by Aaron Oster
The ancient threw its head back and roared, and Morgan roared right back. They both charged, the beast snarling, and he laughed maniacally.
This was the most fun he’d had in quite some time! This beast was no joke.
He could see a tiny crack in the armor where his hammer had landed. The area was slightly blackened, but aside from that, the beast looked completely unharmed. Morgan made sure to keep his Aura sense active, so he wouldn’t be caught off guard again, then he dismissed his hammer and reached down to touch his belt.
He and Sarah had discovered many uses for his Nature’s wrath skill during their time in the beast zone. They’d spent the previous day coming up with ways for Morgan to have easy access to different elements during a fight, and had eventually come up with this.
A belt infused with as many elements as they could possibly fit. They’d gone around the city once they’d come up with the idea, looking for enchanters who could make it for them. It had taken over two hours, and a lot of money to get it done, but the end result was well worth it. His belt had been infused with over thirty different elements, each one contained in its own colored sphere.
They had been placed in bunches of five, each spaced by type, and all within easy reach. He’d tested it briefly the day before, just to make sure it worked, but hadn’t actually gotten a chance to use it in battle. Had he been forced to fight the previous evening, he most likely would have, but now was as good a time as any to give it a shot.
He used Nature’s wrath just as his fingers brushed over the first sphere, and the one he’d been most excited to use. A jolt shot through his entire body as the essence of lightning entered him. His body tingled from head to toe, and Morgan grinned as his speed drastically increased. He covered the remaining distance between him and the ancient in a flash, slamming his fist into its leg.
Though he was fast, the power behind his punch was the same as always, and while that was nothing to sneeze at, it didn’t do much to damage the massive creature. That was fine though, as the attack still caused the small web of cracks in its leg to widen.
Morgan’s hand brushed over another sphere, and the power of adamanite flooded him. He’d had a small piece of the same metal he’d used for Sarah’s necklace be worked into the belt as well. And since he’d used it before, he already knew its effects.
His skin took on a metallic sheen and when he slammed his fist into the bony armor, there was a far more satisfying crack. His Aura sense warned him then of an incoming attack, and Morgan used Explosive impact, easily dodging the incoming tail. But he wasn’t about to allow the attack to go unpunished. Swiping his hand over another sphere, Morgan felt the overwhelming power of force enter his body.
This one had been extremely tricky, as the enchanter had needed a sufficient amount of force to be generated in order to craft this particular sphere. Morgan had provided the force needed by using his Explosive impact, and punching into an enchanted ring. The man had then harnessed that force and placed it into the sphere.
He formed a blade with his hand and chopped downward. This attack was extremely powerful, as it essentially had the power of two Explosive impacts packed into one. His hand blurred through the air and sliced clean through the tail, cutting off a good three feet of the appendage. There was a massive boom as he completed his swing, and a crater formed under his feet from the aftershock of the blow. He stared in awe, wondering at the massive amount of power he’d just unleashed as blood sprayed from both ends of the severed tail.
Then his skill wore off, and Morgan staggered as every muscle in his body cried out at once. It felt as though they were tearing themselves to pieces, and Morgan could guess why. The force he’d held within himself had been way too much for his body to handle. He immediately released Nature’s wrath, breathing deeply to get his core to numb the pain.
The ancient roared, stumbling back as dark blood pumped from its severed tail, but even as the pain in his muscles faded, Morgan could see that it wasn’t a fatal wound. He took a step forward, then felt his knees quivering. Examining himself, he winced at the internal damage using both Nature’s wrath and Explosive impact had caused.
Using the skills together hadn’t been what caused this. Rather, using the element of force, while using the skill, had.
From now on, he wouldn’t use the two together unless there was no other choice. As it was, he could no longer move. His muscles were too damaged, and the best he could do was simply hold himself upright. But the ancient wasn’t about to let him off that easily.
Its beady black eyes focused on him, and it let out an enraged roar. Its body glowed red, and its muscles bulged, cracking through the bone armor. The beast seemed to gain five feet of height, and at least another ton of mass. Grimacing, Morgan looked around, searching for some way out of his predicament, as rippling, corded muscle spread over the ancient’s body. He could always fly, as that wouldn’t take any physical effort. If he did that though, he would have failed the exercise and he definitely wasn’t about to do that.
He did a quick check of his RP, seeing it regenerating quickly. In just a few seconds, he would have enough to use his newest skill. The question was if he should. He wasn’t sure what it would do, and banking on that being able to kill this beast when nothing he’d done so far had worked, wasn’t a good idea. Then again, he didn’t have many options.
The beast charged, rocketing forward at an astonishing speed. Morgan’s eyes quickly flicked to his RP as the beast rapidly closed the distance.
This would definitely be a close call.
Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Morgan stared down the charging beast. He vaguely heard Sarah yelling in the background, but he didn’t have the strength to turn his head and look. All of his attention was focused on the beast in front of him.
