21 What...
"Sigh...", the old granny looked at Ray's shaking back, that attack had used up around half of his energy to pull off.
Neil, on the other hand, wasn't able to notice this due to standing slightly in front of him.
"Can I even catch up to that level of strength?"
Ray gave him a direct answer, "It's impossible, but you can reach the average level of strength if you train hard enough."
"Oh?", a spark lit up in Neil's mind, he would try his hardest to get stronger no matter the difficulty.
Ray lifted one of his fingers up, "You've only completed half of the introduction, the second half begins exactly a week after you leave the first, so in your case, it's in 6 days."
The dots finally connected it made sense as to why it said the Second Gate was only 50% complete, "How much more difficult is the second part of the test?", even if he wasn't afraid of a challenge he still had to go in there level headed and with an overall grasp of the situation.
"It depends, I should explain what it is first before you continue asking questions."
"Cough. Perhaps we should head inside before we continue the conversation.", she gave Ray an indomitable look.
Ray gave her a thankful look, "Let's go in then, this granny is too old to stand outside for a long time.", a lighthearted laugh left Ray.
-----
Within Ray's hut sat Neil and Ray separated by a small freshly made wooden table, the old granny sat on a lawn chair outside basking in the sunlight.
"I thought she wanted to come inside...?", Neil questioned Ray.
"She's a weird one, nevermind that let me continue what I was going to say."
For the next 30 minutes, Ray explained the second half of the test to Neil and answered any questions that he had.
Neil piled the information in his mind and went through it once again.
The second part of the test wasn't some sort of trial, instead, it was a fight, a fight for survival in between himself and the replica's of all the Arrivers since the beginning of these servers, his rewards would be based on how well he did.
He would fight them one by one in waves, the further along he made it the better the rewards he would gain, and every 5 wins lay a checkpoint, you could either leave or continue, if you decided to leave you would gain your reward and be sent out but if you continued then you had to either win the next 5 fights and reach the checkpoint or die.
Plus there was a time limit during the fights, if you spent too long idling you would just die.
Ray constantly warned him not to go too far, or else he could even face Dragons in the form of humans.
Neil wasn't arrogant enough to think that he could beat them so he took his warning seriously, he promised Ray that he wouldn't overextend himself.
"But there is one except to all these rules, the first five fights, the first five fights are completely different, easy... But different.", Ray emphasised this sentence over and over again.
"Understood."
And for the next 6 days, he trained non stop.
-----
Right before Neil had left for the trials...
"Where the fuck is Luca.", standing in front of the door to Neil's apartment stood Lei.
'I haven't seen him and when I tried calling him no one responded, it wouldn't have mattered if it was only once but there has been no response for more than a week.'
Sigh...
"He always leaves me worrying for him."
Tap.
"Hm?", he turned around and found the face of his teacher.
"Miss?", the word confused was written all over his face.
Bang!
Her palm landed on his head.
"Huh..."
'Why is it so dark now...'
Thud.
His body dropped like a broken statue.
"I'm sorry but I can't let you find him, at least not for now."
The body on the floor disappeared, "He should be going any time now, he'll probably be back in less than a minute as long as he doesn't die."
She slowly disappeared too, appearing before the door to Neil's room.
-----
"Ha!"
Crack.
The bones within his finger cracked under the pressure, he dropped onto his knee, his breaths heavy.
"Not bad kid, you should be able to do better than I did.", the approving look in his eyes stared Neil down.
"Why do your words sound sarcastic..."
Taking out a piece of meat jerky and water he began eating, "1 day left.", he uttered to himself.
His Core Being increased from 20 to 21 in the past 5 days, 'Why's it so slow...'
Compared to before his growth had decreased drastically, he assumed it was because of the lost arm but if so then he seriously regretted losing it.
'No, no point in regretting it, I can't change the past so I'll just have to deal with it.'
The main problem was he lost the slow sight, his surroundings no longer slowed down in the middle of the fight, he found it much harder dealing with attacks and his lack of experience was beginning to show.
"Your attacks suck, you have no form whilst attacking.", Ray brought the conversation straight back to fighting after he finished eating.
Neil hesitated for a moment, he had been planning on telling Ray of his situation for a few days. And so in a calm manner Neil explained his situation to Ray, of course, he hid a few details.
"I see, you've never actually used a scythe before, that much I can tell from your form alone but to think you've already had your first kill..."
"Hm, that should make things easier then, I was about to warn you not to hesitate to kill during the second half but it seems like you don't need the warning."
"Not to hesitate to kill?", it took him a moment until he understood what he meant, "The fights won't end with just defeat, for some reason it felt like I could just defeat them but it's my previous pacifist mentality coming in to play."
With furrowed brows he tapped at his chin, 'I feel like I'm missing something...', no matter how much he pondered he couldn't grasp onto that straw and figure it out.
He shook his head, 'My memory has gotten worse too...'
"Rest up kid.", Ray's voice woke him from his daze.
"I will."
On his way back to his own hut he opened up the system again.
*****
Neil Levinski
Sex - Male
Species - Spirit, ???
Age - 16
Fate - Hell's Fall, [Second Gate Test]
??? Attributes:
Core Being - 21
Celestial - 0%
Fate Coins - 50
Gates - [First Passed]
- [Second 50% Complete]
- [Third Locked]
*****
One problem after another, the past couple of weeks have just been a mess, he didn't even know what he was anymore and suddenly he was losing all of his advantages.
"Such a shit show.", he missed the days where he could mess around with Lei and enjoy his time with Neela, but those days would never come back.
"Fuck it I'll just sleep and forget about all of it."
So he did exactly that.
-----
The next day...
"Only one hour left kid, don't die, we need you."
"I'll try not to.", a smile entered his face.
"If you're still in the mood to joke around then you should be fine.", the old granny stood beside him carrying a gentle smile on her face as usual.
"Let me give you one final warning though, I know you have killed before, but the first 5 enemies...", his voice trailed off as a rare pained look flashed through his eyes.
"Sigh... Don't hesitate young boy...", even the old granny seemed slightly worried now.
"Don't worry, I won't."
Both of them gave him weird looks but decided to remain silent, he would experience the first 5 on his own, the first five were unavoidable and you had to go through them, if you weren't willing to kill then you would have to have the determination to kill yourself.
"It's starting.", Ray spoke in his calm voice.
"Be careful.", and the granny comforted him as usual.
He nodded back at them, everything began disappearing around him like a wisp of wind carrying away a leaf, looking around he was in a large white empty room.
"Checking age...", the mechanical voice appeared again.
"Age approved, beginning Heart Trial.", and the mechanical voice disappeared.
"Urgh...", Neil felt a violent force ripping him apart, even though he knew that he was simply being transported it still felt absolutely disgusting, Ray had even warned him about it.
Opening his eyes he stood in a large colosseum, this colosseum looked just like the one in Rome, completely broken down and in a dishevelled state, but the arena itself was completely cleared out with the ground being a simple dirt ground.
"Let's see what's so scary about the first 5 enemies.", they were meant to be the easiest but for some reason, the old granny and Ray seemed to be worried the most about them.
"Beginning the first wave, please prepare warrior.", the voice this time was slightly feminine, it remained mechanical but feminine at the same time.
"I'm ready.", his eyes were calm once again.
"Beginning the first wave."
A light shone down.
'Let's see who the next enemy is.', his tension rose.
"Waaaa!! Waaaa!", an audible cry came from the light.
And Neil's eyes twisted drastically.
"There's no way..."
