Chapter 965 - Dawn of the fifth trial

After her exchange with Bookie, Sofia continued to be laser-focused on the trial preparations. Everything needed to be perfect, as soon as possible.

She spent three days trying out all the new skeletons, including the High Templar that she had just fed Bookie, and getting familiarised with all of them. After that, she turned to her skills again. She properly learned both of the Holy Lich’s spells, [Myriad Eyes] and [Gods Call Thee], and Mr.Scribe was working on adding onto that a new one.

It was the secret spell schematic she had found hidden in the scenery back in the dream of hands when looking for Aphenoreth’s mirror. Even with her helmet boosting her memory, her recollection of the spell was incomplete, as it was just too complex to learn with only the quick glance she had gotten at it.

What she had done was simply leaving a bone schematic of what she remembered on top of a chalk drawing of Knowledge’s rune, right in the middle of her bedroom. It had taken a week before Knowledge made his interest known. The rune started glowing, and two days later, new bone threads had filled up the gap in the schematic’s structure.

Sofia wondered why this god was always so elusive, but she expressed her thanks to the rune anyway before memorizing the complete spell.

It being quite complex and thus likely to take a lot of blueprint space, Sofia did not want to learn it without knowing what it did, so Mr.Scribe was trying to decode it on his own while she did other things.

At the same time, Pareth came back with the fully primed [Gluttony]. Sofia’s plan had been to let him use it for a while as the 50% increased damage the ring provided would make him more versatile, but it turned out that once primed Pareth only received half of the bonus.The ring had the restriction ‘Cannot be worn by gods’. Pareth was technically a demigod, and thus while he could wear the ring, the effects were halved. That being the case, Sofia ended up being the one using it.

Sofia lamented that Pareth had too few magic items and resolved to invest more into his equipment only for him to look at her as if rolling his eyes. After all he had always had free access to Sofia’s money and especially in the last few months, had very liberally taken stone after stone to fund his shopping, getting many good shields fused into his Master Shield.

From his point of view, Pareth was quite pleased with his current progression, having gotten his shield to a level he was happy with, replaced all three souls of his signature skill with better ones, and gotten two new powerful class skills through the keyword system.

The last thing Sofia took care of was checking the influx of gold rings in her shop for the Saint set ring, but alas it was not among the first batch.

With everything in place, and the deadline to the inevitable Phageid invasion looming over the horizon, Sofia announced her departure to her family and friends, and directly left for the next trial tower.

This trial was known not to be a group one, but Astelia insisted on coming along anyway, and to her merit it seemed she was in fact already in peak condition at level 349 despite how recent her last trial was.

This time, Sofia was the one in charge of transportation, transposing to outer space first, locating the region where the tower was from orbit, and transposing there directly. Said tower was quite far remote from the human continent, in the southern reaches of the opposite side of the planet, near Veliadren’s largest mountain range.

Upon landing, it was Astelia’s turn to teleport Sofia a few times until the distance to the tower in their system menu indicated a round zero.

In front of two huge stone doors midway up a tall mountain they supposedly arrived at their destination. Bookie, Pareth and Pestle left the painted halls to join them, and together they observed the wide doors large enough to let a dragon through.

“I guess the Seraph must be busy,” Sofia commented, as the doors were closed and there was no sign of life nearby whatsoever.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“We did get here quite abruptly,” Astelia noted, as it was true that they were still having tea and a snack in Ser’Extra just half an hour prior.

“Right. Are you sure you’re ready, Asty? I already feel like I rushed my preparations.”

“Ready as ever. I can’t let you pull too far ahead or I’ll end up like poor Shaily, too far to even be able to cross the gap.”

“I am glad you’re keeping up, don’t get me wrong. I just, you know, don’t want others to be reckless because of me.”

“Eheh, because of you? Don’t flatter yourself, Sofia! Clearly you’re the one rushing so that I don’t catch up! I have seen through your nefarious plans!”

“Pfft. Considering your speed I think you could actually be the one leaving me behind if I’m not careful!”

“That’s right! Did you hear how Tartaros ascended in about fifty years? We are going to make him look slow, that is the plan!”

Sofia chuckled, “I’ve rarely seen you so lively. Did something good happen?”

“Something good? I wish. Do you think I have time for anything else on top of the leveling and training? I have been thoroughly enjoying that lifestyle, though. Oh! That reminds me, we should be able to start exploring my castle after this!” Astelia said with a smile.

“You castle… Wasn’t that thing a level 400+ dungeon?”

“It is, but you know how these ratings work, 400+ is for the boss. Everything else should be fine. In fact the outskirts of the dungeon is where I went for leveling this time. No lack of monsters around our level there, mostly undead and golems.”

“Undead? I was already sold, but now I’m doubly curious. Want to go right after the trial?” Sofia suggested.

“We have a deal!”

The discussion quickly derailed after Pestle asked whether moon golems were good leg and was eventually interrupted by the ground starting to shake.

In fact, more than that, it seemed that the entire mountain range was shaking, trembling in rhythm like a giant’s heartbeat. Everyone tried to understand where that unnatural shaking was coming from, but it was impossible to tell.

It lasted for about a minute before suddenly stopping. The giant stone gates started to slowly open.

They were barely pushed open enough for a thin strip of darkness to appear between them.

“How ominous,” Astelia commented.

“I don’t feel anything on the other side. But it’s clearly an invitation to come in.”

Astelia nodded, and simply opened a gate leading directly inside. The other side was plunged in complete darkness that even Sofia’s implant eye couldn’t see through.

Sharing a quick glance, everyone stepped in.

As expected, inside was pure darkness.

“Give me a second,” Sofia said, “I know what this is.” A few moments later, a candle appeared in her hands creating just enough light to see the whole group. “I knew it, elemental darkness.”

“This is like the trial already started,” Astelia said, walking to the edge of the light.

A powerful feminine voice came from the darkness, “Are you sure that it has not?”

Sofia summoned her scepter, just in case.

“Ahahah,” the voice continued, “no need to be that tense.”

Two lines of braziers suddenly lit up with blue flames, dispelling the darkness and revealing a long stone tunnel carved directly into the mountain. Standing just a few meters from the group was the source of the voice, a rather cute dwarf lady in heavy-looking asterite armor, with long flowing red hair that almost touched the ground behind her. She was barely taller than Bookie, and wore an oversized golden crown that listed so dramatically to the side that it looked on the verge of falling off at any moment. She held a thick greatsword made of stone resting against her shoulder, it looked at least three times her size.

“Sorry, sorry, I tend to forget that it gets dark here for everyone else. Greetings! I am Skelmie Ironbrow, also known as the Mountain King! I will be your Seraph for this trial!”

The lighthearted greetings came with a terrifying pressure that kept everyone rooted in place. Seeing no one falter, the dwarf nodded with satisfaction, “Good, good… This trial is quite simple compared to the other ones, so there is little to explain. Now follow me!”

Lifting the pressure, the dwarf with the number ‘536’ hovering above her head quickly turned around and started walking. Now everyone was able to tell, it was her steps that made the mountains shake.