Chapter 64: The Endurance Trial (Patreon)

Arsen still had his hair pulled back into a bun, emphasizing his high cheekbones as he glanced at Logan. He gave him a shit-eating, missing teeth grin, a grin that said, you’re going to get it, and then followed Asthea into the field, quickly transitioning into a sprint.

Logan stood there and watched, clenching his hands into fists at his sides and scanning his surroundings. No cat-doors were opening in the ceiling, no cannon balls were flying from the sides. Asthea and Arsen were jogging at a steady pace, and soon, Logan saw nothing but their backs.

Huh.

Logan rolled his shoulders and bounced on his feet, stretching and getting ready. Just like after the strength trial, the huge agility increase had effectively wiped away his fatigue, making him feel energized and ready to take on the world.

The problem was, he had no idea what he was getting into.

There was nothing for it. There had to be something else to this trial other than running, but if he waited any longer, Asthea and Arsen would soon be impossible to catch. Logan needed to win this trial, just like he’d won the others. The True Grit Ring was at stake. Arsen and Asthea may be committed to winning, and now, motivated to beat Logan, but Logan was driven by something else.

Lara and the kids weren’t just relying on him, over 5 billion people were. Asthea’s world had already gone through the System Integration; Logan’s was just beginning. That was a hell of a motivation. Different stakes created different drives. It would be like throwing two different people into a competition, and telling one, if you win, you’ll receive a makeover; to the other, if you win, you’ll receive a makeover, save your family, and save billions of people.

There was no comparison.

And he had one huge advantage that they didn’t. They both may be higher leveled than him, Arsen to a massive degree at level 89, but Logan had [Undead Stamina] on his side. Logan didn’t know how high their endurance attribute was, but from [Idiot’s Inspect], he knew that Arsen’s highest stat was strength and Asthea’s was agility. Endurance couldn’t be that high.

That meant he had a chance.

Lifting off with his back foot, Logan went after them, sprinting at first, and then transitioning into a steady jog. He didn’t want to go too fast—this was an endurance trial after all. The name of the game would be to last, last longer than the others.

The ground underneath his shoes was dry, his feet crinkling over dry grass and kicking up dust over sporadic bare patches of sand. He passed gnarly trees and boulders. His first instinct was correct—the field lasted as far as the eye could see. How was that possible? Once again, he was reminded that he was dealing with something beyond humanity’s comprehension. By this point, the impossible should be routine.

Logan was well behind Asthea and Arsen, Asthea’s ponytail streaming behind her.

They couldn’t see him.

Grinning, Logan reached, and as he jogged past a boulder the size of a tire, he willed it inside his spatial collar. Boulder after boulder, he did the same, replenishing his depleted supply. He’d thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the log barrier back in the serpent tunnel, and this gave him an opportunity to rebuild his stockpile.

Ding!

[You have earned one endurance point!]

[Trial Update:

Asthea: 2 Endurance

Arsen: 2 Endurance

Logan: 1 Endurance

Errol: Disqualified

Thorin: Disqualified]

That hadn’t taken long at all. So far, so good. Unlike in the Okanagan, the temperature in this room wasn’t bad—the perfect room temperature for a workout. That meant he wouldn’t have to worry about annoying external factors like heatstroke. Was it possible that Arsen had been lying? Putting doubt into Logan’s mind that there was something sinister to this trial when it just came down to running? Logan snorted. Hell no. By now, he knew to expect the worst.

And he’d been right.

As Asthea and Arsen passed the latest knobbly tree, the ground behind them moved, a large patch of bare sand shifting, tiny grains of sand vibrating. With a plume, the sand exploded in a torrent like something from Dune and…

What the freaking shit?

A monster crawled out of the ground. Sand shifted as metallic, robotic limbs clawed their way to the surface, revealing a massive body and head. Patches of black mold covered it in the shape of stripes, a weird mixture of bare metal limbs and organic material. Shaking its mold-covered green head and spreading a plume of dust, it perked its metallic mold-covered ears and blinked black, oily-looking eyelids, its metallic skull glowing from within with a blue light.

It looked like a tiger. A tiger from an acid trip.

Or a nightmare.

Twice the size of a lion, with thick, meaty limbs. The metallic frame that was bare of mold gleamed and glinted in the glow of the blue bulbs on the walls, reminding Logan of the metal chains.

The monster clawed the ground with thick, sharp looking nine-inch-long talons that dripped with mold, its back end up in the air, a tail swinging back and forth and spraying moldy-particles. At the end of the tail, sharp, narrow spikes stood on end that drizzled with fluid.

