Hard Mode Awakening Challenge

The talk with Ruth had been straightforward and almost exactly what Tram had mentioned earlier. She had wanted Ian to push up to the next tier in the hopes he would get another chance to prestige, so everyone would get more SP every level when they started back up again. With the things her husband could already accomplish, she didn't have a hard time selling Ian on the idea, especially since he had already been planning to go to the dungeon anyway.

However, she also had more than one request for him. She wanted to add a weaponsmith to their party and asked if she could start searching around for one who would work well with their budding crafting team. He had told her that he thought it was a good idea, but that she should consult with Claire about it to be sure before apologizing about not being in the right state of mind to make long-term decisions—a sentiment that she seemed to understand fully.

He smiled when he remembered how animated and excited the couple had been when they spoke about how things were changing for crafters. They had always shared his vision, but it was completely different to see the immediate impact of what they were accomplishing. The smiles on their faces and fire in their eyes gave Ian all the confidence he needed to know he was at least moving in the right direction.

"Hold your hand over the crystal and state either your name or that of your party," said the AO representative when it was Ian's turn at the dungeon checkpoint.

"Zero," he said quietly, causing the crystal to turn green.

"Please be careful in there," said the man behind the counter, showing no signs of recognizing him.

With a nod, Ian walked over to the dungeon portal and walked in. He was met with a forest made of giant flowers the size of full grown oak trees, creating a giant canopy of color. There were also giant blades of grass that shot up nearly a hundred feet with bases of at least six feet in diameter. The entire area gave him the impression that he was an ant in someone's overgrown garden.

"Welcome to Villi Rem," he muttered to himself as he took in the area. Unlike other times, he really was talking to himself. He had requested the curator not to broadcast a stream tonight. Tonight, he was free to chase his goals, and he didn't really care what Mavis had to say about it later.

The dungeon itself was a minimum level of 4200. It was one of the new ones that Claire had managed to get him special access due to the monsters that called this dungeon home. The vast majority of them were located in underground tunnels that created a hellscape of warming monsters and tight spaces to fight through. There were three different types of giant ants in the zone that fought over the underground, and there was a group of giant termites that had a tendency to migrate around the zone whenever they were defeated. However, Ian wasn't going to step foot into a tunnel today.

Instead, he was going to go hunting the jackalopes that ranged from level 4300 to 5100. They were eight-foot-tall rabbits with sharpened antlers on their head that they used to augment their primary attack, which was to charge adventurers and try to gore them. Once their prey was hurt, they would tear into it with their razor-sharp claws and jagged teeth. The rippling muscles and sharpened deer-like antlers of the large creatures gave Ian the creeps, but they were perfect for him to utilize for quick growth—and more importantly, a way for him to blow off some steam.

He moved carefully to keep his noise to a minimum when he heard something moving through the underbrush in front of him. Crouching down, Ian watched as the large yellowish-gray creature walked onto the forest path without a care in the world. Though, unless there were other Jackalopes about, he guessed that it really didn't have anything to be wary of.

He watched as it began scratching its front claws against one of the large blades of grass. He could hear the fibers ripping at the creature's efforts as it growled.

Analyze Results - Jackalope

LVL: 4991

Ian pulled out his spear and a giant tower shield from his storage. He had done a significant amount of training with a shield and spear during college, but shields made for dungeon exploration were too heavy for him to use for the first year and a half of his journey. Luckily, Jimmy had been playing around with the extra materials that hadn't been used on their armor and ended up making a couple of blackened tower shields that covered from Ian's shins to above his shoulder in a large rectangle. When he saw them while talking with Ruth, he asked if he could borrow one for some field testing.

"Let's do this," Ian growled, shaking away the thoughts in his head as he stepped onto the path. "Come get some, bunny bunny."

The bellow that came from the creature was strangely high-pitched compared to what Ian had expected, but he didn't have time to dwell on the thought as the creature charged him. Ian slammed the two spikes on the bottom of the shield into the rocky ground and braced himself as the creature made contact.

Ian felt the impact roll up his arm and into his shoulder, but couldn't stop himself from smiling when he didn't feel any sharp pain or hear anything break. Pushing his shield forward and to the left, he stepped into the gap and plunged his spear into the creature's shoulder with magic soul activated. It dug in deep, eliciting an even higher-pitched squeal as the pain brought the monster out of its daze. He was able to get another clean thrust into the creature's front leg before it pushed away to give itself space.

He grinned when he saw the giant creature was now having problems putting weight on its injured leg. It was bleeding freely from both its wounds, and Ian knew it was just a matter of time. Unlike people, beasts followed their base instincts and the rules of the dungeon. They were tough and feral—a challenge to overcome. Unlike the past couple of days, he felt the thrill of the hunt and finally felt a tension he had been carrying leave him.

