Tests(5/?)

Title alternate: Cyclops (1/2)

(A/N: Cyclops this, Cyclops that, I mentioned the word 'Cyclops' a lot in this chapter; the voices won't leave me alone!)

(Ps: A very important explanation about the lore of this Fanfic is in the 'post-chapter' message that I always leave; for a better understanding, I recommend reading it.)

[The Fourth Stage has been completed.]

[The User is now in the Fifth Stage.]

Vesper blew a bit of air as he looked at the ruined plain that quickly began to repair itself as the System warned him about his Stage Advancement.

'Completing this Stage should grant me the Mastery Reward for the Mission.'

[Would you like to initiate the Fifth Stage?]

[Y/N]

Vesper clicked '[Y]' without thinking much about it. He was eager to progress through the Stages as quickly as possible.

[The Beginning of the Fifth Stage has been confirmed.]

[Like the previous Stages, the difficulty level has increased after the User entered the Fifth Stage.]

[The Enemy of this Stage is being generated.]

The System notification disappeared as a red light appeared on the horizon.

'Red? The light from the previous stages was white... does this symbolize an increase in strength? A change in the type of enemy? Or something else?' Vesper stared at the red light in confusion.

The red light shone even brighter, causing Vesper to snap back to attention, tightening his grip on the bow.

When the glow diminished, a new type of monster stood in front of Vesper.

Even from almost 100 meters away, the creature seemed gigantic, with a humanoid body full of unnecessary muscles and veins pulsating with its breathing.

Gray skin accompanied by a head without any hair but with a huge eye in the center of the forehead, leaving room for only a small nose and a mouth as large as its eye.

The monster didn't seem to wear any armor or clothes, but it also didn't seem to have any 'reproductive organs,' giving more credibility to it being a race born through other means.

[Cyclops - Level 50]

[Danger Level: Terrible (5)]

'!' Vesper's eyes widened when he saw the monster's Level and Danger Level.

The Cyclops roared, shattering the ground around it as it noticed Vesper's small figure, resembling an ant.

The Cyclops's roar released a shockwave that forced Vesper to brace his feet to stay on the ground.

'This guy is much stronger than that army of red Hob-Goblins; is there such a big difference between these 10 levels?'

While Vesper worried about staying on the ground, constructing some thoughts, the Cyclops had its 'mind' on another goal: crushing its opponent.

And so it was done; with a single thrust, it launched itself towards Vesper, creating a huge crater where the Cyclops had been before. The impulse was strong enough to cross the 100 meters in a literal blink of an eye.

'Shit!'

The Cyclops delivered a kick to Vesper as if he were a soccer ball, while its foot destroyed the entire surroundings.

...

[Veserithorn has died.]

[Starting Veserithorn's Resurrection.]

[Completion time: 1 week]

...

[Resurrection has been completed.]

Vesper opened his eyes as his 'new' body began to sweat profusely, his mind still fixated on the Cyclops's kick.

'He has at least 200 points in each physical attribute!'

Vesper's Physical Attributes were just a few points away from crossing the 100-point mark, yet he couldn't react to the Cyclops.

Even though there was a significant difference between the capabilities of a Status with each 100 points, it shouldn't have been so gigantic if the Cyclops had only between 100 - 199 points.

'If I can use Destiny Theft on him...' Vesper's eyes gleamed with a slight greed.

'I will definitely need MANY opportunities to finally kill this guy, so I don't need to worry about simply gaining strength and not training my Masteries.'

With a newly created conviction, Vesper snapped his fingers, conveying his intentions to the System.

[The Fifth Stage is initiating.]

The red light appeared on the horizon again, and after a few moments, the same Cyclops could be seen.

Vesper quickly made Spiral Energy circulate around his body to strengthen it.

The Cyclops roared loudly, replicating its first action, as if it were a signal for the start of a battle.

[Eyes of Destiny (Activated)]

[Twist (Activated)]

Vesper's vision became several times sharper before a twist appeared in one of the Cyclops's knees, causing it to lose balance for a moment.

Vesper seized this moment to load his bow with three spiral energy arrows and shoot them at the Cyclops, aiming to test the durability of the monster.

The arrows crossed the 100 meters in a few moments and hit the creature that was almost finishing its action of getting up.

The thick skin of the Cyclops came into play when the arrows hit its body but barely managed to stick properly into its flesh.

'Perfect.' Vesper's eyes gleamed as he watched three spiral reactions beginning where the arrows were holding.

The flesh of the Cyclops began to twist and turn at a slow pace due to the monster's high physical resistance, causing it great pain.

