Tiny reacted almost too fast to follow.
He fell upon Legan, his armoured knee slamming into the other man’s mouth. Tom was sure it was completely accidental and at least one tooth went flying. The manoeuvre allowed the big man to get an arm up to block the axe swinging for his head.
There was a crack as the shaft of the axe collided with an armoured forearm. Tiny’s eyes widened slightly in pain, but the dangerous head of the axe failed to reach his flesh. The reverse was not true. Tiny’s second hand held a dagger, and it was positioned so the point was aimed at the other man’s stomach. Momentum did the rest as the axe fighter impaled himself.
With a grunt, Tiny twisted and threw the axeman, launching him two metres into the air.
“Hold,” Tiny thundered as a second dagger was produced and then casually pressed against Legan’s neck.
There was a thud and cracking sounds as the axe man landed awkwardly almost five metres away. While the fall in pre-earth terms had been significant, usually the man’s rank eight vitality and agility in Existentia should have let him land without doing damage to himself, but the dagger in his guts had obviously robbed him of his instincts.
Instead of rolling he splattered.
“Hold.” Tiny yelled again his eyes darting at everyone around him.
Tom went to move to heal the axeman, but both Clare and Michael were already on its way. With their advanced healing plus medical knowledge, Tom was sure he wasn’t needed.
“Yield,” Tiny hissed at Legan.
“I yield.”
Tiny stood and gestured to Pena who had moved initially to support Legen and then found herself helpless. Healers of their level could do little against a blade embedded in someone’s flesh. The big man counted down his fingers and when he hit zero, he yanked the sword out of the other man’s shoulder. Pena’s healing was coordinated with the sword’s withdrawal and the torrent of blood that should have accompanied the foreign object being removed from flesh never occurred, as she perfectly timed her spell.
The giant man stood, his enormous sword with red blood running down it held casually in one hand. “Anyone else want to challenge me?”
There was silence.
With preparation, there were probably thirty people here who could beat Tiny one on one. Tom being one of them. But none of them had prepared the battlefield, so no one said a thing. Legen had only been injured rather than killed, but that was more because of how one sided the fight had been. In a pitched battle, anything could happen.
“I didn’t think so. I’m on the first team. You can go do your precious votes for the other spots on it, but they better be good.” He swung his sword back to his shoulder. “Use…” then he stopped himself. “Tom, can you pave the way for us? I’ll have a group ready to go by the time you return. It’s about time I got to do something other than stupid council stuff and training.”
Tom let his eyes run over the crowd. Everlyn gave him a thumbs up. Michael nodded, encouraging him to go, and even Legan gave a stern nod toward him when he made eye contact.
As he had predicted, the lure of the first clear and associated title had caused violence, but it had not been as bad as it might have been.
Everyone was healed though the look in Legan’s eyes suggested there would be hell to pay later. Overall, it was an excellent result. Part of him regretted not monopolising the reward for himself, but it was only a rank seven trial. The first clear title wouldn’t be that impressive.
He went to work. For safe passage of multiple people, you needed to knock out three hives and Tom knew that if he knocked the one directly in line with the hive, they would swarm.
He focused on the ones on either side. One, two and then the third fell.
His arms ached from the effort.
When he turned to face the support camp a small part of him was worried that a pitched battle would greet his eyes. The concern was unnecessary as only a single team of four were coming in his direction.
It was a council team. Tiny, of course, led them. Michael had been drafted as the healer, Adofol and a girl that Tom didn’t know rounded out the team. Both the final two filling the damage rolls. The team, as Tiny had promised was going full offence.
Tiny grinned proudly. “Finally. I get to do something.”
“Good staying out of it, Michael.” Tom ribbed gently.
The healer had the grace not to respond.
“It was politics.” Tiny’s rumbled. “Michael, being on my team knocked the sails out of the competitors.”
Michael looked embarrassed.
“Good luck.” Tom offered as they went past.
“Don’t need it.” Tiny said good naturedly back to him and they vanished into the trial.
He debated what to do now and then caught sight of Everlyn who was acting in a guard role to prevent anyone else attempting to get in front of the first team. Despite Tiny’s team getting a head start, people would be tempted to rush in and try to catch up to beat them to first clear. That was dangerous because trying to speed run trials led to risk taking, which resulted in unnecessary deaths.
Plus, there was a very practical reason to send the best team first. Sometimes trials had themes and if this was that sort of dungeon, then Tiny’s team could come back with a cheat sheet of how to beat it. Things like ‘you need trap disarm skills’, ‘it’s infested with mimics’ or ‘don’t push the big button because the cave fills with fire’.
And yes, he could thank DEUS for having firsthand experience of all those calamities.
The button had just been sitting on a pedestal, everyone would have pressed it, Tom was sure of it.
He glanced between the guard, the uneasy crowd watching the trial, and the nearest hive. Everlyn and Thor were acting as guards. Harry was nowhere to be seen, almost certainly hiding in the shelter probably pretending to sleep, and Sven was off to the side chatting with three others presumably positioned to head into the trial.
