I’m not sure what I expected being brought back to life to feel like.

Something like waking up from a nap, a warm sunbeam across you like a comforting blanket. You get up, refreshed and aware, ready to confront life.

Not quite.

My soul slammed into my body like a Maximum Elbow Drop. Death vanished in a painful instant. One moment I was unconscious, the next I was dragged back into life, all of my senses coming back to me in a rush.

First was touch. It was cold. Freezing cold. And wet.

Second was smell. The air was incredibly crisp, and filled with magic.

It seemed like I was still in that weird place His Majesty sent me. Good, good! That meant I still had a shot!

I almost jumped up right then and there, but I managed to hold myself down. Come on man, you need more information first.

So I sat, making sure to be as still as possible. You know, cause I was supposed to be dead right now.

Taste came next. The grim, rusty iron taste of blood caked my mouth. Nasty.

Then my hearing came back, and I got exactly what I’d wanted. Some good information.

“I’m sorry Your Majesty. I know you liked the kid, but as guardian of the Tower, I have a job to do. I can’t hold back even if you do want them to pass.”

Tobis. Still sounded like my voice with a layer of chrome. So he hadn’t changed back yet? Hmm. I must not have spent that long dead then. Again, very good! And of course, hearing that His Majesty actually did want me to pass, well that was just gravy.

“I am well aware of your job, Tobis. If my memory serves correctly, I was the one who created you, was I not? I know good and well that you’re not supposed to go easy on the challengers. However, I am the King here, and I think that if I want a candidate to pass, there should be certain allowances for that. I mean for My sake, do I make the rules or not?”

Oh man, this was too good. I had to look. It sounded like Tobis was thirty feet away or so, so if I’m real quiet, I should be okay to move. I’m sure Tobis’s full attention is on His Majesty anyway.

Cracking my eyes open, I carefully turned my head to face Tobis. Sure enough, he was about thirty feet away, and facing away from me.

Quickly and quietly, I pivoted my head all around, scanning for my bag. This was an insanely good opportunity that I was not going to waste. I spotted it to the left, away from Tobis.

Now the hard part would be moving somehow without making any noise. I guess I’d just have to be really careful, and only move when someone was talking so their noise would cover mine up. I didn’t have to wait long.

Tobis audibly sighed. I began to painstakingly inch my way towards my bag. “Your Majesty please, I understand where you are coming from, but the System—”

“Plllbbbbbbbt!” The King blew a giant raspberry. His Majesty’s voice boomed with a righteous indignation. “Nuts to the System! I created the Foronean System almost single handedly—not to mention the hundreds of Sub-Systems that go into it—and if I want to step in for once in the aeons that Foronea has existed, I damn well shall! I am Samuel Lionheart, Godking of Foronea, Wielder of the Prideful Flame, and objectively one of the strongest beings in all of existence. I do not require permission for anything.”

In that time I was able to crawl my way over to the bag. I slowly unzipped the main pouch, sticking my hand in and carefully reaching around. Tobis wanted me to use a better plan? Oh, I had a hell of a plan in mind for him then.

Speaking of, Tobis and His Majesty began to get into a little bit of a back and forth, but I was too focused on my end of things to really pay attention.

The first thing I pulled out was a palm size glass bottle. It was spherical, filled with a watery thin, brilliantly bright apple red liquid. You know it, you love it, its a health potion. That nice bright red meant it was a pretty good one, not some washed out dusty brick potion that’s only good for nicks and bruises. Though, it was still low tier, which you could tell by how thin it was.

Without hesitation, I grabbed the cork stopper the held the potion in place, and yanked it out, pulling it into my chest to muffle the ‘pop!’. Then I slugged that sucker back all in one go.

Woooooah! Eugh! Just cause it was apple red did not make it red delicious. That was the problem with low tier health potions. Even if they were of a decent grade, they were b-i-t-t-e-r, BITTER!

It felt like my whole body puckered, curling up like I’d just gotten punched in the stomach. I fought to keep back cries of sour induced disgust, then relaxed as the healing properties of the potion washed over me.

There was a reason I’d gone the extra mile to save up for a mid-grade potion. At my level (That’s a big fat zero right now) this potion had more than enough juice to take me to full health in the blink of an eye. Warmth gathered over my injuries, rapidly popping bones back into place, relaxing and soothing swollen muscle tissue, mending any open cuts.

Thankfully all healing magic, including health potions, came with pain dampening built in. I’d had bones popped back into place before, and I think having that many bones fixed at once would have made me pass out.

And just like, bing bang boom, I was back to full health. Time for step two then.

Quickly, I checked over my shoulder to look at Tobis. He seemed to be more animated then ever, frantically waving his arms around and yelling up at the sky. Man, whether he’s part of the Tower or not, he’s got some real balls on him to be arguing with His Majesty like that. Good for me though.

I rummaged around through the bag a bit more, pulling out a length of rope, and two more sphere bottles. One was half full of a soupy blue liquid, the other contained just a pinch of a chunky yellow dust.

The blue was simply known as ‘Boom Juice’. You already what that does; makes things go boom. It was common, and pretty cheap.

