Seth gasped in the clean, fresh air of the cave as he emerged from the glowing silver wall. The black hole closed up behind him silently, causing the barricade to lose its luster and solidify into a normal looking metal wall. Although happy to escape the puzzle room, there was a note of disappointment that accompanied the feeling. No notifications had appeared after finishing the challenge, meaning that there was no reward outside of what the room had given him upon clearing it. Seth looked down in disgust at the hexagon in his hand.
Brikin Box (Class C):
-A puzzle device created to train the Intellect attribute.
In reality, the puzzle room challenge had been a complete waste of time outside of affording him some private time. Following his initial transformation upon consuming the Elixir of the Fatigued Hero, Seth had worked for days to finish completing the challenge. He had lost count of the clicks he had needed to finish the room. It had gotten so annoying that for a second, his hatred for the clicking sound had almost eclipsed his hatred for the whispers that had become basically white noise by now.
The worst part of it all was that he barely had increased his intellect stat thirty percent out of the endeavor, not even upgrading the attribute at all. He stowed the box into his cache with a frown before bending over to grab a rock from the ground. He hurled the piece of terrain at the wall where it shattered with a satisfying BANG! “That’s what you get.” He threw the wall one last scathing glare before making his way out of the cave, the fact he had just yelled at an inanimate object like a crazy person not lost on him.
As the white light of the dimension’s star met his skin, Seth hummed in approval while warmth spread across his body. He carefully checked his surroundings to make sure there wasn’t anyone near before unequipping his chest piece. He looked down at what looked like a crazy tan line, but then realized that it was just over a week’s worth of filth that had been surrounding his armor.
The smell of this filth had been his personal hell the last few days that he had rotted in the puzzle room. Although there had been oxygen in the room, it hadn’t vented out in the least, leaving Seth in a room full of his own putrid stench to choke on.
The recent memory cause him to scrunch his nose and he quickly put the chest plate back on. He ran his fingers through his blonde-black hair while remembering why he had wanted to return so fast.
Not the time to worry about how bad I smell, it’s not like I’m here to get girls.
He readied himself with his normal slew of stealth abilities before summoning his glaive as well. Quick as a bullet, Seth took off back toward the swamp using his newly enhanced speed. When he arrived at the trees, he took it slow at first to acclimate to the new body and speed. He gradually increased his speed, finding that his new threshold for agility was even higher than he had expected. He began traveling as fast as he could through the trees, at one point, he believed himself to be shooting through the tree line near forty or fifty miles per hour.
Seth came to a stop shortly after that, breathing slightly heavily.
There’s no way that’s just a ten percent increase. It’s like I’m being propelled with every step.
He dropped to a nearby spot of solid ground. To increase speed, a human technique would be propelling themselves forward using the balls of one’s feet. He remembered practicing this method in middle school while on the way to and from school. Although he would sometimes get odd glances, he found it fun to launch forward in small bursts, feeling the air whirl past his face. This time, his stance was already naturally on the balls of his feet, so launching forward wouldn’t require much thought.
He crouched into a runner’s position, then took off without trying to use his supernatural strength. To his surprise, he felt a tension build in his foot, then release like a mini explosion. Even using only his original human strength, he sped forward at a rate that would rival an Olympian sprinter.
“Woah, now that’s cool.”
He hopped around in place, hyped about finally discovering a useful aspect of his new body. He took a moment to experiment with other actions and exercises. He jumped, stretched, and even shadowboxed a little bit. The tension feeling seemed to activate just about every time his foot impacted a solid surface; it didn’t seem to be constrained to just running at all. It was strange because the tension didn’t feel like it was inherently energy filled, but it also didn’t feel like it was the work of his muscles. Seth felt like it was a combination of the two in a way.
Only a couple minutes had passed since his break, but he went to check his surroundings anyway before continuing his practice. Ending up like the guy from earlier seemed like something Seth did not want to experience. After assuring the perimeter was safe and he was truly alone, he made his way to the nearest tree.
Anar retracted back into his hand, and he readied himself into a mock fighter’s stance that he saw on TV one time. Despite fighting monsters for over half a year now, he still didn’t have much technique when it came to these kinds of things.
