[System Message]
[Updating Modifier Profile]
[Current Rank: D-Third Css] [Trial]
‘Oh? My rank has been upgraded for the trial.’
Grawr
The distant sounds of rumbling and growls broke Ari out of his thoughts.
A chilling wind blew towards him, causing the hair on his arms to stand on end.
He used one of his core skills Detect to scan his surroundings.
A sea of red dots flickered in his vision.
‘Right, a horde.’
Ari knew that he could die at any moment, but with Detect functioning as it did in-game, he received confirmation that his core abilities were active.
In that moment, the competitive spirit of a TO veteran burned with anticipation of a thrilling battle.
RUMBLE!
The rumbling intensified, so too did the growls and roars accompanying it.
A sudden sense of calm encased his mind, and for a moment, everything slowed down.
‘What is this sensation?’
Ari felt like his brain and body rebooted, and now, everything from his senses, muscles, and his mind felt invigorated and in peak condition.
It felt like he was in a constant state of “The zone”
And the reason came to him with just a thought.
‘God of Combat.’
His Ex-Grade attribute activated as he prepared for battle.
‘Well then, it’s time for my opening move.’
Ari utilised the two martial enhancement skills, Boost and Accelerate, to increase his power and movement speed.
He swiped his hand and cast the spell Magic Mines, setting eight equally spaced explosive mines ten meters ahead of him.
The act of setting the magic mines felt as instinctive as breathing, as if he were in TO.
As things stood, simply thinking about the spell or skill while performing the necessary actions would be the same as pying the game.
‘So, this is what it feels like to use mana...’
When casting the skills and spells, Ari instinctively sensed the level of his mana drop, like a pool suddenly losing some of its water through drainage.
Above the clouds of dust, a horde of grey, grotesque-looking creatures with glowing red eyes charged towards him, baring their razor-sharp cws and fangs.
‘What the hell are those?’
He cast SMV to get a sense of what he would be dealing with.
[Ashen Ghoul]
[Monster Rank: E-Tier 3]
‘I’m suppose to clear them out in under 10 minutes? Its going to be tight.’
Even with his current rank, their sheer numbers made clearing the horde within the time limit a daunting task.
‘Well, I have no choice but to do it.’
KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!
A series of thunderous explosions marked the beginning of the battle.
Grwar!
Despite dozens killed or maimed in the explosions, the Ashen Ghouls continued their stampede, ferociously trampling their injured kin to get closer to him.
One of the rger Ghouls leapt towards him with its cws extended.
Cng!
Ari parried its attack and followed up by thrusting his sword through its head, then spun around to slice the neck of the Ghoul trying to fnk him.
Avoiding a cw to his throat at the st second triggered the Perfect Dodge effect.
Perfect dodging slowed time for three seconds, allowing Ari to kill four more Ghouls and set up a position to kill a fifth once the effect ended.
He repeated this three more times.
[Time Remaining: 7 Minutes, 42 Seconds]
Doom!
With a swift kick to the chest, a Ghoul barreled into the horde behind it, giving him some room to set more magic mines around him.
When pying Transcender Origins, Ari applied the quadrant assault method during mob battles, using mines in his blind spots to prevent them from overwhelming him.
KABOOM!
When a mine exploded in the top left quadrant, he pivoted on his heel and dashed towards the bottom right, slicing anything that moved.
KABOOM! KABOOM!
Explosions erupted in both the top right and bottom left quadrants, allowing him to unleash a skill towards the top left quadrant.
Following five lightning-quick diagonal sshes, dozens of monsters were cut in half, but dozens more quickly filled the gaps.
To give himself a chance to catch his breath, he smmed his foot into the ground and cast the spell Gcial Defense, creating multiple rows of ice spikes around him, impaling any monster within a two-meter radius.
Buzz! Zap! Zap!
When the Ghouls tried to cw their way through the gaps between the spikes, he used Lightning Chain to electrocute them and all their surrounding kin.
[Time Remaining: 5 Minutes, 31 Seconds]
Ari set four mines around him and four more a few meters behind his current position.
He leapt into the air, performing a series of jumps and mid-air dashes, as the mines exploded below, nding behind the second set of mines.
The horde was unrelenting.
Despite countless charred and dismembered corpses scattered throughout the battlefield, it didn’t look like their numbers were reducing.
‘This is tough even with maxed-out skills.’
There were too many monsters for his D-Rank mana and stamina reserves to keep up with. Despite his best efforts at being efficient, Ari was burning through them rapidly.
If not for his passive Regeneration ability, things would be far worse than they were now.
He could do another rotation of the quadrant assault method, but time was not on his side.
A drastic approach was needed, but it came with risks.
KABOOM! KABOOM!
As the Ghouls broke through the row of mines, he leapt back farther to gain some distance.
[Time Remaining: 2 Minutes, 14 Seconds]
‘I have to hurry!’
Using the skill Boundless Step that allowed him to walk anywhere, even the air, he ascended to a height that would be difficult for them to reach and enacted his final attack.
He activated Boost to its maximum 4x multiplier, then cast the rge-scale AOE spell- Dragon Breath: Fire.
It was a gamble.
The spell will completely drain his reserves. If even a few manage to survive, he wouldn’t have the strength to kill them before the time limit expired, much less defend himself.
Heat rose in his chest, expanding and glowing with orange and yellow light. As the heat intensified, it travelled towards his throat, causing it to expand and glow even brighter.
Ari's cheeks swelled as thick orange and yellow veins emerged on his face.
[Time Remaining: 1 Minutes, 12 Seconds]
WHAAAAAAR!
With a thunderous roar, he released an inferno from his mouth.
The Tsunami of fmes swept through the battlefield, incinerating every Ghoul in its path.
“Haah...Haah...Haah!”
‘Is this mana exhaustion?’
As soon as he nded, his lungs were on fire, and his entire body ached.
Ari colpsed onto his back, unable to even move his fingers.
[System Message]
[Trial Of Strength Completed]
[Congratutions]
[Modifier Condition Restored]
Following the notification, his reserves were restored, and his strength returned.
‘Ah, it has this function too?’
His body felt lighter.
[Prepare for transfer to next trial area]
“Seriously?”
Blinding light enveloped him once again.