Chapter 147: A Trial Less Like ‘Dodgeball’ and More Like ‘Volleyball'

Ares rested while Candy reversed the roles and sat on his lap instead. She'd curled up against Ares' chest and was tickling him with her tail while trailing her finger along his chest. Despite 'resting', Ares was still going over his brief experience with deflecting attacks. He'd delayed the inevitable but he couldn't put off doing the trial any longer. He imagined the first thirty seconds would be easy enough but Candy would undoubtedly pick up the pace and make him struggle during the latter half... And as for the last ten seconds... Who knows? Ares had a sneaking suspicion there was still a bit left in Candy's tank that she'd hidden from him. This was still a trial at the end of the day and Candy wasn't going to give him a free pass so he was putting in the effort to understand the deflection process better. The more familiar he was with it the quicker he would be able to make all the necessary decisions mid fight and correctly pull off the deflect. He would need to rely heavily on it during the trial as he wasn't going to whip out his magic like he had less than a minute ago so he wanted to make sure he felt confident before starting. The longer he could survive during his initial attempt the better.

Wasting time on trying to figure out what improvements he needed to make already was pointless and it would be easier to tell if he put his all into his first attempt so he could identify what was lacking rather than what he simply didn't bother with... Of course concentrating was somewhat hard with the troublesome fox on his lap affectionately nuzzling him with a cheeky grin. She knew she was hassling him but that was the point! The longer he stayed the happier she was. All good things must come to an end, though, and Ares, about thirty minutes later, was feeling ready to undergo the trial and see what it entailed. Ares ran his fingers through Candy's hair and kissed her on the forehead before picking her up so he could stand unimpeded. She kissed his neck and hopped out of his grasp with grace, landing on the tips of her toes with such finesse she probably wouldn't have even caused a ripple had the floor been made of water. She was light and fleet-footed despite the spring in her step.

"Ready for some more fun, cutie?" Candy hunched over and swayed her chest as she coyly gestured for Ares to come towards her.

Ares just shook his head at Candy's antics. She was a temptress and indulging her by falling into her pace was a recipe for disaster. He would never get anything done if he left everything up to her as she would probably push him down and sit comfortably on his lap again if given the opportunity. "Show me what ya got, Candy."

"Okey doke, your minute starts... Now!" As Candy clicked her fingers, a large timer appeared in the sky and started counting down from one minute at a rate of one Mississippi per second. Ares could have sworn these seconds were slower than normal ones... Ah well, it didn't change his task anyway so he ignored it.

To begin with, Candy started hovering again and the anti-magic blobs returned. She kicked things off by firing ten blobs at him sequentially. It was more than during the last fight but the gap between each of them made it easier for Ares to deflect them rather than harder. He effortlessly swatted the blobs aside and braced himself as the next attack was already incoming... Another set of ten blobs? Ares, for a moment, thought Candy really was taking it easy on him but he soon realised that wasn't the case. After blocking the first five blobs Ares realised the rotation of the attacks had reversed half way through the onslaught! She was sneaking in attacks with different rotations incorporated into them as they were spiralling in reverse despite being the exact same attack. This was a learning experience. First of all, clever fighters could bait a pressure deflect and counter it by intentionally changing up their magic. Secondly, hiding this trick behind regular magic meant Ares was forced to change his clockwise deflect to a counter clockwise deflect mid blob-hail. Changing the deflect mid rotation was extremely difficult and simply resetting the spiral and recreating it was the better, faster option here. Finally, this trial was going to be just like the others. Ares had assumed it wouldn't be too hard but, clearly, it was going to force him to learn how to operate pressure in scenarios he wasn't expecting. Ares believed deflecting magic was a simple process but he was learning that there was interaction between the attacker and defender that he hadn't previously thought about... Well, he was kind of right in saying this trial would be like the others. In the sense that he would be made to learn? Yes. But in regards to the overall difficulty... Ares had no idea what was in store for him. If he thought he would get past floor four as quickly as he had the other floors, he was going to be taught a harsh lesson about unfounded expectations.

For now, at least, Ares was doing ok. He'd fended off the half and half set of ten blobs and was currently working on a set of twenty... Completely random attacks! Some were spinning clockwise, some were counter clockwise and there was no rhyme or reason to the madness! And to top it off he needed to see the rotation and generate a pressure spiral rotating in the opposite direction. This shit's a brain buster and then some... Ares complained about the task in his head because the number of times he'd nearly tried to match the rotation of the blobs was not low... It was like being asked to pat your head and rub your stomach in a circle at the same time, then, occasionally, reverse the demand every half a second and keep up with the nonsense.