The Cyclops struck the places that were hurting instinctively, crushing the spiral energy arrows with its powerful blows that created shockwaves, frightening Vesper.

'This physical strength is surreal...!'

Vesper instinctively created three more spiral arrows and shot them at the Cyclops, aiming to test the monster's durability.

But this time, instead of standing still after shooting the arrows, Vesper began to move in circles around the Cyclops, which followed him with its single eye squinted in anger.

With each turn Vesper made, he created a rain of spiral arrows descending toward the Cyclops, which protected itself by swinging its monstrous arms in the direction of the arrows, generating strong shockwaves while completely destroying the poor arrows.

'Tch, this won't work.'

Vesper looked at the Cyclops's eye for a moment.

[Twist (activated)]

Vesper's active skill was activated on the Cyclops's squinted eye, and a few moments later, the eye began to twist into a spiral shape, causing the Cyclops to roar in absurd pain.

''RAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH'' The Cyclops grabbed its head in pain and fury while stomping its feet on the ground with all its might, trying to dissipate the sudden pain in its single eye.

With each step the Cyclops took, the ground cracked and sank further, and with each second the Cyclops's roar lasted, loose rocks were sent flying away from it at high speed.

Vesper was forced to defend against these loose rocks by raising his hand, creating a small vortex of wind by releasing Spiral Energy from his palm, sucking all the rocks into the vortex and grinding them into dust.

'The amount of force this stupid guy has is ridiculous!' Vesper thought in amazement while maintaining the vortex to protect himself from all the earth projectiles heading toward him.

This continued for a few seconds: the Cyclops roaring in pain and Vesper protecting himself from the projectiles because it was absolutely useless to try anything. Getting too close to the Cyclops would result in his death, and shooting arrows would be futile due to the Cyclops's pain-induced scream that repelled anything that came even remotely close.

Things only started to move again when the Cyclops itself seemed to begin to calm down, removing its hands from its head and slowing down the pace at which it stomped the ground until it stood completely still for a while.

Vesper took advantage of this opportunity to attack again, not wanting to give the Cyclops too much time to completely recover from the pain. He loaded spiral arrows and put more spiral energy into them before shooting them at the Cyclops, these arrows were at least three times stronger than the previous ones.

(The previous ones: around 100 Energy Status, these new arrows: 350 Energy Status)

The arrows tore through the air and reached the Cyclops much faster than usual, hitting the monster's back and going deeper than the previous arrows.

Three spiral reactions started as the arrows embedded completely, causing three distinct points on the Cyclops's back to distort much faster than the first time, generating another wave of pain while damaging the Cyclops.

''ARGGGGGGH!'' The Cyclops roared in fury when it was pulled out of its 'stopped' state, moving its eye toward Vesper.

The Cyclops's single eye emitted a glow that began to increase as seconds passed, alarming Vesper.

[Twist (Activated)]

He used Twist on the Cyclops's eyes as a kind of instinctive reaction, but realized that nothing happened: it was as if this light completely neutralized the ability.

And before Vesper could take another action, a huge beam of light that seemed to eclipse the figure of the gigantic monster was shot in Vesper's direction at high speed, even faster than his arrows.

The Spiral Energy reinforcing Vesper's body began to pulsate before emanating from within his body as the beam engulfed Vesper's figure.

...

...

...

The Cyclops silently stared at the spot where its beam of light hit; the pain in its back had completely stopped.

When it felt there was no more danger, it began to walk away from where it was, heading back home.

...

...

...

Within the enormous curtain of dust raised by the Cyclops's Light Beam, there was a crater that went down 100 meters below the plain's surface. At the bottom of this crater was Vesper, breathing heavily.

'That was...dangerous...' He thought with great mental exhaustion as he recalled what happened.

The Spiral Energy in his body reacted protectively to the Enormous Light Beam that caught him off guard. This same Spiral Energy generated a kind of 'mantle' around his body that absorbed all the damage that this Monster's 'magic' would cause him.

The amount of Spiral Energy used in this 'mantle' was enormous, and because of that, Vesper was exhausted, not due to a lack of Spiral Energy but due to mental exhaustion. Apparently, Level 47 in the Spiral Energy Mastery was not enough to sustain all this effortlessly.

Vesper gritted his teeth as he began to get up, sweat dripping from his body and falling into his clothes. This was probably the time he sweated the most; his body seemed to reflect his mentally tired state in a peculiar way.

''💣︎✋︎☼︎☼︎⚐︎☼︎(MIRROR)'' Vesper ordered aloud as he looked up at the sky outside the huge crater he was in.