"This is what I strive for," Ian growled as he charged the wounded creature. "This is what adventuring is all about!"

The creature wasn't able to get up to its full charge speed when Ian leaned his shoulder into the shield as it hit. He had held it at a slight angle to deflect it to his side, but also used the momentum to knock the creature off balance when he pushed outward. As it went by, Ian lashed out with his spear, scoring a clean hit right above the knee joint on its back leg.

With both legs injured, it tripped and fell onto its side with a bellow. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, Ian lunged for the creature's neck, using his shield to block the antlers as it tried to swing its head back at him.

It bit deep, and Ian twisted the magically bolstered blade before pulling it from the creature's neck. As the blood pumped, Ian backed up and looked around the area. His arm felt bruised, but he finally felt alive again.

Congratulations! You have defeated an enemy more than 2500 levels higher than yourself. Experience rewards multiplied by 25. You have earned 283 levels. You have achieved level 2670. You have been awarded 8490 skill points!

Ian smiled as he instantly put his plan into motion and purchased all five ranks of sneak and the first three levels of stealth.

Sneak 5/5 (Active): Muffles sounds of breathing and moving by 75%. Additionally, assists user in hiding one's presence, requiring more focus to identify the user.

Stealth 3/5 (Active): Provides the user with temporary invisibility that improves in quality with skill level. The current skill level enables the user to stay invisible for 40 seconds. Invisibility is broken upon the user entering combat. Cannot be reentered in combat.

Putting his shield away, he jogged down the trail until he heard the grunting bellow of another jackalope. Unlike last time, he activated stealth and watched as his arms began to take on the colors of the surrounding flowers and giant grass stalks. It looked more like active camouflage instead of making him completely invisible.

Without wasting time, he advanced on his next target as quietly as he could until he found himself right behind the monster. As it reached up to dig its claws into a flower stalk, Ian activated his magic soul as he thrust the bone spear into the creature's sides. Pulling it out, Ian left magic soul active and swung the head backwards to cut deep into the back leg. As the creature turned, Ian drove the spear into its shoulder and put his strength behind it, knocking the creature into the flower while it was unbalanced.

He quickly jabbed it in the shoulder and chest three more times before backing up. The creature was now heavily wounded, though it was attempting to keep Ian at bay with its claws. As it began to slow, Ian moved swiftly to catch the creature in the side again with the magical blade extension before backing up to let it finish bleeding out.

Congratulations! You have defeated an enemy more than 1250 levels higher than yourself. Experience rewards multiplied by 10. You have earned 104 levels. You have achieved level 2774. You have been awarded 3120 skill points!

"Huh, there must be a cap to the amount of experience I can get a kill if I am still earning that much," Ian commented looking at the extra levels he hadn't expected to receive. "I wonder how far I will get tonight?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Shrugging, Ian looted the jackalope and set to hunting his quarry.

The next few hours seemed to blur as Ian moved across the landscape, retreating into his own mind as he killed one of the creatures every few minutes. After a couple of hours, he slowed down as he heard the shouts of a nearby adventurer team.

Moving cautiously, he moved up next to a giant flower and saw a team of six struggling to cope with two jackalopes at the same time. As he watched, a man in metal armor was struggling to keep himself between the enemies and his teammates—all of whom were sporting injuries to various degrees.

Quickly analyzing the team, Ian's brows furrowed when he realized everyone on the team was just over level 6100. He knew that all the extra skill points and stats his party was getting were giving them an advantage, but he didn't realize how much. As he watched the team move, he saw how the archer was having difficulty getting her arrows to penetrate the tough hide of the creatures. He also noted the caster's arcane bolts seemed to do little more than blister the monsters' thick hide.

Ian looked over at the other three members to see a woman in while robes attempting to stop the bleeding on a man's arm as a third member with a buckler and a short sword was collapsed in front of them. The third's armor had taken a heavy hit, crushing in the shoulder and upper left breastplate with their buckler also being bent nearly in half, though Ian could see their chest moving.

"I'm almost out of mana," screamed the healer in panic.

Ian activated stealth and began moving forward when he saw the tank in front turn his attention towards the healer for just a second. The archer screamed a warning, and the man turned back to see both of the creatures charging him at the same time.

With a burst of speed, Ian broke his stealth and summoned his shield just in time to crash into the creature before it made contact with the warrior. The full speed impact caused his arm to go numb, but he pushed the creature off course and heard the breaking of bones. Storing his shield, he pulled out his spear and activated magic soul, and he thrust deep into the creature's back, cutting straight through its spine. Ian quickly jumped back as it tried to swipe at him with its antlers; however, its back legs had become effectively useless as the creature struggled to figure out why its body wasn't obeying it anymore.