After a few kicks in the air to warm himself up, he began by throwing a sharp right kick to the lower side of the tree. Upon contact, he sensed the tension rise yet again, like the muscles were swelling, and his bones were hardening. In an instant, the tension released and his normal, superhuman kick turned into a bomb of force. Although nothing appeared different during his action, the expected, foot sized dent had instead become triple its size, causing the tree to begin to fall toward him.
Struck with excitement due to the new application of his augmented attribute, he reacted a little late to the tree, causing him to get hit with a few wild branches. A few began to weep blood, but Seth was too busy moving onto the next tree to care.
He was like a lumberjack sweeping through the swamp. Before he realized what was going on, he had executed twelve more thick grey trees. The feeling of power was all encompassing, Seth felt like he could take on anyone in The Incubator. Soon enough, the high wore down and brought Seth back to reality. Having realized his mistake, he didn’t bother to look around before bolting from the scene. Wrapping himself in a distortion illusion, he escaped through the trees, making sure to weave a false trail just in case. After he was satisfied, Seth halted for a moment to get his bearings before taking off toward yet another challenge.
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Steam rolled off of Seth’s skin as he finally neared his goal.
The air near this area was noticeably colder compared to the rest of the swamp. There were even patches of ice crawling across some of the trees, and rocks became more common instead of mud. A few minutes later, he arrived at a large circle of rock that was completely flat with no shrubbery or trees located anywhere on it. It spanned a couple hundred meters in circumference too. Seth crouched behind a low boulder that sat on the edge of the huge disk.
Casting a quick glance around, he was pretty sure that no one had completed this challenge either. There was a small, raised dais in the center of the disk that he assumed was some sort of button, and it didn’t look to be disturbed since last time.
He began to raise himself up to get onto the disk, but a commotion to his left caused him to freeze. On the far left side of the disk, he watched as a hulking figure in heavy brown armor emerged from the wilderness. It was humanoid and appeared to have some sort of dangerous carapace covering his skin. The armor reminded him of a beetle and rhino mixed together. Upon sighting the humanoid, Seth drew all of the mist inside his body to weave together a net of illusion. To the outside gaze, he should’ve looked like any other rock.
He watched with interest and surprise as the hulking figure actually started to shrink. Well, shrink was a strong word, even with the loss of mass, the final size of the person was still quite large. It actually reminded him of another guy he met close to a month ago. The armor of the suspected guy receded as well, causing it to form thick plates just over the person’s forearms and chest. An unintentional gasp was released from Seth’s mouth as the front plate on the person’s helmet retracted to show a familiar, gruff face with cold eyes.
It was Ty.
Even though they were almost a hundred meters from each other, Seth tensed as Ty’s gaze swept right over his location. Somehow, he had heard him.
The large chrome gauntlets that were previously hidden underneath his armor rose directly toward Seth. In an instant, Seth found himself five feet in the air, without any oxygen in his lungs. He gasped for a breath with bloodshot eyes as he looked beneath him. Out of nowhere, a large wall of earth had emerged from the ground, like it had been there all along.
Not even his tripled reflexes had allowed him to sense the attack coming. To make matters worse, the attack had the distinct power of a tier three behind it. Despite the abrupt blow, Seth was still no slacker, as he had taken plenty of strong hits before. Not to mention, it didn’t even feel like his ribs had broken, so it hadn’t been all that strong.
As the ground began to rise under him, signaling his fall, Seth quickly retracted all of his illusion mist and retrieved Anar from his void hand. Finally recovering his breath, he barely tapped the ground for more than a moment before taking off toward Ty. He was currently standing on top of a challenge, so even if he could control dirt or whatever, the rock underneath his feet should not be malleable. Finally finding his foe, Ty’s armor crawled back over the entirety of his skin, yet again covering his face. Although, this time his body did not grow like Seth had seen previously.
Even if he remembers me, he doesn’t seem to be the type to care.
