Stepping up to the trial dial, Aaron waved the others off and considered his options briefly. He didn’t want to select either the viewing room trial or Talia’s secondary choices. Achieving extra stages would just mean she would have to grind for longer before they could have a more open chat about everything.

  Ultimately, he decided to go with the Trial of Magic. There were a few reasons why. One, he likely wasn’t going to get stuck in a long death-loop on stage three of a trial. Not for too long, at least. And two, upgrading the meditation room might prove useful in gaining new insights into his ghost form.

  Since his last interaction with Yendal was more laid back than previous ones had been, he decided to spice things up and call on her assistance for the trial of magic. After all, he still wanted to pick her brain and see if her teachings could help his cooking more. Maybe even come up with ways to integrate conditions.

  Seconds later, he appeared in a space like a void, facing off against a giant clock tower, except it was entirely formed of golden light, and it stood in the middle of empty space.

  However, it wasn’t really space, since Aaron could walk through the star-speckled scene as if hard ground was beneath his feet.

  It was quite a beautiful sight, really, and since nothing was immediately trying to kill him, he gazed out across cosmic formations swirling in the distance.

  He then glanced across at the shadow. His little interaction with Talia still playing on his mind, he eyed Yendal’s spectral form up and down.

  She had already given him the clues he needed to be a more delicate hand in the kitchen, but perhaps there were more secrets lying just beyond the veil? He couldn’t be sure, but he decided he would keep a close eye on her shadow throughout the trials, hoping to pick up on something.

  And for the first time, he wouldn’t be looking for clues to help him with the trials, but instead something more. He wasn’t sure exactly what, but maybe help with his overall grace, or subtle tips that would make him seem less ogre-like.

  He also noticed that his increased Perception made it a lot easier to keep an eye on the shadow through the corner of his periphery, whilst remaining focused on the trial itself.

  Okay, let’s figure this thing out, he thought, looking up at the towering clock formed of golden light.

  The thing gave off an impressive aura, almost divine-like, and it gave Aaron a strange humbling feeling as he looked up at it. A humbling feeling that was more than just a normal sensation…

  Ahhh, I know what this is. You’re trying to fuck with my thoughts, aren’t you?

  The one big weakness Aaron was quickly discovering about mind control and mind-altering effects was that they became a lot easier to notice once you’d been attacked with them before.

  He didn’t yet know what this clock tower was trying to do, but he was familiar enough with the invasive energy to know what it was attempting to fiddle with his mind.

  Unfortunately, simply knowing it was attacking his mental defenses was not enough to stop it from doing what it was doing.

  The longer Aaron looked up at the clock, the harder it was to look away.

  And soon, he was just standing there. Staring up, unmoving, and completely focused on the thing. He didn’t even notice that the clock hands began to move faster and faster with each second, and that wrinkles began to crawl across his skin, and then grays flitted through his hair, and then turned to whites.

  It all happened very quickly in reality. Urine was running down his leg, and his teeth fell out before his knees buckled and he fell to the ground. For the first time ever, Aaron had expired from old age.

  But that wasn’t the truly scary part of the trial. No, that was the fact that Aaron awoke in the hallway with zero recollection of what had transpired.

  And unlike a normal person, Aaron felt no pain or nausea from dying. At some point, memory or not, a normal person would be too sick and full of pain to attempt the trial again, but not Aaron.

  Without a strong Willpower Stat to resist mental attacks or some kind of magical resistance, it was debilitating.

  He was a little confused waking up on the tiles with no memory, but not deterred, and he headed straight back into the trial.

  The problem was two-fold. Because Aaron couldn’t even separate his consciousness as he had before. The clock took over him before he had the chance to do so, since he underestimated its control, and couldn’t remember his previous attempt.

  And so, a loop unlike the others was formed, one Aaron had not consciously decided to be a part of.

  But there was another side of Aaron that not even this trial could have predicted. And as the loops passed, and he wandered back into the trial, time and time again, a strange feeling pricked at him.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The lack of pain meant that his trait would not trigger, but that didn’t mean that he had completely lost the insights of his spirit form.

  And he had come a long way since he first peered through the deathly veil. The time he had spent in his spirit form had changed him somewhat. It had made him more in touch with that side of himself, and though the short glimpses of death he experienced as he aged over and over, he felt something within him wrestle for control.

  It must have taken several dozen deaths before he found himself lingering in his spirit form, watching over his elderly corpse.

  He had died, and with his death, the spell was broken. He had forgotten everything, and it was a strange feeling looking over his body with no recollection as to how it got there, but he was free from the clock. And more importantly, he knew something was amiss.

