Chương 266: Chapter 263 - Epics and The Creators

A proper debate was funnily enough, not that different to real combat. You had your opponents and you needed to anticipate their next actions. Fetterue would say that he should balance growth with his immediate situation at hand. The [Student] Darrel would argue that Ryan had enough potential and he needed to maximize survivability. It wouldn't always happen, just like Zedart wouldn't always come at you swinging down, but it was a stance they preferred or defaulted to.

And just like practicing for real combat, the best way to defeat them was to anticipate their arguments. See it from their side and prepare a counter. He deflected an argument based on power and potential. There was no lack of power or potential in his build. He had not even started to merge his Epics yet nor had he unlocked half of his Epics true abilities. The current situation at hand was covered by the fact that he was going to go to Pinkie and use [Class Change] on her.

None of the skills would change his capabilities when there'd be ascendants to his side. Survivability? That was a little more difficult to parry. Ryan still had weaknesses that he couldn't just ignore. Passing out against the Noxweed plant had shown him that. Though he chose a different argument in mind.

"Poison resistance is much easier to obtain through enchanted jewelry. It's shown to have minimal achievement loss too. At the very least, Sector Six doesn't have too many of those problems." The final question was maneuverability. He would need an aerial skill sooner or later… he just wasn't sure how to get an Epic maneuverability skill offered to him. It was the old anti-magic acquisition conundrum. The best way to get offered a higher rarity skill was to have a precursor of it…

which was unfortunate if you wanted to maximize your skill selection. Adventurers often did compromise by picking Uncommon skills and then Rare skills and then finally hope for an Epic after using the Rare version in The Realm. Ryan did have [Aerial Maneuverability] offered to him and it was a tempting pick. Especially considering he did not have a class that was tailored to rising his chances of an Epic aerial skill. [Veilpiercer Assassin] or [The Rogue Adventurer] had little to do with fighting in the open skies.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried either. Always jumping off of tall buildings and leaping high into the air to deliver a critical strike, it wasn't because it had been cool and he was showing off. Okay, it wasn't just because it felt cool as hell to jump headfirst off a building. Perhaps if it was before the sixth Trial he would have taken the skill. Unfortunately he was not that person anymore. You have selected [Fearless Cutdown] (Epic) [Fearless Cutdown] Level 0 -> 1!

Trial Skill Slots 6/7 Ryan as of now had real confidence in himself, confidence that he could learn even a Rare [Aerial Maneuverability] on his own, without the Trial System. It was the difference in having actually felt and seen the foundation build around him. He knew he could learn it. So… he went with a skill that actually covered both offense, defense and an emergency. Yes. After some rigorous debates with the researchers they had come to a conclusion. One that had been hidden in the text of the skill itself.'

Lets the user commit to an action with no hesitation, enhancing the strike to a relative degree based on actual danger, and overall stakes of the encounter.' It would be stronger the more in danger he was, it would also scale depending on the overall stakes of the encounter. If he was out of aura, if he was at his last moment, or if the stakes were high enough, his power would spike—and it could flip everything.

Imagine that, you wore the great Artigan down enough and at his last moment he strikes with a most dangerous strike left. Plus he had seen what the [Dread Revenant] could do when [Fearless Cutdown] used in conjunction with [Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation]. He also had a feeling they might be able to be merged together. So potential as well. And… as if picking that skill had tipped over the invisible scales, the Trial System gave him a notification. Title: Strongest of the Sixth Realm (Epic) Obtained!

Ryan grinned at the confirmation. Finally. The [Dread Revenant], Ryan's dumber alternate self that had been dreamed up by the Manager, had once obtained the [Strongest of the Third Realm] title after picking all of his rewards in the safe zone. Now the real Ryan had done the same, except he still had two more rewards waiting for him.

"Still no [Undisputed] title. I wonder what I'll have to do to get that one." Ryan could not imagine the Passive Tyrant being stronger than he was now. But that was how the title worked. It had to be without dispute, and that… was really unfair for those that came after. Ryan sighed but moved on. Trial Skill slots: 6/7 Additional Trial skill point allocation selected! One S+ Trial reward selection remaining! This one… he was less confident about. It could end up being a grave mistake but… he had to pick it.

