Author's Note: A Fighter is the same thing to a Warrior as a Squire is to a Knight. Both can be considered to be the 'Stage zero' of their respective class. Sorry for the late change, but I couldn't figure out a word to describe a Stage zero Warrior for the life of me :D
Enjoy!
****
Two weeks passed quickly. Although he didn't pay much attention to the passage of time, Fen accomplished a lot during this time. He had to, as he only had another two weeks until the next Task. He didn't have a single hope inside him that he would face anything less than a Chosen, nor did he foolishly believe that his next opponent would be as arrogant as his last one.
The fact remained that he had killed a Chosen, proving their vulnerability. Any other Chosen with more than two braincells would be able to put together that maybe, just maybe, they would have to be serious if they fought against him.
Through his continuous practice and by Raisen's teachings (?), Fen was able to create a stable Vital blade construct. It was no where near as powerful as the old Knight's- Fen tested it after multiple attempts at killing him- but it was more than enough to serve as a powerful weapon if he was ever without his sword. Which was perfect, because it just so happened that he needed a weapon to help him run Scenarios.
In the two weeks that he spent training, although he advanced crazily through his training with both Vital and magical energy, Fen didn't clear a single Scenario leaving him poor with his meager 801 points within the interface. Okay, he wasn't poor. But he wasn't rich either.
He could buy the small and cheaper items he needed to prepare for the next Task like clothing and food, but armor? A weapon? The points he had were nowhere near enough if he wanted descent equipment. Especially if he wanted a high quality armor and weapon, which he did for various reasons.
In the last Task the only thing keeping him alive was his own skin and muscle, the Theoredian armor he bought from the interface barely lasted half an hour before it got blown to pieces by a single blow from Edmond.
He'd need Class three tools and armor at the very least, Class four if he could manage to afford it. Anything stronger than that was not about price rather than that he couldn't actually get it; his limited authority level still restricted his purchases. Hell, he still couldn't actually buy Class four material equipment off the interface yet, all he knew was that it existed because the error message prevented him from looking at the other Classes of materials, so he could infer that there was at least one next Class for materials.
Raisen had helped him learn more about his own capabilities by testing his Vital blade against his own constructs made from varying amounts of either magical or Vital energy, a stand-in for the different material Classes.
Currently, everything below Class three could be cut through like butter by Fen's Vital blade. A Class three material was able to put up resistance at least, but it was nowhere near enough to provide descent protection from his strikes. And while Raisen couldn't actually show him what he could do against Class four material, he did hint that Fen would only be able to scratch and maybe dent Class four, using a variety of winks, strange facial expressions, and gestures. Fen's own authority level meant that there was a limit to the information that Raisen could teach and advice him on, but it didn't mean that he'd have to rely on his own guesses; the old Knight could give him hints.
Anyway, Fen entered the familiar Scenario space again with a Erudite ranked Scenario and found the challenge of the Scenario slightly lacking. While he could just continue doing those Scenarios, his efficiency wouldn't be as high as running harder, more dangerous Scenarios.
It took some thinking before he finally came to the decision to look at harder Scenarios.
Well, for one, the Death Mark absolutely sucked. Erudite Scenarios weren't even supposed to be that difficult so people like Gray and Qin (normal people) could actually complete them. Fen's terrible luck in combination with the reality-distorting effects of the Death energy meant that he would always face the hardest possible situation.
While it didn't sound so bad, what if the power difference between each level of Scenario's increased significantly? Forget preparing himself to survive, Fen might as well start making preparations for his funeral instead...
'Welp, that's life I suppose...' Fen grumbled inwardly. With a slightly depressed expression, he flicked the interface on with his hand and started scrolling to find the Points Table. Another convenient feature of having his authority level increased; he didn't have to go all the way back to the Squad room to look at Scenarios, now he could do so wherever he pleased.
[Points Table]
[Candidate 178-3001: Fen Altairus]
[Knowledge Available: Stage one {Knight} ]
[Authority Level: Stage one]
[The Foundation congratulates you for being able to endure past the first Task! Doing so marks you as a survivor and a candidate with very high potential. Don't forget that staying alive not only benefits you, but also us! And also your family. After all, who would protect them from monsters if you died? Just kidding! Of course we would take responsibility for your (possible) death!]
