#114 – I really should have expected this
I took a deep breath and glanced at my key bracelet.
After so experintation, I’d fused the Tistream Ring with it and as a result, I’d gotten my tistop bracelet back… sort of. It was a much weaker version of it and only could slow ti by a little, but still useful.
The ti on the bracelet showed 8:49 AM, which was exactly the sa as the ti on Earth in the ti zone I’d used to live in.
Because yes, sohow, the two worlds had re-synced over ti despite using the ti-slowing ability in the past. According to all the lore diggers and researchers, after the tis desynced, my second then simply took slightly less ti than the Earth second until the tis matched again, and then they kept going in sync.
I did my best not to think about this too hard. I already knew there was so weird ti bullshit happening, after all.
Stupid Fate Weaver.
…Anyway.
I sighed a little, feeling the nervous jitters, but summoned John anyway.
Just like always…
Hand in cara… Count down from five… Swing the cara in my direction…
“Goooood mooorning, my precious little Aquamarines! It’s ! Nana! Your favorite tier two individual!”
I paused and let a small smirk spread on my face.
“But that is going to be changing today! Oh, yes! We’re gonna beco tier three today, because we’re doing the limit break!”
I took on an exaggerated pose as I said that, putting on the most confident of shit-eating grins I could muster.
Over the last few days, I’d watched a few more ads and from what these people had said, we have concluded that, the ‘x-tier individual’ did, indeed, an access to those tiers of skills, and therefore, passing the first limit break made you into a tier three individual.
GeorgeDoshington: fuck yeeeaaaaaah
RetconRanger: Oh boy. Be careful.
KaiEbikoOfficial: you can do it!
Irid123: finally!
“Now, for those who haven’t been watching these past few days, let’s recap!
“I’ve done pretty much everything I could to prepare. I used the giant combo expansion ticket I still had laying around, I used all thirty-three points to buy Hunter’s Eye, its upgrade, Analysis, as well as all the subskills, which left exactly with zero points left!
“Then I also did a bunch of fusing! My beloved first weapon, the Ether Volt, went into my axe, while the crown, ninja sandals, the backpack, and the white gauntlets went into my clothes – that one was a pretty tight fit, I went from full to pretty much zero Ether to fit the last thing in.
“Other than that, I had a good old training montage! I learned how to fight using only John’s point of view, got better at Hydrokinesis, and even managed to spark a small fla without using any skills! All on my own!”
I grinned.
“That’s right, chat! I can do magic!” I paused. “Well, I could do magic before, but now I can do magic without the system helping ! It’s not good enough to use in combat, but that’s only a matter of ti!
“And okay! I can hear you all asking: ‘But, Nana! Why are you trying to do the limit break before you fully learn this cool technique?!’ Well, it’s really simple, my dear viewers! You see, I’m not going to need this skill in the limit break, because, as a reminder, I will be able to freely swap my skills and titles during the limit break any ti I wish!”
I made a show of looking at my bracelet, which showed 8:58.
“Speaking of ti… I promised to start the limit break today at nine AM, didn’t I? Well… I think I delayed enough haven’t I… Let’s do this!”
I took a deep breath, narrowed my eyes, and ntally opened up the window again.
Limit break #1 - Trials of courage
The Limit Break takes place outside of ti and space. No ti will pass in the real world in the anti.
For the duration of the Limit Break, the cooldown on swapping skills and titles is removed, but rewards from any Achievents and Quests you manage to complete within will only be accessible after failing or succeeding.
Warning: You have only one attempt. If you fail the Limit Break, you won’t ever be allowed to try again.
Do you wish to attempt to break your limits?
Y/N
“Do you wish to attempt to break your limits…?” I read out loud.
No, I don’t.
“Yes!”
I pressed confirm.
The world went white around as I got the feeling that sothing had just punted out of reality.
I stiffened, but didn’t scream, because weirdly enough, it didn’t feel like I was in any danger, despite the weirdness.
A mont later, the whiteness abated and I found myself in a lightly illuminated cube-shaped room while a system window with a ssage right in front of .
Welco to the Trials of courage!
All cooldowns have been reset.
For the duration of the trials, there will be no cooldown on swapping titles and skills.
Completion of any achievents and quests will be postponed until after the trials are either completed or failed.
Good luck!
I let out a asured breath as I read the ssage and then looked around the little room I was in. Said room seed empty save three things right in front of . A red door to the left, a green stairway going down to the right, and a plaque on the wall in between them.
“...Chat? You’re still here, right?”
RetconRanger: Of course.
KaiEbikoOfficial: still here!
