I walked into the forest and surprisingly it felt very well maintained. The tuft of grass felt soft and smooth while the path was neatly paved into the plethora of trees surrounding me.

New Quest : Pass Jörmungandr's trial.

Jörmungandr has sent you into the depths of the Forest Of No Return for you to master your skills and evolve to the next level. Few were even offered this trial and even fewer has completed this to date. The first 10 people to complete this trial will get a special piece of equipment.

You are unable to reject this quest because it is a direct order from your master.

Message from Jörmungandr : NO CHOICE!! WHEN I ASK YOU TO SUCK A DICK, YOU JOLLY WELL SUCK A DICK WAHAHAHAHA. Seriously though, don't fail this okay it'll speak badly of me.

Looks like Jörmungandr was your typical sadist. Oh well. I just ventured deeper and deeper into the guided forest. After about 30 minutes of walking and wondering, I finally came to a clearing about the size of the fountain in Carnival.

Looks like a place for a trial. I wonder wha-

My thoughts were cut short. A blue snake shot itself from a nearby tree branch towards me instantly. I could only react as I drew out my katana quickly. However, the snake just phased past my sword and bit me on my waist. Reducing my HP slowly as it remained firmly bitten on me.

“WHAT THE HACK? LIKE SERIOUSLY?! HACKKKKKKK!”

I quickly tried to grab the snake but my hands phased through it as well. Suddenly a red colour snake also shot itself from another tree branch. Again the sword did not help at all.

“Fire flaming armour!”

Suddenly the blue snake dropped off and vanished. Just like that. It seemed like the snakes did not have HP at all but the red snake was still there sapping my HP. Two more snakes flew out, yellow and green in colour.

Hold on a minute I get what's going on.

I quickly made a small mana shield of green and yellow and put them in the path of the yellow and green snakes respectively. When the green snake passed through the yellow shield and vice versa, both of them vanished. I quickly cast some water spell on the red snake still on me and it vanished as well.

It was simple. The snakes could phase through my physical attacks because they were made of mana. Their colour simply told me which type of mana it was. Blue was water, Red was fire, Yellow was lightning and Green was earth. Simple and straightforward. They did not have HP at all meaning once they touched a mana type they are weak against, they would just vanish. However failure to stop the mana from reaching me would result in HP deduction. It wasn't an extremely hard task, especially seeing that if all I need were mana shields I could just make 8 different elements of the same spell. It was easy enough. It was casting different spells using different elements that were hard. Suddenly, I realised something that made the test so much harder.

Why the fuck aren't my HP and mana regenerating?

Being a class that was strongly dependent on mana usage it was second nature for me to keep an eye out on my mana bar. Mana regen was 1% of your mana every 10 seconds so after 10 seconds have passed I was supposed to regen 70 mana but there was no increase. The forest must've stopped any sort of regeneration of sorts. My HP didn't seemed to be regenerating as well. I was a conjugating plane helically wrapped around an axis. Yes I was fucking screwed. Suddenly, no less than 10 snakes were shooting at me from different angles.

“Help.” I muttered.

-Meanwhile, in Beathoven's perspective.-

“Beathoven. You've practiced the songs I gave you right?” Hel asked.

“Of course. A musician without practice loses his shine.” I answered.

“Good. I trust you did not tell your friends about the songs?”

“They know about the necromastery one.”

“Why? I told you to practice in secret.”

“I needed to use it so I did not have to wash the dishes.”

“Hmm.. Alright. I hate washing dishes too so I'll let it slide. Remember, do not play these songs in front of them unless you definitely have to. You're the secret weapon they will have in moments of deep crisis and I need to keep it a secret from anyone and everyone. You never know where they place their spies.”

“Yes master.”

“Alright. Show me how much you've improved.”

I whipped out my lute and begun to play a deep melody, sophisticated and sad. Legato and dolce. Forte to decrescendo. Hel slowly nodded, approving each and every stanza. Then, a familiar power begun surging through my veins.

-Meanwhile, in Soup's perspective-

“Boy, you've done me proud.” Fuzzy panted after a 2 hour spar with Soup.

“I'm very grateful for your teachings master. Want to grab a bacon?”

“Sure. But before that, I have one skill to teach you that will cover up the weaknesses of a gladiator quite proficiently. I've only been enhancing your physique, proficiencies and stats up till now because they are the core for any melee class. Only upon mastering these will your skills really shine. This will be the first skill I'll teach you and with this, you can easily solo dungeons even in the beginning stage when your Gladiator's rage buff hasn't even peaked.”

My eyes must have glowed with so much passion and excitement there wasn't need for any more words.

-To the retard we go-

My cheeks felt red and swollen as fuck.

“I'VE FINALLY WON! WOOOOOOOOOO! SOME SUCKER SUCKS MORE THAN MY SUCKING SKILLZ! MY MASTER IS A NOOB WAHAHAHAHA!” I screamed with gusto and exhilaration. So this was how it felt to win a slapping war.

“Fuck. I know I suck at some things but I didn't expect slapping to be so hard. Oh well alright. Time for the serious stuff. You've mastered the Loki's armoury skill to advanced level 9, 99%. The reason why your skill won't improve anymore is simple. Now, every individual weapon must be attuned to you in order for you to draw it out of my armoury.”

