The description of the skill didn't change much, as far as Rafe could see. He only had the new feature that allowed him to hurl pieces of his aura, now in a more controlled fashion. It was already a maxed out rare skill, at least by most people's standards, so he should have been able to control it.

  The beasts hadn't been deterred when he'd suddenly started yelling and writhing. They had backed off a bit, but once the process was settled they came back in to feast. Too bloody bad for them Rafe was done playing.

  His new rare aura came flooding out of his body. It pushed some of the beasts back like it was a physical thing.

  The last thing Rafe had tried to learn was to solidify his aura like some of the masters he'd fought before. His ultimate goal was a little more ambitious though. He wanted to use it to support his body, to try and use his aura to move. It would have been cool if it worked on his first attempt.

  Instead, in his aura senses he felt himself flailing like a caterpillar. The beasts were snapping out of their fear induced pause. They were starting to move. Cautiously at first, but they were getting bolder. Rafe cursed inwardly as he started to prepare his aura projectiles. The first beast he hit was sent skidding so far back it disappeared from his aura senses for a while.

  “Huh?” Rafe thought out loud.

  Then he shrugged and shaped his next projectile more carefully. It tore through a beast's limb, not entirely cutting it off but causing a wound Rafe could sense bleeding.

  “Shit!” Rafe thought even as he continued his wriggling attempt to stand.

  He was surrounded, but he had a way to fight now. Even with all his determination though, his soul was weak. It lasted a lot longer than it would have before the evolution though.

  And then he had to preserve the last little gas for his experiments later. There was a reason the gods had left the beasts weak. Even in his weakened state, even flailing on the ground as he was, he could take them on.

  It was a long and harrowing battle on the ground. Him biting and clawing and kicking and punching. They piled up on him more than once, but he was functionally immortal.

  It was an hours-long slog. His soul would get back in shape after a few intervals, and he'd always be ready to massacre the beasts when that happened.

  He used his aura to strengthen his hands first. And then he learned to use it on his legs, then the rest of his body.

  Before he knew it, he was kneeling and he had a sword in hand even if it was blunt. They couldn't pile up on him now. He didn't bother retracting his aura. He needed all the fine control he could spare to lift himself up slowly and kill, and kill and kill.

  When he got to his feet, the room froze.

  His sense of touch returned first. He could feel a cool breeze in the darkness. He tried to move his feet. He froze. They were not touching anything. And now that he thought about it, the wind was moving in an upward direction.

  “Shit! Am I falling?”

  And that's when he realised he could hear again. Not that he could jump for joy. He had been falling for quite some time. Then his sight returned and he started to scream as he fell toward a very bright light.

  ‘Ding’ Side Quest completed.

  Floor objectives completed.

  Assigning rewards.

  Rewards: 10 Quest Points, 1000 credits, F-grade elixir(legendary), 2 luck points, 2 int points, 1 wis point.

  Rafe frowned at the somewhat more generous than usual rewards, disregarding the Quest Points. He didn't even know what they did. He appraised the elixir.

  Elixir(legendary). A miracle cure for most mortal ailments, even restoring damaged life force and mental damage.

  It was convenient for now. But what would happen when Rafe needed to upgrade a skill all the way to legendary and beyond. Rafe decided he'd rather use the elixir later than just then. He'd only lost a few days if that, and he had more years of life than he would have had without the system.

  And then there were the stat points he'd received. He looked at his status screen, his brows shooting up.

  Intelligence 19-23

  Wisdom 22-25

  Paranormal: Luck 19-21

  Mana 220-250

  Even before the system's meager contribution, it seemed like his stats had jumped a little since he'd seen them last. At least by two points each.

  Rafe touched his chin in thought. “So that's how I was growing my stats in the trial even though I couldn't level? Training is a way to increase stats. Understanding skills is a way too. Huh? Go figure.”

  Now, if only Rafe didn't have to worry about that whole stat cap thing Noid had told him about, he'd be golden. He had a lot of ways to improve his stats, what with how quests were starting to reward him stat points every once in a while. He also knew there were special treasures he could get his hands on now he had a reliable source of income. That is, if these so-called credits were indeed the currency of the multiverse. He wasn't sure of that yet.

