Chapter 96: The Next Test (Patreon)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ufQkIDLP0nUCsg62G4ywvrLSIFQZ7LFfheZyPEXVqH8/edit?usp=sharing

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“So. I’ve heard what the next test is,” Velic said, and Cayden sat up in his chair.

They’d just finished a team lesson with Instructor Barry, one much more boring than their usual training. Instead of taking them to an arena for sparring and more practical lessons, he’d brought them into a classroom for a lecture on monster and ability types their current team was vulnerable to, as well as potential skills, weapons, and enchanted items that could patch those weaknesses. It was unquestionably an important lesson, but not nearly as engaging as their regular training, especially after just coming out of his remedials class.

So he was annoyed when Velic called for them to remain in their seats after Instructor Barry finished up and left the room. But upon hearing what Velic had to share, Cayden’s focus sharpened once again.

He hadn’t really spoken with Velic since the Guantlet, nothing more than a few words of greeting as they passed in the common room of their dorm and directions yelled in training – their lunches spent eating together were a thing of the past. Cayden didn’t truly hold any hard feelings over the other boy’s decision in the dungeon; it was a snap choice made in the heat of the moment. Everything had turned out okay, but it could have just as easily swung the other direction, even if they’d had Velic and Marvenal’s support, in which case the noble boy’s decision would’ve been the correct one. But as Cayden focused on his teammate’s words, he resolved even further to put the past behind him – if they were going to win the first-place prize, they needed to work together.

“In light of what happened in the Gauntlet, the academy has decided not to reschedule those tests which weren’t completed, and to invalidate the scores of those who did complete the dungeon.” There was a small frown on his face as he said this, which was understandable. Up until they’d split up, their team had been on an extremely good run of the dungeon. “In its place, they’ll be moving up the next test, and it will be slightly different from previous years’ tests or the tests we’ve already had this year. It will be a game of reunite.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Reunite? What’s that?” Cayden asked.

“‘Reunite the lovers’? The game with the poles? Have you not heard of it?”

Cayden brightened. “Oh, you mean ‘kissing cousins’? Where you’re trying to get the sticks to touch on your side?”

Velic contained a grimace. “I have not heard it called such, but that sounds like the correct game.”

Cayden sat back in satisfaction. He’d never played the game himself, as he’d always been busy trying to unlock races with Elise and then working at Dryson’s, but he’d seen the kids at the orphanage play it and heard about it from Tiana enough that he knew the general rules. Apparently, it was also popular among the nobles, though under a different name.

Delphia, however, didn’t seem familiar, as she simply shook her head when Velic turned to her with a questioning glance.

He sighed.

“The rules are simple: There are two teams of even size – in our case, four – that each control one of the ‘lovers’, which are long, heavy poles. Each team is given a territory on either side of an arena, with their pole starting in the middle of their territory. The goal is to ‘reunite the lovers’ by touching the two poles together in our team’s territory, while the other team is attempting to do the same in their territory.” He shrugged. “That is all there is to it. There are a multitude of potential strategies, and the game is often seen as a good way to teach children the mindset of an adventurer. Which I presume is why the academy is using it for a test.”

“Really? What is it supposed to teach?” Cayden asked curiously. When first hearing about it, he’d recognized the game as a slight variation of ‘capture the flag’ from Earth and had given it no more thought beyond listening to Tiana’s stories of how close she and the twins were to winning.

If Velic was frustrated to have to explain the nuances of the game further, it didn’t show on his face. “It teaches the benefits of specialization and how to lean into one’s strengths, basic team strategies, and how to adapt those strategies mid-engagement. For example: the ‘lover’ is typically heavy and unwieldy, and if you choose to bring it into the battle for the opposing team’s lover, you will be weakened compared to your opponents if they do not choose to do the same. But choose to leave it behind, and you run the risk of your opponents sneaking around you to retrieve your ‘lover’ while you are otherwise occupied. Leave someone behind to guard your ‘lover’, and you weaken your team even further. You could also attempt a multitude of other strategies: hide the flag with someone with a stealth-focused build, have someone with a dexterity-focused build simply run away with the flag while the others retrieve the opponent’s flag, and so on. Like delving a dungeon, it is as much about preparation and knowing your opponents’ capabilities as it is about knowing your own.”

“Do we know who we’ll be facing, then?” Cayden asked.

“Unfortunately, no. As our ability to adapt will be a major component of what they are testing, the instructors seem to be keeping the list of matchups much more tightly controlled than other details. I think we can assume that we will be paired off against a team close to us in the current rankings, though, as matches between the top and bottom teams would prove little. We’ll have to learn as much as we can about our potential opponents to prepare for each possibility.”

Cayden sighed, resigning himself to a lot more classroom time in the near future.

“How do you feel now? Any difference?”

“Nope, same as before,” Cayden replied, shaking his head, and Elise jotted something down in her notebook before snapping it shut.

“That’s good. I think we can conclusively say that [Alchemical Assistance] does not increase your vulnerability to poisons. And so far, it doesn’t increase the duration of a potion’s effects, either – just the intensity.”

Cayden nodded. They’d been pretty sure that was the case over an hour of testing earlier, but Elise was nothing if not thorough, and she’d repeatedly handed Cayden potions to drink while he [Saved Progress] and then re-learned [Alchemical Assistance] over and over.

But though he’d ended up being poisoned over a dozen times in her experiments, the true tragedy of the situation had nothing to do with poison. Rather, it was in one of the restrictions of [Save Progress]: he was limited in how he could swap out skills learned from [Borrowed Power].

It wasn’t exactly an unexpected realization, as everything functioned exactly as their descriptions dictated, but it simply hadn’t been something Cayden had comprehended when integrating the two skills together. Though [Save Progress] could easily save the level for skills learned through [Borrowed Power], he couldn’t replace a [Borrowed Power] skill with a skill that wasn’t learned through [Borrowed Power]. He still only had six ‘normal’ general skill slots, so when he filled his [Save Progress] slot with [Alchemical Assistance]...

