The Wandering Sword's Apocalypse Event [A litRPG, Progression Fantasy Epic] [Volume 1 finished]

"As far as I know, using the quest system for the same thing is almost impossible," Goleon continued. "Unless of course you want to go the crude route and buy your way to godhood using credits. Although even quest system users will buy a title system upgrade almost every time."

Rafe took a few moments to process this phenomenon. He was the first person to have a quest system as early as the F grade, but he was also probably one of the first to miss out on the title system. In the short term, he was golden, but in the long run, if or when he was trying to become a god, he might suffer.

"That's enough of that anyway," Goleon interrupted his train of thought. "No use crying over spilt milk. You don't have a title system. I'm sure it's possible to get one in the future, but that will be your problem."

Rafe nodded. "Yeah, that's fine I guess. Let's talk about the Chosen title."

Goleon nodded as well. "I was once a Chosen. I've since done a lot of research on the title, naturally, as our biggest adversary is a Chosen."

Rafe looked at the god impatiently. Did this guy even know how hard it was standing in this array?

"I'm trying to distract you from the array on purpose," Goleon said. "As your soul gets stronger, especially with how you've been treating it this last week, it will adapt to quick healing, even without soul nurturing treasures. I'm hoping to force a breakthrough. A bit more damage than last week. I know Terra was very lenient."

Rafe glared at the golden god. This guy sure liked to make Rafe's life hard. He remembered this guy punching his lights out once, and he was happy to do it.

"Ahem, so the Chosen title," Goleon coughed. "Every Chosen receives different from the others. Of course the one thing common among all Chosens is their connection to the planet's core.

"You should also know that the connection of local deities to the Core is their most important connection. I guess you can consider how my little disciple is qualified to oppose us now, can't you?"

With this new information, Rafe started to understand something. He was still a little confused though.

"So you are all connected to the planet's core? So what? He should still be weaker than you guys, right?"

"Right and wrong. The thing that makes us gods invulnerable in our domains is the faith energy worshipers create. A Chosen by virtue of being a Chosen also has a deity like existence, so they have their own kind of faith energy. In this domain, we should be equal in status.

"Unfortunately, the Chosen title doesn't simply connect the Chosen to the planet core. It gives the Chosen complete authority over the core. Theoretically, we should have equal influence on a planet. In practice however, the Chosen has a little more influence. Of course Bodhia only learned about this from those damn outsiders. And with that he was able to prevent us from manifesting."

"What outsiders?" Rafe lurched onto that piece of information as he tried to process all the other information.

"Some faction from the multiverse. The system branded them heretics. Anyway that doesn't matter. Where were we?"

"The Chosen got some information from some faction from the outside," Rafe supplied.

"Yeah. Yeah, you are not qualified to know much about them, except that they have been targeting a lot of planetary deities over the past hundred years or so. Now they have their eyes on the tutorial sector."

Rafe frowned at that news. But Earth was an Essence desert. Plus it was not that old anyway. He didn't need to worry about something happening to it in his life time.

"From that relieved expression, I can tell you think your planet is safe because it has no deities? Huh, recently they've been targeting special planet spirits though. Apparently there is a certain pet that needs to be promoted to a calamity beast, and this kind of promotion needs a bit of variety in its feed. It is my dream to fight a calamity beast, so a half step calamity beast before my second death might not be too bad," Goleon said.

It was quite a lot of information all of a sudden. There was someone targeting local deities. Not having deities also didn't necessarily mean a planet was safe. They also fed on planet spirits. And now they were going to manufacture a calamity beast.

Calamity beasts could be created manually? That was quite something if it was possible. But this beast would not be in a dungeon, so it would be an S rank or higher beast the first time Rafe saw it, whenever that would be.

It wasn't yet a calamity beast for now, so maybe Rafe could get to see the classification below the calamity tier.

"Back to the main topic: as a rule, a Chosen is basically invincible when fighting someone of a similar level on their home planet. They can even fight a little above their weight when on home ground."

That was curious. Wasn't Goleon, a Chosen, killed by someone weaker on his home planet. Bodhia had been Goleon's apprentice. How had he managed to kill Goleon. Poisoning? Possible, but there had been a great duel. Rafe had even seen a bit of it in a vision once.

"Why does this matter?" Rafe asked.

"You, my friend, are going to be fighting a Chosen who is far stronger than you on his own planet."

****

Somehow Rafe was forced to stay in the array for forty five minutes that day. The next day he was forced to stay in ten minutes more. His soul was too battered to do a lot of soul quality cultivation. He was only a single step away from that last step. He could feel it.

Stolen story; please report.

So he focused on filling up the battery of the new portable fight simulator.

He realised he could only use it when it was full, although a full charge gave him a full four fights. In the first fight, Rafe faced off against Filoria.

He knew she was too weak, but he needed to vent his hatred for her. Killing her in less than a second was a cathartic feeling.

After that, he fought a faceless and bald clone who fought like Collab. As a true F grade clone, this version of Collab was no match for Rafe at all.

And so he got cocky. Could an F grade Bodhia Benhaven still dominate him the way he had before?

The simulation lasted about the same length as Rafe's fight with Filoria. Only this time the result was reversed.

Rafe could not believe it. He couldn't believe there was an F grade out there who could defeat him that easily. As an F grade, the Chosen effortlessly defeated Rafe.

****

When he asked Goleon about it, the god asked him a few questions about the artifact.

