The first thing Aaron sensed under the influence of the Focus Stone was his mana, followed quickly by what he now recognized as his Stamina and Vitality. His Vitality pulsed with his heartbeat, coursing through his body in waves. His Stamina was more stable, suffusing his whole body like water. There was a subtle tension to it, though, as though rather than water, it was gasoline, just waiting for a spark to ignite it. He guessed that this was what the orcs were using to accelerate their attacks.
He tried to focus on Stamina so he could figure out how to imitate the orcs, but found that he couldn’t. He could sense it within him, but there was something off about it. He wasn’t quite sensing the Stamina as Stamina. Rather, he was sensing the parts of it that functioned similarly to Mana and Vitality. The foundations of the energy. It was difficult to tell it apart from the other energies within him, so after a few minutes, he gave up and took a mental step back.
He assumed it had something to do with the Focus Stone. Douglas had mentioned that it helped focus on specific things, and when he started using it, he was thinking of the more raw aether that Mana, Vitality, and Stamina were based on, rather than Stamina itself. It was his own fault for not being intentional enough about it, but he wasn’t going to waste a 24-hour cooldown for a mistake.
Time passed rapidly as he lost himself in his senses. Most of the time, he didn’t feel like he was doing anything. He was just feeling the energy and how it moved within him. It was only at the end that he started to manipulate it, but just as he was starting to gain a bit of control, the effects of the Focus Stone wore off, and he returned to full consciousness.
He slowly stood up, his body feeling almost foreign to him. He had been vaguely aware of the aether, but after using the Focus Stone, he could now sense it not only within his body but also all around him as well.
He spent half an hour trying to manipulate it. He could do it, but it was difficult. Drawing it in was difficult, and moving it around within him was impossible for the current him, but even so, when he tried shadowboxing while just having the extra energy within him, he couldn’t help but grin. It wasn’t exactly what the orcs had done, but it was similar. He felt faster and stronger now. It wasn’t by much, and he was still not very good with it, but he knew he was going somewhat in the right direction. The only thing left to do was test it out.
Aaron was still massively underpowered when he returned to the trial, a fact that was only enhanced by still wearing the training Gi, but he didn’t believe himself ready to discard it just yet. Having to force himself to work harder to bridge the gap between them was providing undeniable insights.
However, he had a feeling that the power he had gained might just help him tip the odds.
In the first battle, he failed miserably. He dodged the first few strikes, same as before, but now that he was in front of an enemy, the energy just didn’t move quite well enough. Over the next ten deaths, though, he slowly got the hang of it, and on the eleventh, his efforts finally started to pay off.
He had grown accustomed to the strange acceleration of the orcs’ attacks and didn’t struggle to dodge them as much anymore, but it was still a struggle to land any blows in retaliation. He could graze them and leave thin cuts with his spiked gloves, but he could never land a solid enough blow to affect the outcome of the fight, until that eleventh attempt.
He was dodging the attacks as usual, backing up out of reach of the weapons when he saw an opening. It was an opening he had noticed multiple times already, but wasn’t fast enough to get there in time. This time, however, something clicked. He moved the aether in his legs, boosting him forward just fast enough that he made it underneath the orc’s guard and landed a powerful blow to its gut. The orc began to double over in pain, but before Aaron could enjoy his minor victory, he felt something brush his hair and woke up in the obsidian hall again.
If it bleeds, I can kill it, he thought with a chuckle.
He jumped back up to his feet and was about to re-enter the trial when he noticed Douglas watching him from the other side of the room.
“Need something?” asked Aaron.
“Oh, no, no,” said Douglas. “I was just… curious. Are you feeling alright?”
“What?”
“Headaches, shakiness, bouts of memory loss, intense feelings of existential dread… things like that.”
“No?” said Aaron, confused. “Why?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just curious.”
That’s not suspicious at all.
“Hey, Douglas, actually, there was something I’ve been meaning to ask you about the Trials.”
“Go ahead.”
“Can I level up here? Like if I kill those orcs, I get levels, right?”