A mirror reflecting the surroundings was generated under Vesper's gaze, showing the Cyclops's location.

''👍︎☟︎✌︎💧︎☜︎(CHASE)'' He ordered while pointing his bow with a spiral arrow in the direction of the mirror, saying only a single word without specific context as he aimed.

With a deep breath, Vesper released the arrow that shot up at high speed and hit the mirror. When it hit the mirror, the arrow was reflected in the direction of the Giant before aligning perfectly with its target, shooting toward it as it disappeared from Vesper's view.

The mirror in the sky disappeared as Vesper let out a puff of air and started jumping out of the hole, reinforcing his body with Spiral Energy.

With his {Body Reinforcement} and Spiral Energy Reinforcement, Vesper's physical attributes were between '100 and 150,' according to his estimates. Thus, it was not very difficult to get out of there, managing to escape from this crater with a few jumps in time to see the arrow cross the entire vast distance already covered by the Cyclops and hit it squarely in the distorted back.

The arrow stuck into the Cyclops's back, causing it to quickly turn to where the arrow came from, seeming to contain a 'surprised' look. This 'surprised' look changed to a horrified look when the arrow that stuck in its back began to make its flesh twist again, even stronger than the previous times.

This new region being distorted had a much greater effect than the previous ones, weakening the defenses on the Cyclops's back as the twisting flesh caused a large amount of purple blood to be squeezed out of the Cyclops's body through its back.

''RAAAAAAAAAAGH!'' The Cyclops opened its mouth in fury, starting to release a huge shockwave again.

[Twist (Activated)]

Vesper stared at the giant screaming, more specifically, at the giant's open mouth, while activating this skill. He remembered his studies with Mr.G mentioning that the inside of the body was more fragile than the outside, at least for most beings.

And now it was time to put these studies into practice.

A spiral began to appear in the Cyclops's throat, which realized it seemed horrified: canceling its scream in an attempt to stop it, but it was already too late.

The Spiral twisted the Cyclops's throat with great force as the Cyclops convulsed, falling to its knees. Its convulsion brought 'results' when its mouth opened instinctively, and a large amount of vomit, mainly 'water,' was poured onto the ground around the Cyclops, releasing a horrible smell.

Vesper didn't like the scene much; it wasn't pleasant. Thus, he took a deep breath while focusing on the Cyclops, which seemed more fragile than ever, and moved his gaze to the bloody back of the Cyclops.

He pulled the bowstring of his bow, generating a spiral arrow, and shot before repeating this process as fast as he could many, many times, trying for the first time his own barrage of arrows (which didn't have a very long interval, unlike the previous attempt).

Thanks to Vesper's great mastery with the bow, he was able to do this on the first try, as if this action were recorded in the muscles of his body. Dozens of spiral arrows were shot and positioned perfectly on the Cyclops's back, which convulsed, before various twists began on its back.

In a few moments, the scene became increasingly grim, causing a victorious smile to appear on Vesper's face as he stared at the Cyclops, seemingly lacking the strength to keep itself away from its own vomit.

BADUMP

Vesper's eyes widened slightly as he noticed a loud heartbeat.

His widened eyes began to shift into a horrified expression as he looked over the Cyclops's back, getting closer with a high jump that almost threw him into the clouds.

The Cyclops's open interior contained nothing but a stomach; no vital organs, let alone the heart, could be seen.

BADUMP

BADUMP

'Where is this sound coming from?' Vesper questioned himself, growing nervous as the sound definitely wasn't coming from him.

Vesper's eyes quickly scanned the surroundings before stopping at a specific part.

On the Cyclops's head.

Its head seemed to pulsate from time to time, matching the rhythm of this sound.

'You've got to be kidding me...' He thought horrified as a large amount of smoke began to emerge from the areas around the Cyclops's eyes.

[The Cyclops activated its Ability]

[The Ability {Last Effort} has been activated.]

[Cyclops - Level 50 —> Cyclops(L.R) —> Level 60]

Vesper aimed his bow as quickly as he could at the Cyclops and began shooting at it over and over again.

But this proved useless when the giant moved its arm that until a few moments ago seemed about to give up and crushed all the arrows. The air pressure generated by this simple movement sent Vesper flying, falling to the ground several meters away.

'My back... wait, the Cyclops!' Vesper complained slightly about the pain in his back before remembering the aberration he was facing, putting his mind back in place.

Vesper's fate-filled eyes moved toward where the Cyclops was, only for him to be faced with the frightening sight of a huge, bloodied Cyclops, surrounded by smoke and some neon-red lines scattered across its body, staring at him with anger, hatred, determination, and lastly: with a strong will to survive.

