria whined to the oncoming Lyra in a pitiful tone. “Aria will not be able to fly for a while now.”
“Give me a moment to see how bad it is, and I will see about fixing you up,” Lyra told her while throwing the orb to Axel.
“Lyra, please fix it and make it feel better,” Aria looked at Lyra with big tear-filled eyes. “Make sure to kiss it when you are done, as Aria knows that always makes it feel better.”
Axel caught the orb and checked on Sky before internalizing the upgrade to make sure there was nothing wrong with her, but he was waved away before he got close. With everyone seeming to be doing okay, Axel gripped the orb and received a notice:
Integrate Elemental Power: Gravitational Field? Y/N
Axel thought "Yes," and power flooded through his body again. Then time slowed as the Goddess stood before Axel for a second time that day. Time slowed to Axel’s perception again before a silver flame appeared before Axel and took the form of the Goddess. The Goddess Hope’s silver flames flickered as she took several delicate steps across the floor to stand in front of Axel.
“That was sixty percent faster than my predictive models showed you would complete this cycle,” Hope's light voice said to Axel. “You also don’t seem to have any more corruption than you did when we last communicated.”
“This is good news, as your survival prediction has increased by three point four percent,” Hope tilted her head to the side. “You are also well on the way to being able to complete my task in time.”
“What is your task?” Axel asked as a slight headache was starting already.
“I find that most people would worry too much about this to focus, so until you are at Adept cycle four, I will hold onto this for now,” Hope answered. “I recommend you leave the trial soon as the shift has accelerated the time, and if you get trapped, you will be stuck in here for an extra twelve hours.”
“I thank you for the warning, but we were going to leave anyway after this,” Axel replied while looking at the Goddess in question.
“I expected that, but your group tends to be slow on updating your journal, so I find that you may need a push to rush,” Hope gave Axel more context to the warning. “Also, there is a group likely staying at your extraction elevator waiting for you.”
“Well, that is not great,” Axel said in a worried tone while he started to run options through his head.
“I predicted that all elevators to the tower have a team waiting at them to catch you,” Hope added. “Though this only has an eighty-three percent likelihood as most in a Trial do not journal.”
“Our time is now running out, and you are unable to support the activation of another system. I will take my leave before causing you any more pain than needed,” the Goddess said as she faded away and time sped up again.
Axel only had a mild headache this time and not the great pain he was in the first time he met the Goddess. Axel saw that Lyra was setting Aria’s wing, based on her yelp of pain, before a light green glow came from Lyra’s hand and covered the damaged location. Aria visibly relaxed shortly after and hugged Lyra, much to the healer's blushing embarrassment.
Axel pulled up his menu to check the changes to found that nothing changed on the main menu. Axel then accessed the Core menu to find that his available storage and generation increased significantly.
Core:
* Novice Core: 265 CP
* Core generation: 2.65 CP per minute
* Body Reserved power: 53 CP
* Passive Reserved for powers: 62 CP
* Total Available: 150 CP
This was not beyond expectations, as every upgrade, besides one meant to increase storage, would raise the core storage by around a hundred. His body was also reacting normally, thankfully, by increasing the body-reserved power to keep the core stable until it reached the critical mass needed for an Adept core. This would take up a lot of power by the time he reached the end of Cycle Four, as the closer one got to the next stage, the harder it was to keep the core stable.
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Axel knew that his new power would drain this available pool of energy quickly if his research was correct. He then accessed the power menu to see if his powers had changed with the new addition.
Powers:
* Proto Core: Master Tier Berserker (60 hours locked)
* Novice Cycle 1: Regeneration (Lesser)
* Novice Cycle 2: Elemental Power Gravitational (Point to Point Directional)
Axel first checked over his current powers to see if there were any changes and was pleasantly surprised to find that there were.
Proto Core: Master Tier Berserker
* Description: Current research has shown that this is a hyper-dense core material of Master Tier orb. The user is only able to safely access this for short times as the crimson material is much more concentrated than the body can safely access. More study is underway.
* Active Powers:
* Enhance Strength by 5.75 times at the cost of 10 CP per minute.
* Reduced pain perception while power is active
* Single-minded focus while power is active
* Passive Power:
* Enhanced Body: Enhances the body’s durability passively. Holds 20 CP in reserve to maintain this
* Increase body strength by 2.25 times at the cost of 12 CP in body reserve.
* Backlash:
* Due to the concentration of this material, the body is locking away enhancements as it cannot sustain them with current Core power levels. However, the user will still experience enhanced anger issues until the body gets to the level that is meant to handle this material.
* The use of power for more than 10 minutes in 24 hours can lead to backlash.
* If the user goes over this time frame, it can lead to damage to the user on a genetic level with crimson corruption. It is not known what symptoms of this corruption are currently. More research is needed.
Finding that the strength of this ability increasing was a little bittersweet, as it was a great trump card, but the danger to himself was something Axel was still coming to terms with. He would also need to get used to his new strength, as it would throw off his fighting until he did. He also noticed that the Goddess had updated the description in a rather unhelpful way.
