Simple choices were always the most difficult. Dallion had all the information he was going to get. There was a single partial unknown, and yet he felt unable to make a choice.

So far, the echo had suggested three options. The problem was that each of the options made sense. If Dallion had double the amount of chips, he’d just increase everything. Pretty much that’s how he did things so far, but that wouldn’t solve the problem.

Fear of missing out… Back on Earth, Dallion had read many blogs on how powerful the concept was. Everywhere from game design to cryptocurrencies and the stock exchange, people were talking about it. Here, it was more than a concept. Whatever choice Dallion made, he was going to lose something. He was also going to win as well, but his mind refused to see that. It was funny how when given the chance to shape his own destiny, he wanted to look to others for advice. Should he become like Veil and focus on nothing but attack? Or should he become more focused and perceptive, like Gloria? Jiroh and Eury were too powered up to compare to them, but even so, he could choose them as role models.

“You can also decide to gamble it all on the mystery stat,” the echo said after a while. “It won’t even be a large risk. All you have to do is move two chips from somewhere and you’ll finally know what has been hidden all this time. Maybe it’ll be worth it?”

Dallion reached for the stack of blue chips representing his mind, but found that he didn’t want to do that either. The issue there wasn’t what he was going to lose—two points on mind wasn’t such a big deal considering it was his highest stat. However, what if the new stat came with its own consequences? There was every chance the sensations would be so overwhelming that Dallion would require days, maybe more to cope with the change. Doing that before his first tournament battle was risky, to say the least.

“There really aren’t that many choices,” the echo sighed. “Not reasonable ones, at least. You can reach the cap of any skill, if you wanted, even perception. That will help you with your forging, not to mention you’ll finally be able to use armor as a weapon. All those layers of markers that your gorgon girlfriend kept telling you about? With a perception of forty, you’ll be able to see them without issue.”

That was true. With such a high level of perception, maybe he’d be able to start forging sky silver, possibly even make a blade whip of his own. He had the material—the ingot for his becoming a seer, plus the chain from Eury was enough material to create the weapon. At the very least Dallion would get some training in the process, which in turn would increase his forging skill. Was that the right decision to make?

“If I move something, can I move it back?” Dallion asked.

“As long as you don’t stand up from the table, you can move it as many times as you like. And, of course, the moment you openly give up, everything will go back to the way it was.”

That was a relief. At least Dallion had the option to retain the status quo.

“What about echoes?”

“Echoes?” the fake Nil frowned.

“If I create echoes while remaining at the table, will they have the stats I tested with? And if so, will they retain them?”

There were a lot of ifs, but Dallion’s hope was this to be a detail the trial had overlooked. If he could test the skills on echoes, it would be all the easier to determine which combination was better.

“Very clever, dear boy. I must admit, no one has even come up with that idea. Sure. You can use echoes to help you decide. You still have to make the decision, though. That’s the difficult part of the trial.”

The first echo Dallion created was the combat splitter: forty points on mind, zero on the mystery stat and twenty on everything else. Well, technically there were nineteen on body, but given that the level would allow him a further increase, the end result would be twenty as well. The moment it came into being, the echo immediately split into two dozen instances. That was more than Dallion had ever seen. Unless someone was specifically aiming to break the splitting mid-way, there was little they could do against that number of attack attempts.

Moving the chips around, Dallion then created three more echoes maxing each of the four attributes. This way he could see who’d win in a direct fight before playing around with fine tuning. Lastly, he created an echo with the mystery stat at twenty. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, although he didn’t expect it to be. Rather, what Dallion wanted was to see at what disadvantage he would be compared to everyone else.

“Remember, no killing, guys,” Dallion said to his echoes. “Just a test of skills.”

All of them replied with an identical smirk. Shortly after, the fight began and, to Dallion’s astonishment, quickly ended. In several seconds instances flashed all around, performing more attacks, blocks, and counterattacks than Dallion could follow. Contrary to his expectations, the body-maxed echo was the first to fall. While it had the strength and speed, its reaction time was slow, and all attacks were countered by the remaining four. Even the mystery echo was batter; it, at least, knew that it was no match so avoided combat, leaving the rest to deal with each other.

The second to fall was the reaction echo, though that was more due to a strategic decision by the other three. While initially it managed to handle itself well against dozens of instances, finally it succumbed.

Only three remained. The mystical echo surrendered on its own, joining the other losing echoes in the room’s corner. The final dual remained: perception versus mind. In the blink of the eye, mind had won. While the perception echo was able to make use of its armor for both defense and attack, it was no match against mind’s combat splitting.

