Ares lay sprawled on his back on the floor. From an outside perspective it was hard to figure out what his problem was, exactly, as he wasn''t tired or injured in any way. Little did any onlooker know, Ares had just failed his 140th attempt to access the pressure in his heart. This was taking way longer than expected, even taking into consideration all of his failures! At this rate he wouldn''t even make it to floor three by the time he had to leave! Although maybe leaving would be a good idea? He could always chat with Enyo and see if she had any suggestions... No! He would do it on his own! If advice was really the best way to learn Dominus would have piped up by now and muttered something in the back of his head. This was probably the type of skill that was best learnt from scratch and all by yourself to enable you to digest every facet of it properly. Maybe it was an entirely subjective process, different from one person to another, and taking on another person''s method was harmful to the learning process? Afterall Dominus had tried to copy the person on the top floor and failed, causing him to be unable to recreate the trick to the same standard. Dominus was one of the best pressure manipulators in the world and even he failed when trying to absorb from others instead of developing his own unique ideas. Whether or not he could even relearn from scratch was up in the air. Even if it was possible to copy for now and then restart after Ares had no interest in such an approach. He wasn''t strapped for time, as the pagoda would be here until the end of the tournament, so the hard way it was.
This determination was all well and good... But it didn''t help Ares right now! What to do... What to do... Let''s try... Using mana to control my heart manually. Ares had prodded away at his heart with mana earlier but that got him nowhere so he was going to try going a step further this time. Whether or not it was even possible Ares had no clue, he was just swinging for the fences here on the off chance one of his dumb ideas struck gold. Concentration was important here because even a slight screw up would sting like hell, not that Ares wasn''t somewhat familiar with heart pains after his previous experimentation on the poor organ. Threading mana into his heart was like trying to thread a needle through a pinhole with one eye closed while drunk. There weren''t many openings and they were all incredibly small, barely even visible. All it would take was one a millimetre misjudgement and Ares would accidentally prick his heart...
Poke
"OW!"
With all the finesse of a dizzy and dumb surgeon...
Poke
"AH!"
... Ares did eventually manage...
Poke
"SON OF A..."
.... To guide his mana carefully...
Poke
"Fuck!"
... Very carefully...
Poke
"Damn it!"
... Inside his heart!
If you ignored the fact that his heart looked like a piece of blood-red Swiss cheese, he''d done a pretty good job! Being a revenant was handy for situations like this as Ares would have done some real damage, lasting damage, had he been any other race. Then again, if he''d been literally anyone else the well of pressure probably wouldn''t have even been residing in his heart of all places to begin with. It had to be different per individual otherwise Robos wouldn''t be able to wield pressure at all and that was definitely not the case. The heart surely had to be one of the worst locations possible, second only to maybe the brain, if not arguably the worst. No wonder some people never learnt how to wield pressure, if their storage was located in a nightmarish place like this the average person just wouldn''t risk it. Also, unless taught, how would a normal person ever find it? Ares only knew because of the pagoda and the trials it was throwing at him which encouraged him to delve deep. Clearly this was not a skill for everyone but it was an important one. Pressure could give a notable advantage in even fights by slowing the other person down and muddling their thoughts. If you were serious as a cultivator learning this early would be hard but worth it. Given that it required fine mana control, Ares realised why most people in these lower domains only started learning it around aspect assimilation. They would have an easier time manipulating the mana, as it would then be naturally flowing through their blood, thus simplifying the process.
Anyway, now that he was in he needed to wrest control... From himself? It was like hijacking a train only to find yourself in the driver seat... Either way, Ares assumed he could do as such by wrapping his mana around any important parts of the heart''s anatomy so he set about doing it...
