The Two Week Curse

by Michael Chatfield

  So they moved closer to where the medallions were guiding them.

  “What in the hell is going on here?” Rugrat said as a stage started to come into view, there were powerful fluctuations from the stage as well as the space in front of it as the air was distorting in front of the large group of people there.

  Older people stood at the front of the stage. Youths who had been charging through the Beast Mountains stood behind them, watching as the elders pulled out Mana cores and glowing crystals, placing them into receptacles around the stage.

  Erik and Rugrat’s eyes glowed seeing all of that gold being poured out by these rich fellows as if it were nothing.

  Runes and lines appeared on the ground of the stage, lighting up with power. The air before the stage seemed to consolidate as a faint tower appeared in front of the stage. It had ten floors that were covered in scenes of people fighting beasts. Each floor was fifteen meters tall.

  The surrounding area shook as the tower seemed to connect with the stage. The tower’s doors opened slowly, revealing a black abyss beyond.

  Chapter: Run

  “You know what those runes and lines mean?” Erik whispered to Rugrat.

  “I’ve only looked at a book on the formations that are used in weapons—how the hell am I supposed to know what kind of formation or magical array would allow a fricking skyscraper to appear out of mid-air?” Rugrat said, stunned and excited by the possibilities of formations.

  The youths, seeing that the door was open, took a second before the first person charged forward. It seemed to be what they were all waiting for. The elders watched on.

  As soon as someone left the stage, they would disappear in a flash of light.

  “A teleportation and illusion formation?” Rugrat muttered to himself, seemingly unsure.

  Erik looked to the medallion that was pulling toward the tower.

  “Damn you, Xi Yan!” A woman’s voice yelled out from behind Erik and Rugrat, startling them both and making the elders on the stage stare over at them as well.

  The woman with the steel spear appeared in the forest, charging for the stage.

  “Who are those two?” an elder yelled out.

  “They’re not one of ours but they have the Willful Institute’s medallions?” An elder said, looking to another man beside him.

  “Kill them!” the man yelled.

  If they ran back into the Beast Mountains, it would be hard for them to escape as the entire Beast Mountains had been subdued by these people. Behind them was the woman with the spear and the other half of the people they’d got their medallions from.

  Erik and Rugrat only need to look at each other once before they burst out from the tree line.

  Erik and Rugrat started running across the stage. The woman with the steel spear rushed past them. She gave them a sideways glance but didn’t pay them anymore attention as she shot toward the tower’s opening.

  “Take this!” Erik tossed Rugrat a purple potion.

  “How do they have potions?” someone yelled.

  “Help the Willful Institute!” another person yelled.

  Erik and Rugrat took the potion.

  ==========

  Potion of Speed

  Quality: Common Mortal Grade

  Type: Potion

  Effects: Increase Agility by 40% for 30 seconds. Effect of second potion decreased by 60% if taken within 5 minutes.

  ==========

  Erik felt as if his body was alive. Power flooded his system as he was launched forward.

  Erik and Rugrat laughed. They were like bullets from a gun. Their Agility increase allowed them not only increase how fast they could run, but their reaction times. Everything seemed to be moving slightly slower as their bodies were easier to move.

  They dodged incoming spells and arrows as they overtook the woman with the steel spear, who had a look of shock on her face.

  Their bodies’ reaction time shot up, giving them the sort of control they had never had over their bodies as they could switch direction on a dime. It was as if they were swimming through the air instead of running across a stage.

  Rugrat got hit with a spell on his side, spinning him away. But he quickly dodged a second hit and kept on his path. A dart found his leg, making him yell, but he kept running.

  Erik was dealing with his own issues. He leapt high, missing a destructive bolt of Mana, and used his bracers to take on an arrow. If it was his original Agility, he wouldn’t be able to move his arms that fast to intercept the arrow.

  The momentum from the arrow sent him flying back. He hit the ground and twisted around as if dancing before he entered the opening of the tower, just as Rugrat stumbled into it.