“Wrong. The creatures of the Shadow Trials are merely copies, and therefore do not grant experience.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. If you want to level up, you need to beat the trial, which is most likely impossible. You can’t even kill one laborer, much less subjugate a tribe.”
“Bah, stop being such a downer. I’ve done it twice now. I can do it a third time.”
Strangely enough, Douglas didn’t protest any further and merely watched in silence as Aaron re-entered the Trial.
He went for another fifty or so more lives using his new energy manipulation before he hit a wall. He could see the attacks, he could dodge them, and he could react to openings, but he was still just too slow. He would land a solid blow, and then try to back away from the follow-up strike, and wouldn’t be able to move quickly enough to avoid the next attacks. He died ten more times like this before realizing that continuing on like that wasn’t practical. If he had infinite time, he might have done it, but he thought it would take a hundred, or possibly even a thousand, attempts before he would be able to defeat these orcs as he was.
So, he decided to take off the weighted gi.
Without its oppressive nature bearing down on him, Aaron’s speed and strength accelerated. It still wasn’t much compared to the orcs, but their skill was also nothing compared to his. As disadvantaged as he was, his situation still wasn’t hopeless due to how clumsy and uncoordinated they were. Their attacks were sloppy, thrown out at him without any consideration for what would come next. With such an incredible gulf of power between them, this hadn’t mattered. A level 9, fighting against such higher-level monsters and weakened by the Gi, it was like a child attempting to challenge a superhero. Now it was more like a man challenging superheroes, albeit a man who was a skilled fighter and tuned in to his body and senses like few others had ever achieved.
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Not only that, but his ability to manipulate the energy within him allowed him to push himself about ten to twenty percent more than he should be able to, and these two elements combined, allowed Aaron to keep up with his sloppy opponents.
Dodging and weaving through the battle, he saw his enemy’s attacks coming before they even made them, his eyes picking up on the finest details. He spotted the movement of every muscle and reacted accordingly. And through his superior skill, he was able to avoid a torrent of attacks he had no place avoiding.
Unlike he, who flowed from action to action, his enemies left an opening after every attack, and whilst his lack of strength made it hard to land serious damage, his precision and persistence meant it was starting to add up.
Soon, they were bloodied and bruised, and with their wounds, they began to slow further. But Aaron was not entirely unscathed. His Stats were still low, and as the battle went on, he realized that his energy reserves were too. He had figured out the technique to winning the battle, but he was beginning to wonder if his Stamina would keep up. He was on the verge of spending his free points on Fortitude when he apparently reached the orcs’ breaking points.
Not only did the orc tribesmen lack skill, but they also lacked a warrior’s conviction. Realizing the battle was lost, they attempted to flee. Even with everything he had achieved, Aaron could not keep pace with the higher-level monsters as they fled at top speed, and so he picked one target and lunged for it.
In flight, the orc put up even less of a defence, and Aaron’s attacks came unopposed, and several seconds later, after an exhausting number of landed strikes, it fell.
Panting atop the corpse, Aaron could hardly believe how far he had come. Sure, he had not slain all of the orcs, but only because they retreated. Had they stayed, they all would have faced the same fate.
At the same time, though, he also felt disappointed. He didn’t want to believe it when Douglas explained it before, but now that he had killed his first enemy, it was confirmed: he couldn’t level up without completing the trial. The denizens of the shadow realm weren’t real. They couldn’t grant experience points.
A shadow blocked the sun, and he looked up to see Yendal’s shimmering form standing over him.
“You couldn’t’a stuck around this time, mate?” he asked, panting. “Shown me a few moves? Woulda been nice.”
The shadow didn’t respond, as per usual.
Soon, he heard war drums in the distance and saw a cloud of dust approaching. He groaned, but got to his feet and readied himself in a fighter’s stance. Yendal stared at him the whole time.
“What?” he asked.
The shadow gave a slow, approving nod before vanishing again.
“Cocky bastard,” muttered Aaron.
Despite his annoyance, he actually felt quite proud. He knew that his entire relationship with the shadow was utterly irrational. It hadn’t helped him at all during this trial, and it seemed to enjoy watching him fail more than anything else. And yet, he still kept selecting it. Time and again, despite all his other options, he always came back to Yendal.
