Mila
“Alright.” Nana Xara’s voice was different than normal, sounding almost awed. “That was impressive. Stupid, but impressive.
“I’m pretty sure that girl is going to come first in this trial, but the two of you together managed to beat her.”
While Krysta talked with Aalam, Mila had run over a hundred kilometers away and then charged up one of the three D rank talismans Aalam had managed to steal from the undead empire in Trial VII, the only one with enough range to attack from such a distance. They’d wanted to wait and let the plague they’d released drain Krysta's energy more before they fought, but she’d been aware enough to attack first and Aalam had almost died.
Without him extremely, extremely stupidly raising his Law Larva of Multi-Dimensional Geometry to high grade and then sacrificing his own defense to create that one instant of psychic shock, Mila’s attack would have failed and, even as it was, Aalam had still died.
As he was already cut into three pieces, and thus going to die anyway, he didn’t do anything to protect himself from the Dragon Breath talisman when its fire reached him and instead used everything he had to keep the Left Hand of the Runescribe from getting damaged so he’d be able to use it in the next fight.
As a matter of fact, he’d died before Krysta, though thankfully it was unlikely the girl had noticed, what with her being burnt to death at the time, so the illusion that Aalam was a cultivator and not a monster familiar was still intact.
Aalam she was pretty sure hadn’t realized it, but that girl had been starting to fall for him, and she had enough clout to make their lives difficult if she’d known more information and asked her mother, a very politically connected A rank Alchemist, to try and figure out who Aalam was based on actually accurate information.
Sighing to herself, Mila ran up to Aalam’s body. Then she took the Left Hand of the Runescribe and started to loot all the cultivators who’d fallen in the battle royale, the level of artifacts she received far higher than during the previous two royales, though nothing which would drastically change how either she or Aalam fought.
Then, when the hour was up, the System notification arrived.
Congratulations!
Battle Royale III over. Calculating rewards.
You had the most royale points.
You were the only living cultivator remaining. Hidden Achievement I received.
Reward: Total Accumulated Trial Points X 1.5
Current Total Accumulated Trial Points: 1,304,205,215,474,378,178
She was left alone for around half an hour. Then Aalam again appeared next to her, somehow not shocked from having experienced being burnt to death, which was scary. He then sat down on the ground and immediately raised his Law Larvae of Temporal Acceleration and Matter to high grade as well, allowing Mila to make use of the extra stat points.
“You should have just taken the loss.” Mila sat down next to him.
“I know.” Aalam shook his head. “That was stupid and it will now take me a lot longer to advance to E rank.”
Just like with Yin Yang Cosmology, the Twelve Element Primal Code required balanced Laws in order to practice, so, to advance to E rank in an ideal state, Aalam would now have to bring all 36 of his Law Larva up to high grade so he could establish his foundation with the technique, assuming they managed to get a copy. And, as Mila’s second class was dependent on Aalam advancing first, this meant Mila was blocked from advancing to E rank as well.
More of immediate concern, he wouldn’t be able to advance his Heavenly Spark Pure Soul racial ability to Heroic grade until all his Law Larvae reached high grade as well, and that meant he, Mila, and Isaiah wouldn’t get the resulting Soul, Attunement, and Affinity increases which would have made advancing all their Laws easier.
“On the bright side, you probably have the highest seed for the tournament portion of the Trial Tower which is about to start,” Nana Xara sent, and Mila relayed her words to Aalam.
“True.” Aalam nodded and took a deep breath, his Law Larva of Tranquility rising to middle grade.
With that Law rising, the only Law Larvae he had left to raise to middle grade were Storm, Fission, Fusion, Bonds, and Severing. Bonds and Severing he was deliberately saving for last as, with Mila's help, they were pretty easy to advance. Fission and Fusion he just hadn’t been focusing on. But, if there was one Law which would trip Aalam up, it would be Storm.
Of Aalam’s 36 Laws, the ones which matched him the least well were Storm, Passion, and Tranquility. As a Strong Soul Incubus Prince, however, while he had strong affinities with all Laws, his affinity for emotional Laws was slightly higher, allowing him to advance Passion and Tranquility as easily as the Laws he was personally better at.
Then they had another day of rest and they just sat there, both meditating, pondering on Laws, and resting. When the day was up, the world around them then vanished and they appeared in the void.
Congratulations!
You have completed the second section of the Trial Tower and it is now time for you to compete with your peers one on one.
Trial Tower Tournament Round I is starting.
Randomly generating competition.
Puzzle competition chosen.
You and your opponent will each appear in a different trial instance where a puzzle of runes and magic is blocking your entrance into a vault holding copies of all your opponent’s possessions.
The first to gain access to the vault wins and will have their trial points doubled.
They both appeared in a relatively dark room, the only source of light some luminescent moss on the ceiling, and behind them was a hallway, which their senses showed led up to the surface of a planet.
