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Chapter 63. A Whole New Inspiration
🕑 Added 2025-04-21 16:06:54 +0000 UTC“Are you okay to fight us, then?” Andragoth asked Rafe.
Rafe wiped at the blood trickling from his left eye. It was irritating him. He was accustomed enough to the general pain but there was an itchiness that just wouldn't go away.
The wiping ended up turning into him worrying at his closed eye for well over a minute.
“I'm okay to fight,” he answered in the meantime. “Are you?”
Andragoth looked behind her to where everyone had naturally fallen in line as if they recognised her superiority without her input.
“I think we are. The trial fixed our condition from the previous floor.”
“Oh?” Rafe asked to buy himself time but also because he was genuinely curious.
“It's funny. I had to fight against three guys on the floor below, and I don't even remember how I beat them. But somehow I am here. Isn't that rather strange?”
“Ah, yeah I guess?” Rafe said. “Hey, mind if I drop some of my stuff here before you guys attempt to stop my ascension?”
Andragoth smiled at him then, but someone else on her team was getting impatient. Quinsia stepped forward. She stared at Rafe with murder written on her face.
“Don't you mean while you try to prevent our ascension?” she asked. “After we beat you we'll get to climb higher. And how the hell do you not have a storage skill? This is like the only place you can get one in the multiverse, you know. At least as cheaply as this.”
Rafe smiled at that even as he went ahead to deposit most of his belongings, saving a few potions on himself. He had wasted a tone of them on the Raedis fight, and he wouldn't have any by the time he left the trial if his quest system somehow betrayed him.
He and Quinsia weren't that close, but he still liked hearing her voice again. He remembered Devila asking about the storage skill once, and her question had been a lot more…rude.
“I am ready,” he said when he was, this time having his white robe transform into the chainmail shirt and leather breeches stored in his amulet.
He held his spear on this occasion. Fighting against four people would pressure him to the extreme. And these weren't just any four people too.
Andragoth unsheathed two shortswords and started to move forward slowly, like a dancer she pranced toward him. Rafe pretended all his attention was on her. He did not need to look at the others to see their movements. He saw Quin peel off and try to blend into the shadows. Her subclass was interesting.
He saw Aska pull out some kind of wand from his spatial skill. The mage hadn't used whatever it was in the previous room as far as Rafe could remember. It was the fourth team member who received Andragoth's support spells first though.
Rafe had seen her covertly whisper as she cast her buffing spells. The man shined with a silver glow in Rafe's mana sight ability. This was a buff spell he hadn't seen Andragoth use before.
Using it seemed hard enough that now Andragoth had reached him and she had hardly buffed herself. Rafe knew Andragoth. He'd fought beside her a couple of times. He knew that a mundane Andragoth would not be a problem for him.
They clashed once, twice. Enough time for Rafe to adjust to using a spear with his new general techniques. And then she swung at him again.
Her movements were solid, polished. She had practiced the basics over a long time. She was a mage by trade, at least according to her class. Her sword fighting skills were then probably a product of meticulous training rather than system gifted skills. Just like him.
It was rather unfortunate her chosen weapon was a sword. Something Rafe had more understanding in. He deconstructed her fighting style in seconds and tried to stub her thigh to get her out of the fight.
His spear bounced off a force field. He frowned at that even as he tilted his head to avoid a knife thrown by Quinsia.
He misjudged the distance he had to bend, and even as he tried to overcompensate, the knife only got closer and closer to his face.
He lifted his spear lightning fast at the last moment. He managed to deflect it from his eye but it still righted itself in time to knick his cheek a little. Aska had improved, probably as a result of climbing this very staircase.
Rafe hadn't had a lot to improve upon, on reaching this tower within the tower. He was continuously inventing new ways to make the ascension challenging. He had already figured out how to get past veils, or at least F-ranked veils. He had all but reached a plateau in his sword fighting. His general weapons and other martial forms could only get better if he decided to get dedicated skills for multiple weapons and other fighting skills.