Tom couldn’t be bothered. He trudged over to the nearest unbroken mound and the standard cycle began.
He swung the hammer hard, and a spray of shattered resin shot out. It sparkled in the midday sun.
Nothing happened to the hive.
He stepped back cautiously, listening to the escalating sounds of groaning.
The top wobbled, dipping to the side.
Don’t, he thought. Occasionally, instead of collapsing in on itself the top half would roll to the side. Those hives were always annoying to deal with because it meant he had to shatter almost the entire hive with his insignificant hammer.
It righted itself.
Tom sighed in relief.
The internal creaking got louder. It was coming from underground and above. That meant that the brittle tunnels below the ground were fracturing. That would erode the tunnel further.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Crash.
Sprays of fine crushed resin dust were expelled in a ring around the mound. It stung his bare legs as it passed, but only momentarily as his Elastic Skin removed what minor damage had been sustained.
Trumpets went off announcing his success, and he turned back and could tell at a glance that Tiny and the team had not emerged yet. The guards were no longer alert, the waiting teams were sitting on the ground.
Everlyn waved, and he jogged over to her.
Tom was amused to see a runner sprint back toward the shelter before he got halfway.
“What was that?” he asked when she got in range.
“Soup.”
His face puckered.
“Bug?”
She patted his leg sympathetically. “You can barely taste them. The council bought some veggies.”
“My taxes.” He mocked complained taking on a wounded voice.
“Trust me you won’t complain once you get the soup.”
The soup delivered, and Everlyn was right. The veggies - no matter how much they cost - were worthwhile and Tiny had not yet finished.
“How long do you think this will take?”
“To answer your real question, yes you might as well keep working.”
“That wasn’t…”
She rolled her eyes at him. He got up, snatched up his hammer, and hurried toward the nearest hive.
Mid-way through his demolition he saw movement out of the trial. Without stopping his attack, he repositioned to get a better view.
All four had emerged safely. They were happy but not ecstatic, but the team of four now walked more like a cohesive unit. They quickly got to the base camp and Tom watched the animated conversation that occurred even as his hammer kept smashing down, removing a bit of the supports with every swing.
Other groups approached and then disappeared into the trial.
Tom lowered his head and swung.
There were familiar sounds of cracking, and he danced backwards. This time, when it fell amongst a cloud of expelled shards he was far enough away to avoid the stinging dust.
Trumpets went off, and he immediately turned his back on the destruction and headed back to the team.
The tension of earlier was gone.
“Well!” he challenged Michael.
The healer gave him a thumbs up. “Your plan to defuse the situation worked perfectly.”
“Not what I’m talking about.”
Michael roared with laughter. “I know. You’ve been assigned a team.”
“Also, not what I want to know.”
“With me.” Everlyn chimed in happily.
“Good, but.” his eyes narrowed, his stare boring into Michael’s innocent expression.
“Was it worth it?”
Michael shrugged. “Every bit helps.”
Trial First Clear (II): Receive Extra information about unknown trials before entering. Upon entrance and during the trial there is a 2% chance of receiving advance warning about mini-bosses, bosses, places of interest and automatic completion of part of mini-map. (Roll occurs prior to each event.)
Awarded for: Being the first to clear a rank seven monster trial.
Uncommon Title. Competition Rank: 92nd, 2 Ranking Points, 100 experience.
Tom studied the title and then nodded. “A lot of fuss for not much.”
“I understand where everyone was coming from.” Michael said. “This was about as weak as we could imagine. But it’s level two, and it’s at odds on to trigger at least once in the larger trials. Do enough trials and that benefit adds up.”
“Can I do the trial now?”
“No. We’re rationing only a third in at a time.”
“What? So instead of doing fun stuff I need to go destroy another hive.”
“No.” Everlyn shook her head sadly. She held up two very familiar boxes.
“Where are they from?”
“Two hives that way.”
Mutely, he held out a hand. She opened the box and a wasp that had fluorescent pink bands came out. It dived at him and his will stopped the elemental from attacking.
The stinger plunged in. The venom injected inside him was new. Healing Tranquillity immediately isolated it.
Chimes went off in his head and then almost instantly the toxin was neutralised.
“Instant immunity.” He crowed.
“What was it?” Michael asked curiously.
Tom ducked into the system room and his eyebrows raised themselves unbidden at the description.
He returned to the real world immediately.
“Strongest so far. It was a Tier 3 anticoagulant.”
Everlyn smiled. “Tier 3. I’m glad you got immunity to it. That would have taken hours to do naturally.” She produced the second box and at his acquiescence she opened that, too.
This wasp was almost the same as the previous one. Pink and just as vicious.
Once more unknown venom entered his fingers. There were no chimes, so he carefully manipulated the toxin, letting bits of it flow until he could work out what it did. It attached to the channels that mana flowed down. Then started melting them.
He quickly pushed them clear.
“It burns out mana channels.” Tom reported.
