Aaron appeared in a barren and cracked landscape with a tower of spikes before him that climbed up into the sky.

  New Quest Objective: Conquer the tower

  Yendal’s shadow was standing beside him, and he cracked his knuckles as he prepared for what was ahead. He figured that maybe she would have some tips for him; besides, it was nice to mix things up since he was preparing to fight Oozagh.

  At the very top of the spiked tower was a platform suspiciously bathed in bright light. He wasn’t here to fuck spiders, and was grateful that the trial made his destination obvious.

  Aaron flew towards his objective with [ Gust Step ], and spotted dozens, maybe hundreds of little creatures swarming up and down the tower.

  “Alright, let’s see what you little guys have to offer.”

  As he got closer, he realized they were weird little imp things with hairy toes and fingers. What’s more, they wore branded sweat suits and lots of golden jewellery. Big golden chains hung around their necks, and their stumpy, little furry fingers were covered in rings.

  But none of that was the most curious thing about the little fellas. They were sitting around countless little entrances into the tower, sipping on what looked like coffee. And when he got closer, they bounced to their feet and began to bump one another.

  “What the hell?”

  His eyes widened, and he wondered what strange corner of the multiverse these guys were from. But he didn’t have much time to worry about that as the hairy little imps were drawn together as their fists clashed.

  Aaron’s brow perked higher as he watched with curiosity.

  Like hairy little Power Rangers, dozens of the little imps united by the power of their fist bumps. Except, they didn’t turn into a mech or a monster. No, they just clung together, grabbing one another by the ankles as they formed into giant humanoid shapes.

  “That’s… something.”

  It wasn’t just physical grip, though. That much was clear. Obviously, there was a Skill involved that was binding them together, because not only did they walk and move far more naturally than a few dozen little guys gripping each other’s ankles should, but they even got their own Inspect window.

  Patchwork Homunculus [ Level 90 ]

  Titles: [All for One ]

  Still, individually, they weren’t that strong. At this point, Aaron had beaten considerably more powerful creatures. However, there were already half a dozen of the strange homunculi, and in the distance, he spotted countless little dots forming more of them across the giant tower.

  It was quite the sight. Each arm of the giant patchwork homunculi consisted of at least a dozen little imps, and some were larger than others. But appearances aside, he immediately noticed something rather interesting.

  Raising his mana barrier, extending it outward, and tapping into his spirit, he inspected the creatures.

  Ahh, what do you know…

  It was as he had thought. Each one of the little imps had maintained their own energy and energy regeneration. Even if they weren’t the strongest, if each homunculus had the energy reserves and regeneration of dozens of imps, they would be quite endurance warriors.

  But that wasn’t all. He could sense that each of the little imps had an awoken energy organ, and they were using them symbiotically. Individually, they had glaring weaknesses, as none possessed more than a single energy organ. But as a collective, they could cover all bases, cycling and regenerating massive amounts of energy.

  It was quite a fascinating means of working around their weaknesses, and since the creatures within the trials were either taken from the multiverse or at least had their likenesses borrowed, it meant that these guys were real.

  It had to be a Skill that allowed them to do this, and Aaron wondered about the possibility of Skills that were intended to be used by groups.

  But he didn’t have much time to ponder the thought as the patchwork army was marching toward him.

  With their movements, he noticed that the imps that formed their respective limbs contributed the energy required to move, and he sensed it as it cycled throughout them.

  A smile creased his lips, and Aaron had a feeling these guys were going to be good training partners.

  Powering up his buffing Skills, he got ready to fight. But for now, he restrained himself from eating a spirit dish. He wanted to push himself and, by doing so, get a good Skill when he hit 35, and so he didn’t want to consume the spirit food unless he absolutely needed to. Besides, it wasn’t a bad idea to build up some stock of it, considering how much stronger it made him.

  Pulsing barriers of blue flames shot out from around the patchwork homunculi as they approached, and he felt their auras take on new power. It was actually almost intimidating, but after having faced off against Mo’han, it did little to Aaron.

  “Alright, let’s see what you got!”

