Just when Yu thought he has finally caught up to anything that could be thrown his way, the entire board got flipped upside down. So, now he is moving onto actual physical tests than just wits huh? The issue to Yu was, that he was never really the type to score a lot of points in any sports test. Of the two, Kou was definitely the more physically active and also the one that could easy do stuff like this. He wasn't an athlete by any means but Yu in comparison was nothing. Although Yu had athletic ability and was especially quick, evasive and to an extent acrobatic, he did not have any strength or routine physical muscle memory. So yes, Yu thought he was definitely at a disadvantage when it came to tests like these. But, since he now had these skills, maybe things would be different?
"Your goal is to reach the end of this parkour. This challenge, different to others will work with a point-based system. For every incapacitated target, you will gain a set number of points. For every time a target hits you, you'll lose a set number of points. Keep in mind that this door will not open until you reach a certain threshold of points and until you do, enemy targets will keep being reinstated. To use of all system related skills and powers are allowed. I wish you good luck."
And with that, another set of crackling sounds told Yu that he was on his own now. Great. He passed through the huge door, only for it to close right after. He observed his surroundings. The entire room was huge, the size of the inside of a gigantic cathedral. Instead of a traditional room, this was more shaped like an elongated hallway. There were a lot of platforms of different heights and lots of little robot turrets placed on a few of them. Sometimes there were multiple ones in a set pattern, sometimes just one and some platforms had none. On closer inspection the little turrets seemed cute and adorable.
He didn't have long to think about their adorable design though, as a few of the turrets in his vicinity all started aiming for Yu. Not even a split second later they started firing rounds of bullets. Yu was able to seek shelter behind a huge wall right next to the entrance, just before any of the bullets hit him. Shit. how was he going to do this? All of a sudden, a wave of panic overcame him. Up until now, Yu has been breezing through the chambers as if it was no biggie, as to him, in his mind, this was all more or less a game. Was Yu wrong to think that way? Even the Appraisal system is built like an RPG game system. But this was actually life or death. There were real bullets. The same bullets, which had the sole purpose to take the lives of living beings. Needless to say, the fear started creeping into Yu at an intense rate. The shooting has stopped, likely because Yu was not in their target area anymore, instead hidden behind a reinforced wall like a coward. Sitting in a fetal position, trying to stop the sudden influx of thoughts and emotions, Yu seemed like he'd succumb to this sudden onslaught of despair. The void within in only grew bigger. Who did he think he was, trying to play all of this off, as if this was just a game? To breeze through this, as if consequences didn't matter anymore? Sure, Yu gave all of the possibilities a thought. This could very well be a simulation or a video game where dying was different from actually kicking the bucket. But he had no way of confirming that without actually trying. And as much as Yu acted all unbothered and though, he did not want to die. After all, he still wanted to travel the world with Lia. She loved traveling and seeing what was out in the world. Boxed within the confines of regularity, she lived only lived certainties. But she was a woman of possibilities, nothing could hold her in a place. And Kouji. Yu still had a lot of regrets of what happened. He couldn't just die without ever telling him what was always on his heart.
"No."
Yu decided. He was going to make it back. He'd see all the places Lia listed. He'd tell Kou what he always wanted to. He'd see his family and he'd go back to living like he used to.
"But in order to do that" Yu said whilst getting himself up, "I need to find a way past these."
Yu held both his open hands vertically and a certain distance from his face. Then he smacked both his cheeks with as much force as he could. That awoke him from despair. He had calmed down.
"Alright, first things first. It is best to figure out what I can do in terms of range."
Yu was back, mind clear. He closed his eyes, extended his arm, and tried to imagine a small little liquid ball. Opening his eyes revealed a little floating shining black blob floating just ahead his hand. Alright, that worked as planned. He dared to take a slight peek towards the turrets. Seems as they haven't detected him yet. He pointed his arm toward one of the turrets and imagined how the liquid hardened into a solid. Then, he let it spin around its own axis telekinetically, progressively faster, and faster. What Yu was doing here was build up potential energy.