He shivered reading the little 'note' awaiting for him once he activated the Points Table. It seemed that because he didn't check any of the Scenarios after the first Task, he'd gained a piled up list of overdue messages and congratulations from the Foundation within the interface. He skipped through them when he tested his abilities against a Erudite Scenario earlier, but now he read through them. After reading the first one, Fen couldn't bare to read a single word of any of the other messages and simply deleted them without looking at them.
Finally, he got into the actual table part of the Points Table, and he started looking through the Scenarios to see how much had changed since he passed the first Task.
Essentially the only thing that changed was the variety of Scenarios available. There was an extra two ranks available for him to challenge, Stage one and Stage two Scenarios. After looking through a few, it seemed that the way they were formatted also changed as well.
[Scenario-2157]
[Type: Single Blitz]
[**Recommended that Stage one be the very minimum requirement for potential challengers**]
[Grade: Heavenly Angel]
[Description: Your goal while within the Scenario is to kill as many mutated wolves as possible within the allotted time (1 hour). The monsters in question have a lower limit strength of a Fighter and the upper strength limit of a Stage one Knight. None of the beasts are capable of using magic or magical energy.]
[Rewarded points: 5 points for every mutated wolf slain, and the choice of bringing back a single corpse.]
'Hey, this isn't so bad.' He thought.
Fen's actual strength was probably around the peak Stage one level, and maybe even lower Stage two Knight level, so taking care of a few wolves who hadn't even reached Stage one combat power should be a piece of cake. It also helped that wolves, no matter how mutated, should still be less intelligent than a human. Otherwise they wouldn't be called monsters and would be given the title of 'intelligent race' like the Fallen races and Dragons.
Just to be on the safe side, Fen thought of all his possible opponents as having the strength of a Stage one Knight because of his terrible luck, so that he wouldn't be disappointed when reality proved to be cruel once again.
But even with that level of opponents, he didn't feel any real threat to his life. He was sure he'd be able to survive no matter how many wolves threw themselves at him.
"Wait a minute, why are so many Scenarios related to monsters if the Task puts me against another person? The Foundation's training me for the wrong thing...' Fen soon came up with a reasonable explanation however.
'Oh yeah, I'm supposed to defend the Earth from monsters when I come back home. While that's great and all, aren't all of the Opfer going to be used to fighting against monsters if we continue doing Scenarios like these? What's going to happen when we face a humanoid opponent?'
The Foundation in their endless planning and wisdom / bullshit thought of this of course. Their reasoning? Simply put, their response to this problem was 'tough shit! That's life!' Fen, being a simple Stage one Opfer was oblivious to this simple answer and started peeling away at what he believed to be the organization's logic.
'Anyways, lets see the other new types of Scenarios.' Blitz wasn't the only new addition to the Scenarios. Along with the already established Survival, there were the Defend and Duel options.
Defend was simple; given an objective area and / or an item, Fen would have to defend against waves of enemy monsters while at the same time minimizing the damage against his objective area. This option was apparently the safest, giving the challenger the ability to teleport out of the Scenario whenever they wanted and rewarding points based off their performance. However, leaving the Scenario space before the end would also create a massive penalty and reduce the amount of points given. Giving it's meager amount of points reward, Fen naturally opted to skip over these types of Scenarios.
Next was Duel. This was similar to Blitz, however rather than a multitude of enemies there would only be a single strong enemy, hence the name 'duel'. Hehe, wasn't the Foundation smart- Fen choked on his thoughts. He tried to sarcastically compliment the Foundation but even that was too much for him. Faking a compliment just immediately shut his body down before he could finish the thought, much less an actual spoken sentence.
Here was an example of Duel.
[Scenario-561]
[Type: Single Duel]
[**Recommended that Stage two be the very minimum requirement for potential challengers**]
[Grade: Heavenly Angel]
[Rules: There is no time limit for this time of challenge, and potential challengers have the option to leave whenever they want. However, the option to leave the Scenario space is taken away immediately after the challenger enters combat with the assigned monster. Before entering combat, challengers are given the ability to observe their assigned monster with no limit except touch. Points will be given at a set amount according to the monster slain, and additional points will also be rewarded for the amount of time taken to kill it. The time based rewards differ for every Duel-type Scenario.]
