Regardless, this kind of inference was rendered moot when Axl got a notification.
>>Challenge and Transit Rift: Greenhouse Crossroads
>>Update: Combatants should enter the central duel arena when ready. Assistance staff to be at their location to the side of central duel arena. Duels will occur sequentially, with limited time available between duels to convene with assistance staff and decide if trial should continue or terminate.
Axl nodded at the very convenient notification, glad the system wasn’t really interested in getting them killed by say tricking them into swapping locations for the trials, or some other dumb shit like that. At least not right now. He was still not fully convinced it would stay that way as Terrania's sub-system clashed more openly against other ones that were more integrated into the Deep System, but that was certainly a problem for much later, if at all.
As he went further into the room, he noticed that the walls and floor weren't quite so even, but were in fact made of little pieces of stone placed close together, each barely a quarter the size of a keyboard's key. Looking to the nearest section of wall, the entrance now closed with a heavy set of even wooden doors, he noticed that the Mana in each little stone was unique, a very pure but faint reflection of a specific attunement. A small section of the wall's stones attuned to apparently random Mana suddenly looked like the petal of a flower, and then he could see the flower itself.
I've read about these. They’re a form of pixel-based image before people had screens in antiquity. Mosaics, or maybe pointillism? Axl regretted not reading more about pre-industrial history and wondered how this coincidence could come about. Maybe it was just natural that both humans and elves would independently make a big image from smaller pieces. But then again, he was put into the body of an elf eerily like the ones written about in the age of electrics, and he had a hard time believing that was a coincidence.
Widening his Perception and focusing all his attention now on [Mana Shroud], Axl took a long look at the trial's chamber, the mess of Mana forming distinct images once looked at properly. Each of the four walls formed the image of a creature, and after staring long enough, he figured they would be the first four trials, what he'd have to fight.
One after another, the patterns in the walls became clear, starting with the one they came through, the western wall with the simplest Mana signature. It showed a large plant with distinctly bear-like features, its Mana dominated by attunements linked to physical prowess and martial strength. This one felt clear—a big, meaty Endurance fighter with plenty of other physical Attributes. The next to resolve was the eastern wall, which showed a flying snake, the Mana on this one was rather confusing, as if it were hinting at disparate concepts that didn't quite mesh together.
The southern wall depicted a short creature with a reptile's head, wearing half-plate and wielding a spear, a small shield in its left hand, and a shortsword on hilt. It very much looked like one of the versatility-focused warriors that Axl saw at the orcish camp, one that specialized in being able to fill any role in a party. He immediately looked forward to that fight, since those were the ones that offered up the most surprises in a duel, what he learned the most from, but also the one most likely to trip him up.
The northern wall depicted a tree, its Mana the usual mix of nature and earth, but with hint of mind and a heavy dose of soul-based attunement to it, which Axl smiled at, realizing his [Mind-Soul Bulwark] and [Filial Shroud] would likely give him a huge leg up in that part of the duel. He didn't even know that Mana attunements linked to that were possible, which made him really want to find natural treasures related to them, maximizing his advantages on that front.
He knew there was a fifth part to the trial, but the floor was just an even gradient of lightly shifting Mana that clearly wasn't indicating anything, just showcasing different types of Mana attunements at random. The ceiling was almost the opposite, a confusing distribution of Mana that he couldn't parse. It was clearly not random, but something very complex and layered, and every time he felt he had grabbed a corner of it, it shifted, and then he felt Moxlin poke him in the cheek.
"Hey, you've been staring at the ceiling for like an hour."
"Oh," Axl shook his head, getting his head back in the game. "It didn’t feel like that long. The patterns in the stone gave me hints on the trials, so I figured that's part of it too."
"Yeah," Moxlin nodded. "I also saw some of that in the first two walls after some staring, but nothing else in the other ones, no matter how much I tried. Be careful with that snake, it's clearly a glyphic spellcaster that can fly around, so it will likely try to out-range you."
"I couldn't tell that at all, the Mana just seemed confusing on that one. How do you know it uses glyphs?"
