Otherworldly Trials [LITRPG Adventure]

At the end of the evening, Mikella and her group returned back to Ali's home. While thoughts on Zeke's recovery and Clara's outing with Ali plagued her mind, she also wanted to return home for some deserved RnR'.

Training the otherworlders was a pain to deal with, especially when some of them still struggled to accept their new reality. She truly sympathized with them, particularly to some of the female otherworlders who had their lives going for them, only to be snatched away and treated like some soldier in an army put into training.

But this was life, and life wasn't fair. No matter how many times she said that, however, they still refused to follow simple commands. It was enough to break even Mikella's will if she kept going for hours on end every day with no rest.

Lyle and Janet helped plenty on that front, and she couldn't be more grateful. Ever since the otherworlders saw their transformation into Journeymen, they were more than happy to try and go for the same goal, especially after seeing the great changes they went through and the power they exuded during training.

It would've been that much harder to convince some of them to train, and even made it easier to motivate them.

Going into the living room, Mikella already had Ali's consent to have Lyle and Janet over, especially since they were now also under her charge as liaison for Cronus. Mikella was just about ready to go into Zeke's room to see how he was doing, until she spotted him in the living room, scrolling through a smartphone on the couch.

Mikella first wondered why Zeke was still up and not resting, already getting started to nag his head off. Then she stopped herself…

Is that a smartphone?

"Zeke?" Mikella called out, her eyes widening. The other two otherworlders noticed him as well, though still not seeing the strange device in his hands.

"Oh, Mikky!" Zeke shouted, sounding almost excited while still wearing his battle clothes of his black attire, his white jacket thrown on the jacket carelessly. "You're finally here! Oh, you guys are here too! You gotta see this. I–"

"What is that in your hands?"

Mikella interrupted Zeke's strange eagerness, pointing at the device in his hand. Janet and Lyle also noticed it now, their eyes widening at the revelation.

Zeke, however, grinned back at her as though expecting it. "What do you think? It's not exactly the same, if anything, it's bare bones and shitty as hell, but–"

"Yo, is that a phone?!"

Lyle suddenly spoke up, running over to stare directly at the rectangular device on Zeke's hand.

Janet and Mikella approached him as well, looking over at the device. Just as Zeke said, it was just a simple rectangular item, made completely out of a white colored material.

But her Mana Manipulation picked out that it wasn't just some item. It was literally made entirely out of mana.

"Zeke, is this your Mythril Bastion?" Mikella said, unable to even understand what she just said. "It feels so… small and compact. It feels almost real."

"It is real," Zeke grinned. "I compressed my skill with enough power to make the barrier into a solid object. It took a bit of time and energy, but I managed to make it work."

Zeke showed off the object in question, looking more and more like a smartphone. The entire item was made out of the Mythril Bastion skill, but the front portion was riddled with complex runes that made Mikella's head spin.

She saw Zeke's runes work before. Hell, she could call herself an expert in everything Zeke related when it came to runes considering how many times she saw him work. But this rune array felt way more complex and convoluted than everything he had ever made before. She knew for sure that this wasn't done by him alone, even if Zeke is talented in his work as a Runist.

The way it flowed seamlessly on the front of the smartphone-like device, acting like an actual touch screen on a phone felt almost surreal. There were no pictures or videos to speak of, but when she dragged a rune across the front, the rune followed her finger movements seamlessly, getting Lyle and Janet to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the sight.

"Zeke, how did you do this?" Mikella said, her voice caught in amazement. But she quickly shook herself away as she turned to him. "Also, what happened to you? I thought you were resting! Did you ignore me completely to work on this?"

While she was proud of the work he did, she glared at the man who was supposed to rest. Zeke raised his hands in defense, his smartphone thing held along with them.

"Hey, easy. I did rest up. That's actually what I want to explain. The only way that I was able to make this thing is because something happened when I was asleep. Let me introduce you to someone. Tir!"

Zeke called out, making everyone raise a brow at him. Then, small padded footsteps echoed out behind them, getting everyone to turn around to find…

An adorable puppy. Its dark fur jumped up and down with its tail swishing about as it trotted towards Zeke impatiently. After reaching him, it spun around in place, its tongue hanging out as it faced the group with a small bark.

Then, the damn thing actually spoke.

"Hello!" The dog spoke up, surprising everyone with some shrieks included when the voice just appeared in their minds. "My name's Tir! It's nice to meet you all!"

The group just stared blankly at the adorable puppy speaking out for the first time. It didn't talk with his mouth, so the voice came directly from his mind with some sort of telepathy. Mikella looked back at Zeke who was just smiling like some psycho who just made something interesting for everyone to see.

"Zeke, what is… uhh, who is this?" Mikella asked, pointing at the puppy near Zeke's feet.

"This is Tir," Zeke said, ignoring the fact that he technically already introduced himself. "And, uhh, he's the reason why I had a headache this whole time."

"Hey!" The puppy known as Tir snapped back at him, turning to him with a glare. "We already established that I wasn't responsible for that!"