In front of them was a large intricate circular stone door on which Mila could see quite a few runes, and, with her Omniglot Reader racial ability, she could read the runes said ‘Yang Over Yin and Advancement You Shall Win’.
She then told that to Aalam, who’d been looking at the mana flow pathways inside the door using his Crafter’s Senses and Spacetime Sensing skills. Then Aalam immediately did something with Runescriber through his Mana Domain skill and the door started opening.
All in all, opening the vault took them about two seconds.
Congratulations!
Trial Tower Tournament Round I is over.
You have made it to the top 2048.
Reward: Total Accumulated Trial Points X 2
Current Total Accumulated Trial Points: 2,608,410,430,948,756,356
The round had felt very easy, but for all they knew the other person would have solved the vault in 3 seconds. Given the fact there weren’t any artifacts in the vault at all, however, it seemed more likely their opponent had just been weak, with a much lower Luck stat then either of them, resulting in an even more unfair competition.
From Nana Xara’s description of these types of trials, the battle royale rounds would have been pretty well balanced, so, as three people would pass through each of the instances of the final battle royale, when it came to fighting, she and Aalam were judged to be near the bottom of the second third of contestants.
Given they’d won against the top seed, though, they were probably up against the worst trial taker to make it to the tournament section and their next challenge would be much more difficult.
Between the tournament battles, there was only a twelve hour break instead of a day, but they’d finished very quickly, so they had a total of 13 hours and 47 minutes.
During that time, Mila thought back to how they’d beaten Krysta and, after figuring out what she could have done so Aalam wouldn’t have had to advance his Law Larva of Multi-Dimensional Geometry in order to win, her Law Larva of The Tactician Advanced.
Congratulations!
Your Law Larva of The Tactician has advanced to middle grade.
Your soul is affected by your understanding of Law.
Base Stats +16, Soul +48
A couple hours later, they were moved to the void again and a new System Message appeared.
Trial Tower Tournament Round II is starting.
Randomly generating competition.
Forest Combat competition chosen.
You and your opponent will each appear in a large forest.
The first to kill the other will have their trial points doubled.
The two of them appeared in what seemed like a very old forest of the type which could be found along the northeastern coast of the United States back on Earth, all the trees very large, and Aalam instantly released their plague, the same type used against Krysta and everyone else in the battle royales, while Mila entered into stealth and moved about a hundred meters away from him.
Then they waited, Aalam setting up quite a few traps with his runes.
About twenty minutes later, an elf walked into Aalam’s sensory range. He had shoulder length blond hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin, making him look like a gentleman. The violet robe he was wearing, an Epic grade artifact available from one of the early trials, made him look dignified, and Mila couldn’t imagine he hadn’t been able to find a better one, so it seemed likely he’d kept it just for the appearance.
But he was carrying a huge ax in his right hand, one Mila was pretty sure was Heroic grade, and, from the comfortable way he was holding it, Mila was almost certain it was the artifact he himself had brought in to the Trial Tower.
Aalam waited for the man to get in range of his telekinesis. Then, when the man did, seemingly still not having sensed Aalam’s aura, Aalam activated some prepared runes, sending out a psychic shock, and attacked the man with 36 weapons, most of which were heroic grade.
What happened next, though, was a first. The man was affected for only about the same amount of time as Krysta, allowing three of the weapons Aalam was attacking with to hit him, but the man’s Toughness was too strong, seemingly enhanced by some powerful passive skill, and the weapons, even though all sharp, only left superficial wounds.
Then a shield type skill formed around the man, wrapping him in dense moving air filled with lightning, and the man pointed his left hand toward Aalam, sending out a bolt of lightning almost as fast as Krysta’s spatial slice.
Aalam managed to dodge, moving backward quickly with Telekinesis, but the man started to move forward to match and he sent out five bolts of lightning, one from each of the fingers on his left hand, and Aalam only managed to dodge four of them.
Unlike how quickly the man shrugged off Aalam’s psychic attack, Aalam’s Toughness was nowhere near high enough for him to ignore the almost D rank lightning, and he fell to the ground of the forest as the elf rushed up to him, using the same Storm Steps skill as Isaiah to run through the air, only an Epic grade version powered by a stronger Law and much higher Agility.
Then the elf continued sending out bolts of lightning every second, blasting through trees, and, while Aalam’s armor kept him from dying, he remained paralyzed.
Soon after, the elf appeared next to Aalam and smiled down at him. “You’re a bit too weighted toward Spirit, friend.”
The elf then lifted his ax and, instead of aiming for Aalam’s chest or cutting off Aalam’s head, the elf severed Aalam’s right pinky toe. “Let's have some fun together.”
Please only read at https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/48991/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus and https://www.scribblehub.com/series/461729/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus/. It is free and anywhere else this story has been stolen.
