An exaggerated sigh escaped Aaron’s lips as he waited. It wasn’t long, only a minute or two. But that could add up. He imagined how much that would have affected him if it had been like this when he first arrived.

  Two minutes here and there would have hugely slowed him down if he had to die dozens, or even hundreds of times, to beat a trial. Luckily, he didn’t die anywhere near as often now.

  He decided to close his eyes and feel for this spirit as he waited. Every second he spent focusing on it helped, allowing him to make use of any downtime.

  Reentering the trial, Oozagh looked over from across the barren land at him with a challenging stare. It was on.

  He shot forward and got to work, combining combinations and Skills flawlessly. As before, most of his attacks were feints as he worked on disabling the ogre’s energy.

  Unfortunately, his attacks had no effect. They shook his energy a little, but they were a far cry from disabling anything.

  My spirit marbled ribeye!

  He hadn’t eaten the dish, and death had reset its buffs. The difference was immediately obvious. Still, he did his best to push the ogre, not wanting to waste an opportunity. But without being able to strike at his energy, he simply wasn’t able to compete.

  It seemed he hadn’t grown strong enough with his spirit yet to use its power on its own yet. And once more, Oozagh ended the fight, and Aaron returned to the hallway.

  The first duel had lasted some time, though. And whilst his ingredients hadn’t all respawned yet, he had things to do. Namely, ponder the fight and his growing control over his spirit.

  Several hours went by as Aaron meditated on the fight and on controlling his spirit and aether. And the moment his ingredients respawned, he ran off to cook up another serving of Spirit Marbled Ribeye.

  He was just about to eat it and immediately restart the trial, but held himself short. He remembered his new Skill from his Profession.

  Maybe I should give that a try?

  The entire point of taking [ Spirit Hands ] was to buff his spirit, and he kind of felt like kicking himself for not giving it a go. There was little reason not to. If it was a bust, he’d at most waste a day before he could fight Oozagh again, but what if it did something unexpected?

  Taking his serving of Spirit Marbled Ribeye, he took control of his spirit. And lo and behold, he was able to pick the meat up.

  Alright, here goes nothing.

  Aaron bit down, and it was… surprisingly tasty. He hadn’t expected to taste anything in his spirit form, so that was a nice surprise.

  But it was the power that he felt immediately after consuming it that truly caught his attention. The difference was unmistakable. His spirit was overflowing with energy. But more importantly, he had gone from barely being able to interact with the outside world with his spirit to feeling like he was a solid object.

  He immediately headed to the training room and discovered that he was able to land devastating punches in this form. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if he had just turned his spirit into a physical form. It still possessed all the attributes of a spirit. Punches landed and caused visible damage, but transparent energy also passed through in the process.

  “Yeah, okay,” he nodded with a grin. “This is pretty damn cool.”

  Running straight back to the trial dial, he once more groaned as he got stuck in a slightly longer line than before.

  Bouncing on the spot, he kept his blood flowing and himself hyped. He was ready to show Oozagh the true strength of his spirit. Unfortunately, his excitement also made the relatively short line feel annoyingly slow.

  Reappearing in the trial, he nodded at Oozagh and wasted no time getting to work, shooting forward to level a barrage of strikes on the ogre.

  But this time, his ghostly punches didn’t just pass through the ogre’s flesh, but instead, slammed against him hard. It was an almost doubling of his standard attack power. One physical punch, and one ghostly punch. That said, as strong as his spirit had become, it still wasn’t on par with his mortal shell.

  As impressive as that attack power increase was, it wasn’t the reason Aaron felt he had gained a new ace up his sleeve.

  No, that was the energy disruption going on through Oozagh’s body every time he landed a strike. It was visible, and the shadow of the avatar flickered with every strike he landed, as if it might just be extinguished.

  The onslaught was devastating. His original trick had been nice. Screwing with an opponent's energy regeneration was no small thing. But this was on another level.

  He could already outlast people far above his own level. Being able to disable their energy regeneration only made that easier. However, what it was really doing was adding fuel to a fire that Aaron was already extremely good at.

  This improved version of the attack, on the other hand? Well, it went beyond that. It wasn’t just the additional power of his punches, though, which, whilst nice, wasn’t game-breaking. Aaron's normal punches had never been his strongest asset, so increasing their power didn’t make a huge difference. That was the fact that his newly empowered spirit punches were literally blasting the energy straight out of Oozagh.

