[Please select your talents from the list below. The options you didn’t choose will remain available until you acquire another talent point.]

[Innate sensory - rare : Improves the clarity of information from your sensory input. Increases reflexes and improves your twitch reactions. Also, provides 5% boost to your dexterity, rounded up.]

[Natural recovery - rare : Passively regenerate 1% of your health every minute. Increases your constitution by 5%, rounded up.]

[Ezekiel’s embrace - epic : Improves your affinity to shadow and death, if you have acquired those affinity. Increases the effectiveness of your shadow or death - attuned skills. Increases your total Mind attribute by 5%, rounded up. Allows communication to the Deity of Shadows and death, Ezekiel, if the Deity is interested in you.]

“What?” I gawked at the prompt, dumbfounded by the insane descriptions of these options.

First of all, these options sounded incredible. Innate sensory was obviously good since it paired well with my main stat, Dexterity. Having improved reflexes was a godsend, especially against the creatures that were blazing fast or hard to see.

Natural recovery was almost overpowered. Its strength was obvious; Healing was limited. If I played my cards right, I wouldn’t need to use another bottle of potion. The bonus constitution helps too, obviously.

But the option I was most curious about was the last one.

[Ezekiel’s embrace - epic]

Who the fuck is Ezekiel?

First, the mind attribute was not something I’ve touched, limiting the advantages of the talent itself, at least for now. The description of this talent was straight out of a fantasy book. While it sounded interesting - and honestly somewhat terrifying, even when I have a shadow-related skill, [Shadow step], I didn’t think I would gain much by picking this talent.

But what I needed right now was something that allowed me to survive today. Shadow’s embrace was just… underwhelming. Especially if you consider mana being a resource I couldn’t recover.

So it’s either innate sensory or natural recovery.

“Fuck…”, I grunted in frustration. Carefully thinking my options over, I decided on innate sensory.

[Innate sensory - rare selected.]

Something about the surrounding environment changed when I picked that talent. The colors of my view are now imperceptibly clearer. It was as if I could tell the different shades of green between the fresh and dying leaves. The voices of the wind and the leaves grew distinct, and I could locate the falling leaves even if it was behind me.

But the biggest difference was the small pool of water the plant was floating on.

The chrome-like substance was emitting a dark smoke, covering the pond of water in a light haze of darkness. However, they were nothing compared to the haze from the plant it came out of. The Onyx Hyacinth.

Whatever it was, everything about this plant was screaming at me to get away. But yet…

There was an alluring aroma permeating around me now that I couldn’t smell before. A smell that was so sweet and pungent, luscious, yet almost… deadly.

It’s inviting me…

I had to slap myself awake to stop myself from entering the pond. At this distance, I realized that my newfound senses were overpowering my logical judgment. I had to take more than a few steps away until the aroma was no longer present. I would have to gather more information about this plant before I could make a sound decision.

Looking for a distraction, I opened my status window.

[Status]

Player : Zane Black

Race : [G - HUMAN]

Level : 10

Health : 96/210

Stamina : 120/210

Mana : 32/50

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ATTRIBUTES

Physical [11] :

[Strength] - 14 [base : 11] [sub + achv : 2] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 1]

[Dexterity] - 22 [base : 11] [sub + achv : 8] [equipment : 2] [bonus 6% : 1]

[Constitution] - 16 [base : 11] [sub + achv : 4] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 1]

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Mind [0] :

[Intelligence] - 0 [base : 0] [sub + achv : 0] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 0]

[Willpower] - 0 [base : 0] [sub + achv : 0] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 0]

[Capacity] - 0 [base : 0] [sub + achv : 0] [equipment :0] [bonus 1% : 0]

[Free Main Attribute points : 1 ]

[Free Sub Attribute points : 6 ]

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Classes :

[]

Skills :

[Shadow step - epic]

Achievements :

[Death’s door(2)] [Big game hunter] [The first of many]

Affinities :

[]

Talents :

[Innate sensory]

6 attribute points? Insane..

I mulled over my decision and put 4 of my sub-attribute points to Dexterity and one each to strength and constitution. While relishing the surge of power from the increased attributes, my focus was still on the sweet embrace of the plant from before.

Shaking my head, I re-oriented my focus and thought about my next plan of action. The obelisk and the orb was definitely interesting, but I couldn’t risk meeting another group of apes and dying to them. Approaching them without a reliable method of avoiding their continued blasts of the explosion was just suicide.