Poke
No one ever said this part of the process would be smooth sailing... Ares gave little love taps more than just a few times as kept fiddling around until, about an hour later, he manage to accomplish his mission. With his mana draped over the insides of his heart like a warm blanket, Ares could tell control could be stolen the second he willed it so that was precisely what he did. Ares'' mana rumbled briefly and now he was in the driver seat. To start, he slowed his heart beat. Not so much as to make him delirious or put him on the verge of fainting but enough that he could feel the repercussions of his actions and a slight loss of energy. Ares took this as confirmation everything was working before reverting things back to normal. Next came the important test. Ares hadn''t gone into this completely blind as ne noticed that every time he''d used pressure previously there was a similarity between all the instances, his heart rate had increased! Maybe anger or agitation wasn''t the correct method and it''s just that they happened to touch on the correct method accidentally. Maybe pressure hadn''t come out whenever he was excited simply because he made no effort to will it or direct it? As in excitement was a feeling he wanted to keep bottled up whereas anger was something to direct at others? Of course, until he tested his hypothesis this was ungrounded speculation but the more he thought about it the more it seemed to make sense. His talent for pressure lied in his bloodline and, by extension, his blood that was pumped around by his heart. With more BPM he could tap into his ability to control pressure better thanks to his blood vessels becoming larger and enabling smoother flow of blood around his body. Ares talked himself into believing this was all correct and crossed his fingers as he slowly sped up his heart...
...
Success! The pressure in his heart was, bit by bit, flowing around and circulating freely. At first Ares'' control was rough but eventually it became sort of like a valve he could twist and turn to get the desired result. This was an important step because going full throttle wasn''t always necessary. It was well established his pressure could easily kill a person and so he needed to be careful around people he didn''t actually want dead or injured. If ever he wanted to capture a person with it lower quantities would suffice. There was little he could do after unleashing it, other than stopping it in its entirety but they might already be dead by then, so limiting it before it left the body was something Ares made considerable effort becoming proficient in. Even though he''d successfully made the pressure flow from his heart he kept practicing both aspects of this stage task until he felt satisfied. He wanted to be able to reach into his heart and control it quickly without poking himself and he wanted to adjust to whatever level of pressure he desired just as fast. In do or die situations, fumbling around, poking himself, and unleashing more or less pressure than was needed would be unbearably embarrassing and a serious potential risk so he stuck with this practice for over three hours. By the end of those three hours he''d become proficient enough for now and could get the pressure flowing at the desired level in roughly a second flat without stabbing himself. It was decent enough for now but he would improve upon it later. Knowing that it was possible to do this all pretty much instantly irked Ares who wasn''t at that level yet but he was reassured somewhat by the faint whisperings of Dominus.
Dominus'' barely coherent string of jumbled sentences informed Ares that, typically, the worse the location of your pressure reserve, the more effective it would be overall. Usually, because the pressure was attached to a vital or important organ, it became ingrained deeper in your body. Also, learning to control it during the early stages when it was in such a place was hard thanks to the convoluted steps that were required to make any progress and some people in this situation would just give up completely. Because of this, Dominus actually complimented Ares for once. This was a first and he''d never done anything of the sort before, likely because he saw Ares as someone who was born with it all and made no effort to improve on his own. This was partially true it''s just that Ares dedicated most of his time to improving his magic more so than anything else; and that was a mental process that wasn''t visible to others so they couldn''t'' see his ''hard work''... At least not until he started blowing people up anyway, then his hard work was laid bare and his efforts would pay off. As for physical training, he''d only started training with Sadie recently so that was a fair accusation, and he didn''t really cultivate much either, so Dominus'' ''disappointment'' was somewhat accurate. Still, Ares had done this, accessing his pressure, by his lonesome and Dominus had no complaints. Actually, Dominus'' pressure reserve was in the nerves in his arms. He had it easy when he started learning because he was already very capable of controlling his nerves thanks to his weapon mastery. His overwhelming skill at controlling them was part of why he was such an expert when it came to pressure, as it all came naturally to him, so he acknowledged people that worked harder than him when learning pressure in a more difficult and nuanced way. He didn''t have much all else to say to Ares about his daily routine though... Always cooking and playing with his family instead of striving to get stronger... He had mixed feelings about it all. Still his host was his host and he could have gotten a considerably worse one. At least Ares was only taking things easy because he actually had the means to back up his arrogance. he was already more than capable of killing people entire realms above him so Dominus being picky even now was somewhat petty. Regardless, this was a conversation they could have properly later when Dominus was actually capable of conveying his thoughts in a more coherent manner and for a long period of time.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Once Ares felt satisfied with his progress on step one , he moved onto step two which was getting all the pressure out of his body and into the open. Helping it escape from his heart was great but that wasn''t the end goal here so Ares concentrated again and thought hard in a bizarre attempt to convince his body to open up... I am a human present. Open me up and all the pressure will come trickling out... Nope, that didn''t work... I am a human pi?ata?... Nope. I am a human ventilation shaft? Still nope... I... Am... A... Human... Balloon? Nope. This line of thinking may have appeared stupid but what Ares was really good at, if nothing else, was turning his countless stupid ideas into workable ones. Point and case, when he gave up on this idea, rather than abandon it completely, he altered it slightly and instantly found results!
