For the first time in Ryan’s life, he felt a sense of megalophobia. The ‘chamber’ he was in was less of a chamber and more of a superstructure with a completely alien sense of size. He looked up and was certain the ceiling was higher up than Cerul had flown. If it was on Earth the building would have its own atmosphere.

Massive pillars supported the whole building, each pillar larger than the biggest skyscrapers on Earth, shooting all the way to the ceiling.

He could not see where the ‘chamber’ ended and where it began.

“What the fuck.”

Everyone had different experiences when they used the time chamber reward but this… this made his brain feel like it was melting. He tried to compartmentalize.

Logically, this was less than creating a new world for every single Trial. That was what the logical part of his brain said. Mentally speaking, he couldn’t get past the idea that each pillar could be carved out and house millions of people inside. Ryan laughed nervously.

“Now the Trial System is just showing off.”

Three massive orbs lay in front of him. Like the class orb experiences in the Manager’s Abode, but different. These orbs were like mini worlds of their own, promising an experience that was far, far above anything at realm four.

The first orb was that of a king, leading an army. A staff in one hand and a sword in the other. This was no class orb. The King centered in it wasn’t him. It was a blue-skinned humanoid that was about to charge at a city with a magnificent barrier.

On top of the orb had a number

That was the cost in days for experiencing the orb.

The next orb displayed 6.36 days.

It was of someone in cultivator robes, staring up at the heavens. The sky splitting before him in rumbling tribulation.

The final orb cost 12.72 days.

The image in the last orb made him blink. Ryan recognized the man. It was one-eyed Rick. His disfigured face shining in madness with mana exploding out of one of his eye sockets. The area surrounding him was the Emerald Hills.

It was the ritual that Rick had used to kill thousands of Realmers and Trialists in one attack.

Holy shit.

Ryan had never heard of anyone from Earth appearing on skill orbs before. The Manager had told adventurers that these skill orbs were snapshots from past events that the Trial System observed. There had been examples of skills from other iterations of the Trial System, but never had there been an Earthling. Until now.

It cost the most in days too–nearly thirteen days, more than double the cost of the second orb. More days than any of the orbs Ryan had ever heard of from the internet before. He desperately wanted to take it, to witness for himself what the mad Settler had done to be considered one of the greatest examples of [Resource Overdrive].

Then he hesitated.

One-Eyed Rick was a [Mage]. Ryan was pretty sure the cultivator orb was a qi user too.

Then the implication hit him. His Epic skill was [Resource Overdrive: Aura].

Can I… can I change [Resource Overdrive] into mana or qi?

There’s no fucking way.

The idea almost drove him crazy with anticipation. Until he remembered that the Epic helped increase his capacity for max output, not his production for the resource. Then it became less insane and more: it’s still crazy but something so far off that it’s not that crazy.

Still, he salivated.

Before he could do something stupid, he dove into the first orb first.

The orb of a King. Not in class but in truth.

The blue-skinned king gave a rallying cry to the world around him. It echoed throughout his army. They cheered him back, each with heartfelt resonance that shook the ground. The King’s aura grew and grew.

Ryan could feel it–it was more aura than he’d ever held before. The king shone brighter as brilliant flecks of gold fell around him, settling into his armor. The king went down the line of troops, each section getting louder and brighter as he walked past them.

The king finally reached the center of his army and turned to their quarry.

A city, more magnificent than any Ryan had seen before him. A massive blue barrier encompassed the city, broken up into hexagonal sections.

The greatest spiral tower in the city started glowing in blue light. A flaming blue meteor shot out, targeting the troops that were the furthest away from the king.

The king scoffed and pointed his staff at the meteor. A surge of power emanated throughout the king’s body as it demanded the world to bend before his will. The skill felt familiar to Ryan, was this [Aura Command]?

“Shatter.”

No aura snaked out from the king to reach it, as the entirety of his army was part of his aura. The king commanded and the meteor simply shattered into thousands of tiny fragments. Still deadly, but individually spread out for his own mages to deflect it.

Holy shit, score.

Ryan received experience with another Epic other than [Resource Overdrive]. He knew you could experience other skills in the time chamber, but experiencing another relevant Epic on top? Absolutely insane. His mind was desperately processing everything it could to understand this moment… the king didn’t even have visualized aura channels–they were natural–[Aura Command] could do so much more and he had really only scratched the surface–

The cheers from around the king’s army snapped Ryan out of focus. Their fanatic belief in their godlike king surged his aura sky high. It was nothing like when Ryan took others’ attention. A true frenzy of aura that kept flowing from the army and back to the king, and then flowed back to the army to bolster them.

A real external feedback loop.

Madness.

Aura burned–the fuel burned, yet was constantly replenished. If this was Ryan’s aura then the troops would be dead or suffocating under its weight. But that was the difference between an aura of fear and one of inspiration.

Then the king charged. He was first in line of an army of millions strong.

He roared his triumph as his army roared back to him.

This was the funny thing, most of the king’s army wasn’t stronger than realm five at most. That blue meteor was definitely weaker than what the Witch Tyrant could produce.

