“Crap crap crap crap crap!” I shouted as i continued dashing through the forest. the trees blurring by as i enhanced my legs with mana to escape them.
A sharp note was heard from behind me as the tree next to me exploded into shrapnel, the blowback from whatever spell the goblins had just cast shot me into a neighboring tree.
Circulating my mana enhancement as much as my body could handle allowed me to take the blow with only a broken rib, the sharp pain telling me that this round would be lost like countless others. The howling and screeching of the beasts grew louder and louder as the dust cloud grew closer.
They’re almost here, I thought of ways to get out of this, my mana chain wrapping around my arm as i manifested the blade, hoping to turn the tides through a quick scrap instead of a wide spread brawl.
I did not succeed. The tsunami of beasts crashed into me, fangs, talons, even the innate abilities of the beasts tore me shreds as wind blades and vacuum cuts stole my oxygen from me.
The forest dimmed around me as i tried to draw a spike rune, hoping to get at least one more kill in before i faded out. My vision swimming with blood as the interface showed me another failure screen
[TRIAL FAILED, ATTEMPT 47 BEGINNING]
And just like that, I was back to the entrance of the forest, not a scratch on me as i set out for my 47th attempt of this ridiculous trial, cursing the system for the enhanced tutorial.
______________________________________
The fourth trail, as it turned out, was just about hunting down beasts, harvesting their cards, survive within the forest. Nothing too hard at first, just some crystal tusk boars and whisper hawks, low ranking beasts throughout the forest. The challenge arose when i came across the local boblin child’s clan.
[Galefang Clan Patriarch: Gustav]
I spotted him while scouting for flying beasts, the main troublemakers of the trial due to being hard to catch without my chain ready and manifested.
He was soaring through the air on a odd beast, looking like a horrid cross between a wolf and a hawk, the feathers being a light green as the fur resembled a muddy brown, the sight of two opposing affinities within one body without finding the natural confluence.
Gustav himself was a mess of a goblin, His hair was set in rough patches across his scalp as he worse a cloak made of whisper hawk feathers, I could loosely see a small bone flute in his hand as if he was commanding the abomination with its melody. The soft notes somehow feeling like a howl from where i stood.
Using [Mana Enhancement] to focus my vision and identify the beast the patriarch was riding, I felt the faint sense of danger.
“What in the name of-“ I started to speak before he swiftly flew in my direction, A sharp note being heard as he played an engraved bone flute before the telltale sign of a compressed air attack flew towards me. I jumped away, using my formation card to control the chain as a movement tool instead of its weapon function. Wrapping the chain around the nearest tree branch, i barely managed to dodge the [Wind Blade] Spell launched at me. “You’ve gotta be kidding me” I groaned at the thought of another spellcaster battle.
Spellcasters were always the hardest enemy for a Defensive specialist, the specialty i held in my previous life. The range and damage of every spell made it so that defending everyone, and even counterattacking, both impossible tasks without ranged fighters of your own to fight back. Over the years of combat against Sigilhavens rival kingsoms, and later the rift beasts, I had developed many ways to at least have some countermeasures for spellcasters, certain card effects and synergies allowed spells to be disrupted or even redirected once the right rift beasts spawned. But now? I no longer had a souldeck to use, nor was i able to be a defense specialist like my infinite regeneration allowed me. Now all i had were my skills, my formation card, and the mana blade chain.
The goblin patriarch snarled, his beast circling the tree i was hanging from.
“Father Slayer!” His voice like claws on tree bark, his cloak seeming to flutter around him as he set the bone flute at him.
“What do you want Gustav?” yelling back, i hoped he would let me resolve this peacefully.
“Your head.” his smile widening as his hand rapidly reached for his flute.
“Oh abyss!” I enhanced my legs as i sent my chain out to hit the flute but he was already in the air, his beast flying up as he played the first set of notes.
i dashed upwards, the mana enhancement skyrocketing my leg strength as my mana reserves ticked down to double digits.
but the bastard was too fast, he managed to complete the spell casting for a wind blade and i wasn’t close enough to fight back.
“Abyss!” I yelled, sending my blade to intercept the spell. my mana senses could barely detect what it was, but it seemed to be an advanced form of wind magic.
