As Astrid had expected, every member of the party hit level 23 on the twenty first floor of the Trials. There were plenty of hobgoblins to kill, and by the time they left the floor, Muti was most of the way to level 24. When finally they took their rest that night, sitting pretty comfortably in the passage between the twenty first and twenty second floors, was glorious. Astrid had made sure to bring the party near a river once each had eaten their fill of freshly roasted shadow leopard. There, she filled a barrel with the water and put it back in her spatial pouch, and on the stairway, where they were all safe, the party had taken turns stripping down and pouring ladles full of water over their heads. Astrid was the first to take her turn, gasping a little as the shock of cold water washed over her.
Reddish brown water coursed over her body, and Astrid roughly rubbed her face. The cool, clean water was a welcome reprieve from the constant faint taste of salt and iron in her mouth. It didn't matter how frequently she swished clean water in her mouth, the sweat and blood that had been caked in her hair and over every centimeter of her skin over days of delving would find a way of running into her mouth before long. Now that she was clean? It was a blessing to dismiss all of her armor and sprawl out on her cot in just her loose shorts and shirt and know she was truly clean.
"We're going to push quickly through the twenty second floor, wall horrors aren't going to be a fight we want to extend for experience, right?" Skandr declared the sentiment more than he asked it, and the rest of the party agreed. "There might be some measure of wandering, though. The caves're a maze and it's an eventuality that it takes a while."
"Well, that's life," Astrid shrugged. "On the twenty third floor, we'll push for us all to get to 24, and see if we can't do both floors tomorrow. The wargs on the twenty third, strong as they are, won't be much trouble."
The party all settled into their positions to sleep, surrounded by the dim light emanated by the walls of the staircase, they knew that sleep would come quickly. Astrid felt herself beginning to drift off when Benedict asked a question that brought her attention back to the conscious world: "Do you ever think about how much things have changed for people in the Trials?"
"Explain," Muti grunted.
"I just mean, the first people who found the Trials. They probably came in and only got to, at most, like the fifteenth floor, right? After all, there's the time limit that the Trials impose, and they weren't going to be nearly as prepared compared to anybody who comes to the Trials these days. Then, maybe they left, came back to try to go back in, and realized they couldn't. Maybe they even went to the wrong tier of the Trial and were killed so quickly they couldn't even retreat in time. Now, decades and decades have passed, and it's become this, a heavily regimented, multinational agreement to let the most qualified people succeed and strive for the depths."
"Do you mean anything by asking this?" Felix asked with a grumble.
"I mean, not really. It's just a thought," Benedict spoke defensively. "Just thought it's interesting. Not everything has to have a big reason."
"I haven't had quite that thought," Skandr added, "but I do wonder if the people who push hard and fast in the Trials but don't end up qualifying for the boon end up doing themselves a disservice and dooming their longer term prospects. After all, there are plenty of warnings about not accelerating your path too quickly or you'll keep yourself from becoming powerful. Especially in my case, am I going to end up ruining my future prospects because we're rushing through Iron? A Wizard Class functions and thrives off of taking time to develop more spells, in strengthening your base and doing everything one step at a time. Instead of doing that, I'm blazing forward as fast as I can, specializing in spellcraft and enchantment, but not giving myself enough time to truly understand either of them."
The party went quiet for about half of a minute, until, surprisingly, Muti spoke. "Your strength is undeniable. I do not understand the path of a Mage or Wizard, not truly. There are struggles and difficulties that you will confront that I cannot relate to. One who aspires to a Class such as my own can train for years before they receive their Class. Even one who is raised by a Wizard cannot cast any spells until they are Bestowed a Class, so their Skill offerings are always behind at level 1. After that, it is then a path you must walk that, to my view, must constantly be tempered with deciding when to gain experience and when to improve your Skills. Perhaps the path that you are walking is a difficult one, more difficult than most. If that is the case, you must decide how to stride between gaining levels and experience alongside your fellows with how to solidify your foundation as a Wizard. You do not have my envy, but you retain my respect."
Skandr let out a low whistle. "I have your respect, do I? High praise from our prickly Barbarian."
"Do not allow the praise to feed you: it contains nothing but emotions that may fade in time."
Astrid chuckled as her party devolved into a couple more jabs before they all settled to sleep. All would need to rest to continue on their journey. After all, the Trials were only about to become dangerous.
***
Caelum
"Finally, we can begin delving in truth. After all, why use five when ten will do the job so much better?"