Moxlin puffed up in pride. "Oho, I guess our prodigal scion doesn't know everything, tumbling out of his egg with the heavens feeding him dewdrop ambrosia with her own loving lips."
"Elves aren't born from eggs," Axl shrugged, after a moment sifting through Roken's memories to be sure that wasn't actually the case.
"Then the usual disgusting cheating it is." Moxlin then turned serious, with only a shadow of a shit-eating grin on her face. "But about the snake, I can tell that the Mana is just showing the effect of the glyphic spellcasting, since glyphs are something beyond Mana, or at least apart from it. This place is quite impressive in being able to showcase so many different kinds of Mana, I feel I could learn a lot staying here to study, if I were a certain kind of artisan, but it looks like even this place can't cross the divide between glyphistry and Mana."
Axl nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that, with glyphs being apparently an entirely different thing than anything related to Mana, even if they had effects that were Mana-based. I guess that image of the snake is what you get when you try, even at a higher grade than us."
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Moxlin snorted. "A higher grade than even mommy, most likely, since she talked about the divide as an absolute."
They decided to keep looking at the mosaics for another hour, mostly for Moxlin's benefit. But Axl still couldn't figure out more from the ceiling, but he did spend some more time on the snake, intrigued by the very stark divide between glyphistry and Mana. Soon enough, Moxlin took her place at her tiny elevation, and Axl stepped into the arena.
The even stone of the arena shifted, softening and becoming more nature and plant-attuned, a half-translucent barrier rising at the edges of the arena, a powerful Mana of mostly neutral attunement that he figured would just serve as a strong barrier. The Mana in the air shifted further into being attuned to nature, the plant attunement component rising and becoming more complex. Axl spent a few seconds studying this Mana, focusing mostly on [Mana Shroud], realizing this was the trial giving him a further hint at the battle to come.
>>Challenge and Transit Rift: Greenhouse Crossroads
>>Update: The Vinefill Ristkar enters, round one begins.
As Axl dismissed the notification, a creature stepped through the barrier from the west.
The Vinefill Ristkar was a bulky mass of vines and plants in all sorts of shades of green, with four legs and two powerful arms. Among the bulk of those dominant limbs sat a tiny head with a single green eye. It rose on its hind legs and roared with dense, pure Mana with sharp-vine attunement, its large arms extended, a dozen sharp claws lining their tips. It was massive, nearly a double of Axl's height, the forearms longer than his full height.
He did not give the creature the chance to charge, but threw six [Venombite Kunai] at its center of mass, all of them loaded with centipede poison. Not waiting to see what effect they had, or even if they hit, he ran towards his enemy, unsheathing [Webcutter]. As he entered the creature's range, it slammed its upper body down, both of its long arms falling towards Axl's head.
The creature's Agility was quite matched to his, but Axl was still able to change course and step to the side, since the attack was so visibly telegraphed. He even managed to slice at an attacking arm, his sword neatly cutting through half of the material, [Mana Shroud] having enhanced the weapon's edge and cutting heft.
The Ristkar leaned back, and Axl paused for a moment, then dove to the side as the creature lunged forward in a full charge. Axl was back up in a half-crouch as the creature slammed into the arena's barrier, its vines spreading slightly into the point of contact, and turned back, its vines pulled back into place, some left behind, dead and crushed.
Two kunai were on the ground, and a third fell as the creature finished its relatively long turn. Axl could tell the poison in them was largely delivered, but he was unsure it had any effect as the creature charged at him again, its six limbs undulating beneath it.
But Axl had taken the creature's apparent break to focus [Mana Shroud] into boosting his Attributes, seeing that it had only matched his physical Attributes, not what he could get out with his Skill. So as it charged, he was again able to avoid it, this time by leaping over it entirely, cutting a large gash with his sword, spilling out even more dead plant matter.
This time, Axl didn't let the creature slowly turn back around, instead following its charge and striking a deep slash into its hind leg as it extricated itself from the wall, a full half of the limb cut apart.