In energy theory, there is kinetic energy, which is the study of movement energy. In order for something to move, it required force of an at least equivalent amount. The possible energy buildup for that movement was called potential energy. Given that Yu could freely control the kinetic energy of this substance, he hoped to be able to 'charge' up the energy required for the ball to move exceedingly fast. Aiming for one of the turrets, he then decided to release all that energy by shooting it straight at one of these turrets. With extreme speeds, his self-made bullet missed the turret by a few centimetres. It would have been very bad for Yu, if not for the immense wind current that this one move generated, which was enough wind force for the targeted turret to fall over the platform. The turret, falling all the way from its high platform, started shooting into all directions as this was all the turret was programmed to do, in a last ditch effort to somehow miraculously save itself, but to no avail. It hit the ground and immediately shattered into pieces. One for Yu, Zero for the turrets.
Notification
Challenge Specific:
- [Yu] has gained 10 Points for successful target elimination.
- [Yu] has gained +50 EXP
(Challenge Specific: +150 EXP first target bonus)
Proficiency threshold reached.
- Skill [Shadow Weaver LV2] has become [Shadow Weaver LV3]
Proficiency threshold reached.
- Character [Yu] has reached LV2.
- - New menu options have been unlocked
- - New skills have been learned
- - Skill points unlocked.
- - [Yu] has gained 300 Skill Points.
Yu was surprised at this notification. But just as fast as it appeared, the notification vanished. That was a lot at once, so he didn't quite get all of that. He tried opening the menu to find this notification again, to see a few new things added to his Appraisal window. One of them was a message board of sorts, where his past notifications were stored. That was handy. He pulled up the previous notification and inspected it. He gained another level. Opening up his stats, he noticed he was now on level two, with the experience bar already filled to a third. The experience threshold to reach Level 2 was 300 XP, of which he had 100 XP. Additionally, he saw another very interesting menu element. He now had a "Shop" option available. Entering this new menu, he was hit with a new window and a huge list view of a variety of skills. He could also filter skills after skill point cost, category, type of skill and much more. He decided to just start browsing the shop for now to find something useful to his current issue. Then he saw something intriguing. He interacted with the skill in question, which brought up an information panel about the skill.
[Select LV1]
Assigns the user the [Ext.Wisd.prf] permission profile.
The user gains to ability to select a target or a specified space to pass on to another action or skill. The higher the level of this skill, the more targets are selectable and the wider the spatial selection range is.
Current Target Range: 1 Target / 1m2
Cost: 100P
This was probably the most ominous description so far. Assigning profiles were things Yu has heard before but phrased like this really made it seem like he was in some weird computer program or an operating system. Everything seemed to point towards this being some sort of video game or simulation. Whatever that meant, "Select" sounded very much useful. It definitely wouldn't be bad to pick this up, wouldn't it? He decided to purchase the skill.
Skill [Select] acquired. Skill Points expended. Remaining Skill Points: 200
Sweet. Now for some more skills. He needed something that could help him hit the targets. If this was a video game (or at least something akin to it), surely there must be an Aim-Bot skill, right?
[Aim LV1]
Requires a target selecting skill (currently compatible skills: [Select]).
Increases the probability of any aimed throw or shot connecting. Helps lock onto a target for a variety of executions.
Current Boost: 40%
Cost: 100P
This definitely sounded like an aim correction skill of some sorts. And with it, the skill was bought. Just like before, Yu received a notification of the acquisition of said skill and the remaining amount of Skill points, just like before. Nice, now I should be able to hit the targets much better right? He decided to dismiss Appraisal and turn towards another turret, peeking out of the protective shield of a wall. After spotting another turret, he decided to try Select.
- [Turret]
He extended his arm yet again, aiming for the turret. Just like before, he charged up and shot another bullet of hardened black goo. This time, he perfectly managed a headshot, making the turret tumble and fall.
Notification
Challenge Specific: [Yu] has gained 10 Points for successful target elimination. [Yu] has gained +50 EXP
Proficiency threshold reached.
- Skill [Select LV1] has become [Select LV2]
Great. That worked out nicely. To Yu's dismay, he only received 50 EXP instead of the 200 from before, but he initially received 150 of it as a first time bonus anyway. His XP bar did go all the way up to halfway full though, which was great. Another great upgrade was his level up in the "Select" skill. He went to appraise it again, to see that his selection values doubled. He could now select up to two targets.