Mila
“Alright.” Nana Xara’s voice was different than normal, sounding almost awed. “That was impressive. Stupid, but impressive.
“I’m pretty sure that girl is going to come first in this trial, but the two of you together managed to beat her.”
While Krysta talked with Aalam, Mila had run over a hundred kilometers away and then charged up one of the three D rank talismans Aalam had managed to steal from the undead empire in Trial VII, the only one with enough range to attack from such a distance. They’d wanted to wait and let the plague they’d released drain Krysta's energy more before they fought, but she’d been aware enough to attack first and Aalam had almost died.
Without him extremely, extremely stupidly raising his Law Larva of Multi-Dimensional Geometry to high grade and then sacrificing his own defense to create that one instant of psychic shock, Mila’s attack would have failed and, even as it was, Aalam had still died.
As he was already cut into three pieces, and thus going to die anyway, he didn’t do anything to protect himself from the Dragon Breath talisman when its fire reached him and instead used everything he had to keep the Left Hand of the Runescribe from getting damaged so he’d be able to use it in the next fight.
As a matter of fact, he’d died before Krysta, though thankfully it was unlikely the girl had noticed, what with her being burnt to death at the time, so the illusion that Aalam was a cultivator and not a monster familiar was still intact.
Aalam she was pretty sure hadn’t realized it, but that girl had been starting to fall for him, and she had enough clout to make their lives difficult if she’d known more information and asked her mother, a very politically connected A rank Alchemist, to try and figure out who Aalam was based on actually accurate information.
Sighing to herself, Mila ran up to Aalam’s body. Then she took the Left Hand of the Runescribe and started to loot all the cultivators who’d fallen in the battle royale, the level of artifacts she received far higher than during the previous two royales, though nothing which would drastically change how either she or Aalam fought.
Then, when the hour was up, the System notification arrived.
Congratulations!
Battle Royale III over. Calculating rewards.
You had the most royale points.
You were the only living cultivator remaining. Hidden Achievement I received.
Reward: Total Accumulated Trial Points X 1.5
Current Total Accumulated Trial Points: 1,304,205,215,474,378,178
She was left alone for around half an hour. Then Aalam again appeared next to her, somehow not shocked from having experienced being burnt to death, which was scary. He then sat down on the ground and immediately raised his Law Larvae of Temporal Acceleration and Matter to high grade as well, allowing Mila to make use of the extra stat points.
“You should have just taken the loss.” Mila sat down next to him.
“I know.” Aalam shook his head. “That was stupid and it will now take me a lot longer to advance to E rank.”
Just like with Yin Yang Cosmology, the Twelve Element Primal Code required balanced Laws in order to practice, so, to advance to E rank in an ideal state, Aalam would now have to bring all 36 of his Law Larva up to high grade so he could establish his foundation with the technique, assuming they managed to get a copy. And, as Mila’s second class was dependent on Aalam advancing first, this meant Mila was blocked from advancing to E rank as well.
More of immediate concern, he wouldn’t be able to advance his Heavenly Spark Pure Soul racial ability to Heroic grade until all his Law Larvae reached high grade as well, and that meant he, Mila, and Isaiah wouldn’t get the resulting Soul, Attunement, and Affinity increases which would have made advancing all their Laws easier.
“On the bright side, you probably have the highest seed for the tournament portion of the Trial Tower which is about to start,” Nana Xara sent, and Mila relayed her words to Aalam.
“True.” Aalam nodded and took a deep breath, his Law Larva of Tranquility rising to middle grade.
With that Law rising, the only Law Larvae he had left to raise to middle grade were Storm, Fission, Fusion, Bonds, and Severing. Bonds and Severing he was deliberately saving for last as, with Mila's help, they were pretty easy to advance. Fission and Fusion he just hadn’t been focusing on. But, if there was one Law which would trip Aalam up, it would be Storm.
Of Aalam’s 36 Laws, the ones which matched him the least well were Storm, Passion, and Tranquility. As a Strong Soul Incubus Prince, however, while he had strong affinities with all Laws, his affinity for emotional Laws was slightly higher, allowing him to advance Passion and Tranquility as easily as the Laws he was personally better at.
Then they had another day of rest and they just sat there, both meditating, pondering on Laws, and resting. When the day was up, the world around them then vanished and they appeared in the void.
Congratulations!
You have completed the second section of the Trial Tower and it is now time for you to compete with your peers one on one.
Trial Tower Tournament Round I is starting.
Randomly generating competition.
Puzzle competition chosen.
You and your opponent will each appear in a different trial instance where a puzzle of runes and magic is blocking your entrance into a vault holding copies of all your opponent’s possessions.
The first to gain access to the vault wins and will have their trial points doubled.
They both appeared in a relatively dark room, the only source of light some luminescent moss on the ceiling, and behind them was a hallway, which their senses showed led up to the surface of a planet.