He was forced, once again, to lose [Claw Mastery].

If Delphia had been around, it wouldn’t have been an issue. He could have simply unlearned [Alchemical Assistance] and then re-learned it each time from her activating it on him through [Conduit]. But she wasn’t around, and Cayden didn’t want to force her to sit around for multiple boring hours of experimentation when it wasn’t necessary. It certainly broke his heart to lose [Claw Mastery] again, but after the delve, it was only level three – it wouldn’t take too long for him to bring it back to that level.

That was, of course, assuming he got the chance.

“Do you have any ideas about the sacrifice skill?” Cayden asked. ‘Sacrifice skill’ wasn’t the best term for it, considering Elise had found accounts of some versions of the skill that wouldn’t require him to ‘sacrifice’ any of a specific stat to gain bonuses in the others, instead being a passive version that would grant a portion of one of his stats as a bonus to another stat. But it was better than calling it the ‘princess’s skill’, especially when they were trying to keep that part of it a secret.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it a bit more,” Elise replied as she flipped open her book once again to a different section. “The book stated that you just need to ‘use the primary stat to increase the trait of the secondary’. So, in your case, you’ll want to use your vitality to increase your speed, if you want to be able to change your vitality for agility.”

“How would that even work?” Cayden asked with a frown.

“That’s the tough part. Maybe you have to run until your feet bleed? Or something similar? It might be easier to get it for a stat like strength by lifting weights until you pull a muscle.”

“That…seems a bit easy. Like it would be a more widespread skill if that was all it took,” Cayden said, though it couldn’t hurt to try. The issue was that at this point, his vitality was so much higher than his other stats that he wasn’t sure if doing something like pulling a muscle was even possible for him anymore. His endurance or strength would likely fall short long before he ever got to the point of pushing his vitality to its limits, especially with his other passive skills boosting his vitality even further.

He supposed he could ask the princess again how she got her skill. It wasn’t the version of the skill he wanted – both because he had almost no charisma to sacrifice and he wanted a passive version of the skill rather than an active version – but it could hopefully point him further in the right direction.

But he didn’t want to bother the princess further. She was his only connection to Tiana, and with her always being so difficult to read, he had no idea how far he might be able to push or annoy her before it went too far. She’d already given him a hint with the book Elise had found; would she think he was incompetent if he revealed that he still needed help after that?

Maybe Elise’s suggestions would work after a bit of tinkering to his other skills. He was hopeful that the number of skills that could be stored with [Save Progress] would increase as it leveled, which – in addition to letting him never again have to lose [Claw Mastery] – could allow him to manipulate some other parts of his build.

Passive skills could never be turned off. Typically, that was a good thing, as it prevented him from ever being caught entirely unprepared, but it could also be a detriment in certain situations. If he could [Save Progress] on both [Resistance] and [Resilience], his vitality might be low enough for him to accomplish some of what Elise was suggesting.

It had been so long since he’d been without [Resistance], it was difficult for him to imagine how truly ‘strong’ his vitality would be without it. So, with a thought, he [Saved Progress] on [Resistance].

By itself, [Save Progress] didn’t ‘un-learn’ a skill. He’d have to replace [Resistance] with a different general skill in order to remove it from his status, but that was easy enough to accomplish. The system was somewhat smart, in that it wouldn’t repeatedly offer him [Walking] every day of the week when he’d refused to take it a half-dozen times before, but there were enough general skills in the world that he was offered a few new ones each week for accomplishing random tasks, most of which he ignored after giving them a cursory reading.

He replaced [Resistance] with one of his newest promising-looking offered general skills.

Ambidextrous (passive): Become equally capable with both the dominant and non-dominant hands. Gain a 10% boost to dexterity.

For the first time in over a year, Cayden was without [Resistance], and he flexed his hands in consideration. He didn’t feel any different, but then he wasn’t currently trying to ‘resist’ anything. He pulled the sheath off of one of his claws and brought it up to the skin of his nub on his right side.

It didn’t quite slice into him like butter, but it was significantly easier than what he was used to.

Cayden smirked. If he had to guess, he would estimate it was, in fact, fifty-three percent easier.

He doubted it would be enough for him to sustain an injury from simple exercise or running. He’d need to [Save Progress] and lose [Resilience] as well for him to have that chance.

He went to relearn [Resistance], slightly uncomfortable without the constant safety net the tier-three skill offered him, but then he froze.

Cayden looked over his six current general skills. His six, non-tier-three general skills.

“I can learn more tier-three skills!” he exclaimed.

Elise looked at him with a concerned expression. “Of course? That’s what we’ve been working towards for a while, right?”

“I mean, more than just the next one! [Save Progress] gives me the space to learn more than just one more by temporarily losing my existing tier-three!”

“...yeah. You didn’t know that?”

Cayden spluttered. “I mean, I hadn’t really realized it, I guess. I was only thinking of [Save Progress] allowing me to switch out the lower-tier skills that I don’t use as much for ones more optimal to a situation. Not switching out [Resistance] to give me access to more tier-threes – why didn’t you say anything?!”

Elise didn’t look nearly as excited as Cayden felt, and she simply shrugged. “It’s not like it would change anything in the near future. Even with [Save Progress], you don’t have enough free slots to start working on a third tier-three until after you get your second.”

But Cayden barely registered what she had said, because he was thinking on something much more important. If [Save Progress] functioned as expected, giving him the ability to store additional skills as it leveled, that would let him acquire even more tier-three skills. Which meant that something he’d long ago dismissed as impossible was now once again back on the table.

Tier-four skills.

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