  Light appeared all around them as the stage disappeared and they fell onto another platform. It was much smaller—a ten-by-ten meter space—with a door in front of them.

  They looked around for threats, but there was nothing in this open space.

  “How you doing?” Rugrat moved to Erik, whose arm was missing.

  “Well, I’m down an arm—can you grab it?” Erik said.

  Rugrat picked up Erik’s arm and pulled it over. Erik lined it up with his upper arm and put them together.

  First he focused on the bone; he started to send just threads of Focused Heal just into the bone. The bone started to come together. In just seconds, it was healed good as new. Then Erik focused on the muscle tissue; again, he used just threads of healing energy in the muscles at the sight of the damage, rebuilding them rapidly. Then he moved to the nerves, the blood vessels, the organs, and the skin.

  It took just a few minutes before he was fully repaired. As he was studying the effects of his handiwork, Rugrat was seeing to his own wounds.

  Rugrat pulled the dart out of his leg and tossed it into a storage ring before he made to start healing.

  The spell had hit Rugrat in the side, but he had been wearing his plate carrier. A chunk had been ripped out of it and the powerful blast crushed some ribs, but with healing spells he was fine. In less than a minute, Rugrat’s side was repaired.

  My Mana usage was much smaller the more focused, but the speed shot right up. It also felt different healing each different system. Erik looked over to Rugrat, who sat on the ground, his forehead covered in sweat from the pain of his shattered ribs moving back into place.

  “If I was to start healing layer by layer, system by system, could that decrease the Mana needs, and increase the speed? Maybe the Focused and the Minor Heal Wounds are doing too much. When someone has a problem, you don’t try to heal it all at once; you categorize and break it down. Stop the bleeding, the broken bone can wait, that cut on your hand isn’t important now.” Erik’s eyes held a glow as he kept thinking.

  “You lost your mind yet?” Rugrat asked, his voice strained as he drank from his water canteen.

  “Thinking aloud.” Erik’s voice made it clear he wasn’t actually paying attention to Rugrat’s words.

  “When using healing spells, it looks to heal everything, basically converts the Mana energy into an energy to assist the body in repairing itself, using Stamina, or food as a secondary fuel. Maybe with more Mana, or a better Mana usage, then there wouldn’t be a need to strain someone’s Stamina? Maybe you could actually heal them and up their Stamina at the same time? Now focus, and get back on track.” Erik tapped his head.

  Rugrat groaned as he finished healing Erik and moved to try to make his side not hurt as much.

  Erik tossed him some Wraith’s Touch salve to numb the pain.

  “If you can heal the entire body in one go, why can’t you heal just parts of it? Like if your body was a car—you could buy a new car, or you could just replace the parts. The actual physical parts might be special, but the resource costs wouldn’t be.”

  “You know how much my smoke stacks cost me on my truck?” Rugrat complained. “You going to heal me up or what?”

  “They might have cost a lot of money, b
ut in resources, like steel, say it was necessary, much cheaper on resources than a whole new truck,” Erik said, a shocked expression on his face as if he had just stepped through a new doorway. “This is the Ten Realms!” Erik laughed out loud. “I’m such a friggin’ idiot!”

  “I’ve been thinking of adapting to the Ten Realms, but what if I was to adapt the knowledge of the Ten Realms and Earth together? Like your idea of making weapons with smithing and formations. Ingenious! Medical science with Alchemy and healing! Oh fuck, we’re cooking with jet fuel, ladies and gents! I’ve been thinking too low grade!” Erik waved his hands, finally seeing the light, a massive smile on his face.

  “Well, that’s nice and all. You going to heal me or can I do it?” Rugrat asked.

  “I’ve got it. Let me help you get the vest off. I’ve got a plan.”

  Erik and Rugrat carefully got the vest off Rugrat, exposing the angry-looking wound.