It sliced through the air, slashing at what seemed like nothing. Looking around, it also seemed gustav had disappeared as well. Invisibility spell! The thought hit me like a hammer on anvil. then it happened, A sharp whistle of a [Wind Blade], My mana chain sent me a warning, an odd instinctual feeling of danger as it moved to intercept the spell, taking my remaining mana to reinforce it to its maximum, the bronze chains tinged and stricken with mana veins of a radiant gold. It wasn’t enough to stop the spellcaster.
The mana blade was cut in two, flickering and fading away as the mana going to it was lost. i could see the ripple in the air as it approached me, but there was nothing i could do to dodge while mid air.
I tried to wrap the links of the chain around me, draining the rest of my mana down to single digits as it moved back into the soul rune to reinforce my arm, wrapping the remainder around my forearm and gauntlets to form a impromptu wall.
A sharp crack resounded, a familiar bolt of pain sent through my arm as i felt the bones break, the unfamiliar sensation of not immediately healing was what sent my mind reeling. The world turning red as the system window appeared.
[TRIAL FAILED, ATTEMPT 2 BEGINNING]
______________________________________
gustav looked over his clan grounds from atop his weagle(name in progress), the steady flapping of its wings soothing him as it always did
“Good boy Aero, as always.” he gently patted the beasts neck, his only companion and the gift he received from his father, boblin, after mother died. The beast let out a soft, adorable purr as it attempted to nuzzle gustav hand, turning their balance off kilter and gently going to the side. Playing a soft melody, akin to leaves on the wind, gustav calmed his oldest friend as they surveyed the camp he had worked painstakingly to cultivate alongside his offspring.
The [Spirit Of The Gale] and [Spirit Of The Fang] had blessed his tribe, granting them affinities for the beasts that roamed the Trials forest. Spotting his descendants, the legions of halfbreed goblins he had fostered alongside the Spirits. He couldn’t help but have a sense of fatherly pride. “This must be what Father felt when me and Burnice started developing our magic.” A look of sadness washed over his face as he remembered the other two of their siblings, junior and murgle, and the tragic fates that Fathers death had granted the magically inclined of the siblings.
Beneath him, a sprawling camp of goblins moving all around, with stables and tamed beasts transporting riders and goods. he could see the Fang descendants and their Razorbacks scavenging for food on the outskirts, the mud brown tinge of their skin as well as the mana beast skulls they used as adornment on their heads. The [Spirit of the Fang]was proud of their growth, granting them the [Fanged Beast Taming] skill to allow them to take control of the lands that housed the tribe. It seemed they were moving in on a dangerous predator near the caves. The caves that were… burning?
He shook his head in confusion, flying closer with Aero to see what was happening, No beast in the forest has a fire affinity he thought to himself. Reaching for his flute, he spotted a glint of gold in a nearby tree.
“Areo,” he whispered to the chimeric beast, “Slow down a bit.” Grabbing at his flute, he played a quick set of Spellnotes to enhance his mana and the strength of Areo, his Spirit senses tripping as the odd mana seemed to tickle his senses from afar.
It was like nothing he had ever felt from within the forest. Not the Spirit Mana he had felt from the Gale and Fang, nor was it the innate mana of a card beast. the feeling it gave off was like a blacksmiths tailored working, exquisitely forged into a sharpened blade. No mana was wasted, nothing was loose except for the barest trickle leading to Aero. The sensation of feeling something so… Forced upon nature, hurt Gustav on a fundamental level.
This “Forged Mana” went against everything the great spirits had taught him when he entered the forest, an affront against the world itself, as if it had never belonged to this reality. Gustav trembled in rage as the mana of the perpetrator coalesced into a blade, a blade made of pure mana. Not made of beast bone or claw, no trace of nature remained in the area he felt the mana coming from.
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Aero dipped a bit in the air, a small groan coming from him as he began to bare his teeth. “What’s wrong old friend?” Gustav asked his beast as a flood of senses hit him from his bonded beast, the smell of blood, pictures of a young green skinned child holding Aero, The face of Boblin smiling as he handed his child a pet, then the scene shifted. A sandy arena, flecks of golden aura flickering on the wind and the dust cloud that was left as Gustav and his 3 siblings went to visit their father in his training grounds. Only to find an exploded corpse in a crater. The same feeling of Forged Mana, The same scent as the arena.