  He shot forward, weaving through several huge fists that swung for him. When their attacks smashed against the ground, dozens of the little imps were flung out. But the little guys weren’t helpless, and they leaped for Aaron with arms extended, as if they were trying to grab hold of him.

  Unfortunately for them, Aaron wasn’t just fast and incredibly hard to hit, but he had seen their little ambush attack through the threads of fate and was able to easily avoid it.

  But he was much more focused on how the energy signals coming from the homunculi fluctuated as imps jumped off to attack him, or new ones joined the collective, seamlessly jumping on and into them.

  He wasn’t overly focused on the fight, though. He was collecting important data, and when it came time to counter the dozen or so homunculi that had surrounded him, he remembered the lessons he had learned with Elmira.

  Swinging out, he threw huge amounts of energy into an [ Overclocked Haymaker ], which sailed through the air alongside his spiritual punch.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  His punch landed hard, but that wasn’t what piqued his attention. No, that was the ripple of aether that cascaded through the patchwork of imps. He could feel their energy sources flicker, and whatever it was holding them together weakened a little.

  But it wasn’t enough, and he had to dodge quickly to avoid dozens of attacks coming at him from all sides.

  That said, he had noticed a problem. The rotating aether slowed as he threw out his attacks. To maintain its momentum, he would need to increase the speed at which it spun.

  This was perhaps the perfect situation to find himself in; his enemy presented a difficult problem to contend with. This enemy was obviously well-matched to endure a long fight, and it might even give Aaron a run for his money in that regard.

  If he were going to win, he was going to need to best them, not just outlast them.

  No one welcomed the challenge as much as he did, and he returned each of his enemy’s attacks with one of his own.

  It was a vicious back and forth, and Aaron took several hits as the battle raged on without his enemy slowing even slightly. Being able to draw energy from so many truly was a powerful Skill.

  But it gave him time to tweak and perfect his own attack, and every time he landed, he felt the ripples of energy disrupting aether passing through his enemy grow stronger.

  Blasting through a powerful attack of molten gold, Aaron actually managed to cancel it out with his spirit punch. It was a nice little discovery, but [ Equal and Opposite ] was more powerful at doing the same thing. However, it was the insights that Aaron was after.

  [ Equal and Opposite ] was more effective for simply breaking down his opponent's Skills, but the fact that he could do something similar with his spirit punch was a remarkable breakthrough.

  [ Equal and Opposite ] was powerful at taking out Skills, but it could do nothing to the powerful hide of somebody like Mo’han, and it had relatively high energy expenditure, since he had to match the opponent’s energy to cancel it. And for that reason, perfecting his spirit punch was absolutely necessary.

  In between tweaking his spirit punch, his haymakers, and [ Spectral Fist ] caused considerable damage to the enemy, but their numbers were too great, and their recovery too persistent.

  However, this was proof that he was on the right track. He had been focusing on improving the rotation of his aether, and the faster his aether rotated, the more effective it had become.

  What fun would mastering a new ability be if he were up against a weak enemy? The fact that these homunculi could likely outlast him under normal conditions simply made the task of breaking them down that much more satisfying.

  After an hour of back and forth, and three deaths, Aaron had been forced to retreat several times to eat. Luckily, they weren’t overly powerful, and as such, he had been able to create distance with [ Gust Step ]. They also possessed no flight ability, so jumping up into the sky was an easy escape. However, they did attempt to shoot the imps at him from the ground.

  However, in a real fight, all he would have been achieving was to prolong the inevitable. Sure, he had killed some of the imps when his attacks landed against the homunculus. But their bodies were made up of so many imps, and with so much energy regeneration on their side, they were essentially fresh and could go on for a long time.

  Aaron, on the other hand? He was lucky he had essentially endless reserves of food he could loot from the trials. Still, he would run out of stock within his scabbard at some point.

  But this was just the challenge he needed to push himself. And once his energy had recovered, he shot back into melee range.

  The aether swirling around his fist was now creating a vortex of energy, and the sensation it was creating was remarkable.

  I’m so close. I can feel it.

  Each and every engagement brought him one step closer, and the ripples of energy traveling through his enemy as he landed his strikes gradually grew stronger.

