“Perfect,” Ben sighed contently as the notification went off in his head. He had about an hour before they needed to enter the trial, plenty of time to regain the mana he’d spent, and with the level up he was feeling good.

He’d only slept for a couple hours with everything going on but he was still feeling refreshed as he waited. Over two days had been spent devoting himself to studying the trial and working on his magic, and the fact that the second option had managed to have a bit of payoff at the end was already more than he’d hoped.

I guess it just goes to show that jobs really aren’t for nothing. I should try to make sure I complete the more important ones as optimally as I can in the future.

He knew without a doubt that he’d have never leveled up his magic in the span of only a couple of days if it weren’t for the effects of all of his jobs acting on it, as well as the blessings he had. He could see the effect when it came to his mind skills well enough. He never had much issue leveling up the simpler ones if he really worked for it, but he’d never gotten to see that effect on any of his crafting skills. Both crafting and enchanting had mostly been growing with his jobs, and with the only other one being enchanting knowledge which was more dependent on how much he could read than any actual training, he’d never gotten to see just how fast he could rise up through the levels until now.

As long as there were items in the next section for him too, he just might be able to put himself into a better position for whatever came after it thanks to the level he’d gained, but he’d have to survive the coming section first as he looked down at Greed in his hand.

“I don’t know what’s coming but it’s probably going to suck. You ready? Need a bite beforehand?”

“Ugh, don’t make me think about what’s filling my stomach when we might die,” He complained. “Besides, I need to hang on to all of the mana I can. Buffing my own recovery rate is one thing, but I can’t buff my mana pool and you take an unreasonable amount to heal. Not to mention all the buffs I’ve already got on you. How are you feeling?”

“Powerful.”

Every attribute Ben had was currently being buffed. He normally would never consider taking them if he could help it, while an attribute was buffed a person's growth rates essentially turned to zero and as handy as they could be at the time he’d much rather choose to grow however much he could from the situations he was in, but this was different. Both of their lives were on the line, he needed to do everything he could to get through whatever was about to be thrown at him as he went through the door.

He took a long deep breath to try and calm his nerves as he pushed his focus and other mind skills to their limits. He didn’t know what to expect so he had to be ready for everything as he took his first steps to the door, pushed it open, and found himself stepping into an empty void one minute and the next being what he could only call a desert.

He was more than grateful to still be standing on solid ground as he took in the surroundings, turning his head to get the full view as he did. The door he’d stopped through had vanished, leaving him in an endless plain of sand and mountains. All completely barren with the two of them being the only signs of life around.

A small part of him couldn’t help but think how helpful it would have been to have Thera there but he quickly pushed it to the side. As much as he wanted to see her, as much as he wanted her help, it was better she wasn’t stuck in a situation like that with him.

With nothing to go off of as to what the purpose of the trial was other than what he’d seen in the last, he began looking for a light as he moved, deciding to go forward as he desperately hoped that the god who’d made it wasn’t so cruel as to point him in the wrong direction as it started.

At the very least, it looks like one of my theories might be right. I’ll have to see the next one to be sure, but if it is… Well, one problem at a time.

Before he’d entered he had been careful to compare the magic he’d seen from the first room they’d been in to the second, and though he couldn’t be sure, there were a couple differences that were apparent. The most meaningful of which was that in the first room he’d seen more air enchantments, and in the second he’d seen more earth. If each section was going to have a different magic theme he wasn’t thrilled with the implications for just how long they’d be stuck there, nor how well it would fit with the idea that the tower had eleven floors so those thoughts too he pushed away.

At least for the first few minutes, neither of them had any complaints. It was actually surprisingly pleasant as Ben rushed through the sand, moving faster thanks to the buff than he ever had before. Despite being a desert the temperature was moderate, and there was neither wind nor humidity to make things worse for them. The sky above still lacked a sun, but the level of light wasn’t blinding for them either. He was sure he’d be able to see the distant glow of the exit so long as he was alert, the main task was just being in a range where that would be possible.

“...I hate to say this so freaking much, but do you think we should try and climb a mountain to get a better view of where it might be?” He asked Greed, trying to get some ideas of just what they could even do.

“How many hours do you think that would take?”

“A lot.”

“Gods above, I don’t know. I’ll leave the choice to you,” The crab sighed, having no better idea either.

It was only as Ben decided to commit to it that everything went to hell.

It started as a simple dot in the sky that Ben knew better than to believe was harmless and he stared at it as he ran, trying to keep vigilant of anything else as it got bigger and bigger in a matter of seconds, leaving them both to swear up a storm as they understood just what they were seeing.

Of all things, a fucking asteroid!

He could only wonder if he was about to instantly die, if there was no way of beating the second trial because it was pulling insane nonsense like that. If it hit him he was done for, plain and simple. As it grew he guessed it had to be almost fifty meters across, which he was sure would be large enough to destroy a city on earth if it wasn't stopped, so even if it hit nearby he’d be in a horrific level of trouble.

It was only as he saw it sail overhead that he breathed a small sigh of relief that was cut far too short as he felt the impact and his body went flying after that, with clouds of dirt raining down on him and blocking his vision as he did, the dust filling his eyes as he struggled to get up.

Greed was still tight in his grasp, as miserable from the experience as he was, but at the very least they were alive as Ben got to his feet and ran like his life depended on it, choosing to go up the mountain for certain now that he wouldn’t be able to see from the ground.

On the plus side, since I’m not dead it looks like that probably didn’t have the same force it would have had if it came from space. On the negative, things only got worse as time went on in the last part, so…

He let the thought hang as he heard another impact farther away and felt the ground shake. It seemed like the trial wasn’t specifically targeting them at least, but that was a small comfort. It was making up for it with the scale of its attacks. It was only as he felt the ground shake a third time and another cloud of dirt was kicked into the air that he made it to the mountain and began climbing up it.