Seth activated both his optical abilities before dismissing the one for his Stalker Armor. Unfortunately for him, it seemed like Ty had no wish to summon more dirt barriers as he charged directly at Seth. Dust seemed to trace around his figure as his speed reached close to Seth’s own, even with the new elixir ability. This was not the time to hesitate though, and within less than a few seconds, the two had reached each other. Ty opened with a deadly haymaker that had a perceivable force behind it.
Understanding the danger, Seth twisted his head as far as possible while using the shaft of Anar to glance off the side of his gauntlet. Sparks flew without either side receiving a blow. There was no let up though, as both sides instantly went back to the brawl. Ty’s speed seemed to be quite impressive on his way to Seth, but when it came to close combat, it seemed that the increased speed did not apply. This difference was the only thing that kept Seth alive as he was barely able to weave around each punch.
Punch after punch came raining down on him as he used his full effort to not get hit. The thing was, in a fight, both sides are trying to get a hit in. So although Seth was able to remain unharmed, he wasn’t gaining any ground at all, in fact he was inevitably going to lose at this rate. Ty did not seem to lack endurance, and the strength behind his fists was also next level. This meant that each punch that Seth was able to redirect caused him to expend a huge amount of stamina. Within only a minute or two, Seth was covered in sweat and breathing hard.
Dammit! There is no way for me to win at this point! What can I try?
With a herculean effort, Seth kicked off the ground, causing him to shoot away from Ty. With the split second he afforded himself, he tried something that most sane people wouldn’t do in any fight ever: He dropped his weapon. Even the hulking figure in front of him hesitated at the sight of his action, albeit only for a moment. Fortunately for Seth, this was exactly what he was hoping for. Red smoke burst forth from his pores like a lake, forming two smoky mirror images of Seth.
The last of the smoke covered Seth, making him identical to the others, and he then consecutively erased his energy by pulling it underneath his skin, just like how Ty taught him. Without thinking, he then dashed directly at Ty while switching with his clones to confuse the giant.
For a moment, he truly thought he could win, but sadly, it didn’t seem to be in the cards for him.
Ty’s reaction to his doubles was nothing short of brutal. Raising both his gauntlets above his head, Ty smashed them into the ground like a meteor, causing a gut wrenching earthquake that threw Seth off his feet, along with his clones that were mirroring him. The three fell directly in front of Ty, like a beggar praying for mercy. Like the grim reaper, Seth felt a huge storm of energy condense into a chrome gauntlet right over his head. He felt like he was sitting in a guillotine, waiting for his death to come falling down.
Like thunder in the sky, the fist crashed down and released a wave of power that sent Seth… flying back?
A cloud of dust had been released from whatever ability Ty had just used, but Seth didn’t even notice it. He scrambled to check his whole body, but couldn’t find a fist sized hole anywhere. His memory flashed back to the impact, and he finally realized that the thunderous punch had landed off to his right, where one of his clones had been sprawled.
HE FELL FOR MY ILLUSION!
With this realization, Seth took his only opportunity to summon Anar and rocketed forward with a malice that was palpable.
That hit could have killed me. I’LL HAVE TO RETURN THE FAVOR!
Seth’s forearms and biceps pulsed as he whipped his glaive toward the purple highlighted figure that was standing still in the dust cloud. The dust was abruptly waved away to leave Ty finally meeting the ravenous gaze of Seth. With only a second to react, Ty raised a fist to block his strike.
Excitement was visible on Seth’s face as he watched Ty do exactly what he had wanted.
His grin sloughed off his face though as he barely saw Ty’s hand actually retract from the armor that he had been so confident in just a moment before. Despite his retraction, Anar still cleaved through the shell he had left behind like butter.
After hitting his mark, Seth pulled back again to see the next move Ty had in store. He was surprised to find that Ty did not advance in the window he had given him. Instead, he was standing still while looking down at his severed armor piece. Seth narrowed his eyes until he realized that Ty wasn’t going to attack. Not wanting to give up this chance, he leapt forward without hesitation, going straight for Ty’s still neck. Unexpectantly, instead of a counterattack, Seth received a raised palm while Ty looked him directly in the eye.
“I remember you.”