Was it stubborn pride? Just a deep desire to prove the shadow wrong? Or perhaps desperation? He definitely wanted to learn that shadow’s skills, even if he had to die a hundred times just to catch a glimpse of its footwork. Or maybe it was something more undefined. Some strange connection he felt that made him keep going back.
Whatever the case, he felt he was in too deep now. Before, he might have given up eventually, but after seeing that nod? Not a chance in hell. He had gotten it to acknowledge him, even if only a little. He was going to force it to acknowledge him more. And if he failed to do that? He would keep selecting them anyway, watch them closely, learn everything they knew, and then once he made it into the larger multiverse, he would find whichever god created that shadow and force them to acknowledge him.
Maybe I’m going a little crazy, he thought to himself with a smile. But crazy or not, I’m still going to show that cocky bastard what’s up.
Only a minute or two had passed by the time the orcs arrived to surround him. His Stamina had barely recovered, and his breathing was still heavy, but he still raised his fists against the oncoming horde.
“Come and try me, you ugly cunts!” he shouted.
He knew it would be his last attempt, possibly for a while. He didn’t know how long he had been working at this particular trial, but he figured it had been quite a while. At least a week. It was hard to keep track, since death refreshed him, so he had no need for sleep. His circadian rhythm was non-existent.
He still knew that he didn’t have time for this trial as he was, though. No matter how hard he worked, the orcs were simply too powerful for him. If it had taken him that many attempts to kill just a single orc, how long would it take to kill the entire tribe? He could spend his entire allotted year here, and he still might not reach the end. This would be his last attempt, at least for now, but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Or at least, that’s what he thought. However, instead of charging him as a group and chopping him to pieces, the orcs all formed a ring around him, and after a few seconds, one stepped forward to join him inside.
Orc Chieftain: lvl ???
Even without the label, a single glance was all Aaron needed to be able to tell that this was the chieftain of the tribe. He stood a head taller than the others and wore a cloak made of a patchwork of different furs and skins. Aaron saw some suspiciously human flesh-colored skin in it. Its hair was long and braided with countless rings, and in each hand, it held an axe whose head was the size of Aaron’s torso. It pointed at Aaron and said something in a foreign language, then pounded one of its axes on its chest before marching forward.
A challenge? thought Aaron.
He walked forward to meet the orc, who stopped when they were ten meters apart, so Aaron did the same. For a few seconds, they simply stood there, staring at each other. The orc’s gaze was terrifying, and Aaron felt like he was drowning in all the blood his opponent had spilled, but he held his ground and stared back in defiance.
Soon, the other orcs started chanting something else in the same foreign language. Aaron was confused about what the chant meant until it neared the end. He saw the chieftain’s legs tense, and he heard a change in the cadence of the chanting, and he immediately knew what was happening. He didn’t know the language, but he would recognize a countdown anywhere.
Aaron was half a step slow, but when the countdown ended, both he and the chieftain charged to meet each other in the center, shouting incomprehensible battlecries. The fight was over in less than a second. Aaron tried to dodge the first strike, but underestimated his opponent’s speed, and the axe came down on his shoulder, taking his arm off and continuing down into his thigh. The second strike took his head off, and a moment later, he was back in the hallway.
As soon as he was back, he leapt to his feet in excitement. He recalled the words he had now seen many dozens of times. “Subjugate or eradicate the Irontusk Clan.” The keyword was “subjugate.” He had been so focused on the “eradicate” part that he hadn’t much considered the other options, but if all he had to do was “subjugate” the tribe, would defeating the chieftain count? Their duel had clearly been a ritual of some kind. If he had won, would that have completed the quest? More importantly, if it did, could he win the duel?
He closed his eyes and thought back to the brief fight he had had with the chieftain. The orc’s axes were fast, sharp, and strong… but Aaron had only lost so quickly because he wasn’t prepared for it. If he had a few dozen more deaths…
Well, only one way to find out.
He cracked his knuckles, then slammed his hand back down on the trial dial to re-enter.