Something he was now resolved not to do, for the same reason he was going to avoid a magic related class for now. Skills and techniques were different, though Rafe would need a lot more theoretical knowledge to know how exactly.
He couldn't gain levels on this ascension, as that would require he kill the people he was fighting. He had rationalised before, in Noid's trial world, that the people there were not real. Most of the climbers were not real either, in a general sense.
Still, he was only one floor away from returning to Earth. He didn't know how long he'd been in the aura training room, but if it hadn't been a whole three decades again, he was reasonably sure the tutorial wouldn't have started by the time he arrived.
As a level seven, he would be the strongest for quite some time. Until others who didn't have crippled leveling shot past him in a few months. As long as they remained in the F grade though, he was sure that no one on Earth would be a problem for him. And getting into the E grade without at least one concept ability was nothing less than a dream.
Anyway he was perhaps the strongest native from his old world. That meant it could possibly be easy to crash the rest of them. He did not want to though. He didn't even see himself being some kind of political leader. He was currently an old man on the inside (though he was a toddler at about past fifty on a multiversal scale) but he had the outward appearance of a teenager.
To get people to listen to him he would have to use force. If he did not practice restraint now, Rafe was scared he'd go full murderhobo.
It was a lucky thing his intentions to just severely out fight his opponents meant he had no harmful intentions. It made mastering his veil bypassing methods easier. It also left him with nothing to improve upon. Now he was working on his defensive technique, and he loved the sheer quality and quantity of opponents in this trial.
Rafe was sure that at least on Earth no one at the same rank would ever have the breadth of battle experience he'd had.
And with his slow leveling, he was going to have to visit a lot of dungeons and towers, increasing his battle experience by necessity.
He did have the advantage of being able to withstand extreme time dilation. By the time he reached the high tiers, Rafe should at least be among the most experienced warriors even in the multiverse around his level, whatever it would be.
Liam had shown him there was a higher ceiling than he'd thought, but did he have to be the best? Rafe had never been the best. He'd never intended to be the best. He'd never thought he was the best. He just wanted to be good enough to survive. Wasn't that what it was all about?
Well, not for everyone. The way his opponents fought, for example. He knew they weren't trying to hold back. Even Andragoth, who knew she was just an image, was getting more and more serious with each exchange. And Rafe was getting pushed back, and sometimes Quin would step up to his blind side and try to ambush him.
And he was struggling. Yet he was surviving. Learning with every little wound. The barrier mage Andragoth had boosted first was becoming a real thorn in his side, but Rafe enjoyed the feeling of thrusting into the unyielding barriers. Of gave him a framework to use for his new technique.
Andragoth performed a cross cutting technique that had Rafe frowning in her direction in a bid to learn her method rather than defend. He lifted his spear at the last moment, but having her selfbuffs meant Andragoth's power overwhelmed him and sent him reeling back. Straight into a waiting Quin. She planted her foot and lowered her dagger wielding hand.
It was a fatal blow she planned, putting her all into an uppercut like cut meant to take a staggering Rafe deep in his back through his oblique muscles and then the ribs and higher still. She put her all into it because Rafe was unbalanced and shouldn't have been able to respond. She ignored her defense.
Rafe twitched out of the way at the last moment. And before Quin could get her balance back, he thrust forward. A portal took his spear right through where her chest should have been. Quin didn't even appear to notice the magic, instead stepping out of her failed attack into a one on one battle sequence Rafe had seen many times before.
He clicked his tongue in pretend irritation. The team had already started to trust each other. Quin no longer cared about defense, instead attacking with all her might.
Aska was functioning not as a large scale damage dealer but as a pseudo support build. Andragoth had already done her part with the buffs, but kept the pressure on Rafe to give Quin the opportunity she'd use to finish him. The barrier mage was almost untouchable.
Even when Rafe gave Quin and Andragoth the slip in order to go after Aska, the barrier mage was ready to assist. His barriers were almost indestructible, and Rafe had no doubt that was because of Andragoth's very strong buff.
