Appearing within the arena grounds I'm unsurprised but still amazed by the massive arena with many different biomes meeting in the exact center where I stand. Seeing a ten minute timer along with the rules of the trial in a little window I get it a cursory read just to make sure it's not any different then anyone else's trial...
*Trial of the Swords
Stand stationary and survive till the end of the trial. Your reward is based solely on how long you survive.*
Seeing the same vague instructions as before I can't help but laugh... The trial grounds is a specially prepared map that is either hell or heaven for different people. Each trial ground has a limitless number of enemies and all the enemies in the novice trial ground will have a normal grade sword based bloodline. This is why I never really bothered to actively seek out sword based bloodlines. There's three of these in total level ten level twenty five and level fifty each have a trial of swords. The high your results the better the reward survive a single day of the zerg will give you rare quality normal swordsmanship skills and let you farm for a single day on the bloodlines survive two days gives you epic surviving a week gives you legendary. No published info is related to unique quality swordsmanship. The trial is the only way to learn quality based swordsmanship in all honesty you only have to kill 100 monsters on this map to pass the trial... Most people do that or strive for a single day. Seldom do people last a week... I plan to attempt a month... After the preparation time is up a hundred different roars can be heard at once... Wave one... aka the basic trial. Monsters are spawned randomly throughout the biomes and based on their affinity and nature. Such as swordfish getting spawned in the water biomes and so on... The first to arrive is a giant hawk who dives down and tries to skewer me with it's beak while trying to slash me with it's claws... dodging the attack I strike it's wing before running up and taking it's life it only survived one hit because I needed to cripple it first... Next came the lightning affinity cheetah then speak of the devil a school of sword fish... and then the wave went on and on like that as I downed the enemies immediately and got the rewards after the first wave I get another timer. As the trials are based on time each wave is sent in a set time then they spawn when the next timer is up if you finish a wave you get the time between waves as a break no actual break is give after the first one... As for my break time... I got 22 minutes as it took a lot of time for the monsters to all reach me before I immediately killed them... Basically for regular people who can't insta kill the monsters getting past the first wave is already hard enough as before you finish you may have the second wave start and mix up the enemies between the two waves and die to the swarm... Most people never get to worry about the getting tired or getting a break between waves... Most just die to the monsters... Checking on the messages I got whilst fighting I see a message from Avery about the extra rewards for the quest which I question but quickly realize my mistake as she says I'll have to spend the exact amount of time I spend in the test at their house... Which normally would mean she's suggesting I spend the night... As obvious I'm quite strong but to that statement I then suggested she then tell her mother about that offer... Five minutes later I got a message saying she won't break her promise... Which sounds very much like a resignation... I guess now I either gotta offend both the possibly saint level npc and the girl whose already on my friends list or spend a month at their house... Well I can get a pretty good training partner in that of her mother... So I shrug it off. I'll be nice. I have no real reason to refuse other then going over to the saintess house and getting that clay... Hell maybe the trainer will help me most saint level NPCs know each other especially if they are both women... As they are a very small group of people forced into the same situation by their gods most of them find solace in one another. As for the saints relationship with the saintesses... Well... Let's just say it's not all out war... Currently... Only because the gods started killing off the saintess who tried that... Now they can only fight if they have a good reason. Especially if they are under the same god... For instance one story of a saintess who was just a lowly priest who was raped by a saint and rose up to his level within the next few years only to be refused the right to fight against that saint by their shared god. She had to watch as he ascended and to this day still sits waiting to die... Granted that's pretty much what happens to most saintess... Unless you are faithful to the light God... As it gets way worse... Or of course other female centered religions... that often times at least give women a fair chance some bar men out right. Like the sister of the cloth that follow under the mercy faith... That accepts no males to their faith... They also tend to act as justice keepers which is why most other religions and gods hate mercy with all their hearts. She commonly kills their faithful and even other saints for crimes against women... Which is why Crys and Affie almost joined that religion at one point but decided against it when they chose to start a family as they can't exactly go to a place only women are allowed and just abandon their children if it's a boy... I commonly say that the only reason they didn't join that faith is because I have such high luck... As they were already struggling to break the ascension barrier when they were aided by their families and parties they considered the moment they lost both as losing all chance of ascension but still happily had children hoping to help them ascend in their lifetimes... Basically they want to be the stepping stones for their children... When I learned all this as a kid I promised to make sure they ascended... Now days with Anna and Elas progress they commonly suggest that I take a break and stop working so hard as they may be able to ascend without my help becoming the first all woman team to ascend... I ignore the suggestion everytime as I know they are just worried about me... As for Ela... Well she seldom speaks to me without flirting so genuine consern and not just horny is a rare emotion to see from her...