Chapter 128—Unravelling the Secret to the Trident

AG. Apologies for the long wait between chapters. I've been doing my best to distract myself as at the moment I'm really disliking empty thinking time. Mainly I've been doing that by starting a new series. I've been unable to continue any series, that includes DCC or read chapter by chapter updates on the dozen or so RR series I'm following.

Unfortunatley reading a series cuts into my productivity severely. To fix that I'm not going to allow my self to start anything new so my energy can go into writing.

I also followed some advice I read here and allowed myself to start a new standalone book. I wrote about 18k last week on it but I'm not sure where that will go. I might just abandon it.

Anyway hopefully I can go back to producing a consistent 12 to 16k per week. Thanks for staying with me through this period and all the kind messages you've sent or comments you've made.

Another month passed as he trained everything. His entire day was dedicated to self-improvement. The downtimes in real life were avoided by him into the divine champion’s trial to work on mastering his tier two danger sense. Despite all that effort, there had been no milestones expansion in his capability. Yes, he had acquired some minor earth spells and all of them had come with sideways evolutions but none of them had combat applications, which is ultimately all that mattered. He still lacked any form of defensive shielding. An outcome, even within his most optimistic of plans was still months away.

To win in his duels, he had to either be faster than them to allow him to continuously kite them while wearing them down or conversely have them vulnerable to his magic so he could eliminate them before they could launch their most powerful spells at him. Fortune had not been with him and he had only won two battles while losing more than twice as many. Tom wasn’t upset about that split. The opponents he had lost too were clearly in the top third of threats in the child one bucket, and while there wasn’t any proof he felt like chance had been turned against him. He wasn’t about to try to use fate directly against the will of the GODs, so he just accepted the outcome and bided his time, knowing that eventually the random selection would turn in his favour.

He was once more in the plain room with the three doors, each of which would lead to the same duel just with him having different protections. The first time he had come here his heart had beat faster in response to the coming duel. That no longer happened. The room no longer stirred his emotions. His title told him that the disk flip method would work, and that was all that mattered. It was important to take the excitement out of these biweekly duels and focus on them being just another fight, because that was all they were. They didn’t matter in the outside world, but they did provide him the opportunity to grind the coin currency which would allow him to upgrade himself later.

He flipped the disk up and it landed immediately on tails.

Tom snorted at that. Apparently, today was not one of the days that the GODs were going to play games with him. The number of times he had gotten a string of heads only to receive a tails after seven or so tosses was ridiculous. “I guess I have a loss coming.” He said with a shrug and walked through the door to give himself a full GOD’s shield.

You are fighting a representative of MAKROS. It has 15 confirmed incapacitations and zero kills.

He brushed off the message without paying it any real attention. There was no point. With the full GOD’s shield active, his safety was guaranteed. The flip had already assigned this as a loss and the fact he was facing a terror species which never fought with a shield was irrelevant. That he would have faced death if he hadn’t protected himself didn’t matter. Because his fate driven forecast had made sure that scenario hadn’t occurred. The arena he appeared in was lightly forested. It was a strange place. The trees were too thin to hide behind, but spaced more like you would expect to see in an old growth forest with each tree a little under ten metres from the nearest one. It was a weird layout, and the tree’s presence was too insubstantial for them to be a factor in the coming battle. Unless he fought another plant mage again and then he was screwed. 

Curiously, he turned his attention to his opponent.

His eyes widened and his heart skipped a beat despite the protections he had come in with.

There was no mistaking his adversary.

Big, innocent orbs stared back from the cute teddy bear face.

Internally, he shuddered as he remembered how it had talked to him. And then the distinct pleasure it had gotten from inflicting pain and then killing. The dissonance between how it looked and how it acted was terrifying. That psychopathic scientist vibe as it chatted while doing its best to destroy him.

Tom did not want to lose to it. Subconsciously, he licked his lips as he remembered his helplessness, and his eyes darted around, searching for inspiration. Then he realised the futility of such action. Some extra terrain features, no matter how favourable were not going to change anything.

It was irrelevant, given how this particular thing fought.

Instead, he met those large eyes that invoked the ‘aw so cute’ instinct in humanity and channelled his hate for all that it represented. If looks could kill, that monster that hid the terror underneath the skin, thick innocence would have perished under his gaze.