All of his subjects vocalized their agreement, especially the new ones. As his mentors had taught him, the Wandering Trials, and by extension, the Great One, favored the noble Classes. Yes, only a party of five could enter the Trials and only those five would gain the boon, but within the Trials, the little tests to get to the next floor didn't care how many brought their strength to bear. The twentieth floor, inhabited by so-called "bosses", had been easy. Two frontliners, two finishers, and two Assassins had been able to take care of the five ghouls in record time. Yes, the experience gained was thus reduced, but as he continued to familiarize himself with the abilities of each individual, Caelum could separate the wheat from the chaff. If there were some whose abilities didn't further his goals? Then they would be excluded from the party and would gain no experience. And if they died? Then they would die in pursuit of his eventual superiority. It was their honor to do so.
As his subjects guided the way onto the twenty first floor, Caelum let a wide smile cross his face as he mused aloud, "Now, do you think any of the hobgoblins on this floor are intelligent enough to bow to my authority?"
***
"There are three on the roof!"
"Muti, you couldn't have given me more of a heads up?" Astrid shouted back as the wall horrors she and Felix were already dealing with pressed in harder. She'd let one wrap around her shield, but now that other others were threatening her back line, she needed to deal with it quickly. The strange creatures were something like a physical representation of a child's nightmare—long, spindly limbs, and a too-wide mouth full of teeth that rotated like saw blades. The wall horrors blended in perfectly with the walls of the caves they lived in and held onto the walls by the long spikes that covered their backs and the backs of all six of their limbs.
Maybe she shouldn't have called the spiky halves their backs, because, as soon as they dropped down from the walls, they turned around to face their enemies. Their mouths on the top of their heads gaped as they lunged towards whoever they could reach. Spiky arms sought to wrap around their prey while their mouths of whirling teeth sawed through flesh.
Astrid dismissed her hammer, raised her fist, and channeled Spectre Burst in it as she smashed her fist into the monster's face where it menaced her own. The kill notification flashed in her eyes, letting her know that the beast was level 25. She whipped her left arm through the air, sending the limp corpse flying towards its fellows as they fell from the roof.
"You've got these, right?" Astrid didn't wait for a response as she threw herself to support her allies in the back. Felix and Muti would be fine. Astrid's hammer reappeared in her fist as she swung it into the back of one of the wall horrors. Its spines crumpled, but its bones underneath remained hale and hearty as it lunged to wrap Benedict in its spiky arms.
Astrid pushed mana to her greaves to give herself a steady stance as she whipped her hammer through the air towards the next of the wall horror's heads.
***
"You said you've dealt with these before!" Benedict grunted as he danced back. A thick cloud bursting with lightning smashed down where he had just stood, sparks dancing across the two wargs that threw themselves at him. Felix stepped into the opening and cut through sinew and bone with a single swing.
"I didn't realize that you all thought me having experience with a level 6 was equal to me having experience with a level 26!" Astrid's reply was largely lost in the sounds of battle, the howls of wargs filling the air as their claws and jaws scraped against steel.
"This one is at least level 28," Muti reported in an infuriatingly deadpan tone as she leapt onto the alpha's back. "It is displaying a different Skill than the rest of the pack."
"I don't really care about that right now!" Astrid snarled as she whipped her shield at two of the wargs that were harrying her. They lunged back, and she flared Alacrity-aligned mana to push herself forward faster and close the distance. The supernatural balance and bodily control let her step on top of the twisting root that seemed to grasp for her ankle. Her hammer smashed into one of the monster's ribs and it crumpled to the ground.
The warg wasn't dead, but Astrid's work there was done. Someone else would finish it off. She threw herself at the alpha of the pack as it fought to deal with Muti. The other wargs, all much larger than the monsters Astrid had encountered all that time before in Schteldt, were nearly a meter and a half tall. Four dead bodies lay on the ground, and Skandr continued throwing lightning bolts to keep the rest slowed in tandem with Benedict's Hasty Rebuke. In groups like this, with a dozen still-breathing wargs trying to disembowel the party, Benedict was even more impactful than usual. Felix drew the attention of most of the enemies, and, with the monsters weakened and slowed, he could stand in the center of hundreds of flashing fangs without worrying. Skandr and Benedict continued picking off enemies as they could while Astrid let loose and crippled and killed as quickly as she could manage.
