Trial

Chapter 12: Trial

Mercury set off to do what he wanted to. Which was taking down spiders. Now, since he wasn't suicidal, he stuck to groups with three spiders, sneaking up on them and throwing his first rock while taming a spider. This strategy worked fairly well, though it was slow. It took a while to find any spiders, since they guarded the entire territory and were always on the move. Then, he also had to be lucky enough for it to be a group of three spiders. Then he had to scout the area and so on.

But even though it was slow, it was very safe. This way he didn't have to put himself in danger, which made taking down the spiders much easier. In addition, he actually gained more experience this way, since he got some for taming and then some more for killing the spiders. The killing included the tamed ones of course. He wasn't stupid enough to just let those return. These were easy kills though, since he could simply throw both his rocks before they even had a chance to react, making them easy prey. In addition, they gave a little more experience, since they still gave full experience if he killed them after taming them.

Since it was his first day and he was especially motivated, he actually continued hunting for a long while, up until the point when the sky started to brighten. Only then did Mercury realize how tired he was. But his haul for the day was incredible. Just looking at all the notifications got him excited.

He had taken down 12 Spiders and tamed four (though once the taming failed and he had to run away). This netted him a total of 700 Exp, but there was especially interesting notification fairly close to the start.

[Level Up!]

It said. Well, damn. This still got Mercury excited every single time. Levels were just too cool. But, seeing it as a reward for when he got back home, he made the trip to his trusty log before opening his status.

Status:

Mercury Rainfall Starlight

Lv.: 3 -> 4

Species: Zetraspa

Titles: <Tutorial Completer>

Hp: 55/55

Mp: 72/72

Sp: 17/95

Strength: 23 -> 24

Vitality: 16

Dexterity: 23 -> 24

Agility: 28

Intelligence: 18 -> 19

Wisdom: 15

Willpower: 12 -> 14

Luck: 14

Ability points: 30

Gold: 127

Skill points: 550

Beast familiars: 0/1

Well Dang, those certainly were some sick upgrades. It was also a good balance between physical and magical stats, though later on he'd hopefully be able to increase his magic stats a lot more. For now, he needed rest. His Sp were also still exhausted from constantly being used and he was only able to keep going for so long because of the level up. Yeah, it was most certainly time to go to sleep.

Just like that, Mercury shut his eyelids and practically passed out.

The next night came a little too soon for his own personal taste, he had slept poorly and was still feeling tired from yesterday, but by now he was too deep to stop. He had to continue taking down spiders now, without taking too long of a break, or they might start increasing again.

And so he did. He stuck to his guns and headed out to the webbed territory after snacking on a rabbit. The day started off well, with him soon finding a group of three and taking them down. Surprisingly, this luck actually held. By midnight he had already taken down three groups of spiders total, though this netted him suitable exhaustion and he called it a day.

Sleeping poorly sure was a buzzkill, his limbs already felt terribly heavy when he walked home, so his thoughts were occupied with how horrible mana practice would go. To say he wasn't excited would have been a terrible understatement. He was almost scared of the magnitude of a headache he might net himself today.

Still, by the time he had arrived back at his log and finished eating the rabbit he still sat down and meditated. He was still going to go through with practice, even if he didn't want to. And, as to be expected, moving his mana with his tired thoughts first felt like he was trying to push back a landslide by himself. It was almost as if he was just dragging himself through mud for no reason other than self-torment.

Well, at least it started like that. Mercury hated losing, so the fog in his mind started to clear when he failed. He was focusing. More so than he had before. He blew the fog in his mind away himself rather than relying on outside influence and sharpened his will without help. This is all a fancy way of saying that he was fucking pissed.

He was losing to this shitty ass mana again and again, ending in him having a headache and pulling his tail in like a fucking wuss. He was angry because he was tired, and exhausted, and he felt he had a long fucking day and this shitty ass non-sentient liquid thought it was gonna fuck him over? Fuck that and fuck you, mana!

This was *his* mana and it would goddamn listen to him!

So, he got angrier and his exhaustion blew away. Then he got furious and his focus heightened. He wasn't gonna just move this shitty mana, he was about to call a fucking storm down. Move. Move! MOVE YOU LIQUIDY PIECE OF SHIT!

Surprisingly enough, the mana did move. It was non-sentient after all, so it listened to commands, and stronger commands obviously had a bigger effect. Actually, to say it moved would be an understatement. His mana reacted as though he had just unleashed an explosion in its middle. First, drops of it flew all around his core. Then, after getting a reaction, Mercury got angrier.

What was with this violent shitty movement?! Mana was supposed to be a whirlpool and move in unison, not splash around violently! This shitty fucking thing, you're supposed to spin! Do the woosh! Make a motherfucking whirlpool you mongrel!

And once more, his mana listened. It collected itself at the center of its core for a second, before spinning faster and faster, creating as much of a whirlpool as was possible at his current level.

