As Aaron clashed with the clone, he immediately realized that this fight was different from the previous ones. When forcing his [ Spectral Fist ] to mutate, he had gone at it rather stubbornly, and basically just brute-forced his way into mutating the Skill.
This time, however, he had a very strong sense of what he wanted to achieve, and he felt his inspiration bubbling over and seeping into his [ Gust Step] every time he used it.
He understood why Yendal called it inspiration. It felt like an idea was trying to pop out of him and into the real world. It was far more than just an idea; he felt like he had something material floating around within, just waiting for the right opportunity to be released in his expression.
The curious part about all of this was that Yendal had let him mutate the first Skill through brute force and hadn’t pushed him toward meditation until after. Was it her way of showing him both methods? He supposed that made sense, and it was valuable that he didn’t just understand that both methods were viable, but had experienced both, and knew the difference. By doing so, she had empowered him to make informed decisions regarding such things in the future.
As they clashed and broke apart, he shot back into range with a [ Gust Step ] and struck with a flurry of quick, peppering attacks, and then shot off out of range again. He ate a terrible strike for his efforts, but he was able to heal from the damage and continue the fight.
These little skirmishes weren’t unusual when facing off against the D-grade version of Yendal, as he could barely survive several seconds against her, but that was perfect for this training session.
The entire fight was about using his [ Gust Step ] in hopes of mutating it, and the more he used it, the more he found the inspiration that he had cultivated seeping into the Skill, and soon he could feel something starting to change within it.
It was a starkly different experience from his thick-headed approach. The fight was but a catalyst for what he had already achieved, providing him a means to weave his thoughts into the Skill as he used it in combat, almost like a blacksmith, the meditation was his carbon, and the battle shaping and folding it into his Skill.
To help power this, he called on his aether and willed it into the Skill, which further agitated it.
The Skill was wind-based and not designed to be used with aether. It was incompatible, but that was perfect. Pushing aether into the Skill only urged it to mutate more, and he could feel it getting closer and closer to the edge.
But that wasn’t all. As he did this, he pictured the Skill he wanted. He imagined himself flying through the sky, avoiding and surviving enemy attacks as he dodged and returned attacks of his own.
This last part was important, as Aaron had never used the Skill merely as a transportation Skill, and it was extremely important that his concept of its mutation was combat-related. He wanted it to be molded for battle.
Dashing through the air around the clone, he pushed all of this into his bubbling Skill, and he could feel it about to burst into something new.
Was the meditation a faster method for mutating Skills? He wasn’t sure, but he could tell that it was definitely more deliberate, and it wasn’t any slower.
Skill Mutated: [ Gust Step ] = [ Spectral Rush ]
Unlike before, he felt the Skill mutate and change as he was using it. The brutish nature of forcing a mutation made the concept far more abstract in his mind, whereas this felt natural.
He was already flying away as it mutated, and the rushing wind around him began to ripple and take on an ethereal whitish-blue, as if spectral energy had infected it.
Yendal golf-clapped, but Aaron barely took note, swinging around in mid-air and turning back toward the clone.
He wanted to test out his new Skill.
Activating [ Spectral Rush ] for the first time, his body shimmered and went partially transparent as he used a burst of mana and aether to take him back into melee range, and then, he realized something rather amazing.
Soaring toward the clone, he passed through one of its punches and came to a skidding halt behind the clone, and returned with a counter.
He had avoided the physical damage of the clone’s punch, passing straight through it. Still, some of the mana surrounding the punch had landed, and he felt the pain as it hit him. But nonetheless, this was a remarkable revelation, and Aaron shot back out of range to quickly inspect his Skill and confirm his beliefs about it.
Spectral Rush [ Epic ] Taking on a ghostly form, you charge your enemies. When activated, Spectral Rush uses both aether and mana to send the user flying at high speeds in whichever direction they please. The user takes on a partially transparent and incorporeal ghostly state during activation, rendering physical attacks useless.
The Skill did just what he had expected it to do. The speed and distance increase wasn’t as amazing as he would have liked, but how could he complain? Also, he had been trying to tie the Skill into his spirit and aether usage, and if the Skill ended up taking on attributes that were in line with spirit powers, that was his own fault.
He also got the feeling that mutating [ Gust Step ] into a more powerful wind-based Skill would have ended up faster. But speed wasn’t all he was concerned about.
