Chapter 309 – Tier 3 Trial Part 5.

Time continued to tick as Roland gathered all the books about warfare that he could find in the city. He had even made a trip to the black market and the auction house to see if there was something interesting to be gotten there. To no surprise, the only worthwhile material was at Arthur’s mansion and with his help, he was able to acquire all the basics and some more intricate books. There was a lot to go through and not everything was correct, even though something was made into a book it didn’t mean that no mistakes were made during its creation.

When going through all this knowledge he started recalling some strategies from the scriptures he unearthed in the old Arden estate library. It wasn’t that he had forgotten it all, he just needed a little jolt to help him gain it back. Even with the stress resistance skill it wasn’t that easy to recall what people before him went through. Now he felt slightly more confident in tackling the trial again.

“It’s taking a while, it has already been more than a week…”

While sitting at his research table he looked at the crystal in his hand. Even though he was ready to give it another try it wasn’t activating. This didn’t bode well for him as the longer the first reset period was the harder it would become to retake the test again. To his knowledge doubling the time between tries was what usually happened but there were exceptions. It was possible for it to triple or perhaps even quadruple. This had already taken more than a week, nine days to be precise.

“Hm… I can feel something, wouldn’t this make it ten days on the clock?”

Roland finally noticed that the crystal was resonating with his touch. He had stayed up to late at night as this was the exact same hour that he had come back from the trial space. This meant that it took precisely two hundred and forty hours for the reset to occur.

“So if it doubles for the next one, I’ll have to wait for twenty days? If it triples for forty and then…”

His mind was filled with a long time frame, a setback that he didn’t want to imagine. It was possible that it could even take one or two months for his third try or perhaps even longer. He wouldn’t really know unless he tried but it was clear that if he failed for the third time, the timeframe would start to become troubling and at that point, it wouldn’t be strange to pick the lesser option that was the High-Lord class.

This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, most people that attempted tier 3 class changes failed on the first attempt. They failed even with the easier classes so Roland’s first failure could be excused by his inexperience. Time was a resource that he had painfully learned in the current trial. If it continued for too long and he was unable to clear this hurdle it would have been better to lower the difficulty.

“I’d have to take into account that the High-Lord class could have an entirely different trial and that I might also fail it at first…”

Roland wasn’t sure what the cut-off point would be but he needed to calculate everything. If the reset period started to turn into multiple months it would get incredibly dangerous. Even though he wasn’t focusing on it for now, there was something in the air. Arthur didn’t say anything but it was obvious that there was something happening in the background. It wouldn’t be strange if he didn’t have more than a month to perform this change if he wanted to safeguard this home that he built for himself.

“I just won’t fail again…”

He was not really a stranger to failure, it actually happened on almost a daily basis. His craftsmanship was still not the best and he was still deficient in some segments of his craft. The situation he was in now was practically due to multiple deficiencies, one of the main ones being his propensity to run away when things started going wrong. It was a miracle that he was able to keep himself from leaving this place already. Without becoming used to the people around and growing some tighter bonds he would have probably left a long time ago.

In his right hand, he had the crystal that would let him back into the trial area. In his left hand, he had a large mug filled with some leftover tea that he had just drunk. On the side, it had his name on it, and while the mug didn’t look all too great it had a lot more sentimental value to Roland. It had been given to him by Elodia as he had continued to use her set whenever she started hanging around his house. Now it was a part of their history that he was unwilling to throw away.

“Let’s go, I’ve learned all that I can.”

It was time to go back to it, all the books about leading troops that he could find were read and all the skills that were useful continued to be leveled up. Perhaps it would have been better to wait a few months and do more research but the foreboding feeling didn’t go away. Roland felt that if he failed this trial again that there would be terrible repercussions. His vision quickly faded and he appeared back in the old apartment complex, without waiting he made his way up to activate the trial that he had failed.

“It’s still there.”

He dreaded the moment of opening up the PC as there was a chance that the class could have vanished. While he didn’t have anything to base his fears on, when he saw the Runesmith Overlord class there, he let out a sigh of relief. In this fake space, Roland had a bit more time to think everything over as time worked differently. It took a few moments for him to gather the courage but soon enough he found himself in a familiar storage area like before.

‘Will it be the same?’

From the information that he had gathered, usually, the trials remained quite similar after failing them once. Some were identical while others changed a few things around. After going up through a similar set of stairs he realized that he was in the former type.

“My Lord!”

‘It’s close to the previous one but the layout is slightly off…’

The pupped Aid looked the same as he remembered him. Luckily his memories of the beginning part of this test were still vivid in his mind. He could recall all that he did and also his decision of going with the defensive strategy. The fort was quite similar to the old one but there were some minor differences. The wooden log walls appeared to be wider on one side than what he remembered. There was also a change in the topography of the region with the forest area changing with the mountain region where he found the iron mine and built the quarry.

“My Lord, there is no time to waste, we must prepare!”

“Yes yes, the Kindlings are coming.”

“Kindlings? No my lord!”

“Oh? Not the Kindlings, what is our enemy called this time around?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“It’s the dreaded Lumberlings!”