Chapter 21: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Tide tried his best to meditate and absorb the mana radiating from the lava. He quickly noticed that rather than being absorbed by his body the fire mana was flooding in and overwhelming his body causing damage.

Tide’s mana instinctively came to his defense and tried to neutralize the foreign energy. Sadly, the ambient mana in his skin was quickly overpowered and burnt up alongside his body. Grimacing, Tide drew more mana out of his well and began to circulate it forcefully around his body.

By bring more of his mana to his skin he began to protect himself from the onslaught of fire mana. After concentrating his mana to match the density of the ambient fire mana in the air, he was able to stop the cooking process. He ended up making a thin membrane of mana that coated his skin, blocking out all the fire mana. He maintained this equilibrium for a little bit, but after a couple of minutes he realized that it wasn’t accomplishing anything.

He was combating the elemental mana not gaining control of it. Perhaps, if he had received the ticket later when he was a higher level with more stats, he could just brute force his way through to the center of the chamber. With the stats he had now he would need to gain resistance to the fire mana or conquer it to make any progress.

The question was how should be go about doing so.

From his understanding of elemental affinities there was two things that effected it. The understanding of the element and its properties, as well as the bodies physical compatibility. No point of understanding and having power over an element if it fries you and your enemy to death. It seemed in this case his body couldn’t withstand the ambient fire mana even in the first ring.

Having established his goal and understanding the current situation, Tide began to experiment different ways of making progress.

The first thing he tried to do was remove his protective mana layering. He body was once again assaulted by the tingling pain for a couple of moments before he recreated the defensive mana screen. Once it was back up, he looked at his skin and flesh that was affected to try and see any difference or developments in it. What he saw didn’t look good there was no sign of anything happening besides the degradation of his body’s structure. Small blisters were beginning to form all over his skin, doing nothing besides adding to the irritation and pain he felt.

Seeking relief Tide walked back out of the first ring and let his body recover. His skin flattened back out and healed back to normal. Back at peak condition Tide went back into the first zone and tried something different. He implemented his layer of protective mana, decided to focus more on its structure. Maybe if he limited the amount of fire mana impacting with his body, he would have a better chance of assimilating it. As such he mustered his will and began to open a small hole in the mana defense on his bare chest. Fire mana began to tickle through and interact with his body. Now that the amount was much more manageable, his chest skin was able to interact with the mana without burning up.

The small flow did make it difficult for Tide to study this interaction because he had to maintain focus on preventing the hole in his mana from widening or collapsing.

After a ten or so minutes using this technique, Tide stopped and tried to assess any changes it made outside of the circle.

He pulled up his status screen and saw that his fire affinity didn’t go up, but he had to assume something was different. The only way for him to check if that section of skin was better acclimated to the fire mana was to expose it and the rest of his body to the fire mana and see if there was any difference.

Surprisingly, on an overall note, all his skin took more time to being to blister this time around. Especially his hand which had combusted into flames and the nickel sized spot of skin on his chest. After another couple of minutes, the skin on his chest began to blister, but even at that point his hand seemed to be fine. Tide made his way back out of the ring to recover smiling at his discoveries.

It seemed that his body overall gained more resistance to the fire mana when he was damaged by it. He theorized that each time his body regenerated it came back a little bit more resilient and accustomed to fire mana. This process could be done less painfully if he slowly exposed small spots giving his body the ability to naturally cope with the burns over time. This was why his chest skin lasted even longer than the rest. The last realization Tide made was quite scary. It seemed that the more damage his body took during this process the more resilient it would become. His hand which was charred by the second area, wasn’t affected by the first zone nearly as much as the rest of his body. The fire mana still attacked as fiercely it normally would, but his skin seemed more durable and took longer to wear down.

Looks like he had two routes he could take. Slowly expose his body in small increments to have safe and controlled growth or burn himself alive and regenerate with a more resilient body. Both options sucked for obvious reasons. The first was just far too slow. If he took the time to systematically expose every part of his body, it could take the full three days to just complete this one challenge. The other reason obviously wasn’t great because it involved him voluntarily stepping into a furnace and experience being burnt alive.

Tide took a bit of time to decide what he wanted to do and eventually came to a comprise with himself. While he could throw himself into the second ring to completely burn his body and get everything on pair with his hand, he was scared that the pain would be to much and he would pass out leaving him stuck in there. Merdon said that he couldn’t die while training here, but Tide didn’t want to test that out. Rather than committing to something that extreme he decided to just stay exposed in the first zone until he was able to progress.

As such Tide stepped back into the first zone and started his self-inflected torture. This time he would preserve past where he stopped last time and go even further. After around ten or so minutes his entire body developed a reddish sun burn tint.

After another dozen or so minutes blisters once again began to form over his entire body. Tide gritted his teeth and tried to move as little as possible to move or irritate his inflamed skin. The only thing he could do was channel his mana to his brain and let the comforting feeling it gave distract him slightly from the pain.

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Tide begins to have doubts and felt his determination buckling as the blisters grew large enough to pop. Soon after his outer layers of skin began to fall off completely dead revealing more bubbling skin layers underneath. At this point breathing and thinking became much more difficult to Tide, but he continued regardless. It was only when Tide began to feel his sinew and muscles being exposed and cooked after his last layer of skin fell off did Tide make another discovery. It seemed that the first ring wasn’t potent enough to burn through his muscles and sinew, still the mana tried and was inflicting as much pain as it could. Seeing that nothing else was progressing Tide crawled out of the first zone.

Once he was outside the ring, his tissues began to recover, and a new set of skin began to form on his body.

