“I’m glad you asked, but sadly I cannot share any details besides that it is all about staying alive,” Lyrian said in a proud voice.
“In my trial, you’re gonna face everything—and maybe not enter it with a group you like,” R-87 said in a deadpan tone.
Such answers Thalion hadn’t expected, but he wouldn’t take them too hard. If he wanted to push Josh and Jack to the top of a trial, it definitely wouldn’t be the third one.
For a mont, they just stood there until Thalion couldn’t stand the silence any longer, with the gods constantly watching him.
“Is there sothing?”
That made all three gods chuckle.
“Is there sothing? Heh, heh. Of course there is sothing. We want to know everything. First, we haven’t watched you, so how did you manage to win? And second—and this one is far more important—how would you rate Ratgul’s event, and what could be done better? You know, we never get feedback. Only when the difficulty might be a bit too high and everyone in the event dies in the first hours we get one.
“Huh, rember the C grade event Lyrian created twenty eras ago where everyone had to escape a laboratory and died in one hour, eight minutes, and thirty-five seconds? That replay made laugh so hard,” R-87 comnted.
Listening to that, Thalion wasn’t so sure anymore if he actually wanted to enter such a trial.
“Let’s be honest—they really were stupid. I gave them all a hint in the first room that they needed to do the opposite of what the ssages told them to do, and no one followed it,” Lyrian complained.
“Ra, ra, ra. Right, I rember. It was built like a labyrinth where you had to take the correct turns while being chased by a monster. Since no one read the ssage because it was hidden behind a picture on the wall, everyone ran to their death while panicking from the monster. The monster also looked so comical. Like a tentacle ball that constantly scread. Ra, ra, ra. Too bad there need to be test runs these days before an event gets approved,” Ratgul laughed loudly.
“Just out of curiosity… can I see the tape? And the trials I’m going to face are approved, right?” Thalion asked. He wasn’t certain if he should even participate in one of the other trials after eting the creators.
“Ra, ra, yes, let’s watch the tape. I’ll get us all a good beer—and so rocks for R-87,” Ratgul cheered loudly.
“Please. You know I’m not cannibalistic. I’ll take a beer,” R-87 dismissed.
“Oh, co on, you told that in your early days—” Ratgul started, but was rudely interrupted by his stone friend.
“Please, that was such a long ti ago. Rocks are friends, not food.”
Observing the gods talking, Thalion grew more and more confused.
Still, a mont later, he was teleported into a room that was probably the biggest cinema Thalion had ever seen. It was like a colosseum with a massive screen in the middle. The sound quality was excellent.
The only negative part was that most of the ti you heard the trial takers screaming in fear and pain. If you didn’t hear them, your ears were filled with the monster’s roaring, which sounded like a mixture between an elephant and a lion.
There was also another problem.
Thalion didn’t know whether he should shiver or laugh.
The gods were definitely laughing—but they wouldn’t need to compete in their own trials anyti soon.
This trial was a true shitshow.
The only thing you had to do was run through narrow corridors while the tentacle ball rolled behind you, screaming and shouting. The ball was far too strong for those combatants, and they couldn’t even injure it.
Almost everyone died when they had to make their first decision. Left led to a predatory plant that consud you without any chance of escape. Those plants had to be more than two grades above C grade judging by how quickly they killed everyone.
“Man, because of you, we can’t put S grades in C grade events. Now we really need to get creative with the death traps,” R-87 jokingly comnted.
Ratgul and R-87 laughed the whole ti, while Lyrian complained about how stupid the trial takers were.
“See? Again. They didn’t even bother to check the starting room,” Lyrian complained almost every ti the group ran off.
“I an… it might have sothing to do with the fact that the tentacle ball that is about to kill them spawns like ten ters away,” Thalion comnted.
This clearly was an event no one was able to survive.
“Spawning the monster only five seconds after the trial takers arrive was definitely a bold move,” Ratgul laughed loudly.
“Do you rember how we all watched the trial after he announced that he had co up with sothing completely new that would impress us—and then we watched how every single one ran to their death? I cannot believe it. I laughed so hard a few pebbles fell off my skin,” R-87 roared.
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After one and a half hours of watching people die, it was finally over. So even died in the starting room, which resulted in extra loud laughter from Ratgul and R-87, followed by complaints from Lyrian.
“Just out of curiosity… how do you test your system events now?” Thalion asked, hoping for so reassurance that he wouldn’t enter a death trap.
“Ah, we gotta send a few hundred through it, and as long as the death count isn’t too high, everything is good to go,” R-87 explained lazily.
For Thalion, that definitely wasn’t good enough.
“The death count probably can’t be too high, right?” Thalion asked further, just to know what he was dealing with.
“Absolutely. If more than eighty percent die in the first twenty hours, it won’t get approval. By the way, just a minute ago I got approval with a death count of seventy-four percent,” R-87 gave Thalion a comradely slap on the shoulder. “You’re gonna co by, right?”
Yeah… Thalion didn’t know if he would. This all didn’t sound like a good idea.
“Depends on two things. First: is there so instant death like what I just witnessed? And most importantly—what are the rewards for first place?”
