After winning second place in the competition with his bomb that ran on loneliness, because it was not actually as accessible as he first considered.
"I guess this is the first real culture shock I get uhm?" He nonchalantly stated, completely unbothered to hear that neither had he won, nor was it common to suffer from existential dread or even normal depression unless you were a scholar looking deeply into philosophy or deep in debt. Or cursed, but that technically isn't a natural cause for depression as much as a made one.
"Is it just me or is this not as satisfying as expected?" Asked one of the people looking foward to one crafter or another finally winning against the 'public enemy', getting plenty of nods. No one here was stupid enough to ask what he'd have presented if he previously knew about such thing.
Seeing that instead of dirrecting himself to another hiperbolic chamber or the next event, Aki was instead going to chalenge the trials, basically everyone sighed in relief. Much like the race the previous day, this event was going to have the lots of participants, and while some people were curious about what such person would consider as their special talent, most didn't want to bet.
Instead, people wondered what kind of score he'd get and what kind of trials would be Available for him. When a certain assasin hero saw him entering a ***&**** trial they slowly backed off with all the speed of a flighter jet.
Do know why it was censured, but Aki directly received a 100/100 on his first score right after coming out of the dual cultivation trial, followed rapidly by a 1??/100 out of the torture trial. Getting strange looks from all chosen was something he didn't mind at all, he was just getting more black tickets to exchange for resources, so getting a cyan one in the middle of it was not bad at all.
Blazing all trials related to side professions was quite easy, he'd just forged better stuff under less and less time, cured a patient after another, enchanted faster and faster and did more and more complex recipes. He'd even gotten a better than perfect grade on the medical one since he'd also coordinated with progressively more and more ghost staff that seemed to appear pretty randonly.
There were also one sword and one martial trial, but Aki barelly got a 95 on the martial one, so he got pissed.
"Purchase a retry for the martial trial. I'll fucking make that domain even if just to punch that fucking ghost on the face." He murmured after leaving the trial, rapidly entering again a moment after the portal appeared a second time. "Begin." He uttered, killing intent gushing out while he relaxed every part of his body.
Not even bothering with the first stage anymore, the trial imediatly robed him of his sight. As laughter reached his ears, Aki elbowed the solid sphere launched towards his back and started rotating his position so he could avoid three others. He'd have told the ghost he now knew it's trick, but he was beginning to sweat, and needed all his concentration to do all the controling.
Having long began his formal training in leaving behind the reliance on normal senses, Aki was not pertubed at all by the lack of sight, but this was apparently even more reason to raise the speed and complexity of the projectile's trajectory. Spinning balls, balls that stopped for no aparent reason, spiralling balls, teleporting balls, the dificulty was disgustingly high, but whenever he tried to get faster in any way, so did all the projectiles.
He'd already figured that anything he did to strenghten himself would only increase the dificulty, so his main source of power was pretty much neutralized. He knew it was a martial test, but no matter how much he pushed his skill or how much he'd improved it, the dificulty was still as challenging. Then he had an idea that he wasn't able to test last time. Raising his stats for one second was too much. Raising his stats for half a second was too much. Than he just needed to go for a tenth of a second or lower.
Putting all his power towards the exact moment he landed the hit had an unexpected effect though. It made his augmentation all that much easier for his body to bear, leaving even more leverage for raising his strenght.
Finally breaking the five hundreth ball, Aki grinned from hearing the announcement.
{Twilight phase completed. Beggining midnight phase.}
As all but his sense of touch was stripped away, Aki didn't fear. When his instincs told him three strikes were aiming for him in an absurd speed, he didn't shake. When said strikes were imedeatly canceled moments before he hit his assailant and exchanged by four attacks from diferent angles, Aki began acting a bit more erractly, until suddenly one two attacks came and he noticed his stupidity.
'If i can't hit it after it has began attacking, than i just need to do it before it attacks!' He determined. Instead of just attacking randomly while blocking, Aki began releasing his mana in a perfect sphere around him.
The attacks reached a speed he could barely comprehend and he was hit on non-vital parts, but he 'saw' then. His assainlants were little wisps ussing a telekinesiss of some sort. That didn't mean he could hit then, he didn't even need to try to confirm these would dissapear if he did. Instead he did his all to hit a seemingly random spot near his head, killing one wisp that had just materialized.
{Pseudo-domain detected! Mortal trial cleared above perfection! Do you wish to continue? In case you do, there will be no further rewards from this trial station.}
Aki didn't need to think about how he had heard this in his head even though he could perceive no other sound, he just said yes and began killing wisps.
*****
[Hidden quest: Martial Spirit (X)
Requirement: Reach spirit realm with one martial art.
Rating: TRANSCENDENTAL (SSS)
Reward: Blood armaments (X)
Description: You just barely made it, and that is mostly because you made an entirely new martial art at the end by fussing your already exiting ones. I wouldn't call the perfect, but great job, you deserve it kiddo.]