“A decisive victory,” fake Nil said. “However, that’s only in the awakened realms. As I said, combat splitting isn’t as efficient in the real world unless you are Vend, and you’re not.”

Testing continued for a while longer. After the basic builds, Dallion played around a bit, creating six more echoes. Soon enough, the quiet test room was like a wild party gathering in which various echoes fought one another solo or in groups. And amid all this, a very annoyed fake Nil sighed.

“Do you really need to continue with this?” he asked. “You should have an idea what you want. Unless you’re going to make an echo for every single point difference.”

Dallion had considered it, but also had considered that it wasn’t going to help him. The sad part was that after all the echo testing, he was less certain of what to do than when he had sat down. Part of him was ready to pick something at random and just get it over with, but dozens of voices screamed in his mind that he might seriously mess things up if he did and there was no going back.

“Again, you can just decide to keep things as they are. You won’t lose a thing.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Dallion said.

“You’re definitely not venturing.” The echo narrowed its eyes.

“If I give up, do I have to wait a day before I can level up again?”

“It’s a trial. Just because there’s no fighting…” fake Nil looked at the other echoes in the room. “There wasn’t supposed to be any fighting,” he corrected himself, “doesn’t mean that the standard consequences don’t apply. Give up and it’s considered a failure. How you can fail something so simple really is beyond me. Then again, if it were that simple, it wouldn’t be a trial.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Dallion grumbled.

The echo was right, though. This was supposed to be easy. However, the more Dallion thought about it, the more confusing it became. It was like being invited to the world’s greatest buffet and being told to choose just one dish. That was the problem with options—sometimes too many were worse than no option at all. At least then, Dallion could grumble about unfairness and continue onwards. This wasn’t even a crossroads of destiny; this was an endless plain of possibilities that would determine his future. It was like splitting into an infinite number of instances but having a split second to decide which one to—

All echoes in the room stopped what they were doing. The fighting, discussions, even casual chatter subsided as they all had instantly become aware of the realization Dallion had reached. Moments later all the echoes, with the exception of fake Nil, were gone.

“It never was about the stats, was it?” Dallion smiled. The real Nil had often told him that every trial was a puzzle and only after understanding the real question could one hope to give the correct answer. “It’s about handling instances. It’s about handling combat options.”

“Very good, dear boy. So far, you’ve been limited by your stats. Anyone could handle five instances. Most could manage up to ten. Afterwards, things get tricky. And it’s not only combat splitting. Being able to see marker layers makes people focus too much on details and forgetting the overall point. A lot stumble at this point. Then again, a lot stumble at every point from here on.”

I know, Dallion thought. Safety was left for the double digits. All awakened past the third gate had to fight for every step forward, knowing that not doing so would mean being surpassed. It was a tricky balancing act, but Dallion was getting the hang of it.

“Can I really reassign my stats?” Dallion asked.

“You can always find out.” The echo smiled. “What’s the harm in trying, right?”

“No, thanks.” Dallion stood up. “I’m fine with the way things are.”

You have broken through your twenty-third barrier.

Choose the focus you value the most.

The blue rectangle appeared, along with the usual five choices. This time, Dallion chose the mystery skill without hesitation. There was nothing wrong with going for more options. The trick was not to lose oneself in them.

I guess there’s another room for me to worry about, Gen said. At some point, you really need to organize your realm. It’s a mess.

I’ll get to it. Don’t worry.

Sure, you will. In any event, congrats. Everyone’s still watching fireworks, so it’ll be a while before they congrats you too.

No worries. Based on the fake Nil’s reaction, Dallion suspected that the real one was all too proud of his achievement, but stubbornly reluctant to admit it. That was the thing about Nil, lately he had become too invested in Dallion, which was weird for an echo. I’ll be watching some fireworks as well.

The realm around Dallion vanished as he returned to the inn’s kitchen. The plate of food was still in front of him, which was more than welcome at this point. While the trial was supposed to be overcoming a mental block, Dallion had spent a lot of energy creating echoes, so he was just as hungry as if he’d fought an item guardian.

“Things went well?” Aspan asked.

Dallion paused, mouth full of food.

“I didn’t almost conquer the world by not being able to notice things. You attempted an awakening, and judging by your healthy appetite, you were successful.”

“Yep,” Dallion said. “Passed another one.”

“Good, though don’t do it before important events. Adrenalin and euphoria are dangerous drugs. You’ll have problems dealing with them during your next level ups.”

This was the first time that the copyette had offered advice in this fashion. Up to now, Aspan had only done so at Dallion’s request, or when things had gotten dire—like an adult telling a toddler not to put its hand in the fire. Now, it seemed that the copyette was starting to acknowledge Dallion for what he was, and that meant that soon others would as well.