They found him there, bleeding and broken, a step away from death. Jonathan did not bar the girls from him. He would have in any other situation.
“I must look like shit, huh,” Rafe said with forced levity.
He tried to smile, but it only came off as a grimace. Maria grabbed at his guts, trying to force them back in.
“Bird! Bird! You must heal him, hurry!”
Jonathan knelt next to his wife. The girls were white, looking at him in confusion. They knew what was happening, knew it was normal. They had just never experienced it before.
They were confused. Rafe was too.
He didn't know what to do with himself. His hands were cold and couldn't move anymore, only his mouth could. He could only speak, but he knew not what to say. This had never been a problem before. No one had ever cried for him. There had been no one to cry for him before. They were the first.
“My name…I remembered my name. It's Rafael. Rafael Kingsley.”
Jonathan was holding onto his sobbing wife, but he let go of her when he had Rafe speak. He crept closer to the boy's head, cradling it. The girls decided to move closer too.
“No. You are mine. You are Rafael Kingsley Wilde, you got it?”
Rafe grinned, or he tried to. He hoped it came out okay.
“Yes…sir,” he coughed. “Can I…ask you to visit my friend's grave? Orlandir, I buried him in—”
“Yes, son. We'll do it,” Maria leaned forward and grabbed his face, leaning her brow against his.
“I see …thank you for everythi—”
A beam of light shot from the sky and shone straight on the family of five. It highlighted Rafe, healed him faster than was believable. It also made him shorter, smaller, softer. He lost his calluses, muscles, and height advantage.
He was shining like a disco ball though, so there was that. Rafe found himself floating, leaving the others on the ground, not understanding what was happening.
He saw what had been happening in the arena whilst he'd been occupied by his family. He saw the patriarch of house Ellan get his head chopped off. He saw the guards bend the knee, not daring to enter the arena, perhaps afraid he'd resurrect again. And maybe they had been right, because the light carried him up, made a spectacle of him.
He was like the son of a god returning to their father's side. The Wildes were standing directly under the light, looking up with stupefied faces. The whole city, the guards who'd chased him earlier in the day, the citizens who'd hidden from news of his entry, the adventurers, even the other nobles and royals watched him ascend from their keeps.
He smiled down at the Wildes, grinned at them. Annie reacted first, jumping and hollering at the top of her lungs.
“That's my boy!” Jonathan said, his hands capped over his mouth. “That's my boy!”
Maria could only put her hand on her mouth and goggle at him, even more tears streaming from her eyes now. With one last fond look at the world below, Rafael Kingsley ascended, finishing a legacy trial. He was the first person to ever complete the fourth Skyholm's simplistic yet grating trial.
****
The feeling of weightlessness, of flight, lasted far longer than Rafe would have expected. He thought he saw a patch of shadows ascend with him, but he decided not to ask any questions.
There was a singular figure standing in the emptiness he stepped through, watching him, waiting for him.
“Welcome, disciple. That sure was something back there, wasn't it? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on—”
“Why the fuck am I a kid again?!” Rafe demanded.
The old version of his friend and mentor winced, scanning him up and down. He shrugged after a protracted moment of silence.
“Well, your mental projection did change a bit in there, didn't it? Your body didn't, I'm afraid to say, as it has experienced the real-time equivalent of one month since you entered the trial.”
“What are you talking about? Mental projection? Body…what?!”
“Well I meant that your body didn't get to enter the—”
“I can understand that. What I don't get is why. How? It felt so real.”
“It is a mental projection world therefore entering it with your real body is a bit…”
He seemed to have nothing more to say. Rafe took a long breath, let it out. He didn't need to breathe as he was just a mental projection. Plus there was no air to breathe since he was in the…huh?
“How is there air here?”
“Hmmm? Oh, this is a part of the void we managed to get under our control, and by we I mean the enchantress. You do remember one of her titles, colonist of the void?” Noid asked.
“Yeah?”
“Well, the enchantress was a weird god. She didn't have the easiest life growing up and only ascended to godhood because she had a dream. First off, she ascended much faster than anyone ever had before. In real-time, it took her less than twenty-five years of life to kill the Demon God and steal his mantle. That's also when she got the mantle of Skyholm, although she wasn't even yet a god at the time. In her world, she was considered to be about twenty-four at the time. Truly an amazing feat. Of course that was only in real time. She'd spent thousands of years, unbeknownst to many, climbing the tower to—”
He jolted from his bumbling, blinking around like a naughty child caught with his hand in a peanut butter jar.
