Sylver Seeker

Sylver stepped through the doorway and found himself standing inside a giant glass cone. He walked over to the very edge of the dark glass and looked down to see two men in the process of fighting.

One man was dressed in a disarmingly simple dark blue shirt and trousers and was armed with two identical gloves, that looked very similar to the ones Bigs had used. He was currently in the process of fighting his way through a bunch of gem-studded metal golems that got sliced to pieces as he ran past them.

The other was… completely nude, save for a loincloth that was made from some sort of yellow-spotted hide. Every inch of his muscle-bound skin was covered in so much blood and pieces of gore, that it took Sylver a couple of seconds to realize that he didn’t simply have red skin. He used a sword that appeared to be as long as Sylver was tall, and was cleaving giant centipede-looking creatures into two with each swing of it.

“As the first to arrive, you are to be granted a boon,” a voice said from somewhere above Sylver. He looked up, but amidst the cloud of floating drones, it was impossible to tell which one had made the sound.

“Define what you mean by “boon”,” Sylver said and turned back to watching the two men running towards the base of the glass-like tower.

Even though both seemed to be moving fast enough that their legs were almost blurry, neither was getting closer to Sylver. It was like they were running in place.

“Landscape, and a few minor details. As long as it isn’t something impossible, I should be capable of creating it,” the voice answered, as the dark glass walls were replaced by windows into other worlds.

One was a brightly lit forest, another had flowing lava, another was completely black, another was a yellow sanded desert, and so on and so forth. Each window changed before Sylver got a proper look at it.

“What do people normally ask for?” Sylver asked, just so he didn’t need to waste time guessing what he could or couldn’t ask for.

“The more mundane requests have been cylindrical pieces of wood sticking out of a deadly spike-covered floor, caves, deserts, a mountain top, and variations of the environments you’ve already been in,” the voice answered.

“I would like every monster that was defeated during the trials, in a nice big pile. And I want a waterfall, and fertile, but dense, soil everywhere,” Sylver said, after a brief moment of pause.

As he spoke, a giant pile of corpses appeared in the middle of the room, followed by a waterfall on the right side that started spilling water everywhere and soaking the already moist earth even further.

“Anything else?” the voice asked, as Sylver turned away from his opponents and started to walk towards the pile of dead monsters.

There were spiders, snakes, reptiles of all shapes and sizes, even one that looked identical to Texas, along with others that were buried too deeply in the pile for Sylver to properly identify.

The giant octopus thing that attacked Sylver using sand golems wasn’t there, and Sylver was fairly certain he’d killed more monsters than he was currently looking at.

“I would like a barrel full of moldy food. And… 100 large caliber guns? And a bucket full of grenades,” Sylver said.

There was a long silence, during which nothing happened. The pile of dead monsters was leaking blood and forming a puddle around the pile.

A barrel appeared next to the pile of dead bodies, but that was all.

“Tools and weapons are not allowed. Neither are vehicles or armors,” the voice explained, as Sylver opened the top of the barrel and had to look away as the smell made his eyes water.

“But corpses are?” Sylver asked.

“Admittedly, you are the first to ask for such a thing, but there is nothing in the rules about dead bodies. We would permit a druid a forest, so by that logic, we have to allow a necromancer some corpses,” the voice explained.

“What if I asked for all the corpses that the Garden has? The ones from the Roots,” Sylver asked, and wasn’t certain how to interpret the silence that followed.

“No,” the voice said.

“I thought so… Where will those other two be coming from?” Sylver asked.

Two doorways appeared off on Sylver’s left, on the black glass wall.

Sylver pointed at the wall directly opposite.

“I would like a giant golden throne over there. And it needs to be… 10 feet above the ground, and really big and fancy, gems, carvings, I want it to look like the kind of thing a man with an enormous ego would sit on,” Sylver explained.

He watched as a golden throne appeared, rose into the air and golden steps appeared to lead up to it, and then gems of every color appeared all over it until finally, the whole thing seemed to melt, and reformed into the kind of throne only someone who would declare himself “god” would sit on.

It was disgustingly vain.

But to the voice’s credit, even better than what Sylver was imagining.

It was within the top 10 gaudiest thrones Sylver had ever seen.

“Anything else?” the voice asked.

“I’ll think about it… What’s the point of this? I mean, I do understand I was here first and it’s a reward and all that, but isn’t it a bit too much to allow me to alter the environment to my advantage?” Sylver asked.