Fucking finally! Was it that hard? Jeez. In the same breath, Mercury stopped his focus and left his core, leaving his mana to calm down on its own. Then, the pain set in.

He had overexerted himself, quite frankly. By more than a bit, too. He had forced his mana to move more than he should be able to and had simply ignored and shot past his limits. Of course, that meant there was a price to pay.

Just like that, someone shot his head with a sniper rifle, and the bullet caused the insane amounts of C4 in it to go off.

Needless to say, Mercury fell to the floor and rolled around while screaming. This pain was on a whole other level. It was entirely incomparable to anything that had happened before. He had literally broken a steel wall through sheer willpower, refusing to use any tools and insisting he smash it with his head.

Unluckily, this wasn't a headache that subsided after a while, either. After a quarter of an hour, Mercury's throat felt hoarse. After half an hour, he stopped screaming. An hour later, his rolling had stopped as he gave in to the time. Four hours later, the sun was rising and there was still no chance of sleep. 8 hours later his stomach started growling loudly, but after his legs refused to move even an inch, Mercury couldn't do anything.

He went a full 32 hours without sleep, food or water. He couldn't move. He couldn't think. All that existed was pain. After those 32 hours, he was able to barely stand again. His legs shook heavily, his breathing was rough and his sight was blurry, but he moved. He took one shaky step and ground his teeth at the pain. But it wasn't unbearable anymore.

Mercury pushed through with sheer willpower again. He absolutely hated losing, be it to mana or pain. What kind of king would he be if he couldn't even command himself? What a fucking joke. No, he was going to get water for himself.

And finally, some luck kicked in. There was no-one else at the pond. He was able to easily drink and stumble his way back to the log before he finally was able to fall asleep, more from exhaustion than from tiredness.

The next time he woke up it was still around midday, he had slept for just around an hour, barely enough to be called a nap. But with his head being a cacophony of explosions, well, sleep wasn't exactly something that came easily. So, Mercury dragged his tired self up and forced it to leave the log. He still needed food, so he went to hunt, even if every step he took was as hard as lifting up blocks of granite. Even if his consciousness threatened to faint with every meter of progress.

It didn't go very well. When he attempted to activate <Throw> the burning pain forced him onto his knees and darkness crept into the corners of his vision. Instead of getting anything done, he dragged himself back to the log and forced his eyes shut.

Mercury didn't quite know what else he could do. He had failed at hunting but hopefully he could keep going for just a few more days. Well, actually no. He would keep going, no matter what.

Okay, as a narrator I would like to take a break here. Jeez, this author is darn cruel. Damn jerk, really.

In contrast to that, I would like to take a minute to admire Mercury's madladness. And remember to stay hydrated kids. Hydrate, don't diedrate!

But now, back to the story.

The headache was finally subsiding. It had now been four days since it started. He only drank something on the second and didn't manage to find any food at all. In short, he was a mess. A very angry mess. A very angry and very, very hungry mess. And he was just about to hunt the living shit out of every single thing in this forest.

Another hour later, Mercury had eaten the food and drunk the water and the headache had receded to being nothing more than a heavy pounding. It now was only distracting, not pain that made him unable to act. At the very least, he had some capacity to think again, so he decided to at least check if this had netted him any progress.

<Mana Movement lv. max>

This one line he read when he checked out his progress seemed to make it all somewhat worthwhile. Now, somewhat does not at all mean worthwhile. In fact, if Mercury had been equipped with his current set of knowledge back then, he probably wouldn't have done anything even remotely similar to that.

But his exploration of his gains wasn't quite over then, as he now was finally capable of focussing enough to read the pop-ups.

[Willpower increased by 1.]

[Willpower increased by 2.]

[Willpower increased by 1.]

[Willpower increased by 1.]

His Willpower had risen by 5 points. This was essentially as if he had just pumped a full level into it, though the other benefits were obviously missing. See, this was on an entirely different scale already, but then he saw yet another pop-up.

[By braving extraordinary circumstances and pain the individual has received additional rewards. Get: 1 Ability point, 10 Skill points, 3 Willpower, 1 Wisdom.]

This seemed to boost the rewards to a wholly different level. This gave him an additional 5 points. It was not better than a full-scale level-up. Knowing this, Mercury realized something. He realized a simple truth. This system was cruel. It was more than unfair and unbelievably shitty sometimes. It kept throwing him into demanding and stupid circumstances and asked impossible things from him.

But he also realized one more thing. When it came to rewards, it was fairly fair sometimes. It was rare, but if you manage to get past an obstacle you will be rewarded for it.

This of course did in no way, shape or form excuse the bullshit it pulled, but to Mercury it seemed like something of a promise. He felt that if he kept giving it his all, he could move past all obstacles. He could do what he wanted to and become a king. This system promised him that if he kept going on through all the bullshit that was thrown at him, he could become a king.

And so, instead of rejecting the pain that was handed to him he decided to accept it. Both as a promise and a trial. He pressed on through and was rewarded. And he was no longer scared of future trials.

