A couple more deaths later, and he was able not just to activate his [ Thick Skinned ] skill, but land into a roll and get back to his feet before the second fireball incinerated him. This was where it got hard. The mage wasn’t some preprogrammed dummy he could memorize. Even if he managed to dodge the second fireball, he had to be able to avoid whatever came next, and his enemy wasn’t just more powerful than him, but far quicker.

  After fifty deaths, he lay on the dark tiles, looking up at the ceiling and groaning. He still had no intention of giving up. As painful as it was, it still didn’t even come close to the effort he had pushed himself through learning to walk again. If he could do that, he could do this. However, there was no point in mindlessly bashing his head against a wall he wasn’t getting past. He needed to think. Play it smart. Otherwise, this mage was going to keep turning him into charcoal chicken.

  He looked up again at the words etched into the shiny, black stone. “He who doesn’t listen, will not hear. He who doesn’t look, will not see. He who doesn’t walk, will not move.”

  Aaron’s brow twitched as those words settled in. Perhaps they weren’t as stupid as he first thought. His thoughts trailed back to the mage. There was the obvious tell where he pointed his staff toward Aaron, signaling he was about to cast his fireball spell. The problem was that by that point, it was already too late. The fireball simply traveled too fast. But what if there was another tell? What if he could predict the attack before it started? It would still be incredibly hard to dodge; the difference in speed between them was just far too great. But it might be possible.

  Charging back into the trial, Aaron put his plan into action. He died another ten times before he noticed anything. He barely had a second to eye the man, which was made that much harder with fireballs flying his way. But he saw it. Ever so slightly, the man tilted his head forward. It was less than a second before he raised his staff and fired, but Aaron would take every fraction of a second he could get.

  Time and time again, he died. Gradually, though, the number of fireballs he dodged increased. It went from three, to four, to five, and finally six before the lightning came.

  Unlike the fireballs that, whilst they fried his flesh away in less than a second, were relatively linear, the lightning bounced off the ground and walls, almost like it was seeking him out.

  After fifty deaths against the mage, he had gotten remarkably good at reading the shadow’s tells. Unfortunately, being able to dodge the lightning bolt did little to save his life. It simply bounced back off the wall behind him and zapped him less than a second later.

  Before starting his next attempt, Aaron contemplated the simple yet oddly profound words etched into the ceiling. He couldn’t just predict the movements of somebody like the mage; he wasn’t fast enough for that to work. He needed to improve his movement. He needed to be more fluid. His movements needed to flow from one to another without any lag or forethought.

  Aaron spent the next several hours trying to become one with his movements. He practiced stringing his movements together, rolling into dodges, springing to his feet already in motion, and dodging again. Unfortunately, he was no superhuman, and all this constant movement exhausted the hell out of him, but he did feel that gradually, it was coming together.

  Finally, once he felt that he had achieved something, he tried again. The first attempt ended seconds after the lightning bolt was cast, and although his movements had become more fluid, he realized that he would need to hone such skills in the heat of battle.

  Another fifty respawns later, Aaron rolled out of the lightning bolt’s way and threw himself into another diving dodge the moment he sprang back to his feet, avoiding the lightning bolt’s ricochet. He didn’t, however, dodge the second one.

  Luckily, dying seemed to refresh him, and every time he woke up, he felt like he was starting a new day with a good night’s rest and a full belly. He wasn’t sure how time was supposed to work in this place, and only wished to talk to The Assistant if absolutely necessary, but it really didn’t matter. He either found a way to beat some of these trials, or he didn’t.

  Another one hundred attempts later, and a significant amount of time, Aaron’s movements flowed like water, seamlessly rolling, diving, and jumping from one dodge to another. He was still slow and only just barely managing to dodge the mage’s spells by an inch or two, but he was doing it.

  Looking up at the mage after dodging three lightning bolts in a row, he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. The shadow heaving, like it was growing tired.

  A smirk creased Aaron’s face. Maybe this was possible, after all.

  Of course, being able to dodge the mage’s attacks wasn’t the same as being able to beat it. And the attacks only got harder to dodge the closer he got to the mage.

  Aaron lost count of the number of attempts he took, but he was sure it was several hundred. After some two hundred or so attempts to dodge the lightning bolts, he managed to make it within a couple of meters of the mage.

  This was it; he could feel it. The next attempt, he would lay hands on that spell-wielding bastard.

  Centering himself with a breathing exercise and stretching routine, Aaron prepared to enter the trial once more. He was limber and clear of mind when he reached out to touch the trial’s dial. But he hesitated. He still had two unspent stat points, and while he didn’t expect them to be a game-changer, his class stats hadn’t turned him into a superhero; after all, he figured they might help.

  After some deliberation, he put one each in Agility and Dexterity. He didn't feel much different, but he figured it might be enough to speed up his progress, if only a little.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The shadowy mage appeared before him, and like he had practiced, he was already dodging to the side when the battle began.

  It was a sight of beauty, Aaron dodging from one side to the other as the fireballs sped past him within inches, close enough to burn the hairs off his body. Then the lightning bolts came, and he moved as if he could see the future, dodging and diving in immediate succession to avoid the bouncing energy beams.

  With the long-ranged salvo avoided, he closed in. The mage cycled through spells, fireballs followed by acid blobs, and crimson streaks of molten magical energy. But Aaron always seemed one step ahead, getting out of the way by a hair's breadth every time.