Yet the aura was bigger than the Witch Tyrant’s by far. Even a dragonslayer would run from this king.

The city couldn’t run. The king charged down as the speartip of his army. Those in his vicinity speeding up in a massive funnel, right about to crash into the blue barrier.

The king in front pointed out his sword, right as he was about to hit the barrier, time slowed, and the moment Ryan was waiting for came.

[AURA OVERDRIVE]

All of the weight of his army’s aura funneled through the king’s body and into the sword. Those uncontrolled aura channels suddenly expanded and were capable of withstanding the weight of millions. It did not matter that there was no structure.

The army was the circulatory structure itself.

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The King stood in inspiration, holding the full weight of awe from his army, it funneled into a singular point that pierced through. Nobody and nothing could stop this charge.

The strike continued as the army approached the shining city in full. The army behind him refuelling his assault.

And the orb ended.

Ryan was standing in the same pose as the king. His own sword in hand with his arms outstretched in victory. The skill had activated on its own and the orb had granted him a fraction of the king’s aura.

“Hahahahaha!”

He tried to cycle the aura around his arm–but it was too much

Three cycles.

The excess aura bled into the rest of his body. If it wasn’t for [Resource Overdrive], his entire body would have ascended or been completely destroyed.

Four cycles, five cycles…

How many cycles of aura could run through his arm? Capacity and aura were both met. It felt endless. His shattersword expanded, seven times larger with an army’s worth of roiling aura.

Six cycles… Seven, eight…

It kept going, a mass of power that churned endlessly, cycling through the vestiges of the king’s aura.

The king had no real structure in his aura channels, no real visualization technique that would support his immense amount of aura. Ryan’s right arm was different. If he had even half of the aura from the king–and his arm could withstand it, he could fight off entire dragonslayer squads.

Nine cycles.

[Aura Command]

Aura exploded out of his arm, shooting into the sky in great searching tendrils. Ryan started shaping it, taking the time to truly push the skill with all the mental force he could. He did not have [Parallel Processing], controlling each tendril like a limb was beyond him. But he did shape it into something that had seared into his mind. A visualization of sorts.

A great red tree formed, almost slowly, but then naturally as time went on. A replica to the [Remembrance of The Fallen] that he’d once witnessed.

It was the wrong skill to level, but it had happened anyway. Ryan had found something out about his [Aura Command] skill that he hadn’t truly understood until now. He didn’t need complex control over each of his tendrils. As long as he had an image of something, it would guide itself into forming it for him. A knife, and fist he understood well.

A giant spanning red tree with branches that kept splitting and exploding into the sky? Now that gave him ideas.

The sight was awe-inspiring. There was no fourth realm that could do this.

His mind started racing with the power that coursed through his arm.

‘The Obsidian Sect could be your seat of power’

A king…

That offer was even more insane than he had first realized. A completely pure feedback loop that strengthened his subjects as well as himself. Still, he didn’t regret the choice. After all, he was greedier than that. A king had to charge with his army, Ryan wanted to be just as powerful without needing to risk the people he cared for.

His resolve reaffirmed itself as the great tree started falling apart. The effects of [Resource Overdrive: Aura] wearing off.

His mind raced with the possibilities.

[Aura Command] can be used to do so much more. At higher levels I can demand the world to move to my will, there was a link here with the conceptual class that I’ve picked up. Just because I don’t want subjects doesn’t mean I can’t bolster allies with my own aura and use that as a feedback loop.

Ryan took in a deep breath and started flowing through his sword forms. It was a desperate attempt to focus. To capture the moment when the king had used [Aura Overdrive]. His shattersword hummed as it re-expanded in size.

He spun the sword over his head.

Swing. Focus.

Greedy, I was so greedy, one Epic should be decades of learning. I knew this yet–

Focus… Stab…

It wasn’t just an expansion of the circulatory channels, [Aura Overdrive] allowed the movement of all of that energy in a focused manner. That king didn’t need visualized aura channels because the skill practically allowed efficiency by itself.

Ryan remembered the description of the skill.

‘Vastly increases your capacity to withstand and utilize an excess of aura for a brief period of time.’

So little said for something so monumental.

Ryan tried to recapture the feeling. Of directing a mass so unbelievably large, that it could kill dragonslayers. A feedback loop within the skill itself?

When his aura ran out, his sword reverted to its regular size. Half a day and an experience unlike anything before, and there were zero levels in [Resource Overdrive].

“Shit.”

It wasn’t that he was expecting to level an Epic so quickly. His hopes had just been raised with [Aura Command] leveling up. Though he had a feeling that was because [Aura Command] suited his class quite well.

There was also another problem.

Ryan couldn’t replenish his aura. Not by himself. The king orb floated in front of him, the image on the enormous orb changing back to the original scene. The only way he was going to be able to practice the skill was to lose another three days.

Damn.

So, Ryan threw himself into the orb once more. Experiencing what it was like to be a king again. This time, he threw all the useless thoughts away and just focused on when the king caused the meteor to shatter, then on the overwhelming force thrown in front of him.

