A Novel Concept - A death a day, MC will live anyway!

Account of the Tribulations

Priam Azura, belonging to the human civilization, primogenitor of the Homo Elysian.

Summary:

User tested by a double Tribulation.

Performance:

Thirteenth Tribulation:

Fatal Misfortune Curse

Endured to completion—12 hours.

Top 1 in the Sector Hope this year.

Top 50 000 in the universe this year

Fourteenth Tribulation:

Brittle bones curse

Endured to completion—12 hours.

Top 1 in the Sector Hope this year.

Top 50 000 in the universe this year

Lying in bed, Priam reread the summary of his most recent Tribulations for the third time and sighed. Three weeks earlier, witnessing a godlike Dishnu obliterating his own trials had humbled him. In his own notes, the Juggernaut sounded almost desperate.

[Entry 17:

Today, Dishnu conquered a sextuple Tribulation. Not only did he endure it with ease, he didn't seem to fear them at all. His mission was to elevate the forest. Everything else was negligible.

The fight was impressive, brutal and elegant. The drya used the calamities thrown at him by the System to stimulate the growth of Log-a-rhythm. Mushrooms to trigger Fungal Resistance I, and fire elementals for Fire Resistance I.

When I face my Tribulations, I always focus on my progression. The dopamine rush that comes with each level-up helps me push my limits. I love the thrill of the grind.

Dishnu's running on something else. A higher cause. A deeper calling.
It sounds foolish to write this down, but… what if that is the source of his strength?
Noble ideals and virtuous causes have always been a driving force for humanity. In that light, I'm pretty selfish.

—Excerpt from Priam's journal]

After a day of self-doubt and soul-searching, the night brought clarity. The mental fortitude revealed in the lights of the Tutorial, the obsession honed by the way of the Juggernaut, and the blood of dragons roaring in his veins urged Priam back into the saddle.

He was luckier than most. Gifted with an alien Talent that gave him more second chances than a gambler at a rigged table. Whining about a rival's strength was pathetic.

Dishnu had outpaced him; that was undeniable. But eternal truths don't exist, and pride wouldn't let Priam quit before the end of the race.

So, to prove he still had some teeth, Priam triggered the double Tribulation he had kept in reserve. A bold move—but to be fair, only a week remained before their forced descent. A lot could happen in that time—hell, he had metamorphosed during the Reunion—but lately, his progress had slowed to a crawl.

As his skills climbed the rarity ladder, level-ups had become increasingly spaced out—except for [Ideal Aether Perception] and [High Aether Manipulation]. Worse still, his Constitution was nearing the next threshold, threatening to bottleneck the development of his resistances. Every day he didn't trigger [He Who Eludes Death] felt like wasted potential—made even more unbearable by the thought of his rivals' rapid growth.

That mix of real problems and a subjective sense of urgency led to a premature double Tribulation. Alain and Kazuki had been the only ones to warn him, but Priam—and most of Oasis—thought him immortal. After surviving a quadruple, the Deluge, and then a quintuple Tribulation, a double seemed trivial.

Grave mistake. The Juggernaut almost died for good.

In hindsight, it shouldn't have been a surprise. Math never lies, and Béchar's square formula was brutally clear. The System allocated a set amount of energy to a Tier's first Tribulation. The second had four times more, the third nine times, and so on. For multiple Tribulations, you just summed up the individual energies.

So while the quintuple Tribulation on Proxima had totaled two hundred and fifty-five units of energy, this last double on Valaryth peaked at three hundred and sixty-five—nearly fifty percent stronger. Sure, five Tribulations allowed for more synergy than two, but not all were created equal. Fatal Misfortune Curse and Brittle Bones Curse had been particularly vicious.

First off, the trials targeted one of Priam's glaring weaknesses: his inability to develop [Curse Resistance]. The skill was locked behind the elusive Mind Ennoblement—whatever that was—so he had had to endure the curses without his greatest assets: his Constitution and his Adaptation. Worse still, their natures made them invisible to [Tribulation Hunter], and the System had hidden them so that [Chimera] couldn't pit them against Hecate's New Moon. Priam had no choice but to face them head-on.

On top of countering his build, their effects were insidious. The first curse turned him into the unluckiest man alive. As if Esmée herself held a grudge, reality conspired to kill him Final Destination style. What began with exposed roots, dust in his eyes, and mosquito bites quickly escalated with storms, earthquakes, monster migrations, and lightning strikes, all harassing him with the passion of an elementary school bully. Normally, Priam would have used the maelstroms to bathe and the cyclones to dry off, but the second Tribulation upped the ante.

The Brittle Bones Curse was the disease on steroids. According to its add-on, he lost ten percent of his Constitution every hour. By hour ten, his body had less structural integrity than a soggy paper towel. Every step shattered something, and without [Kinetic Sovereignty] counteracting gravity, he would have crumpled under his own weight.

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Faced with lethal threats, Priam had to shield himself from the world by erecting kinetic and magical barriers to cushion even the gentlest impact and carefully controlling every movement. Dangerous as it was, he appreciated how the challenge spotlighted his progress. Over the hours, he built layers of dice-shaped barriers around him. Each of the six faces bore the same rune, forming specialized protection. The first was anti-kinetic, able to block hailstones the size of his head and winds trying to flay him alive. Then came die for electricity, light, and heat to repel lightning. Within his airborne mobile fortress, Priam endured most of the trial, constantly repairing the pressured runes.

Two hours before the end, fate spat in his face again. Either drawn by his absurd misfortune or the apocalypse-level weather, the fourth Terror of Valaryth locked onto him like a bloodhound on a scent. Fighting a Tier 1 Duke was a coin toss on a good day. Crippled by two Tribulations, Priam opted to run.