Still, defenses were something Rafe had recently taken an interest in. Destroying them and building them up again. He liked getting pushed back by the barriers. It gave him time to analyse them.
And as he did, he found himself in an almost trance like state. He felt something start to shift in his spirit. Everything became meaningless for an instant as he danced around his enemies and tried to break through their almost impossible defenses.
He felt a thrill as some kind of breakthrough came so close he could almost feel it. He would have grinned if his face wasn't scrunched up in concentration.
Then the battle froze, and he couldn't move his body. And the others were more frozen than him. Their eyes weren't even shifting from place to place like his.
“Well, fuck,” he heard Sam's voice from afar. “And here I hoped you wouldn't be so clever at least once. Shit, kid, our scheme might have just fallen through.”
Rafe was confused, and he wanted to say so. Only he could not. He had known the gods were watching, but they had kept their distance thus far. He also knew they were supposed to help him with his little last plan. The plan Sam had foisted onto him. Without Liam there, the plan could not, would not work.
“It is what it is,” he had the Enchantress' monotonous voice that sent his heart to a gallop.
He wanted to ask why. Why had they seen fit to interfere now?
“Listen, Rafael,” Noid said with a sigh. “Listen, I'm really impressed. We all are. You're practically dominating this little trial. And then this? You are definitely talented, even if you might not feel like it. I was not as modest as you in my day. Creating your own technique as a level seven F ranked human with the weak soul of an Essence Desert progenitor. That's impressive.”
“That said,” this time it was Liam's voice speaking, “creating a technique and learning one are entirely different things. You cannot create a technique in such a…corrupted environment. We have tried our best, but this is a void aspected place for the most part.”
“Techniques, insights, concepts,” this time it was Sendriel of the Sands whose voice he heard. He hadn't gotten the impression she would pay much attention to him before. “At least for a race like yours that is not limited by your genome, should not be created in such rigid conditions. The chance of affecting your future is too high. Do you understand?”
Rafe wasn't sure he did. In simple terms, perhaps they were confirming his theory of techniques being similar to insights and concepts. That wasn't what mattered though. What mattered was that he'd come close. He'd come so close and yet he could not.
“Do not worry over much,” the Enchantress spoke again. “I'm sure the system will award you an already existing technique similar to what you were building. Who knows, this might be better anyway. While being a genius is a great trait, sometimes all we geniuses do is reinvent an already existing wheel, in a somewhat different way, but still.”
A moment passed in silence. Rafe waited. No one said anything. He still couldn't move.
A sigh echoed. “Is he still mad about the whole trial world fiasco you put up, Enith?” Granderel spoke for the first time.
Rafe could hear the normally cold woman hiss. “Do not speak of this!”
“Don't be too mad at Enith,” Sam took up the thread next. “We might be gods now, or god spirits at least, but we were once mortals. Some of us never graduated to true immortality, in fact. Maybe that's why Enith still has trouble expressing her true emotions.”
“Sam!” Enith shouted, showing a bit of emotion for the first time that Rafe could remember.
“He still won't answer? A stubborn little bugger, ain't he?” Granderel said.
Another sigh, this time from Liam if Rafe had his guess right.
“It's not that he won't answer,” the first guardian spoke.
“It's that he can't,” Noid's voice came through. “Listen, Rafe my boy, I know you and Enith had some trouble when you met up. But allow us to clear the air a bit. The Enchantress is not your enemy, boy.”
“Her apprentice though…” Sam chimed in.
“Sam….” Liam growled in warning.
“Fine, fine, fine, I'm sorry.”
“What are you all doing? Why are you meddling with this? It is not your place!” the enchantress yelled in visibly growing frustration.
“And whose is it?” Sendriel asked. “Have you not grown an inch after all these thousands of years? Are you still that lonely little girl in the burning cave?”
There was a shimmer, a shaking of reality, and before Rafe knew it he was standing in a different place. In a familiar atrium, six familiar figures arrayed around him.