  He continued to pummel into Oozagh, and the ogre’s energy went wild, fluctuating all over the place as it stumbled backwards against the violent rampage.

  The ogre was beyond formidable. But it didn’t have Yendal’s sense for combat. Her perfect footwork or timing. And when Aaron went all out, weaving through fate perfectly to land and avoid counters like a mind-reader, it was too much for the avatar to dodge.

  But suddenly, the god got serious. His axe strikes came fast and furious, sending rippling waves of power crackling the sky and pushing Aaron back with every swing.

  Then, the burps came. The disabling shockwaves echoed out deafeningly, and Aaron had to do everything to avoid the main force of them. It wasn’t pure damage, but similar to the crow’s attack, and if he got caught in them, Oozagh would no doubt finish the job.

  Aaron was elusive, amazingly so. But the sheer number of devastating attacks the ogre could throw at him was just too much. Eventually, he was beaten down and killed several times in a row.

  The battle had lasted longer, but he was still falling short of overcoming the ogre god. But it only drove his determination to master his spiritual attacks further.

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  He meditated as he waited for the ingredients to respawn, and once more headed back into the trial.

  His spirit attacks hit harder, draining more and more energy, forcing Oozagh to get serious quicker than before. But once more, when the ogre god got serious, the battle ended with Aaron dead.

  A furious cycle continued, and even when he returned to the hallway, he remained in a trance-like state. His mind was clear, and his insights through meditation came quicker, and the moment he could cook up his steak again, he challenged the trial.

  An entire week passed of this back and forth. But it was not without gain, and when on the eighth attempt he landed an energy-shattering strike against Oozagh only seconds after the fight began, the ogre god immediately took it seriously.

  Still, two more deaths followed. But no longer did the ogre have the luxury of not taking the start of the fight seriously. From the very start, Oozagh charged Aaron with everything he had.

  The two clashed with resounding force, slamming against one another with their most powerful attacks.

  The battle went back and forth several times, and then the ogre god once more called on his energy-absorbing ability. Suddenly, the ogre’s near-empty reserves started to fill at an alarming rate. This was Oozagh’s trump card, or was it?

  No, not quite. It wasn’t all that the ogre had to bring to play. Of course, Aaron probably should have expected the next part, since many of his Profession Skills came down from the ogre.

  Oozagh began to eat.

  “Oh, you bastard. Well, two can play that game!”

  Unlike Aaron, the ogre god had no need for finger foods. Entire legs of ham were stuffed down the ogre’s throat as it flew into battle against him, and the engagement sent shockwaves bursting outward.

  Oozagh was not about to let him win easily, and another string of deaths followed soon after, sending Aaron back to the hallway.

  This led to another day of meditation, and his spirit grew stronger still. And when the battle resumed, not even the great ogre’s trump cards could entirely resist.

  It was immediately clear that something was wrong. Oozagh, even as a weakened avatar version of himself, wasn't recovering energy anywhere near as fast as he ought to be.

  There was his energy absorption Skill, which was likely a high E-grade working against him to recover energy, on top of his wild eating. The recovery should have been unreal, but it was… greatly damaged.

  Oh, I see.

  Even the powerful god’s avatar couldn’t entirely resist Aaron’s attacks anymore. They bypassed his defenses and disrupted his regeneration, and were growing stronger with each attempt. His Stamina Veins, Vitality Heart, and Mana Anchors would come back online eventually. But without them, his regeneration was greatly affected. And Aaron was only getting better at it.

  Aaron had almost forgotten how much stronger they made one’s regeneration. He, too, would likely suffer greatly without them. And his Skills like [ Adipose Fusion ] and his ogre gut would be far weaker without them.

  He smiled wickedly and attacked with another relentless flurry of attacks. It didn’t matter how fast Oozagh ate; his regeneration could no longer keep up, and every spirit punch that landed knocked more of his dwindling energy out of his body.

  Not only that, but as pure Health and Vitality were sapped from the ogre, Aaron’s punches themselves began to cause damage, and soon he was landing haymakers in between spirit punches to increasingly visible effect.

  Within minutes, Oozagh’s avatar was bruised and bloody. Desperate counterattacks attempted to level the playing field, with some kind of acidic vomit that literally melted the ground around them. Only to be followed up by an incredibly powerful shockwave seconds later that turned the melted ground into rubble and sent it flying.