"Oh, right," Zeke slapped his hand on his head in realization. "Sorry. I meant that the crazy amount of energy that was causing my headache helped make Tir when I took it out."

"There ya go!" Tir said, now sounding extremely pleased, even wagging his tail a little.

Mikella had to take a moment before rubbing the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. She really wanted to slap this man sometimes.

"Zeke… please explain further before I start hurting someone. And I don't care if you only just got out of bed."

That got Zeke to stop joking around and start actually explaining the process of how Tir was born. After a few minutes of back and forth questioning from everyone involved, Mikella just stood there, dumbstruck at the result.

"So… you're saying you created this 'Mind Familiar Construct' thingy by accident, thanks to Lyle's potion. And now, Tir is here. So… then, what? He helped you make this thing?"

Mikella finally summarized in a way she could understand, even pulling up the rectangular device Zeke handed to her to show for it. Zeke nodded, smiling giddily.

"It's all thanks to Tir! You guys have no idea how fast he can work with stuff like this! He only took just a few minutes to make this thing! It would've taken me years–maybe decades–just to even get to this point!"

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Zeke spoke so enthusiastically that it took Mikella a while to realize that this was the same man who was just hurting profusely from a massive chronic headache that was worrying them both the past two weeks.

Seeing this, and seeing how he looked like he was completely cured, put such a balm to her worries that it almost stopped her thinking process.

"So… you're good then?" She asked, feeling as though every muscle had been held taut for the past two weeks had finally been relaxed, her shoulders drooping drastically. "No more headaches?"

"No more headaches," Zeke nodded, as if showing off he can finally use his head without hurting himself. "Actually, it's all thanks to Lyle. If it weren't for the potion, I think I might've actually exploded or something."

"Well, I'm glad I can help a brother out," Lyle chuckled, his hands put on his hips with pride. "Good to know it was worth experimenting on myself to make sure the potion was decent enough to work."

"Trust me, it was brutal," Janet shook her head, even shivering slightly. "Lyle had been stuck in the bathroom for hours two days ago. I can still hear the screams sometimes…"

Mikella looked back at Lyle in shock. Lyle, of course, turned to Janet as though he was hit with her famous backstabs.

"Janet! Don't say that! That was a little embarrassing y'know!"

"Oh, I'm sure it was embarrassing when the blood started coming out," Janet said, turning to him with a raised brow. "You did good, Lyle. They needed to know that."

"Seriously," Zeke said, this time putting on a serious expression. "You have no idea how grateful I am. Thank you."

"It's fine, it's fine!" Lyle tried to wave off the gratitude as though it was a physical thing. "Anyways, we're talking about Tir, right? So, you said it got your skills after it was born? But you're still somehow connected to them?"

Mikella knew it was a crazy way to switch topics, but she was also surprised to hear about Zeke losing his skills, or rather, had his skills transferred over to Tir during his creation.

"Yeah, it looks like it," Zeke explained, watching Tir casually scratching himself with his hind leg behind his ear. Wait, since it was a construct, wouldn't it normally have no need to scratch itself? "And here's the crazy part of it all. He's able to use all of my skills way more effectively than I could. Think about it like this; Human beings technically use only a small percentage of their brain power, right?"

"That was famous in the old world," Janet responded. "But in here, don't we, like, exceed that already by raising our Intelligence and maybe Spirit?"

"I thought so too, but it turns out it doesn't work like that," Zeke answered back, surprising everyone, especially Janet. "Since we're still people, we tend to think about things that affects us, causing us to get destabilized emotionally or psychologically. It's one of those things that we need to look out for even after Journeymen, or especially at Journeymen since the effects are even stronger. In that sense, we're still not fully utilizing 100% of our brain power. This is just to protect ourselves if anything, rather than breaking our limits."

Mikella understood that much, at least. While she wasn't used to using her brain like Zeke here, she knew that there are limiters for a reason. That goes as well for muscle training. Sure, if you get rid of any pain entirely, you can basically use 100% of the muscle power, but you won't notice the damage being accrued with which the pain usually lets you know.

That goes for brain power, or mental sanity as well. Using one's brain constantly for complicated stuff like runes, then without a limit, they can easily burn themselves out and potentially lose their minds. Mages often get warned not to go too far no matter how high their stats go. That was why there were resistance skills like Pain Resistance and Steadfast Mind, helping people ignore the pain to further use their body's true power without too much damage being done. Even so, there would always be a limit.

"Wait, so you're saying Tir can break your limits for you?" Mikella asked, concern now rising again.

"Even better!" Zeke actually laughed as he answered. "Tir does it all for me, and he doesn't have any limits like humans do. Or even real live beings for that matter. Because he's a pure Mind Construct, he can go on and on without ever burning out. That's why I've been running tons of experiments to see just how much he can last!"

He said aloud as though he had gotten a breakthrough over some project, and quite frankly, now Mikella felt as though she should be worried in another way.

