Too Stubborn to Die Chapter 19

He died in excruciating pain. But this death had been different. His improved Willpower and the help of the stew allowed him to narrow down and focus on the intrusive powers in a way that he simply hadn’t been capable of before.

Willpower wasn’t just a defensive Stat against mind powers, or an offensive Stat for different Classes that relied on it. But it provided some kind of insight into your own mind, psyche, and strength of character, Aaron realized. He had become better at understanding how things affected him, even if his outlook and way of thinking hadn’t necessarily changed. This wasn’t personality-defining, but rather changing something about him on a more natural level. Like the very species he was had changed slightly.

It was this consciousness of mind and will to delve within that made him realize there was something else to him that he hadn’t noticed before.

It had taken him a while to understand this sensation he was feeling, but as he grew familiar with it, he realized that he had been drawing on it this entire time.

This was where he had unconsciously come when learning to draw on aether and convert it to energy. It was something primal and inherent to him. And it seemed to be the source of this power. Aaron had thought it was the System itself, but now he realized there was more to it.

The System was a conduit for energy that could be converted into power. But it wasn’t as if The System provided energy that he then converted however he pleased, and if he could control that, he could do whatever he wanted. No, the System simply provided a means to channel aether, which was then solidified into useful stats and skills. His ability to manipulate that was something else entirely.

Using raw aether might have turned out to be rather a crude solution to his problems, but still, Aaron wondered if everyone was capable of it. It wasn’t that he necessarily considered himself special, but something was off about how he managed to call upon the energy as if it were a cheat.

Pondering on this thought, he focused on how aether interacted with his other energies, how it fought against his stamina when he had attempted to weave them together.

Aether was natural, but controlling it wasn’t. Just as a mother giving birth is natural, but growing a child in a laboratory is anything but. The reason he hadn’t noticed any shadows or conjured monsters within the trials using raw aether was that they weren’t supposed to. He wasn’t supposed to, or was he?

Delving further within, he reached for the depths of who he truly was. His soul. Aaron had never been a spiritual person or really believed in anything, but now he couldn’t deny that there was more to him than just meat. Although he had already learned as much through the trials. But seeing and almost feeling the soul within himself was different. It was eye-opening.

Aaron had never experienced anything like it and had no idea what to expect of a soul, but nonetheless, he felt something he hadn’t expected, which was strange since he hadn’t really had any expectations. But this… this ancient sensation he felt reverberating from his own soul… he didn’t think it was normal.

He pressed for answers, delving deeper and deeper. But there was something stopping him. A barrier of sorts. At first, it annoyed him. Why the hell was there a barrier stopping him from gleaning secrets from his own soul? What kind of bullshit was that? But as he probed further, he realized that it wasn’t just keeping him out, but keeping something in.

He continued to probe, hoping for answers, and something flashed forth. It was confusing and impossible to decipher at first. But as he remained focused, some clarity gradually resonated.

It was clear he wouldn’t have all his questions answered. Whatever the barrier was, it wasn’t something he was about to bring down. Not with his infantile understanding. But it did seem willing to cooperate. Somewhat, at least.

It was as if his very soul was reaching out to him, and Aaron reached back with a metaphorical hand and felt a sudden rush of power and indecipherable knowledge pour out.

His head pounded, and pain flooded through his body. His meditation was almost broken as the assault took place, but he gritted his teeth and refused to surrender. There was something to be gained, and he’d be damned if he didn’t figure out what that was.

Blood trickled down his eyes and nostrils. His lid flickered but refused to open, and even his brain began to bleed. But what was something as temporary as death to Aaron?

No, he would not be subjugated by his own soul. No, he would fight and force it to surrender its secrets. With all his mental energy, he dragged the clinging secrets from the barrier, urging them to free themselves from his stubborn soul.

A gasp escaped his lips, and pain strong enough to wither even the strongest of heroes assaulted him from all angles, but it was not enough to dissuade Aaron.

Alpha Trait Awoken: Fate Bender

Your soul possesses the forgotten Trait Fate Bender, a characteristic earned by its unbreakable spirit. You are an unbreakable spirit, constantly surging onward, undeterred by what would break your peers, undeterred by what fate attempts to weave for you.

You won’t bend to the multiverse; no, you’ll make the threads of fate bend to your will.

Even fate itself yields to the will of the Fate Bender. See and dictate your will to the threads of fate, weaving them into the path chosen by your unbreakable spirit.

Aaron’s eyes flung open, and his meditation within the trial was broken. He wasn’t exactly sure what an Alpha Trait was, and even less sure what his Fate Bender Trait was supposed to do. The explanation didn’t make a lot of sense, at least not to Aaron. All he could think was that bending fate sounded mighty contradictory. He had heard a lot of things about the multiverse since arriving in the trials, but nothing about fate or how it affected anything.