But the dust was special. Take electricity elemental mana, condense it down into a solid (Don’t ask, I have no clue how that works) and you get a highly volatile, incredibly reactive substance called ‘sulfair’. Sulfair was expensive. This little pinch had cost me eight months’ work. But it was worth it, because even this little pinch, when mixed with half a pint of boom juice, becomes a ‘Lesser Radial Bomb’. Which is strong enough to deal decent damage to even a Tier Two monster.

I hear it now. You say, “Emmanuel, why didn’t you use that first time against him then?” I don’t know man, it just didn’t seem fair to use a fuckin’ actual BOMB in a one on one fist fight. Plus, it seemed a little bit too risky at the time.

I won’t ever make that mistake again.

I tied the length of rope around the bottle of boom juice. It was about fifteen feet of rope, which should be okay, the lesser radial bomb only has an effective range of about two feet. Then I popped the cork on both of the bottles, pouring the pinch of sulfair into the boom juice and immediately re-corking it. The instant the powder touched the liquid, it began to fizzle, sizzle, and boil.

The fuse was lit. It would either go off when impacted against something, or after thirty seconds. So whatever was about to happen, was going to happen fast.

I stood, picked up the free end of rope, and began to stalk towards Tobis. My pace was deliberate, not too fast. Had to let this baby cook as long as possible.

As I crept closer, Tobis and His Majesty’s voices rose, their tones becoming more agitated.

“Well at the end of the day Your Grace, no matter how you feel about it, he is already dead. What’s done is done, and you shall simply have to wait until the next interesting mortal appears.”

“Watch yourself Tobis. If I felt like it, I could always move you into something more……run of the mill. Like a toaster, or that juicer in the cabinet I haven’t touched in ten thousand years. And you know what, its not over till its over. I could always just bring him back to life you know. How about that, Mr. Smart Guy?”

It was then that I stepped into range. I was ten feet away from Tobis, and the lesser radial bomb was near the end of its fuse. The blue liquid had turned hot magma orange, and the bubbling pressure inside had built up to critical levels, a spiderweb of fractures spreading over the bottle’s surface.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary Your Majesty, though I appreciate the thought.”

I hefted the rope near the end with both hands and spun it over head in a grand circle before letting the rest of the slack out and aiming it right for Tobis’s head.

Time seemed to crawl to a halt then.

Tobis didn’t even turn, instead launching directly into a roll to the side. His dodge saved his head from being taken off his shoulders, but he wasn’t able to dodge it entirely. I angled my swing down a bit to compensate and the lesser radial bomb careened into Tobis’s right arm, down by the elbow.

*Tink*

The shattering of glass.

*WOOOOOOOMPH*

An ear splitting roar as the energies of the lesser radial bomb were unleashed. I had to shield my eyes as a large, angry orange fireball blossomed in the space Tobis used to be. It was two foot around exactly, burning with greater intensity than even the light of Novas. Then a blistering wave of heat washed over me, burning my face like I’d just walked into a torch. I screamed, covering my face with my arms.

A moment later it vanished, leaving an eerie vacuum of silence.

Come on, press the advantage!

I rushed forward before the sun spots in my eyes even had a chance to fade. Crossing the ten feet in an instant, I leapt for Tobis, intending to tackle him to the ground.

Instead I sailed through empty air, belly flopping into the ice cold quicksilver with a loud splash. Spitting the awful stuff out of my mouth, I stood and whirled around, prepared for a counter-attack.

But there was none. And as the light spots faded from my eyes and I was finally able to see what was going on, I saw why.

Tobis, or rather, the body of Tobis, laid on the ground in front of me. Maaaaan, that did way more than I expected it to.

His right arm was completely gone, along with all of his shoulder, a bit of his neck, and a very large section of chest. There was no blood, obviously, but I found it interesting that he didn’t even leak some sort of silver goo or anything.

His eyes were glassy and hollow, staring straight up into the sky, unmoving even when I came up to him and waved my hand in front of his face.

I shivered, a drop of cold sweat running down my back. Blood or no blood, silver or not, it was still un-nerving as hell to see my dead body laying in front of me. I didn’t have long to worry about it though, as small bubbles began to appear all over Tobis’s form. They swelled, popping in a splash of liquid silver. As they did, more appeared, Tobis’s body rapidly taking on a more liquid consistency. Moments later, his now entirely liquid body spread out and merged into the quicksilver around me.

And it was quiet.

For about five seconds.

*BUM BUM BUM!*

*DUN DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUN DUUUUNUNU!*

A cataclysmally loud burst of trumpets and drums exploded out of nowhere. It scared me right off of my feet, sending me ass first into the silver liquid, again.

“Shit! What the hell was-”

A bright, golden screen with a royal purple border appeared in front of me.

[CON-GRAT-U-LATIONS CHALLENGER! YOU HAVE BEATEN THE TRIAL OF __________. THIS IS A GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT, TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR EXCELLENCE. HIS MAJESTY IS ASSESSING YOUR NEW SCORE NOW AND WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY. YOUR STORY STARTS NOW. GOOD LUCK!]

“The trial of wha-”

“What in the Hells was that? Come ‘ere kid! You’ve got some explaining to do.”

There was a blinding flash of radiant, pure white light. Before I could even fully register what was happening, it was already fading away, my eyes adjusting to my new surroundings.

“Holy…”