Too Stubborn to Die Chapter 48

Chain Quest: The Trial of Dominance

Stage four of [ Trial of Dominance ] COMPLETED!

You have tested yourself, subjugated a town of lizardmen and their leaders, and survived.

Quest Rewards: Sphere of Binding [ Rare ], System Store upgraded to level 4!.

Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

“Seriously, no level up? Damn, that’s just downright unfair,” Aaron groaned, but then reluctantly kept reading. “So what’s this sphere thing, then?”

Sphere of Binding [ Rare ]

Form contracts with other denizens of the multiverse via the power of the System itself. Contracts can consist of just about anything the writer wishes, but require those signing to do so with free will and without duress.

“That’s… interesting. Another thing to ask Douglas or Sooty about. Or maybe Mo’han.”

Aaron liked that idea. He liked the big guy, definitely more than the other two.

“You called?” Douglas said, walking toward Aaron as he materialized in the obsidian hallway.

Oh well, might as well take advantage of the situation.

“Yeah, I got this Sphere of Binding thing,” Aaron replied, holding up the crystal ball in his hand. “Says I can make contracts with it, or something.”

“Right. Those are relatively common in the multiverse—a necessity for any leader or merchant worth a grain. System contracts are just about the only truly binding thing in the multiverse. As mentioned in the description, the conditions can be just about anything you want, but they must be agreed upon by all participants. If you try to force or coerce someone into signing a System contract, you’ll get an error message, and it simply won’t work.”

“I see,” Aaron said, eyeing the sphere. “What’s so good about that?”

“They’re handy to have. System contracts cannot be broken without paying the price enforced by the contract, regardless of your power. Even a god will die if they break a contract in which they offered their life as a condition.”

“Wow, seriously? That does sound powerful.”

“Yes, very. The trials like to reward them because of their utility, but they’re not too hard to come by in the multiverse. Most people who come through here end up being important, and so having a sphere of binding is pretty much a necessity.”

“Well, at least it’s useful,” Aaron said and put it in his pouch.

It was disappointing not to level, but he had gotten a good feel for how much stronger he had gotten. That quest was near impossible before, and he had just cleared it on his first attempt. Then again, he had spent months fighting Yendal, not to mention the gains he had received.

Was it worth it? I sure hope so.

It reminded him that he needed to face Yendal again. But after months of facing off against her, he wasn’t ready to charge straight back into that gauntlet.

There were multiple reasons. For one, he wanted to be stronger before he faced her again. Two, even though he recognized her as his most important mentor, he didn’t want to get tunnel vision. Oozagh had also been helpful, and it seemed silly to gloss over that.

With that in mind, he would wait a little longer. He still intended to spend most of his time training with Yendal, but if he got stuck in a cycle of deaths, bashing his head against her techniques again, it might last for months, and he wouldn’t have much time for anything else.

Also, what was she going to say about Oozagh’s blessing?

Yeah, a couple more trials at the very least, then I’ll totally go do a challenger trial and see Yendal again.

But for now, Aaron decided it was time to clean up some low-level trials. If he could do so quickly, he could gain some fast experience. The downside was that fewer challenges meant fewer Skill rewards, but they also provided potentially useful quest rewards. Yeah, that was it—a perfectly logical reason to not challenge Yendal again.

Maybe I’ll just have a crack at the Trial of Magic. After all, the room might be useful.

Nodding to himself, he committed to his plan. After the Trial of Magic, he would continue grinding harder trials. Even though some extra experience would be nice, he figured there was no way he was catching up via experience to the top rankers, so he might as well challenge himself and form the strongest base he was able to.

He also wanted to show Mo’han that he was capable of running through trials like he could, even if it was just once. He did still have some pride, after all.

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He started with the Trial of Magic. The ogre was standing beside him, but Aaron didn’t even look at Oozagh; he simply read the instructions and looked down at the massive, pulsing mana heart beneath him.

He was standing in a small, metal chamber with a metal walkway around the huge mana heart below. There were all kinds of cables and tubes feeding into the heart, pumping mana back and forth into consoles covered in levers and lights, like some kind of manapunk construct.

The objective was clear: stop the heart from exploding. Aaron didn’t have spells, but he got the feeling he didn’t actually need them for this, so he leaned over the railing and placed his palms against the mana heart.

Immediately, he could feel it—the mana thumping away. He wasn’t too sure how one was supposed to clear this challenge without mana anchors, but luckily, he didn’t need to. He could feel the mana probing him, looking for an outlet, and so he guided it through him.

Aaron could feel his mana pool flooding over as mana from the heart rushed into him, threatening to harm his body, and so he activated his Skills. This might have been dangerous if not for [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] and [ Adipose Fusion ] sucking up stupid amounts of mana, but the Skills were so mana hungry that, along with his other Skills, he was easily able to burn through the mana pouring into him before it grew too dangerous.