“Up until now, you've been summoning an incomplete part of the 10 weapons, gradually realising their truer forms every time you improve on class.”

“Now, you need to master each weapon and their personalities before you will be able to advance to the next level and summon their true forms in battle. First, let's start with the easy one. When you get a one. Meet Belieber.” Master said as he drew out a pussy.

The cat not the private part.

“Master I never got a one before but how the fuck am I supposed to whack my enemies with a cat? I know I like being retarded but honestly, if it's not funny like whacking a cat on Soup's junk or face I won't be able to bring myself to do it.”

“You fucking idiot. I'm the personality of the weapon. I'm similar to a cat so this is my spirit form.” Belieber said.

“TALKING CAT?! HAHAHA AWESOME NOW THIS IS SOMETHING FUNNY!”

Even by Loki's unbelievably low standards, he still had to shake his head.

I love this disciple of mine but I got a feeling this is going to take a looooooooooong time.

-Back to the forest-

I panted and heaved. I did not know constraint was so hard to maintain. The snakes shot out from literally every direction. 360 degrees. But thanks to that, I managed to gain a new skill.

New Skill : Sixth Sense

Only beings with high affinity to nature will be able to learn this skill. Due to the properties of nature, every being of it will have some sort of aura or presence. This applies to mana as well. As you have high affinity to nature, you are able to sense the aura's around you more accurately. At high levels, even the magnitude of the aura will be able to be discerned.

This skill appeared after about 20 snakes were being released at once. I felt some movements behind me and I automatically made shields behind me when I saw that. I had less health than mana so I thought preserving health was more important. Then, it increased to about 30 snakes. That was when I could even sense the nature of the mana approaching me.

It wasn't like using mana and imbuding them into my eyes to see the mana around me. This was one step higher than that. I needed to use nothing but my subconscious to tell me what was coming. It was instinctive combat at the highest order.

I was left with about half health and half my mana when the stage suddenly kicked into overdrive. The number stopped altogether. Usually they would come in waves, beginning in small amounts till now with about 30 coming in a span of about 10 seconds. However, that all suddenly changed. I could sense a whole army of mana snakes coming my way. It was definitely more than 300.

What the fuck is going on oh my god no no no no no no.

Then they all came at me.

I closed my eyes to concentrate more on my instincts. It was as if I was watching a beautiful rainbow coloured meteor shower. Just that I was the object the meteor shower was heading towards. I had to create smalll shields of the correct element for the shortest amount of time and the tiniest space available to stop the snake and then proceed to the next ones. Even though I coul split my mind into many parts, 20 small shields at once of different elements were the maximum I could go to.

I had to quickly identify, react and rectify and prioritize which snakes to deal with as they came at different speeds and angles as well. It was as if I have been taking an IQ quiz with questions of difficulty level 100 at first, then 110, 120, 130, and now skipped to 200 and above. I missed a few and I missed even more when I looked at my mana and health bars which were slowly ticking down.

NO. No time to worry about that. I just have to hang in there. I'm sure this trial is to train this aspect of my job. I need to be able to be calm under any situation. The war will be 100x tougher than this. BUCK UP JINX.

I steeled my resolve and concentrated even harder. I did not miss any snakes for about 1 minute but without a doubt, my mana was reaching it's limit. Suddenly, I was unable to create anymore shields. That's when I knew. Time is up.

About 200 snakes hit me within the next 5 seconds and my health bar immediately dropped to 0. Or that was what I thought. All the mana I was sensing around me was immediately gone. I looked around. It was a calm clearing again. My health and mana levels were slowly regenerating. Then a box appeared in front of me.

Trial by Rapid Fire.

Mana snakes of different elements will rain upon the user, trying to drain his or her HP. At first in waves, then all at once without stopping. They can be stopped only upon contact with a directly opposing element. Fire and water, Lightning and Earth, Wind and Ice, Dark and Light. The trial will stop any form of regeneration. It will only be over when the user reaches 1HP. The number of neutralised snakes will then be counted and shown to the user. Number of snakes needed to be neutralised is 1000 or more. Everyone's HP and mana becomes 5000 for both when you're in here. Hall of fame will also be shown.

Jinx : 1572 snakes.

Hall of fame : 1) Zarak : 1700

2) Dumblemore : 1642

3) Jinx : 1572

4) Grendel : 1499

5) Somerandomdouche : 1300

6) Somerandomdouche 2 : 1299

7) Somerandomdouche 3: 1298

8) Somerandomdouche 4: 1297

9) Somerandomdouche 5: 1296

10) Somerandomdouche 6 : 1295

I looked at the hall of fame, surprised to recognise a few names. Dumblemore, the person who gave me the trial to become the class I am now looks to be slightly more proficient in mana control than I am. It's obvious what this training was for honestly. But the person who really caught my attention was the first place. Zarak.

I could've sworn I heard that name somewhere before.... OHHHHHH

It was at the warrior's guild where I saw that statue of my senior. The only other elemental swordsman in existence I know of.... Elemental Swordsman Zarak. How come he did this trial as well? Who the hell lets people into this forest anyway? Was it exclusive to Loki's followers?

I still had many unanswered questions but for now, all I could do was put them away and concentrate at the task at hand. I let my hp and mana levels slowly regen up to maximum and I ventured further into the forest. This training wasn't over yet. Not in the slightest.

End of Chapter 25