An older, bitterer version of Noid stood and watched the world he'd created.

“So it's almost over, heh?” the thief asked from beside him.

“It has to end somehow. It's kind of hard, never having gotten this far before. Could that skill be this strong? What is the essence thinking? It's almost unpre—"

“Unprecedented? Not quite,” the enchantress chimed in.

“What do you —” Noid started.

“You don't mean…” The first Skyholm interrupted but let the sentence trail off as he stared at the woman in question.

“Yes,” was all she said.

Noid was confused for a moment, but then he understood. He had almost said unprecedented. It was the opposite of what the essence did. It worked on precedence. Always precedence.

“What about the deaths though? Could it be there is something wrong with my death simulator?” Noid asked at length.

He could always count on the mental strain of a few deaths to keep his trial takers on their toes. Not this time though. The boy kept shrugging off the mental strain, none of it getting to him.

They stood in silence for a time, watching the boy fight with his new friend. No one needed to say they were a hundred percent sure the simulator was accurate.

He looked happy, and that forced a scowl on Noid's face.

“If you're right, Enith then this boy… Well, the skill is a lucky find. And ignoring all those deaths. His willpower and fortitude must be something else.”

Enith shrugged. “That may be interesting and all, but I'm more interested in what your little turning off the system experiment is doing, Noid?”

“What is it doing?” Noid asked with a growing frown.

It was the first Skyholm who answered. “Ah, the system issue. I suspected something like this would happen, but I vastly underestimated the consequences. As his soul, being from an essence desert had not finished its full baptism, well…”

“He can't level up, Noid,” the enchantress decided to put him out of his misery.

Noid looked flabbergasted. “He cannot gain levels? But then all the experience he'd have gotten from this…Decades wasted. Does that mean all the enemies are at only level twenty-five? No insights? Let alone concepts?”

“Not necessarily,” the enchantress spoke.

Noid frowned at her, not bothering to ask what all the others were thinking.

Enith shrugged. “He might not be leveling up, but he is getting skill levels, stats. His enemies will be calibrated to at the very least be three times stronger than him as long as he is below level ten. Those were your specifications for the trial, no? If he was twenty-five or higher, they'd only be twice as strong.

“Anyway, I was very careful with how I made your trial, Noid. You gave very specific instructions. At some point, he is going to be as strong as a typical level twenty-five while still being level zero. He'd steamroll the trial. We had to make exceptions for people who were geniuses before they entered the trial, you know. If anything, I'd argue the trial is going to be harder for him.

"He can only fight people three times stronger than him because he will never be above level ten. At some point, if he lasts long enough, he might fight against a level one hundred before he even gets a single level.”

Noid watched her with wide eyes throughout her explanation.

They watched another part of the make-believe world. A part which Noid was influencing as they spoke. Noid wanted to hiss at the ugly expression of the nobleman he knew so well as he spoke to lord Grandill about the unfairness of commoners getting in his business. Sure, the boys found something unpleasant in the now devastated woods, but they should have reported to lord Grandill before going to the guild. Or so his biological father kept saying. Commoners were not allowed to stand up against nobles, and so they ought to be taught a lesson. Noid turned away from the scene with disgust.

“Is that necessary?” the thief asked.

“Breaking his applicants is part of Noid's trial, so maybe,” the first Skyholm said.

Noid sighed. “Those other trial takers were weak. Let us just see how he reacts, then we'll go on from there. This is new ground for me. I have no intention of creating an evil clone of myself through my trial.”

Everyone looked to the enchantress, who just whistled a jaunty tune and wouldn't meet any of their eyes.

“Anyway, about the fact the boy isn't leveling up. Do you think he'll be able to defeat my final challenge without growing significantly stronger?”

“You don't even know your final challenge yet.” The first Skyholm said. “Besides, he is effectively immortal anyway. He can come up with tricks after fighting someone a few hundred rounds.”

“I will be happy if he chooses not to take the final challenge. Mostly, I've never had to figure it out. Even this whole manipulation routine that I had to pull. I've never gotten this far. And it is draining. There is a chance I might run out of energy to ressurect him."

“The strength of the skill. His resistance to time dilation is… It has some potential,” the enchantress said, expression thoughtful.

“And that is where his experience is going, in case you were wondering. It's weird. I could probably heal his soul, but if those wounds can… there is a lot of potential there.”

“You mean… to his skills?” Noid asked with a bemused expression.

“And on that note, I would like your help with my latest project, Sam,” Enith addressed the thief.

The woman only snorted. “So I take it you've decided on a gift for the boy?”