“Father Slayer…” His heart skipped a beat, the beast instinct instilled in him barley holding back its rage as he used a spell to see the perpetrator, the person who robbed him of his entire family, fracturing lifetime bonds. And the murderer who ended the world’s first goblin was, “Just a kid?” Gustavo’s face scrunched up in confusion as he looked at the boy, barely 18 years of age, he had a chain floating around him with its blade manifested, that damn golden blade. but it was only upon. a closer look did Gustav make the decision to attack, seeing the gauntlets his sister had spent days forging to give father as a gift before. that fateful day.
“Aero…” Gustavs voice was a deadly whisper, holding the promise of agony, “Kill.”
The chimeric beast exploded towards the boy as Gustav played the melody of death, the blade that severed even the sky, a burst of compressed air shot forward as the spell took effect. The boy made a crude sound before dashing through he trees, using that unnatural chain to move like a Weaveling. However, nothing could escape the Galefang patriarch
He’d fought spellcasters before. Defenders, brutes, even a Rift-Touched rogue with three spells active at once. But Gustav wasn’t them. He was the wind. The fang. The fury of nature abandoned.
He played again, rapid-fire notes that sang through Aero’s bones, amplifying his flight speed, compressing the mana around the next spell. [Wind Blade]—no, not the normal version. Gustav bent the spell mid-note, folding air upon air until the edges hissed with compressed razorflow.
The boy tried to counter. His chain flicked out toward Gustav, but Aero jerked upward just in time. He played again—an invisibility melody, brief and sharp. The trick of the wind: be where they look, then be gone.
He vanished just as the boy leapt toward him. Gustav dropped lower, flanking.
The boy’s instincts kicked in. His chain moved defensively, wrapped around his forearm—clever. It caught the wind blade with just enough resistance to avoid immediate death. But not enough to survive. The spell collided. A golden flicker. Then the snap of metal. The blade split mid-air, severed by the spirit-empowered magic. The boy reeled, mana sputtering out of him like a dying torch.
Gustav saw the desperation. He recognized it. He’d taught it, once.
The boy coiled the remnants of his chain around his arm, forming a crude shield. Gustav didn’t care. The spell had already been cast.
[Wind Fang Execution]—a piercing strike hidden behind the first. The impact hit square. Gustav heard the arm snap. Saw the boy drop like a stone, barely catching himself on the branch below. Then the air shuddered, and a faint golden ripple marked the system’s judgment.
[TRIAL FAILED, ATTEMPT 2 BEGINNING]
Gustav hovered above, wind brushing his hair back as Aero banked in a slow, deliberate turn.
“Next time, Father Slayer,” he whispered, voice shaking with quiet fury. “I won’t miss.”
“My tribesmen!” he yelled to his followers, his children of the fang and gale spirits. The cries and screams in return filling him with the joy of an alpha surrounded by his pack. “The Father Slayer lives! We must slay the murderer of your Grandfather, And my beloved sister Burnice!” He screamed out, Met by the cacophony of roars and screeches of his clan and their card beasts.
“Our sister clans. The Blazing Berserkers and Murky Managorged, Have been slain by this human, this wielder of forced mana!” The roars of rage surrounding him a reminder of how they had all seen Burnice bring gifts from her forge, and the mana goblins devour a evil mana spawn, they were their comrades in arms through many battles, even through the war of Cracked Peak against Juniors army.
“He will return! And death will not be the end for him, We must break his soul like we have so many others in this forest, only then will we have avenged the Founder Of the Goblins!” A the wind carrying his voice, gustav flew back to the tribe, seeing his children summon the contracted Gale spirits and feed the tamed beasts of the land. They would be ready for the father slayer, and Gustav would have his revenge against his families killer.
He couldn’t hide the joy it brought him as he heard the faint whispers of the patron spirits will him forward, A long waited smile finally cracking on his green face. “We will kill him.” A malevolent glee within his voice, the slightest hint of mania escaping him.
———————————————————————
Popping back into the the forest clearing, My Interface window greeted me with tis familiar DING!
[TRIAL ATTEMPT NUMBER 47!]
THEY SAY 47 IS A LUCKY NUMBER, BUT MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE GOOD ENOGUH THAT 46 FAILS ISNT NECESSARY!