“The purpose of the Golden Giers Trials is to find the most capable fighter. If someone is incapable of overcoming something as simple as fighting a mage in their element, they don’t deserve the title of champion,” the voice explained.

As absurd as it sounded, Sylver had to agree with him.

Because the Ibis followed a similar logic. Or, at the very least, Nyx did.

Sure, it wasn’t “smart” to fight a pyromancer in the middle of an active volcano, but sometimes you had to fight a pyromancer in the middle of an active volcano. It was either that or running away, which was very rarely an option for Sylver.

But in Nyx’s defense, Sylver was arguably the most adaptable mage in the Ibis. As were his apprentices, they might not have the necessary experience to improvise their way out of even the worst of circumstances, but they had the right mindset and creativity.

The word “fair” was only ever used by Nyx to mock, she was very vocal about the fact that Sylver would be an idiot to even fantasize about fighting someone fairly.

“I’m fine for the time being. How long do I have until those two arrive?” Sylver asked, and gestured towards the wall through which he had looked at the two last competitors.

“However long it takes for them to clear the final trial,” the voice answered.

“Are we talking 10 minutes, an hour, 2 hours, can I get a ballpark figure?” Sylver asked.

“It is difficult to estimate. The Gold Giers Trials normally take several weeks to get to this point, it is the first time someone has managed to reach the final arena in under 48 hours,” the voice explained.

“Weeks…”

“The previous Gold Giers Trials lasted for 5 weeks and 6 days. With the difficulty set so high, the requirements to complete a trial had been “condensed,” so I cannot say how long it will take them to complete the last trial, because this is the first time I’ve seen anyone try to complete them on such a high difficulty,” the voice explained.

Sylver looked down into the barrel full of various colored molds and made a few chunks of them float out of it.

“Could you make it easier for them so they get here faster? What is the final trial anyway?” Sylver asked as he started to feel the fungi out with his [Morbid Mushroom] perk.

A gold-colored mango floated in Sylver’s line of sight before it disappeared.

“The final trial is finding one of these, and keeping hold of it. Normally there would only be 5, so the climbers had a chance to fight it out until only 5 remained, but this isn’t a normal trial. So if one of them manages to find it, they will come here, to fight you, until the winner is decided. Right now, the highest level is 197, and the lowest is 122. And as for making it easier for them, no,” the voice explained.

“Alright… Could I also have an unbreakable mesh divide this place into two?” Sylver asked.

There wasn’t much point in trying to make this difficult for himself. If he could just use [Fog Form] he’d be out of reach of the man wielding the sword, and all that he would have to worry about would be the string wielder.

“No,” the voice said. Sylver nodded.

“Is this place air-tight?” Sylver asked.

“It is,” the voice answered.

“Can I ask for more?” Sylver asked.

“There is a limit, but so far you have not reached it. You have until one of the remaining 2 climbers shows up if you wish to change anything,” the voice explained.

*

*

*

[Undead Mastery (V) Proficiency increased to 81%!]

[Necrotic Mutilation (II) Proficiency increased to 76%!]

Surprisingly, fiddling around with new magic wasn’t anywhere near as difficult as Sylver thought it would be. He wasn’t certain if this was due to his own skill, or the system passively supplying him with all the background knowledge he needed.

In his hand, Sylver currently held what looked like a dark blue water balloon. With a very small framework gently glowing a pale yellow light, “drawn” on top of it.

Sylver found that cultivating fungal matter was quite easy. With [Morbid Mushroom] it was as simple as giving the piece of fungus mana, and if there were enough nutrients around for it to absorb, it would grow into a perfectly healthy mushroom.

Manipulating it into a desirable shape and density was not quite as easy. Just throwing mushrooms around was simple, but how much damage could mushrooms even do? At best Sylver could make someone choke on them, but anyone weak enough to be killed by choking on a mushroom would be easier to kill with a dagger.

Or just using your own two hands.

Or just punching them, the point was throwing mushrooms around wasn’t going to achieve a whole lot.

Sylver made another chunk of flesh float over to him and made the mushroom grow using it. Among the large amount of corpses, there were a number that were too damaged to be used, and even more that didn’t have a soul for Sylver to use.

Currently, Sylver found a pale white mushroom to be the most receptive to his magic and intentions. Sylver held the slimy mushroom in his hand and was as careful and gentle as he could be, as he channeled some of the water sitting in the hole next to him, inside of the mushroom, and slowly manipulated it to absorb the water, without splitting open.

It burst open and didn’t drench Sylver in slimy mucus, purely because he was ready for it. He tossed the failed attempt over to the large pile of deflated white mushrooms and started again on the next piece.