'This ability is complete nonsense! Why do both monsters that managed to kill me have to have similar abilities?!' Vesper questioned indignantly as he jumped out of the small hole that had been formed when he fell to the ground.

Vesper coated his body again with Spiral Energy as his head began to ache due to increased mental exhaustion.

The Cyclops lunged toward Vesper with all its might, destroying everything in its path, creating craters with each step.

Knowing that he couldn't run due to the difference in size and physical attributes, Vesper advanced toward the Cyclops.

The monster took extremely wide steps, and in a few moments, both were almost glued to each other, a sight that would be quite comical if not for the Cyclops's scary appearance.

The Cyclops raised its foot and stomped in Vesper's direction at the first opportunity.

[Twist (Activated)]

Vesper stared at the knee of the attacking leg and twisted it, changing the direction of the Cyclops's stomp while throwing himself away, narrowly avoiding it.

He took the opportunity to shoot a 'special' Spiral Energy Arrow into one of the Cyclops's arms, which quickly crossed the short distance and embedded itself in the arm before starting to twist the flesh located there.

The Cyclops roared in fury and struck with its hand where Vesper was in the air, the force behind this blow would easily create a huge hole in the ground.

The 'special' Spiral Energy Arrow contained a small rope made of Spiral Energy connected to Vesper's bow. Thus, he quickly pulled with force to be thrown away from the direction of the Cyclops's blow, which ended up missing and hitting the ground, forcing the plain to tremble as a huge cloud of dust was raised, with earth and stones spreading in all directions.

Vesper clung slightly to the disabled arm of the Cyclops while feeling his hand heat up; the Cyclops's body was extremely hot.

'Tch, I would be screwed if it were a melee weapon user.'

Without waiting for the dust cloud to settle, the Cyclops raised the same arm and attacked the arm that Vesper was holding, disregarding the consequences as long as it completely destroyed Vesper.

'Stupid Cyclops!' Vesper uttered his first offensive word while propelling himself away from the Cyclops's body using its arm as support, narrowly dodging the blow again.

The Cyclops's blow released a large shockwave as a loud cracking noise could be heard; the struck arm was heavily damaged.

Vesper's vision became somewhat blurred when the shockwave of this blow hit him. Suffering from mental exhaustion while various small notification sounds filled his head (due to Vesper's buffs) was not a very pleasant experience.

'Turn off these damn sounds!' He ordered, and instantly the sounds stopped. However, this ended up costing a great opportunity to strike, making it his turn to be hit.

This time was well seized by the Cyclops, which gave a strong headbutt to Vesper since its two arms wouldn't be fast enough for the position Vesper was in, forcing Veserithorn to cross his arms in front of his body.

''☼︎☜︎💧︎✋︎💧︎❄︎(RESIST)'' He ordered desperately before the Cyclops's headbutt connected with his body in the air, causing the small Vesper's body to shoot like a torpedo toward the ground as a new crater was formed, raising more dust, stones, and various other things.

Vesper's body, reinforced by three forces: {Body Reinforcement}, {Spiral Reinforcement}, and {Wingding Reinforcement}, barely resisted as he felt the bones in his back break, unable to feel the leg area due to the damage suffered.

Unbeknownst to him, a large amount of blood was around his body, and his teeth were slightly cracked due to the force they were pressing on. Vesper's glazed eyes with small tears around them due to feeling such an absurd amount of pain for the first time.

'I need to get out of here...!'

It was the only thought in Vesper's mind as he tried to move to get out of the dusty cave. He didn't want to wait to be struck again.

He used all his efforts and an extremely high amount of determination to start moving, turning the possible into impossible as his Spiral Energy began to spin absurdly fast inside him.

The lower part of his body, which he could no longer feel due to the damage suffered in his back, still moved, slowly lifting him up, while Vesper used his now 'useless' arms to assist in this action.

All of this was done desperately in those few three seconds after the Cyclops's blow; he knew the Cyclops wouldn't wait long to attack.

And that's exactly what happened when the dust cloud was suddenly split in two by a huge leg descending at incredible speeds toward Vesper, ready to crush him completely.

'Ah.'

Vesper's mind cleared for a moment as he saw the leg descending toward him, pushing away all kinds of feelings and various thoughts.

'I'm dead.'

The Cyclops's leg collided with the bottom of the crater as a huge earthquake occurred due to the force of this monstrous creature.

[Veserithorn has died.]

END

-----

A chapter focused purely on a single battle, without distractions. 3,700 words of pure fight, I didn't think I would write something like this so soon.

