Chapter 166 - The Question
Having eight Epic class options that didn’t have the [Dragonslayer] modifier in them would be a cause for celebration for any tenth realm adventurer. For Ryan who had just experienced a Quasi-Legendary class, it was almost not enough. They were simply less alive than he wished.
He went for the smallest of the Epic classes first. The class orb was gray, but not the lifeless gray that perpetuated in the world of the [Conceptual Reaver]. This reminded him of shining iron, perhaps of steel. Tough, resilient and pure.
The [Juggernaut].
It was supposed to be for tenth realm dragonslayers that had started off as a [Warrior]. It was considered only half a step better than a class like [Dragonslayer Warrior].
The fact that he was offered this truly did show how much he had deviated from acting as a [Rogue].
He had his eyes closed when his finger touched the orb.
The Juggernaut stood out, rushing down the army, tanking a [Gigant’s Cleave] with his torso alone. His skin tore and his muscles were bruised, but the dragonslayer’s attack could do nothing more than that. He was unbreakable, unrelenting, and when he built enough momentum?
He was unstoppable.
The Juggernaut smashed into the fortress’s walls and kept going. Refusing to stop for a second. Though he did remember to take out a glittering crystallized sword and started using it to slash the buildings—
Ryan took a moment to recenter himself, it was the wrong framing. Like becoming lucid in a dream, he had tried to insert too much of himself into the class orb. The Trial System kicked him out as if to prevent him from truly becoming aware as a [Juggernaut].
Ryan shook his head. Then looked towards the next orb. It looked as if it was filled with a smoking black and red gas, the figure within it slipping between buildings.
The [Dread Phantom], a class unknown to the Realmnet. Possibly because people with the class would never share the details. It was the class that his alternate self had… and it was powerful despite being the second smallest Epic.
No, he had to remember that every Epic was incredibly powerful on its own.
This time he wrapped his aura around his arm before touching the orb. His eyes closed once more trying to take the mindset of the [Dread Phantom] before his finger touched it.
The Dread Phantom lurked in the nights of a magnificent futuristic city. They told stories about him. Only half of it being true. He let it perpetuate for a reason. It would keep them afraid of him.
The light shining in the city simply made the shadows ever darker. This beautiful city held rot and decay in its walls and it was making it sick. He slipped past the walls, past the guards and the windows. Too many focused on when he revealed himself that they didn’t understand the other half of him, he was a ghost in the night, slipping into the bedroom of one corpulent example of a dying city.
His glittering red blade cut through the neck. A shining red aura glittering, leaving his calling card for those that found the corpse.
By the time they finally noticed, he was already long gone. The legend of the Dread Phantom would continue to spread throughout the city.
Ryan was kicked out of the Epic, his own eyes flickering, still mentally entrenched in the mindset of the [Dread Phantom]. He took a deep breath.
Good, it worked.
The next should be even easier. He reached out, wrapping his own [The Rogue Adventurer] aura around his arm. The [Adventurer’s Guide] was obviously a class he hadn’t heard of before, though it did call for him unlike any other class.
A mix of white and blue dotted the orb, as if the class refused to take itself seriously.
The best part? The figure in the class orb was Ryan, he was wearing a magnificent and obviously fake white beard, stroking it and trying to look as wise as possible.
Perhaps in another life he would have taken this. His hand reached out.
The Adventurer’s Guide stood in front of a team of complete newbies. He had shown up like a grinning wise old veteran and they had, of course, heard rumors about him. All of them were both eager and nervous to hear his assessment of them.
He raised a finger, giving them lessons of old, things he had learned from a wiser older adventurer himself. The longer he talked, the more his beard kept slipping. The adventurers were trying to keep perfectly respectful, their eyes locked on his eyes, trying hard to hold their expressions still and not let their gaze wander.
When the beard finally broke away, he gave them a riddle.
He took out a glittering red blade, changing his demeanor from a kindly old man to a grinning mass murderer.
What happened if you came across an unbeatable monster that liked to pretend to be a civil person?
Once again, he was shunted out of the class orb. Once again, his eyes were closed, though this time he felt like a trickle of aura from the [Adventurer’s Guide] had combined with his own.
Or perhaps it was simply the mindset and perspective changing his own.
It changed everything you see.
It made him hesitate to take the next one. A shining golden orb with a dazzling unfamiliar person posing in the sky. A cape fluttering in the wind, angled with the sun perfectly. A [Hero].
He closed his eyes and focused, wrapping his aura around him once more. He hated doing this, but he also needed as much help as he could get.
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The Hero stood high above the city, waving below. A shining beacon lighting the way against the dark. It did not matter that the world was undeserving of him, when it was on the brink of collapse he would always rise to come up and challenge it.
Though the Hero had decided to move to pre-empt the move. Taking down a mastermind before its plans could come to fruition. It took out a blade of glittering red then flew ahead, against the dark.
It didn’t matter that the heinous villain was far beyond him. He would always stand against injustice.
And another, Ryan was in the groove now. Though the next class was something he wasn’t familiar with at all. The [Veilpiercer Assassin] was markedly bigger than the other orbs. Showing that there was a difference within Epic classes themselves.
A figure ran through an iridescent veil, cutting away at the constant shimmering colors of the orb.
His aura crystallized once more as he reached out.
The Veilpiercer Assassin sped past armies and specialists alike. They were not his foe because they did not know of the secrets and illusions that made up this world. Seeing through falsehoods and bearing the truth was what he did.
To him, the grunts weren’t much better than victims themselves.
No, only his target required the swift execution of his sword. He pierced the army’s formations, he pierced through the magical barrier without making a noise. They couldn’t see him coming because he wrapped himself with secrets that they themselves couldn’t see through.