The undead had already been spread out and all that was left was to have one of the remaining two climbers show up so Sylver could kill them or get them to forfeit.

Attempt number 140 something, failed, and Sylver added yet another limp balloon to his pile of limp balloons.

So far, he had managed to do it once.

A perfect hydrogen-filled explosive mushroom.

That could be filled with poison, or acid, it would make building traps on the fly trivial, if Sylver figured out what he did right the one time.

If he couldn’t build a small mushroom bomb, making mushroom teleportation rings was out of the question. They were technically called “fairy rings,” but they were called that because fairies made them.

Since Sylver wasn’t a fairy, they were… necromancer rings?

Sylver rings?

Undead rings?

The name didn’t particularly matter, what mattered was that if Sylver couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do that. And while these teleportation rings would be useless in the middle of a fight, they would make traveling from one place to another extremely easy.

Sylver would simply pick a spot to plant his mushroom, and then he would be able to teleport to that location whenever he wanted.

In theory…

Sylver wasn’t the first mage to attempt to replicate fairy magic, but unlike his predecessors, he didn’t have the disadvantage of having been taught by proper fairies. To Sylver this wasn’t “fairy” magic, this was magic.

The mushroom exploded in Sylver’s hand before the first drop of water had even finished being absorbed. As Sylver started working on the next attempt, he adjusted his [Necrotic Mutilation] armor to squeeze the cramp from his wrist and then had trouble processing what he was seeing.

[Skill: Mutating Override (I) [F]]Skill level can be raised by overriding primal energy fields.I – Mutate biological matter by overriding its primal energy field.*Quantity of MP required dependent on rate, volume, and complexity of primal energy field being overridden.

Huh…

Primal energy, as the name implied, is the first energy.

It’s the energy all other energies are built on.

And in Sylver’s experience, the most difficult to use. Using it unconsciously was one thing, healers and sorcerers did it without batting an eye, but using it while you were aware that you’re using it, took several lifetimes to learn.

Aether was an anomaly in that regard, but both Sylver and Nyx had to spend an uncountable number of years to even feel it, let alone figure out how to use it.

And yet the system just handed it to Sylver on a silver platter.

The tiny piece of mushroom in Sylver’s hand’s perked up, and changed from a pale white, into a sickly green. It practically drank the water that Sylver provided it, and then started working on separating it into hydrogen and oxygen, all while it grew a tendril out towards the pile of corpses and started growing a copy of itself from one of its tendrils.

Sylver flicked his dagger into his hand and severed the tendril.

It was hard to describe the feeling he had when he saw that the tendril simply curled up towards the pile of corpses, and carried on growing new sickly green mushroom bombs.

Sylver was ecstatic that he could finally use primal energy in the way he used to. The fact that he spent 8,000MP just to override that one mushroom did blunt his joy a little, but if he just took his time it wasn’t a problem with his 5,000MP per minute regeneration.

Sylver left the primed and ready explosive mushroom on the floor, as he stood up and touched the vine-like tendril that was currently growing 8 identical explosive mushrooms.

They were absorbing the moisture from the air.

Sylver put it on pause for the moment, just so it wouldn’t eat through the remaining biological material.

Sylver was ecstatic, he was ready to laugh hard enough to hurt his lungs and stomach.

But at the same time, there was an extremely bitter edge to this joy. Sylver couldn’t decide if it was enough to spoil it.

On the one hand, fairy rings were absolutely possible with this. As was editing the zombies to make them stronger, faster, and tougher.

On the other hand, how dare the system just give this to him.

When Sylver was in the Ibis, just being aware that primal energy existed was enough to earn Sylver's respect. Being aware it existed and being able to feelit, was enough for Sylver to consider you among the greatest mages to have ever lived.

Excluding Nyx, Aether, and Oska, Sylver was aware of a grand total of 4 mages that were capable of manipulating primal energy.

And the system just handed it to Sylver.

For a few seconds, Sylver stood there like an idiot, gritting his teeth and feeling his blood pressure rise to the point some of his recently sealed shut wounds were threatening to open up again.

But instead of attempting to add this slight to his already leaking bottle of rage, Sylver chose to accept this as an apology from the system.

It didn’t completely snuff out his anger, but it blunted it enough that he could revel in his joy of being able to properly sense primal energy again. Albeit it was limited to what he was physically touching, but it was still an extremely useful addition to his limited range of abilities.

