Chapter 4: The Return
[Azoth Trial Complete
Beginning Ascension]
Raine Talis cast [Clean] on her weapon as the corpse of the Elite melted away — and only the weapon, since she had outmatched the Elite so thoroughly that she hadn’t dirtied herself at all. The rank-up wasn’t profound like Bismuth; it didn’t change anything. It was simply more power, but the sheer amount of essence and strength pouring into her dwarfed anything before. The Azoth Trial had turned out to be a lot less complex than the Bismuth one as well, merely a dungeon that required her to use her Domain.
Though merely was perhaps underselling it. It was obvious that the dungeon had been constructed with her in mind, with Alum-ranked ice bars blocking the passages between rooms, with the only option being to focus her entire Domain and her weapon Skill down to a single point in order to cut them. Simplicity itself, given the backing of the combat algorithms, but she could imagine how much time it would take someone who hadn’t taken the time to fully master their Domain.
She stepped through the portal that led back to the vestibule of the Azoth Trial, an unadorned, cavernous chamber with a single exit, finding herself alone. The first one to finish the Trials. Not a great surprise, since the Azoth Trial seemed to favor brute force over finesse, though there was no guarantee either Leese or Dyen had a similar trial. Raine wasn’t actually worried about either of them, though. Anyone who was a recipient of Cato’s gifts shouldn’t have any trouble with what the System threw at them.
Sure enough, only a few hours later Leese appeared in the center of the vestibule, radiating the potent essence of Azoth. Raine smiled and waved at her as Leese crossed the distance with a flicker of her travel Skill, a motile blizzard that flowed through the intervening space. Leese reappeared just in front of Raine, tail fairly vibrating with excitement.
“I can’t believe we actually made it. Azoth,” Leese sent over their link, radiating ice and cold. “I remember when Gold was a hard-won dream.”
“And now we can probably make Alum,” Raine agreed, pulling the various Skill tokens from her Estate. She could have filled in the new Skill slots earlier, but at this point it was tradition for them to do it together. Not that there was much of a decision to make, as they simply moved everything up one rank, leaving Silver slots free for additional utility Skills. But that meant that their primary offensive Skills were Azoth, as well as their cornerstone movement Skill, which was a massive step up.
“Going to be a while for that,” Leese shared, settling in next to Raine to allot her own Skills. If Azoth had taken a full decade of constant fighting up-rank on a War World, Alum was at least ten times that — and more Feats of Glory, plus whatever other wrinkles were necessary for the final rank before godhood. There was no chance that such an ascension would be simple.