Beatitudes

Mountain trial.

Harry leaped out of harm’s way to avoid the collision he dared not take as easily as he did again. He was able to dodge the attack just in time as the beast reached just a few feet of him, unable to steer itself and change its charging direction, the beast could only slam its paws on the boulder, visibly denting it as it turned its head to roar with a human like expression in its eyes at Harry who was currently standing while clutching his bloody arm.

ROA--

But the beast’s roar was cut short all of a sudden as a white shadow flew over at a speed as quick as the leopard’s, it’s shape was fairly visibly like a cone’s and it cut through the air all the way till it pierced the head of the beast and exploded it with a loud bang.

The body of the beast abruptly froze as it suddenly became a headless beast without the slightest knowledge of how it even died. It was already pressing hard against the boulder to stop its charge, yet the force of the white shadow’s collision with it caused its whole body to tremble slightly as it pushed harder against the boulder.

Harry could only stare at the very familiar sight with twitching lips as he held his left arm gently.

A voice he wasn’t willing to hear right now inevitably spoke up with less sarcasm in its tone and more of puzzlement,

“Are you missing home or something Harry?”

“…”

Harry shot a hard glance at Isaac but could only stare at him for a second before looking away with a red face, he had no way or reason to refute the question, he had been annoyingly clumsy in the fight even to himself, he almost couldn’t help it.

In the end, the trio quickly moved out to the other silver furred leopards as they cleared the remaining beasts in a quick and efficient manner, no other accidents happened and the last people standing on the battleground were two males and a female.

Adam descended on his dark clouds as he spoke with a faint smile, he had witnessed their somewhat swift improvement, even Harry who still seemed clumsy fought with greater combat strength, it was a testament to their hidden brilliance but he wasn’t so surprised anyways,

“Alright, you guys should be able to understand how you fought in the battle so I won’t say much on that. In the end, we’ll be leaving these scanty parts of the tainted zone today, we should be reaching a mini base of the alliance very soon, it’s sort of like a checkpoint and a refill zone for everyone going to and coming from the deeper parts of the tainted zone.

It’s also the first line of defense against a beast surge so it’s much less lax than the previous checkpoint we passed through. It’s much safer there so we should be spending the night there… any questions?”

He swept a glance at all three of them, noting their stronger auras compared to when they first entered the tainted zone, even Hiya who was not a class holder had a stronger vibe about her, although he had his thoughts about her, she wasn’t one to slack.

In the end, Harry brought up a thought that had been on his mind for a while now,

“Adam, we’ve been killing beasts for about two days now, absorbing curse energy is a pretty sweet and swift method but for a while now, my tier progression bar has literally stopped moving ever since, all I need now is a tiny bit to reach the next tier, but that little bit seems to constantly elude me…”

Isaac who had been listening in on what Harry had to say had his eyes flicker with a strange light at this point when he heard Harry’s words,

He was actually also facing the exact same issue ever since his progression bar reached a nigh filled up point. They had been killing beasts for two days now, and although these parts of the tainted zone had a scarce number of beasts present, he had ultimately killed enough to fill up his bar. He had reached that point a while ago but his progression had stopped at just the slightest bit left to get filled up. Thinking to this point, he brought up his status screen to study it for any changes,

Status

Name: Isaac Alexus (Jaden Miguel)

Class: Order of will

Rank: Tier one (193.43 / 200))

Strength: 110

Speed: 113

Flexibility: 111

Constitution: 112

Special attributes:

-Racial:

-   Flame manipulation

-Class:

-   Will manipulation (Level 1)

*Manifestation

It had obviously increased overall in the attributes and stats present, much so that he was pretty surprised when he first took note of it, he felt much stronger than two days ago, but the change he was hoping to see wasn’t there.

He had killed a number of beasts ever since he last confirmed his current progression bar, but his progression bar had remained unmoving at the same point ever since then.

So when he heard Harry having the same issue, he immediately understood that it probably wasn’t something so easy in the first place, he turned his head to Adam, waiting for his answer.