  He also had to consider the other thing about his new elixir friend. It could cure mental illnesses. Rafe knew it was not a jab at him. He had been stuck in a dark and quiet and lonely place for gods knew how many subjective years. He considered taking the elixir, just to make sure his head was screwed on right.

  A scintillating smell hit him then. His head snapped up at once, finally studying the waiting room he'd ended up in. It was an idyllic fairy forest. That caused Rafe's mind to blank for a second.

  He wasn't even surprised to see the shiny little people bobbing up and down on flowers.

  It was breathtaking. The way the light bounced off carefully placed dew drops, and the way the blue water in a clean pond a ways away reflected the light. And then there was the stone slab plopped up like a massive dining table. There was only one chair next to it. And on top of it lay a feast for hundreds.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Rafe's tummy grumbled. He hadn't been able to feel it on the previous floor, but he was starving. How many years had he gone only depending on essence to survive?

  He didn't know how long he'd been on the second floor, but he needed some real food in him soon. The beauty around him was forgotten. When he sat down to eat, his dirty hands shocked some sense back into his head. He looked at the pool of shimmering blue water, the looming trees curtaining the clearing, and the little twinkling creatures who pretended they hadn't noticed him. It was a great time and place to have a bath, after he'd finished stuffing himself with food of course.

  ****

  “You're bribing him now?” Sam asked, rubbing her brow in agitation.

  “Of course not! I just need him in the right mind state as he heads closer to the fourth floor. You know what he'll have to do there,” the enchantress said.

  “The fourth floor will prove not to be too challenging for my disciple, of that I can assure you. We should be more worried about the fifth—”

  “Your pupil has performed admirably, Noid. We are all very impressed,” Enith told him. “You cannot make light of me, however. You cannot make light of my accomplishments.”

  “She doesn't have your accomplishments,” Noid said.

  “She will someday,” Enith fired back.

  “Or she'll try to do the opposite of what you did. Destroy the multiverse instead of save it,” Sam commented. “Such a misguided child. Honestly though, I'd bet on Rafe any day.”

  “Do not forget the others have levels on him,” Sendriel spoke up for the first time in a long time.

  “Yes,” Liam chimed in, looking at Enith with a frown. “What, pray tell, will he be doing for the next floor?”

  “We'll see whatever he chooses. He deserves to rest a little after such a performance, don't you think?” the enchantress said.

  They kept watch as the boy rested two whole days. They wouldn't have blamed him if he rested a whole week, a whole month even.

  “Now,” the enchantress said, rubbing her hands together, “I wonder what he'll…huh?”

  “What is it?” Noid asked, worried.

  “He chose green.”

  “What's wrong with that?” Sam asked.

  “Well, let's just say we get a kind of preview.”

  The others all blinked at her, confused. Then Sam frowned, looking back into the void. The others followed suit. It was Liam who ahhed first.

  “Why does he have such rotten luck for having already unlocked his luck stat and even improved it a little?” Noid said with a groan.

  ****

  Rafe opened the green gemmed stone door to a wide entry area. There were two doors. Rafe frowned. The third floor configuration he'd chosen looked like a safe room from what he could tell. Although it had only two doors without gems in them.

  “I wonder what I ought…”

  ‘Ding’ Side Quest received.

  Objective: Ally with an enemy team.

  Reward: Quest points, Credits.

  Floor objective: A team oriented competition.

  Hidden objective: Form a strong bond with at least one of your teammates.

  Seeing a floor objective had him tensing. Was this another special floor like the one he'd been in before.

  “Hmmm, I wonder where my team Is?” Rafe said, looking around with a frown. “Oh right, I'm doing this tower alone, damn quest system.”

  A snort sounded from one of the dark corners of the room. Rafe jolted and looked around, trying to locate the sound's owner. He wasn't quite able to, until he had a bit of murmuring.