It was an activity he hadn’t done much on this word or his last, and he attributed any speed and success he had with it to his buffs. He was faster than he had any right to be, even with the ground all but exploding around him from time to time and knocking him off his feet, with the time between crashes growing shorter as each impact was more powerful, but soon enough he was at the top, gazing across the expanse around him.

There was so much dirt in the air, even all the way up there, that his eyes watered and stung, but as he looked around he could only gasp. More had been happening than just the falling asteroids causing chaos around him. He could see areas where the earth had split open into deep canyons he was sure he’d never escape if he fell into, along with something far more worrying.

“Hey Greed?”

“Yeah?”

“Weren’t there a few more mountains around before?”

“Think so.”

Oh boy oh boy this isn’t good.

He didn’t know if they’d been taken out by meteors or some other event, but he instantly didn’t want to be so high up as he frantically looked about for anything that could be a light amidst all of the chaos around him and thought he might see a faint glimmer of in the distance, with only the minor problem that he’d have to go around one of the new canyons to get to it.

He could only hope he was right and it wasn’t the trial playing some cruel joke, growing a crystal to reflect the light or something as he began running down.

It was at halfway into his descent that he heard a noise coming from behind him, a rolling, tumbling sound that he lifted Greed to check for him, being rewarded with an intense scream in his ear as he did.

“THE ENTIRE FREAKING MOUNTAIN IS COLLAPSING!”

“WHAT?”

He couldn’t believe it, at least not until the first boulder rolled by him. How was it happening? Mountains didn’t just crumble for no reason. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t really on a mountain, he was in a trial. He was playing by the rules of a dead god, all he could do was try to push through.

He kept holding up Greed to watch behind them, letting him shout if he needed to move away as anything came down while he ran for his life. All of his minds were devoted to the task. He knew if he tripped it could spell his end, just like every other part of the trial if he wasn’t careful.

Not thinking crap like that, just focusing on my feet. Every step counts.

He was moving so fast that he was equal parts running and falling down the mountainside, but when he finally made it to the bottom he couldn’t relax and he used his momentum to keep going. As abysmal as his agility typically felt, his stamina let him push himself harder than he ever had before without stopping as he rushed to the area he thought the next gate was waiting, not stopping even after a few hours of running left him in pain and exhausted, no matter how much of Greed’s magic was applied to him.

He finally had the canyon in view and took a subtle turn to the right, trying to direct himself to the shortest side of it to get him to his destination without dropping any speed as he went, only for another problem to rear its ugly head. The canyon had grown since he’d first seen it.

Ben wanted to scream. Of course things had only gotten worse. He could still feel the crashing and tearing of the earth happening all around him, all he could do was keep going and hope as he was taken way off course to go around it.

There’s no way this is the creator-approved way of beating this stupid thing! The god that made this must have expected us to be high-level air mages or something to fly through it!

Still he pushed himself, putting everything he could into his sprint as he went until he was at the edge and got as close as he dared to run around, only for another disaster to strike them. Another asteroid, the biggest yet dropped all too close and threw them into the air, directly towards the growing gash in the land.

With nothing else he could do, Ben tossed Greed to safety as he was thrown over the edge, barely able to hang on for dear life before he was trapped yet again, not by any trap of the trial, but by the limits of his body.

As he hung from the edge by his fingertips, nothing but death below him, he couldn’t muster the strength to pull himself up. Even with the buffs, even with the healing, he’d pushed himself too hard for too long, he had nothing left to give.

It was only as he felt something touch his finger and heard Greed screaming for him that it felt like an untouched source of power had been released, that he could fight through the pain and exhaustion and with all of his will dragged himself up the rock’s edge, his fingers raw and bloody from the effort of just holding on until them, and as fast as he could he got back to his feet, picking up the crab and continuing on his way.

“Not sure what you did to me, but it worked,” He said gratefully between breaths.

“I wouldn’t thank me too much. That was a last last last-ditch effort spell. Even if I work to heal you, you won’t be moving right for days. We’re going to be in trouble for the next one.”

Of course we are. He thought, resigned to his fate. “In that case, I better make it count.”

He fought back the feeling that he was going to be sick as he sprinted on, and ignored the subtle wetness he felt coming from the orifices on his face. His nose was telling him it was blood, but he couldn’t be too bothered by however he was destroying his body at the moment as the gate finally came into view.

He didn’t let himself feel any relief. He wouldn’t until he was on the other side of it. There was still enough distance for something to happen, and it was that vigilance that saved his life. All of his minds had never stopped, they were a flurry of activity watching out for anything they could, and thanks to that his body had reacted before he was even consciously aware that anything was wrong.

With a complete lack of grace, he threw himself forward, narrowly missing an attack that he’d seen Thera use on more than one occasion as an earthen saw spring from the ground, trying to dig into him as it did. He tried not to lose any speed, but as soon as he regained his footing he was almost hit by another, and another after that, until he was finally right in front of the gate.

His instincts were screaming at him that something was about to explode from the ground in front of it, and lacking any sort of grace he threw himself through, feeling the sharp bite of a jagged blade digging into his calf as he did, just one more bit of pain to go along with the rest of him, but he had done it, he was on the other side.

His greatest desire was to just lay there on the ground where he fell, face down on his stomach and let the agony take him, but he had things to do. The first of which being the small act of wiggling his toes, confirming he hadn’t lost a leg at the end there, and the second being rolling over to get a look at the wall, confirming that the countdown on the room they were in was the same as the last two.

It was only once both of those were done that he released his tight grip on Greed, letting the crab speak up now that they were safe.

“Legs?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m so fucking glad the god that made this is dead.”

“No arguments here.”