CH805

“Alright, we can’t put this off any longer,” Vasta told them. “Let’s finish this.”

They had a single floor left, one final challenge to face until they were done and free to leave, all that was left was to overcome whatever it might be and with time in the fourth floor ticking down, Thera picked them all up and carried them between the platforms down below, passing through one of the doorways to find out what remained.

With the setup feeling familiar. All of them were lined up, side by side as they went through, each of them trapped within an individual barrier at the edge of a towering ring, the new area falling away to nothingness past it.

Kind of set up like that one section of the earth tower, huh? He thought as he examined it and everything else it contained. In the floor he and the others had been forced to battle golems in the past, they’d been released one by one into an arena to fight and with no obvious timer around, Ben was expecting to get pretty much the same, with that serving as excellent news as far as he was concerned.

His hand stretching out to touch the barrier in front of him, he knew he’d be able to break it with ease. Same as he’d done in the past and same as he’d done for the third floor of their current tower, with him only holding off in the slim chance he was wrong. No need to start breaking the trial without fully understanding it first, even if one other thing was left clear.

I’m either first or last then.

The way they were lined up, the order looked like it was going to either be himself, Jake, Amy, Thera, and Vasta, or the opposite of that if they really were going to be forced to handle the final challenge in a series of one-on-one fights, with the only way to know being for it to start.

“Psst, hey Ben,” Jake whispered beside him, seeing things in the same light. “Think this is going to be like the earth tower again?”

“Probably.”

“Think you’ll be able to get yourself out of here again?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then what do you say you just break us all out when the first one starts so we can bulldoze the competition?”

“If it’s what we’re thinking then that’s the plan, don’t worry.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Vasta chimed in from the other side. “At least as long as it doesn’t look like someone’s going to die. The goal may be to claim the rewards but that doesn’t mean any here should neglect to challenge themselves. Gods know, there’s going to be enough to struggle through soon enough, take the practice while you can.”

He watched Jake slump at his teacher’s words while Ben just shrugged. From the looks of it, Amy and Thera felt the same as the older mage so if they wanted to try things honestly first he wouldn’t get in the way unless it was urgent. It would hopefully be good for his own training too so with his goal of getting stronger, he’d only step in if it looked like he really needed to.

Guess I’ll just have to be prepared then.

With the answer to their order seeming decided. Only a second later, Vasta’s barrier collapsed, letting the mage out to walk to the near-center of the stage where a patch of ground began to glow.

“Stand here I take it?” She muttered, stepping within and bringing forth her opponent as a perfect replica of the world’s non-affinitied mage took the other end of the stage.

Oh, so we’re doing copies then. Neat.

Maybe it should have felt more surprising but he’d dealt with similar enough events before and despite the risks had enjoyed them both times. Perhaps communicating with a hallucination brought forth by the dark tower shouldn’t have really counted but it had been fun to bounce a couple ideas off of the other at the time and when it came to proper copies, the one he’d found in the trial of Anailia had left an undeniable mark on him.

Completing that section of the goddess’s trial had gained him both levels and a skill at the time, with his connect and focus raising as well as the acquisition of complex mind, the union of the last two and plenty of other options being what had grown towards his current mental structure. He’d been able to cooperate and reaped a boon as a result, even if chances seemed slim it would happen again.

After all, those levels may have come as a natural result of doing the trial but getting complex mind came from being connected with something I merged with. Plus, we were able to peacefully communicate, doesn’t seem like we have the same options right now.

Vasta’s copy was already springing to move, the fact that a fight was unavoidable made obvious, even as a different idea scratched at the back of his thoughts. Who was to say he couldn’t claim similar rewards for himself just because whatever copy of himself he was going to have to face was going to be adversarial?

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