The ancient was only thirty yards away when his RP finally hit the required 2,000 mark. Without a second thought, Morgan used Collapsing star.
His arms rose of their own volition, coming up to rest before his chest. He gritted his teeth as his muscles shrieked in agony and he began breathing more quickly to get his reiki circulating faster. It did nothing to help, and Morgan finally found the limits of what his reiki’s healing could do. Apparently, it couldn’t dampen the pain of shredded muscles if you kept using them. Either that, or he had a finite amount to use before it needed to recharge.
He did his best to focus through the pain, and watched as a black ball quickly formed between his hands. The ball was only the size of his fist, but the amount of pressure it exuded was more than even he, with his understanding of gravity, could comprehend.
It took less than two seconds for the attack to form, but in that time, the ancient had covered more than twenty-five yards, and was nearly on top of him. Grimacing in pain, Morgan pushed his palms outward, and the black ball shot forward with the speed of an arrow.
Morgan wasn’t entirely sure how the attack was supposed to work, but as his arms dropped, his eyes once again widened in amazement. The super-dense ball of gravity slammed into the ancient, and actually sent it flying back a good fifteen yards. At the end of its flight, the beast’s body hit the ground with an earth-shattering boom, accompanied by the sound of cracking bone.
Then the ground in a twenty-foot radius buckled, and a massive crater began to form. The gravitational force was so great that within moments, there was no light whatsoever. Morgan stared at a half dome of pure black, feeling the earth rumbling beneath his feet. He imagined that he could hear the pained roars of the ancient, even as the dome of black sank further into the ground.
“Holy shit! What the hell is that thing?!”
Morgan turned his head to see both Sarah and Eric staring at the black dome. Sarah in awe, and Eric in… was that fear? A moment later, Morgan realized that it was not fear on the man’s face, but sheer, unadulterated terror.
Morgan hadn’t felt terror all that often, and never to the extent that showed on Eric’s face, but he could kind of understand.
After all, there was a sinking dome of darkness just a few feet away. Even though the gravitational pull wouldn’t affect either of them, as they were out of the area of effect, they could still feel the power of that attack and the ground shaking beneath their feet.
When the top of the dome had nearly vanished underground, the blackness suddenly vanished, the crushing force gone along with it.
“Hey, Sarah, I can’t exactly move, so would you mind checking in the hole for me?” Morgan asked.
Sarah gave him a worried look, but nodded and ran over to the hole. Morgan watched her lean over, then quickly pull her head back, with a disgusted look on her face.
“I take it that it’s dead then?” he asked with a light chuckle.
“You popped that thing like an overripe fruit!” she replied, backing quickly away from the hole. “It’s all over the place down there!”
“Guess that means I won then.” He grinned, then felt something heavy impact with the side of his head, and the world went black.
29
Morgan came to with a pounding headache. Slowly blinking his eyes open, he saw Eric and Sarah bent over him. He with a look of concentration, and she with one of concern. He was understandably confused, as the last thing he remembered was defeating the ancient.
“What happened?” he asked, wincing at the pain speaking caused him.
“You got careless and lost, that’s what happened.”
Turning his head to the side, Morgan saw Percival standing there with his arms folded and looking far from pleased.
“He didn’t get careless. You literally sucker punched him after he’d won!” Sarah yelled, making Morgan wince again, this time at the volume of her voice.
“I warned him that I would be attacking during the exercise,” he said with a shrug. “he should have been more aware of his surroundings.”
“He took you out of the fight! How the hell was he supposed to know to be watching for you?”
“I never said I would stop if he managed to incapacitate me. All I said was that I would be attacking until the end and all that he had to do was hold me off.”
Morgan let out a sigh as he felt the pain in his jaw easing and his headache receding. He sat up, ignoring Sarah and Percival’s bickering, and turned to thank Eric.
“Thanks for that. I made a bit of a miscalculation during the fight.”
“I’ll say!” Eric said wide-eyed. “Care to explain how you managed to tear just about every muscle, over seventy ligaments, and over five hundred tendons all at once?”
Morgan winced when he heard that number.
“Did I really do that much damage?”
“I’m shocked you even managed to stay conscious, let alone stay on your feet and kill that monster!”
Morgan smiled when he heard that. Even as badly injured as he’d been, he’d still managed to kill the beast, even if he had ended up losing the exercise.
“…you weren’t such an asshole, then maybe…!”
“Sarah, it’s alright,” Morgan said, cutting off her tirade and getting to his feet. “Percival is right. I let my guard down and he got me. You have to remember that there will be more than one other person in this competition, so even if I take one of them out, there are still two more who can attack me.”
Sarah looked like she wanted to argue, but she clenched her jaw and nodded.
“It’s good to see you have more sense than your friend,” Percival said, nodding sagely. “Perhaps in the next exercise you’ll…arrgh!”
Percival cried out in pain as Morgan shot forward and clocked him in the jaw.
“That being said,” Morgan continued as Percival clutched at his now broken jaw. “You attacked me after the beast was dead, meaning you acted once the exercise had ended. Do you disagree?”
