Hard Mode Awakening Challenge

The dark sky greeted Ian as he pulled off his helmet and looked around. It had taken nearly five hours to escort the party out of the dungeon. He spent most of that time with them, but also ranged ahead to clear monsters as they were identified. It had helped keep them safe and helped him work through his thoughts. Even with the crowd arrayed in front of the dungeon, he still felt better than he had since the first round of the tournament.

"Well I'll be damned," Lex muttered just loud enough for Ian to hear. "I never thought I'd see the day when guards had to be posted to keep civilians from the dungeon entrance."

"That's just what it's like when someone with hundreds of millions of viewers goes anywhere, huh?" Cassy added, looking a little shocked at all the reporters.

"Actually, they figured out he was here by your stream," came a familiar voice from their right. "For some reason unbeknownst to everyone, Zero decided to turn his stream off tonight."

Ian looked over to one of the benches next to the dungeon portal, where a woman with monster slippers was fiddling on a tablet. Giving her a smile, he walked over and sat down next to her. She didn't give him a smile back.

"This feels surprisingly normal," Ian commented after a moment.

"Normal?" Claire said, giving him a flat look. "Running off by yourself and making people worry is…alright, that does actually sound kind of normal now that you mention it." She sighed before looking back at him. "I'll admit that you look better than you have in the past couple of days."

"I feel better now than I have in quite a while," he said before turning to his new friends. "This is Claire, Space Mistress of the Uni—"

"That is not my name!" Claire cut him off while covering his mouth with her hands. "My alias is Clarity, though any friends of Ian's can just call me Claire. No crazy added title required."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Claire," Tara said as Andy giggled.

"I would love to stand around and hang out, but we should really go get Vera here some new clothes," Lex said before adding, "Though we also need to talk about what we can do to repay you for that potion you gave her."

"Don't worry about it," Ian said, waving them off.

"I'm not sure that is going to cut it, Ian," Tara added. "I saw what kind of potion that was, and it was worth at least half a million."

Ian turned to Claire with a raised brow.

"What the hell do you have me carrying around?" he asked.

She had given him a dozen to carry at all times. He knew she gave just as many to the others when he wasn't around, but he hadn't ever bothered to look up how expensive they were.

"Those potions were a gift from Vision and Prophet," she said with a small smile that said she knew the scope of the bombshell she had just dropped on the older adventurers. "They were given to him and the other members of his party because they knew they would be needed for situations just like this.

"That isn't to say Prophet saw him running into you during your time of need specifically, but that she knew that Ian would come across many such encounters because of the way he explores instead of grinding specific areas."

"Ah," Tara said with a nod. "That makes sense. All of us old heads stick to a single area for months or years, while he tends to meander. The streams from the younger adventurers are always the best."

"They still see the magic in the system," Cassy agreed.

"Exactly," Claire said with a smile. "You all should reach out to me in the next couple of days at the AO so we can all sit down and network for a bit."

"We could grab a couple of drinks as well," Ian added.

Promising that they would be in touch, Andy led the group towards the wall of reporters behind the barricade.

Ian watched them go before turning back around.

"I'm so sorry, Ian," Claire said as she stood up and wrapped him up in a hug. "I knew you were struggling, but I didn't realize how much."

Ian took a deep breath and pulled himself free of her hug while putting a smile back on his face.

"No, I'm sorry. I should be handling this better instead of running off and killing things in a dungeon. I've just been feeling weak and powerless."

Grabbing his chin, Claire tilted his head so their eyes met. "You are arguably the strongest adventurer in our tier, and that is without counting how much you augment the rest of us. Just because you don't enjoy killing people doesn't make you weak, and I would argue the complete opposite due to the fact that you are pushing yourself through it for your friends."

Claire reached forward and pulled him back into a hug. Ian wasn't sure how long he sat there with his eyes closed in her arms, but he was aware enough to recognize that she told the AO representative to let someone through the checkpoint.

"Ian," came Ashlyn's voice. "Let's get you home."

Ian opened his eyes to see his sister running over and smiling at him. She reached out and placed one of his arms around her shoulder.

"Claire, I got a driver keeping the car warm," Ashlyn said as Claire took his other side. "Let's get him out of here before he checks his phone and finds all the angry messages I left him for abandoning me. Can't have him wallowing in sorrow over the pain he caused his little sister in public, can we?"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Ian chuckled as he followed the other two.

After a quick ride back to the AO, Ian excused himself after apologizing again for worrying them. They all had plans for breakfast, so he promised to meet them in the cafeteria, causing Ashlyn to send out a group message. It became very obvious to him that she didn't trust him not to disappear again.

He skipped grabbing a late-night meal and ended up going straight to his room. He had just finished his shower when the room's security system let out a notification that someone was at the door.

Looking over, he saw Lana on the screen quickly looking back and forth, seeming nervous. Pressing the button, she quickly came inside and closed the door behind her. Before he could greet her, she had dashed across the room and was squeezing him hard.

"I wish you had come and talked with me," she said quietly. "I tried to find you after taking my shower, but Ruth said that you had already spoken with her and left."

"Yeah," Ian said lamely, returning her hug. "I just needed to blow off a little steam and relax a bit."

"Relaxing? You call fighting eight-foot long, roided out rabbits with mouths full of razors and death spikes sticking out of their heads relaxing?" she asked, pushing him back and looking up at his face.

"When you put it that way, there must be something wrong with me," he answered with a small smile.

"Honestly, I think it is very…you," she said, meeting his eyes. "I was pretty scared when none of us could get a hold of you. I know you're struggling, and I feel so stupid for not realizing how bad it was earlier. I know it's not really my place, but I wish you had come to me instead of running off on your own."

