Chapter 3: Pyromancy

[Bonus Stage: Choose a reward to proceed further.]

[Weapons, Elixirs, Skills]

The blue screen hovering infront of Ron had made him excited. Seeing as how his previous battle has exhausted him so, he was wondering how those guys with their ordinary physiques without even unlocking the status screen were able to defeat these kinds of monsters.

"It seems 10th level indeed was the threshold.", he muttered in understanding.

Looking over the weapons in the interface, there were common, uncommon and rare weapons. The common and uncommon weapons were enough to deal with beasts of 1 and 2 stars. For a reference his current dagger would be categorized as a common weapon.

"Weapons are external tools which I do not need currently. Although rare weapons would be quite useful later too but I can't bring out their power fully with my current stats.", Ron analyzes the situation aloud.

Skipping the weapons menu, he went ahead and checked out what elixirs were available.

The elixirs were a higher form of potions only available in the celestial grounds. These were what excited Ron the most, he could use these elixirs to unlock one of the energies present in the celestial grounds. Although there were many energies present, some rare while others more commonly used. The most common types were mana for mages, and aura for warriors.

Ron searched through the menu and finally found a mana initiation elixir.

The elixir was used mostly by nobles, who wanted to awaken their intelligence stat. In the celestial grounds this was a precious commodity.

The normal mana initiation potions, available to players, only activate the innate mana present in the body but to activate the elements, one still had to perform variety of quests and unlock that certain element.

But this elixir skipped that part, and directly awakened the element with which one had the most affinity.

Indeed those that reached the 10th challenge deserved such a reward as it was no small feat.

Ron didn't need anything other than his mana to burn down all enemies to cinders, and with the elixir he can activate his fire attribute right away. The skills he didn't even need as he can already perform many of them without the system.

[Reward chosen: Mana Initiation Elixir.]

[Next challenge starts in 30mins.]

Hearing the announcement from the system, Ron hurriedly got into a meditative pose and began to relax his mind.

He then drank the elixir, and could feel an amazing energy in his body activating, refreshing his mind and gathering at his glabella. It was mana, blue in color, and based on the intelligence stat. He should've unlocked 5 points of intelligence, after drinking that potion. So he had a total of 50 MP, as mana was calculated as intelligence stat multiplied by 10. And HP was also the same with vitality stat multiplied by 10.

In his previous life, he had used his aura and after obtaining a certain mysterious inheritance, he switched to using mana with the fire attribute. This time he already knew a lot about the game and the world so he didn't need to go through a tedious process.

Thirty minutes passed quickly while Ron had finished absorbing his elixir. The short time was also a test for the challenger's judgement and aptitude. These trials although simple and crude, required one to be skilled and adept at various things to pass.

[CHALLENGE 11: Kill 3 four armed monkeys.]

Starting directly from the intermediate 2 star rank beasts on the 11th challenge, It was indeed gonna get harder from here on out.

The environment changed into a forest, and the 3 four armed monkeys appeared, each dancing and screeching on a branch. This would be troublesome if even the environment favored them, but Ron was confident this time.

He snapped his fingers, and a small orange colored flame appeared in his palms. Although he didn't have the system interface and skills related to mana, he could use it due to having done this previously. He had learned to not rely on the system for his spells and it has indeed come in handy.

Swinging through the trees one monkey rushed towards him. While Ron added more and more mana into the flame hidden in his palm. The monkey attacked while the other two observed from afar. As soon as it's two fists were about to collide into Ron, he dodges and moves in, closer to the monkey. Ron opens up his palm and slaps it hard on the screeching monkey. The monkey screeched loudly as the flames burned it's mouth and insides whole. The monkey lay there dead after a while of torturous screams. While Ron smiled at the others.

Seeing this scene, the other two monkeys had shivers run down their spines and began screeching in a panic.

Not giving them a chance to attack first, Ron rushes to them while making a fireball in his palm, and hurls at one monkey which gets hit and a hole is burned through it's abdomen.

The last monkey begins moving around and keeps in the cover of the trees to avoid being hit like that. Although low, it still has certain intelligence or maybe it's survival instinct is kicking in.

Ron enforces his legs with attributeless mana and jumps towards the monkey. The monkey unable to cope with his speed stands dumbfounded as a fireball hits it's face and incinerates it.

"It's good to be able to use mana again. I could've handled these chumps with ease if I could also use that aura elixir.", Ron mutters in deep thought. Although infinitely far from his previous pyromaniac self, he has finally been initiated on his path. This time surely he'll achieve what he previously could not due to his weak foundations.

[11th Challenge cleared.]

[Rewards will be settled at the end.]

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[12th Challenge: Kill a Crimson ape]

"A Crimson ape, fuck, it really had to be this kind of luck again.", Ron curses his bad luck at the next opponent which was actually resistant to fire.

It was an advanced rank 2 beast. Ron didn't know what the limit for the beasts would be in this trial.

"It shouldn't surpass the 3rd rank beginner monsters, as defeating anything further would be impossible even for me." Ron mutters.

So how would the others get through to the 17th challenge.

The crimson ape stands tall towering over Ron, it is quite a muscular beast with a hide that is quite fire resistant. Although he could still defeat it with his pyromancy but it'd be quite a waste of mana.

So he took out his dagger again and used the attributeless mana, to reinforce both himself and the dagger. The mana flows through his weapon and his limbs, granting them strength.

It was a difficult task for any beginner to differentiate the attributeless mana and elemental mana but Ron had been quite used to it.

The ape stands still, observing the skinny human who stands in an attack ready posture. The skinny human Infront of it starts attacking by rushing towards it but it catches the Human's hand mid attack and flings him far away. The human hits the tree and it is excited to see that so it rushes in and attacks again. But it's puzzled when the human shows an amazing burst of speed and dodges it's fist. The human then hits it with the dagger and causes a huge gash to appear in it's arm.

It roars at the human for daring to dodge and attack it. Although the gash seems huge it is merely a flesh wound that would be healed after a while so it disregards it and keeps attacking the human.

Ron on the other hand is dodging while thinking of ways to kill the ape. Although he wanted to get it over with while piercing the apes brain in one go but it is quite protective of it's important organs. So he keeps looking for blind spots. Although he wanted to use pyromancy here but his flame attacks would be almost useless.

Looking at the dagger, he comes up with an idea, he reinforces it with more mana while heating the blade up with his fire attribute. He makes the blade extremely hot while keeping a balance to not melt the dagger itself. The apes fist hits the ground again and seeing the chance, Ron rushes in and slashes at it's arm, severing half of it and making the bone visible. Blood trickles down the huge arm.

The ape roars as this attack had dealt quite a bit of damage. In frustration it attacks with the other arm and Ron uses this chance to slash at it's knees from behind. With it's tendons cut, The ape falls to it's knees. Looking at the human before it, it tries to bite at it but fails miserably as the dagger is plunged into it's head and the mana rampages turning it's brain to mush.

[12th Challenge Cleared]

"Damn, that was harder than anticipated.", Ron rests for a while as this time a beast has managed to hit him and it was unexpected. He reviews the fight and meditates to recover his stamina and mana.

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[To be continued.]