His rank eight strength should elevate him to Olympic athlete abilities. Add in the boost that Lightning Steps provided, then Tom believed he could make the jump. In any case, he was already running too fast to stop.
Ten metres felt more than doable.
Power flexed through the foot when he pushed off the ground. His class skill responded to his mental urging lightning crackled from his sole right up to his hip.
Then he was flying.
Soaring through the air. It was nothing like what he had achieved at his peak in the DEUS tutorial, but it was going to be enough for today.
The shiny wall loomed upon him faster than he would have liked.
He channelled his new Earth Manipulation skill through hands, feet, knees and nose, softening the wall enough to create hand holds. The wall punched him, but instead of smacking into a solid surface it gave in key spots. A slight give in each of the places where he had focused his Earth Manipulation abilities allowed him to bleed off his kinetic energy. The breath was still blasted out of him.
Hard stone jarred his knee, which screamed in agony, and his nose, despite the attempt to soften that part of the wall, got squished. Touch Heal immediately closed off the bloody nose. The cliff was perfectly sheer and instinctively his hands tightened on the rock even as the nature of his Earth Manipulation ability changed. Then the hands clutched solid stone. His right foot slipped, and it scrambled for only a moment till he found the small lip of stone his initial collision had created in the smooth rock. His left leg dangled before he forcefully kicked the wall while applying his new power. The hard rock gave way, granting him a place for the foot as well. Tom would definitely need to monitor that in the future apparently his capacity to multitask Earth Manipulation on all four limbs simultaneously was lacking.
With another gasp of breath, he looked around, completely secure with four handholds. Possibly, his confidence of jumping over ten metres was a little misplaced. He had hit the wall slightly below the level he had leapt from. The ploy, however, was a raging success, as it had left him five metres up the wall and skipped the difficulty of getting down from his starting position crossing the ravine floor, and then climbing. The savings to time and probably mana were significant.
With complaining joints, Tom actively kicked in Healing Tranquillity. There should be nothing major, given he had already dealt with the bloody nose, but sometimes it was worth checking. His consciousness spread throughout him, monitoring his internals. There was no structural damage anywhere only bruises, minor tears, and a bit of crumbled cartilage. It was enough damage that his right knee was going to swell something shocking. However, for the next couple of minutes, his mobility would not be altered.
It was tempting to fix those problems, but pragmatism won out. He would preserve his mana even knowing that allowing the swelling to set in would ultimately increase the cost required to heal himself. There was a big difference between using mana in the safety of a safe area versus here where every second counted and every point of mana might help him finish sooner.
His right hand pulled out of rock and reached up.
With rigid fingers, he thrust his hand at the cliff.
The stone softened through more like he was poking clay than water. It jarred his fingers slightly, but the rock gave enough that there was no chance of breaking bones. It was barely a handhold, only a couple of centimetres deep, but it was solid. Foot up above the other knee. An edge of Earth Manipulation his toes.
Dig it in. Rock shifted out and created a toe hold.
Push off.
Other leg, other hand and same use of his power. Reforming the perfect stone wall to have convenient hand holds spaced perfectly for him. Apart from the extra mental concentration, it was almost like going up a ladder. Impossibly quickly, he scrambled up the sheer wall. He was like a monkey scrambling up the tree, his expertise over Earth Manipulation making a mockery of the challenge presented.
While the principle behind this sort of climbing was basic enough, there were different stages of proficiency. Someone new to the skill would form the handholds purely with magical energy. If they attempted climbing, they would be like a snail. Others would combine mental effort with physical and probably be able to go faster, but that was nothing like what Tom did. He did single movements with no delay or apparent focus. When he climbed, it was as if the fingerholds were already there. Tom’s execution was flawless. Decades of experience let him channel the Spell through foot or fingers. Hundred of hours of practice that allowed him to apply just the right force and magical focus. The ability to shove his fingers at the rock and only penetrate the critical three centimetres to facilitate him climbing. If he employed too much power, then each blow would have gone through to his wrist, which with the extra wastage he would have rapidly expended his mana pool.
His ridiculous expertise allowed him to save mana and to ignore the challenge path and instead climb straight up the sheer cliff.
It worked. Metre after metre, he climbed.
The mana crystal in his mouth supplemented his reserves. Hand over foot, he scrambled up completely ignoring the recommended pathway.
The entirety of his focus on each precise strike on the stone.
His searching hand hit the air when he thrust it forward.
There was only a moment of confusion before he realised what had happened. Smiling happily, he brought his hand down five centimetres till he hit the smooth surface and the flat edge. Tom clenched his hand like he was gripping a handle bar and his fingers dug into the flat stone of the platform.
Then he scrambled forward not bothering to conserve mana as he pushed to go faster. His foot when it hit the wall instead of creating a toe hole created a depression large enough to rest the balls of his feet on.
He threw himself up and over the lip onto the glowing floor.
Chimes sound and he gasped for breath.
Quickly he checked his mana pool. Almost seventy was left in his crystal, which was far better than what he had expected.
Congratulations, you have reached the second safe zone.
Mana will be refilled, and all injuries healed.