The Ristkar still turned and swiped down with the same Strength and Agility as before, Axl needing to partially deflect the attack, earning a slight bruise where the large limb grazed his side. Luckily, his Sheersilk armor prevented any of its thorns from penetrating, and bruising was all he got.
He stepped back and let the creature continue its haymaker attacks and charges, each time using just enough of [Mana Shroud] to be able to dodge and land a safe counterattack. Even if the creature didn't slow down or seemed phased by any damage, it was rapidly losing mass, each chunk of lost plant matter being regrown at the cost of its full body. An interesting way to fight, for sure.
Axl figured he could find a central core or something to kill it quickly, but there was no need. He simply continued the fight, chipping away as the creature got smaller and smaller, even if each attack struck with unflinching determination. It took a good few minutes, as opposed to the usual few seconds that battles usually took, and as Axl got more and more used to the rhythm of the fight, it was barely any effort to maintain. He even took the time during the battle to collect all his [Venombite Fang]s and store them in his dimensional pouch, not sure how much time he would have between fights.
Soon the creature was a lanky, barely stable version of itself, and with a simple cut to bisect it, the brambling mess fell apart entirely. A notification appeared, even if Axl was disappointed that the creature provided no Karmic Energy.
>>Challenge and Transit Rift: Greenhouse Crossroads
>>Update: Vinefill Ristkar defeated, round one completed. Ten minutes until round two begins. Leave the arena to finish the trial at completion 1/5, stay to initiate next round.
Looking aside, Axl saw Moxlin waddling in, eying the Vinefill Ristkar's remains.
"Stingy," she muttered. "None of this is any good to collect."
Axl chuckled, sitting down cross-legged as he removed the chest plate portion of his armor. "Maybe the next ones will be better, if most people simply kill the first to get the travel options, it would make sense that the rewards would be very minimal."
"Fine," Moxlin harrumphed. "It looked kinda easy for you, anyhow, right?"
"Yes, probably a test of how you would do against something with the same physical attributes, say if you'd overcome it with a boosting Skill like me or through better tactics or non-physical means. Even a group would have a hard time dealing with this, given how big it is for the size of the arena."
Moxlin was clearly still unhappy about the lack of scavengable loot, and sullenly spread a salve on Axl's bruises and few grazing cuts. It was a simple healing concoction named Gukinor salve of minor healing, a bulk product the orcs had many crates of, and that he could buy a pretty decent stash of. Importantly, this salve worked very differently from Axl's potions, so they had a different cooldown than his own potions. They were far less effective, and he couldn’t activate them from his Alchemical Stomach directly. Still, quite useful in situations where they had downtime, and the injuries were minor and superficial, just like this. Moxlin even gained a small benefit in Karmic Energy when she applied it herself, apparently a feature of most support classes.
They were done in barely a minute, and Axl suited back up, and Moxlin returned to her station, half-heartedly collecting a few of the Ristkar’s thorns while muttering how they weren't even really worth the effort.
The ten minutes up, the barrier became more solid again, Moxlin's area to the side condensing so he could barely see her, even if she apparently could see the battle just fine from her end. The plant matter littering the floor was absorbed into the stone, which now emanated no Mana at all. The ambient Mana also dropped considerably, down to levels more like Piril or the caves leading to the vale. Axl gripped a pair of his [Venombite Fangs], ready for the flying enemy to require using those almost exclusively in the fight. All twelve in his storage were loaded up with centipede poison, the break giving him ample time to fill the ones used in the first fight back up. He hoped the poison would be useful against this snake creature, the Vinefill Ristkar apparently having suffered very little from the poison. Still, it was good to note the poison wouldn't really work on plant-based creatures.
The Mana-deficient environment took a few moments to stabilize and Axl noticed the notification, quickly dismissing it, to better catch the creature coming in.
>>Challenge and Transit Rift: Greenhouse Crossroads
>>Update: A Cornerstone Drifting Asp enters, round two begins.
A glimmer in the barrier's eastern wall flickered, and Axl threw a dagger just as a stitch of the creature came through.