Ultimately, he had wanted a movement Skill that was effective in combat, and making himself incorporeal as he dodged attacks was undeniably useful. Not to mention, it was going to make it even harder to kill the persistent warrior.
Perhaps he was already hard enough to kill. But why change up his strategy? It was working so far, so he figured he might as well min-max and make himself as impossible to kill as he could.
But he had to return his attention to the matter at hand. The fight wasn’t over, and the clone wasn’t done yet. It had taken chase, but that was perfect, because Aaron still needed to test a few things out, and his brow bent as they clashed.
It was actually rather incredible how long he could survive exchanges with the D-grade Yendal clone, and he got the feeling even the god herself was a little surprised by it.
Dodging around the clone's blows, he was drifting in and out between physical and ghostly, and his endoplasmic speed bursts allowed him to survive punches that flew straight through him.
Still, he had to be careful not to get too reliant on it. If the clone threw out attacks filled with mana, they could still do quite a bit of damage.
But his incorporeal form didn’t need to be immune to all damage types. Either way, it was a considerable upgrade and would force melee combatants to rely more on mana during their fights.
“Not bad,” Yendal said. “Not the kind of Skill I would have chosen, but it suits you. A ghost that uses the empty hand and calls upon ogre-like energy reserves? Quite something, you are.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Thanks,” Aaron grinned at the unusually blunt compliment.
“However, you have no time to slack. That meditation session lasted over a day.”
“Wait, it did?!”
“Yes. We’re heading into your final week of trials. You’ve come far and achieved a great deal. But you’ll have to return soon. I think your time spent here was worthwhile. But it is quickly coming to an end. However…”
“Yeah?”
“You still have to prove that you deserve to complete the final stage of the Trial of the Challenger. I can reward you a win without completely losing, as beating my clone is very much impossible for you. But I can’t just give you a free win. There are rules in place, and the divine retribution handed out for gods who don’t follow them is quite painful. If you want the rewards of winning and the title that goes along with it, you will have to earn it. So, with that being said, get ready.”
Aaron nodded and faced down the clone. He didn’t know what divine retribution thing was about, but he had never expected Yendal to just hand him a win either way.
That said, what the hell was he going to do against a D-grade version of the Martial God? Well, he had been surviving okay so far. So it wasn’t that big of a deal. He just needed to land a hit, right?
“Ready? I’m going to take the clone’s limitations away. You’ll be fighting a true version of myself at D-grade.”
“Wait, limitations?”
Aaron didn’t need his question answered. He could feel the power flowing from the clone the moment she finished her sentence, and it flashed toward him in an instant, and he barely managed to activate [ Spectral Rush ] just in time to carry him back out of range just in time for him to survive.
He had felt the D-grade fist flying towards his chin as he dodged backward, and if not for his new Skill, he was certain he would have died.
Okay, we’re getting serious now.
It was time to show Yendal what he had learned, and he flew straight toward the clone, passing through it and launching an attack at its flank. Of course, Yendal’s clone wasn’t so easy to take off guard and riposted with its own attack.
When the two came to blows, it was Aaron who ate the worst of it. But thanks to all his efforts in strengthening himself, he actually survived the first hit. The second one came fast, but sailed through him with another use of [ Spectral Rush ]. A third strike wasn’t far behind, and this one was absolutely filled with mana, more than enough to destroy him in his incorporeal state, so he used [ Equal and Opposite ], canceling the attack out and surviving.
Yendal’s brow arched as she watched the exchange, clearly intrigued by something she saw.
Aaron, on the other hand, was too engrossed and desperately flew away as he did his best to survive. His only chance was to create distance between them if he wanted to survive for more than a few seconds.
Not only that, but he already needed to recover energy thanks to using Yendal’s powerful defensive Skill. It was undeniably useful and supremely powerful, but the drain it had on him was extreme.
Hot on his heels as he tried to recover, the D-grade clone was never far behind. It didn’t seem to matter what he tried; Yendal’s D-grade form couldn’t be tricked or outrun, and it was only a few seconds later that he experienced his first death.
Nonetheless, he had lasted surprisingly long. And the following skirmishes that blasted across the arena floor saw Aaron surviving several encounters before the clone managed to kill him again.
He couldn’t really do anything, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Even against the supremely powerful Mo’han, Aaron was fairly certain that Yendal’s D-grade clone would obliterate him. So not being able to mount his own offense wasn’t such a big deal, and it certainly didn’t prove that he couldn’t beat the asura.