I am not a container that can be opened up, releasing all of my goods... I am a conduit? Pressure does not flow out of me, it flows through my flesh. I am both a human generator and a human conduit! A small wave of pressure emanated from Ares'' body and floated in the air before him a few feet in the air. Ares had only used a small amount at first which was why the quantity was so low but that was fine because next came the fun part! He''d barely even used 0.01% of his full reserve and, in doing so, he retroactively understood something pretty incredible. Up until now, he hadn''t used all 100% of his pressure. Back during the auction was the closest he''d come to 100% but even then, despite his pressure being detectable from outer space, there was still some leeway to throw out even more. Ares wasn''t going to chuck it all out here, though, as that would be incredibly foolish. He would attract all kinds of attention, maybe damage the pagoda, and unveil another hidden card of his. Still, the tiny bit of pressure in front of him was clearly not enough so that meant it was time to ramp things up a bit. He raised his heart rate and, instead of trying to force the pressure out, he let it seep through him, exposing it to the world outside his body. When the pressure came out, it mingled with reality and small traces of silver flashed here and there. Ares'' gradually increased the amount of pressure until it was enough to fil up the room again... Well nearly anyway, he stopped just shy of hitting the individual again. That guy had learnt his lesson, Ares was sure, so he didn''t need to be punished again. If Ares knew everything that happened before was just a misunderstanding he might have pitied the guy... He might have even been thankful as his mean-spirited tirade had become the spark that enabled Ares to even get this far.
Step one was done. Step two was done. Now came step three, moving the pressure around and directing it towards foes. In this case, the metal hills obscuring the base of the staircase were Ares'' targets. When Ares accomplished this he would be home free, ready to move on up and rack his brains over whatever the next trial entailed. Thankfully this last step was looking easier than the others as Ares was already unintentionally moving the pressure around just by having it follow the path his eyes were taking. As he looked towards the hill the pressure followed but Ares stopped it in its tracks. This way worked, yes, but it seemed slow and ineffectual. Pressure could move near enough instantaneously so this wasn''t good enough in Ares'' mind. Still, he didn''t make any effort to weave the pressure in any other way just yet, that could come after he felt comfortable moving it like this. He spent about five minutes toying with pressure in this manner before he accepted the fact that it wasn''t going to get any better than it was currently. Moving it with his eyes probably took less effort overall but had limits in regards to speed so it was time to mix things up.
Behold! My almighty finger! Ares pointer finger directed the pressure around like he was a conductor performing to the best of his ability. Or at least that was what Ares told himself, really he was just floundering about with his finger but the important thing was that it worked! The pressure was much quicker to obey him even with subtle movements when compared to using his eyes. It was kind of like using a laser pointer to guide an over-excited dog that chased after it for as long as Ares willed it. This was alright in terms of ease of use but it was absolutely not a good idea sticking with just this when it had its own blatant downsides. For starters, there was some time lag between when his brain decided where he wanted the pressure to be, his finger moving to that spot, and the pressure following it after. It was a small window but it did exist. As for why this mattered, that involved the other major problem... His opponent could bloody well see where he was pointing! Even if Ares took someone by surprise with pressure in this manner once, what were the chances they would fall for it again? It was too obvious so Ares had to search for a third method, one that wasn''t slow and didn''t require physical movement on his end of things... Before he did that, though, Ares directed some pressure towards the mystery individual using his middle finger. He was making clear his built up and pent up resentment for his earlier treatment!