Ian pulled her back into a hug. "I think that you are just the person I should have come to with my problems. I should have taken the time to talk with everyone about what I was dealing with. And while I think I needed to dungeon run to clear my head, I should have spoken to everyone about what I was planning on doing first. Then you wouldn't have had to worry all night."

"We got notified pretty much the second you showed up on that other party's stream. Within seconds of your entrance, it was streaming on nearly every social media site. Jen sent us a message, and we pulled it up just in time to see you tossing those monsters around like they were small fry from one of the lower dungeons. You seemed so focused, too—like you were in your element. I don't think you realize how much stronger you are compared to the average adventurer at your level, but it was blatantly obvious on that screen."

"I think it's dawning on me," Ian replied. "They can't maintain the damage output we can, nor can they take hits like we do. Did you see how Vera's buckler and armor looked after a single hit?"

"Everyone did," she replied. "Hundreds of millions of people saw you use your skill to cut off that woman's armor. Luckily, it censored out the wounds and her bare chest, but from the sound the metal made when you pulled it off her skin…" Lana shuddered involuntarily. "Yeah, I don't ever want to hear that sound again."

"Yeah…" Ian said quietly before looking down to see Lana looking up at him. "I know it is a bit late, but would you be willing to be my sounding board?"

"Of course, that's why I'm here," Lana replied.

Ian smiled as she pulled him over to the sofa.

***

"You feeling better this morning?" Tram asked as he placed his tray down and joined Ian for breakfast.

Ian nodded as he finished up his bite of bacon. "Bacon makes everything better."

"Yeah, it does," Tram said, picking up a piece of his own. "Congratulations on reaching level 3811 last night. We were pretty worried when you didn't show up for food, but when some of the other tables said that your level was shooting up on the leaderboards, I knew you were going to be alright. You just needed to spend some time refocusing on what you found important."

"Definitely fair," Ian said with a small smile. "Is it weird that the second I got in there and felt the feeling of the dungeon, I felt better?"

"Nah, it is very who you are," Tram said with a chuckle. "The girls were really worried, even thinking that you may have been losing it a little, but I knew you were just doing what you needed to." Tram looked at Ian, receiving a nod that he had been correct. "I think, and I could be wrong, but it isn't just the fighting people that are weighing on you. You don't have a goal for this tournament."

"I mean, I wouldn't mind us winning," Ian chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied with a chuckle of his own. "But what I mean is that you aren't invested in the process. If they canceled the rest of the matches, you would gladly move onto your real goals of reaching the next level and helping increase the availability of gear for lower-level folks."

Ian blinked at that statement. Tram and he had both spoken multiple times about how they weren't suited to fight other adventurers, but he never thought about it from a goal perspective. He didn't have any aspirations from this tournament other than the chance of his friends getting additional skills. He just wanted everyone to be stronger, and last night he nearly doubled the bonuses he gave everyone in a single evening, all the while increasing his own survivability leaps and bounds.

Ian had taken all the SP he had gained the previous evening and maxed out his Herculean Fortitude and Stealth before he placed all the remaining points into the adjacent skill Heightened Intelligence.

Herculean Fortitude 10/10 (Passive): +20,000 status increase to INT.

The overall results were something to behold.

Name: Ian Spelling (Hidden)

Alias: Zero

LVL: 3,811

Status:

STR: 30,192

END: 48,003

AGI: 27,357

WIL: 25,190

INT: 45,841

Skills: Prestige Mode (Awakened), Prestige War Leader (Inherent), United We Stand (M) (Inherent), Everything the Light Touches (Inherent), Squeaky Clean (Inherent)

Common: Enhanced Body (M), Enhanced Mind (M),

Uncommon: Conceal Identity, Analyze 1/5, Poison Resistance 1/5, Basic Item Storage, Ascension, Basic Mana Regeneration (M), Soothing Touch (M), Nature Resistance (M), Sneak (M)

Rare: Magic Soul, Herculean Fortitude (M), Heightened Intelligence (M), Nature's Blessing (M), Stealth (M)

Available SP: 330

"Last night was good for not just my state of mind, but good for all of us in the next couple of battles," Ian said, getting a grunt of agreement from Tram.

"Oh, you two are early today," Claire said, taking the other seat next to Ian. "I also noticed you spent your SP this morning."

"The fight today is going to be a slaughter," Ashlyn commented, taking the seat next to Claire as Selenia took the one next to her. "The bonuses aside, I really have to question the order in which you are doing things, Ian. Like, I understand the choices, but maybe someone should spend more time spoiling their little sister by picking up some more agility. I'm not asking for much, only like every level to finish off the ultra-rare bonus before focusing on anything else."

"I don't even know what it would be like to be an archer with that much agility," Lana said, taking the open seat on the other side of Tram. "Are there even bows that could handle the speed you could fire at that point?"

"We're eventually going to find out," Ian said with a smirk before turning back to his sister. "I'm actually thinking of picking up all the uncommon resistance skills before doing anything else. After talking with Tara about it last night, she said a lot of the monsters begin to have their own skills when you start fighting at the top of the mid-tier dungeons. Things like the nature breath Lana and I dealt with become much more common as we get closer to level 5000. Apparently, the ants in the dungeon I was in last night all have different types of bites that create elemental status effects."

"That sounds like a pain in the ass," Ashlyn said with a sigh. "We should probably start picking them up too, then."

"My aura will help, but I'll make it a focus to add in more points," Lana added, earning a smile from Ashlyn.

"Yeah, it's always better to be safe than sorry," Ian added.