His sturdiness, his evasiveness, and his damn stubborn refusal to die created an amazing trio, and even the D-grade version of one of the multiverse's most powerful beings had to put in some effort to put him down. That in and of itself was nothing short of amazing.
Being on par with Yendal meant that you were bound for greatness, and whilst he didn’t get close to doing any damage, he was still a much lower level than the clone, and hadn’t received the boons provided for breaking through the D-grade bottleneck, as the clone had. And as such, the simple fact that he could survive for as long as he could was evidence of his progress.
***Yendal***
Yendal nodded approvingly as she watched. His use of [ Equal and Opposite ] was novel, but she couldn’t expect much else. He was still a mortal, after all, and a young one at that. He was still quite far from being able to access its true potential.
She knew one thing for sure, though: watching the fight, Aaron was going to be annoyingly difficult to kill as he progressed through the grades and claimed greater power.
He had proven himself enough just surviving as long as he had. But still, Yendal let the fight carry on for a long moment, killing him a total of six times before she could tell that his aether was entirely drained, and another death would end it all. A fraction of a second before that happened, when her clone’s fist was sailing towards his unguarded face, she halted the duel with a raised hand.
“Incredible,” she whispered too quietly for Aaron to hear. “Not bad. You’ve come far, but you have a long way to go.”
“Tell me about it,” Aaron groaned and spat blood as he started to eat and recover.
“You’re strong enough now. I believe you can defeat the asura… if you do everything perfectly, that is.”
“No pressure, huh?”
“He’s the strongest in your sector, and likely to remain that way until you close the level gap between you two. But you have an incredible set of Skills, and you’ve been trained by me. Thanks to that, you have the ability to break him down and beat him, but it will not be easy.”
“Nothing ever is,” he sighed
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“I always do. Hey, by the way, I was wondering the other day. Why is Equal and Opposite listed as a Passive Skill when it’s an Active Skill?”
“Because it’s a Passive Skill, and not an Active Skill,” replied Yendal evenly.
“Wait, what?”
Behind her neutral expression, she found it highly amusing to discover that Aaron’s unusual use of the Skill stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding about its nature. As sharp as he was sometimes when it came to improving in combat, he also had a boneheaded side and a disregard for reading between the lines.
“Equal and Opposite is a Passive Skill,” she explained. “You simply cannot use it passively yet. It is a divine Skill, after all, and a much more complex one than the foolish ogre’s. You need not worry about it, though. Simply continue to battle and grow, and you will understand how to apply it properly in time.”
“Damn…” he muttered.
“Well, it has been interesting, but we are out of time. My clone is rather unique when it comes to the Trial of the Challenger. Uniquely powerful, that is. The System acknowledges this, so rather than needing to fully defeat my clone to pass the trial, it sets other requirements. For this stage, it was to survive for a full minute, which you did. Barely. I stopped the System from pulling you back immediately, but I cannot hold it back forever.
“I’ve selected a reward that will be a great boon to you in the future. It will certainly be more useful than that ogre’s pot. Now go, prove your worth and complete my quest. I look forward to catching up with you again once you’ve returned to your world.”
***Aaron***
It felt a little rude that she ended the trial without even giving him a chance to reply and say goodbye, and he was sent twisting and spinning as the trial's warp magic dragged him back, but he had a feeling she wanted it that way.
Stage tenth of [ Trial of the Challenger ] COMPLETED!
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. Rewards chosen by your patron god.
Quest Rewards: Ring of Energy Shackling [ Mythical ], Bundle of Stretched Leather [ Common ] Dining Hall upgraded to level 10.
Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!
Ding!
[ Empty-Handed Energy Monk ] has LEVELED UP!
41 → 42
Title acquired: Challenger.
Complete all stages of the Trial of the Challenger
Reward: +10% to Strength, Dexterity, and Agility
Achievement: Trial Hat Trick.
DING DING DING! You did it! You completed three entire trials of the Shadow Trials.
Reward: +100 All Stats
Still spinning as he landed on the hallway tiles, Aaron gasped as he suddenly felt much lighter.
“That feels… actually freaking amazing.”
He was clearly not ready to be walking around in divine realms, and every inch of his body felt better now that he was out.
Glancing over the fading notifications, he nodded thoughtfully. “Ring of Energy Shackling? Leather?”
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