Chapter 77

Unbidden, Tom licked his lips. Finding ammunition to destroy that many plugs over that distance was going to be problematic… The throw was almost eighty metres and in the later stages of the tutorial that wouldn’t have made him blink. But now with just peak earth athlete attributes that was too far. The rocks when they hit would not have a significant amount of force… unless… “Can I get twenty seconds of unlimited mana to create more ammo?”

Yes.

Tom did not question his luck. Instantly, he dropped to his knees and began to create rocks. This time, he shaped them to be ten times heavier than previously. Solid enough that a single hit should destroy the plugs even eighty metres away.

Your time is ending in.

3

2

1

Tom stopped his creation the moment the countdown hit zero. His inventory was almost full anyway. He stood.

Five seconds to stage start.

The second countdown finished and Tom did not immediately launch himself down toward to his destination. He was currently at the highest point on the course. If he was going to destroy the plugs on the other side of the ravine, then he needed to do so from here. The further he descended the harder the throw would become.

Tom held the ammunition that he had created. It was no longer a comfortably shaped throwing pebble and instead it was larger than a baseball and far heavier. Hefting it in his hands it reminded him of a metal ball rather than rock. The extra density created by the tier upgrade. He pulled back his arm and threw it just like when he was at school playing outfield in baseball. His arm tweaked as he completed the motion, and he treasured every attribute point that had been assigned to strength. Any less and this would have been impossible.

The first rock arced across the ravine, accelerated by his magic to a speed four times faster than the velocity his pathetic muscles had managed. As it flew, his biceps ached, and he subconsciously massaged it while even while the stone was in mid-flight he initiated Touch Heal.

He frowned.

“Too much,” he whispered. That heal had cost four mana. The frown deepened as the first rock slammed into the cliff a good two metres under the lowest plug.

The boom of noise reached him.

Tom’s mind raced. He did not want to waste time thinking, but he was wise enough to know that launching yourself into a problem rather than planning was a trap of the foolish. To solve this dilemma, he needed to take a moment to plan something that would work. The issue was the stone weighed too much. He could split them in half, costing mana. That should let him throw them harder, but would create the additional risk that when they hit, they might fail to break the plugs with a single blow as planned. Maybe buff his arm? Tom shook his head. That wouldn’t work. Underarm throw? With a heavy rock, it was actually better than over head he intuitively knew that. Or? Treat it like a shot Putt? After all, there was a reason people in those competitions threw the heavy steel ball the way they did.

With a sigh, he put the stone on his ear and then used a run to gain extra speed. He launched with everything he had. Throw Rock activated and the ground under his feet deformed and closed on his ankle to stop him from tumbling over the side.

For a moment he teetered, hanging in the delicate position where he was about to tumble over the edge and then, using the locked foot he could right his balance. The restriction fell away, and he skipped back to his starting place.

When he looked back, it was to see a plug explode.

Relief flooded through him.

The plug destroyed was not the one that he was aiming for but the one directly underneath and the top of it, too.

Again, he told himself, investing a single point of mana to heal all the tiny muscle tears the attempt had created.

Worth it.

He threw again, this time targeting even higher. Forty-five degrees gave him the maximum distance, and he adjusted to throw at about forty.

Success.

He rushed back and threw again… and again… and again.

Plugs exploded.

Two more to go. His arm ached. He charged to the edge of the platform and threw.

He missed…. Too low.

Then again… this time to the right..

“Fuck concentrate.”

Touch Heal.

Eleven mana went to fixing the muscle.

Tom forcefully controlled his emotions. No wonder his accuracy had deteriorated. It was sloppy to have suffered that level of degradation and not to have noticed.

He reset. This time taking a moment to check his stance and mentally rehearsed the throw before kicking off. The discipline of guiding a spear perfectly, to repeat the same thrust came to bear.

The stone flew on a high trajectory arc. Success.

Tom reloaded for the last plug. Everything was identical. His arm healed with magic to the same state as the previous throw. Exact footwork. Slightly less angle as the plug he was targeting was lower.

White shards of substance with orange veins exploded and went everywhere. They glittered as they fell in the sunlight.

Task complete.

Without hesitation, he leapt down the cliff.

There was no following the path let out.

Instead, he sprang like a goat down the near vertical face, aiming to pass by each plug he had to destroy and to do it from close range.

He fell past a plug and swung round-arm, with a rock in his hand which he released just centimetres from the surface.

Throw Rock.

The spell took hold instantly quadrupling the rock’s speed and weight in that instant between the point it left the fingers and it slamming into the plug.

The white substance with orange veins exploded.

Shrapnel hit him as he continued to slide beyond his target. The small pieces, even though they were softer than rock hit with sufficient force to draw blood. A series of paper cuts with more substantial bruises under them.

Tom ignored that as his controlled fall took past a second plug that was destroyed in the same manner. His foot jammed into the rock and created a small shelf to stand on. He jerked to a halt with ankle and knee joints complaining.

More minor damage, at least till the swelling kicked in, which would thankfully take time.

He leapt sideways, his leading leg once more digging into the wall to create another step. He kept going with an extra horizontal leap along the vertical cliff.