“Okay, good! I was a wee bit concerned that the whole ti stop nonsense might have blocked you all out, but I guess we’re good!” I forced myself to make a small smile. “It would been kiiiinda awkward to have this whole intro for the limit break and then skip straight to being done from your point of view, eh…?”
With that said, I looked ahead and walked forward to take a closer look at the plaque.
“Now let’s see…”
It read: ‘Your goal is to find and walk down the green staircase in every trial. To give up at any point, walk through any of the red doors.’
“Okay… sounds straight-forward, but I bet it’s not going to be that simple, is it…? Not with this being called the ‘Trials of courage’.”
The red door was interesting though. I would have thought that I could leave just by wishing for it, just like how I’d entered here, but apparently, I would have to find a red door first… Not that I planned on giving up, but still. Why have the door at all?
I shook my head and then clapped my hands.
“Well, alright! Let’s get going, chat. These trials won’t complete themselves!”
I imdiately turned to the stairs and looked down. Weirdly enough, I couldn’t see further than a couple of steps. Beyond there, everything was completely white.
“Hmm… Weird…”
I began going down anyways.
One step, two steps…
As I walked, the whiteness got pushed further, and after a couple of steps, I looked behind , only to see that the room behind ceased to exist and was replaced by a wall.
“...Uhhh, right. Already starting with space-warping and reality-bending. How delightful.”
Why did I suddenly have this sense of foreboding…? Well, no. I knew that this was probably going to be really difficult but… sothing about this…
I kept going, one step at a ti, while occasionally glancing behind to find that the wall had moved with .
I frowned and then did a little experint as chat suggested – I turned around completely and began walking backwards, just to see if the wall would move.
Contrary to what I expected though, my back bumped into sothing. I imdiately whirled around to see… the stairway again.
“...I could have sworn I bumped into sothing.”
But when I looked back up, the wall had already moved while my attention was elsewhere.
“This is just creepy, chat. What is this, red light green light? Why does the wall only move when I’m not looking, huh?”
Naturally, the next thing I tried was to summon John and have him look at the wall while I looked down. Unfortunately, John’s view was pure white, no matter what I did.
I huffed in annoyance.
My last experint was to put my back to one of the side walls and then look at the opposite wall, trying to get both sides of the stairway into my field of view.
That one worked. The wall from the back never moved into my vision, nor did anything start blocking from the other side.
Of course, the mont I looked up the stairway, the wall was right there, just outside of where I’d been looking.
“...Okay, fine. This is pointless. You win this ti, mysterious stairwell.”
With that silliness out of the way – which honestly helped quite a bit to calm my nerves – I simply turned forward and kept going down the stairs normally. After a minute, the whiteness in front of receded and gave way to darkness instead.
I frowned and swapped Rend to Flaguard before lighting a tiny fla. And then I realized that there hadn’t even been any system window or a confirmation before the skills swapped.
Huh. Neat.
I kept walking into the darkness, and eventually, the stairs ended, sleek green slabs abruptly turning into grayish jagged rocks. I tensed up and looked around, but it was hard to see in this darkness.
“...Oh, I already hate it,” I mumbled under my breath.
I hesitated for a mont but eventually stepped onto the rocks. When I turned to look at the stairway, it was gone.
RetconRanger: Oh dear.
Jeofffff: rip
“Yup. Absolutely hate it.”
Trials of courage. Because I was afraid of the dark? But I wasn’t afraid of the dark, it was just that after the damn locker where I’d gotten pilled by the sentient clothing and almost died… Well, okay, maybe being traumatized by dark spaces counted as being afraid of them.
Whatever. Shut up.
Before I could decide on my next move though, I heard sothing to my left.
I whirled around, lighting my way with a flaming finger.
There was a spider the size of my hand just chilling there, apparently looking at with its eight eyes.
I froze, subconsciously hoping that it couldn’t see if I didn’t move.
The spider responded by… crawling away and out of sight.
Then I heard more crawling behind .
I whirled around again, spotting a group of centipedes, sliding in and out of my vision.
“Oh, I hate this so much,” I gritted out in a strangled voice.
A dark cave filled with bugs… and probably a non-euclidean maze to boot, if I were to guess. Exactly as–
“George, you’re banned!” I snapped and imdiately banned him, despite him not even being in the chat at the mont.
But I soon realized my mistake as so of the creepy crawlies around stopped their crawling and turned their disgusting heads in my direction.
Fuck fuck fuck!
I summoned my gun self to my hand and fired it at the sa ti the bugs launched themselves at .
The cone of fire montarily lit up the cave, letting see just how many freaking bugs there were.
They were everywhere.
On the ground, on the walls, on the ceiling, in the tiny holes and crevices all around . And they all reacted to my outburst by jumping out of their hiding spots, falling down from the ceiling, skittering into my shoes–
I scread.
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