Cause of 46th death: Beast Horde and [Goblin Gale Shaman X 30] [Galefang Patriarch Gustav X 1] [Heraldic Beast of ??? X 1] [Goblin Fang Tamer X 12]
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” The groan escaping my composure. 46 attempts, 46 deaths at the hands of this forest and those ridicoulous goblins. Every new attempt they seemed to get smarter and stronger, the trial not resetting their memory like it was supposed to. Something about “Patron Spirits” or whatever was in the forest was stopping the trial from doing that right.
My vision lit up in the familiar shades of brown and green mana affinities as i enhanced my vision, seeing the auras of the approaching beasts. The Galefang Tribe seemed to delight in taming the local beasts, the Shatterquills already moving towards me as their canine friends led the way. The air rippling as Minor gale elementals flitted towards me in a tsunami of green mana.
Immediately setting to the familiar task of rapid rune engraving, my skill having already reached Bronze Rank 3 from the repeated attempts of fighting through the forest. My chain snaked towards the dirt, carving the opening rune trap sequence i had designed on attempt 7, The interlay of [Spike Rune] [Rune Script] and the elemental runes allowed me to form complex traps using the spike as a basis, the [Kaboom Rune] giving my position away too swiftly as it was an ineffecient use of mana. I set to carving into the dirt with the rusty goblin knife i had gotten from Boblin, forming my own personal sequence of runes, ones that required exact mana flow and not distant mana infusion i could perform with the mana chain blade.
[Rune Script] was an interesting skill in its own right. While it didn’t have any direct combat abilities like [Rune Etch] Or [Remote Rune Activation], nor the enhancing aspect of [Mana Enhancement] and [Skill Enhancement]. Its use was utility in the most textbook away.
[RUNE SCRIPT, BRONZE 2]
Effect: Allow the wielder to understand and interact with the meaning of a Rune, This skill allows for the combination of runes into rune sequences or rune arrays. This will change each runes effect into a combined effect. Leveling this skill will allow the wielder to perform more complex interactions and combine higher tier runes.
[Rune Script] Allowed me to, at its current level, combine 2 runes to form a sequence. The complexity of it entered my mind when the skill leveled up but it was also quickly filtered through itself, giving me a whopper of a headache but also allowed me to understand Runescript on an intimate level, how’s the mana interacted with the rune, and how the runes interacted with each other. It was like a complex mana circuit from my original timeline, something artificers worked for months on before using it in combat against the rifts.
Continuing my etching into the ground, i combing the [Fire Rune] and [Earth Rune] to imbue the ground with a [Magma Rune], A trap rune that had taken 2 of my earlier attempts to get correct, a failure leading to me being engulfed in magma as my mana was drained to fuel it, and with my [Mana Enhancement] and [Skill Enhancement] skills both feeding it? I was cooked into a rocky carcass long before the goblins found me.
Feeling the slight trickle of mana feed into the rune, a difficult task with combinations, I could see a small bubbling beneath the surface. The telltale sign of my [Magma Rune] trap, the moment someone stepped in it, my mana would spread in the earth surrounding it and turn it into geysers of lava. Useful for getting away from things, but not the best in combat with how difficult it was to get the mana sequence correct.
Feeling how close the Enemies were to me, I let my mana enhancement change back to my legs, the golden aria solidifying around my lower muscles, enhancing them to a new degree with each use. Bolting away, I had my chain wrap around branches as a way to keep mobility off of the earth. The brown goblins who were apparently recognized as the [Fang Goblins] had a sort of “Tremorsense” in their body, an ability normally only found in either high ranking Earth affinity predators or low ranking Earth affinity prey. It was also, no matter what timeline i was in, A huge pain the ass.
Behind me i could feel the runes activate, the plume of magma being a dead giveaway as beast and spirit alike were set upon by pillars of magma, spears of stone and spikes of compressed air shooting into sky and land alike to skewer beasts that ran across and into them. It was odd, i couldn’t help but think to myself, that the easiest way to kill a Gale Spirit was with Earth magic, and vice versa for the Fang beasts.
As i sprinted away, i could see him in the distance. The Heraldic beast carrying the patriarch, a graceful show as he looked for me in the area we first fought. I could hear faint cursing on the wind, despite being miles away something about a “Heretic” and “forged mana”. The Patriarch was immensely powerful despite his ravings though, each iteration of the fight had him just a little different from the last. The first fight had him seem, i’m not sure how to describe it, more composed? That didn’t make sense though, normally people became calmer the more they killed an enemy, the initial Bloodrage turning into a chilling cold. With how many times i’d been exploded, torn to shreds, sliced to ribbons, eaten, impaled, and all other forms of wind and beast magic from the tribes, they should all have calmed down to a methodical state.