“It's more like I need his help,” she confided.

“Well, tough luck. I have some shit I wanna give him too. You can't change my mind.”

“It's about the kids,” Enith said in a small voice.

The thief just snorted. “You're gonna have to try a little harder than that. Everyone knows you're an emotionless asshole.”

The woman only shrugged and grinned. “I just asked you as a courtesy, Sam. I'm not going to bribe you. I'll just force your hand.”

Then she leaned toward Noid, whispering so the thief could not hear.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Give him your blessing.”

Noid started, “but that will—”

“Force her hand. This is the only time someone has completed your trial, and in such a way that they might completely exhaust all your spirit remnants. Don't think I haven't noticed you calling on the others. Your trial might not be available for the next million years, if ever. Think about it. I've done the calculations. He's the perfect candidate.”

Noid looked at the enchantress for a long time, then down at the boy.

“He has exhausted me, is exhausting me,” Noid admitted. “But he hasn't completed the trial yet.”

****

It took Guy, Orlandir, and their quiet party mate Grunter only five years to buy a house for themselves in the city. They'd had to spend a lot of their money buying training from some of the most famous trainers in the city, even Grunter getting courses in blunt weapons and arm-to-arm combat. And they'd somehow made it all the way past bronze and into the middle of silver.

In a few more years, Guy knew they'd reach gold rank status, only a step away from jade. In many ways, they already met most of the requirements to be golds. They were both so far into the advanced tiers. They were monsters, is what others called them. Guy was sure that was just Orlandir.

The only reason they were still silver was time, what with training and all that. They needed to complete a set number of quests before their status was updated.

In the guild’s defense, rank was in most cases synonymous with age. Whatever special power enabled people to advance only required one thing, dedicated practice. That was why a master as young as Jonathan was a monster in his own right. In a world where people advanced unconsciously only through practice, and at seemingly the same pace, people like Jonathan and Noid, and now Guy and Orlandir were considered special.

Guy watched Orlandir jump up and down in a downstairs room that, in a normal household, would have been a dining hall. They'd decided to turn it into a gym instead. Grunter was somewhere up the stairs inspecting the bedrooms.

Orlandir was going to achieve mastery with his self-created style in a few months. Guy sighed. He'd had to learn two more styles of swordplay, and he'd risen to the advanced rank in all four, but geniuses still had that edge about them.

Would he ever catch up to Noid, Orlandir even? He didn't know the answer. He'd started to use his left hand more, in a bid to learn Orlandir's style as well. He wanted to be ambidextrous. Still, Orlandir's looked like the kind of style that would benefit from short twin blades.

And all the styles were like that, he'd found. The Demon God's promise prioritised short swords and parrying knives, while the earth-shattering preferred great swords. The Sword Saint preferred long blades, and the Northern Wind preferred sabers.

He'd wondered why Noid used a bastard sword, but now he understood. It was what he was most comfortable with. He had to adapt all the skills he got from those many different styles and use them to create his style. That was his path to mastery.

Guy grabbed a piece of paper from his pocket, studying the sword he'd envisioned. It was a slim saber, single curved edge, long. It had a circular guard and a long grip to accommodate two hands. It was light enough that he could hold it with one hand. And even though Orlandir, the asshole, said it was too pretty it was more like a lady's ornament, Guy knew it was deadly too. It was also delicate, and would probably get destroyed a few times, which was why he hadn't commissioned one yet.

“What are you thinking?” the subject of said thoughts slapped him on the back. “Do you not like the house?”

“No, I like it. I was just wondering how your girlfriend Jasmine would feel once she found out I'll be able to hear you two going at it every night.”

Orlandir stuck out his tongue, tried to grin, and settled for a wince.

“Did I talk about her in my sleep again?”

“Maybe once or twice, or a thousand times.”

“Man, being too broke to keep girls around sure sucks.”

Guy sighed in commiseration.

They both looked into space, quietly contemplating their celibate lives.

“You know what, let's get to the guild right now. Let's take on a quest right this instant,” Orlandir prompted.

“Yeah, I suddenly want to get rich,” Guy said with a nod.

They yelled at Grunter that they'd be going, and he answered, through a series of grunts that he was good. For some reason, Guy was starting to understand the reticent man's language. He'd stayed with these guys for years, and he was starting to wonder whether he'd ever go back to the Wilde company. He could surely get back by now, but he did not. He went to visit Jonathan and the twins privately whenever they were in the city. The man had never brought up returning to the company, Guy had never asked.

A few friendly faces greeted them at the guild.