  “...you led him right to us!” someone was whisper-yelling.

  “He is going to be on our team anyway,” a calm voice spoke.

  It was a calm and collected baritone. A strong looking man - or maybe a tall and gigantic boy - stepped forward. He had his large arms folded across his entirely too large chest.

  “Hey,” he greeted Rafe with a nod. “I am Aska Ralle.”

  “I only laughed cause he thinks he's the one doing the tower,” a girl was saying, her voice dripping with mirth. “Hey,” she said when she reached them, “You can call me Devila, the enchantress.”

  Rafe frowned as he went to shake her proffered hand before he froze. He looked at the girl's face. It was her. He'd seen her before. The girl who had been studying the vision at almost the same time as him, studying and speaking with the enchantress. And she had just called herself the enchantress.

  She was a short woman, tiny, just like the enchantress herself. She had brown hair and a plain looking face. One of her eyes had been replaced with one that looked birdlike, and she wore baggy witch's robes which swirled a little in the semi-mobile air.

  She had what looked like a leather rope or chain with spiky bits on it fastened onto her belt loop.

  “You are the enchantress?” Rafe asked.

  “Her best student,” the girl said proudly, gesturing at herself as she closed her eyes.

  “I'm the heiress of her legacy. The greatest legacy in the whole damn trial and the multiverse to boot.”

  “Yeah, and she won't shut up about it,” the second girl, this one a blond with red eyes and a hint of scales on her otherwise human skin. “I'm Quinsia. Yes, before you ask, one of my parents was scaled. So, you're one of our team members.”

  “Rafael Kingsley,” Rafe said in introduction.

  “Why do you have all your things strapped to you like that?” Devila, the enchantress’ heiress apparently, asked. “Didn't the thief give you a storage skill? That's all she's good for.”

  Rafe did not like that one bit. He did not show his displeasure though. That was sure to cause a lot of tension in the group.

  “She did, in fact, give me a storage skill. Or at least the idea of how to gain one,” Rafe mumbled the last part quietly, hoping Sam had been right in all her assertions.

  “Then use it. You're going to make us all look bad. Whose trial did you even go to? The First’s?” she asked with a frown.

  Rafe didn't see any reason to hide his master's identity. These all seemed like trial takers, so they probably knew a lot about the gods anyway. Keeping it secret from them somehow didn't make sense.

  “I went with Noid's trial.”

  The young heiress to a god scrunched her nose up in barely concealed disgust.

  “No wonder your blessing seems somewhat denser, more concentrated than mine. It must be because the trial is unpopular. He must have had no one to bless until you came along.

  “You're not even a real swordsman. A hammer? A spear, a saber? Why would you even…great! My team sucks!”

  Rafe blinked at the venom in the girl's tone.

  “Don't listen to her, Rafael. She is not so easy to get along with,” Aska said with a frown aimed in the girl's direction.

  “Yeah,” Quinsia agreed with her teammate.

  “Okay…” Rafe tried to do just as they said. “So which legacies did you all get?” he asked the other two.

  Aska, his arms still folded over his barrel chest grinned. “I went with the third. Master Grenderel all the way.”

  Rafe blinked. The big man was a mage. It was a bit of a shock.

  “I am a healer,” Quinsia said. “I went with mistress Xamanthia.”

  That was even more surprising. How did she figure a light magic specialist going to a shadow queen was a great idea? Besides, she seemed to have some beast blood, so heading to Sendriel just seemed like common sense to Rafe. He was about to comment when a sharp loud voice boomed through their locker room.

  “The first step: destroy all that stands in your way. Only ten teams can leave this stage. If you lose even one member, your team is done.You have a three day time limit. After one week all teams will be eliminated.”

  “Great,” Devila groaned, looking at Rafe with ill-concealed venom. “If you cost us this, I will end you. Let's go.”

  She didn't look back as she headed for a door at the back of the room.

  “Who made her our boss?” Quinsia asked. “And why does she keep saying she is the real one? She even laughed at Rafael’s assertion of being a real person. It's obviously me who's real.”