Once again he brought back a fraction of the king’s aura. This time all of it was used to focus into a point, directing the mass into a single overwhelming funnel through the sword.

[Aura Command: Aura Overdrive]

The piercing strike shot ahead, blasting ahead and into the distance.

“That’s the wrong fucking skill!”

Despite his outburst, the combination skill worked like he wanted it to. It wasn’t like layering two Epics into one but more of a natural combination that worked with each other. He had replicated what the king had done. Used the command of his aura to help guide it into activating [Aura Overdrive].

It made [Resource Overdrive] easier to use, but didn’t help level it.

“I’m missing something.”

Ryan tapped on his forehead, frustrated that he’d lost seven days with no levels. He looked at the skill description again and realized something.

[Resource Overdrive] not [Aura Overdrive].

He hesitated, then reached out to the second orb. The cultivation orb that cost six days.

A beautiful cultivator sat beneath roiling clouds. She was surrounded by an array that was melded into the earth itself. Five alchemical pots were set up in spots surrounding her. Overflowing with melted resources that dripped from a sieve at the bottom of the pot.

Each drip would melt into the array around her, filling the channels with qi.

She took a deep breath, in, and out.

The mist surrounding her visibly vanished, her qi channels being stretched to the limit. Ryan felt something off about this one.

Wait is this–

Then the clouds scattered, the female cultivator glared upwards. An apocalyptic row of swords started raining down from the heavens. Ryan recognized the skill.

[A Hundred Thousand Flying Swords]

The fury that rushed through the female cultivator’s veins was palpable, even to Ryan. Her overflowing qi, resonating with the world around her.

“Lu Baizhen! You dare?!”

“I cannot let you ascend, Demon Fairy! I must stop you here!”

“With only you?! Hah!”

She closed her hands, accelerating the flow of qi around her, faster and faster it swirled in her dantian. Her core was forming into a world as the barrage of swords slammed into the barrier of her array.

Lu Baizhen, realizing it wouldn’t be fast enough, flashed forward, closing the distance in a moment. His fist chambered, aiming down to break her array.

The Demon Fairy sneered.

[Qi Overdrive]

All of the overflowing qi that should have been used for her ascension suddenly flipped. It turned into a singular raging strike to break past the great realm barrier. She announced the skill with completely different words.

“Roiling Tide That Surpasses The Heavens.”

All of this had been a trap. Lu Baizhen switched his arms to block in desperation. Ryan distinctively felt a wave of deja vu before he tamped it down and focused on what exactly was happening to the surrounding of the Demon Fairy. His overdrive Epic didn’t interact with qi, but the Trial System wouldn’t have placed this orb here if it was pointless either.

He ignored the flow of qi within the Demon Fairy’s body and focused on the way the qi surrounding her moved.

Qi was supposed to be the most ‘internal’ of the three main energies. It started from the core and flowed around the body, only releasing outwards when the attack had finished forming in the extremities.

Yet the qi surrounding the Demon Fairy flew around, moving like it had a will of its own…

Lu Baizhen was blown off into the distance. The Demon Fairy had used [Qi Overdrive] to close the gap between realm nine and realm ten.

Ryan was back in the chamber. A fraction of a fraction of qi followed him, it started to swirl in his abdomen, trying to form a core on its own.

Ryan doubled over in pain, grabbing at his stomach. [Resource Overdrive: Aura] couldn’t help him here. The qi was too much–he wasn’t prepared for the evolution, and didn’t want someone else’s evolution.

Ryan did the only thing he could think of, and threw himself into the orb of the king.

When he was in an orb, he could feel their body and the energy that floated around them. It overwrote his own, taking away the core from his body.

Once he was back out, Ryan immediately went into the sword forms, keeping a perfect loop of power, trying to contain the aura within. The blade was ten times its original size. It threatened to break out of his control.

[Resource Overdrive: Aura] + [Aura Command: Release]

The excess qi left his body as he breathed a sigh of relief.

The roiling tide in the blade quelled. The sword’s celestial matrix became part of the cycle in his arm, spinning in a greater loop than he had ever seen.

Ryan canceled the skill.

This level did not come from accomplishments, but through understanding. [Resource Overdrive] was more than just increasing his own channels and capacity. No, the skill guided all the external power to flow in the way you wanted it to. Into an optimized structure guided by your subconscious..

Ryan had also glimpsed at another possible use for [Resource Overdrive]. One that he hadn’t realized until now. If his theory was right, if what the Demon Fairy’s orb had hinted at was true, then the implications were staggering.

If it was true, then it would explain One-Eyed Rick’s strength, it would explain why the Tyrants took him out as soon as they could. The hidden secret of [Resource Overdrive] that would make it crucial in his future. No matter what he became.

One final orb remained. It was larger and more would cost more in days than any other orb he’d heard of.

12.72 days

If what he had experienced in the cultivator orb was any indication, it was also the most dangerous.

Ryan took a deep breath.

“Alright you Settler Generation scum. You better not disappoint.”

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