  Still, despite all this, Aaron was still standing. He had died once because the impressive shockwave attack had left him literally nowhere to go, destroying everything in its path. And no doubt would have died many more times, only a few deaths earlier. That was the power of the ogre god, after all. He was the perfect opponent to prepare for Mo’han. But now? Too much energy had been sapped from him, and absolutely devastating attacks that Aaron once would have had no chance of surviving were now weak enough to escape.

  It would take more than just killing Aaron a few times to dissuade the stubborn warrior, and with a crack of his shoulders, he flashed back into striking range.

  “Baha! You are so persistent, twig boy!”

  “Don’t call me that!” Aaron shouted as he clocked Oozagh across the chin.

  “Then earn a better name! And put some damn meat on your bones, boy!” Oozagh shouted back as he lobbed off one of Aaron’s arms.

  “I’ll show you meat on your bones!” Aaron returned with a barrage of bruising attacks as he cycled his Vitality Heart, and strings of flesh sprang out to catch his arm and reattach it.

  “This style is unbefitting an ogre!” Oozagh burped acidic spray, burning Aaron's flesh away and killing him. “Dancing all over the place! Stand still, you puny human!”

  “What, are you too slow?” Aaron shouted back as his body repaired itself, and followed up with a deadly flurry of spiritual punches that knocked the last of Oozagh’s energy out of him. “Is that it? Can’t keep up?”

  The ogre stumbled back. His Vitality Heart and Stamina Veins had briefly come back online as he intentionally cycled energy through them, but Aaron had just disabled them again.

  Now, the ogre was completely drained. So much so that wounds and blood now covered most of its avatar's body. Not even the mighty ogre could resist Aaron’s relatively weak punches without Vitality reserves.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” the ogre raised a chubby hand, “You’ve done it. You’ve beaten me.”

  Aaron stopped his attack. He didn’t really expect this from the ogre god. He kind of thought Oozagh would force him to finish it.

  “You win. Destroying my avatar now will just prevent me from speaking through it until you summon me for another trial.”

  “Fair,” Aaron shrugged. “Not bad, huh?” He added, looking down at his shimmering spirit hands.

  “Not bad? Bahah! Better than not bad! You will go far, skinny little man. But I should warn you again. There is a troubling god who rarely plays by the rules. Since we last fought, I have looked into him. Tried to figure out what machinations he might have planned for this universe. There are whispers he has already taken an interest in your sector. Although I believe he has taken an interest in somebody else for now. That said, with powers like yours, the chance that his gaze will take interest in you is high. Be cautious. Don’t show these spirit powers off to anyone if you can avoid it. If you’re not planning on killing somebody, it might be best to avoid using those powers. Nor your ability to resurrect yourself. Doing so could be dangerous.”

  Oh shit.

  If the threat was as bad as Oozagh made it out to be, then Aaron hadn’t been anywhere near as careful with his powers as he should have been.

  “Yeah–uh–okay,” said Aaron, not making eye contact.

  Oozagh's brow crinkled. “Why do you sound like that? What have you done now? You truly are stupid, aren’t you? By the power of the endless gut. Please, I don’t say this lightly. Your stupidity will get you killed. You need someone to look after you. Go get yourself an ogre wife as soon as possible. That should sort you out.”

  “Ah, I’ll think about it,” Aaron grimaced.

  Stage seven of [ Trial of the Challenger ] COMPLETED!

  You have tested yourself in one-on-one combat against a weakened shadow avatar of a god and have emerged victorious.

  Quest Rewards: Mana Sensitive Tungsten Spikes [ Epic ], Dining Hall upgraded to level 7.

  Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

  Ding!

  [ Empty-Handed Energy Monk ] has LEVELED UP!

  29 → 30

  “They’ll feed you well!” Oozagh waved as his shadow dissipated.

  Yeah, I’m not getting a bloody ogre wife if they look anything like you, big guy.

  When he reappeared in the hallway, across from him, he spotted Mo’han. The massive asura was panting and wiping sweat from his brow.

  “Hey mate!” Aaron waved with a smug grin. What was a little bragging between mates? After all, he asura would soon see the incredible power he had gained firsthand.

  “Hello, A-ran! I just finished up with the 9th stage of the Trial of the Challenger. That was a real challenge. That incredible god managed to kill me twice! I feel sick! I think I’ll need to sit down for a while.”

  Twice? Aaron blinked with incredulity. Twice?! At stage fucking 9? He felt like he had transcended the freaking heavens by beating Oozagh as fast as he had.

  Ahhh, dammit! I’ve got more work to do!

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