Moving quickly, Ian put two quick thrusts into the downed creature, twisting as he pulled his weapon back out. After stepping back, he checked to find the tank holding his own against the other one before stepping forward and rending two more large wounds in his prey.

Dismissing the notification as the creature shuddered its last breath, Ian turned and moved to assist the tank.

"Want me to go for a quick kill, or do you want me to back off?" Ian asked, knowing that if he killed it, he would get all the experience from it.

"Kill it if you can," came a man's deep voice. "I'll stun it with a shield bash in a second."

Ian nodded as he moved forward to flank the creature. Just as the creature turned its head towards him, the man's shield suddenly glowed before blurring from where it was to smashing into the creature's skull.

Not missing the opportunity, Ian jumped forward and activated magic soul as he drove his spear deep into the top of the creature's neck. When he twisted the blade, he heard a pop, and the creature collapsed to the ground as its legs started spasming. Dismissing the notification, he turned to the man to find him looking for more enemies.

Ian followed suit and surveyed the area before turning his attention towards the healer and injured party members. Running over to them, he saw the healer had just managed to heal the man's arm enough to stop the bleeding from the bite, though it was still obvious a bite had been taken out of it.

"How can I help?" Ian asked the pale-faced woman as she nearly stumbled over to her friend on the ground.

"I don't know," the woman answered, panic evident in her voice. "Vera took a heavy blow, but I don't know how much damage was done. I don't have enough mana to do anything without fainting for at least a few minutes."

Ian reached into his inventory and pulled out one of the emergency healing potions Claire had forced on him and handed it over to the woman. Ignoring her wide-eyed look, Ian pulled off his gauntlets and proceeded to rip off the gloves the injured woman in front of him was wearing. Grabbing her fingers with his, he activated soothing touch and instantly knew her injuries were way outside of his current capabilities to handle.

"She has a lot of broken bones, and I am pretty sure she has a ton of internal bleeding," Ian said, dropping 2000 SP into boosting soothing touch to level five. He felt the difference as the healing power of his spell ramped up, but it wasn't going to be nearly enough. He could also feel her body resisting the healing where the armor was dented in.

He looked at the woman who had just managed to get the injured woman's helmet off and found her looking at the potion.

"I—I don't…is it really alright to use this?" the woman said, seeming to be in a state of panic.

Ian quickly moved to place one hand behind Vera's neck and reached out and grabbed the potion bottle. Quickly popping the top, he attempted to dribble a little bit into the woman's mouth. When she seemed to swallow, Ian dumped more of it into her mouth before handing the rest of it to the woman.

"For the love of the curator, get a hold of yourself, Cassy," came the voice of the archer as she ran over and sat down next to Ian. "What do you need us to do?"

"Help pull her armor off," Ian replied. "The healing isn't able to take effect in that area because the metal is pushed in."

Ian's words seemed to break Cassy out of her shock, as both she and the archer began to attempt to remove the armor.

"The straps are underneath her," Cassy growled. "I don't know how we can get this off without moving her and causing even more damage."

Swearing, Ian looked around searching his mind for an answer when the dagger on the archer's belt caught his attention.

"I need to borrow this for a moment," he said, unsnapping the strap and pulling it out. Inspecting the curved blade, he nodded and looked over at the healer. "Get ready to drop the rest of that healing potion into her mouth and heal her as well as you can. I'm going to be careful, but I don't know how difficult this is going to be."

Closing his eyes, Ian centered himself as he blocked out the questions the other two were asking him. He thought there might be even more people asking him questions now, but he just opened his eyes and activated magic soul. A magical blade only extended out a tenth of an inch from the dagger's physical form, causing Ian to frown for a moment. Bringing it down to the pauldron, he found that the magical blade cut it like paper. Focusing, Ian put all of his being into cutting away the armor without cutting the woman underneath too badly.

After what felt like an hour, but was probably closer to a minute, he had cut the breastplate right down the middle of her chest, across the shoulder, and down the side from her armpit. Looking over at the now silent healer, he gave her a nod and reached over to grab the dissected armor at the neck and waist so he didn't cut himself. With a quick jerk and a sucking sound, the woman underneath him arched her back and came awake screaming.

"Potion and healing now!" Ian screamed as he chucked the armor piece and put both hands on her as he pumped as much healing as soothing touch would provide.