“Oh, I like you. This is gonna be exciting,” R-87 laughed loudly. “It got approved, but I have to redo the rewards because of the high difficulty. What do you think about choosing a high-tier transcendence skill? Would that be enough to make you participate?”
Well… Thalion didn’t want to say it out loud…
“Okay, I’m in. When does it start?”
“Hah, that’s the spirit, Thalion. You would’ve made a great rock. Well—actually, I don’t have an exact date, but it should be roughly three months after the portals in the new universe can reach integrated space,” R-87 proudly announced.
“Wait—what do you an by portals to integrated space? I thought that wasn’t possible, which is why so many incursions are happening on our planet?” Thalion exclaid.
If the Chosen could just mass-produce armies, he would get a lot of experience… so maybe not that bad—but he would’ve liked to know earlier that sothing like this was possible.
“Incursions are there to send as many soldiers as possible to conquer new territory. Those portals will allow you to visit integrated space and do system events that aren’t available here. Only those with high blessings will have the information to build them, so you better be on good terms with one of them.
“On the positive side, gods don’t care about mortals, so no one will check on you when passing through. It’s mostly to give their Chosen an advantage—and it’s a way for them to get a few more soldiers for their army,” R-87 explained.
“Yeah… I don’t think any Chosen likes right now. Aeta’s Chosen is hunting because I used his item to give the Primordial Bloodseed fire affinity. The elves want to find and torture to get the na of my non-existing patron. And the vampires are after because of the blood plant I got by killing one early in the tutorial,” Thalion sighed.
“Whoa, wait a mont—you stole that plant and fused it into your body inside the tutorial? I heard that it’s impossible to fuse with it. You must have already had a strong blood affinity back then,” Ratgul exclaid.
“I think this is the first ti I’ve heard that the great lord is mobilizing gods just to get his hands on a single human,” Lyrian muttered in disbelief.
“Ey, forget that stupid stuff. I think it makes you even more likable that Aeta is mad at you. We once ran into each other, and the guy shot an arrow at that, which of course, bounced off—because I’m aweso—and destroyed a sun. But then I ran away and crashed into a black hole, and my fingernail broke off,” R-87 said in the tone of a schoolgirl proudly showing off her slightly damaged nail.
“We can only take a look at integrated space from ti to ti, so we can’t tell you much more about the gods. But if Aeta is after you, don’t go through a portal built by a human god. That man does hunting jobs for most other gods when they feel wronged or sothing was stolen from them.”
“Because of his efficiency, no one wants to have him on their bad side. Also, if it cos out that soone stole sothing from Aeta, he’ll have an image problem,” Ratgul advised.
“Oh please, you gotta tell everyone. Aeta will get so mad, and the dude already has an anger managent problem,” R-87 said eagerly.
“There will be portals hidden that lead to certain cities and trials in integrated space. The factions on Earth will try to secure one as fast as possible. With those, you should be able to participate in the trials. Around those trials, there are a bunch of rules and safeguards so that powerful beings can’t just jump in and snatch younglings or kill the competition,” Lyrian ntioned.
“Thanks, that should hopefully do it when the ti is right. For those trials—did you make them? And are they any good?” Thalion asked.
This conversation was far more helpful than he had expected, and he really began to like those gods—even if they were a bit special.
“No, they aren’t our trials. But they are the most important ones, and the real big shots of the multiverse attend them. You need to be extrely careful. What you have experienced in the last months is nothing compared to how they grow.
“The most powerful gods sacrifice armies to get their hands on certain items for their children. They are extrely powerful and normally reach divine rarity in their class around B or A grade. So don’t get overconfident. You reaching a divine class this early is unheard of—but a class and the rarity of a skill are just parts of what makes you strong. There are bloodlines that can do crazy shit and many other scary things.
“I once fought a cyborg to protect my favorite rock, who had a bloodline that allowed him to turn back ti. I had to kill the guy eighteen tis. That was exhausting,” R-87 said.
“Yeah, bloodlines are pretty stupid. This prince has sothing that makes him so tough that only a powerful attack can injure him, while one touch is enough to freeze you, and green mist coming from his mouth dissolves you,” Thalion joined in on the rant about unfair bloodlines.
“I encountered a beast that could swallow anything,” Ratgul simply stated.
Thalion looked confused before asking, “And why is that so overpowered? Couldn’t you just attack from behind and kill it?”
“Yeah, it had mouths all over its body and sucked in everything that ca too close. So you couldn’t hit it with anything, no matter how strong the attack was—and we really tried,” Ratgul explained.
“Then how did you defeat it?” Now Thalion was genuinely invested.
“One downside is that it can’t move very fast. There is a whole faction whose only job is to move suns and planets aside so it can pass without killing anyone. Back when I was still alive, it was used as a trash can to get rid of really dangerous calamities that simply couldn’t be killed,” Ratgul said with a shrug.
The next two months Thalion spent training while having fun conversations with the three gods. But then it had to co as it inevitably would.
Ratgul appeared and inford him that ti was over and he needed to kick him out.
Ratgul wanted Thalion to evolve in his domain so they could see how it turned out, but the other two were adamant that he wait until he was back on New Earth. They also wanted to make bets on how strong Thalion would be when doing their other trials.
And with that, Thalion disappeared—leaving the three gods behind.
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