“That is not our reason for meeting like this, disciple, so we best get to that I suppose. In conclusion, the enchantress didn't want to outlive her mortal friends, so she discovered a way to harness the chaotic temporal energies of the void to spend thousands of years with only a few passing on the outside.”
“I…see.”
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Rafe glanced around too, seeing nothing. He shrugged and plowed on.
“Say, where is that body of mine?”
“You'll get it back shortly. Fret not. Mine is to reward you for successfully completing the trial. You are the first ever to reach this stage in my particular trial, so that's something.”
“The other trials have been completed before, then?”
“Oh, lots of times. Everyone always completes those things. It's nothing special.”
The void roiled around them, undulating, pulsating in ominous motions. Dark and mysterious, it wanted them to remember its presence, its looming ubiquity.
Noid puffed his cheeks out like a petulant child.
“We are remnants of the greatest gods our universe saw before the multiverse, is it too much to expect a little maturity?”
The void only rumbled louder, a little more pointedly.
“Fine,” Noid rolled his eyes. “It isn't about difficulty. It's more about the whole dying thing.”
Rafe looked at him in confusion.
Noid shrugged. “My trial starts with dangers stronger than my challengers, normally by a lot. The hotter the forge, the better the sword after all, provided the metal can survive the heat.”
“Oh,” Rafe nodded at that, completely agreeing with his mentor.
“It is a given that my challengers have to die, especially early on in the challenge. Later on, when they've improved they should die a lot less even when fighting stronger opponents. The thing is, dying all those times…it kind of messes with the mind a bit.”
“Ahhh,” Rafe nodded in understanding.
“Besides, the other's trials aren't a hundred percent about death and dealing it. Take Enith for example. Genius that she is, she wasn't exactly a fighter. She was a mage first and foremost, an enchantress. She thrives at a distance, even built her whole sword style around keeping her enemies at a distance. The others actually have a lot more options of what they can teach their challengers. Take the thief. You fought her, right? She was a rogue class. Assassins, thieves, shadow wielders, spies, even talisman specialists.
“Take Liam - that's how we shortened Ah-Riam’s name, by the way- he had seven aspects. Aspects would be specialisations in the system era, high-affinity classes. He was also a soul architect and that is not a small thing, not small at all. And then there is Master Granderel. Well, he didn't fight over you since he's not human, but space, he mastered the space affinity like no other. He was also born with it, but you get the picture. The system can give you skills depending on the people you interact with, train with. He takes the most advantage of this, being as his is a very specialised situation. And then Sendriel of the Sands. Mostly she works with beasts or their descendants, just helping them with their bloodlines and concepts and how to elevate even a truth forced upon them by their bloodlines.
“She was after all forced to pursue a truth of rebirth through flames, and yet managed to incorporate fate and make it the main aspect of her truth. Immortal fate. Immortality and fate.”
“So their trials are more diverse than yours? That didn't explain anything.”
“Well, there is also the fact that mine is a little longer than most. I mean, in my defense, it took me decades to master swordplay. I am good at swords, no doubt about it. I cannot fathom a world where my trial takes only two years of subjective time. The others do that, but my bare minimum is five, and no one ever made it that far because of so many issues.”
“Like the dying?”
“The dying. The time dilation. Being separated from reality that long is dangerous at the best of times. You noticed, didn't you? When I gave you back your memories?”
Rafe's eyes widened. “The hallucinations. My family. The elemenoids from the dungeon.”
“Yes, well, not hallucinations.”
“Huh?”
“That was your mind trying to get back to reality, to its own time instead of this subjective reality and time. Prolonged stay in time dilation can make that state permanent, resulting in madness, brain death, catatonia. Only one person ever had the ability to withstand time dilation that long at a low level. Well, one person before now.”
“I somehow gained a skill to withstand time dilation, hence I was the first to spend almost four decades in a Skyholm trial of any kind?”
“That's basically it. Here, allow me to unlock your status screen for you, will you?”
The blue screen popped up in front of Rafe again.
Name: Rafael Kingsley
Race: Human lvl (N/A)
Class: (N/A) lvl (N/A)
Health: 150
Stamina: 190
Stats
Strength: 19
Agility: 49
Coordination: 41
Vitality: 15
Intelligence: 15
Endurance: 19
Wisdom: 16
Paranormal: ???