"I would appreciate assistance," Muti spoke with a painful casualness that belied the fact that she was mounted on the back of a rampaging horse-sized warg. Her straight blade sword was lodged deep in its back while she attempted to chop with her seax. The monster, however, was tough enough that, without a firm stance, Muti struggled to deal a mortal blow as it leapt here and there. It jumped in the air and landed on its back, forcing Muti to leap away to keep from being crushed.
Astrid stepped forward and activated Spectre Burst as the alpha regained its feet. There were other wargs close enough that she considered extending the strike to hit the others, but decided against it. She swung a crushing under-hand blow into the warg's chin. It yipped in pain and seemed to fight to keep its stance, but as the deathly energy penetrated its skull, it fell, dead.
Greater Warg Alpha slain. 1,400 experience gained, split among party.
Astrid deliberately didn't look at Muti's smug face as the death notification reminded the party that the Barbarian had been correct. Instead, Astrid turned her attention to the rest of the pack the party was fighting. With the alpha gone, its aura that had strengthened the rest of the pack faded and the rest of the wargs were easy enough pickings. Astrid smiled widely and rushed forward into battle. She spent two charges of Immortal Warrior's Body to get herself back to her peak condition before consciously using her stamina, as ethereal a resource as it was, to strengthen her body. It was a strange feeling, but with Power, Fortitude, and now that she was level 24, Alacrity-aligned mana, the general flow of mana and stamina made enough sense to better attempt to imitate Warrior's Ascension.
Her steps seemed to stick to the ground while also gliding exactly where she wanted as she danced between wargs. This pseudo-Skill granted her an inhuman level of coordination and focus, and Astrid laughed with the change to her body. Even without using additional mana or a Skill, Astrid's hammer crushed bone with every swing, and one minute later, the party was done with this latest enemy.
"So would you call us lucky or unlucky after that?" Benedict panted as he asked the question.
"Because we found one of the strongest monsters on the floor without trying? I'd say the jury's out on that one," Skandr said. "Right now? That's a good thing. Later, on other floors that'll actually be very difficult for us? Then I'd say we're unlucky. So, I guess it just depends on how long this goes on for."
The rest of the party took the opportunity to cut ears and fangs from the corpses as Muti stepped a couple meters away to listen for any other wargs. This pack of sixteen had appeared when the party was nearly finished fighting a different pack of seven, so they all had a vested interest in getting a little break. Even Astrid, for the first time, had only a single charge of Immortal Warrior's Body remaining. Sure, she would be more than fine if anything else appeared, but it was strange to now, for the first time since she had evolved to Iron, be in a position like how she'd always been in Bronze. She scoffed at her brief moment of fear, instead pulling up her Status to check how things had changed on this floor.
Status
Name: Astrid
Class: Immortal Warrior (Iron)
Total Level: 24 (12,303/65,000)
Attributes
Current
Per level growth
Power
156 (+44)
+12
Alacrity
103 (+27) [+46]
+9
Fortitude
157 (+59)
+12
Magical Potency
41 (+19)
+4
Self-Mastery
46 (+34)
+5
Acumen
42 (+4)
+4
Astrid allowed herself a smile. Now that she'd crossed the 100 point baseline with Alacrity, she could feel that, altogether, she was a completely different fighter. Even if she wasn't actively pulling mana into her body, having each of her physical attributes past 100 seemed to have changed the way that her body worked on a fundamental level. Mana constantly infused her, every flex of her muscles seeming to be powered just as much by mana and "stamina" as by the muscles themselves. For the first time, Astrid didn't feel like a person, but instead like a creature that was more monster than woman.
The feeling was an uncomfortable one, and she quickly pushed it from her mind.
As she wrenched the fangs from the Alpha's mouth, Astrid looked to Muti, who signalled to the rest that there weren't any more wargs in the immediate surroundings. The others took the opportunity to get into comfortable positions, some sitting on nearby boulders, while Astrid herself stood up and moved through an old familiar series of stretches. The journey through the caves of the twenty second floor had been grueling, and the party had needed more of a break than they'd taken on the stairs to the twenty third. Now, they were paying for that, and Astrid allowed the rest, all except for Muti, a few minutes of recovery. Before long, though, Felix stood and began practicing with his axe. Benedict grumbled something about physical Class "arseholes and slave drivers", but before long, he and Skandr both stood, ready to continue on the delve.
And, with this, couldn't they easily continue on their path, gaining levels without incident before the floors finally got difficult?