The countdown hit zero.

Despite knowing the final outcome he went through the motions to try to defeat it. The moment he could move he sprinted to the side while trying to form a javelin. The effort he discovered, within a blink of the duel being started, was pointless. Magic vanished from his fingertips, as he likewise lost complete control of his physical form.

He tumbled to crash down onto the leafy ground.

His body was unresponsive, and the air felt like iron. It wasn’t real, but there was a crushing pressure on the edge of his awareness that he subconsciously tried to oppose, to force it back with sheer willpower. His efforts were futile the force containing him showed zero reaction, so he switched to attempting to draw on his mana.

What mana? He thought in alarm.

Just like the first time, panic overtook him before his rational mind shut down those unhelpful impulses. He couldn’t even sense an echo of his mana pool. For all intents and purposes, he was back on Earth in an environment where magic didn’t exist.

The ability that the teddy bear was using was an illusion that wasn’t. The world he had been thrust into wasn’t the same as Existentia, but rather it was modified to leave him completely helpless. Then the magic made that real and stopped him from touching his skills or spells. He remembered his experiments from the last time he had faced this specific opponent and how, by focusing on Touch Heal he had managed to partially circumvent the restrictions.

Desperately, he tried to touch the corner stone spell while reviewing everything he could about illusions.

None of it helped.

What he was being subjected to was an impossibility, according to his knowledge.

He heard the heavy tread of the sapient monster as it approached. “I hope you don’t have a GOD’s shield like last time.” It chirped happily. Then it paused next to him, and he registered the prick of pain at the base of his skull as it severed his spinal cord. “Isn’t that better. There’s no chance of your little mind resistance tricks breaking control and letting you strike back now. Even if you get free, you’re helpless.” Then it fiddled with his spinal cord a bit more and he could feel everything once more. “Isn’t this great? Now you can feel everything I do to you as well. I wonder what fun experiments I can come up with this time.” As it nattered away, he felt excruciating pain radiating from his index finger. “Let’s see if this comes off.” It mused. “Wow, that’s a lot of nerves. This must hurt quite a lot. Is the one next to it the same I wonder?”

There was more pain, but this time when he reached for his pain removal spell the full GOD’s shield moved with him.

Instantly, the pain faded to nothing.

“That’s not fair. You’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

“Well, I can, and you can’t stop it.” Tom blustered.

It paused, and he felt a dull sensation in his stomach, twisting, prodding, turning, but no pain. “Ridiculous. This is no fun at all, and I already know what your anatomy is like. Looks like we won’t get to know each other more. Even though it’s pointless, I guess it’s soul cutting time.”

He knew that meant the GOD’s shield was about to eject him from the space, so he threw everything into getting a feel of what stopping him from moving and denying him access to magic and he felt the vice holding him flex. For an instant, he could feel his mana pool before the outside forces snapped shut and denied him from reaching it.

Tom didn’t care.

That weakness had been real.

It started cutting his soul, and he was instantly pushed out of the arena.

Inside, he was fist pumping. Somehow, he had done it. He had created a gap in its hold over him and if he could do it once he could do it again.

And the genius part of him, the bit that was always right made it clear that over his next eight years he would meet this enemy multiple times. Unless one of them died first and he doubted anyone else would be able to beat it so it would go up the brackets with him at least until Tom found out how to kill it. Eventually, maybe as soon as his next meeting he would break its illusionary hold over him and once that was done with his electricity Tom was confident, he could subdue it and that would allow him to break it just like it broke other people.

That was what he was going to do straight after he got the danger sense ritual disks working for everyone else. Once he freed up some time, Tom promised himself that he would learn a torture technique. One that could remove the bear from the equation and any others like it. While it was the only torturer in their bracket, Tom knew that the older brackets all had at least two of the blights active. If he couldn’t kill the bear because it functioned under a partial GOD’s shield, then he would break it, like it did others. It was more than it deserved.

The rules of the duel meant he could observe what was happening even while he was protected from the evil creature’s machinations. The innocent-looking monster took its time as it cut up Tom’s soul, or at least the facsimile of it that the GOD’s shield had left in his place.

That was the ability he wanted to gain once he got head space to study it. The ability to do permanent damage back to the assassins that targeted those functioning under a partial GOD’s shield.     

