Eventually, Tom picked himself up. His brain was still swarming with the implications of being given the trait. However, he was pragmatic enough to acknowledge that the reasons he received the stroke of luck weren’t as important as the fact that he had. The answer could end up being the equivalent of an ant hill being made into a mountain. It was possible that Dimitri had been manipulating things from the shadows, or that community fate was twisting probabilities, or even that DEUS was using a divine intervention, or something as equally as weird. But, honestly, that didn’t matter.

It was his.

He had absorbed it, and it couldn’t be taken away.

The divine champion’s trial was his to reach and profit from. His movements almost reluctant, he started to walk. The others would be worried about him, and, as momentous as the moment was, there was nothing he could do until he got access to an isolation room tomorrow.

With lighter steps than usual, he continued his day. Kang watched him suspiciously, but he ignored the scrutiny and threw himself into harder and harder obstacles and taking nastier and nastier tumbles as a result.

As he held his hand to the healing crystal for the disturbingly long fifteen seconds, and it felt like every single individual rib was being mended and shifted to their correct positions, Kang approached him.

The other boy shifted awkwardly. “Um… I’ve noticed.”

Tom turned and met his eyes flatly, not wanting to talk about why he was happy even if gossip rings would eventually let everyone know. Either Declan or Boreas were bound to let the secret slip.

“Um… yeah, I guess you can’t talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Tim asked innocently.

Kang flushed. “Um… how you’ve been approaching training.”

Privately, Tom was surprised by that revelation. This was not the reason he had guessed for the looks he had been receiving. But, he supposed, in hindsight it was not a surprise. Tom had been training aggressively for days, and it was expected that Kang would notice. It was just a coincidence that he had chosen to raise the concern on the same day that Tom had other things happening.

Frustration washed over the other boy’s features. He started to point at Tom’s chest and then stopped himself. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have come over. I have nothing. Absolutely nothing to talk to you about.” With another frown, he walked away, ignoring the eighth run that had full safety features incorporated, and instead stopped in front of the identical ninth that didn’t. It was the obstacle course Tom had been using under the guise of turning it into a direct race rather than a timed one. He looked back at Tom questioningly, and Tom deliberately kept his face neutral.

“This sucks.” Kang muttered, before doing a couple of stretches, as though they would help.

Briana had, of course, noticed the interaction. “Don’t do it, Kang.” She glared at Tom. “Why are you doing it? Don’t.”

Naturally, neither of them answered. Tom because he understood the cost of sharing the information, and Kang both for the same reason and because he didn’t actually know why Tom was doing what he was.

“Why are you doing it?” She repeated.

Kang sighed. “Because of that idiot.”

She stamped her foot. “That’s a stupid reason. Tom, explain yourself.”

“If I make a mistake, I want to feel it.” Tom told her.

“That’s really dumb. Kang, don’t be as dumb as this one.”

Tom walked up beside her. “It’s good that you care, Bri. But if he wants to do it, then don’t stop it.”

“We’re not listening to you. You’re the problem.” She snapped at him. She looked almost hurt by his and now Kang’s apparent stupidity. “What’s your issue? Even if that,” she gestured in annoyance at the healing crystal. “Even if that fixes everything. It still hurts. Why would you do it?”

“It does hurt,” he agreed. “But that won’t stop me.” The whole time he had been speaking, he had been watching Kang, who was losing his nerves. The other boy stiffened slightly at the reaffirmation of Tom’s intentions. His expression of worry transformed into one of determination.

Kang ran the ninth obstacle course, cautiously. He didn’t fall once.

Tom followed and took far more risks and beat the larger boy’s time by a few seconds. It wasn’t an impressive result, until you factored in the impact of the handicap he was applying via his ring. Kang knew about the ring, and the fact Tom had managed a superior time was damning.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The boy kicked the ground, an angry expression on his face. Then he slouched and looked abashed. “I can do better.”

“Yes, don’t mope. Just go faster next time.” Tom told him.

The larger boy straightened. On his next attempt, he was substantially more reckless, and was on track not just to beat Tom’s time, but to smash it; until, on the fourth last obstacle, he attempted to leap across a gap instead of going around the edge like it was designed for. The leap was beyond ambitious, and Tom was not sure the feat was even possible without five or six more years of growth, or else a magic skill. Kang did not have either of those, so he missed the attempt by a good foot and struck his nose on the way down. Blood poured everywhere, but he didn’t complain. He went to the healing crystal, then lined up to do the same thing again.

Internally, Tom nodded, pleased by the determination being shown here, while externally making all the right noises. “Are you sure you should be doing this? Don’t you think you’re going too hard? Shouldn’t you do the easier course?”

