Nothing is Impossible

Atlas returned to the guild hall and sat down at one of the many tables, plopping down into his seat. He yawned as he tried to reach out to Chan through his legacy, but felt like there was a block, as though a wall was set up.

Atlas was annoyed before he realized Chan had likely done something so that he would do everything he asked before trying to interrogate him about aura.

He furrowed his brow and rested his head on his thumb as he thought about what Chan had said to him before sending him off.

With his nigh perfect memory thanks to Mind of the Scholarly King, he remembered it as though hearing it for the first time.

Yeah, but luckily for you, when you're in the mindscape, your body becomes incorporeal and you don't require anything to survive. You are probably really hungry, but that is about it. What you need to do is go buy a nice meal for yourself and fully go over all the changes that you have just gained. After you do that, you should go test your new power. You will be a good deal stronger than you were before, but it also looks like you also have far less versatility than you used to. Once you're used to your power, we can talk about Aura.

Get used to his power? Hadn't he already done that? How could he possibly do it in any other way? He pulled up his Master List and went through it to see if there was anything that could help him. While scrolling through it, he came across one intriguing group.

Powerscore (Locked): Your power level when compared with averages of each tier, helping you more fully understand how strong you are outside of just your tier and level. Currently locked until you take the powerscore test (Found in almost every city).

That quickly caught his attention and he went up to the bartender to ask him where the powerscore test was located.

The bartender squinted at him. "Wanting to update your score after all the changes you went through? Makes sense. It's in the same place you took it in last time, unless you took it more than a year ago, then you need to go over to the trial dungeon and take a left facing that building before going straight and taking the third turn on your right. It's still in the big tent."

Ignoring the fact that Sicrec obviously thought he had already taken the powerscore test before, Atlas nodded his thanks, smiling at the large man before exiting the Guild Hall, following the bartender's directions until he found himself standing in front of the large tent that the man had described.

It was massive, standing proudly over 30 feet tall. It reminded Atlas of a circus tent but instead of white and red it was white and grey, and the stripes were a lot thicker than those found on a circus tent. Atlas walked over to the tent's entryway and pushed aside the flap, finding himself at the back of a long line of people. The line he was standing in was one of four, and each line led to a different portal. At the front of the line were two attendants that helped people into one of the four different portals.

It looked like only one person could be in a portal at each time, unlike the training dungeons which were instanced, allowing for multiple people to be in the same portal and still not run into each other.

Every time someone exited the portal, a number would be shown above their head and one of the attendants would jot it down. The person who had just left the portal would then go to the back of the next line. When they went through each portal they would receive their final score from the third and final attendant standing by the exit, and they would be given a sheet of paper containing the breakdown of their score before being ushered out the back of the tent.

Atlas learned this all from the kind man who was standing in front of him. The man was wearing a gold cape and pure red armor. He had long flowing blond hair and sparkling green eyes. He was definitely a very handsome man, and he had a confidence in himself that was almost palpable.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

On closer inspection, Atlas realized that the man was actually younger than he had first thought. Instead of being late thirties like his demeanor suggested, he actually looked to be somewhere in the ballpark of 16-20.

"What do the scores mean?" Atlas said, more wondering aloud than asking. He knew he would figure it out eventually, it didn't matter when it was as long as it was before or soon after he got his own personal score.

The man was more than willing to answer his half baked question. "It goes from 0 all the way to 1,000,000,000. It can technically go higher, but if you do it means you're stronger than any tier 20 being, which is highly unlikely."

Atlas inspected the man and found he was a tier three blade weaver, two whole tier lower than himself. Surprisingly, Atlas didn't feel bad for this young man for being so much weaker than himself, if anything, he remembered being at the same tier not too long ago, so he knew that this man could probably catch up without too much trouble with the right resources. He also was quite a bit younger than Atlas, which meant that when he was the same age as Atlas, he could have already surpassed him.

These stray thoughts danced around Atlas's head as he looked around the room a little more carefully.

There were two men wearing the same armor as the young man standing right in front of them. One was slightly taller and was a tier 6 Royal Guard and the other was slightly shorter and was also a tier 6 Royal Guard. They were in a heated conversation in a language that Atlas didn't understand, but it sounded far smoother and lilting than the common tongue spoken by all people, usually called Common or Universal. As they spoke, they glanced over at Atlas and the young man and made gestures with their hands. Some of which didn't look very friendly.

If Atlas had been forced to guess what language it was, he would have guessed elvish. It just had a melodious ring to it that seemed to match up with the elves in his mind. The young man next to Atlas obviously understood what they were talking about and he simply rolled his eyes before glancing over at Atlas. "Excuse them for their rudeness, they are simply worrywarts. And hate everything within 5 feet of me."

Atlas wondered what had happened to cause these two men to hate the young man so much, but he let it slide with a shrug as he simply waited for his turn to finally come. After 20 or so more minutes of waiting, he finally reached the front of the line, watching the young man and the two guards walk through the first portal.

He waited for about 2 minutes before all three exited, one at a time. The first man got a score of 1,218. The second man got 1,196, and the final man that Atlas had talked to, got a score of 612.

Atlas had no perspective of how good that was, but he set that as his goal. He had to at least get 612 points, so as to not embarrass himself and lose to a tier three.

The attendant, who was a gentleman wearing golden robes with red lining, smiled at Atlas before gesturing him into the first of the four portals.

Atlas nodded his thanks before slipping into the portal, his stomach lurching before he found himself in a small arena. There was a dummy in the middle of the 20 by 20 space, with a sack for a head and filled with straw. Atlas was sure it would snap as easy as a twig, so there must be something more to this test.

"Welcome to the first of the four tests, this is the Attack test, and you will be given 10 seconds to pummel this dummy with all the power you can bring to bear." A voice said from directly above.

Atlas glanced up into the bright blue sky in shock as he noticed a person hovering some 50 feet above the ground.

"You will be scored depending on how hard and how fast you strike the dummy. If you attack the dummy 100 times you get one more second. If you get more than 1000 points in a single hit you also get another second. You can gain up to 50 extra seconds, for a total of 1 minute. Your cooldowns will all be reset after leaving this portal, so don't hold anything back."

Atlas was surprised. Was it really possible to reset cooldowns? That was very intriguing.

"Please strike the dummy once to set a baseline for normal damage and point values. All skills, passive or active, will not work for this strike."

Atlas grabbed the pin off of his chest and turned it into a spear with a thought.

He took a deep breath before lowering the spear towards the dummy.He stabbed out with all his unenhanced strength, and it clanged loudly off of the dummy.

The attendant's emotionless voice drifted down. "2 points, not bad."

Atlas felt a little annoyed at the low number, but he realized this was just his normal strength, the score would be much higher with his skills activated.

"Start on three. One… Two… Three!"

Atlas began.