  With every dodged spell, he made it a little closer, and then, when he was within reach, he swung. The mage was a fast spellcaster, but clearly not adept at dodging, and his fist crashed straight through the shadow’s face.

  The feeling brought delight and validation. Even though it looked like a three-dimensional shadow, it appeared to be anatomically a living creature. He felt the mage’s face bend against his fist, and the shadow stumbled backward. The strike was no killing blow, but it had undeniably caused damage.

  I knew it, I can hurt this one!

  But before he could land a second punch, the mage managed to get off a spell and blinked away. Before Aaron’s brain had a chance to catch up and comprehend what had happened, the mage was behind him. Again, Aaron had mastered the ability to read the mage, but he had only gotten insignificantly faster with all his training and handful of stat points, and he couldn’t dodge a lightning bolt aimed at his back.

  None of that mattered, though. Aaron was laughing manically when he awoke on the tiles after being respawned. He had done it, he had caused actual damage to the shadow. His suspicion had been correct. Unlike the ogre, he could hurt this shadow, even if it was extraordinarily hard to touch it. That meant he had a way forward—a way to beat a trial challenge.

  Aaron spent another torturous fifty deaths fighting the shadow mage. Ten of those deaths went by without landing more than a single punch, but eventually, he was able to account for the blink spell, dodging the attack aimed at his back.

  Still, it was no easy path forward. He had to close the distance to the mage all over again, and when he finally managed to land another hit, the mage blinked away once more.

  However, a pattern was appearing, and Aaron was mastering it bit by bit with each death.

  When his success finally came, Aaron’s movements had transcended even the masterful dodges he had learned when originally closing the distance with the mage.

  The first step was reading the opponent. The second was being able to move out of the way in time. And the third was efficiency. He no longer dodged and dove out of the way. His flashy movements had been reduced to just what they needed to be. This didn’t just give him more time to dodge follow-up attacks, but it meant less stamina being used with each dodge, and gave him the energy required to continue pursuing the mage after he blinked away several times. And once he was able to keep pace with the mage and dodge its attacks, it was only a matter of deaths.

  The mage blinked out of range and shot a blob of acid that could melt Aaron down to his bones in seconds, but he ducked low, and it flew overhead. Less than a second later, a fireball followed, but again, he twirled out of the way.

  He wasn’t sure exactly how much the shadows thought or felt, but he could have sworn the shadow’s broken and bloodied expression bent with irritation as he dodged another spell by mere inches.

  What's more, the spell had been small by comparison to what the mage was hitting him with at first—a single ribbon of crimson energy barely a couple of inches wide. Through reading the status instructions between battles, he had learned about stats like vitality and its ability to help you survive attacks. Of course, at his low level, just about any attack from someone as powerful as the mage would be enough to kill Aaron in a single hit. However, he felt that had he already managed to gain a few levels, he was fairly certain he would have been able to survive the weakened crimson spell.

  Activating [ Thick Skinned ] and dodging several spells as he closed in on his target, he unleashed a barrage of fists. The weakened and exhausted mage would not get away this time, and he felt the weak spellcaster crumble beneath his hardened fists.

  Left, right, body, body, left, right, and the mage dropped.

  Chain Quest: The Shadow Trials

  Stage one of [Trial of the Challenger] COMPLETED!

  You have tested yourself in one-on-one combat against a weakened shadow avatar of a god and have emerged victorious.

  Quest Rewards: Focus Stone [ Uncommon ], dining hall unlocked.

  Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

  Aaron blinked in disbelief. He had expected to win, thanks to all the work he had invested and the fact that the mage was on its last legs, but it still felt surreal. It felt so long ago that he had begun attempting to fight the shadow mage that it was hard to believe it was over. And harder still that he was being rewarded for it.

  Who doesn’t stand a chance now, Mr. Assistant Dude?

  However, his thoughts quickly moved on from reveling in the assistant’s incorrect predictions as he felt the experience rush into him. It was a power like he had never felt before, energizing and strengthening. Like what he had experienced when selecting his class, but it was far more intense.

  “So this is what it’s like,” he murmured, tightening his muscles as the power rushed into his flesh and bones.

  Ding!

  [ Brawler ] has LEVELED UP!

  1 → 6

  Purchasable Skill Available!

  It wasn’t just the feeling of power flooding into him. Aaron was sure he had just grown stronger with the level-ups. He felt his senses heighten. He was more aware of exactly where his hands and legs were—no doubt his improved Dexterity paying off.

  Wanting to test his improved stats out, he jumped into an old kickboxing training routine, and to his delight, it felt… better. His punches seemed crisper and faster. He jumped higher, and his feet obeyed his commands with more precision. In fact, he just straight up felt like a better person all around. Almost as if he had evolved into something… well, better. Like weeks, no months, heck, even that wasn’t right. This was like years of training and physical exercise pouring into him in an instant.

  A smile creased Aaron’s face. This changed everything, at least in his mind. The way forward had never looked clearer than it ever had, and if he was determined to beat this thing before, and secure a future for himself that didn’t involve becoming some galactic superhuman’s slave—he was damn well bent on it now.

  “Hahaha! Take that, you damn System! You think I’d just roll over and give up if you took my tutorial away? That ain’t how Aaron Dober works! I don’t care how many times I have to die, I’m going to beat this thing!”

  It wasn’t just how good the extra stats made him feel; he had Skill to purchase.