In front of them was a large intricate circular stone door on which Mila could see quite a few runes, and, with her Omniglot Reader racial ability, she could read the runes said ‘Yang Over Yin and Advancement You Shall Win’.
She then told that to Aalam, who’d been looking at the mana flow pathways inside the door using his Crafter’s Senses and Spacetime Sensing skills. Then Aalam immediately did something with Runescriber through his Mana Domain skill and the door started opening.
All in all, opening the vault took them about two seconds.
Congratulations!
Trial Tower Tournament Round I is over.
You have made it to the top 2048.
Reward: Total Accumulated Trial Points X 2
Current Total Accumulated Trial Points: 2,608,410,430,948,756,356
The round had felt very easy, but for all they knew the other person would have solved the vault in 3 seconds. Given the fact there weren’t any artifacts in the vault at all, however, it seemed more likely their opponent had just been weak, with a much lower Luck stat then either of them, resulting in an even more unfair competition.
From Nana Xara’s description of these types of trials, the battle royale rounds would have been pretty well balanced, so, as three people would pass through each of the instances of the final battle royale, when it came to fighting, she and Aalam were judged to be near the bottom of the second third of contestants.
Given they’d won against the top seed, though, they were probably up against the worst trial taker to make it to the tournament section and their next challenge would be much more difficult.
Between the tournament battles, there was only a twelve hour break instead of a day, but they’d finished very quickly, so they had a total of 13 hours and 47 minutes.
During that time, Mila thought back to how they’d beaten Krysta and, after figuring out what she could have done so Aalam wouldn’t have had to advance his Law Larva of Multi-Dimensional Geometry in order to win, her Law Larva of The Tactician Advanced.
Congratulations!
Your Law Larva of The Tactician has advanced to middle grade.
Your soul is affected by your understanding of Law.
Base Stats +16, Soul +48
A couple hours later, they were moved to the void again and a new System Message appeared.
Trial Tower Tournament Round II is starting.
Randomly generating competition.
Forest Combat competition chosen.
You and your opponent will each appear in a large forest.
The first to kill the other will have their trial points doubled.
The two of them appeared in what seemed like a very old forest of the type which could be found along the northeastern coast of the United States back on Earth, all the trees very large, and Aalam instantly released their plague, the same type used against Krysta and everyone else in the battle royales, while Mila entered into stealth and moved about a hundred meters away from him.
Then they waited, Aalam setting up quite a few traps with his runes.
About twenty minutes later, an elf walked into Aalam’s sensory range. He had shoulder length blond hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin, making him look like a gentleman. The violet robe he was wearing, an Epic grade artifact available from one of the early trials, made him look dignified, and Mila couldn’t imagine he hadn’t been able to find a better one, so it seemed likely he’d kept it just for the appearance.
But he was carrying a huge ax in his right hand, one Mila was pretty sure was Heroic grade, and, from the comfortable way he was holding it, Mila was almost certain it was the artifact he himself had brought in to the Trial Tower.
Aalam waited for the man to get in range of his telekinesis. Then, when the man did, seemingly still not having sensed Aalam’s aura, Aalam activated some prepared runes, sending out a psychic shock, and attacked the man with 36 weapons, most of which were heroic grade.
What happened next, though, was a first. The man was affected for only about the same amount of time as Krysta, allowing three of the weapons Aalam was attacking with to hit him, but the man’s Toughness was too strong, seemingly enhanced by some powerful passive skill, and the weapons, even though all sharp, only left superficial wounds.
Then a shield type skill formed around the man, wrapping him in dense moving air filled with lightning, and the man pointed his left hand toward Aalam, sending out a bolt of lightning almost as fast as Krysta’s spatial slice.
Aalam managed to dodge, moving backward quickly with Telekinesis, but the man started to move forward to match and he sent out five bolts of lightning, one from each of the fingers on his left hand, and Aalam only managed to dodge four of them.
Unlike how quickly the man shrugged off Aalam’s psychic attack, Aalam’s Toughness was nowhere near high enough for him to ignore the almost D rank lightning, and he fell to the ground of the forest as the elf rushed up to him, using the same Storm Steps skill as Isaiah to run through the air, only an Epic grade version powered by a stronger Law and much higher Agility.
Then the elf continued sending out bolts of lightning every second, blasting through trees, and, while Aalam’s armor kept him from dying, he remained paralyzed.
Soon after, the elf appeared next to Aalam and smiled down at him. “You’re a bit too weighted toward Spirit, friend.”
The elf then lifted his ax and, instead of aiming for Aalam’s chest or cutting off Aalam’s head, the elf severed Aalam’s right pinky toe. “Let's have some fun together.”
Please only read at https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/48991/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus and https://www.scribblehub.com/series/461729/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus/. It is free and anywhere else this story has been stolen.
