B3 Chapter 366: Warm Haze, pt. 2

There were many things that Kaius thought of asking the ascendant who accompanied him on his forest walk.

The obvious answer was anything and everything she would share about his next trial. It was also what he was least inclined towards — it could wait until he was actually ready to move on.

Nor was he particularly interested in finding out more of how his last trial had functioned. Xenanra had already delved deeply into it. Any further, and it would likely delve into theory that was far enough beyond him he would find it incomprehensible. Besides, she’d already used caged and controlled terms when explaining it — just like she had done every other time she had brushed up against a topic she could only partially explain. It stood to reason that an indepth dissertation into the specifics of Ascendant-tier time manipulation fell under that bracket.

It was enough to know that it had stood at the root of his strange experience, and that it was used more widely in the Crucible in general as well.

Still — there were other things he had in his mind. What had caused him to abandon training skills when he otherwise had a perfect opportunity? He’d eventually just completely ignored everything that had no direct relevance to his trials. Beyond that, why had the progress he’d made on the rest of his abilities slowed and eventually stalled so quickly?

That wasn’t the only thing. Even if he knew Mentis on a deeper and more instinctive level than before, he still wanted a gods’ damned Ascendant’s perspective if he could get it — especially with regards to the budding interconnectedness he could feel between his two ignited aspects. He knew from earlier discussions that this process of embodiment didn’t actually change anything about how aspects functioned — just increased his awareness and understanding of what already existed. That meant that they had already worked in unison.

Mulling it over, he decided to start from what was ultimately of the least importance.

“My skills. Their growth stagnated really quickly, and utterly stalled far before they should have. What happened there? Also, why did I lose all interest in training them like I did early in the trial, and why did I ignore over half of my class Skills?”

It was the last point that bothered him the most. Just thinking of the way he brushed off the thought of working on his blade skills left him uncomfortable. It was utterly foreign, completely unlike him.

He’d been stuck in a bloody fucking endless loop! He literally had all the time in the world to work on them — and he hadn’t?! He should have hammered away at every single one of them, right up until they hit the point of utterly stalling out — no matter how repetitive it may have been, or how long it would have taken without proper challenges to test his use.

It was all just so…incomprehensible.

Frowning at the thought, Kaius took a long drink from his glass — draining the thing dry. It refilled the moment he pulled it from his lips. He had no idea how he’d managed to miss that, either.

Xenanra continued to bob along beside him, smiling at a bat-like creature that flitted from flower to flower overhead — a proboscis-like tongue spearing deep into floral throats.

“It was a form of balance.”

“A form of balance?” Kaius asked, brow furrowed questioningly.

“Balance.” Xenanra nodded. “Every challenger’s trial is different — sometimes subtly, other times drastically. Even if someone had a looping obstacle course like you faced, their traps might have had subtle tells and signs — something designed for an Aspect close to your own, but more focused on awareness and prediction rather than memory and learning. Others might have something more radical in their divergence. An academic exam. A hunt for a great beast of greater wiles. The need to ferret out a single liar in a room of thousands. Even things on a grander scale, to divert the course of a nation’s history over decades of effort.”

She spun, giving him a close look.

“If those who experienced extended trials like your own were able to use that twist of fate to train endlessly, you would have a distinct advantage over those who only had minutes or hours. The scales must be even — all participants can achieve the same rewards, given the same effort and performance.”

Kaius supposed that it made sense: if the trials were focused on Aspects, and were designed to be fair — even if he was unused to the idea of the System being so even handed in its dealings — there would have had to be limitations.

“But then why let me train some of my skills?”

“Because everyone uses their Skills to pass a trial — they are part of you. The use and practice of anything actually relevant to your trial was fine. You only lost interest when you started to train purely for its own sake, rather than to improve your next run, or when your gains started to approach the limit of what could be achieved without infinite attempts. For context, those with exceptionally short trials — or ones that wouldn’t stress their Skills in any meaningful way — receive a boost.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

That he could accept — and it matched up with what he experienced within the loops. Vos, Eirnith, Vyrthane, Mercurial Reversal, his mana skills — all of them. He’d only worked on them knowing that they would help him push further, survive traps, and in the case of Mercurial Reversal, navigate projectile-heavy obstacles.

“…I suppose that’s fair.”