Axel then looked over regeneration, and it only seemed to be drawing more power, but this likely meant that it would be healing quicker and that his body was advancing, making it hard to heal quickly, which Axel was fine with.
Novice Cycle 1: Regeneration (Lesser)
* Description: This is the combination of the Regeneration (Body) and Regeneration Fixed State. This ability seemed to have mutated into Regeneration (Lesser) due to materials found in the proto core that met the requirements of ability change.
* Active Power:
* Limb Regrowth and Organ Repair: The user has the ability to regrow lost limbs and repair major damage to organs. The cost of power is variable due to the severity of damage. Power does not have the ability to completely regrow complex organs, and the return of a lost limb can take days to recover. This ability is also limited in that it cannot repair a damaged core.
* Passive Power:
* Faster body recovery from injury through the regeneration rejuvenation effect. This holds 50 CP in reserve at all times.
* Backlash:
* None at this time as the body is handling the power at optimum performance levels.
* Possible backlash symptoms are uncontrollable bouts of lust or the need to mate if the user pushes healing power too hard.
As Axel closed out regeneration, he started to look over his new power. It seemed to have great versatility, but from what he was reading, it would be a great asset to him.
Novice Cycle 2: Elemental Power Gravitational (Point to Point Directional)
* Description:
* Active Power:
* Increase the gravitational pull between two objects. Depending on the Mass and Weight between two objects, the cost will increase.
* Distance between two objects will affect power cost.
* Power can be interrupted by other stronger gravitational fields.
* Backlash:
* None at this time as the body is handling the power at optimum performance levels.
With that, Axel noticed there was a new quest notification and checked his journal to find a quest with a timer ticking down.
Quest:
* Leave Trial before the shift starts. Countdown 4:24:23
That was not a lot of time to safely make it to the exit elevator and dodge crimson along the way. Axel gathered everyone and checked on their conditions before telling them what he learned.
“Alright everyone, any injuries we need to worry about?” Axel asked.
“My wing is set, and Aria won't be able to fly for a few hours or use it, but otherwise all good,” Aria said first while gently stroking her damaged wing.
“My core is on the low side with healing me, Sky, and Aria,” Lyra added in a tired tone. “We are not also hunting gems, are we?”
“No, but I will get to that in a moment,” Axel said and looked at Sky.
‘I…Am…OK…but….HEAD….iS…ShaKeN,’ came Sky's slightly garbled mental reply.
“She has a concussion, and from what I read in her Journal, it should clear up in about an hour,” Lyra added with a pat on the Thalaxian's side. Sky gave a slight nod.
“Well, that is troubling as we have under four and a quarter hours to make it to our extraction elevator, which may have people waiting for us there,” Axel informed the group.
“Should it not be like seven to eight hours left?” Lyra asked while pulling out a gold pocket watch that belonged to Salmar.
“According to the Goddess, the shift is causing issues, and if we don’t want to be stuck in here for an extra twelve hours, we need to move now,” Axel added to Lyra. “Also, I wish the Journal came with a clock function.”
After saying that, a time display appeared in his upper left sight above his health data. Axel swore several times to the shock of his group. Grumbling as Axel received the odd looks, he explained what happened, much to everyone else’s chuckles.
“I have no idea how long the journey back is, but I do remember the map Salmar showed us of this section of the Trial, and the return signs will help,” Axel said while trying to move things along, away from what just happened.
“Any thoughts on how long we rest as we have unknown patrols, unknown travel time, and likely a fight when we get to the elevator?” Axel asked the group.
“I think we can only wait for Sky's injury to heal and move then,” Lyra said while looking at Sky. “Anything more, and we are risking either being caught down two or having to protect Sky from whatever is waiting for us.”
“Aria agrees, but from what the Goddess told Axel, we are running very short on time,” Aria added.
Sky did not respond to this request for comment but just waited for the group to come to a consensus. Axel thought about it and looked at Lyra.
“Any chance you can heal it faster?” Axel asked, though he knew the answer as he asked.
“I could, but it will drain me dry,” Lyra confirmed Axel’s fear as she had not healed Sky earlier.
“Alright, plan C,” Axel described. “Lyra, heal Sky and drain the beast gem from the fiend to recharge. Then you will take the Shade and Aria the Zone Walker beast gems.”
“That is a lot of money wasted, but sure,” Lyra replied and went to healing Sky. “What are we going to need with those two gems?”
“Because when we find the sad sacks waiting to ambush us, you both are going to appear in the back line and take out any support,” Axel said in a low voice. “I am already not in a great mood with Salmar, and now these bags full of crap want to hurt more of my friends.”
Aria and Lyra nodded at the plan, but he could tell that Lyra was thinking of all the gold that these could have been sold for. Sky began to perk up after the healing energy washed over her head and thanked Lyra, only to then try to hug her with her manipulators, but Lyra just said the thanks was enough and backed away quickly. Lyra then filled her core with the fiend gems, causing it to dim a bit, and took the Shade gem from Axel. Aria took the Zone Walker before everyone began to head down the hallway following a map from a dead man.