Ares' brain was sputtering in a desperate bid to chug along and help him keep a level head in the face of the spinning nightmare that was starting to render Ares dizzy. He needed a break so he opted to dodge the last two blobs even if he was convinced, deep down, that this was a foolish error on his part. Yes it worked now but, realistically, would it keep working? When things ramped up would running away be an option? Would Candy allow it? Hell no! Being unable to keep up with things already was a bad sign that what was yet to come was going to put Ares in his place thoroughly... Still, if he could at least get a glance at the next stage of things that would help him plan and come up with counter measures so he allowed himself to evade every now and then. Without a shadow of a doubt, though, the correct way to finish this trial didn't involve moving at all. Yes the aim was to not get hit for a minute but, truthfully, standing perfectly still for the duration was the only acceptable method to consider this floor well and truly cleared. Even if you could, hypothetically, dodge for a minute straight, you would just be screwed on the next floor where what was taught on this floor would be necessary. Trying to cheat would just set you up for failure further down the road. Someone like Enyo, for instance, who brute forced her way to this point, would never complete the fifth floor for as long as she lived. Candy knew that for sure and Ares had already speculated that was the case and he was damn well right. The last floor... It was a hell unto itself. Any and all pride had to be discarded before entering that floor lest the only thing you wanted to leave the pagoda with was a bruised ego. No matter how much of a genius you were in combat, cultivation, or pressure, you were going to lose, that was all there was to it. You may win eventually but that would come long after you forged yourself into a perfect wielder of pressure and no sooner. Beating the last floor on your first attempt was impossible, and that was especially true for anyone who didn't take this floor seriously!

Ares had survived for twenty seconds and next up were a bunch of blobs coming at him from different directions at the same time! The difficulty really ramped here and Ares knew he wouldn't be able to handle things currently. He just wanted to make it to the thirty second mark and see what manner of garbage Candy was going to start doing so he shamelessly incorporated dodges into his defense to bolster his chances of success. He was still doing a good job of deflecting the attacks he could currently handle, however, so he was confident he would be able to make it to the halfway point the normal way in the very near future. It wouldn't take him many more attempts to get to that point consistently as all he needed was experience with the dizzying aspect of the trial. It wasn't that his head couldn't keep up or that he couldn't create the spirals quick enough... It was literally just a matter of his poor, rattled brain trying not to succumb to the spinning... The infernal spinning...

Ares lept over some blobs and deflected a few more. He even redirected some blobs into some of the other ones heading in his direction to ease his burden and he felt good about it. This was definitely a technique he could incorporate into his arsenal even as it was currently. Yes there were improvements to be made but this was a very useful tool and Ares had always been a 'more the merrier' type of combatant. He didn't need to specialise thanks to his pillar filling in most of his needs by itself. Ares' comfortable run was going well up until the timer in the sky changed colour to a bright red and all hell broke loose. Ares was barely even sure what had happened, all he knew was that he saw a couple of talismans appear next to him before he started getting pummeled by tennis-ball sized anti-magic blobs from every direction. he couldn't guard against even a single one let alone the hundreds raining down on his head. Each one made a very audible Tock noise as they smacked his cranium. He'd already lost but that didn't stop Candy from firing more blobs and laughing at the noise her husband's skull made when it was repeatedly whacked. Ares had given her permission to hit him so she was going the whole nine yards and making the most of the situation. Ares would have complained but it seemed to bring her glee and he couldn't bring himself to ask her to stop. He simply poked his head out, so that more blobs would hit him there specifically, and grit his teeth. Anything for the people he loved... Ares was either incredibly devoted or a massive sucker and he really wasn't sure which... Although, really, the answer was probably both.

When the hail of magic ceased, Ares was able to gather his thoughts... With some minor difficulties thanks to the mini concussion he was dealing with anyway. The talismans were portals that allowed candy to redirect her anti-magic blobs and fire them at him from unpredictable angles. She could also skip some of the distance between her and Ares with the blobs by teleporting them through the portal. On average it took two seconds for a blob to reach Ares but, with the aid of the talisman, that could be shortened to half a second and potentially lower. With multiple talismans to contend with, and the original hail of blobs still firing in the background at their regular speed, the last half of the trial was effectively a bullet hell. The only solace Ares had was that the talismans gave away where the blobs would strike at him from... On the other hand, the time he had to check their spiral direction and deflect it was utterly abysmal thanks to them appearing out of the blue from the talisman. He wasn't anywhere near fast enough as is and was going to have to improve drastically to make any more progress. The difficulty spike was starting shoot upward and this portion of this trial was already harder than everything else he'd done up until now combined.