He felt a bit more confident about the turrets now and considering that he'd get nowhere just staying back here, he decided to move out, into the midst of the turrets. But before he did so he wanted to try something that would help his survival chances by a lot.
He yet again extended his arm, but this time didn't just conjure a ball; He imagined a huge, thick rectangular block of pure black goo. He formed a small handle on one side of it and curved it slightly. Afterwards, he hardened it. The size of this new shield was enough to cover an entire cardinal direction the turrets could be firing from. The shield was kind of ugly and quite uneven, but he seemed to slightly get the hang of this. He even decided on a new name for this substance; He called it "Umbranium".
He tested out the shield by coming out from behind the wall. Immediately, a variety of turrets aimed for Yu and shot their rounds of bullets. The turrets shooting with automatic weapons didn't make things easier either. But the shield stood the test exceptionally well; The bullets didn't seem to be able to penetrate the Umbranium quite well. The shield protected him perfectly. Marching forth, he moved all the way up until shortly before the point where turrets could aim from the side. Then Yu had an idea. One that had a chance of working but would be very difficult to execute. First, he tried appraising the turrets in his surroundings.
- [Turret] (2)
He could only manage two so far though. No matter, the rest will have to do with some manual aim. At least two turrets should now be 'selected'. Pointing his hand towards the ceiling, he produced six bullets made out of Umbranium, high above Yu. He spent a few seconds charging their kinetic energy. Then, he made a gesture where he quickly lowered his hand, as if smacking an invisible mosquito in the air, making the balls immediately shoot for their intended targets. He couldn't see if he managed to hit the turrets from behind the shield, but he hoped that the combination of Select, Aim and Shadow Weaver could do the trick.
Notification
Challenge Specific:
- [Yu] has gained 60 Points for successful target elimination (6 Targets)
- [Yu] has gained +300 EXP
Proficiency Threshold reached.
- [Yu] has reached LV3. Awarded 100 Skill Points
- Skill [Aim] has reached LV2 Skill
- Skill [Select] has reached LV3
- Skill [Shadow Weaver] has reached Level 3
- Skill [Appraisal] has reached Level 2
Neat. His cowardly but effective farming method yielded a nice pay. Yu's plan came together nicely. And he even received more skill points. If he could play this defensive strategy further, this chamber should be a breeze. But something felt off. Until now, all of the challenges were perfectly suited to Yu and his skills and powerset. This seemed far too easy for a tailor-made challenge. Was there something looming ahead?
Some time had passed, and Yu had exterminated quite a few turrets so far. Yu wasn't generally speaking a person who cared much about cute things, but it was too bad his targets were these adorable little turrets. Could have made such great little mascots. Meanwhile Yu had learned how to control and fine tune this power and wanted to try some more daring things. He was by now able to fluidly control even bigger masses of the Umbranium, so he tried making himself some armor. Needless to say, it went horrible. Whilst massive things that can be rough around the edges were perfectly fine for Yu, creating and shaping objects that required fine-tuning and attention to detail were things Yu definitely wasn't capable of yet. So far, the shield was his only perfectly working defense mechanism and the Umbranium bullets his perfect method of attack. Sure, it was a rather cowardly method, but could anyone blame him? There were dozens of cute little turrets around that could unalive Yu in the blink of an eye. Better safe than sorry, he thought. By now Yu had amassed quite an amount of experience, skill points and challenge points. Things seemed to work in his favor so far. By the time he reached the end of the hallway, an enormous metallic door was the only thing barring his entryway into the next challenge. He expected the crackling noise to signal ARC's announcement of the end of the challenge, to tell Yu that he had amassed enough points to move onto the next chamber. And there it was, the crackling noise. But what followed was not what Yu thought would happen.
"Stage one has been completed. Executing stage two."
Another static noise, signaling communications were disconnected. What? Stage two? What did that mean?
