…

  Health: 12…87/210

  Stamina: 8/270

  Rafe watched his health slowly tick up from the red. He had been so close to death, and while he was still in the trial he needed to think about the future.

  “With this warrior's trance skill controlling me, I need to plan before I enter the fight. Otherwise thinking mid-battle is almost never an option. I need to be more careful, damnit! What's the use of all this experience I've cultivated otherwise?”

  There had been an implied promise of at least a few resurrections in the tower from the way Sam talked about it. Only, he didn't know how they worked. Did they work the same way as those from the trial, or different? What if there were conditions to the resurrections? Like the participant has to have at least cleared one room.

  “Argh! Why am I thinking anyway? Let's finish this room and move on.”

  There was the last objective to look into. The hidden objective. And it seemed like there would be loot. He decided not to use his new stamina potions just yet. He forced them into his belt loop, saving them for a more important moment.

  He grabbed a dagger and started to test each of the walls. None of them was hollow.

  He had just tapped on random spots though. He was supposed to look more carefully, he surmised. He went to stretch his body when a sharp pain in his chest reminded him the small blue potion had not been able to completely reset his injuries. He still needed time to heal his bones and deeper injuries.

  He sighed as he surveyed the room. It was a very large room. He doubted he would have been able or willing to search its length if his quest system hadn't told him what was going on. He took a knee and prepared to go through the length of the room.

  It was on the third wall that he finally found a hollow. He punched through the plaster to find a small hidden room. It was dark inside. He had to squint a few times while his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the room. Then he saw it, the covered chest in a hidden corner of the room.

  There were shelves around it. Filled with scrolls and books and tapestries he couldn't see clear enough because of the damnable lighting. But he had eyes only for the chest. Chests were good. They held treasure most of the time. They could also be traps but he had a hard time imagining this particular one was trapped.

  He opened it. Then he sighed in disappointment. The only thing in there was a huge warhammer made of stone.

  “A stone themed floor. Should have figured.”

  The hammer looked heavy. He went to lift it, not really expecting it to budge. It did.

  “Huh?”

  ‘Ding’ Hidden objective completed.

  Reward: Appraisal skill scroll.

  Rafe frowned as he read the notification. The quest system was being awfully helpful all of a sudden. The random rewards he'd received for his first quest were useless to say the least, but all the rewards he was receiving for the objectives of the tower climb were very useful. Health and stamina potions? An appraisal skill scroll? What had happened to the stingy system he was starting to love to hate?

  The skill scroll shimmered into being next to him and he wasted no time opening and reading it.

  You have learned the skill Appraisal (lvl.1). You can now see the qualities of an item if you focus on it.

  He wasted no time in studying the new hammer he'd received.

  Hammer of plundering (lvl.30)

  +25 offense, +0 defense.

  Enchantment of lightness.

  The name aside, it was an interesting piece of equipment, boosting his offense specification almost five times over. It was enchanted to be light. No wonder he'd been able to carry it so easily. All in all, he felt it was a pretty weak piece of equipment, but it would do for the rest of this stone floor.

  He spent a few hours in the room, rifling through the old scrolls and tomes for anything interesting. He found nothing of value, but his health had ticked up by the time he was done.

  He opened the door to the next room once his stamina had reached over three quarters its full level. A strong wind hit him right in the face, right before a mini-sand storm bathed his body. Some particles even got into his open mouth, open from surprise.

  He was in some kind of desert. Nothing but fine sand as far as the eye could see. He sputtered, trying to expel the sand from his mouth.

  “Argh! What in the void is this room anyway? And should it even be called a room anymore? I don't see a door.”

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  ‘Ding’ Side quest received.

  Objective: Defeat an elder sand elemental (lvl.45-)

  That was interesting in its own way. It seemed his whole combat style was going to be tested in this room. Fighting beings of magic like this had not been easy the few times he had done it in the trial. He had to find some kind of core to kill them.

  They would have the whole terrain on their side.

  Room objective: Survive until a portal to the next room opens up. Next portal ( 2 hrs 27 mins).

  Defeat the sand monarch(lvl.55)

  Hidden objectives: Defeat unique elementals. Unique elementals defeated.

  There were two room objectives this time, and again he only had to fulfill one condition to proceed. If it was possible to hide, it would have been a one hundred percent valid way to get the required reward from his quest system.

  Not that he intended to hide. He had a brand new weapon. He wasn't going to improve his unarmed combat a lot in this room, but his Skyholm's fighting and heavy blow were going to be abused again. And his earth shattering technique worked wonders with such weapons, he knew. He'd seen the dwarves dive with their war axes and hammers and greatswords. And then he had his racial ability, the gift from the first Skyholm which seemed all but useless at its current level.