The idea of it being maxed out and learned was too tempting not to pick. You have selected [Chaotic Flux] (Epic) [Chaotic Flux] Level 0 -> 1! Trial Skill slots: 7/7 Ryan felt nothing different. Then he felt the passive activate—warning him. Pop. It wasn't like the ringing horn of a [Dangersense] that told you you were in danger, it was more like a quiet pop of the joints when you stretched.

A little unnerving when you first felt it but then— This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Pop. [Chaotic Flux] Leveled up! [Chaotic Flux] level 1 -> 2! What? Pop. Pop. Pop. pop. pop. pop. pop. pop. pop.

"What the f—" Pop. [Chaotic Flux] Leveled up! [Chaotic Flux] level 2 -> 3! Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop!

"Ah! What the fuck!?" That last one shook him. It was like someone had pulled his entire body all at once until they felt the unnerving sound of all of his joints popping at the same time. [Chaotic Flux] Leveled up! [Chaotic Flux] level 3 -> 4!

"What the f—" Pop. Pop.

"What the f—" Pop.

"Stop!" Pop!

"Ah!" It wasn't painful per se. It just felt wrong, like how it used to feel when you cracked your knuckles for the first time. Ryan shuddered as he looked around. No more popping and no more levels. You couldn't just do the same thing over and over again and expected to level the skill.

"Well, if that's uh—" Pop.

"Fu—" Pop. Ryan's eyes twitched. Then he groaned. The Manager wasn't actually helping him grind the skill at all.

"It was a trap wasn't it?" Pop." Motherf–" Pop! Ryan had figured it out. [Chaotic Flux] popped him whenever someone tried to predict or 'settle' his future. Unfortunately, the Manager, as bored and worthless as it was, could trigger [Chaotic Flux] constantly. It could be a fatal distraction in a battle if the Manager wanted to act so petty.

"This is for all of those coinflips isn't it?" Pop.

"Goddamn—" Pop!

"Motherf—" Pop.

"Are you going to interrupt me every time I swear?" Pop. Ryan rubbed at his temples. He was starting to get major buyer's remorse from picking this skill.

"One pop for yes, two for no?" Pop.

"Are you going to do this while I'm in combat?" Pop. Pop… pop.

"No and yes? Maybe?" Pop.

"You piece of sh—" Pop. Ryan sighed. Pop. The problem was that he had no idea how to turn off the skill. He could turn off [Dangersense] and [Unrelenting Aura of Intimidation] but that was only after having learned the skill. He also knew from experience that the higher the level the skill the more difficult it was to learn.

"Tell me is this skill even impacting you?" Pop. That was good at least. He'd been worried that the Manager's barrier would prevent the skill from working on it, like it had done when the [Dread Revenant] used [A Ruinous Insight] on the Manager. This skill however, was not targeting the Manager but the cost of using predictions entirely.

"Did you tempt me with the note, knowing your life would be harder with the skill?" Pop. Ryan shook his head. Now that was truly petty. He kicked the tea table and couch in retaliation. Both of them went flying and shattered against the safe zone's walls. He hadn't been planning on doing it but it was practically tradition at this point. 4 minutes remaining Ryan needed to move on and consider his next actions.

He had originally been thinking about using [Return to Earth] and give Milock a heads up but thought better of it now. He could not stay in the safe zone given that [Return to Earth] had a five minute cast time. Besides, his friends knew the plan. Milock knew he was going to take time to learn the [Class Change] skill. Everything would be fine. Experience and practice of [Class Change] in a dilated time chamber. Selected. No S+ Trial reward selection remaining The world shifted. Or at least it was supposed to.

The broken furniture vanished and Ryan was suddenly in a sea of white. Before he could jump up in alarm the system screen popped up. Exiting Safe Zone Entering dilated time area. S+ rating detected. Maximizing quality of the time chamber for the realm. Time Dilation ratio: 1: 100 Real time remaining. 1. 47 Total Time available for an S+ fifth trial chamber: 147 days You may exit the time chamber at any time through the portals or by using your teleportation skills granted as a Destined.