Yu was quickly and harshly taught what the meaning of stage two was; In the middle of the huge hallway a mechanical trapdoor of some sort opened. An elevated platform started moving up and the moment he saw what was on the platform Yu immediately lost all hope. There were countless turrets on there, a number at least thrice of what was in the room previously. Additionally, there seemed to one different type of mechanical enemy too. The subject in question was creepy looking to say the least; It was a mannequin of some sort, with six arms, in pure white. There were no direct features on its face nor on its body, it was just a blank six-armed mannequin. In each of its six arms it held weapons. The upper and lower two hands held a katana sword each, whilst the middle two weren't hands at all; They were the ends of some sort of canon or gun. Yu immediately silently panicked. Whilst he had his body entirely under control, his mind was everywhere. What was happening? Would this be his end?
There wasn't enough time to think, as the turrets, now with legs that gave them mobility, started to crawl across the entire grounds, dispersing themselves. They have not started attacking yet, neither has the mannequin. Yu was too scared to move, as he believed even a millimetre of displacement would immediately trigger a fatal reaction from the stupidly cute but deadly things. That was when he noticed the area marked in an oval shape with a red line on the ground. Its circumference included the entire area in front of the door, closing its ends with the end of each of the huge door's sides. And Yu was standing within the red line. So, did that mean that him entering this area triggered the so-called 'next phase' and moving out of this area would start the challenge? Yu calmed down a bit. If that was the case, then this should work out well. He set up a giant wall of Umbranium just inside the line, to definitely make sure he had some protection in case he was wrong. He completely enclosed himself, closing even the top part and holing himself up in this ball-like structure. Then he sat down and thought. How on earth was he supposed to defeat the mannequin, no, just the sheer number of turrets even? Yu had his new strategy of combining Aim with Select, to ensure an impeccable aim and essentially guaranteed hits. But that was when he was able to take on those turrets one by one. If this many turrets were deployed simultaneously, which Yu easily estimated to be at least fifty in numbers, his strategy would not work. His current skill level wouldn't allow him to select this many targets. Even with his previously amassed XP getting his 'Select' skill to level four, he could only select up to eight targets or a target area of 8m2. The only way he saw himself get past was to check out a new strategy, possibly involving new skills. With that, Yu opened the skill shop to check more skills. He currently had 200 Skill Points in total, which meant he had enough skill points for two skills. Now that he thought of it, he has not seen any other price of a skill other than 100 Points so far, so he just assumed he could afford two. He checked the list and decided to search for specific keywords that would help him out here. That's when a peculiar set of skills grabbed his attention.
[Magic Operation LV1]
Assigns the user the [cmd2.prf] profile.
The user gains the ability to execute magic.
Cost: 500P
[Magic Perception LV1]
Assigns the user the [cmd1.prf] profile.
The user gains the ability to perceive magic.
Cost: 100P
Magic? Yu took a moment to let that sink in. Magic. He really just read magic. Like, not just the hocus pocus magician that sells you a supposed deal to his show for a fraction of the price because he tries to make his ends meet by pretending reality is an illusion and capitalizing on it. No. What Yu just saw in front of him were two skills that clearly depicted the existence of magic. Magic in the sense of reality bending, in the sense of actual manipulation of things. Sure, skills threw him off-guard already but those were quite restrictive save or a few like Shadow Weaver. Skills were always a predetermined set of actions, with some more loosely defined than others. Magic looked like he could take all of that a step further. But why were there two distinct set of skills for magic? Both assigned profiles, which also seemed to be related to each other. He didn't think long about it and bought Magic Perception for 100 Skill Points, making his remaining Skill Points the same amount now. He thought it should be fine, he probably couldn't use magic to the fullest but at least partial ability to interact with magic should be there, right? Though, Yu had one massive problem that only really dawned at him after making the purchase; Yu had not the slightest clue on how to use magic. That was 100 Skill Points he could have used on something better now, instead its now going to sit on his shelf of collected skills, collecting imaginary dust. He shook his head and told himself to worry about magic later. He instead looked through the list of skills for any one skill that could save his hide right now. And then he found one.
[Auto-Recovery: HP LV1]
User continuously regenerates HP. The current rate of regeneration is 5% per second.