He spun a glittering red blade going for the target. Stabbing through the target.
The army’s formation realized it had been scattered, the magical barrier ripped apart, causing cries of alarm.
The web of lies split open as everyone woke up from the illusion.
When Ryan was kicked out, he shook his head. The more powerful Epic class wasn’t just intense, he had completely misread what the [Veilpiercer Assassin] stood for. It wasn’t just about breaking illusions and falsehoods but revealing what lay beneath to the rest of the world.
It would be perfect against the Witch Tyrant. He really liked it too.
Though it was onto the next.
This one he had no idea if it would work. He just had to hope, the classes were him after all.
The Conceptual Neophyte had his head down, scribbling notes into his book, sometimes dragging something from the air. He remembered the Others, trying to think of a way to bring them together, trying to figure out some working to bind them all. It would be a hatchet job, but that’s why he was simply a Neophyte. It let him do crazy—
A grand working descended.
The Conceptual Neophyte panicked, taking out a red blade before–
The Trial System kicked him out abruptly. Ryan huffed and shook his head, not expecting the neophyte to be so… well so inexperienced and stupid. He went for the next one.
This one was a light blue, a mix of his own colors. The second largest class of all.
He touched this with his left hand.
The Arcane Saboteur was experienced enough to split the passenger in his mind almost immediately. He also was quick enough on the uptake to work towards a slower, more deliberate ending, dragging out this time as much as it could.
Pretending to show his skills to the passenger like the Law required him to.
Meanwhile his mindsplit skill was talking to the passenger.
Several observations: Trying to pass on skills is prohibited, trying to understand the concepts behind the class is prohibited. Being too aware during the class orb is probably part of that. As long as I separate you and you don’t try to think like me too much we should be fine.
Ryan: Yeah, no shit.
If you want this to last, stop thinking so much. Shouldn’t be too hard for you.
Back to observations: It’s probably something to do with achievement standards, specializations are what the Trial System prefers. It makes sense, specialization is probably the only way for Trialists to get strong enough in the short amount of time it gives us.
The plan likely won’t be enough. The important thing is to try everything and see if there’s any weaknesses at all.
All we’re doing is planting the seeds for the next attempt, get it? It already—probably already knows what we’re planning. Maybe it might even welcome it.
The Arcane Saboteur snuck around, bypassing the Trial System’s restrictions by dutifully following the task required of it as a class orb.
Though he couldn’t help himself at the end. When time started to run out he attempted to explode the descending laws.
[Arcane Volatility]
Naturally, it didn’t work.
Finally it was time for the last orb. The crimson orb floated, imperious, almost disdainful at the hand that was reaching out to grab it.
This one Ryan had a feeling he didn’t need to wrap his aura to guide it.
The Aura Tyrant simply stood in front of a statue and willed it to ash, shaking its head. It turned and watched its empire crumbling to dust. There still wasn’t an answer it was satisfied with. It cared little for the passenger in its mind, nor its pointless machinations. After all, even if by some miracle, Ryan did pull it off, the question would still remain.
How did you truly make an empire everlasting?
It spent the entire time ruminating on the question.
After a time Ryan was shunted out.
“Bastard.”
Though technically that bastard was still him. The [Aura Tyrant] simply had other priorities that it deemed more important.
Ryan shook his head and focused on what was more immediately important.
He was digesting the experience of all of the orbs. It felt like he had taken a huge step further in understanding just how these classes worked. Part of the reason why they were so proficient in controlling specific concepts was because of something that should have been obvious but not something he’d really understood until now.
It was how the classes themselves saw the world, or in other words, perspective.
It mattered.
The [Veilpiercer Assassin] saw the Trial System as a great covering of secrets, the [Saboteur] saw the Trial System as laws it had to get around, the [Conceptual Neophyte] saw the Trial System as a great working of concepts together.
None of them were wrong. Because of that it gave them the confidence to enforce their willpower on the world itself.
Though he still didn’t understand why the Trial System kept fighting against every single effort for him to understand this. Every time he tried to settle down in a class orb and truly take in the classes or skills for himself it rejected him.
If he pushed too hard then it would shunt him out.
So, as Ryan digested this new understanding of classes he turned to the Manager.
“Why is the Trial System stopping me from learning anything in the class orbs?”
The Manager shrugged casually.
“Because those are completely artificial in their simulation of a class. If you learned skills or concepts using these simulations, they would use up your achievements. In the end, while it would increase the breadth of your abilities and make you well-rounded, you would be far, far weaker than if you specialized.”
Ryan took a moment to understand what the Manager was saying.
“Is being well-rounded a bad thing in the long run?”
“One does not have an infinite amount of time to complete the Trial System.”
“I see.”
Ryan took a deep breath in, holding it for a few seconds, then letting it out. He had set up everything as well as he could. The eight Epic class orbs resonating with his own aura.
The Manager raised an eyebrow.
The [Saboteur] was right. The Manager knew it was coming.
It still had to be done.
He felt the crystallized aura resonating with his breath.
The Trial System might not have let him take anything away from the class orbs.
But it didn’t stop him from leaving a bit of himself in each of the orbs.
Ryan drew himself up, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. He stared into his own bastardized face, the one the Manager had chosen for this encounter. He saw it clear as day, his own eyes piercing through the fake pupils and into the soul of the entity before him.
Madness.
The malevolent entity plotting every single probability in its dark abode had to know what was coming next.
Ryan still asked it anyway.
“Before I pick my class, there’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask.”
The Manager nodded, its face completely expressionless.
“Go ahead.”
“Is it your fault that Gamielle is dead?”