Before he would have had to blunder his way through thousands of trials until he managed to find a way to increase his mana conductivity, but now it would be as simple as finding a mage with a high enough conductivity, and then forcing his body to mutate until it was an acceptable donor for Sylver’s.

It was still an extremely difficult ritual, not to mention gathering all the components was going to take forever, but Sylver now had a proper path towards using 2nd tier magic without killing himself in the process.

Forget 2nd tier, if he did it properly, the only thing stopping him from using 10th tier magic would be a lack of mana.

Positively overjoyed at the thought, Sylver stopped trying to hold himself back and threw his head backward in laughter.

Sylver laughed so hard he felt a cramp in his stomach, and after he continued laughing regardless, had to stop when his left lung couldn’t take it anymore. Sylver pulled his mask away for a moment and wiped the tears out of his eyes with his sleeves, and spent a few seconds letting out the rest of his insane-sounding cackling.

At Spring’s suggestion, Sylver looked to his right and saw two men standing there and staring at him.

[??? (???) – 197][HP-???][MP-???]

[??? (???) – 194][HP-???][MP-???]

“Gentlemen! You came at the absolute most perfect time! First things first! Congratulations are in order!” Sylver shouted towards the two, as he very gently backed away from them and walked towards the gaudy-looking throne.

He clapped with his hands and used [Mirage] to make it sound like there was a crowd somewhere nearby clapping along with him.

“Now then, before we begin, I would like to make you two an offer. If either of you forfeits right now, I will give you a quarter of the prize. Now, if one of you were to kill or force the other to forfeit, I would give you half the prize,” Sylver explained, as he continued to slowly walk backward, and away from the two men.

“It’s a great deal gentleman. The alternative is fighting me, which, and I mean this with the utmost respect, is a very very bad idea. I would go as far as to say it's suicide,” Sylver explained, as he stepped on a bone fragment, and got to hear the sound echo throughout the conical area.

The man with the wires hanging out of his fingertips turned towards the blood-covered man wielding a giant blade and extended a hand out to him.

“Dullen,” the wire wielder said.

“Gal,” the sword wielder said, as he moved the giant sword into his other hand, and shook Dullen’s.

“Offer to leave with a quarter of the prize going once!” Sylver said as he took another step backward.

“The very idea that you thought for a second I would even consider surrendering is only marginally better than having you spit in my face,” Dullen said and flicked his left hand.

“Going twice!” Sylver offered, as he took another step back.

“You talk too much,” Gal said, as he rolled his shoulders and Sylver got to see his muscles ripple underneath the thick layer of sticky blood.

“If we’re being honest with each other, I had this whole plan of pretending to arrive at this place alongside you, and then I would have made it look like one of you was faking it. Myself and whoever was stupid enough to fall for it would team up, kill the other guy, and then I would just kill the idiot. I would have made it in time, but I was distracted,” Sylver explained, as he felt the cold hard gold step on the back of his foot.

“For such a smart guy you seem to have forgotten the first rule of battle,” Gal said, as he nodded at Dullen.

“What rule is that exactly?” Sylver asked as he managed to take a step up towards the throne.

With a single flick of the finger, Dullen’s wires snapped into place and tightened around Sylver’s throat. Dullen grabbed a handful of air with his hand, and Sylver was lifted off his feet by the thread wrapped around his neck.

“That the battle has already begun,” Dullen said calmly, as he twisted his fist in the air, and Sylver’s head was promptly sliced clean off his body. As the limp headless corpse fell to the ground, Dullen smiled to himself.

The head bounced off the golden steps leading up to the throne, and the mask covering the face slipped away, to reveal a skinless skull that looked nothing like any elf bones Dullen had ever seen. It looked like someone had taken a lizard’s head and then broken away enough bones to make it in the rough shape of a person’s head.

“Actually, that isn’t the first rule of battle,” Sylver's voice said, as it bounced around from wall to wall, ground to ceiling, and off the golden throne.

“The first rule is…” Sylver said dramatically, as Dullen and Gal both looked up at the sound of hissing and saw the whole ceiling covered in zombie reptiles of various lengths and sizes, staring right at them.

“Don’t let a necromancer talk, because chances are, he’s just stalling,” Sylver’s voice said, as pitch-black thorn-covered vines exploded out of the ground beneath Dullen’s and Gal’s feet and started to wrap around them.

With a single kick Gal’s feet were free and unharmed, and with a single twitch of the finger, so were Dullen’s.

But then the zombies hiding underground started to dig themselves out, as the zombies latched onto the ceiling let go, and dropped down.

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