In the final hour, both curses colluded to escalate things further. Spontaneous genetic mutations killed off his cells and erased his racial Talents. Organ failure left him poisoned and weak, relying solely on his high Vitality to endure without a liver, spleen, kidneys, lungs, or intestines. Fifty minutes from the end, his human heart gave out, soon followed by his draconic one. Refusing to die, Priam took over manually, using kinetic mastery to pump his blood. Forty minutes from the end, his brain shut down from multiple strokes. The severed link between brain and soul doomed the latter and triggered his first death.

[He Who Eludes Death] kicked in, buying him a 30-minute delay—the max before forced resurrection. It pushed him to the brink of victory. In the last ten minutes, Priam freely burned his lifespan to counteract his body's collapse. As his own meridians began to rupture, he patched the leaks with runes, plugging his pathways like sealing cracks in a sinking ship.

The final minutes felt like an eternity. His chase with the Fourth Terror was handled by his add-on's autopilot, one mental thread using kinetic mastery to reinforce his body and support his hearts, another maintaining his meridians and magical shields. A single slip would have been fatal.

Without warning, the storm abated, Priam stopped acting as a lightning rod, and his health returned. The Tribulations were over. Regaining his strength, he turned on the Terror in vengeance, unleashing a Pyro Breath that vaporized tons of water in a single exhale. It didn't defeat the beast—but it opened a window to escape.

"Next time," he swore, "I'll rip out its heart to temper one of my Gates."

The shadows in his room stirred.

"Who're you talking about?"

"Not who, what," Priam corrected. "The Fourth Terror."

"Ah, the big fish. Blueberry's already dreaming of slicing it up for sushi."

The bear had a thing for raw fish. Cooked ones too. Hell, Blueberry loved anything edible—except endives. Assuming endives even counted as edible.

"I wonder," Priam mused aloud, "is it still called sushi if it's grilled?"

He fully intended to roast his next opponent. Pyro's heat scaled with the purity of his phoenix bloodline, one of his rewards had strengthened it.

Selected rewards:

Purification of your Phoenix Bloodline (1%)

Seed of Potential

Bloodlines:

Phoenix: 6% (+1%)

Dragon: 3%

[Tribulation]: Three Tribulations pending.

Future Tribulations delayed until:
Time: 2 months 13 days 21 hours 31 minutes 7 seconds.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 900 / 3 attributes > 1 500 / 1 attribute > 2 100

"As long as it's good," the shadows replied, "I'll eat it."

"I don't know how you're not fat yet…"

"Good genetics. It all goes straight to my boobs."

Amused, but aware the conversation was skirting dangerous ground, Priam changed the subject. "So, when's your next Tribulation?"

"After the tournament—unless you and the kid manage to upgrade Homo Elysian before that."

Priam winced in sympathy. Poor Osiris.

"You're asking us to pull off in two weeks what evolution needs a billion years to manage?"

"Yep."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I think you'll have to settle for Homo Elysian a while longer."

"Too bad."

"Here, more is better," Priam said. "I didn't rank first of the Sector Hope because I cruised through." Without [Curse Resistance] and [Tribulation Hunter], his performance had been anything but stellar. "I'd bet good money I'm the only one in the Sector who's cleared fourteen Tribulations this year. That's why I'm first."

"And besides stroking your ego, what's that get you? You didn't even get an Achievement."

"Because it was a double. But I did get two solid rewards and a bunch of level-ups."

"Still, you died for that, even with all your boosts. I tell you: people stop early because the System's a stingy bastard."

"No, there's more to it." Through the window, Priam heard a bird singing. Without any suns, the poor thing was off rhythm. "Most people rush Tier 1 because it's easier to shape their Concepts and Supremacies once their soul's baptized. No one wants to fall behind before Ace II." The ideal upgrade choice was too tempting to pass up. "Compared to them, I'll have more Tribulations behind me, so more room to push my attributes."

According to Béchar, there was real value in clearing as many Tribulations as possible at each Tier. He couldn't share the full reason, but Priam trusted him.

"With their primordial races, the elites of this universe will always have higher attribute thresholds than us. We're screwed either way," the shadows muttered.

"Before Tier 4, sure. Once we hit mid-Tier, not necessarily. Especially if I manage to upgrade Homo Elysian."

"You lost me."

"Alright, think about it. Those elites have way less pressure at Tier 0. Hell, with a Tier 9 race, their first Tribulation doesn't even trigger until they break a thousand in a stat. It's ridiculous. But on the flip side, they're racing the clock because of Ace II. If some dragon wants to push through a sextuple Tribulation at Tier 0, just imagine the stats he has to rack up in under a year."

"I couldn't do the math, but a lot?"

"No fewer than eighteen thousand. In practice, at least twenty thousand. I doubt even they could trigger fourteen Tribulations. If they're limited to the same number of legendary skills as we are, they'd need to grind hundreds of trash skills. And I don't know about you, but I can't really picture a dragon learning embroidery to gain attributes."

The shadows chuckled. "So what, you're saying starting small has its perks?"

"We're getting slammed with Tribulations now, but in exchange, we're banking long-term gains, plus fixing our weaknesses. If I reach Tier 5 with fifty Tribulations under my belt and a race upgraded to Tier 6 or 7, I'll have more attribute headroom than an elite. And between growing up with a silver spoon and being forged by fire, I know which one stands a better chance of reaching the Zenith."

"The dragons?"

Priam hurled a pillow into the shadows.

"Good night, Jasmine."

"'Night."

Thirty seconds later, Priam groaned. "Go sleep in your own damn room."

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