Cost: 100P
Yu didn't even think for long; He immediately bought it. Survivability was everything to him at the moment, so he equipped the skill on the spot. He has officially exhausted all his lanes, huh? Now it was up to strategy.
It's been a while since Yu started holing up in his Umbranest. It was a lovely name Yu came up with whilst thinking about how to tackle his dilemma. He finally came up with a plan and was ready to execute. He used all his time so far to test out certain aspects of his plan to make sure they executed without fail and so far, it was looking good. His Umbranest also looked slightly different compared to before: The round ball-like structure that was initially supposed to just protect Yu gained two big rifle-like protrusions, extending out of the Umbranest. Because he could freely control their structure and form, he was able to move the positions of these. Yu could perfectly fire from here whilst being safely shielded and if needed he could absorb the rifles to strengthen the Umbranium shield, entering a defensive form. Now to his final test. Would the enemies be provoked if he shot them from within the safety line? He aimed for the nearest turret and charged up a shot.
Here goes nothing, Yu thought, as he released the bullet, piercing through the turret.
Immediately, all turrets locked onto the Umbranium bubble, shooting their rounds. After a while they all stopped and continued their endeavor of strolling through the area. They sensed movement and activated, after a certain number of seconds without any movement they neutralized. Perfect. Time to put the plan into motion.
One by one, he routinely shot a turret, waited until they neutralised and repeated the process all over again, thinning their numbers one by one. This plan seemed to work quite well. A bit too well in Yu's opinion. He glared at the mannequin periodically, checking to see if there was any movement but it has been rooted in the same position ever since it appeared. There was not a trace of any movement. This was unnerving to Yu, as he didn't know how powerful this thing was. For all he knew, the mannequin could obliterate him in the blink of an eye. Despite all of that, he kept up his routine loop of shooting the turrets.
By now, the number of turrets had surely halved. All the turrets in his close proximity were gone and there were only the ones left in the back. Although they kept crawling across the entire area, they kept themselves confined to their designated space more or less. This made it harder to hit the ones in the back, even with the accuracy buff to his aim. With Aim reaching level three, he also went from a 40% accuracy to 60% accuracy buff but not even that was enough to reliably hit the turrets in the back, considering his slow rate of fire. He was especially worried about accidentally hitting the mannequin, as he wanted to leave it for last. Needless to say, Yu was scared shitless of what that mannequin would possibly be capable of. But since Yu wasn't getting anywhere, he moved onto the second phase of his plan. He used his Umbranium to let it grow strongly reinforced legs, which gave the bubble of Umbranium the look of a spider. He had created a semi-war machine in the form of a spider. Issue was, controlling it was insanely difficult. He barely managed to make the mobility work and having to shoot his kinetic bullets on top was very straining on Yu. His control of the Umbranium was at its utmost limit. He took a very deep breath and stepped out of the red safety line. And then it all shattered; The moment the first leg touched the ground outside of the line, the Umbraspider was hit with a force so hard that it all came crumbling, sending Yu flying with his back into the door. Dust collected in the air and made it hard to see for Yu. He started coughing and then immediately checked his HP. It was down to a third. Shit. He did notice it healing up ever so slowly, due to his Auto-Recovery skill for his HP but it was so minuscule, it barely made a difference. The dust started to settle, and Yu saw the thing that left the force of impact. It was the mannequin, finally making its move. Its speed was frightening and having all its weapons directed at Yu didn't make anything better. The turrets in the back promptly started shooting. Yu immediately put up a wall of Umbranium to shield him from the bullets, hoping those would be enough to take out the mannequin. But peeking out of the side of the wall, he saw the back of a completely intact mannequin, which had now focused its attention towards the turrets now. Yu frightened about what that mannequin may be about to unleash, but when he glanced towards the turrets, he saw that they were all incapacitated already. The mannequin deflected every single one of the bullets perfectly, returning them to sender and destroying every turret, of which there were at least 20 or so remaining. Yu's heart started to sink and panic started to kick in yet again. Checking his HP, he saw that it hasn't gone up a meaningful amount. One single strike and Yu was dead. The mannequin now turned towards Yu. The light shining from behind the mannequin casted a huge shadow onto Yu, making the scene even more terrific. He wouldn't survive this. The disparity in pure ability between them was way too big. But if he didn't try, this would be it. So, Yu came up with a plan.