Tom could feel mana flowing into him and his aching knee stopped hurting. Even the need to suck in oxygen vanished.
Tier one spell Thrown Rock learnt.
You have one minute to familiarise yourself with the ability.
Information on the spell flowed into him. The first step was to get a pebble and then throw it. Then, during the throw, he could increase its weight and speed. Instead of the pebble hitting hard enough to bruise it would strike like a cannon ball. For a tier one spell, it had an impressive level of raw destructive potential. But as it was tier one it came with limitations. The primary one was that he needed to supply the ammunition. Given enough time to replenish his mana, he could create perfect pebbles to throw and fill his soul storage.
Cautiously, he reached down and plucked a piece of rock from the ground and looked out at his target on the other side of the ravine. There was no protective dome to worry about. He stood upon a three metre wide platform open to the air with only a single mostly opaque glowing blue wall that would prevent him from entering the tunnel into the ravine wall that was his obvious future destination. Tom tried to recall how to do this. He was not throwing a spear or boomerang. This was a stone, something he had only really done on Earth. Throwing a ball in the backyard and at baseball practice. He could barely remember how to do it. Nevertheless, he picked a spot on the far wall. Then stepped into a throw, launching the pebble as hard as he could. When he opened his fingers to launch the stone, he used the new ability to quadruple its weight. The rock flew the forty metres across the ravine to smack into the wall with more noise than its initial size suggested.
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“That worked.”
Mana flooded into him, replenishing what he had used.
He did it again, and this time tried to increase both speed and mass. The rock flew significantly faster than the previous one and was noticeably less affected by gravity, striking the far wall five metres higher. Instead of clattering away when it struck the opposite cliff face it shattered and damaged the wall as well.
“Nice. A little mana intensive, but that’s going to give someone a bad day.” He muttered to himself.
Next, he picked up an existing pebble and threw that. Same result as the previous throw as it exploded when it hit the wall, but less mana.
“How about this?”
He kicked the ground experimentally. Earth Manipulation created the stone he was after, but the Thrown Rock ability failed to activate.
Not that.
This time, he targeted an already formed rock. The stone ricocheted off his foot far faster than it should have, as his new spell interacted with it. It flew off and cracked into the wall. Instead of shattering it broke in half as the kick had imparted less initial speed than his throw.
Mana rushed in to replenish everything that he was using.
Ammo.
He remembered his earlier idle thought. Ammunition was only limited by mana and time.
Tom knelt down and put a hand on the platform.
His mana flooded out, filling the rock. He wanted the equivalent of river pebbles to throw preferably as heavy as possible. There was nothing efficient in what he did, but the ground churned as rocks formed and then were compressed into a denser state and then slipped into his inventory. That volume was limited, but identical items stacked and the stones he produced were all the same.
Super Dense Throwing Rocks (Tier 1)
These stones created by a level one earth manipulation Spell have been strengthened and condensed by using an extensive amount of mana and pushed them up a tier.
Tier one, Tom noticed with approval.
Unlimited mana and imagination could achieve a lot. The pebbles that were appearing vanished into his inventory which would give him mana free access to ammunition for the coming trial. As the stone disappeared, the platform he was standing on lowered itself by almost a foot as he cannibalised the mass.
Most of the drop Tom knew was the condensing of the rock that he was driving.
With the knowledge he was on the clock, and with ammunition available, he started kicking the floor again. It was more stomp than kick, but the stone appeared and shot in the direction he wanted.
Multitasking
He got better.
The inventory was full. This time when he kicked he expelled a pebble from his inventory.
It worked, Throw Rock activated. The kick veered well off to the side, but from close range it would be useful.
Another rock from his soul storage.
Same result.
With a pre-existing rock, he could consistently get the new spell to be unleashed with a kick. However, combining the creation of ammunition with the Throw Rock ability it felt like his failure percentage was over fifty percent.
Emergency only. He decided. At least till he had a thousand hours of experience and could create, kick, trigger the spell and get the damn thing to go where it was needed consistently. Still, he was pleased that he had developed the ability. He could very much see the ability being useful when he was about to be swarmed.
Spell Familiarisation period has expired.
One minute till start. Mana will no longer be replenished.
The message flashed up and Tom instantly stopped his practice. He would need all of his mana for what was coming and focused on this surrounding. His destination was obviously the tunnel, which was still blocked by the partially opaque glowing shield. The gap was wide enough for four people to march abreast, and almost sufficiently high for the giant he fought in the temporary trial.
The real question was what the next stage was going to demand he do. Tom hoped it involved killing.
“What do I have to do?”
Go through the tunnel.
“Enemies?”
There are no enemies. Sections of the cave will be blocked by Looba plugs. Your task is to get through as quickly as possible and destroy as many of them as possible.
“What are looba plugs?”
They are substance which are highly resistant to magic and piercing but are fragile and shatter if hit with sufficient force.
Basically, it was a course designed to test his new skill. There was no pretence of a natural event, but Tom guessed in a challenge trial there was no need for such niceties.
“What are the victory conditions?”
Time and completeness.
“I need to smash all the plugs?”
Yes.
“Understood. Can I get a ten second countdown?”