“Ah just means they’re easier to distract” I mumbled to myself, a small smile arising on my face as i laid out another circuit of runes. These ones a more advanced subset similar to the [Magma Rune] i had learned to make during the first 20 attempts, [Rune Script] Really was useful for discovering new runes! The [Thunder Rune] and [Ice Rune] combinations were spread out among the forest near the stealthier [Sand Rune] and [Smoke Rune] causing a choking and biting cloud that would have enemies hit my elemental status effects, or what this new system labeled [Debuffs].
My mana started to dip into the last 10% as i carved the [Spike Rune] into the trees, a less mana hungry rune but certainly not cheap when mass produced for traps. Using my Chain, i hung from the branch of a taller tree to meditate, the lower areas already covered in runes.
Meditation is the fastest way to recover mana, but each affinity has to do it a different way. Fire affinities need to burn the nearby mana as a sort of fuel to create their own mana, and wind affinity wielders needed to be surrounded by shifting mana to accumulate their own. The way each wielder learned to gather mana was a key indicator of their affinity, even before they completed the Tutorials. This is why my meditation was starting to get frustrating.
“I just don’t understand why it’s such a. complex process!” Bemoaning my meditation technique and trying to keep my emotions under control was starting to become more and more difficult as i tried to get mana as fast as possible. My soul was used to gathering mana from the life affinity, receiving buffs and taking damage was the quickest way. This new and unknown affinity required intense meditation, taking in ambient mana like a stoker in a forge, then needing to constantly refine it, a feeling akin to beating my head against a wall, and then manually moving it into my mana core, the bronze colored orb visible in my soul space.
In short, Very tedious and very frustrating if i messed up. However, The mana seemed to be exceptionally effective for channeling, similiar to how those of the Psychic affinity can easily send their mana into the world. This feels different from how Terry described his [Sage’s Hand] formation card. This feels like it needs a form, something to explicitly be shaped into.
My mind was snapped from the meditation, right next to a breakthrough too. Abyss! The howl of the Heraldic Beast and the goblins clans shook the forest, i could see a dust cloud coming towards my direction, right next to- There! Glaciers of ice and bolts of lightning roared into the sky, clouds of smoke and sand twirled with the nearby wind runes into whirlwinds. Spikes erupted from trees, sending blood splatter miles into the sky as thousands of spikes, each [Spike Rune] Generating multiple upon my [Rune Etch] skill reaching Bronze 4. A single tree could become a porcupine of oak spikes, more and more spikes being produced according to mana investment. The engraved trees barely recognizable as their forms were twisted and extended to impale beasts by the dozens. At the cost of mana, of course.
My mana reserves had barely gone up from when i started meditating, the passive regeneration too slow and active regeneration too difficult with my current skills and abilities. My melee combat style was extremely efficient however, the only thing ever having my mana capacity dip below 75% being multiple maxed runes, and carving them by the truckload in a forest took me all the way to single digits.
My plan going forward was simple, hide from the patriarch till i could lure him into a trap, take out as many beasts as possible, and get as much loot as i could to bring to my family later. Dashing through the forest, i foregoes enhancing myself with mana and just let my Formation Card and Chain Blade send me through the forest along branches. [Chained By Fate] was an ominous card, something i was not familiar with at the base nature, but it was effective for now, and its name seemed to be a sign that i was just as trapped with it as it was trapped in my soul.
Rushing through the forest, a small System Screen appeared before me:
[QUEST GRANTED]
[ELIMINATE THE SPIRITS OF FANG AND GALE]
Hello Theo! These are the moderators here assigning your quest, sorry for plucking you from your world and whatnot. Anyway! Some of our spirits have infiltrated your Trial and messed with the survival trial. We’ve Punished their moderator and he’s promised to assign you some unique rewards if you can kill their vessels. We’re not sure what they are however. Good luck, We’ll get in contact with you when you reach the Affinity Trial.
REWARD: [Orb Of the Gale] [Orb of the Fang]
Time Limit: None
“Man this is just some bullshi-.”