"I think the problem is that the artifact isn't exactly making him his F grade version. It's getting the current version and reducing his stats. I don't think it's affecting his skills and skill levels at all. A D grade user like Bodhia probably has quite a few legendary skills. He is still overwhelmingly more powerful than you."

But that didn't discourage Rafe at all. The last charge, he fought Bodhia again.

****

'Ding': World Quest Received.

Objective: Survive the ever hardening fights in the pits.

Reward: A chance to escape from prison.

Rafe could still ask about the few things he had received clearance for. For example he once asked how these gods were connected to his sudden appearance in Primus.

Apparently, after the Chosen banished them, the gods tried to find a solution. The best they could do was give up a lot of their authority in order to summon another Chosen from another world.

But that was strange. Rafe was not a Chosen.

****

Before he knew it, Rafe had a copper core in his soul. He had no way to nourish it further, because he didn't have any techniques. But every training technique came from someone who was willing to experiment.

And so Rafe decided to start bashing his perfectly spherical core around his soul. It was painful, he found. By the end there were hundreds of cracks and a part of the sphere was depressed.

He did not need to cultivate the way he cultivated before to fix it little by little. All he needed to do now was provide the soul nurturing energy and the core would fix itself slowly. Relatively slowly anyway. He could only cultivate once every twenty four hours now.

Since the core was now a part of his soul permanently, it healed the way the rest of his soul did. And his soul's healing ability was becoming ridiculous. Of course that was only when he consumed soul nurturing treasures. It was probably a little slower if he wasn't using any kind of treasures.

His exploration of the spire could now last almost four hours. He only needed to find the way to the Chosen's office now, and he would officially be ready for the promotion event.

He had a possible escape method, though he didn't know that method yet. Only the gods did. He was going to fight a D grade user, though he also had no idea how, nor did he care enough to ask about these gods' plans.

The gods said as long as his soul strength was high enough, he would have a way. And now he could feel how strong it was. He thought that at some point he could solidify his aura, use it to send a more physical attack.

What was more, his soul was easier to see using his soul sight ability. Now he could almost see the whole schema. It was going to become easier to train even after he left Primus.

In a moment of inspiration, Rafe decided to save up the fragments that fell off his soul core. Almost two weeks to the promotion event, Rafe used a lot of time and soul nurturing treasures to fuse these fragments into a very tiny mass.

It took him hours and at the end Rafe was sure he tapped into his life force a bit, but, he felt satisfied. A shadow of a second core, and he was still an early F grade.

It would probably take years to grow it into the same size as his current core, but at least it was a start.

By that time, his core was so refined it barely shed fragments of itself when it was banged. He was at the limit his imagination could reach. He would need a manual to know how to improve the core's colour. And his soul nurturing treasures were almost used up anyway.

He now focused on trying to build a new core from scratch.

****

Using the portable fight simulator, especially using it to fight very hard bouts with Bodhia Benhaven, gave him a little experience.

And the fights in the pits were getting harder just as the last world quest promised.

In his fourth fight, ten peak F grade beasts were released into the arena to fight against him. It was the first time such a thing ever happened in the pits.

This time Rafe was a lot more clear headed than in the previous match. The week before had been good, with no Filoria and no torturer. He had also finally found what served as an elevator in the spire. He knew the Chosen's office was on the highest floor.

And he had been there before, so once he got the elevator to take him to the highest floor, he would naturally find it. His map ability was very conversant with most of the lower levels of the spire now, and that one corner on the top floor where the Chosen worked.

With his mood so good, he decided not to dominate the beasts too much. Beasts, especially low quality beasts that had no sapience to speak of, were naturally easier opponents than people. If he wanted, Rafe could wipe out these ten monsters in half a minute.

And that too only if they had some strong cards he did not expect. Instead he took this as a chance to train a few of his recently neglected skills, and to try and work the knots out of his body. Sitting in one position all day everyday naturally made Rafe very stiff and unfit. Luckily, Goleon had hinted before that Rafe's body was not very necessary in the final fight.

Filoria came after that match, but she only gave him the potions and left again.

Rafe only shrugged, not bothering to worry about it. It was too late for her to change his mind about killing her anyway.

For his fifth fight, there was a demon beast tamer involved, and a burned archer shooting flaming arrows. There were more than thirteen opponents this time, and with the beasts being controlled by someone, they were a lot harder to deal with than the fight before. This time Rafe was unable to prevent his opponents from tag teaming him.

After that fight and after all the times Bodhia Benhaven had one shot killed him, Rafe was only left with forty percent experience to the next level. But there were only three weeks left to the promotion event.

He fought hard, trained hard, improved the efficiency of his Essence control, but he still had over fifteen percent experience to his next level by the time the last fight rolled around.

But the heavens were on his side this time. As the opponent was introduced, Rafe took the chance to prode him with aura senses. And the opponent was an E grade user.

According to the announcer, this guy was a legend of the pits who was one of the only people to ever acquire their freedom after killing a multitude of opponents. After hearing of Rafe's crimes, this man had decided to voluntarily re-enter the pits. But he had recently broken into the E grade. E grades were rare enough. Wasting one, even if they were not Ma'la, in the pits was something no one was willing to do.

But Rafe was proving a hard nut to crack, so they decided to bring in the big guns.

Instead of feeling depressed or betrayed, Rafe showed a rare heavy grin. This would be a chance to test his strength against someone a grade higher.

What's more, this guy was just at level 76. He had only recently advanced, and he was a pure mage.