The Grand Tournament Read online

  “What does it require?”

  “A drive to go on. The Tower throws everything at you. Monsters, yes, but also tests. It takes all that you are deep down, the truest and the most hidden parts of who you are, and it opens them up for you to see. It pushes your face in it and makes you understand who you are underneath.” Azil’s voice took on a strange note then. Morgan wanted to ask for him to explain, but the look on his face—his eyes looking into the distance—made him hesitate. And just like that, the moment was over.

  Azil turned his eyes back to Morgan.

  “You are not ready for the Tower. I can, however, help you be ready for this tournament,” Azil said.

  Morgan sighed in relief, but then hesitated. He could tell that Azil didn’t really agree with Morgan’s choice. “Why do you want to help me if you don’t approve?”

  Azil crossed his arms across his chest, not answering immediately. “I see myself in you. Not in the way you act, but in the things that you want to accomplish. I have been that naive once too. Perhaps if I had someone to teach me, to be hard on me, I might have prevailed. I might’ve ended up looking in the mirror and liking what I see.”

  Morgan wanted to ask more, but Azil raised his hand.

  “Enough of that. We shall eat, and then we will train. I assume you don’t have much time?” When Morgan nodded, Azil continued speaking. “Then we must use our time wisely. Come.”

  He led him back to his house and Morgan could admit that he was looking forward to a meal. He hadn’t had anything warm since the feast.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Morgan was sitting with his legs crossed across from Azil, on the grass behind the man’s home. For the first time since he had started teaching Morgan, he had asked that Morgan explain all the skills, abilities, and access to resources that he had. Then he asked that Morgan explained what exactly his vision for his future, his class, and combat style was. Morgan had only ever discussed this with his friends, and they hadn’t really understood. They knew and were used to the classic classes, fighters, rangers, mages, and variations on them. Sure, hybrids existed, but Morgan was building a kit that lent itself well to planning in advance and having answers for the unexpected. It was all based on his experiences on Earth, from the games he played. He had always liked playing characters who could thrive by being prepared, those who had to research and then execute plans quickly. He hadn’t seen or heard anything about a class or build similar to his. Once Morgan was finished, Azil nodded thoughtfully, taking a moment to think before commenting.

  “Builds such as yours are rare, for several different reasons. It requires you to spread your focus so that you can both craft the things that you need and be able to utilize them. As you have said, you specialize in planning ahead and preparing for different situations—this gives you adaptability, but because of it you will never be as good as someone whose focus was completely on a single discipline.”

  Morgan nodded, but he didn’t agree. While Azil was stronger and in many ways more knowledgeable than Morgan, he did not understand the system by which he lived. To him it was only natural, a part of nature itself, a facet of the world given to them by their god. Morgan, though, knew the truth behind the system, and understood that the system was just a means of streamlining and encouraging growth—that it was meant to merely emulate something that already existed in nature. Every ability that the system allowed to be cast with no more effort than a single thought was being facilitated by the soul-implants inside of every ascended, but all of it could be achieved without the system.

  Morgan was bound to the system for now, but he was certain that should he ever reach the end of the Tower, it would not be the same. It might not be able to do much now, but as he continued to evolve his class he was sure that abilities and skills would become available to him that would make his build easier for him to use. The system was designed for it, to help ascended get power. It was its purpose. If his class and chosen build didn’t have the potential to reach the strength that Oxylus needed from the people of this world, then Morgan was certain that he would not have been able to go down this path.

  The system and the Guiding Force that oversaw it allowed many liberties, but Morgan had seen the restrictions. They were there if one knew to look: the ways that everything in this world pushed people to fight and gain strength, enticing rewards, ascension crystals that could extend life, and even the act of ascending to a new level restored a person’s body. It healed them, made them feel powerful. Morgan had realized that the feeling was at least in part addictive, that it made people crave getting stronger.

  “Nevertheless,” Azil continued, “it is not a bad path. Your mastery of the nature alignment and your focus on plants is a good offensive and defensive tool. Your metal alignment, while not as developed, gives you a few different tools to augment your already developed skills. I could spend all of our time teaching you how to utilize the two together, how to create skills and abilities which are hybrids of your two alignments. But I will not do so.”

  Morgan felt his enthusiasm evaporating in an instant.

  “What I will do is one thing that I have avoided so far, and that it give you advice on how to use a few of your abilities,” Azil said.