“There's our silver rank geniuses,” a big man called Hodo, an old acquaintance said. “Heard you guys got yourselves a house?”

Orlandir shrugged. “You bet. And it is big. Like very big. We are like wealthy merchants.”

Guy left Orlandir to do the bragging, as he was wont to do. He noticed that way more people were paying attention than usual. Maybe getting a house was a big deal? He could have sworn someone from the jade pavilion upstairs was watching Orlandir as he spoke. He wondered what was special about the floor, one of the few visible perks of reaching the high rank.

“So what quest are the new property owners thinking of taking up?” a gold ranker who'd never so much as spoken to him beamed at him.

“That's private info,” Guy said with a frown.

The man backed up, his hands raised and his laugh forced. Guy watched him go all the way. His head was killing him. Something was trying to probe him somehow, and he had to fight. He blinked all of a sudden, looking at the retreating man. He surveyed the rest of the common room with a growing frown, but then his headache returned and he decided to leave it.

For some reason, the quest they got reminded him of that quest they'd done as a test all those years ago. It was a monster subjugation, although these were stronger monsters that looked like the pre-evolutionary versions of wild boars. They were bigger, almost as big as an adolescent elephant, and they had fire for manes.

“Is that a dungeon overflow?” Orlandir asked as they watched the stampeding monsters from a rise that semi-circled the front of the dungeon.

“Yeah,” Guy said with a frown “How is this a mandatory quest though? Isn't this dungeon supposed to be one of the popular ones?”

“Who cares about any of that? This is perfect for you. I'll just wait over here while you destroy the stampede. Then we can get all that extra reward money for a mandatory quest finished by only one party. Not to mention the boost to our rep.”

Guy snorted. “And the genius planner strikes again. Just dive in, he says.”

“Dude, it's your specialty. The only thing that you're better than me at. Surviving untenable odds. Think about the women, bro, the women.”

Guy studied the more than two hundred monsters. He was sorely tempted. Still, the destruction they were causing was not insignificant, and the last time Guy had battled a horde of beasts he'd razed a whole section of a forest, a section that was just starting to grow back five years later. He looked at Orlandir who was staring at him with the most innocent expression, probably lost in his head thinking about women. Guy snorted. Fine, he'd do it for the crazy idiot. He'd do anything to repay this idiot for the last few years.

It was uncomfortable, using a running start to launch himself into the air and strike with an earth-shattering technique while using a long sword. Still, using weapons incompatible with the disparate styles allowed him to prepare for when he'd use his special blade. A line ten boars long was cut to pieces. He landed in a crouch, sword tip already pointed towards the ground, and he swung before the beasts had finished surveying the new intruder.

And just like that, his warm-up was done, and the techniques were flying, transitioning from flowing strikes to powerful diagonal slashes to heavy overhead swings to small but uncountable stabs and slashes. It was exhilarating. It was also easy to get injured, especially when he used the heavy strikes of the earth-shattering style. They were more concerned with damage than speed. Somehow he knew when he fully adopted the style he'd change its focus from strength to speed, maybe make it a movement skill.

The injuries piled up, but he was so deep into the boars’ lines that he hoped Orlandir didn't see too much as he found a rock to hide behind and waited for the boars to finish him off. He came back swinging and tried to not get so injured this time. He'd finally found what the resurrections cost him.

Every time he died, he resurrected with the worst headache, and it had been getting worse over time. It had started as a big blunt drill, but it had steadily become smaller over the years until at least it was as minuscule as a needle. A needle-sized drill. When it couldn't get any smaller, it started to multiply, and now it felt like hundreds of tiny sharp drills were trying to tear his brain apart.

He gritted his teeth and kept on fighting. If nothing, he'd at least become quite accustomed to the pain by now.

He breathed deep as the last boar fell, using his sword to support himself. He dragged his exhausted body back to the slight rise where he'd left his friend watching. There was no way he was going to enter the overflowing dungeon alone.

Only, shouldn't Orlandir have talked to him by now, called out a joke or something. He was already two-thirds of the way up the slope, and there was not a sign of anyone. Wariness seeped through the haze of pain that was his head. He raised his sword and continued to trudge upwards, this time a little more consciously.

There was no one up on the hill. Only, there should have been someone. Where was Orlandir? Why was his aura perception unable to pierce a certain area around him?

“Oh, this one has good senses,” a voice said from right behind him.

Very close behind him, like he'd only need to shift his back slightly and they'd be in contact. He started to turn, but the knife was already sheathed in his neck by then.

The illusion fell and he saw a torn and bloodied Orlandir scream in defiance against more than thirty opponents.