Note: you will not be able to return to this place should you leave. Entering a dilated time area…

What? There was no time chamber, just a sea of endless white. POP! Ryan shouted this time in actual pain. The biggest alert from [Chaotic Flux] so far hit him. This was nothing like the previous pops from the Manager. It was like someone had held his arms and legs and yanked hard, like you would a piece of loose string and make it taut. [Chaotic Flux] Leveled up! [Chaotic Flux] level 4 -> 5! Holy shit… that had to be a record— Welcome to the time chamber. And finally the time 'chamber' appeared.

It was the same superstructure with a completely alien sense of size. The ceiling was far, far into the sky. Massive pillars supported the 'ceiling,' each of them larger than the largest skyscrapers on Earth. All of it designed to make you feel small. None of it was doing anything for Ryan because his mind was still thinking about the fact that the Trial System had just glitched out.

"Holy shi—" Pop. What had been a little unnerving just moments before—gave him some level of comfort. The annoying pops from the Manager was familiar at least. Ryan said his hypothesis out loud.

"Did the Trial System glitch out because it needed to put in more resources to predict the best Trial orbs for me?" Pop. The Manager confirmed back with a yes. [Chaotic Flux] made all predictions need more resources. Meanwhile the Trial System was effectively a giant intelligence designed to make assessments on Trialist's achievements to pick out their classes, skills and skill orbs. Apparently that assessment included predicting his future. Ryan's future which now required much more resources to predict.

"Should I be concerned at all with my future skill selections?" Pop. pop…. Pop. Another maybe.

"So… the Trial System doesn't have a problem dealing with a single low leveled Epic but it could in the future?" There were no pops this time. Ryan shook his head and took a measured breath to calm himself. It was… a lot to take in at once. To find out that he had a skill that could interfere with not just the Manager's predictions, but the Trial System's assessment. It couldn't be a bad thing, right? He finally turned to the reason why he was here in the first place.

The skill orb—or rather orb dominated the space. Giant, almost true to size of the 'chamber' around them. It was larger than One-Eyed Rick's [Resource Overdrive] orb had been. A number floated above it. 24. 7 Nearly twenty-five days to just witness the orb just once. Almost double the cost of One-Eyed Rick's orb of thirteen days. Again, absolutely unheard of. Though the thing that stuck out the most was the image displayed in the orb. It was… a bar. One man was smiling, leering at another patron. It was such a…

mundane environment compared to the other orbs he'd experienced. One had been a great king warring against a magical city, another had been a cultivator ascending to the tenth realm, the other had been One-Eyed Rick ascending while fighting off the Tyrants in a magical cyclone of his own creation. A bar was weird in its normality relative to the size. Then, as Ryan moved to take a better look at the surroundings in the enormous orb, he noticed another tiny orb that had been next to the giant one.

It had been hidden from the angle he'd been looking from and it too had a number on top. 1. 0 One day exactly to experience it. So small that Ryan hadn't seen it at first and thought it was the only orb available. This time, Ryan did a circle around the orbs to make sure there wasn't another one hiding about. There wasn't. Normally there were at least three orbs to experience in a time chamber. Sometimes many more if you had a lot of time available and the skill was lower in rarity.

The [Class Change] skill only had two orbs the Trial System deemed relevant to his skill training. Ryan stared into the tiny orb, wondering how it was possible that the orb was so tiny. It displayed one shadowy figure and another that had their backs to the orb, they were tinkering at a table that the orb couldn't seem to be able to define correctly. It was constantly shifting as a hunched over figure worked on it. It only costs one day. It's practically a freebie.

Ryan reached out, and the tiny orb enveloped him whole. He had made a mistake. It was not that the orb could not define the table, it was that the table was constantly shifting with concepts that landed from the surroundings. The hunched over figure plucked a concept like Ryan might pick up his phone. They considered it for a moment before putting it into the table in front of it. Ryan could not see what was happening from his angle but he felt it.

Even without [Conceptual Meditation], a class was being formed in front of him. He'd come face to face… or rather face to back with at least one of the creators of the Trial System.