Percival glared at him, even as Eric ran over to heal the man. He didn’t argue with him, and Morgan turned back to Sarah, who looked much happier now.
“Here,” she said, pressing a large core into his hands. “The ancient’s core.”
Morgan took it, immediately opening its stats to see what he’d gotten.
Name: Riot-Saurus Ancient Core
Rank - 31
Total available energy: 53,281/53,281
Total available AP: 17/17
This core was taken from a riot-saurus ancient. As this core was taken from an advanced beast, the amount of available energy has been massively increased.
“Not bad at all, though I’d prefer not to have almost died for energy that will only get me an eighth of the way to the next rank,” Morgan said, absorbing the energy and attribute points.
“Only an eighth of the way?” Percival asked. “That doesn’t make any sense. If you’re at rank 29, then the amount of energy in that core should have pushed you more than a quarter of the way to the next one.”
“Yeah, it works a little differently for supermages,” Morgan said, quickly checking his status.
“How much more are we talking about?” Percival asked as Morgan closed it.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because we’ll have to do a lot more beast hunting than I’d planned if what you’re saying is true. I’ll have to significantly alter my plans, so I need to know how much.”
Morgan nodded.
“To reach the next rank, I’ll need a total of 400,000 energy. Right now I’ve got a bit over 61,000.”
Percival’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
“That’s a load of bullshit! I’m at rank 36, and I only need 280,000 to the next one!”
“Don’t ask me why, I didn’t decide how much it would cost,” he said with a shrug, pulling up his status to see how much upgrading his skills would cost, and if it was worth using some of his attribute points to raise them.
Skills:
Perfect flight II - 0/50
Explosive impact II - 0/95
Stormforger - 0/120
Goldfire barrage - 0/85
Nature’s wrath - 0/250
Traits:
Gravity field - 0/225
Recovery - 0/300
Aura sense (inherited) - 0/125
Aura Flare (inherited) - 0/100
Extra:
Gravity storm (3rd category) - 0/350
Starbreaker (2nd category) - 0/425
Collapsing star - 0/750
Morgan winced at the increased costs of each skill, noting that not a single point had been put towards any of them this time. It appeared that if he wanted to upgrade early, he would have to put in the work for it.
He looked them over again, then decided against assigning his attribute points just yet. He would need to upgrade at least a few of his skills before the tournament, and he would get points every time he ranked up.
Maybe he’d decide to pour more points into his attributes later on- that was, if he was even able to do so. At this point, he was fairly certain that if he met any rank 29 evolved supermage and they hadn’t put any extra points into their attributes, he would be able to crush them with little to no effort. He knew that he was many times more powerful than anyone at his level. The problem was, that he didn’t know if he could compete with people at higher ranks.
Sure, he’d beaten Percival, but that had only been when he’d caught him by surprise. Before that, he’d beaten him like a drum. That was not to mention that he’d only ever used one skill when fighting him, and that was for evasion rather than to launch an attack.
“You ready to hunt down the next beast?” Morgan asked, “we don’t exactly have the time to spare, am I right?”
Percival grimaced, but nodded all the same.
“We’d better get moving. Can you track the closest beast?”
Morgan used Aura sense, immediately picking out five separate trails.
“Yup, looks like the closest one is that way,” he said, tilting his head and jogging back into the jungle.
The training continued over the next three days, each one being more brutal than the last. At the end of the
twenty-hour sessions, Morgan stumbled through the portal and was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Sarah would of course wake him up fifteen minutes early each morning, to make sure he took a bath. Not that he blamed her. By the time he came back each day, he was covered in so much filth that the palace staff was forced to change his sheets and mop the floors each day.
By the time the last day ended, Morgan had managed to reach rank 33. He’d even lied to Percival about the energy cost for each consecutive rank so he could funnel it toward advancing his ability. He’d been neglecting it as of late, and had to focus on that in particular.
The best part about the cores were the attribute points. By the time his training was over, he’d managed to accrue a staggering amount of points. He had yet to assign them however, and was saving that task for after his bath. Now, he stood at the door to their room, saying goodbye to Eric and Percival.
He didn’t particularly like the man who’d been training him, but he had gained a grudging respect for his teachings, even if he didn’t respect the man himself.
“I expect you’ll win the tournament after all that,” Percival said, staring down at the battle-weary and bloodstained Morgan.
“Not if I don’t get some sleep,” he groaned, stretching out his back.
By this point, even his reiki could no longer sustain him, marking yet another limitation to what it could do. It would keep him going for hours on end, but in heavy combat, it would be a lot less effective as time went on. He’d discovered that, as he’d theorized, it stopped revitalizing him after about five hours of training. And the more he was injured, the less time he would have before it stopped functioning. Even when he’d kept it active and pulsing, it hadn’t done a thing, so he’d have to be careful if any of the challenges ran longer than that. According to Percival, it was entirely possible.