  He rolled his neck as the first elemental started to form. This time he'd try to go one at a time.

  The elemental was like a tiny localised storm. There was a shape in the centre, probably where its core was located, but the rest of it was just swirling sand. Rafe shielded his eyes as he tried to track where the core was.

  “Perfect,” he said when he was sure.

  He pointed his hammer in that direction. He used his movement technique in conjunction with his Dash skill. Then he was there. The elemental acted on instinct, trying to concentrate the storm on where he was.

  When that failed, it tried to retreat into the sand, but his hammer was already descending.

  ‘Ding’ You have defeated sand elemental level 15.

  “Level 15? That seems like bullying somehow.”

  There was nothing he could do about it though. He shrugged and went hunting.

  “So that is one of the unique elementals, is it?”

  He was hiding behind a dune he hoped was high enough to hide him from the towering thing of black sand. There was lightning in this sand elemental’s storm. It looked like a hybrid lightning and black sand elemental. Only, there was no black sand in this desert. It was all yellow. He looked down at his quest screen.

  Room objective: Survive until a portal to the next room opens up. Next portal (00 hrs 15 mins)

  He had killed hundreds of elementals, maybe, though he hadn't been counting. He hadn't yet found an elder elemental though, or a unique one, let alone the strongest elemental according to the hidden objective.

  “Well, I've been itching for a fight where I need to lean heavily on my racial ability. Seeing fluctuations in mana is the one thing it seems to be an improvement on Liam's.”

  He looked around, trying his best to make sure this fight would be a one versus one affair. He did not intend to repeat his experience from the first room. Since most of the elementals he'd been fighting so far were pretty weak, he'd been using his heavy blow rarely. Now it was time to abuse it again. And his Puppeteer's Rubber Body as well.

  He felt the trance come over him as he charged in. Then he was evading bolts of lightning even with his eyes closed. Once they got a few inches from his body, he could track them. He could avoid them. The sharp sand particles pelting him were a whole other ball game though.

  He imagined a future where his agility had grown to an extent that dodging rain was not an issue. A very unrealistic dream, but hey, magic.

  The elemental's consciousness noticed him. Its attention was cutting. It concentrated the storm on him. A wall of sand was hit by lightning and turned to glass as it approached him.

  “Oh! Hello?” Rafe murmured in confusion. “Is it some kind of half-breed? How do they even…How are they born?”

  He managed to jump out of the way. Then a sand spear came at him from the creature's core. Not only that but the fallen glass shattered and the particles joined in on the storm ravaging him.

  “Gods, what a fight!” Rafe screamed in amazement.

  He hefted his hammer, pointed it at the core. There was a chance he'd be hit by a bolt, but he judged the risk worth it. The bolt missed him by only a hair's breadth, but he was there in the next moment.

  A sand barrier came into being next to the creature's core, but Rafe's raw strength was enough to power through it.

  There was that yellow barrier that he'd noticed in the first room again, but for some reason it had been weaker in the elemental's case. This one’s barrier was stronger than most, but then his hammer produced a sputtering of similar flames as it burst the little barrier like a bubble.

  He almost sighed in disappointment at how weak the creature was. There was no chance he was completing more than one of his objectives in this one fight.

  Then the ground below him changed. He found himself sinking. His hit on the core missed. And then the core was moving.

  “Oh, no you don't!” Rafe pointed his hammer, extricating himself from the quick sand with his movement technique and skills combined.

  It was an unorthodox way to do it, but if it worked, Rafe had no complaints.

  He had to keep his eyes closed the whole fight for fear of the cutting sand getting to his eyes, instead abusing his spatial-temporal awareness like he never had before. He couldn't see more than three inches in a circle around his body, but that was enough to avoid any critical attacks.

  He caught up to the withdrawing core. With his eyes closed, the creature looked like a cat to his ability. He hit it, the creature flew, bounced off the sand for a few inches. He did not give it time to mobilize.

  He hit again, using his heavy blow skill this time. It took almost five heavy blow infused hits for the thing to die. He hadn't used the ability too much in this room so far so it didn't act up. The creature died although it had taken more than the normal ones.

  ‘Ding’ You have defeated, desert lightning queen (lvl. 46).

  Hidden objective achieved. Your hammer has received a temporary lightning attunement.

  Rafe smiled as he looked at his quest screen. He had finished two objectives with that fight. But he had failed one.

  Room objective: Survive until a portal to the next room opens up. Next portal ( 9 hrs 5 mins).