Too Stubborn to Die Chapter 63

Major Blessing of Oozagh the Rotund.

Provides: One with consumption, ensuring not a single calorie is wasted, and maximum efficiency at storing excess energy in adipose tissue.

Inner Circle of a God: The inner circle followers of a god directly report to the herald. Allows the user to receive messages and quests from the herald.

+10% to all Stats

Title acquired: In the Eyes of the Gods.

Gain blessing from multiple gods of major rank or greater.

Reward: +10% All stats

Aaron accepted the offer with a nod and felt himself grow stronger from the boons that came with it.

“Bahah! I applaud you, puny human! You have made a smart decision today. Perhaps you are not completely stupid.”

“Well, geez, thanks, Oozagh.”

“Don’t mention it. I have only ever brought one other non-ogre into my inner circle. It is quite the achievement!”

“I’m honored, truly.”

Aaron wondered for a moment who they might be?

“I can’t wait to see the look on that goddess’ face,” Oozagh rubbed his stubby hands together. “By the way, you need to eat more. Every time I see your puny body, it brings me down a little. Perhaps you should get yourself an ogre abuela to fatten you up. Dammit, now I want tacos,” Oozagh sighed.

Wait, look on her face?

“Do you, like, hang out with Yendal then, Oozagh?”

“With her?! Curses, no! I couldn’t imagine it. But there is a council of a sort drawing near. It’ll only be our avatars, not too dissimilar to this. I’m not looking forward to it. That reminds me, I’ve things to do. Aaron, try to eat a little more, okay? A little more meat on your bones will make you stronger! Now, I must go! The multiverse calls on the Great Oozagh, and he answers!”

“Bye,” Aaron waved as the shadow dissipated. “Wait, what about the trial–”

The ogre was already gone.

Aaron knew the gods didn’t actually need to be present for their shadows to be in the trial. He could probably summon Oozagh’s shadow back by restarting, but then again, he didn’t think he needed the help.

Besides, if he was going to leave the trial, he’d probably focus on his race evolution. Doing the trial had more to do with the fact that he was already in it.

Looking around, molten streams of lava sizzled along blackened earth, and fumes funneled into the dark clouds above.

Quaint.

He didn’t immediately see any threats, and kinda just wanted to go do his race evolution. But since he was here, Aaron figured he might as well give it a try.

Since it was a Trial of Survival, he shouldn’t need to go far before whoever he was trying to survive from showed their faces. So, Aaron kept a keen eye and walked.

The landscape seemed to want him to walk in a single direction, as steep mountains blocked his rear, while small hills rolled on before him.

Alright, let’s see.

Aaron could, of course, use [ Gust Step ] to jump up the mountains, but he wanted to see what the trial had to offer. He would either beat it or get some insight for follow-up attempts.

He didn’t expect what he saw when he walked over the hills, though. Sunflowers. Endless, rolling fields of sunflowers. But these weren’t any normal sunflowers. They were devilish red, with gaping maws of razor-sharp teeth.

“Those guys… don’t look too friendly.”

The sunflowers took their leafy hands and grabbed the sides of their stalks and pulled, heaving as they lugged their woven root feet out from the hard soil.

The entire scene kind of amused Aaron. He had long since lost any fear he might have once felt, and at least it was interesting.

But the sheer number of them was a little concerning. There was also the fact that this was a Trial of Survival, and that usually meant that it wasn’t designed just to be brute-forced.

Wait, was that correct? Aaron had assumed he couldn’t brute force his way through these trials, but he had been extremely underleveled. He still was, in a sense. But now he was E grade, and had a bunch of powerful boons many likely wouldn’t.

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Well, survival wasn’t synonymous with running away, and so he decided he wanted to at least test his theory. Besides, he wanted to get this done quickly. He had a race evolution to work toward, after all. There was little point bashing his head against trials when he had another boon waiting around the next corner for him.

“Alright, you little plants. Let’s see what you got,” Aaron said as he limbered up.

Demonic Sunflower [ Level 65 ]

There was a decent level gap between them, but nowhere near as huge as others had been. Not only that, but they had no titles or anything else that stood out at a glance. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of them, though. The average level 50 to at least 70 probably stood little to no chance of standing their ground against them. There were just too many.

But Aaron wasn’t average.

As the sunflowers freed themselves from the ground, they began to charge him. Wanting to test [ Spectral Fist ], he sent a few barely empowered blasts shooting out before they reached him.

To his surprise, his attacks actually staggered the flowers, causing some to even trip, fall, and even take light damage. The damage was mostly superficial. But there was still a considerable level gap, and Aaron had yet to go all out.

Taking out a serving of trolorblin, he threw it down the hatch and prepared for battle.