But he wasn’t able to ponder the thought long. The distraction from the trial resulted in his death barely a second later. However, he was beyond determined to get answers about what exactly he had achieved, as soon as he was done with the trial.

Returning to his meditation within the trial, he was assaulted once more, but the unbearable pressure of the domination spell had weakened, and not by a little. It was barely an irritation, now. It had gone from completely suffocating—a power he could barely hang on against, let alone defeat—to feeling like an untrained child was probing at his mental defenses.

He had no idea what his Trait did or how it was helping him pass the trial, but he was thankful.

For a while, he had started to wonder if he even possessed the ability to pass this trial, and just like that, it was put on easy mode.

He was going to need to get answers, and hopefully, one of the trial attendants would be willing to spill the beans.

Chain Quest: The Shadow Trials

Stage two of [ Trial of Endurance ] COMPLETED!

You have tested yourself against the oppressive mental powers of domination and survived to tell the tale.

Quest Rewards: Ingredient Pouch [ Rare ], Crafting Station upgraded to level 2.

Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ding!

[ Brawler ] has LEVELED UP!

13 → 14

Aaron's eyes brightened as he read the notifications. He didn’t even know what an ingredient pouch was, but it was Rare, and that was a first for him.

As before, the item appeared before his eyes as he returned to the obsidian hallway, and he grabbed the unassuming pouch. It was just a small burlap pouch with a string, which he tied to his Gi belt.

Ingredient Pouch [ Rare ]

Within the Ingredient Pouch exists an extradimensional space where nothing rots or spoils. This space is classified as a [ Small ] storage dimension.

That was cool, Aaron thought, assuming he understood the explanation correctly.

He also wondered if he could put anything in it, or just ingredients, so he walked over to where he had left the orc banner in the obsidian hallway.

He grabbed the three or so meter-long banner and pushed it into the pouch. It was his first time using such a pouch, and he felt a little insane for trying something so ridiculous. But it wasn’t any crazier than being brought back to life and living for weeks in some kind of shadow realm, so he kept going.

A storage dimension sounded like something he could put things in, so that’s what he attempted to do. But Aaron was still surprised when the wooden shaft of the banner just kept going, as if there were no bottom to the pouch.

He was a little confused about what he was supposed to do with it once the banner was gone and supposedly within the pouch, but as that thought swirled in his mind while holding the pouch, a holographic image of the inside of the pouch appeared before his eyes, not entirely different from how the status screen worked. With a simple thought, he could remove and return the banner from the pouch. And the more he played with it, the more natural it became. Within just minutes, he could instantly call the banner out from the pouch by touching it and imagining it within his hand.

He could also see the banner lying across the ground in the storage dimension. The thing was pretty big, so he was surprised to find that, lying down, it didn’t even reach from the top to the bottom of the pouch. He guesstimated that it must have been over four meters wide, maybe five. Five made sense, he thought. Looking at it, he thought it probably was around five by five square meters, though he was far from certain. Either way, that was plenty of space for now.

With that sorted, it was time to check out his new kitchen, and Aaron headed straight for the Crafting Station.

Unfortunately, it was a little bit of a disappointment. The main fridges and pantries hadn’t changed. Instead, there were a bunch of Uncommon ingredients and one Rare ingredient sprawled across a stainless steel table.

Douglas explained that whilst the Common ingredients were endless, and would respawn as used, the Uncommon and Rare ingredients weren’t. However, after a cooldown of twenty-four hours, they would reappear. It could be worse, he thought, but still, it seemed a little cheap, considering how hard the trial was. But he reminded himself that it probably wouldn’t have been so hard if he were at the correct level to challenge it.

“Hey, Douglas.”

“Yes?”

“I awoke something called an Alpha Trait during my trial. Do you know anything about them?”

“Alpha Trait?!” Douglas almost choked on his words. “You, an Alpha Trait?” He looked like he was about to faint.

“Yeah, something wrong with that?”

“Just tell me what it is and get it over with. I have only so much patience for your illogical nonsense.”

“It’s called Fate Bender,” Aaron said and went on to read out the explanation offered by the System.

“Fate…” Douglas said, and for the first time, he looked lost in thought. “I can’t say I’m familiar with this Fate Bender Trait itself. But any Traits, or even Skills for that matter, that deal in Fate are incredibly powerful if used correctly. Based on the description, this Fate Bender bends or binds others’ fates to yours. Rather than providing you with a means to fiddle with fate directly.”

“Is that good?”