"Zeke, I get that you're excited, but isn't it bad to keep forcing Tir to do all this for you?" Mikella asked, turning to the cute puppy looking up at her with such wide eyes.

"What are you talking about? I want to do this!" Tir, surprisingly, was the one that responded with such gusto in his telepathic voice. "If anything, he keeps running out of ideas to try out on me! I have to be the one to come up with some ideas for him!"

The three looked at the pupper in surprise, leaving Zeke to sheepishly brush the back of his hair.

"Yeah, he's so impressive that he keeps running me dry. In the end, we focused on creating a new form of communication for all of us."

Zeke eventually got to the main point, revealing the item in hand.

"There's also other ways he can use his powers. Look at this!"

Zeke sent a look to Tir and, supposedly understanding each other mentally, Tir turned over to the open area in the living room and flashed his similar green and blue eyes.

A barrier formed in front of them, a flat screen like barrier that looked incredibly strange to her senses. Mikella approached the flat barrier and touched it, surprised to find her hand phasing through it.

"He can use your skills?!" Lyle shouted, not seeing that the barrier was just a fake hologram of sorts.

"Pssh, I wish," Zeke scoffed. "He can't use my actual spells and abilities, only my mental ones. That right there is just a projection, using an imitation of my Mythril Bastion skill. It's basically a 3D model with no defense whatsoever."

"That's still cool as fuck, though," Janet praised, whistling at it. "But why did you make that?"

"Hold on," Zeke smiled mischievously. He turned to Mikella. "Can you back up a bit?"

She immediately did so, and waited for Zeke and Tir to do their weird thing. Zeke nodded to Tir, and Tir nodded in return. His eyes flashed again, and the screen suddenly turned into something else.

The screen actually showed images, like turning on a plasma screen. And it wasn't just images. They were moving images.

Hell, it was a damn TV show.

"Zeke, this is…?" Mikella's eyes widened, her heart raced at the sight of something so familiar, yet became so foreign, believing that she would never see it again.

"God have mercy…" Lyle said, for once shutting up and just marveling at the sight.

Janet, on her part, actually teared up at the sight of the screen playing the moving images, her eyes glistening with such pure happiness and longing. "This can't be… I thought I would never see it again…!"

Zeke just grinned along with Tir who looked at them, while behind the two, the screen showed a very iconic TV show, an animated show where two fighters were battling each other in a rocky terrain. One wore a bluish combat suit while the other wore an orange martial arts uniform with a Chinese symbol displayed on his back.

All the while, they were shouting and flying around the rocky terrain, using their energy beams and shouting attacks with as much bluster and bravado as the show regularly does.

"That's right," Zeke finally said. "I just couldn't help myself."

…..

Alissa walked along the similar street home with Clara in tow, who was practically skipping along with her with a joyous smile on her face.

Meanwhile, that lazy bat kept snoozing away behind her back, which was just doing exactly that during her training. Alissa understood that Brucey's job is to protect Clara, but does he really have to sleep so much?

Then again, maybe it's just her envy at the bat using this chance to sleep whenever he wanted. Gods knew how much she wanted that for herself.

Still, the sight of her glorious home was enough to bring her at ease, at least until the next day arrived for her work to start again. She started looking forward to spending time with Clara, as it meant getting away from the crudgey old nobles wanting to fill her days with nonsense and ego blasting to her face.

She also wondered whether Mikella would come at her for getting Clara into the idea of being in an academy in Arcelot. She was very protective of Clara to an almost unhealthy degree, but she should also know that this was for Clara's benefit as well. Considering that even Clara had the idea to talk to Zeke for him to get the backlash instead of either of them, Alissa can't help but dread what that lightning dragon girl might do.

Eventually they reached the door and when Alissa approached, she heard loud shouting behind it, surprising her. She knew it was the otherworlders probably talking enthusiastically about something, and of course they used her home for that meeting.

She didn't mind, but she wished they could quiet down a little. Even if they were farther away from the other residents of the district, they were being loud enough to wake the entire city.

Wondering just what the hell was going on, Alissa opened the door–only to find the strangest sight she had ever laid her eyes on.

"Come on, hit them with that 'kamehameha'!"

"Fuck yeah, kick his ass!"

"Oh god, the sound quality is perfect! And is this the director's cut!?"

"Damn straight it is! You think I'd go for anything less?!"

The four otherworlders started shouting and talking some nonsense that it completely whipped past Alissa's head. Her eyes were just glued at the four acting like complete children as they were watching a rather large screen, showing some strange drawings fighting against each other, using very loud voices and very showy magic spells that it boggled Alissa's mind.

Just when she decided to give up her pride and ask Clara what the hell they were doing, she rushed towards them, her eyes glowing bright as she shouted herself.

"Is that a TV?! Is it showing anime?! Let me see, let me see!"

Seeing Clara come over, the entire group made room as the little girl piped up with so much excitement, it was completely different than what she displayed ever in Alissa's entire time spent with her.

All the while, Alissa just stood there, gawking at the sight with barely any thought.

Just what the hell her home had turned into?