Finally, it completed the process, and the duel ended with his official loss.

As always, he was transported back to DEUS’ general socialising room, and he immediately checked on everyone gathered. Someone from the child bucket four, a whale man creature was covered in blood and a healing potion was used to save his life with the system granting the trade automatically due to him being incapacitated.

Beyond that, there didn’t appear to be any missing people.

A cheer went up. It was a great day when they got through without any deaths.

Tom smiled broadly.

“Don’t tell me you got another victory.” Corrine asked in excitement.

“No,” he answered her simply.

“Then why the fuck are you looking like a druggie getting their latest hit of heroin.”

He glanced at her and raised an eyebrow.

She flushed slightly. “I had a sister.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be its ancient history. But what’s with the grin?” She nudged him.

“I’m happy because within two or three encounters I’m confident that I’ll be able to kill the trident.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I don’t use the word confident lightly.”

“Fuck, that’s awesome. Screw that demented evil kid. But if you look at this from a different perspective, there’s a lesson here. In Existentia, it doesn’t matter how powerful you are if you come up against someone that counters you, then you’re dead.”

“Yep,” Tom agreed as he subconsciously pulled out his disk and flipped it thoughtfully. The key was not to be the strongest, but to control the risk you took in each battle. With his precognition ability especially if he could add more unique skills to it that’s what he would be able to do. He would have the power to manipulate the risks. He could choose to fight only when he could guarantee a win and flee otherwise. “In here and out there.” he muttered.

“You’re thinking about synergies between fate and your precognition, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you.” He equivocated, knowing that his fate no longer worked like that and that until he had done a test, he couldn’t afford to mention anything that might cause her to catch his title.

“Yeah, I would. We have to avoid the mistakes we all made when we came to Existentia. The ones that killed most of us.”

The whale man pushed itself to its feet, coming right out of the water. Its skin still glistened with wet blood. “I almost died, but I won,” he roared. “There’s one less terror out there for us to face.”

There was a cheer from everyone, and on that happy note the gathering broke up.

Tom had no need to be back in the real world and so the person he was calling Mr. Cricket, a ball of hairy arms, because he couldn’t pronounce the actual name, supervised him. He continued practicing his ritual creation and while he hadn’t been successful yet; it felt like it was just a matter of time until he finished it. He had gotten seventy percent of the way through the process without any errors a number of times already, and he could almost taste the coming success.

Four hours later, he excused himself for isolation room practice.

Once within the safe confines of the room, he split his first hour between hammer and spear work before he started reading another fictional story purely for research purposes. It was a thin book with big writing like it was designed for kids and was hopefully something that he could finish in the hour that he had. 

It was a love story, and it made him want to fall asleep and he wasn’t until he was halfway through that he realised that the main character was an eight-limbed sloth like being, with eyes poking out on either side of its head. He only worked out that much because a page was spent comparing three of the people to each other and commenting on the relevant beauty of each. 

After that, the story became more interesting. A species with three sexes where each point of the triangle was being wooed by multiple other individuals. The conflicts of all those interactions created excuses for some surprisingly fun fights especially when they were to the death and the author wasn’t afraid of leaving casualties. The original third point of the triangle had died a brutal death on page eight just as he was starting to seem nice. After that every battle contained the threat of further deaths which was a nice change of pace from the usual plot armour protection main characters usually got.

The words flowed and all too soon the points of the triangle were settled and all they had to do was to defeat the current breeding triangle and then consummate their union.

They won!

Tom froze suddenly, and the MC’s triumph was forgotten.

Loota the main character had done what. He thought in shock.

He quickly re-read the offending section and his finger came down hard on the line he was looking for.

By infusing velocity mana in his arm, he was able to pull it back before it was severed. He was glad master Mook had forced him to practice the ability as much as he had. 

It was only a single line in the entire book, but it was the clue he had been searching for.

He had seen lots of descriptions of species that utilised mana to improve physical aspects, but it had always been an innate ability.

This was different.

This suggested the method was one that could be learned.

Innate for some, learnable for others, it was what he was searching for.

But how did you infuse mana with velocity?

What else could you do? If velocity mana existed, there had to be other similar forms. Hardness, or maybe earth mana? Possibly strength or, if speed was velocity, then he would be looking at something like mass.