Rather than worry about the second half for now, Ares asked Candy to go again. The first half would be manageable if he just kept practicing it by banging his head against the wall over and over so he wanted to sort that out first. Baby steps. Unsurprisingly, this part of the trial went by without a hitch and, three attempts later, Ares was able to make it thirty seconds without needing to dodge. He'd also gotten pretty flexible with his body in order to hit awkward anti-magic blobs that assailed him from dodgy angles. This was generally useful for combat scenarios but Ares couldn't help but think the biggest winner of Ares developing this talent was Enyo... If she found out Ares could be even more twisty than he was right now, God only knows what kind of predicaments he would find himself in at the hands of Enyo's whims.

After Ares finally managed to complete the first thirty seconds flawlessly, he rested against Candy who pampered him while he looked inward. Once more... Ares needed to extract pressure from his heart even faster... Ares had been here before and this song and dance was starting to get real old, real quick... He'd already upped his times when he learnt to cast Annihilation Echo for Christ's sake! And yet even that wasn't good enough for the trials ahead. He could also opt to work on the process of making the pressure solid but that would benefit Ares far less, as it wouldn't affect his regular pressure at all, so this was the route he opted for instead...

Poke

Of course that was inevitably going to happen a lot more now that he'd returned to his pseudo surgeon roleplay... Nonetheless, he powered on and dedicated about an hour to this uninteresting task. He'd done this a thousand times over and could probably do it with his eyes closed. Well it was happening inside him so closing his eyes didn't stop him from looking but that wasn't the point! In fact, Ares actually did try doing it without looking and he was able to manage it... Albeit slowly... And on his third try... But he did do it! Candy even gave him a celebratory headpat after he explained what he was doing. She'd been a tad curious as to why he kept occasionally yelping every now and then and now she had her answer. She pitied him somewhat because her pressure reserves were in her tail, the same appendage she'd been swinging around for centuries.

Candy could access her pressure instantly with but a thought although she did remember how long it took her to draw it out when she first started. After realising Ares' pressure was located in his heart she was incredibly impressed with how fast he'd climbed the pagoda. Learning to draw it out from such a place was not something he should have been able to do over the span of a few hours. This guy had woken up, gone out for some entertainment, learned an unbelievably hard ability to attain, and was looking to return home all before dinner! Candy made a mental note to find out more about the fundamental champions when she went back to reality because she was clearly missing the memo on these freaks! She might have already known if she'd been allowed contact with the outside world but... Well... That wasn't exactly as easy as it sounded. Her family probably knew but why would they bother telling her? She was just a pawn to them... But she really wanted to know now! She was going to be dating one so wanting more information was only natural. The question was, how was she going to get ahold of all this information? Maybe the internet? If she could access it without her family knowing then maybe... Maybe she could swing Ares' name around and that would force her parents to back off a bit... She could figure out her game plan after she went back and saw her family's reaction to her newfound partner. The more shocked they were, and the more hesitant they were to make her life difficult thanks to Ares, the more she room she would have to navigate her confinement. The only question was, how much did her family fear the fundamental champions? Were they as big a deal as Ares was suggesting or was he being hyperbolic? She trusted him to be serious about this matter so she kept his name in her back pocket and held onto it tight. Ares also said he had souvenirs to give her that could act as proof of his commitment. Also also he had a method of contacting the outside via Golgo on the floor below. He said he would have Mako relay a message to Golgo that would then be relayed to the organisation; they could then spread the message about his relation to her themselves which would lend her claims credence. Maybe she could even get some contacts from outside who were supportive of the fundamental champions... Anything was in the cards so she chose to wait for now.

As for Ares, he eventually stood up and requested another round of blob beatdown! Candy obliged and, with Ares newfound speed of physical pressure creation, his body practically put itself on autopilot for the first thirty seconds. Ares had checked out mentally and was observing the pressure process in real time as he had the brainpower to spare right now. He even made a few adjustments and improvements on the fly seconds before the thirty second mark reared its head. When it did, Ares took a deep breath and devoted three quarters of his attention to keeping track of the talismans and the blobs that exited from their respective portals. He didn't spare much attention for the normal blobs because he become familiar with them and could handle them without a fuss. Ares made progress and survived the first wave of the second half even if there were beads of sweat trickling down his head. He was given no quarter though as the next wave came immediately after. This time, each of the talisman's kept moving instead of staying one place while they emptied their contents at Ares. He still managed to keep going for a while before he was clipped by a blob near the end of the wave. The talisman was dirty! It slid underneath his legs and shot him in the groin! It hurt like hell! Was this supposed to happen or was Candy being a minx again! She was giggling heartily so Ares honestly couldn't tell... Either way, he would keep an eye out for that specific trick again! He asked Candy to start the trial anew and things went the same way as last time up until the encounter with the sly talisman. Ares dodged it with room to spare this time and cleared that wave too.