It's challenging to write a battle for a guy who barely reaches 150 against a colossal monster of almost 50 meters, especially when this monster surpasses the guy in all physical attributes by a large margin.

But I won't deny that it was a slightly fun experience.

The real difficulty is beginning, and Vesper will need to work hard to get through. He could indeed destroy this Cyclops if he used all 1,000 Energy Points in a single spiral arrow, and this could be done with a single shot.

But if using just over 300 points to defend against an energy beam made Vesper almost faint from mental exhaustion, then this 1,000-point arrow would kill him just trying to gather spiral energy for it. His mastery of Spiral Energy is not great enough.

Thus, he will have to develop well to get through this stage. The 5th stage is like a watershed; it separates levels between 'Easy' (1-4) and 'Difficult' (6-10).

If I put a bit of protagonism or 'plot armor' in this chapter, Vesper would definitely have defeated the Cyclops. But I'm not a big fan of writing that kind of thing; I like it when the protagonist ends up dead due to lack of preparation or training.

For these and other reasons, I don't try to write a story where the protagonist can't revive; otherwise, there would be no story ≽^•⩊•^≼

...

I ended up seeing the new suggestions, and I must confess that many of the suggestions caught my interest. Not to mention that I was immensely happy and determined seeing that the number of comments and overall interactions increased; that's what made me write this chapter even though today was a 'rest' day (lol).

I've been thinking a lot about these 'Tests,' and I don't know if it would be good to keep extending them until the 10th Test. Each one is divided into 5 parts, and they get progressively more challenging. Vesper probably wouldn't leave the Test area until Chapter 20 (considering he passes certain parts on the first try), so I'm thinking of speeding up this part a bit.

Most of Vesper's progress will be made over time, especially the important developments, so many things will take quite a while. Much of my plans and many suggestions will only be implemented when Vesper is much older, and when I say much older, I mean much.

I intend to develop a lot with him still being a child, meeting certain beings/characters that are also children, and many others, perhaps even many of these characters growing up and aging to a certain point while Vesper remains a 'child.'

So I think Vesper can be considered a 'Shota'? But relax, I have a lot of good things in mind for that ( ꈍ◡ꈍ)

...

I will be giving a brief explanation about the 'Multiverse' that Vesper is in. As stated in the Prologue, Vesper emerged after everything ended, and as has been discovered (being obvious) what that was in the Prologue: there are no problems going into details about it now.

The Anti-Spiral's fight against Simon literally ended everything, but unlike the movie where everything returns, it didn't happen here. They were even stronger than in the movie, and the platform where Simon and Anti-Spiral fought hand-to-hand was destroyed with their pure physical strength.

And that resulted in the end of everything; that platform was the base that sustained existence. When it was gone, every remaining living being that wasn't powerful enough also died, leaving behind Concepts and various other things that don't die.

And so, a new 'everything' was created. It can be said that Vesper lives at the 'beginning' of this new 'verse' (it's larger than a Multiverse, so I don't know what to call it exactly, not sure what an 'Outerverse' is lol), and precisely because he lives at this beginning, most of the worlds he visits will probably be at the beginning of them. That is, years before canonical parts start or at important moments in certain stories.

As time passes, he may visit worlds at certain times where the canonical has already begun and many others, but this will be in the future when everything is well developed. So, for example, if Vesper visits DxD right now, he will be there even before Lucifer is banished and becomes a demon.

This opens up many possibilities and also removes some others, but it's a sacrifice that I'm willing to make. But don't worry too much; the {Chat} doesn't care about things like 'Time,' and even less so do I. Vesper through the {Chat} will communicate with people from a distant future (since he is alive in the past of everything, so there is no more 'past' for him).

And depending on the World, I can simply make it already canonical or at an advanced event, if the World doesn't have an interesting past or something that motivates me to do a whole World Building from 'past to canonical'~

Well, that's what I wanted to say/explain. It's basically an explanation and an extra apology so that I can start giving more 'Time-Skips,' as well as taking longer in other parts while highlighting the Importance of the existence of 'Vesper.'

...

1 - What abilities, passives, or masteries should he gain when reaching the marks of his stats, just like he did with Energy in this chapter? (the marks: 500/1000/1500/2000/2500)

2 - Suggestions for characters for {Chat}, please? I am quite satisfied with those already suggested, but still, new suggestions are always welcome! (so I can have a broader range of choices/options)

3 - Ideas for the first world to visit? (exclude HQs or non-Anime movies, lol)

Have a good day / Good Afternoon / Good night!