“Fucking shit that hurt” Tide screamed attempting to dispel some of the pent-up pain and frustration he felt.

Now he was convincing that Merdon wasn’t a pervert, he was a sadist. Obviously, he had set up this challenge with this method of completion in mind for Tide. He could imagine the man’s response to his protests being “No pain no gain” which made Tide even more furious.

Once Tide was done cursing the man out, his body had fully recovered. Still angry, Tide just walked back into the first zone and began his second round of hell simulator. During this one, Tide saw that his skin was attempting to regrow while he was still being burned. New skin was sprouting on his flesh while some of them were burnt off. It looked like the healing factor was constant in the whole room, and it was just being overwhelmed by the damage the fire mana was wrecking. Due to increasing his resistance to the fire, it was now noticeable.

Because of this development Tide realized that he would soon be done with the first section. If the skin was constantly being remade while being burnt it should be refined much more quickly. Over the next thirty minutes Tide’s skin began to heal at a faster and faster rate. Soon layers of skin began to stay healthy and stack upon each other. Soon his skin began to stop burning all together and he just had dry skin peeling off. Once all that skin had fallen off Tide was a brand-new, baby soft, slightly tan skin. The pain of the fire mana heating him was now much more bearable only a nuisance.

One down two more to go Tide thought to himself. It had taken around four hours for him to finish the first round. He would have to spend this up. Tide stood up got himself mentally prepare and step into the next ring. Once his foot crossed that thresh hold, he jumped back surprised to see that it had still combusted into flames.

Tide was confused, didn’t he raise his bodies fire resistance to the point where this shouldn’t be that drastic? Looking down at his foot to check the damage, Tide saw that he was partially right. Instead of seeing burnt skin cracking open to reveal his muscles it seems like his skin wasn’t burnt. It was still cracked and the flesh exposed was sizzling, but his skin was fine.

Looks like his skin wasn’t the problem anymore, his actual muscles couldn’t handle the head or overflow of fire mana.

“Fuck that” Tide spat, not enjoying the idea that he would have to toast his muscles to a crisp continue. That was a step to far. Also, if that was just the second ring what the fuck would the third do to him. The only way he could even consider putting his whole body in the second ring was if he was heavily sedated and couldn’t feel the pain.

As Tide thought that he realized there was an option available. What if he crossed the thresh hold and knocked himself out? He was much more confident that he couldn’t die since the regeneration factor kicked in once he gained a certain threshold of adaptation. Hopefully he wouldn’t regain consciousness until the regeneration factor had at least overcome the destructive power of the fire mana.

Well at this point he really didn’t have much of a choice. It was either that or sit on the outside of the ring and wait until his three days were up. Tide knew that he would regret making that choice. Slowly going in and trying to ratio out the torture like he did with the first ring wasn’t something he would be willing to do either.

He needs to just rip of the band aid quickly and hope that his idea worked. Having made up his mind Tide took a deep breath and jumped fully past the second ring on the ground. Instantly Tide was overwhelmed by his nervous system. His brain couldn’t process every nerve in his muscles and skin frying at the same time. Looks like he wouldn’t have to worry about knocking his head onto the stone floor to knock himself out; the simple shock of the experience forced his brain to shut down.

Crumpling to the floor Tides muscles began burn furiously. Some sections of muscle began to fully burn away and expose the bones underneath. His skin now immune to the fire mana became loose with nothing left to fill it. The only other part of him that was intact was his torso. A green light was preserving his organs, preventing them from being grilled as well.

When Tide opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground face down staring at the rock floor below him. When he stood up, he was excited to see that he was standing in the second ring and wasn’t in agony. It looks like his theory was correct. Merdon didn’t lie about him being impossible to kill while he was in the training dimension. The only thing he could remember was the intense searing sensation when he first jumped in other than that Tide was fine.

Having proven his exploit would work Tide was feeling optimistic about finishing the challenge. While the pain was horrifying, Tide could rationalize it and swallow his fear because he knew it was momentary. Hyping himself back up with the thought of being done with the challenge, Tide only took a short rest before throwing himself into the third zone.

This time Tide didn’t feel anything as his body pass the threshold. Instantly all the water in his organs evaporated. His brain was the only thing that the now bright green light could maintain under the onslaught. His stomach inflated as the vapor burst out from his muscles and skin seeking an outlet. Once they had all escaped Tide body was still as the green light was doing its best to bring him back from the brink.

In the end the green light preserved and began creating organs that could withstand their current environment, which was equivalent to being put under a rocket taking off. Soon, Tide woke up and felt like he was brimming with vitality. He sat up and looked around searching for either a system window or a new exit to pop up for him to leave the challenge. When nothing of the sort happened, Tide was confused. He had done it right?

All that was in the room was the same stone well the source of all the fire mana. Tide walked up towards it and was shocked by the liquid inside. He had mistakenly thought it was lava it was a pool of liquified fire mana. It swirled and bubbled chaotically, like it was a beast trying to escape confinement. Seeing this Tide remember specifically what the challenge asked him to do.

You must simply reach the center of the room.

Tide shuddered as he realized it might have been literal. He wasn’t in the center of the room yet because the pool of fire mana took that space up. More specifically he was about two feet from the center of the room. Once he was in the middle of the rampaging fire mana would he in the actual center.

At this point Tide almost had to laugh at the situation. Looks like the system and Merdon wanted him to take a dip. Well, if Merdon wanted him dead there were plenty of other ways. Having come too far to call it a quit Tide backed up a couple of feet away from the well. Using the extra space, he began to run before leaping into the pool aiming for the center.