What next.... What next... Ares mused anxiously as he prepared himself for some new manner of trickery... Well he thought he was prepared, at least, but when he lost instantaneously he realised he wasn't even at the starting point for this next segment of the trial... He was used to dealing with two attacks at the same time, one with either hand, but Candy just launched three! The sets of two had expanded and now additional attacks were being thrown into the mix... But Ares still only had two hands! What was he supposed to do?! Kick the blobs?!... Actually... That was probably the correct answer. Ares' inward assertion that the pressure needed to be generated at his hands was groundless. That was how he'd learned but that didn't mean he was limited to that and couldn't branch out. He had an entire body to play around with so sticking rigidly to his hands and not experimenting with the rest of him was quite lazy... WAS THAT WHY CANDY AIMED AT HIS GROIN?!... What a roundabout method of giving a hint... Ares sneakily checked to see if he could create a vortex from his nether regions and, as it turns out, he could... It felt kind breezy though so Ares decided not to use that little trick unless he was messing with Enyo. She would likely appreciate the ability even if, functionally, it was absolutely worthless. Whether as a joke or because she would rack her brains for a way to make use of it Ares didn't know, but appreciate it she would! 

Ares got used to the sensation of deflecting with his other body parts by restarting the trial over and over. He was great at the first half so he could use those thirty seconds to get practice in with his new methods at his disposal. It wasn't particularly difficult by any means, the only real difference other body parts made was that releasing the vortex was harder on smaller body parts and easier on bigger ones. Turning his chest into a deflector, for example, was incredibly easy but also really risky. If Ares missed the deflect or worse, used the wrong direction for his spiral and enhanced an attack accidentally, he would suffer big time. Different parts had different benefits and downsides but the main point was that everything could be used and that was going to be necessary to go any further in this trial. Ares acclimated himself to to this process before trying the second half again and, when the dreaded sets of three started appearing, he was able to hold them at bay. There was one more wave before Ares would make it to the 'tens seconds remaining' portion of the trial but he was hesitant to start celebrating just yet. Each and every wave tested him on something he wasn't ready for and this upcoming one would no doubt be the same in that regard.

A hail of forty blobs came tumbling down from the sky while five talismans spun around him, occasionaly spitting out their own blobs. Ares was swivelling on his heel, ducking low, and bending his spin to smack away every last blob but his rhythm was thrown off when one talisman started to get a little too close for comfort. It wasn't spitting anything out at him, it was just tepidly meandering towards him like a lost kitten. Ares was tempted to ignore this odd behaviour but when a surge of mana erupted from the talisman Ares realised this stupid thing was about to blow up in his face! Was it really possible to deflect an explosion?! Ares had to pray the answer to his question was 'yes'... Even though he really wanted it to be 'no'. If explosions could be deflected then his annihilation magic also ran the risk of being snubbed in the future... Oh well, no use crying over it. He couldn't change it so why bother fretting? Then again, this was just a normal explosion. Ares' were magic so maybe it made a difference? Or maybe he could sneakily chuck in sme disintegration magic to solve the issue...

Ares shook his head and refocused on the swelling talisman as that was a bigger concern right now. Locating the core of an erratic explosion sounded like a nightmare and, once more, the difficulty of the task was skyrocketing. If it weren't for his Omniscience there was no chance in hell Ares would be passing this trial today. The time it would have taken him to learn this all via trial and error would have been way longer so he was grateful. He didn't count this as cheating either because locating the core of magic had absolutely nothing to do with pressure, it wasn't a part of the foundation of pressure it was just something it could, and frequently did, interact with. Plus Ares' Omniscience was basically locked to him at this point. If someone cut out his eyes, thanks to his revenant regeneration they would just grow right back. Even if he were killed the Prisms would come along with him for the ride. Although they had yet to become a personal treasure they functioned like one regardless. Actually, Ares could feel them 'warming up to him' so they would probably fully integrate sooner or later. Ares bet it would be when he gained access to divine sense in sensory enhancement, and it was a fairly reasonable bet to place at that. To that end he would never lose the ability to easily locate magic cores for as long as he lived which, just so coincidentally, happened to be forever. Omniscience had every right to be a part of the conversation. Anyway, while Ares had distracted himself, the talisman wasted no time in exploding in his face!

BOOM