“Yes, very. Messing around with fate is a dangerous thing. The concept of fate, which you might be familiar with, might be more stringent. But fate within the multiverse is fluid and in constant flux. It can be used to see the future, but the future changes all the time. And it can also be used to influence it, so you can imagine how tricky and delicate that can be.”

“Alter an ever-changing future through Skills? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Exactly. It is also rarely good for the mental state of those who attempt it. But this is something else. I imagine that it will be quite subtle when used. You might not even notice it. But if you can learn to harness it, it will be supremely powerful.”

“Like I’ll be able to see the future, or something?”

“Perhaps, but I doubt it. Maybe a few seconds ahead. But I imagine it’ll be more like tying your fates together.”

“Great, and what exactly does that mean?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t say.”

“Of course you can't,” Aaron groaned.

“No, I’m not being obtuse. I just can’t answer the question with any more detail than that. I have heard whispers of warriors who use fate-based abilities to aid them in combat, but such things are rare, and those who possess them keep their secrets to themselves. I believe you will become one of these people, assuming you don’t get yourself killed.”

“Why, thanks, Douglas.”

He had said it a little backhandedly, but he genuinely meant it. The trial assistant had helped, even if he still had no real idea what the Alpha Trait did.

Aaron was fairly certain he wasn’t learning anything useful about his Trait at this time, so he got back to work, and the kitchen was staring him in the face.

Unlike when he first unlocked the Crafting Station, Aaron tempered himself this time around. If he just mindlessly threw all the ingredients together again, he would probably end up unlocking a bunch of weak, Common Skills again. He needed to be a little smarter than that.

When he discovered the Slug Stew of Resolution, it was because he was focused on a particular outcome and had been selecting ingredients based on that. If he did the same thing, perhaps he could get the same results.

Luckily, Aaron had just the idea of how he wanted to go about doing that. He still had a couple of stage one trials to unlock, but since completing his first second-stage trial, he had a burning desire to go back to where it all started. Besides, he still had no idea how he was supposed to pass the Magic and Wit trials. He still didn’t have access to magic, and he doubted Fate Bender would provide any assistance passing a memory puzzle.

Exactly how far had he come with all his gains, he wondered? To some degree, he had used tricks to get through every trial. But beating the mage was probably the closest thing to pure skill he had achieved since coming here, and he wanted to see if he could do the same at the second stage, now that he had grown as much as he had. Plus, it seemed like the perfect way to rub that non-existent smug smirk off that shadow’s face. That was something he wanted more than anything, even if it had helped him a little in the previous trial by leading him to meditate.

So, Aaron thought hard about what kind of dishes would help him fight against such a foe, and he got to cooking.

Since cooking was his Profession, and Profession was as much a part of the multiverse as his Class, eating something made from it was hardly considered a cheat, unlike how he had found victory against the orc. Sure, he had learned a lot from that fight, and he had made leaps and strides to become stronger, but it had been thanks to his crutch, one that he knew wasn’t healthy to rely on in the long term. Not that he had any plans to drop the technique, it was a good backup, but his belief that it shouldn’t become a core tenet of his path had only strengthened since he first considered the thought.

The smug shadow was fast; he knew that much. It didn’t even look like it was moving as it glided along the ground in the Trial of Travels. So, he’d need to be fast. He also knew that it was delicate and precise, it had jumped from treetops, and at one point, he was fairly certain he had seen the shadow land and then jump off of a freaking leaf, meaning that the lightness of its steps were on a completely different level to his own.

I have to be light, fast, and precise.

With these thoughts in mind, Aaron collected ingredients and went to work, combining them like a mad, but oddly measured man.

The hours passed as fumes of foul herbs and spices stung the nostrils of anyone not an ogre or blessed by one. Bit by bit, they were combined with meats in disturbing dishes that few could even stomach to smell, let alone eat.

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

6 → 7

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

7 → 8

Experience rewarded for discovering a recipe!

Ding!

[ Ogre Taste Tester ] has LEVELED UP!

8 → 9

It took an entire day of sleepless, hard work and multiple deaths to recover energy, but Aaron had worked through all of the Uncommon and Rare ingredients, and he had gotten what he wanted.

Burnt Cassarian Bird of Nimble Movement [ Rare — F Grade ]

Provides: When eaten, the Burnt Cassarian Bird of Nimble Movement loosens the joints and allows the user to flow with the grace of the Cassarian Bird itself.

+20 Strength, +20 Dexterity, + 20 Agility. Duration: 10 minutes. Aftereffects: Moderate

A smile crept across his face as he stared at the five portions of meat. Sure, it would have been nice to get a little more out of the ingredients provided, but at least he finally had something useful.