With four pebbles in his left hand and one in his right, he waited.
Hopefully, the plugs would shatter with a single throw… However Tom doubted that was the case. The Thrown Rock spell allowed him to moderate the power each throw and he would need to calibrate his ability to destroy each plug with a minimum of mana expenditure even if it took multiple throws.
10, 9, 8… 2, 1
The barrier that had been separating him from the tunnel vanished and he surged forward. The instant he turned the corner, he saw two plugs. They were white, with orange fractures through them, and were incredibly distinctive. One rested on the ground denying his path forward the other from the ceiling and was only a target for practice. There was a golf ball sized stone at his feet. He kicked it, triggering his new spell, and then threw the pebble a moment later at the higher plug.
Both of his projectiles whistled through the air and struck with a muffled boom.
Almost at the same time, the two plugs shattered, and he sprinted through the debris that rained down from up above.
Tom spun around the corner.
There were four plugs all above the height he could kick rocks at them. They were also higher and more distant than the first two. Tom forced himself to stop to make sure of the throws. The two closest ones exploded, then the third was a larger challenge. Not only was the plug smaller no bigger than a buckler it was also twenty metres away. It was just at the edge of the distance he could throw unaugmented. The rock slammed into the dirt of the cave wall in a puff of dust. The exit to the room was to his left, but he could walk forward to get closer.
He adjusted the throw, and the plug exploded.
The next plug was more the size of the door but also thirty meters away, which with the roof only half as high as him again above his head he would not have been able to hit unaugmented. Basically, he lacked the strength to launch the rock that far without putting a fair arc on it and if he tried that the stone would have hit the roof.
Luckily, the increase in speed with Throw Rock meant that was not a problem. He aimed a metre above the plug and threw.
The stone struck high on the door but did not shatter it.
Tom, with a thought produced another pebble to throw. Even as the rock left his hand, he knew he had a direct hit and with it already weakened it was bound to smash.
Tom took off at a run only glancing back when he reached the exit to confirm that the plug had indeed shattered.
With a curse, at his single miss he kept running. Most of the time he didn’t have to slow down as a couple of kicks and a trio of throws could clear the bulk of the obstacles.
Despite what Tom considered to be a relatively efficient use of mana, his reserves dropped alarmingly.
There was a yellow glow of the exit and Tom destroyed the nearby plugs without difficulty and then paused. Once more, he was crossing a large long cavern and down the other end, mocking him was a single plug. It was massive, being the size of a golf cart. It was also the greater part of eighty metres away. That was most of a football field, and he had to hit it hard enough to break the strange substance.
Tom pulled out a stone and started throwing. He didn’t even wait for the first to land before launching the second and third. The first and third missed, but the second didn’t and critically it damaged the plug. He kept throwing. Every attempt, he adjusted things slightly and the focus helped. He was hitting more often than he missed.
Cracks radiated out from the plug. It was broken, but not shattered. Tom hoped that when it gave way, it wouldn’t be a crazy outcome, like the bottom half shattering but not the top.
Another rock appeared in his hand. Focus, he implored himself in the safety of his own head. He needed to hit it perfectly in the center. All this chipping away at the edge was wasting time.
His previous rock hit, right in the corner, but the plug flashed and then like it had passed some arbitrary damage threshold the whole thing shattered.
Done.
That was forty seconds gone and Tom wondered if he should have run closer or not. It was too late to worry. The fact he hadn’t meant that he was now close to the end zone. He lowered his head and sprinted and burst into the safe zone.
Internally, Tom had rated his first effort a ten and this one a solid nine. Unfortunately, his throwing arm had let him down badly, but just like in the first challenge. Mana had been a consideration, and not having to create a single stone from scratch definitely made the fight easier. If he hadn’t pre-made them, he suspected that this run would have been closer to a five because he would have only been throwing tier zero stones and running right up to plugs, because there was no cost why not as he would have been waiting for his mana to regenerated and given its scarcity he would have needed to guarantee each stone hit. Tom pitied people attempting this challenge without his experience.
Tom frowned at how much of a difference creating the ammo had been. If he hadn’t done that, then his performance would have been closer to a five, or maybe he was a harsh marker.
Congratulations, you have reached the third safe zone.
Mana will be refilled, and all injuries healed.
You have one minute before the start of the next stage.
His laboured breath vanished as healing hit him, and Tom jumped to his feet. He had thought about pre-creating ammo, so what ifs were pointless. He would just need to trust his experience to find the best exploits for each of the coming task.
“No new spell.”
No.
“What is the nature of the challenge?”
Reach the next safe zone and destroy all plugs.
Tom looked down at where he had to go. He was standing on a platform on the wall of the ravine. Higher than first platform as it was now closer to the sky than the floor but the dotted yellow line leg down to bottom. A reverse of his first test. There were also plugs marked, some on the nearest wall and others on the far side, which was an eighty metre long throw, and Tom remembered the plug he destroyed.
To knock them out, he either needed to use heavier starting rocks or it would take ten plus throws per plug.
“I assume I should aim to break all of them.”
Yes.
Tom’s battle instincts kicked in. He had a minute to reshape the nature of the trial in his favour once more.