How about his own affinities? Could he use those? Lightning or healing mana were the obvious first testing steps, but would that even work or did it have to be force related?

He had so many questions it was a little ridiculous.

The simple fact was that he needed more information and luckily there was a scheduled meeting with Dimitri in a couple of days and he would ask then.

The two days passed with him focused primarily on the ritual disk. There had been no success, but the time he took before each failure reduced while he simultaneously got closer to completing the entire framework. All of his supervisors assured him that he was making progress even if there were no explicit results to point to.

Finally, he was called into Dimitri’s room.

This time, Tom was happy to see that they were alone. There was no Everlyn to ambush him.

After sealing them in with the room’s magic, the older man sighed and slumped down onto his chair before massaging the bridge of his nose. “What are we going to do with you, Tom?”

“Get me some research material,” he shot back with a smile.

Dimitri ignored him. “You do know that excluding the surviving members of the heroes of humanity you have the most ranking points.”

Tom froze as his mind rushed to assess the accuracy of that statement. He guessed he had around ten million points now and humanity as a whole only had three hundred million. That meant at most there were thirty people better than him. In hindsight, it was obvious that he would be up amongst the best, but that fact hadn’t fully registered.

The corners of Tom’s lips quirked upwards as he spied an opportunity. “Are you serious? What have the rest of you been doing?”

“It’s not a joking matter, Tom.”

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “Getting ranking points just isn’t that hard. You could call it child’s play.”

Dimitri stared at him steadily.

“Not even a smile?” Tom probed.

“It wasn’t funny.”

“I used the expression child’s play because I’m a kid. I think that’s exceedingly humours.”

“It wasn’t before you explained it and it definitely isn’t after. The future of billions of people is not something to joke about.”

Tom frowned slightly annoyed at being shot down, but Dimitri did have a point. Em and the rest of his family’s future were at stake.. “Anyway, I need a favour. I want information on using mana internally to boost attributes.”

“No, no.” Dimitri shook his head vigorously. “That’s not a good path, Tom. There’s a reason we stripped research material on that topic from the isolation rooms.”

“So you do have stuff you can give me?”

“We do. But that path is a shiny lure that you’re better not pursuing. The techniques aren’t in the experience shop for a reason. Humans aren’t designed to make use of them.”

“I’d still like to see the research we have.”

“Reincarnator or not myself and the other headmasters say no.”

“But I’m asking and I’m special? Excluding heroes of humanity, I’m number one. That means rules can be broken.”

Dimitri glared at him. “You’re playing that rank card on me? Literally a minute after I told you.”

Tom shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “If it’s effective, then yes I definitely am.”

“You know the rules aren’t there just because.”

“Yes.”

“It’s based off hard data. The effort invested per reward received has never been close to being worthwhile. Everyone who went down that path said that if they could go back in time, they would stop their younger self from pursuing the knowledge.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’m serious Tom.”

“Is there a book that tells me what a bad idea this is?”

“No, there isn’t. But of the twenty-five, twenty were reincarnators and they knew what they were doing. They all regretted their choice.”

“But were any of them number one on the ranking ladder?”

“Why would you raise that? It’s self-serving and irrelevant.”

“I disagree. I think it’s very relevant.”

“Do I strike you as the kind of person who values touchy feely nonsense? Or a respect for rank and authority? I make decisions not based on reputation, but on what’s best for humanity and they all underperformed.”

“Danger noted,” Tom answered back. “But I have my reasons for asking. Can I get access to it? It is something I’ll be uniquely provisioned to leverage.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not. But I see potential there that I can’t ignore. I have my reasons for trying this and evidence that suggests I’ll be more successful than others.” He was lying, but he didn’t care. He was intelligent enough to cut his losses if this extra path to power wasn’t working. For now, he needed to convince the headmaster to supply the reading materials that he needed to make up his own mind.

Dimitri, after a long pause nodded. “Fine, you’ve earned my trust. I’ll store them in the hidden cupboard thirteen.”

“Thank you. I believe this will help me earn the number one ranking outright. Now I have a second request. Do you have any adults, preferably ones you don’t like, so that you’ll be okay with me experimenting on them.”

He had timed the comment just as the larger man was taking a sip and there was a very satisfying spray of water as he choked upon the request.

Tom kept his features perfectly innocent. “I think I only need two.”