“What the hell is that?” burst out Logan.

Asthea and Arsen glanced back at him and took in the monster. Asthea gave him a worried look, but Arsen was grinning with his missing teeth. “Faster, Asthea! Leave Idiot behind so the tiger becomes focused on him to the exclusion of all else. Let’s see him get out of this now.”

That mother—

They’d known.

They’d purposely let him fall back so that they could continue the trial while he became the bait.

The monster shook its head and opened its mouth, panting with a moldy, black dripping tongue.

Was this thing alive? Logan hadn’t tried [Idiot’s Inspect] in the trial until now, assuming the cannon balls had been a System creation.

[Oozing Mold Tiger Mecha Level 65. A System construct designed to slash, stab, and tear victims apart. The Oozing Mold Tiger Mecha can infect its prey with insidious paralytic mold. Against a poor constitution, the mold will leach vitality until the competitor can run no more.]

[Highest Stat: Endurance/Perception.]

Oh hell no.

So they would run and this thing would run after them, slashing and tearing them with its claws. Just like in the agility trial, the person who’d win this would be the one that lasted. That meant he’d have to keep running while the monster ran after him. If he killed it, would it also be like the cannon balls—multiplying?

But if Arsen and Asthea thought he’d met his match, they had another thing coming.

They had forgotten that Logan had a huge advantage.

With [Mimicry Armour], he could become invisible.

Logan kept running, powering past the tiger who was sitting on its haunches, panting and staring. It seemed to grin as Logan passed it, waited a few seconds, before turning on a dime and leaping into the air.

Oh fuck!

The thing slammed to the ground, what had to be over eight-hundred pounds of metallic monster digging deep furrows as it ran after him. But make no mistake, just because this monster was made of metal and mold, didn’t mean it wasn’t agile. Its strides were smooth, steady, and focused. At this rate, it would catch up to him in minutes.

[You have earned one endurance point!]

[Trial Update:

Asthea: 3 Endurance

Arsen: 3 Endurance

Logan: 2 Endurance

Errol: Disqualified

Thorin: Disqualified]

Rather than increasing his speed and wasting valuable resources, Logan continued at a steady pace and then studied the ground. He didn’t have to use the sand in his spatial collar—it was readily available. Latching onto a handful in front of him, he reached, and forced it to slam onto his chest, reforming his armour so quickly he might as well be putting on a shirt. He’d gotten that good at it. Trial and error. There was nothing like becoming an expert while your life was on the line.

Logan rapidly spread his armour, forming it into a cohesive whole. Lastly, he covered his face, his vision sharpening and his perception becoming more acute.

Logan was invisible once again.

Now, all he had to do was keep up his pace and let the monster go after Arsen and Asthea. He could follow the same steps as the last trial. Eventually, he would run out of Karma, and he’d have to collapse the armour, but he could survive a few minutes against the tiger while waiting for—

Holy shit!

The monster had gained on him, and rather than striding past and going after the others, it bashed one huge claw against the back of his thigh. Logan stumbled, barely keeping his feet, but—

He glanced behind him.

It could see him!

Somehow, it could sense him even underneath all his armour! Shit shit shit.

Kicking up his pace to get out of reach of its claws, Logan glanced behind him, hoping that it was a lucky strike.

The monster grinned at him and met his gaze and then let out a bark of excitement, like a dog playing with a toy.

In front of him, Arsen guffawed through his heavy pants. “Let’s see you get out of this one, tricky man!”

“Arsen,” panted Asthea, “you don’t have to rub it in.”

“You bet your pretty little ears I do! He’s due for a beating. At least this way you’ll win one of the trials. Endurance is a good bonus! Your mother will be proud.”

Logan ground his teeth and glared at Arsen’s back. They thought he was done. They thought he’d lost.

Logan would never be done.

Releasing his face armour, he let it pour to the ground in a sand explosion, but then decided to keep everything else for protection while he increased his pace to give himself time to think. The tiger could see him, so his original tactics were out the window. He could try pummeling it to death, but even with his increased strength, he wasn’t sure he’d make enough of a dent to make a difference. Despite the mold, the monster’s frame was made out of that same high-density metal from the chain trial, a metal that radiated an aura that would make a lesser person cringe.

No, there had to be a different solution.

But what the hell could be used against this behemoth?

Logan rummaged through his spatial collar, considering the logs and boulders for a second, but then narrowed his eyes at Arsen’s back. If they saw him take out boulder after boulder from his spatial collar, they’d know it was a higher grade. After seeing the guards’ hostility, he had no confidence that they wouldn’t try to take it.