  The trial ended a second later, and he returned to the hallway. But this time, he had at least seen his corpse. He had at least seen that the trial was up to something.

  Okay… that creepy tower is killing me, and apparently, I can’t remember a second of it.

  Yendal’s shadow hadn’t been much help either, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. There were potentially limitations to how much the shadows could intervene. But there was also a good chance that Yendal simply wouldn’t tell him how to beat the trial, and would expect him to use his own observation and other skills to figure out how to do it.

  Which was fine with Aaron, because he invited challenge and the opportunity it provided him to grow stronger.

  Still, just because he remembered his death didn’t mean Aaron knew how to beat this clocktower, or the trial surrounding it, or even what beating it would look like.

  That said, it was a trial of magic, not survival, so he didn’t think that simply outlasting it was the answer.

  There had to be some magical solution. But what?

  Knowing he had died, Aaron entered the trial with both his mana barrier and attempted to separate his consciousness as he did against the feral pitboss so many trials ago, but again, the moment he looked at the clock, he became entranced.

  However, despite the fact that he had entered the trial with the hope of completing it quickly, he found this peculiar fact intriguing.

  When he died and became a spirit again, he couldn’t remember what had happened in the trial. But he retained his other memories, most importantly the ones he had between trials. He remembered he had died to this thing, thanks to his spirit form, and he remembered the plan he had attempted against it, and could put two and two together.

  Obviously, his plan didn’t work; otherwise, he wouldn’t be dead again. And from that, he could logically work out that this thing wasn’t as easy to beat as other mind control Skills.

  That said, it was absolutely some kind of mind control, but it was either very different from what he had experienced in the past, or there was more to it.

  He thought back to the previous trial. To conditions. Could he pull this trial apart with similar logic?

  There was a problem with that, though. It wasn’t a physical construct. How did somebody make a clock out of light energy? Was it a Skill, spell, or perhaps a mechanism that was creating the light from somewhere else?

  These were all valid questions. However, first, Aaron would need to survive the clock’s pull before he could even dream about working on and solving the problem.

  Several deaths followed in quick succession. He had broken the first hurdle, but wasn’t able to do much besides remember what happened after his death, thanks to his spirit, and unfortunately for him, this provided little assistance when trying to fight back against the invasive clock.

  However, something else not entirely unexpected had begun to happen. Aaron had been working on feeling his spectral form more and more, but he hadn’t necessarily been focused on it. But it seemed he didn’t need to be. Ever since awakening his previous trait, he seemed to be becoming more and more in tune with it, simply by dying.

  And dying within this trial was no different. His control and awareness were increasing with each death, and he felt more and more in control of his spirit.

  That was when he had the revelation. How had he been so stupid? It was under his nose the entire time.

  What was his ability to separate his consciousness from his body anyway? How and why had he been able to use this technique when battling mind control in the past?

  It was obvious. It was part of his spirit, and when Aaron focused on the sensation of death and passing through to the other side, he completed the unrefined version of the technique.

  He was looking down at his living body as if it were somebody else, but this wasn’t just a mental disconnect; he was inhabiting his very spirit, which he had separated like a kite from his body.

  Now, when he gazed upon the clock, it was powerless. He was essentially a zombie, spirit anchored to the body, but not within it.

  A smile played on Aaron’s ghostly lips. If nothing else, he had found a supreme method of combating even the strongest mind control Skills.

  However, he still wasn’t sure how exactly he was supposed to beat this thing, and his human body beneath him still aged at a remarkable pace; the moment it died of old age, the trial was reset.

  But that hardly bothered Aaron. He had survived it and, by doing so, found the first missing piece of the puzzle. Now, he just needed to find the rest of the pieces.

  As he was wandering back into the trial, another thought played on his mind. He was only two levels away from another Class Skill, and if he relied heavily on his Death Cheat and spirit form, it would no doubt have an effect on it.

  Did he want that? One Skill was hardly defining, but if it were good, would he be able to refuse it?

  And if the Skill were good, and he were to select it, and use it heavily in his path, how would it define his future?

  These were all questions that plagued him, but ultimately, this was his path. He couldn’t turn away now, even if he did hold some reservations about where it was leading him.

  Time to break this thing! Aaron’s brow bent defiantly as he re-entered the trial. He had no time for indecision; death or not, he was going to beat this thing.

  However, there was an annoying thought that lingered as he reentered the trial. Dying had been a little distracting, and he had kind of forgotten about Yendal and his aim to refine his cooking. It was a pain, but he could hardly complain considering what he had achieved. He could work on his cooking any time, but an opportunity to strengthen his mental defenses was a bit harder to come by.

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