I held my spear up high, inspecting the state of the tip. Most of the damages are now fixed, but I could see some dents here and there on the surface. A few more minutes, and this spear would be as good as new.

Scratching my head, I sat below a tall tree and relaxed. There was nothing I could do until my spear was fixed, anyway.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

The sun was still blaring in the sky as I held my spear directly across my face, inspecting every inch of the surface of the tip. The edge was almost completely clean now, and without my improved eyesight, there was no way I could spot any damage from the spear just from a glance at my eyes alone.

I looked back in the direction where I fought the ape, still hesitant about approaching them. After a few seconds of pacing around, I bit the bullet and walked deeper into the forest.

The way towards the obelisk was uneventful. I didn’t notice nor sense any incoming danger with my improved senses until I spotted the same glow from the obelisk again, only this time, I saw it from almost 3 times the distance I spotted it the first time.

My eyes widened in surprise when I saw a blue light whizzing around the obelisk.

It’s the blue orb.

Excitement peaked in my body as I ran towards it with utmost haste. The orb was still happily buzzing around as I stepped a few meters away from the obelisk. Then, with a sudden turn, it sped away, high in the sky.

Are you kidding me?

While my jump height has significantly increased, it was nothing compared to how high that thing flew. I thought of a few methods of catching it, mostly revolving around throwing things until something hit it.

I picked up a rock nearby and hurled it towards the blue orb with such a force that it almost ripped the air. The blue orb was still too agile for my futile attempt to hit it, and simply swerved sideways.

Guess that’s not happening.

With no other solutions, I walked back into the forest, pretending to give up. After gaining a solid amount of distance, I snuck back to the obelisk, changing my approach this time.

Shadow step. That’s the only way.

Sneaking my way back to the obelisk, I kept my eye on the orb as it gently dropped back towards the floor. It took a few minutes of it constantly turning and whizzing around, before it settled on its original position - right beside the obelisk. I crawled towards the closest bush behind the obelisk, preparing to strike.

The blue orb was happily dancing around before it noticed that something was amiss. As it turned toward where it thought the anomaly was, it saw a thick black smoke emanating from a thick bush a few meters away from itself. Alarmed, it propelled upwards, but not before it was grabbed inside someone’s palm.

“Got you!” I yelped when I felt the orb struggling to set itself free in my hand. The buzzing intensified as it began pulsating and whirling, the force nearly ripping itself apart between my fingers. I grabbed on tightly as it began glowing, as the orb gradually dissipates, replaced with a blue key inside my hand.

[You acquired 1x Blue portal key]

I headed towards the portal, the prompt from the system changed this time.

[Enter the portal? Failing the trial will result in death.]

That’s not something you want to see. I thought.

But if I remained still and didn’t take the opportunity to get stronger, I would die anyways.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

[You entered the portal.]

A similar ray of light appeared beneath the ground, shining upwards towards the sky. I felt my limbs gradually losing their senses before my vision went black.

[You have entered : The cube of trials #24]

The warm air of the forest was replaced with a stiff wind you’d typically feel inside an office room. The scenery was completely different as well; Currently, I was standing on a floating platform in a dark, metallic cube with perfectly symmetrical lines akin to the one in the obelisk, cutting each side of the cube into 5x5 squares. In the middle of each side of the cube, discounting the one below; 5 menacing cannons are aiming right towards where I stood. The dark surroundings activated my cloak’s ability, shrouding me in a dark mist.

Where the hell am I?

The backpack I was carrying and my spear was gone, too. I assumed that I’d get them back when I finish - or was killed by - this trial.

[Avoid the beams of light from the cannons from the cube. Each hit will reduce your total score. After 20 hits, you will die.]

[Select your difficulty]

[Easy] [Normal] [Hard]

“Okay…”, I whispered, the selection of options heavily resembled the games I’ve played during my childhood. Since getting hit a ton means death, it’d be wise if I select the easy option. But if I wanted the most reward, I’d choose the hard option.

If it was simply avoiding attacks, I was quite confident that I would be able to dodge whatever the cube was throwing at me. But of course, that only applied if the cube didn’t fire all of its cannons at once.

I bet all the cannons would shoot if I picked the hard option.

[Hard selected]

[Trial begins in 30 seconds. Avoid the beams of light for 1 minute. Your skills will be disabled.]

So, no shadow step? Alright…

I jogged and ran around the platform to get my adrenaline running. Obviously, I would be aiming for the perfect score. This was a fantastic opportunity to familiarize myself with the new senses that I gained.

[Trial begins. Good luck, Player Zane Black.]