  Another death followed, but the eager grin on his face only grew deeper as he felt his understanding deepen. As the aether rotated faster, it pulled in more power and multiplied its effectiveness when used as an attack. It was no easy task to get the hang of, but that only made the challenge that much more enjoyable.

  And before it even happened, he had seen it through the threads of fate and looked mad with excitement. So mad that the imps even took notice.

  First, the violently swirling aether of the spiritual punch crashed into his enemy, but unlike all of his previous attempts, it actually shattered whatever Skill it was holding all the little imps together, and then the haymaker landed.

  The closest imps to his punch were blown apart into little chunks. They were not very strong on their own and had obviously developed this Skill for survival due to their individual weakness.

  Those further away from his punch were blown away by the following shockwave.

  Aaron blinked. The attack was more effective than he had originally expected it to be. Then again, his enemy wasn’t the strongest. Not only that, but killing a few of the imps hadn’t actually taken out a homunculus. Breaking the Skill was obviously a hurdle for his enemy to deal with, but since they outnumbered him, they could retreat and regather as their comrades faced him down.

  How sinisterly perfect, he thought. He needed to test his punch more anyway, and if his enemy wanted to be a punching bag? Then who was Aaron to complain?

  The fight dragged on, and his newly improved version of the spirit punch was like a tornado of aether, bursting through the homunculus and disabling their energy, and leaving them vulnerable to his haymakers, which blew them apart time and time again. Soon, more of the patchwork creatures raced down from the tower as they saw their allies struggling.

  The aether of his spirit punch wasn’t just attacking the Skills, though. No, it was attacking the very spirit of his enemy. It was breaking apart Skills and disabling energy regeneration all at once.

  But the battle was far from over. There was a simple problem that made his enemy extremely capable of adapting to this attack, despite not being that powerful. The simple fact that their bodies were made up of dozens of little imps meant that they could continue to regenerate energy even as Aaron’s spirit punch disabled it for other imps making up the collective bodies.

  This dragged the fight on, but it also gave Aaron the perfect stone to sharpen himself against.

  Soon, some of the homunculi that had shrunk in size due to how many imps had been killed disintegrated and joined their brethren.

  It was an exhausting task fighting them all, and Aaron was killed twice more as they mobbed him with overwhelming numbers. But without means of stopping his escape, they had no way to finish the job.

  Hundreds of terrified little expressions began to twist across his enemies. It seemed that for the first time, they had encountered somebody who was actually able to outlast them.

  Aaron was hardly surprised. Their endurance was to be celebrated. And if he had to collect his own food, maybe he wouldn’t have been able to fill his scabbard and outlast them as he had.

  “You fought well,” he cracked his knuckles as he broke from combat again to regenerate. “But I can keep this up all day.”

  However, to Aaron’s surprise, they actually looked motivated to continue the fight. Not only that, but he noticed more of them descending the tower.

  It had been a good fight, and he had gained a lot from it. But perhaps it was time to find out what awaited at the top of the tower.

  These guys are persistent little buggers, aren’t they?

  Unfortunately, as much as he wanted to take a peek up at the top, his drawn-out fight had caused a rather large number of enemies to gather around him. Sure, they couldn’t fly, but they could still be damn pesky, what with shooting imps at him and all.

  Besides, it just felt kind of wrong to run away from a fight when he had gathered them all here with his actions.

  Ah, what’s one more round?

  It wasn’t just stubbornness that made Aaron want to fight. He was running dangerously low on food supplies after fighting for so long.

  So, he charged forward. Sending spiraling torrents of aether around his spiritual fists, he engaged the ever-growing number of homunculi.

  It was overwhelming. He had no doubt he could best them one-on-one, or even a few of them against himself. But with every minute that had passed, more had descended down from the tower.

  But this was a training session, wasn’t it?

  A cataclysmic series of attacks flowed back and forth between Aaron and the patchwork army facing off against him, and his true death was met as the cascading number of attacks became too much for even him to stand against.

  But a satisfied expression plastered his face as he reappeared in the hallway.

  He needed to stock up on food, anyway. Then, he’d go see what the deal was with that tower.

  Patreon! (Also, book 3 starts tomorrow for Patreons)