THEOS

Three hours later, Luke was slowly but surely getting closer and closer to successfully copying the spell.

If it worked at all.

He was pretty sure it would act something like a talisman did, and flash or something before settling into his mana where it would be usable. Just like the original was.

Luke would also be the first to admit that he wasn’t an expert in what he was doing. Not by a long shot. Especially when it came to replicating what was likely to be the handiwork of a literal deity.

Cyzicus had mentioned that runes typically required some understanding, not unlike what was required by techniques to operate. But talismans were living proof that anyone with mana and time could get runes to do something and the emperor had said what he said in the context of artifacts, not spells.

So Luke remained hopeful even as he geared up for his last attempt of the night.

I’m not going to get it, but let's see how far I really am. He thought to himself, while removing another blob of mana from his body and reactivating the Eyes of Insight for the umpteenth time. He winced as a dull and nauseating ache behind his eyes sprung to life. His bloodline cost mana to use, the amount was negligible with his current reserves, but after hours of use, he found that there were limits beside mana that kept him from keeping his ability active.

The pain wouldn’t stop him though.

Slowly, and branch by branch he began to construct the shape. After many dozens of attempts, he was able to shape the first fifteen branches with ease and from memory. Only consulting the structure in his manapool for reference once in a while to make sure it was perfect. The next fifteen branches also went fairly quickly and without too much trouble. With him having to slow down only once to correct a single branch.

After that, things began to get increasingly tricky. He was getting better at tolerating the headache that came from maintaining the mana outside of his body, but it was slow going at best, and worse now that the stress of keeping his bloodline ability active was also hampering him.

Still, his progress was quicker than he anticipated and he managed to make sixty-two branches before the pain became unbearable and the whole thing vanished from existence. Collapsing like a house of cards into the ether.

A process that from start to finish only took five minutes.

Maybe another day or two. Luke thought to himself, grinning slightly as he felt his arcana stat tick up once again. In the absence of a manasink, his training with the spell was proving to be a good way to increase the stat and one he dearly wished he had realized earlier.

But then again, he had no way of knowing if this kind of practice even improved his arcana before now. Simply holding mana outside his body had never yielded the kind of results it was now, when he had tried it on Sylcra.

Moreover, Luke wasn’t sure if it was the act of drawing the spell that was making the stat surge or if there was just so much mana in the Holy Land that even the slightest exertion caused it to improve at an outrageous rate.

Either way, it was worth doing and Luke resolved to test the hypothesis soon.

I’ll have to see how many stat points I get for recreating the spell, how many I get for creating a random but complicated pattern, and how much for just a blob. If my guess is right, then the blob and the random pattern shouldn’t improve my arcana… but we’ll see.

If I can replicate something like what happened with the manasink again, that would be amazing. Kind of. What happened with Arke back then, wasn’t intentional. I didn’t even know I could push that far. I mean, how could I? It was like the entire time, I’d been pressing forward at the edges of my ability, and then suddenly what I thought was my limit turned out to be a suggestion. Like… Lifting a weight. I thought my limit was x and it turned out to be a thousand x instead.

Except, Zeus healed me after too, and I can’t forget that.

I don’t know how stupid what I did was, because whatever potion he gave us after was definitely of a high enough tier to resolve any issues. Speaking of, there’s also a god watching over us right now too… one that promised to heal everything… I’d probably be fi–

Bad, Luke.

He shook the thought out of his head before he convinced himself that it was a good idea, and forcibly reminded himself that statpoints weren’t going to be an issue. Were never an issue, not really. Compared to the rest of the world his growth was simply monstrous. Except, most of the world would never be gods either.

Even so, The Empress of Carim became a hero at sixty and Cyzicus thought she was a prodigy. This body isn’t even seventeen years old, and I’ve been at this cultivation thing for less than a year. There’s no need to be hasty and resort to something desperate. Not yet, and not when it isn’t bottlenecking my progress.

Besides, without the Seed capturing the excess mana, I won’t get stat points anyways. Having the mana in my body even without that is still a major plus, but not big enough to be worth the risk.

Not that I’ll be under Hephaestus watch forever either. Once all this is over, and I can use the Seed freely I’ll reconsider it. Maybe if I get my hands on a good healing potion, but even then I’ll just be saving a few weeks to months of time. Is it worth it?

Shaking his head, he opened his status.

Status | Skills | Quests | Inventory

Name: Lukas King

Tier: Warrior

Bloodline: Eyes of Insight

Mana: 189 021 / 191 888

Rate: 17% per hour

Strength: 276 > 419

Agility: 281 > 432

Constitution: 524 > 716

Arcana: 507 > 536

Stat Points: 0

Charges: 7/10

Well, I’m past the halfway mark.

The progress was good, really good. If the Seed hadn’t shut down stat points though, it would have been even better. Much better.

I could have been at the peak of the warrior tier, considering how many monsters I’ve killed.