  Erik wasn’t fazed by it as he pulled out his medical kit. He had Rugrat lie face down as he pulled out medical gloves and disinfected the wound with a spray.

  Erik examined the wound with Simple Organic Scan. He could completely see what was happening in Rugrat’s body, better than any MRI.

  Erik used the Wraith’s Touch salve, letting it soak into Rugrat’s body. Rugrat let out a sigh as the pain seemed to disappear and he felt nothing.

  Erik pulled out a clean scalpel and started to cut into Rugrat’s back. He cleared away the dead cauterized tissue till he got to the live tissue.

  He checked his watch and the time.

  He placed his hands around the wound. Using his Simple Organic Scan, he started to focus on the different layers of the wound. Breaking it down even further, he started to rebuild the layer of fat, then the blood vessels, repairing the subcutaneous layer, then the dermis and finally the epidermis.

  Erik physically watched the entire wound seal before his eyes in a matter of seconds.

  Erik moved to Rugrat’s arm, which he hadn’t healed yet. He used Minor Wounds Heal on the area instead of the different systems and layers. His Mana output shot up. The wound was healing, but the cauterized old layer was proving to be in the way. Also the different layers were all greedily taking in the energy, wasting it.

  The wound finally healed some time later. Erik looked at the time; it was a third more and he’d spent nearly twice the Mana.

  He tapped Rugrat on the back and cleaned up.

  “You look like you’ve figured something out,” Rugrat said, waiting.

  “Pretty much. The more focused, the better Minor Wounds Heal and Focused Heal is like a shotgun—hits a bit of everything, good to cover a wide area in short bursts, though it’s not targeted. The more targeted you are with your spells, the greater effect you will have, like taking that shotgun and turning it into a sniper rifle,” Erik said.

  “Proceed through the doorway to enter the Beast Mountains trial,” a powerful voice declared, coming from the doorway.

  “Is there a time limit of how long we can be in here for?” Rugrat asked.

  There wasn’t any reply from the door.

  “Guess there isn’t.” Rugrat shrugged. “You raise an interesting point, though.”

  Rugrat pulled out his notebook that he’d written SMITHING on the front.

  After the speed potion wore off, they were both feeling haggard from running so much.

  Seeing that the door didn’t say anything else and nothing happened, Erik checked on his skills and Experience gain as he started to settle down.

  ==========

  72,687/100,000 EXP till you reach Level 12

  ==========

  ==========

  Skill: Healer

  ==========

  Level: 43 (Apprentice)

  ==========

  You have become familiar with the body and the arts of repairing it. Healing spells now cost 5% less Mana.

  ==========

  Damn, showing my medical knowledge and healing spells together seems to have a multiplicative effect on increasing my skill level.

  He started to read the Alchemy book Tommins had given him.

  They sat there in silence, each deep in thought.

  It wasn’t until sometime later that Rugrat surfaced from his notebook.

  “Don’t you find it weird how used we’ve come to getting hurt now?”

  Rugrat’s words stopped Erik. His eyes couldn’t help but dim as he thought of that hospital bed and waking up to the news that he didn’t have legs or an arm anymore.

  If this was on Earth, then it was likely he would have lost his arm just a few minutes ago. Instead of worrying, he dealt with the pain, even went so far as to get Rugrat to heal him, which was slower than him doing it himself to increase their Experience gain.

  His first thought was that there was something wrong with them.

  “Well, with healing, damage isn’t permanent. In some cases, it can even increase your strength. Maybe it’s like how people say that working out is harming your body and others embrace the growing pains of becoming stronger,” Erik said.

  “I guess that it is all mental,” Rugrat said.

  Erik and Rugrat took their time and checked their gear. They even pulled out their most powerful pieces, so that they could put them on at a moment’s notice. They pitched a camp, not wanting to go into whatever was on the other side of the door unprepared and in less than their best condition.

  The door continued to tell them to enter but Rugrat put his earplugs in and went to sleep as Erik kept watch.