Adam eye’s flashed when he heard what Harry said as he exclaimed with a slight tap to his forehead,

“Oh right, I actually forgot that part. It’s good you asked, you wouldn’t have found the solution so easily otherwise… the issue you’re facing is actually a common ordeal of every person, every class holder at every tier. What I’m trying to say is that you’ve reached a dipping point…”

Harry scrunched his eyebrows as his and Isaac’s voice sounded at about the same time with the very same words,

“Dipping point?!”

“You see, when you fill up your progression bar in any and all tier you could be in, you’ll reach a special point always being at the very end of the progression bar, this point is somewhat like an anomaly in your progression bar, what you need to fill up that particular point is almost about the double the amount you used to fill up your progression bar to that particular point, sometimes maybe even a little bit more…”

His words to the end dropped a mental bomb in the minds of Harry and Isaac, wide eyed, they both exclaimed at the same time saying the exact some word

“What?!!”

Isaac didn’t know what to say, he knew very well that although it was quite easy to rack up progression in his progression bar now, when he got to higher tiers, that speed would most definitely decrease with the exponential increase in the progression bar length. It was already going to be harder to gain progression in higher tier, yet he was still going to have to do it three times for every tier, each exponentially higher than the last!

He felt cheated and stressed already by just thinking about it. Harry likewise had the same expression on his face as the his usually unable to understand brain cells had a thorough understanding of what was to come for them.

But Adam didn’t let them dwell on and digest the thought as he spoke again with an amused tone, the expressions on the faces of the two other males in their group of four was pretty comical,

“Calm down and get yourself together, how can such a trivial thing shake your hearts so much,”

Isaac and Harry abruptly turned their gazes to him again as they stared at him with murder in their eyes, Trivial… you call such a thing trivial?!!

But Adam ignored all menancing gazes directed at him as he continued, meanwhile Hiya who had been quiet all this while looked on as she watched the dramatic duo unbeknownst to them with an amused expression deep in her eyes.

“It’s not like I’m not also a class holder, I understand how you feel, but at least wait till I finish my words before you start displaying despair with thoughts of suicide crossing your minds…”

The duo who had the exact type of expression on their faces and thoughts in their minds looked at Adam once again, their eyes flickering with a thoughtful light as they impatiently urged Adam on with their eyes,

Well go on, why do you keep pausing in between your words!

Clearly getting the message, Adam chuckled slightly as he finally continued without a pause, saying the words that gave a light of hope to their helpless situations.

“The point you both have reached is an inevitable point that you’ll encounter at every tier regardless, but it’s not a point without any other way of going through it, there’s a confirmed method to use when you get to this point, a method that’ll help to shorten both the time and number you would originally need to cross over the dipping point,”

Two pairs of eyes brightened as the hope within strengthened considerably, but Adam continued on without a pause as he said,

“The method… is to challenge a mountain…”

The hopeful light in both their eyes dimmed significantly as Isaac turned his head to meet Harry’s confused and slightly despondent gaze, challenge a mountain, what’s that?

“What do you mean Adam, challenge a mountain… you’re not saying we have to face off against a mountain, are you?”

It was Isaac speaking this time as he continued,

“Is mountain a code word for kill just ten tainted beasts or something…”

Adam ignoring the last few words replied,

“In a way, yes, you are going to face off against a mountain. But not the way you think.

You might never have wondered why they haven’t been able to clear out all these beasts, why they still remain so many despite the countless years of effort put in against them… well the thing is, these beasts also have something like a community, not a community per say but a kind of place where they gather in groups and strengthen themselves with numbers while also preserving their lives, these said places are a kind of mountains… Basically they live in a special kind of hollowed out mountains that mysteriously boost their strength and gives them a kind of home ground advantage, different from staying out in the open of the tainted zone.

These mountains are basically like their breeding grounds, with no one to control them, they can live on indefinitely and grow stronger, both in numbers and strength, in these mountains. Hence the need for fighters to go in and clear these mini zones is ever present, there isn’t just a few of places, no one has been able to guess the exact numbers of places like this, it’s estimated that there’s a vast number of these places, spread haphazardly over the tainted zone. There’s a name for challenging these mountains, they call it a mountain trial…”

“…”