Briana supported him with similar suggestions.

With Kang participating in the near-suicidal training, there was even a chance they might eventually convince Briana to join them. That, however, was not about to happen quickly. When they broke for dinner, she still looked pissed at them, so it was going to take time. Besides, Tom was not convinced getting her to partake in the same reckless activities was sensible. The single Earned Skill example that he had had relied on unrealised technical skills which both he and Kang had from the tutorial; but, despite Briana being as much of a genius with the obstacle courses as she was with her water magic, he doubted that she would have that level of proficiency.

When she fell, she inevitably got hurt far more than either of them, which suggested her gymnastic skills were weaker than theirs.

For now, it was a moot point anyway. When they got to dinner, Briana made a point of sitting away from them.

“This better be worth it.” Kang told him quietly.

Tom didn’t answer. He wasn’t going to take a risk when it came to such a sensitive topic, and his silence told its own story.

The next day, Briana behaved as though nothing had happened. However, some level of trust had been broken, and she insisted on them doing magic practice all morning instead of engaging in anything more physical.

The tension was frustrating, and it was a relief when he finally got to enter the isolation room.

The instant he was sealed tight within its confines, he went to the status ritual and focused on understanding what Maurice had given him.

Text flashed into existence on the screen.

Trait: Speed Matching

Have both your perception and thinking speed boosted to ninety percent of the level of any person, animal, or beast that is attacking you. It will only trigger if you’re aware of the enemy.

This trait does not boost body abilities, but will assist in expedited spell and skill usage.

Tom did a fist bump as he read it, and a massive grin blossomed on his face.

Thank you, DEUS, he thought. The trait was exactly what Maurice had promised, and, reading it, he also understood why it wouldn’t scale well into higher levels.

When you were at the low ranks, you were much more likely to run into a monster that had a substantial speed advantage against you. It was just how the distribution of them worked. A low-levelled area could have a roaming boss twice as strong as the average, but that same roaming threat in a high-levelled area might only be thirty percent stronger. In both cases, that jump would create something nearly undefeatable to any nearby adventurers, with the creature being thirty percent stronger, and its balanced mix of abilities representing, on a relative scale, a deadlier threat than that of the weaker monsters any team just starting out would face.

The Speed Matching trait would only have a limited effectiveness against the higher-ranked monster, because the enhanced abilities would still remain a threat, but in the low-levelled area it would be a significant boost that would help him flee the enemy. For lower-ranked adventurers, the trait could be a lifesaver, but at higher levels, not so much.

More specifically, for him, this stroke of luck would allow him to cross the divide and reach his goal of achieving a general combat ranking of four. To get that, he needed to be capable of defeating ninety-nine point nine, nine percent of rank-four monsters in one-on-one battles.

Given that his attributes had barely reached rank one, that was a tough ask. His rule of thumb had always been that you could fight up to thirty percent on an attribute gap, but beyond that, the task became increasingly more difficult. For this, he needed to go four times, which would have been impossible without his specific skill set and experience. Rank-one creatures weren’t supposed to possess multiple spells along with spear mastery the way he had.

The effects of the trait, unfortunately, couldn’t be tested until he got into the trial, so he threw himself back into routine. Two days later, he finally got to raise his hand and place it on the not-quite-real sphere that represented the trial in his three-dimensional space that humans could perceive.

He appeared in the forest with a spear in his hand. He glanced around quickly, confirming that there were no enemies about to attack him. “No, April! Not yet. Can we talk first?” he yelled out.

The world blurred, and he was sitting at the cafe.

“I got the trait.” He exclaimed excitedly.

“I can see.”

“Do you think this is enough? Am I general combat four now?”

She inclined her head to the side and frowned, then gave a slight shake of her head. “No, unfortunately not.”

“But… No, I have to be close. I upgraded Spark as well.”

She half glared at him. “I’m not blind. Of course I’m aware of that, but both of them combined is not enough.”

“Really? They have synergy. It must be close.”

“No, it’s not,” she interrupted him harshly.

“But the trait’s better than expected, and that stun upgrade on Spark is basically the best-case scenario, and…”

“I said getting that strong was a near impossibility. And you’re not listening. You’re terrible when you get an idea in your head. You really struggle to change course.”

“No, that’s not right. I’m not fixed in my ways. I’m adaptable.”

“You’re impossible, at least until you see the proof.” She sighed. “Here, let me show you.”

Abruptly, he found himself in a meadow. There were trees in the distance, but the ground itself was closer to a golf fairway than a natural field.