Everlyn frowned. “No immediate immunity?”
“Afraid not. It’s weaker than the last, but given the nature of the attack I think we need to go really slow when building up immunity. Flesh and blood I can heal easily. Mana channels are harder.”
“Agreed.” Michael said immediately. “We’ll start gathering ingredients.”
Without hesitation, the team, or at least those not in the trial, kicked into action. They farmed the insects, and the healers delivered the venom.
Usually he would let the venom spread throughout his body, but this time not wanting to do potential permanent damage he locked it down in his extremities.
It was slow going and the stories from the most recent group to complete the trial filtered in. It was a variable configuration setup, which meant there was nothing to learn from the people who went before. Both monster types and layout constantly changed. The only similarity was that every trial contained wasps that ranged from the size of his fist to an elephant level. Some had a single stinger others five, and some were even humanoid.
The chime’s signal immunity went off and the venom he had been holding right under his skin was promptly purged.
He stood. “Wait or?”
“I would do one more hive.” Michael suggested. “The next slot for you to use is probably still half an hour away.
He went to work.
The hive collapsed, but there were no chimes of success.
“Damn it.” He knew that meant the queen lived somewhere under the rubble. He smashed his hammer into the remnants of the hive’s mound. Every blow sent shards flying. It reminded him of breaking up a concrete slab.
He kept hitting. Minutes passed, not worth the time.
The chimes went off.
He stepped into the system room.
Queen is dead.
That was official confirmation. Sometimes the hive registered as eliminated when the queen was only trapped. As a result, he had taken to monitoring the system message to make sure.
When he went over to the team, everything was significantly more upbeat.
Everlyn passed him a bowl of soup. “We can go when you’re finished. I figured after you spent five minutes pounding dirt, a break would be useful.”
“Yeah, the queen survived the collapse.” The soup was only lukewarm, but that made it easier to drain quickly.
“There’s a spoon.”
Tom ignored the suggestion. It was superfluous, as far as he was concerned. “Harry, have you done it?”
“Yep.” The ritualist shrugged. “It was easy. It’s been easy for everyone. After all, it’s rank seven rated and everyone here is a significantly better combatant than their rank suggests.”
“I can’t imagine your rituals doing much.”
Clare coughed politely. “I was in Harry’s team. His rituals are goddamn lethal.”
Tom examined Harry more closely. He had a class now. “You bought your class!” Harry’s rank did not feel like it had changed much. “Have you evelled at all?”
Harry nodded. “I’m level three. But after taking the class and those levels I’ve got access to eight extra rituals. Two combat ones.”
“The fire one is lethal,” Clare interrupted.
Harry waved the compliment away. “But that’s not the best gain. I chose a ritual that can progress a human bloodline.”
“Fate or affinity.”
“Both at the same time.”
“Can we set it up?”
The ritualist shook his head. “It needs special reagents and either a special location or specific celestial positioning.”
“Do people also have to dance naked around a campfire?” Everlyn asked suspiciously.
The poor man looked flustered. “Well, it helps the energy get in.”
“What!”
Harry studied his fingers nails. “Joke,” he admitted after a moment.
Tom was about to move back to talking about the trial, but something about the ritualist made him hesitant. There was something else. He knew more than he was letting on.
“How many auction credits and when?”
Harry pouted at those questions. “Did anyone tell him?”
“Nope, I’m just that good.” Tom told him.
Everyone around him was shaking their head.
With mock frustration, the ritualist threw his hands up in the air. “I can progress up to six people, including myself to tier three in two weeks’ time and it will only cost three thousand auction credits per person.”
“That’s it?”
Harry nodded. “Yes, the ritual uses tier one regents that we can purchase from the GODs shop and then I’m using celestial alignment to charge the ritual. If other people supply me with mana potions, I can probably extend the ritual to cover twelve people.”
“I’m in.” Tom said immediately.
“We all are,” Michael agreed. “Even if we plan to change blood lines later for that price we might as well get the general affinity bonus.
Tom stood. “Everlyn, I assume you’ve been briefed on the trial.” She nodded. “Anything I need to know?”
She shook her head. “It’s a fresh trial for everyone. Layout varies and just like,” she waved her hand to encompass the plain they are on. “Vulnerabilities changed. We’ll get in there and then you can summon whichever elemental we need and stomp it.”
“Is there a fastest clear?”
“Yes.”
He checked his mana. “I’m recovered, let’s go.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“We need to take a crafter with us and Keikain.”
“Who?”
“The earth mage, you probably call him two or something.” Everlyn said.
“Oh, him.”
“Yes, him,” she grinned. “And a crafter.”
“And where are they?”
“They’re in the shelter. They don’t have sufficient wraps to be out here.”
They entered it.
Keikain saw them. “Are we on?”
“Yes.” Tom said brightly. “But first I need to purchase some levels.”
He shut his eyes and was in his system room. He had experience from almost six days of clearing different variants of wasps and every new variant refreshed the experience counter. It was time to check his progress and spend his experience points.