Chapter 9: Awards

"Master, I have finally mastered this spell of Provocation! Huh? What are these noises you hear? Uh... actually you're going to laugh, but Count Radoc is at the entrance of your house... with his elite guard. And he's trying to get inside the building right now. The door? Haha, no, it should resist, well.. maybe.. *cough* but you should probably explain the situation to him quickly! "

- An anonymous sorcerer's apprentice, before being dragged by his Master to receive a memorable lesson on the dangers of practicing magic.

When Mars opened his eyes, he was standing in the reward room.

He recognized this place which looked like a chapel made of white marble. In front of him stood a small altar made of gray stone with silvery reflections, on which rested a ball of gray misty light that glowed periodically, as well as a small opaque crystal.

These were the rewards for finishing this dream. He took a few steps and reached out his hands to retrieve his reward. When his fingers dipped into the sphere of light it was drawn into his body, and Mars felt a strong heat inside him, as if a small blaze had penetrated into his body and soul to warm him and chase all the darkness away from him.

You have recovered 1084 shards of grey souls. Using their power will allow you to strengthen various aspects of your body, mind or soul. Other types of souls allow for more. You can offer them to the Gods to benefit from their blessings or miracles. You can also offer them to sorcerers so that they can teach you the secrets of how to use powerful magic. Of course, you can also keep them to exchange them for services of all kinds from those who know how to use them. After all, the power they contain is very alluring.

"1084? That's way too depressing."

It was three times as much as he'd gained in this first dream in his past life, but it was a ridiculously small number. Just thinking that a hundred million soul shards were barely enough to get him up to about the reinforcement level 480. And to get to level 800 he needed more than three times that. It almost made him feel like he was going to pop a vein or fainted!

Maybe without thinking about this detail he would have been able to enjoy this reward.

Chasing away these depressing thoughts, he caressed the crystal wondering what its role was, it looked like a spell stone, but who knew? The grimoire apparently as it glittered again.

Minor spell crystal.

In the past, the sorcerers and magicians of the blessed Empire of Dakanar sought a way to make magic accessible to those who were not naturally blessed with the gift of magic, nor predisposed to acquire it even after working hard. After many years of research and countless failures, they finally invented the art of creating spell crystals, objects capable of containing magic in a semi-precious stone or metal. Dazzled by this discovery, they hurried to transmit their knowledge to different temples and magical clans, so that the benefits of magic could be available to all. In the early days, crystals were used to reduce casualties among soldiers, make harvests more abundant, make certain types of care easier, and solve many once difficult problems. A new reign of prosperity was promised. Unfortunately, what they had not foreseen was that their invention would be used to destroy the Empire they were trying so hard to defend. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This crystal contains a minor spell of light. This kind of object is very useful for moving in dark places. For more information, read page n°84.

Without his spells, this would be useful in dark places. Once the rewards were taken, the scene changed again, and the next moment Mars stood in a hall big enough to hold several thousand people. Many tapestries representing battle scenes decorated the distant walls. Several large doors of different colors were open, leading to a bustling city many different smells floated in the air.

The place was also very noisy, everywhere around him stood other people. Some were standing with their arms shaking, some people were talking to one another, while many others, the majority, were sitting or cowering on the ground, trembling and crying, surely trying to overcome the trauma and shock caused by the events they had just experienced in their previous dream.

Several spirits were flying around the reception area, spreading soothing influences to human beings and offering their help by channeling simple spells to calm the minds of those who were in the deepest distress, unable to alone with their fears and the horror of being brutally murdered.

Even with the pain shock-absorbers built into dreams as well as the spells that partially inhibited the memory of death, experiencing and remembering the process of being torn alive and watching your own body parts being devoured one after the other was definitely at the top of the list of things that are very bad for mental health.

That was probably why he had come across so many crazy people outside. Him? He was pretty sure he was one of the few to come out mentally unscathed, since apart from a tendency to talk to himself, he didn't have that many problems... well... probably... maybe?

Even so, the human mind was something pretty solid. Many would suffer to the point of almost losing their minds, but the suppression spells would slowly suppress the psychological traumas to avoid creating soldiers with PTSD. Those who survived the whole ordeal would come out as true warriors, and the majority of them would have no serious after-effects.