[Personal Quest: "Complete the Trials." added. Reward: 2 levels, 10 Ability points, 1000 Skill points, <Trialist> Title.]

[For more information open the journal]

What. What what? Fucking what now? 2 full-scale levels? This many points? And a title? What kind of fucking overpowered quest was this? Dude, fuck yeah! Sign him up man. This was an incredible opportunity! But what was this journal thingy?

As soon as he thought about it another window popped up. This one had a list on the left with the names of all his quests there, completed ones being greyed out and sorted at the bottom, with ongoing ones at the top, both of them sorted alphabetically. Of course, Mercury tapped one of them out of sheer curiosity.

Immediately the name lit up and additional information was displayed in the large window to the right of the quest names.

[Defeat the Mother of spiders: The individual has been requested to take down the unique E-grade Monster named the "Mother of Spiders". Defeating her can involve every method designed to make another individual submit or admit defeat. The quest will be completed the moment her spirit to oppose the individual has been broken or she is dead. Completed: 0/1. Reward: 2 Ability points, 100 Skill points, 250 Exp.]

Well shit, wasn't this handy. It offered a full on description of the quest, detailing how to fulfill the requirements, along with repeating the rewards. It also showed quest progress and shit. This was pretty great. He now also knew that killing wasn't the only way to "defeat" something.

But that aside, time to check this new quest.

[Complete the Trials: In order to complete this quest, the individual is required to fulfill the requirements for and receive the rewards of multiple randomly designated trials. The trials are regular, randomly activated trials that can be activated by a number of circumstances and anything that is recognized as a trial will add to the completion of this quest. Completed: 1/5. Reward: 2 levels, 10 Ability points, 1000 Skill points, <Trialist> Title.]

Well damn, 5 trials like the one he just went through? That sure sounded less than pleasant, but then again, two levels definitely were an amazing reward. Essentially, this reward kinda scaled with his power, which is already a pretty amazing thing to have. There was also downside though, specifically the fact that he couldn't choose when he would undertake a trial. They would randomly appear and he didn't yet have a clue when they would do so. Maybe when he pushed himself extremely hard? If so he absolutely needed to prepare medicine for when the next trial came because goddamn did he not want to go through that headache again. Though maybe that was the trial.

Ugh, he simply didn't know, so he stopped all the guesswork. He'd figure it out when the next trial came. Whatever. Time to enjoy his break for one more night and when his headache was back to a mild one, he would whoop miss-many-legs' ass.

So, the next night he stuck to his guns. His headache was mild, so he took down a rabbit and munched on it. After stocking his stomach up on water as well, he headed back to the spiders' territory.

He could tell his work was bearing fruit. The patrols were now largely 4-spider ones and a few 3-spider groups, but they were fewer. They were spread out among the border of the territory by now, which was a more than obvious sign that the amount of spiders was being reduced.

Now, while this was amazing and all, it also meant he only encountered two groups of spiders he could hunt that night and <Tame> even failed once, so he was only able to take down three spiders. This wasn't amazing, but it was manageable. The Mother obviously couldn't keep up with his rate of killing spiders. This, of course, was pretty great news, so being able to kill a few less spiders hardly bothered him.

After eating some more of the rabbit when he was back home, Mercury decided to skip out on mana practice for one more day and instead, he carved some runes. He felt like he could somewhat tell how successful he would be at carving higher-tier runes.

Of course, these chances should be revealed. By now he could carve low 1st grade runes with a near 100% chance. Mid 1st grade ones seemed also doable, if harder, and overcharged mid 1st grade ones seemed rather unlikely to succeed.

He guessed that this was because his mana control wasn't amazing, and because he probably lacked quite a bit of mana if he wanted to fully overcharge a mid-level rune, since a low-level one even took a total of 40 mana. So, instead of being a dumb fuck, he decided to carve mid-level runes. These took a little longer than the low-level ones though, since the lines needed to be deeper, more straight and more confidently done, so every edge was more pronounced and every curve was smoother.

[Failed to carve mid 1st grade Reinforce rune. Get: 3 Exp.]

[Failed to carve mid 1st grade Reinforce rune. Get: 3 Exp.]

[Failed to carve mid 1st grade Reinforce rune. Get: 3 Exp.]

Well, this sure was pathetic. First of all, he actually had to use <Meditate> after every second Rune, since they drained half his mana each. Then he also failed three times in a row. This was most certainly stupid. He shouldn't fail this often, ugh. Stupid system. Stupid headache. Okay, one more try!

[Successfully carved mid 1st grade Reinforce rune. Get: 30 Exp.]

Finally! This was good news, getting a Rune laid down was absolutely slick and most certainly pretty satisfying after carving four of them. Seems like his darn chances were lower than he thought, unluckily. Whatever, he got one rune down. He managed to squeeze one more carving session. This time he was lucky and got both runes down without issue before going to sleep.