But with every passing moment, he grew bigger, ballooning out as mana filled him. He might not have been able to saturate his adipose tissue with raw mana like this himself, but the mana heart was different. The thing was huge and filled with far more mana than any F grade was supposed to handle, probably E grade as well, for that matter.

It posed an interesting question. What was the limit of [ Adipose Fusion ]? It clearly had a different limit when he used it himself. His own mana cycling was very limited, and eating was far less so. But even that paled in comparison to the size that he was growing now.

Soon, he was getting close to filling the metal chamber, growing by the second. Even his mana-expensive Skills like [ Gorgon’s Time Dilation ] were not able to keep pace with the mana flowing into him.

This was obviously a cheat and not the way one was supposed to pass the trial. What he was consuming was far, far too much for a stage one trial, and for a moment, Aaron feared he might actually be crushed against the walls as he grew bigger.

But then the mana heart began to flicker, and its magical essence died out with a series of final pumps of energy.

Besides that, it had been kind of boring. The entire trial might have only lasted ten or fifteen minutes under normal conditions. But Aaron had been slowing time the entire time, and it made the trial feel like it dragged on forever.

Stage one of [ Trial of Magic ] COMPLETED!

You have tested yourself against a powerful mana heart threatening to explode and managed to survive.

Quest Rewards: Various Magical Reagents [ Uncommon ], Meditation Room unlocked!

Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

“Bah, meditation room?” Aaron scoffed as he threw the reagents into his pouch and ran straight back to start another trial. What good was a meditation room? He meditated just fine in the hallway. Using a relaxing room just seemed like a good way to stunt his own growth and gains. Well, maybe he was a bit of a weirdo for seeing it that way.

What he needed was better ingredients for his kitchen. He needed to get creative and push Profession to catch up to his Class. Oozagh’s training had been helpful, but he still felt like he was lagging in this regard.

Time for more endurance trials.

If he was going to go full ogre, then he was going to need better ingredients, and there was only one way to do that.

The trial began with a pungent, sulfuric stench assaulting Aaron’s nostrils. Then he spotted the ogre shadow and the thick, toxic green fumes filling the air.

“More poison?”

Oozagh’s shadow nodded and then blew.

“Having a birthday, big fella?”

The shadow didn’t answer.

Looking around, Aaron took note of the field he was standing in the middle of.

“Oookay, empty field, strange smell… hmm.”

His nostrils began to tingle, then his throat got itchy and began to constrict. Several seconds later, he was on the floor convulsing, and seconds after that, he was returned to the obsidian hallway.

“Okay, poison. I can deal with that… maybe… somehow.”

Aaron acted confident, but he felt a lot less so. How was he supposed to deal with the poison if Oozagh wasn’t giving him a hint? If there were some cure lying around, surely the ogre would show him.

I’m on my own, I guess.

He supposed he could wing it and just try to make a cure, but that was pretty unlikely to work. And far more likely just to gain more experience. He really wanted to push himself for his run toward level 20 in his Profession.

Oozagh had shown him the way; he just needed high-quality ingredients to push him to the next peak.

Wait, Oozagh was blowing! Aaron’s eyes widened in realization.

He groaned internally at his own stupidity and reentered the trial. This time, he waited only a few seconds after the stench hit his nose and blew out. Activating [ Oozagh's Breath ] didn’t actually use much mana. That said, the Skill was far from being OP. Without additional items, it was literally just a powerful wind attack, unlike wind blades, which could actually harm someone. Perhaps his breath was like a cyclone's winds, but even those weren’t necessarily lethal to non-Integrated people, let alone people post-Integration who were essentially superhumans. A gust, even a strong one, wasn’t going to do much.

However, against poison-filled air, it seemed to work rather effectively. At first, he hadn’t noticed it, but as he blew and survived longer, he realized that he could feel faint mana in the air. This was a Skill. The poison was created by mana, and even though it was invisible to the naked eye, it still possessed a small amount of mana that could be sensed.

He had just started this trial to get some ingredients, but realized there was an important lesson to be learned. He wouldn’t always be able to see attacks coming for him, but if he could hone his senses, he could feel the energy powering them before he fell victim to them.

Continuing to blow out a storm, Aaron focused on this energy. This was an opportunity to tighten a gap he currently had, and he was going to make the most of it.

After all, the trials would end soon, and with them, death would become a little more serious.

Then, an outraged shriek filled the air, and suddenly, Aaron felt the toxic fumes rush toward him as if pushed by torrential power. Whoever it was creating them clearly wasn’t a fan of him using their fumes to train his mana sense.

Okay, so you wanna play, do you? Fine by me. I love a challenge!