The mannequin struck one of its many swords toward Yu, to which he responded with leaping forward and diving into the shadow of the mannequin. Emerging out of a shadow cast onto the pile of turrets on the other side of the hallway, he immediately sacked down and caught his breath. That's right, he used his skill Shadow Step.
[Shadow Step LV1]
The user can use shadows of any kind to dive into them and reappear out of another shadow in close proximity. The higher the level of this skill, the farther away the possible distance.
This skill saved his hide. The Umbranium itself at the current level was strong and could withhold attacks of the mannequin, but not if the mannequin used its full force. Yu had to improvise, as his plan only lead up to here. The mannequin from the other side of the room looked around dumbfounded, until it spotted Yu from the other side. It immediately dashed with a speed almost akin to teleportation and was about to strike Yu, but instead it hit something harder. Yu had created himself a katana-like sword, similar to the ones the mannequin had, which he reinforced with all the Umbranium he could produce. Luckily, it withheld the force and didn't shatter.
- Skill [Parry LV1] has been learned through proficiency.
What?
Yu didn't have long to think, as the next strike was ahead immediately. This time, he evaded it by dodging it perfectly.
- Skill [Dodge LV1] has been learned through proficiency.
- Skill [Dash LV1] derived from "Dodge LV1"
What was this? Why now?? But yet again, another strike came. Yu wanted to evade to the side again, when an interesting thing happened; Yu practically flew to the side a few meters at incredible speeds. He was slightly dizzy from this but really couldn't think about anything other than dodging the mannequin's attacks. Trying to put some distance between them, he threw his Katana toward the mannequin, reforming the Umbranium into a huge, thick wall between them. When he tried to take a big step away from there, he yet again leapt at high speeds. He needed to know what the hell was happening to him right now. In a hurry, he opened the skill menu and found the cause for his confusion:
[Dash LV1]
The user gains the ability to leap into the direction of their choice without any kinetic interaction necessary. The current distance able to travel with this skill is 1m.
The user's speed is temporarily multiplied by 500x when using this skill.
Yu has gained the ability to dash. This would prove extremely handy in this fight. Checking parry and dodge, they both seemed to be an added percentage of chance in the success of the action, which was currently 20% for both.
The mannequin broke through the wall and headed straight for Yu, trying for yet another slash at Yu, but he dashed away last second.
- Skill [Dodge] has reached LV2
- Skill [Dash] has reached LV2
Perfect. Using these skills a lot levels them up by quite a bit. Yu kept up his evasive strategy but needed to come up with a plan fast. The mannequin was quick and that was his biggest issue. He knew he couldn't keep dodging. His SP meter seemed to go down further and further, which judging by its behavior was Yu's exhaustion physically. So, it is very likely he'd be incapacitated when it gets too low which would of course be very bad right now. He observed the mannequin. How would he defeat a six-armed monster that was faster than the eye could see and that hit harder than a hydraulic press? If he could only restrain him somehow-
That was it. Yu executed the thought not even a fraction after he had it. He paused his dodging, extended his arm, and created the same globe-like structure that Yu used to shield himself before to trap in the mannequin, all in a split second. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated very hard. He needed to liquify parts of the inside, extend them into some form of tendril across the mannequin's body and harden them with every resource he had. Whilst doing exactly that, he also removed parts of the outer layers to reinforce the tendrils and harden them. By Yu's observations, the Umbranium was strong enough to hold him in place, as long as the mannequin didn't have any speed and momentum to make use of. After that, he selected the mannequin, aimed his hand high and created a huge bullet above the mannequin's head, which he charged up. "You are going to haunt me" Yu said, before shooting the ball straight into the mannequin from the top.
"Finally," Yu moaned after sacking to the ground.
- Character 'Yu' has reached Level-
Anything further didn't reach Yu's consciousness. His SP had reached a critical low and his HP was also barely holding on. It didn't take long until Yu blacked out.