  At that Morgan perked up. When he had asked Azil to train him, this was exactly what he had been after. The man had simply refused to tell Morgan how he could apply his abilities in combat; instead, he had focused on forcing Morgan to learn every limit that his abilities had. Then he had forced Morgan to train his body, a purely physical training. The truth was that Morgan had never really worked out, and once he had arrived here he had seen an increase in his physical capabilities simply because he put points in it. When Azil had learned of this, he had made Morgan regret ever being born. He had forced Morgan to learn just exactly what his body could do the same way that he had with Morgan’s abilities. The only reason why Morgan didn’t really resent the man was because he had realized just how poorly he had used his own body. From that training he had gotten two more skills: Acrobatics and Lightning Reflexes. He had to admit that they did make a lot of difference in the way Morgan moved and fought. Afterward, Morgan had forced the others to do the same by setting up a mandatory once-a-week training session. Being ascended they didn’t really need to work out every day to retain their gains, but training physically even increased their stats. Morgan had gotten one point of strength as well as one in agility since he had started doing it two years ago. It wasn’t much, but it showed just how much the numbers that he could see on his screen were just a representation of his abilities. He didn’t need to ascend to improve. Although ascending upgraded the body far more efficiently, it was possible to improve it with effort alone.

  But Morgan knew that people would rather gain strength through ascension than through rote effort, a thing that Azil had made clear to Morgan he would not tolerate. Regardless, it put things in perspective for Morgan, and he realized why all the ascended, at least the ones who seemed to know the most, always said that levels didn’t mean everything. Morgan had managed to get Azil to explain that sentiment to him—in his words there were occurrences where a person who was level thirty was defeated by a much lower level monster, simply because while the ascended might have had higher stats they didn’t know how to properly utilize one hundred percent of that power, while the monster did. The same applied to battles between ascended.

  “What kind of advice?” Morgan asked when the man didn’t speak for a few moments.

  The man looked at Morgan thoughtfully, then raised his hand, showing him extended three fingers. “Since you are going to be participating in this tournament I will focus on combat against other ascended. You possess three very powerful abilities, if used correctly. Your most powerful ability is without a doubt Phase Shift, the upgraded version of Arcane Shift—a defensive ability that can become much more if used properly. Arcane Shift is a common enough ability, making you invulnerable to most abilities or attacks, but not all. Ph
ase Shift is another matter. It is powerful, but also incredibly dangerous if not used properly.”

  Morgan nodded. He already knew the biggest drawback of the ability: his inability to perceive his surroundings while it was activated. The ability had evolved when he had gained his Gravitic Stomp ability, which Morgan now suspected Azil had always wanted Morgan to have. He had forced him to do sit ups with great weights on his shoulder while he probably increased the gravitational pull around him. Then, when for a single moment the gravity increased so high that Morgan couldn’t take it anymore, he had activated Arcane Shift in the hopes that it would give him respite, but it did nothing, and all he could think was that he wanted to be free of everything. He had rarely been brought to the edge as far as he had in that moment, and his ability evolved such that he could free himself of Azil’s influence. He panicked when that happened, the sensation reminding him of what he felt when he died, so he didn’t think to turn off the ability. Instead, he depleted his energy, became corporeal again, and collapsed. He woke up a few hours later with Phase Shift, and Gravitic Stomp now available to purchase.

  Azil had only intended for him to get the Gravitic Stomp ability, Morgan believed, even though he hadn’t ever confirmed that. Morgan knew that Azil said that he didn’t want to mold Morgan’s class, but he probably couldn’t help himself. Still, that had been the moment when Morgan had confirmed that Azil had the metal alignment. He was certain that he had more—at least one more, like Morgan. He knew little of Azil’s abilities, but he did know that the man could somehow bend space, that he could make at least short-range teleports, and could just make objects disappear, as he had done during their duel. Morgan again assumed that he had just warped space and sent his arrows elsewhere. Later, when Morgan had realized what Azil was doing, and after a few of their talks where the man talked about using several alignments together, did Morgan gotten the idea that Azil’s ability might be a result of using several alignments in combination—he just wasn’t sure which ones.

  Morgan had tried to experiment with combining his alignments. He knew that it was possible, and he could feel the power of both alignments inside of himself, inside his core. There was a swirling mass of green combined with black that was nature, and a much smaller mass of silver—or at least that was how it appeared to his inner sight. He had little success in his attempts.

  Azil was right. His ability was powerful, especially since it retained the momentum he previously had and he could theoretically keep it on forever. It was an energy-hungry ability, but it didn’t have a limit like Arcane Shift did. As long as he could power, it he would remain intangible. He could also make other things intangible, like his clothes, but that took energy as well. The further away something was from his body, the more energy it required. Keeping his clothes on himself and making them intangible took very little energy in comparison to something that was even just an arm’s length away from him. While Morgan could see many applications of Phase Shift, he was a bit hesitant to use it as he couldn’t use it for long. He was too weak.

  “It could help you avoid any strike, make you invulnerable to the most powerful of abilities. But the danger is in your opponent realizing what ability it is,” Azil said.

  “How so?” Morgan asked.

  “I doubt that it will be much of a problem for you in the near future, not unless you face a truly formidable opponent who knows of this ability. People who don’t know about it could still infer what it does based on what they see, however. Imagine you dodging your enemy’s most powerful abilities with this ability, but then they realize what it does and that you can’t keep it on forever. Because your body remains visible, they will simply use an area-of-effect attack. Imagine you using Phase Shift, dodging an attack that was a feint designed to get you to activate the ability. Since you can no longer perceive what is happening around you, your opponent needs only to fill the area around you with, for example, fire. You will become tangible again inside of it.”