He intentionally hadn’t kept track of the exact number, because he knew if he had, he would have been sorely tempted to cuss at the god overlooking the trial for being a peeping tom and spooking the Seed. As it was, he tried his best to stay satisfied with how much he had gained. It was five months worth of the progress he made on Sylcra done in days. Progress, that if he played his cards right, didn’t have to slow down for a while.

I just need to stick around, and– He raked his eyes over his temporary teammates. Spiros and Ella were still sleeping while Theseus and Arya kept watch with him.

Considering that monsters didn’t attack at night, and no one had challenged them for days, keeping a watch of three people felt superfluous, and yet, it was necessary. A single one of Hephaestus’s whims could change their circumstances, and none of them were willing to test fate by being stupid and leaving themselves vulnerable. If that meant only sleeping for a few hours every two or three days, then so be it.

“We need to decide who’s going to stay behind. I was thinking– ” Luke started to say, only for Theseus to cut him off.

“Not me. I don’t want to stay in this forest for a single second longer than I need to.”

“I can stay.” Arya offered. “I’m still fresh.”

“Actually, I kind of wanted to stay,” Luke said. Immediately, both of them looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Me being self sacrificing isn’t that crazy, is it? Luke thought to himself, and raised his own eyebrows in turn. Why didn’t Theseus do that when Arya offered to stay?

A moment later, Arya answered his question.

“But you got most of the scrolls. It wouldn’t be fair.” She objected. “And I wouldn’t have even passed the last trial if you didn’t help. Leaving you alone after all that seems– icky.”

“Right, I vote for Ella. She hasn’t done much for the group.” The prince of Atlantis chimed in.

“Theseus, if we leave this to a vote you’ll be the one who stays behind.” Luke grinned at his lookalike. “And I want to stay. My cultivation has never been faster than it is right now, and I can feel my technique is ready to advance. It just needs a push…”

Arya, for the slightest moment, stiffened. Her eyes bored into Luke’s searchingly, before she turned away. “If you’re sure about wanting to stay behind it’s fine with me.”

Luke resisted the urge to wince at that. After days of fighting together, it was hard not to notice that there were remarkable similarities in the way the three of them fought. Similarities that couldn’t be overlooked.

Luke had picked up hints of the First Stances in Arya and Spiros’ movements the moment he had seen them fight. Then while it had remained largely unremarked on, Theseus had caught onto the fact that all three of them could dodge his attacks with ease. An ability they all derived from their time in the Empress’s Tomb.

Honestly, Luke was pretty sure his jig was up and had been for a while. Maybe since the moment he had introduced himself to the pair on the steps of the pyramid. In hindsight, it seemed obvious that he was the same Luke they knew from the Luminous Sky Society. Even if they hadn’t seen fit to mention it just yet, he knew an interrogation was coming.

Or maybe the two of them were just waiting for him to bring up the issue first. In a way, Luke had Hephaestus to thank for that. The god’s warning at the start of the trial had been awkward to listen to, but it also made for a great excuse not to discuss anything potentially incriminating or sensitive.

Like why one of the contestants had surgically altered his face to look like a god. Or what Luke had done to Yjarn.

Whatever feelings Luke’s deceit may have inspired, at the very least the two of them weren’t willing to expose him for it.

I’ll have to thank them properly for that later… And check up on Nefkha after all. If he was smart, he would’ve kept his mouth shut, and he’s the only one who knows my real secret. If I can go back and bully him into an oath, or failing that, just kill him things will be fine. It wouldn’t even be a stretch to say that my new face was just an accident.

They don’t know that I know what the mask did, afterall. Which, now that I think about it… If Len really stayed behind until one of them showed up… they probably knew about it already. He was in there for days, there's no way he didn’t know what I took just based on what was missing.

Which isn’t that big of a deal.

Outside of some random and baseless speculation in the Tomb, no one really thinks I can be the thief Arke was looking for anyway. I’m alive, and obviously not some kind of undead and tainted zombie the world thinks the thief is.

“Here.” Arya tossed him a scroll, and at the same time, pulled him free from his thoughts. “If you’re going to stay behind, hold onto it until you only have a few seconds on the clock. That way you can leave the moment you touch the next scroll.”

Snatching it out of the air, Luke nodded gratefully. Then pulling a scroll from his robes, unfurled both of them and laid them atop of each other.

Instantly the arrows melted away and in their place, showed a timer. A nifty feature Ella had discovered a few days ago.

For Luke, it read: 17H:42M:14S

“A little under a day left.” Luke sighed. Then rolling both of them up stuffed the pair into his robes. They had been passing around the scrolls so that they all roughly had the same amount of time left. It wasn’t precise to the second, but close enough for their purposes that they didn’t mind.

“Don’t worry about passing it around for today. We’ll manage the other three pairs to make sure the rest of us stay on time. We’ll stay until this time tomorrow so you get some sleep too,” Thesues said. Then pointing to the still sleeping Spiros and Ella, with a grin on his face, he soaked them to the bone with a deluge of freezing water.

A second later a veritable storm of monsters rushed into their campsite, and once again, they began to fight. Hacking, slashing, and tearing to bits every monster that came close with practiced ease.

For the last time in the trial, before they would truly be forced to compete.