  “Beast Mountains Trial—wonder what that’s all about.” Erik just shrugged and leaned back on his rucksack, checking out the stage and doorway.

  Chapter: Entering the Beast Mountains Trial

  Elder Rei and the different elders watched as the tower disappeared and the stage they were on started to dim.

  Just a few hours after the trial had begun, youths started to appear on the stage. If they broke their medallion, then they would be sent out of the trial. If they didn’t, then they would be lost to the trial. It was unknown how many geniuses had been lost to the trial so far.

  “The first level is a sneak attack, with the other levels being about defeating creatures of the different attributes that grow increasingly stronger. It is no simple task to reach even the third level,” one of the elders said.

  The other elders all agreed as more and more people appeared.

  Those in the first hour had made it to the first stage. They all knew enough to be ready for the first sneak attack on the grassland, but the second one, the creature was randomized. It was best to get a sneak attack on it and then kite it around, leading it with attacks until it was worn out and dead.

  Similarly, with the following creatures, one had to work to maximize their attacks and minimize the energy expended.

  This was the tenth time that the Beast Mountains trials had been opened and many knew of different tricks to increase their disciple’s abilities. When someone left the Beast Mountains trial, they were given a score that they could purchase items with before they left.

  In the third hour, people started to appear with Apprentice-leveled weapons. They were decent, but nothing that a sect of faction would care about.

  In the sixth hour, people with high Apprentice-level weapons and mid-range Mortal fighting skills appeared.

  Through to the tenth hour, people appeared with high Apprentice-leveled weapons, armors and concoctions, with high Mortal grade skills, proudly displaying off their goods.

  It was in the thirteenth hour that people started to slow as they reached the sixth and seventh stages.

  Did the idea that we come up with work? Elder Oui thought, worrying about his niece.

  His eyes turned dark as he saw Xi Yan appear on the stage. The arrogant little boy looked angry but still walked toward his uncle without problem.

  It wasn’t hard for Elder Oui and the others to understand that Xi Yan had bee
n chasing Julia Oui across the Beast Mountains to this location.

  Xi Yan had only gone a few steps before his body shuddered under the murderous intent coming from Elder Oui.

  Elder Rei lazily waved his sleeve, breaking Elder Oui’s intent.

  Xi Yan smirked at Elder Oui, as if looking down on him. Elder Oui hadn’t ever wanted to kill one of the younger generation so badly.

  “Excuse little Yan. He’s rather abrupt in his pursuits. Love makes a man do many crazy things.” Elder Rei laughed.

  Elder Oui’s anger only built, knowing that Xi Yan’s interest was not in love but in lust.

  Just as he thought that he wouldn’t be able to hold it anymore, a person appeared on the stage, Julia Oui.

  He saw Xi Yan look at her. His rage flared once again as he let out an attack, sending the boy sprawling.

  “Watch where one’s eyes go,” Elder Oui said, moving to his niece.

  “Elder Oui,” Elder Rei said in a chastising way. He couldn’t let his Willful sect nor his own blood relation take this kind of embarrassment.

  “Elder Rei, you should know my temperament and resolve,” Elder Oui said. His words sounded simple but there was a clear threat hidden within.

  “The old should not interfere in the young’s actions,” Elder Rei warned.

  “The young should know when to fight instead of hide behind their subordinates. I wonder why I see none.” Elder Oui looked around.

  Elder Rei gritted his teeth.

  The blood is similar, using others as pawns to increase their own ability.

  Julia Oui had already moved to her uncle.

  Using a spell, she was able to talk to him without anyone else discovering it. “Instead of fighting the second beast, I snuck past it. Instead of seeing another beast, I saw a man, a man who saw everything.” Julia shivered.

  Elder Oui was shocked by her revelation. “We will talk about this later, somewhere that there aren’t so many people.”

  ***

  Erik and Rugrat got up off the ground, packing their gear away.