Falling on the ground and imediatly forming a pool with his own sweat, Aki couldn't take the grin out of his face. He had no idea why these armaments were good enough to be a reward for a trancendental achievement, but he sure hopped to find out later.
'Purchase a hiperbolic chamber with the maximum time dilatation available and open it's door below me.' Aki mentally ordered before passing out and starting to fall.
*****
Checking the yin simble in his left hand and the yang simble in his right hand, Aki wondered what his mother would think if she ever noticed how many tatoos he actually had. He was also planning on having the representations of the ocean of time and the strings of fate in it tattoed to his lower back, bellow his sword. Maybe have roots falling through his nape and reaching for the cartridges on his shoulders.
It'd be a beautiful scenario for a picture or canvas painting, but maybe not the best for his back. He'd still have it done though. The rune carving on skin could cause a lot more pain than any kind of savage artist on earth could ever hope to cause in the hopes of sculpting the human body, but they also had tangible effects he was more than willing to suffer for. So of course he paid for said procedure imediatly, leveling deformed mind a bit more in the process.
It took a while for the pain to stop after that, but his flesh and soul were forever carved now. A nifty part of it, was that these kinds of things naturally came with the function of turning invisible.
Back to the new blood armaments, Aki had done a more normal tat so that they seem to drip into his short blades, and the effect was,
indeed quite cool if a bit minor.
Summoning the heavy gauntlets, Aki couldn't help but ignore the stats bonuses it gave and ponder how much screaming and pain he'd be able to cause with this over the top, spike and edge filled design.
Following the provided description, he ordered the armament to move and they liquefied, reaching for his legs and forming pauldrons and boots that basically screamed 'edge lord' with their blades, opposite coloration and 'screaming dammed full of teeth' design.
"Aidoneus, did you just reward me for breaking a multiversal record, by gifting one of your daughter's handicrafts?" He questioned thin air, not necessarily expecting an answer.
'Exactly' Came the smug answer, not needing any sort of image to transmit his huge grin.
"Respect." Aki beat his left hand on his right chest and began training again. At this rate, he'd surpass Knight rank after stepping out of the dual cultivation trial for a second time.
He really wanted to test that cat-girl's firmness while being held by that cute mountain giant.
*****
Looking at the embarrassed hunk with a lot of scars and the serious tomboy waiting for him outside the trial he'd just partaken, Aki couldn't help but to force his grin down.
"Something funny?" Asked the girl ussing shorts and tshirt. She clearly had assian heritage, yet she was tall and athletic. The only part of said culture she beared were her sharp, piercing eyes and the soft skin framing her calming and calculating presence.
"I mean, i just fucked..." Stopping his hold, Aki started recounting his exploits.
"Too much info." Imediatly interrupted the hunk while raising a palm, clearly unconfortable. His bulging muscles barely hidden away by the loose clothes he wore. His rugged face not any less handsome because of their state of disrepair.
"If you say so. To what do i own the presence of the chosen of Athena and Hestia?" He shrugged and smiled.
"We would like to invite you to our alliance. You may already know this, but we all come from diferent versions of earth." Explained the girl. "I thought it fitting to try and unite said societies so as to better repel invasions and survive both incursions of alien lifeforms and other chosen."
"Count me in." Aki nodded, surprising both of them. Chuckling a bit more, he raised a palm "Why so surprised? Even if you didn't approach me i'd have looked for you. I've spent around half my tickets obtaining information on other chosen, so of course i'd try to speak to the ones who aren't absolute jerks and or share similar views as to mine." He pointed respectively to the hunk and to the tomboy, signaling them to follow after he finished speaking. They were clearly headed for the fouth day's first event.
"I see no such option in the shop." Mentioned Saki.
"There's no direct one, of course, but i just had to google search for souls and narrow it down by grudge and date of death to obtain information from those who everyone here has ever killed. Your twelve are greatly impressive big guy. I may not be a pacifist myself but i can respect someone trying to avoid throwing lives away." Aki mentioned towards Julius, nodding in his direction. "Only those at the top have the strenght to give something like mercy."
"Do you have your planet's cordinates than?" Asked the japanese girl.
"Yeah, here." He showed a card basically made out of blue light. "We can buy something like a coffer and just share with whoever is in the alliance. It isn't something the system is directly dessigned to do, but simply inprinting the locations after the cluster is formed should not be so dificult to code for you." He babblered. "By the way, are either of you participating on the test of courage?" Getting a nod from both, Aki smiled. "Let's have a fun competition then, may the greatest coward win."
And so he did. Not because he had an advantage or special rule designed for him, but because he was the one who most understood fear. Julius even got third place, getting a pat in the back from Aki and being allowed to pet CJ as an incentive.
"Any idea why you sucked balls?" Aki asked Saki while putting a hand in her shoulder, which was given a glance, but ultimately ignored.
"I didn't reign in my emotions enough." She emotionlessly said.
"Not the intention of the competition. If a god actually tries to make you feel fear they will, even if they don't know what they are doing. Don't shove away your emotions, use them. Squeeze them dry of every speck of potential." He explained while giving her a gentle smile.