Skills:
Steady footing (lvl. 307)You are fit, you always land on your feet. Upgradeable skill.
Swordsman's Footwork (lvl. 278)You are fleet of foot. All your moves are like a choreographed dance.
Battle intent (aura skill) (lvl. 293)A veteran of many battles, blood cuddles the air around you, protecting you from the auras of others while oppressing those weaker than you. You are more sensitive to the aura of others. Control and strength of passive effects increases with an increase in skill level. Upgradeable skill(optional).
Adamance of the blade (???????) (lvl. 3)Your willpower is sharp as a blade. Adverse effects of prolonged exposure to time dilation are slightly mitigated. The effect increases with an increase in willpower and an increase in skill level. That was interesting. Rafe hadn't seen anything about willpower on his status screen, as far as he could remember.
Ambidextrous (lvl. 120)Left-handed? Wrong! Right-handed, right? Wrong! You can use both of them, either of them. Efficiency increases with an increase in coordination. Efficacy of coordination increases with an increase in skill level.
No upgradeable skill? Come to think of it, swordsman's footwork didn't have one as well.
Quickdraw (lvl. 190)You draw your sword faster than light moves. Speed of draw increases with an increase in coordination. Efficacy of coordination increases with skill level.
Two skills that scaled with coordination, his second-best stat, hmm? And he'd just been thinking of ways to improve his application of the stat.
Parry (lvl. 207)A 10% chance to deflect magical attacks and a 50% chance to deflect all physical attacks. 90% chance to deflect attacks made with a sword. Chance of deflection increases with an increase in skill level. Upgradeable skill.
Puppeteer's Rubber body (uncommon) (lvl. 50)Passively increases your dexterity, and flexibility. Your body is easier to control, your movements easier to influence, your bones easier to bend. A small amount of reserved stamina is reserved during rest, enough fuel to keep moving for hours as long you don't stop for more than two seconds. The amount of stamina reserved is reduced with increase in skill level.
That explained why a bit of stamina had him moving a whole day, and why once he stopped that stamina had immediately dissipated, spent.
Physical fitness (lvl. 73)There are myriad ways to increase your stats, and you've discovered one of them. Allows your muscles to more readily absorb essence to minutely boost your physical stats. Efficiency of absorption increases with an increase in skill level.
Metallurgy (lvl. 120)You are a walking encyclopedia on the lore of metals in the multiverse. Upgradeable skill.
Blacksmith (lvl. 57)You are competent with metal and fire. Heat resistance increases with skill level. Proficiency increases with skill level. Upgradeable skill(optional).
“Nice, this could double as a defense against fire magic in the future.”
Noid only grunted, showing exactly how much that interested him.
Heavy blow (lvl. 220)A 50% increase in the effect of strength at the point of impact when the skill is activated. Effect increases with increase in skill level.
Survivalist (Rare) (lvl. 5)Nature is your ally, and in it, you can lie. The cold, the frost, the pests, the unrelenting heat, you can survive it all. Resistance to natural phenomena increases with an increase in skill level. Sensitivity to dangerous fluctuations in the wild increases with an increase in skill level. Upgradeable skill.
Aeon Warrior's trance (Epic) (lvl. 124)The world fades, and all you see is your enemy's blade. Control increases with an increase in skill level.
“...shit!”
“Hey, I can answer your question before you can even think of it. Aeon was the name of my world.”
“No, fuck that. This skill is so highly leveled. I still can hardly control it!”
Noid looked at him with a frown, then looked at the void around them. No reaction from the others. He shrugged.
“It's the rarity. You're too weak to control an epic skill, so it controls you sometimes. I'd suggest not leveling it too much.”
“Kind of hard to do when it's mostly a passive skill.”
“Yeah, that it is. Also, epic skills shouldn't level above one hundred, just thought I'd let you know that.”
“What?! But I have skills without rarity tags past the two hundred?! That makes no sense.”
“You haven't seen the worst of it,” he said ominously.
“The worst of…”
Then he saw it.
Aeon's sword mastery (lvl. 761)The swordsmen of Aeon had four schools of swordplay. Few are those who could learn them all. Like your master before you, you can learn all four schools of swordplay, and so many more. Proficiency increases with an increase in skill level. Upgradeable skill(optional)
Error! Skill has skipped multiple upgrade or evolution thresholds.
Effects unknown.
“...so? Any questions?”