[Description: The monster for this specific Scenario is a Lesser Dragon. And not just a regular Lesser Dragon, but a mutated version of the species because fuck you. The monster type will differ for every Scenario generation, and the archetypes include (but are not limited to) flame, ice, poison, and earth. The mutation involved increases the size and strength of the Lesser Dragon proportionally to around the Stage two warrior level.]
[Rewarded points: 400 points given for killing the mutated Lesser Dragon. If killed before 5 minutes, an additional 150 points will be rewarded. Before 7 and a half minutes, 75 points. Before 10 minutes, 50 points. After ten minutes, no additional points will be rewarded.]
Now this... This was worth something. Fen's eyes lit up with greed just thinking at the number of points he'd be rolling in very, very soon.
Lesser Dragon? Hah! Fen laughed at the idea of the overgrown lizard being any sort of threat to his life. Even before reaching the Stage one standard he'd faced off against and won against a magically enabled one, and these poor monsters couldn't even use magic!
...They couldn't, right?
Just to make sure, Fen reread the Scenario details twice to confirm his thoughts. With a heavy heart, he learned that the Scenario didn't say anything about magically enabled monsters. However, it didn't say anything about such monsters not being included among the roster... in his experience with the Foundation, you needed to read in between the lines in order to gain information of any sort of significance.
"Fuu... Well, I still have my intelligence." Fen sighed. He wasn't worried before, but now that magic was potentially on the table his confidence was starting to waver. "Oh! Wait a minute!" The situation was starting to feel familiar to him.
Wasn't this perfect? In two weeks, Fen was able to solidify his magical manipulation skills and his usage of his spellworks had never been so efficient. During this time he kept to his word and withheld from using his Vitul ability of being able to study the memories of the creatures he killed.
Now, he had no more reason to stop. He could rampage all he wanted, collect all the memories that he wanted...
"Hehe." A quiet cackle leaked from his lips as the greedy look in his eyes intensified. "More magically enabled monsters...? Just when I was starting to need it? Oh, Death Mark... You're too good for me."
Meanwhile, Death shivered in excitement as it felt it's favorite Vitul thinking about them using the Death Mark as the medium so it could watch.
Fen's abilities fit perfectly with one another. He needed powerful monsters to fight against? Boom, the Death Mark had him covered. Fen already knew that the Mark was already pretty limited in its abilities in that it could only manipulate reality to have him fight powerful monsters, but it wouldn't try to kill him in any way other than that.
For example, there was no natural disaster or accident that tried to kill him. It was always another living being that tried to do him in.
He had never felt so grateful for having such terrible luck. Didn't this mean that his luck was amazing, to have such terrible luck? Or was his luck so terrible that it was starting effect the world around him, thus making him appear lucky when actually he was simply used to misfortune? Or maybe it was neither, and it was simply all a big coincidence that so many events occurred all next to each other, giving him such abundant opportunities... But if he thought about it some more, maybe there was no such thing as 'luck' and simply a bunch of supreme Gods that were too bored to care about other things and instead chose to make him miserable.
He shook his head before his brain started to overheat from thinking too much about.
It didn't matter how it happened anyways; either way, Fen was totally going to take advantage of this potential vault of knowledge waiting for him. Just the very thought of the spellworks these magically enabled Lesser Dragons were going to have excited him in a way that he never thought he'd feel inside the Program.
"Ahem, maybe I'm getting to greedy."
[A little bit, don't you think?]
"Gah, make a noise, or something! I should buy a bell for you..." Fen jumped as Dey's voice sounded right next to his ear. Looks like the busy Void God wasn't so busy right now, having the time to be a major ass.
[Don't you remember the arrogant Chosen you fought? Learn from his mistakes, and make sure you don't die because of your own greed.] His voice was stern, but he was also secretly salivating at the thought of combining the Death Mark and the natural talents that a Vitul possessed. While the potentially gained spellworks were nothing to him, being a God and all, he could still admire the knowledge gained considering Fen's level of power.
"Of course I remember him. I won't be like him. Besides, if I'm not confident in winning I could always just leave without fighting." Fen's lips turned upwards as he fought against Dey's argument with logic.
[Haa, fine. Do whatever, but don't die. I get lonely around here...]
"Like I want to hear about that." He snorted.
With a flash of brilliant light, Fen's figure disappeared as he left and entered the Scenario space.