He had come a long way, and if this were a stage four Trial of Dominance, he had little doubt in his ability to stand his ground. Nonetheless, he couldn’t wait for a chance to prove himself and measure his gains.

It might have seemed mad to some, but Aaron had serious buffs. Between his Titles and his Blessings, his Stats were almost doubled, making his effective level considerably higher than it actually was. So, considering that, how much further did his raw skill push him?

Well, he was about to find out.

Activating his buffing Skills and reading fate, Aaron planned his battle in less than a second.

He used [ Gust Step ] to create distance, occasionally jumping into the air as he circled and herded the flowers.

When he was ready, he unleashed his power. He switched between his [ Spectral Fist ] and [ Overclocked Haymaker ]. As he grew stronger, so would [ Spectral Fist ], but for now, he used it for crowd control, knocking back snapping sunflowers as he slammed haymakers into the closest ones.

If he wanted to destroy an enemy efficiently, his haymaker was by far the best tool for the job. The damage to energy ratio was significantly better than [ Spectral Fist ]. But that was to be expected. His new Skill provided range, and it could still dish out considerable damage if powered correctly. Besides, being able to focus on SP instead of MP was quite valuable.

Fortitude wasn’t just SP; it also made him hardier. It didn’t heal him like Vitality, but it did allow him to take harder hits, and no doubt hardened his fists, which was useful, even if he was wearing armored gloves.

Overall, the Stat aided his build more than Willpower, and so it made sense to pick Skills that had synergy with it.

For these reasons, he decided to throw his 4 free points from his Profession level up into Fortitude. It was already high, but the things he could do with it if he pushed it further were worth investing in.

Whenever the sunflowers caught up with greater numbers, he entered time dilation and carefully picked his moves in slow motion, then released the Skill the moment he could do so safely in order to save on mana.

The battle dragged on as Aaron kited the sunflowers across the rocky landscape, barely ever stopping for even a fraction of a second.

Though it wasn’t entirely one-sided, the flowers shot razor-sharp petals and occasionally flashed forward with some kind of speed-based attack. But without being able to use their numbers effectively, this mattered little.

Aaron had taken on stronger opponents, and their moves were predictable and not particularly fast or overly dangerous.

He took the occasional grazing blow, but [ Gust Step ] powered by [ Relentless Scourge ] quickly took him out of range whenever he needed.

He hadn’t even eaten properly before the fight. If he had prepared better, he’d have far more energy to output, but again, this was stage four, and he was past struggling on trials like this.

The battle actually had him thinking about the other Tutorial takers. He knew they were of a much higher level than he, but how strong were they really?

Mo’han would smash this trial with ease, but he was the strongest person in the entire sector, and by a decent margin it seemed. How would Earth’s strongest compare?

Not just their strongest, but what about the elites lower down? He had seen level forties working for Johan, and they were no doubt even stronger now. What level would the average elite be at the end of the Tutorial? Level 50, 60? Higher?

If his estimations were correct, then Aaron had probably already achieved more in the Trials than the average elite would. He couldn’t get back the Tutorials, but if he pushed hard enough, he might just be able to achieve as much as the top rankers of Earth.

A grin creased his lips as a dozen sunflowers descended upon him, and he countered with a blindly fast flurry of counter strikes. He was everywhere his enemies weren’t, and little bits of flower burst into ribbons of vegetative gore as he slaughtered the horde of demonic plants.

But as he was crushing the last of them, a terrifying tremor rocked the ground, followed by a furious roar.

Ashy fumes poured into the sky, and the ground shook as giant steps crashed down upon it.

Aaron was already eating, as his battle routine demanded. Not only that, but he was activating his new Skill at the same time, and it worked. He could eat at least twice as fast now, shrinking his meals down into bite-sized portions.

But none of that made the scene unfolding before him any less terrifying. Or at least it would have been terrifying to anyone other than Aaron. A man whose spirit had been forged into something inhumane over countless deaths.

A twenty-foot giant with fiery hair was stomping across the landscape toward him.

“Maybe if I beat that guy, the trial is over?”

This guy looked strong, but not particularly fast. Perhaps he could race past him for the trial exit now. It probably wouldn’t be that easy, though. But more importantly, did he even want to do that?

To forfeit a battle? An opportunity to test himself?

Aaron wasn’t about to let himself get stuck on this trial. He had things to do, so if he couldn’t beat this thing outright, then it could wait for another day.

But while he was here? Well, that was another story.

He could spare a little patience, though. Allowing the giant to come to him gave him time to keep eating, after all.

A hairy foot-slam from the giant into the ground sent lava shooting up like geysers all around, and a wave of chokingly hot heat washed across him.

This guy wasn’t going down without a fight. But when was that something Aaron ever wanted?

“Alright, let’s see what you got, big fella!”

Fire Giant [ Level 80 ]