But this was not true for everyone. Many of those who survived and joined the outside world would end up going mad. These people would dive headfirst into drugs and alcohol, or would end up committing suicide when they became unable to cope with the fear of being devoured by monsters. But in any case, the weakest usually survived no more than a few dreams. The horror they would experience would be intense, sure, but it would be short-lived, and in a sense it was a form of mercy.

His grimoire floating in front of him.

This place will give a brief respite to your tired mind after your trials, take advantage of it to rest and use your free time intelligently, because your time here is limited. Note that your free time will gradually increase after each dream, but you may voluntarily join the next trial whenever you want.

Remaining time: 13h

Now that he had some free time and other humans were present, he was able to solve his most urgent problem!

Wasting no time, he moved to the alleys of the dreamlike city, where he remembered that the most unsavory Earthlings used to wait for confused newcomers to get lost in order to beat them to.. to what? He didn't know, and he didn't care. What mattered was that the garbage always tended to gather in groups, so this was the ideal place.

Soon he arrived at some less busy alleys was and some scum was already following after him. He didn't even need to pretend to look harmless. Many of them whistled and laughed as they looked at him, probably seeing the newcomer as weak and easy prey.

A group of three people quickly caught up with him and blocked his path.

A man who was probably of Middle Eastern origin, whom Mars had just nicknamed 'Shitface', displayed an arrogant look, "Hey, hey little bastard, what are you doing here, you lost?".

Lackey number 1 laughed at what was probably a joke, and then lackey 2 said with a smirk "Do you need some help, sir?"

Mars looked at the three of them, their look as well as their height. These guys looked pretty decent "okay, you'll do."

Lackey 2 raised his eyebrows, "Huh? What are you talking about, dickhead?"

Mars had a mocking smile on his face. He cracked his neck waving his hands from left to right and spoke as if it was obvious "Of course, the cleaning of smelly scum. What else would you qualify for?"

Lackey 1 showed an angry face and approached Mars with an aggressive intention "Huh? What the fuck are you saying, you son of a bitch?" while Shitface frowned, "Oh, are you smiling? You want me to ruin your face? Okay, guys, show him."

Lackey 2 approached with a big smile "Haha, you're dead now, moron," while Henchman Number 1 roared and swung his ist towards Mars, who easily dodged the henchman's blow and kneed him in the stomach. The lackey fell to the ground groaning.

Henchman number 1 cursed and threw a punch at him. Mars counterattacked with a kick to the henchman's chin, without waiting for them to react, Mars kicked Shitface's groin which just came closer to attack him. "Someone like you doesn't deserve to be called a man."

In order not to make anyone jealous, Mars kicked the two henchmen on the ground in the groin to let off some steam until they were unconscious.

As expected, this garbage had probably improved their bodies with the power of souls, but it wasn't very useful for protecting fragile parts of the body. Without caring about the witnesses, he took off their clothes, and then he took off the horrible clothes he was wearing, before putting on the ones he had just became the owner of.

Being a fair person, he divided his clothes among the three of them, and moved their half-naked and unconscious bodies on the ground, trying to create an artistic work. One of them woke up when he did so, but he hit the shit out of him again till he sank into unconsciousness. Mars laughed as he looked at the absurd and humiliating positions of the three scums on the floor. He clearly had the soul of an artist, in addition to being an altruistic and generous man.

The truth is that if a woman had fallen for him and asked him to marry her at first sight, he would have found it legitimate.

Now dressed properly and with a lighter mind, he went to a quiet place to rest and check the state of his magic. It was crazy how much good beating a few useless guys could do good for morale. He should do it again more often.

Crossing many alleys, he finally arrived in the place he stayed the first time he was forced to train into the tower.

Mars entered the inn, "The Purple Frog". It was a rather average inn. The building had the shape of an "H", it was composed of a ground floor and three upper floors. On the first floor there was a room that could hold about 50 people. Behind it was the kitchen where some cooks worked. The cooks did not have any favorite recipes, and the cooking was edible. At the front of the inn, a few tables and chairs were available for a drink outside. The rooms had a minimum of amenities, with a magical lock to close the door.