To Ian's surprise, the woman dumped the healing potion directly into the hole in the woman's chest that was left behind from the armor. The next moment white light erupted from the healer's chest and quickly flew into the screaming woman causing her to suck in a deep breath. Ian watched in shock as the wound completely healed before the healer's eyes rolled up in her head as she fell backwards.

The woman's chest under him was rising and falling. As Ian looked at her face, her eyes fluttered and closed. Pulling out a cloak from his storage, he placed it over her to hide her modesty, knowing they were probably streaming.

"They both passed out," said the caster from where she was kneeling next to the healer. "It usually takes her a few minutes to regain consciousness after using her inherent skill. Lex, Carl, do we have anything nearby?"

Two negative replies later and the woman let out a sigh of relief before looking directly at Ian.

"I never expected to see you here, but I'll be spending quite a bit of time thanking the curator you were," she said, giving him a warm smile as she carefully placed the healer's head on her lap. Then she started pointing to people as she started introductions. "My name is Andrea, but you can call me Andy. The archer next to you is Tara. The healer sleeping in my lap is Cassy. The woman whose life you just saved is Vera—she's our support. The armored man over there is Lex, and our last member is his younger brother Carl, the sword fanatic."

"It's a pleasure to meet you all, though I wish it wasn't under such dire circumstances. My alias is Zero, but you all can call me Ian."

"Oh, we know all about you," said Tara from next to him, giving him a tired smile. "Though Andy is right in that we didn't expect you to be out here. Did you guys get knocked out of the tournament today?"

Ian grimaced.

"Sorry, we didn't mean to rub salt into a wound," Carl said as he brought Tara a handful of arrows. "Your team has been doing amazing, so it is surprising to us that you lost."

"Oh, sorry," Ian said, waving it off. "We actually won today. I just came out here to blow off a little steam."

"Sorry, Ian, but it is only fair to let you know that one of my inherent skills is empathy," said Tara. "I swear I can't read your mind, but I can tell that you at least don't feel like you won today."

Ian opened his mouth to deny it, but saw the look in her eyes. He swallowed and looked down at the ground. He was going to deflect, but he found the words pour out before he could stop himself.

"Honestly, I'm not doing very well when it comes to fighting other people. Every time I close my eyes, I see Claire exploding in front of me. I feel the blood and gore of Lana landing on me when she blew herself up. I see the charred corpse of Selenia, Tram being cut down, and my sister's blood-covered arm sticking out of a rock slide."

Ian took a deep breath and looked up to see Lex give him a nod of understanding from where he stood. Turning to look at Tara, he saw something in her eyes as she gave him a sad smile. Both Carl and Andy were nodding as well.

"I feel like a machine during our matches, but afterwards I can't get any of the images out of my head," Ian said, feeling the need to explain himself. "I've killed more than a dozen people since this tournament started, and I keep telling myself it isn't real, but I don't really believe myself anymore. I find my hands shaking when I think about it, and I can't get them to stop.

"I'm not like the heroes in the stories I used to read. I can't just say it's us or them, and all of a sudden everything is alright. I hate every second of it, but I can't bring myself to throw in the towel because I need my friends to gain every advantage we can. I have to keep pushing because the thought of losing them is so much worse than the terror I feel when taking a life. I feel…and it hurts."

Everyone was quiet when Ian finished speaking. He stared at his hands, angry that he was pouring his problems out for people he didn't even really know. In reality, he knew that he was also angry at himself for giving words to what he was feeling. He was failing at being strong and felt weaker than ever.

"Never try to change that feeling, Ian," Lex said, breaking the silence and pulling Ian's attention from his self-loathing. "I'm going to let you in on a little secret. There are hundreds of thousands of adventurers in the mid-tier and higher, but only a small number of those would willingly set foot into one of those tournaments."

"And even fewer of us would willingly sign up for another after taking part in one," Andy added with sorrow in her voice. "I know it might not provide you with any solace, but you aren't alone in your struggles. We've been adventuring for nearly three decades. We made the mistake of entering the last tournament and had to take nearly a year-long break afterwards."

"It took me weeks to pick up a sword without seeing human blood on my hands," Carl added quietly. "I saw a therapist for three years afterwards, and I still see one on the rare occasion I have a nightmare. Seeing your party members die, even in something that is supposed to be a simulation, does things to you."

Ian's breath caught in his throat as their words struck something within him. Just as he was about to thank them, the woman at his feet groaned and her eyes fluttered open.

"Did someone get the license plate of that truck?" Vera asked.

She sat up and had to catch the cloak before it fell off her. Lifting it up to see what was underneath, her eyes got wide.

"Not even drunk this time, and you wake up in a random place half naked, huh?" Andy teased the blushing woman.