No, the logs and boulders were out.

He had the guns, but shooting this thing was laughable. The bullets would ricochet and hit Logan instead. As far as the Cursed Rope, that was out since he didn’t trust that it wouldn’t come at Asthea and Arsen rather than the monster.

Logan needed a better weapon. One that was powerful but also under his control. It was too bad that he didn’t have any skills that could…

Wait a minute.

Normally, against a machine, Logan wouldn’t give this a second thought, but the tiger wasn’t just a machine. It was made of organic material as well as artificial.

The mold.

If Logan could deploy [Life Cycle Master] on a raspberry vine, why couldn’t he do the same with mold?

[You have earned one endurance point!]

[Trial Update:

Asthea: 4 Endurance

Arsen: 4 Endurance

Logan: 3 Endurance

Errol: Disqualified

Thorin: Disqualified]

Logan didn’t pay attention to the trial update, too focused on a way forward. [Life Cycle Master] was an epic skill, a skill that he needed to develop. Epic had to mean unlimited, and although it would be tricky, when was anything ever easy?

Logan put on a burst of speed as the monster gained on him, trying to give himself a cushion in order to concentrate.

“Is he down for the count yet?” Asthea panted from up ahead, her pointy ears tilting to the side as if trying to hear.

Arsen glanced at Logan, stumbling as he tried to keep running while looking behind. Sweat was beading down his face and dripping off his nose. “Not yet, but it’s gaining on Idiot.”

Logan narrowed his eyes.

He was getting tired of being underestimated and judged purely on levels and arbitrary System names. By now, hadn’t they learned their lesson?

Filled with resolve, Logan opened his senses and immediately had to dial them back as he was jarred by unnaturalness. Unlike in a normal field, this one was devoid of life. No insects, no roots in the ground. The grass and trees didn’t register, as if they were plastic copies. As if he’d entered into an artificial world, there was a voidness, a blankness to everything. He could sense Asthea and Arsen, both radiating a bright spark of life up ahead, but that was it, there was no—

Hold on.

There was something….

The tiger was like a blip on a radar screen, there and gone. Full of life, then full of voidness. Furrowing his brow, Logan narrowed in on that blip, his senses screaming and his head growing tight as he strained.

The metal frame of the beast was just that—metal. But inside the joints, the mold was alive. If he could make it grow, expand more than normal, he might have a chance, like overloading a leaky faucet, or flushing an engine with too much oil.

Logan focussed on—

Fuck!

While he’d been concentrating, the thing had gained on him again. It swiped his side, its talons so sharp it fractured his armour, splitting the sandstone like cracking a granite countertop. Logan had to devote precious seconds to reforming it anew, strengthening his sandstone exoskeleton and reforming the crack into a cohesive seal.

Putting on a burst of speed, he outpaced the tiger again, giving himself precious distance to get to work.

[You have earned one endurance point!]

[Trial Update:

Asthea: 5 Endurance

Arsen: 5 Endurance

Logan: 4 Endurance

Errol: Disqualified

Thorin: Disqualified]

Logan narrowed in on a mold spore. One spore only. It was a happy mold spore, living symbiotic with the rest of its kind. To the spore, it was satisfied with the current arrangement, with a nice, good perch on the metal beast. When the beast needed more of its kind, it multiplied; when the beast was full, it hibernated, happy, happy in its beast perch.

And then, just like that, he knew what he had to do.

No, you’re not happy, said Logan.

The mold jerked, confused. I’m not?

You’re unfulfilled.

Confusion. Confusion. Confusion.

When the beast is full, it’s empty, said Logan. It has a void to fill. A void in its head, where the glowing blue ball of light resides. It will never be full, always empty.

Empty. Empty. Empty, responded the spore.

Empty? asked the other spores.

That’s it, responded Logan, directing them towards the tiger’s metal skull, empty.

Empty! responded them all. Empty! Empty! Empty!

Working together like a bee colony, they turned to each other, filled with one purpose. They needed to replicate; the beast needed more.

Logan pulled back, panting, this time not from exertion, but from Karma use. What the hell was that? He hadn’t purposely set out to commune with a mold spore; it had happened instinctively, from narrowing his senses, to realizing that for him to get results, he had to communicate on their level. He suspected that if [Life Cycle Master] still leveled up, he would have just received a massive boost.

Now, he didn’t have to direct the spores, they were doing that themselves.