The woman who ran the inn asked him what he wanted the moment he entered through the door. He asked for a meal which was quickly served, and when he finished he went upstairs to a random room. He didn't need to pay anything because everything was free.

Mars had sometimes wondered why the creators of the tower had bothered to design such a large environment that looked so much like a real-world city, but it was probably so that the challengers could rest their minds in a seemingly normal place so they wouldn't go crazy in between trials.

Now inside a quiet room, he sat down on the floor and made himself comfortable. Before devising any plan to join the Elven kingdoms to find Aleria, he first had to become stronger, in order to survive the journey, and for that he had to know what he could rely on.

He had inspected his grimoire on the way to the inn, and all the spells he had previously learned had indeed disappeared from the grimoire, but that didn't mean that they had disappeared from his memory. In fact, he remembered exactly what he had said, what he had thought, felt, felt or how he had handled the magical energies in order to shape the spells.

But why was he able to use his telekinetic magic without any problem when he was unable to reproduce the same result with his minor flame spell?

He was going to test all the spells he knew to know exactly the answers to his questions. Relaxing his body and concentrating his thoughts, he tried every spell he knew one by one. He would find answers.

***

When he reopened his eyes, Mars was aching all over and his body seemed almost as exhausted as his mind. He had tried to cast each spell he had evet learned one after the other, but after a while each attempt had been more difficult and tiring than the previous one, and he had ended up totally depleting his magical energies before falling asleep.

But now he knew what the problem was, and how to fix it.

By recreating his witchcraft heart, and with enough training, he would probably be able to learn how to handle all the spells they he knew without being dependent on his grimoire. This meant that he would no longer be limited by the grimoire regarding their power as he had been before, and this opened up prospects for him to acquire power far beyond what he had possessed before.

In theory this meant that with enough time he would be able to become a true sorcerer, but since he was affected by the curse of Narkasum, he would not be affected by their limitations, such as risking being possessed by a demon if he didn't control his magic well.

Well, it sounded incredible, but... the problem was that he didn't have enough time, so this incredible opportunity was going to be hard to exploit.

He sighed bitterly. Yes, he would be a little stronger than before, but in the end it wouldn't change anything in his situation. The only possibility was still to entrust his memories of the future to others. After all, the Chosen One who was supposed to save them all had never appeared in his previous life, and there was no reason for that to change in this one.

Looking at his grimoire, he saw that he had barely an hour left before his next dream began.

So before that happened, it would be wise for him to use the soul power he had gathered to increase his strength. He didn't need it to survive the dreams, but it would allow him to better finish faster and reap more rewards.

The most appropriate choice in the immediate future was undoubtedly to stir up his physical strength.

Mars placed his hand against his grimoire communicating her intention. Immediately after, two rings of light surrounded his body, while the power of the souls shards shaped his body into something new.

Quickly, changes took place within him, his whole body became bloated as he adapted to the change under the effect of the vital energy seeping into his bones, muscles and tendons. He was so hot that he felt like he was in an oven, as he felt his muscle fibers become stronger and denser, and the vital energy that circulated and flowed through his body generated an ecstatic pleasure within him.

Then the two rings of light dissipated. He looked at his hands and made a few movements to feel the new strength of his body. A serene feeling naturally accompanied this change.

You have taken your first step to rise above your condition as a simple mortal. Your chances of not ending up as a meal are a little bit higher than before. Keep it up.

Reinforcement level: 2

Contained souls (infused): 1028

Souls in possession: 56

✙ Physical strength: +2

Innate: 4.6

Total: 6.6

✙ Resilience: +0

Innate: 3.3

Total: 3.3

✙ Vitality: +0

Innate: 3.1

Total: 3.1

✙ Psychic power: +0

Interior: 81.3

Total: 81.3

✙ Soul clarity: +0

Interior: 67.9

Total: 67.9

✙ Magic energy: +0

Innate: 9.8

Total: 9.8

☽☾ Blessings: none

☽☾ Gifts: Minor perception of ideas, Minor perception of emotions, Minor perception of essence.

☽☾ Magic: None

Once this is done, he took the opportunity to relax his mind a little, and quickly returned to a state of drowsiness to rest a little more before joining a new challenge.

He was looking forward to fighting against slightly stronger opponents.