Another plug exploded as he passed. His improvised technique working perfectly for these stationary close targets. Tom could just imagine using the same approach on a monster’s open mouth as it lunged to savage him. The deceptively simple skill he was discovering has significant utility.

Briefly he was sprinting down the goat path and then slowed only long enough to blow up another target before his springing leaps took him up the cliff to his next objective.

Then he did a controlled fall. Two hands on the walls turning the rock sticky, so he never went too fast. He still hit hard enough to make his feet sting.

He swung an arm at the plug. More shrapnel sprayed out and dug into his exposed arms.

Tom grimaced and took off up a goat path.

Boom.

Then sideways before scrambling up.

Boom.

Then down at the angle. A boom announcing each change of direction as he destroyed a plug. Up, across, his fingers and feet finding hand holds which hadn’t previously existed.

The exit was directly below him.

Three metres downwards.

Tom leapt.

His leg cracked on impact. The three metre fall without the room to roll beyond his vitality to endure.

Skin split as bone punched through and then in the blink of an eye the healing magic struck him and reversed the damage that was occurring.

Congratulations, you have reached the fourth safe zone.

He was breathing hard and his mana this time had reduced down to only fifteen left. That was not a good outcome, given that by his calculations he needed to get through at least another four stages in order to get the minimum outstanding result he was targeting and the moment his mana ran out he was going to be slowed down a lot.

He snorted at that thought as simultaneously with it like Susie had been planning it mana had flooded into him. Re-filling his reserves instantly and while the functionality was awfully useful in the safe zones, his concern was for how quickly he was blowing his mana during the actual competition phases.

Knowledge flowed into Tom.

Tier two spell Partial Stone Skin learnt.

You have one minute to familiarise yourself with the ability.

Tom tasted what had been inserted into him. This was not the stone skin he had previously possessed in DEUSs tutorial it was a higher tier version. The tier one version he had been taught was a whole body or nothing type of deal. This new version, according to the details pumped into his skull allowed him to make one part of his body rock hard without freezing himself completely. For example, if he covered his back in rock he would lose the ability to flex through the torso and his arms would have limited mobility but his legs would be unaffected. That would allow him to run while significantly boosting the defence on his back. If an arrow hit the super tough rock his skin had turned into, it would probably be deflected. Well, if its impact was rated below tier two it would definitely be rejected. Low tier three was slightly more doubtful, but Tom suspected he would not run into anything that powerful in the short term.

It was a welcome change to the tier 1 ability which forced you to freeze your entire body. This was better. If something was about to tear into his arm, he could turn it into stone and deflect the teeth while remaining able to fight back with the rest of his body.

Even before he replenished his ammo, Tom focused on learning what the Partial Stone Skin could do. If too much of his body got replaced, then the non-flexible defence would restrict mobility almost as much as full stone skin. When he released the spell, it had a cool mechanism where a substantial amount of the mana he had used was refunded. If he created a barrier on his back for twenty mana and then immediately dissipated it, then he would get nineteen mana back. If he left it for five seconds, it was only seventeen mana. The cost was also related to the area transformed. To encase his back, it was always twenty mana and there was no tricking the spell at least at the expertise level he was at.

It was designed to be engaged and dropped, but to use it effectively you needed to always ensure a sufficient mana reserve which was a little annoying, but it was a consideration he could work around.

While he continued to experiment, he recreated his ammo, splitting it between the small and large sizes. While the larger rocks were a pain to generate, they certainly delivered enough explosive power to justify having a store within his soul storage.

At this point, the act of creating stone was almost mindless, so he could focus on his new spell. Tom practised protecting key parts of him. Head, back, hands, shoulders, bum, legs and feet. Any use around joints would take the limb out of action and even turning his back to stone had a massive impact on his mobility. Tom had not realised how much his back rippled and shifted with every step till all that skin was frozen in place.

Beyond that, it was heavy.

It was not something he had the Strength to leave on permanently even if found a solution around the freezing up of joints and flexibility.

Time to familiarise yourself has expired. Mana will no longer be restored.

Tom ceased his experiments. It had been enough he had an excellent understanding on how quickly the spell responded and how to fortify one part of his body rapidly. “What do I have to do?”

You need to get to the next safe zone as fast as possible.

“What is the challenge?”

There are spitters that launch a barb. If they hit, you will be afflicted by slow for eight seconds.

“If I get hit by two at once?”

The period of slow will be increased by sixteen seconds.

“Can I physically dodge or do I need to rely on stone skin?”

Some can be dodged.

“Will my chest armour stop them?”

Briefly, he wondered what would happen if he purchased full body armour. Could he sprint through all the attacks and negate the entire stage?

He had decided that it was his obligation to exploit anything he thought of and he had sufficient credits to buy armour. With a smile, he shut his eyes and attempted to step into his system room.

Nothing happened.

You can’t do that.

“I noticed,” he answered the controlling AI and shrugged. “You can’t really blame me for trying can you Susie?”

No.

Somehow, the written words conveyed amusement, or at least Tom hoped they did.

If you are prepared.

“I am.”

3, 2, 1.

The countdown clock finished, and he exploded forward into the new tunnel he was presented with. Lighting steps giving him wings.