  “I can’t come out inside of anything that has substance. It is all expelled outward around my body,” Morgan said. He had worried about getting stuck inside a wall, but it wasn’t really an issue. If the thing had less mass than him, it was expelled out of his body; if it had more mass than him, he was expelled out of it, simple.

  “It won’t matter. You will still be surrounded by fire,” Azil said.

  Morgan could see how that could be a problem. Sure, he could activate the ability again, but if he was exhausted, if he didn’t have any more energy, he would be screwed. “What do you suggest?”

  “Subterfuge, of course. This is what your build is all about: misdirection, tricks, and drawing enemies into traps.” Azil grinned. “First, you should never reveal that you possess this ability, and when you are forced to, you should always try to make it seem like it is the inferior version.”

  “I can understand making it look like it is the inferior version, but you want me to hide it entirely?” Morgan asked.

  “A trump card is only a trump card if no one knows about it. You are not a famous ascended; people will not know your abilities. I will not tell you how you can use this ability to the best of its potential. You are smart enough to do so yourself. I am only giving you advice,” Azil said. Then he curled down one finger, leaving two. “Next is your Mass Transfer ability, another rare ability, and one that I have only heard about. Utilizing it properly could make you a very difficult opponent to deal with. Tell me, what you have been using it for since our last training session?”

  Morgan grimaced. That ability had been a true pain to grasp. He could, for a short while at least, shift mass from one object to another, including himself. He could make himself less dense and transfer that mass to something else, and the other way around. He didn’t see many ways that it would be useful; sure, he could increase his weight and make himself harder to move, provided he had something heavy on hand. Alternatively, he could make himself lighter if he had something into which he could transfer the mass. He didn’t like using it on himself—it felt weird. For other people on this world it was just another ability that did something that they took for granted, like the teleporters, but Morgan knew that he was basically somehow transforming his matter into another kind and adding it to something else, or doing the reverse. The most he could get the ability to work for was several minutes, since he expended a small amount of energy to keep the mass exchanged, and as soon as he stopped providing energy the mass snapped back to its rightful place.

  It still didn’t make it feel any better. He had gained the ability as a result of his experiments with plants and using his metal affinity. With his Herbalism skill he had learned much about plants and ways to cultivate them; he had tried to use his Phytokinesis to force them to mutate and get different kind of plants with different kinds of uses. He tried using his Energy Manipulation to exchange the properties of one plant for those of another; he failed, but somehow he had unlocked the ability. The fact that it was a temporary thing made it useless for his needs, but he hoped that if he used it enough he would get a skill that would allow him to do the same on a more permanent basis.

  “Not for much, really,” Morgan admitted.

  “This is a mistake. You are now utilizing mostly throwing weapons, yes? But even if you still used your bow, it would be useful. Think about increasing mass of an object as you throw it at your opponent—you could do some real damage,” Azil said.

  Morgan frowned. “I doubt that I could throw something that is heavy enough to do damage far, and fast enough for it to be useful.”

  Azil shook his head. “You need to start utilizing all of your abilities, combining them, using them in concert. You have the tools you need to make it work. Think.”

  Morgan couldn’t see how he could do it, but if Azil had, perhaps he was missing something. As Azil pulled a finger down Morgan realized that he wouldn’t elaborate on that topic anymore, which was typical of him. Morgan would need to figure out what Azil meant by himself—a typical
teaching technique from him.

  “The last thing is your Momentum Shift. This one isn’t as rare as the other two, but your variation is most certainly uncommon. Mostly it is utilized by front-line fighter classes; your variation of the ability is more powerful than what they ordinarily have, but the principle is the same.”

  Morgan nodded, but he didn’t agree. He had spent a lot of time trying to get away from fighting on the front lines, and in order to use Momentum Shift he needed to touch the object he wanted to manipulate or steal momentum from. He couldn’t change the momentum of living things, either, which was a bit of a letdown. He had gained the ability with his metal alignment while training with Vall, who had taken metal as his second alignment as well. Vall’s version of the ability allowed him to double the momentum of objects he was touching for an instant. He used it in concert with his sword to do extra powerful strikes. “My plan in every battle is to keep my distance. I don’t have much need to use that ability.”

  “You have designed you style around keeping that distance, but no matter how much you plan it will not always go your way. You need to prepare, and plans about how to handle opponents who can close that distance.”

  “I am surprised you haven’t mentioned any of my plant-based abilities and skills, I would’ve thought you would want me to focus on them,” Morgan said.

  “Those skills are your core, and you have developed them well. There is not really any need for me to offer any advice. What I want you to do is try and find ways to incorporate these three skills into your style. If you manage that, you will become much stronger for it. An ascended is only as good as their ability to utilize all the tools at their disposal. A high-level ascended with the rarest and most powerful abilities can die because they didn’t completely master their abilities, or because they simply hadn’t learned how to use them well.”