Support my contracted main novel and winner of Writing Prompts #26 - The Legendary Mage!
Desolate Mage: A Legend Reborn!
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12013957905760805/Desolate-Mage%3A-A-Legend-Reborn!
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Slowly changing from using brackets "( )" for inner thoughts, to using single inverted commas ' ' for inner thoughts.
'Like this...' instead of (Like this...).
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"Challenge 1: Trial of Perseverance. Level 12 Elites - 1,500 Nightmare Stalkers; released 2 per second."
'Oh, that thing I killed before. Smells really bad...' Sam cracked her knuckles and stretched her body; prepared for the coming challenge.
The terrain of the testing grounds was quite pleasant; the afternoon rays of mid-summer glare blazed over rolling hills, a wooded area, some grasslands, a river, a lake and some mountains. She hadn't tried exploring the boundaries of the area - because she never thought of such a question. Also, she didn't think too much about the change of the time of day - or the change of seasons. It was already early autumn.
Then she felt a prickling on the back of her neck, and darted forward and to her right; spinning around - just in time; she felt a sharp gust of wind whoosh past her.
When she turned around, she could see nothing.
Then she dodged left, right, up, down - dancing around to avoid invisible slashes thrown at her from every angle.
She yawned. She felt like she understood their attack patterns now.
Feeling a little warmed up; she crinkled her nose, then began her counter-attacks.
Under-hand palm strike. Straight knife hand. Spinning low sweep. Rapid jabs in a radial pattern around her. Each blow she let loose connected with something hard and brittle; resulting in explosions of blackish-green liquids. Each attack ruptured a vital body part of the countless nightmare stalkers surrounding her.
For minutes on end she continued to lash out; dodge and pivot - like a deadly dance among falling leaves; only, these were leaves sharp enough to leave one crippled with a single clean contact.
Whenever she sensed some of the things leaping and approaching her from above; she would trigger a moment of Disruption and Instant-Burst; then charge forward, mowing her way through 10m of creatures before making a stand at the new position. Nevertheless, she was constantly surrounded and harried by ceaseless thrusts, slashes, chops and stabs - and sometimes attempts at full-on body slams.
In those cases, she just slammed straight into the oncoming "traffic"; bowling it over, turning its innards into jelly and leaving a wide swathe of empty space behind it as the corpse plunged into the horde of creatures at its rear.
Despite the frenetic pace of the battle; and even after 10 minutes of smashing and cracking open the chitinous carapace of the elusive nightmare stalkers, there did not seem to be any end to the uninterrupted flow of enemies around her. Yet despite that fact that it seemed that the girl barely dodged each hidden slash by the skin of her teeth; the worst injuries she received were just scratches and gashes - flesh wounds that were healing at a rate fast enough for the naked eye to observe.
No; at the beginning, it was true that she was barely able to dodge the sudden attacks; escaping solely by her preternatural battle instincts and the senses of sound and smell.
However, by this point in the battle, she was not "barely able" to dodge - now she was able to "barely dodge" - she was capable of determining exactly the minimal and most effective amount of movements for each manoeuvre. And on top of that, each repositioning placed her in just right place to release a barrage of soul-reaping strikes - and still be in the perfect spot to evade the next attacks.
Finally; as the challenge time neared 30 minutes, she felt the pressure on her decrease - the invisible hunters were no longer being replenished at a constant rate - instead, she slowly whittled away at the number of creatures around her.
And then it was over.
She looked around her - these "Nightmare Stalkers" were also covered in a glossy, hard exo-skeleton. Only, these creatures looked more like insects; with the body and face of a praying mantis, but without the foreleg claws; and standing upright like a person. They were very, very different from what she had faced back in the academy in Pari; from what Principal Snow and the rest had termed as a Nightmare Stalker.
Even after they were mutilated; with one light punch being enough to take down one of the creatures, somehow their carapace still remained concealed - perhaps that was just one of their innate characteristic.
She closed her eyes and savoured the battle and the feeling of the adrenaline pumping through her veins - and also the feeling of overflowing vitality; after taking countless lives with her bare hands. She felt like the world essence gained from this battle, along with the earlier one that morning, was almost enough to bring her to the brink of the next level...
But more than all that; she felt satisfied with the clear growth in her technique - she had intentionally limited her strength, speed and abilities for the battle; only using her innate talents of Disruption and Full-Burst to avoid being buried under the stampede of creatures.
From the time of her first battle with the gandharva, to her clash with the demon boy; and until now - she felt confident that her combat multiplier had advanced at least ten-fold; from perhaps around a 8x to 9x multiplier; to nearly 40x before today's battles.
Given the opportunity to hone her skills nearly endlessly for 30 minutes; she had intentionally limited herself - and gained greatly. She smiled; she wished she could have another bout with the kind but stern grey-haired Sebastian. Perhaps this time she could give more of a run for his money!
She then heard the girl's voice once more.
"Congratulations! Proceeding to Challenge 2. Candidate, please be mindful; the next stage is more than double the difficulty of the last stage; and different in nature."
She felt the air and space around her shift; her surroundings blurring and warping as the announcement was made. She felt as if she were moving; yet not moving at the same time - perhaps it was actually the space around her that was shifting; changing and morphing with her as the focal point. In the midst of this, her eyes widened as she felt the familiar feeling she had felt against the vampire princess' green and red-haired maids.
'It was something like this! Yeah! This, this is the feeling!' She looked excited, even more so than after her tremendous improvements in skill. This was the elusive feeling that she had been unable to replicate - and was still struggling to execute once more; failing again and again in her attempts to resonate with the Spatial Laws of Displacement.
She had attempted again and again; calling out to her gentle friends in the gaps between Spaces; in the Void within every flow of air. And yet they had not answered her call in this area; except for that one time when an abstruse sense of knowingness had enveloped her; and she had just been the one responding to the call of the Concepts themselves.
Even now, she could only frown as she realised that her comprehension in that area was not quite up to par yet - at least, for her own standards. Any "genius"; even a once in a thousand years "genius" would be groveling at her feet, cursing their fate to be born in the same generation as a grand genius among geniuses such as her! And this genius of geniuses was like an unpolished diamond; bound to be underestimated and derided due to her low level and lacking intellect.
No matter; for she was like a freight train gradually gathering speed; unstoppable, implacable, relentless and soon to gather critical mass.
...And would sooner or later explode onto the world scene to shake the earth! Disrupting the delusions of grandeur engraved in the minds of the proud heaven's sons; scions of the lords and ladies of the land who would not be able to recognise true brilliance - until she hit them on the nose and smacked their faces soundly!
Now all this took a moment to describe, but in truth happened within a split second.
Sam was now faced with the second challenge.
"Challenge 2: Trial of Strength. Level 21 Elite - Diamond Golem."
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"..."
'...What happened to my hair?'