After poking the guy with pressure a couple times, to which he attempted to stand as stock still as humanly possible to not encourage Ares further, Ares settled down and put his thinking cap back on. Ares imagined this would be his final experiment before he had every tool he needed in his arsenal right about now to move on so he thanked his brain for its ''hard work'' thus far before putting it to work yet again. It didn''t have to try very hard to come up with the solution that made the most sense as using mana had been an integral part of things up until now and, therefore, it was the most logical conclusion. Of course if that didn''t work then he was going to have to go back to the drawing board but Ares didn''t foresee any difficulties. He manipulated the mana in the air and, not long after, a minute or two at most, he learned to mix it with the residual pressure. From there Ares made controlling pressure look like child''s play, all the while fulfilling his earlier requirements. Pressure control in this manner was snappy and responsive, plus he didn''t have to give away his intentions every time. The downside here was that it cost mana. not much, mind you, but that requirement did rear its ugly head. Still, if Ares had absolutely none to spare that didn''t mean pressure wasn''t available to him, it''s just that he would have to resort to inferior methods of control. Really, he couldn''t complain. This was another weapon in his toolkit that needed minimal fuss to use and could even aid him in situations in which mana wasn''t readily available for whatever reason. That could include trials like these, anti-magic traps, or the event in which he simply ran out of mana. Either way it was better to have it than to not to.
And with that, Ares was done here. He''d figured out everything he needed to and made some serious strides. Comprehending pressure in under a day without even a smidge of assistance was pretty impressive in the grand scheme of things. Even in the higher domains anyone with pressure reserves in a dangerous place could take up to a week just to even clear step one, let alone make progress beyond that. Ares'' bloodline gave him lots of pressure, a unique trait for it that auto adjusted it to levels he might not even be able to normally reach, and immunity to the general type that weighed down on people, but he''d never received anything to make learning everything easier. He''d done that on his own and, now that he thought about it, this was probably the first thing he''d ever done that hadn''t been straight up gifted to him. Technical creation had been easier because of Dominus and art creation for the destruction pillar was a simple process due to the nature of the pillar and his high affiliation. Voidwalk, Perish Wheel, and Quietus were his greatest creations but even they didn''t take too much effort to actualise. Yes he''d done that ''by himself'' but that was the cultivation equivalent of saying he deserved credit for washing his clothes... It was a little too easy and basic to celebrate, and it was something he was going to have to do anyway, unlike his most recent accomplishment. It was satisfying and Ares enjoyed the feeling, so much so that he decided on the spot to learn a weapon Dominus wasn''t familiar with! He would do it via his own effort! He wouldn''t even cheat and use Omniscience, all his work would be au naturale. As for which weapon he would choose, first he would have to select one that wasn''t amongst the thousands Dominus was an expert with... Ares put that idea to the back of his mind for now because that seemed like a hard task in its own right. There was no reason to get distracted with a side quest when he was on the brink of completing his main one!
Ares flawlessly directed a tidal wave of pressure to crush the metal hills while he strolled past them. As he neared the staircase, Ares turned around and waved to the individual as he climbed upwards and reached the door. He was a weird guy, and Ares didn''t exactly like him, but it''s not like he made Ares'' life harder in any way. Also, entering this floor, not speaking to him once for hours before picking a fight with each other, almost killing him in a fit of manufactured rage, and leaving without so much as a goodbye just didn''t sit right with Ares. If someone invaded his house and did the same he would go ballistic and kick their ass out onto the curb! "You are a strange person but goodbye nonetheless! Try not to go around insulting people for no reason in the future lest it come back to bite you in the ass again!"
The mystery individual tilted his head and looked at Ares silently for a few seconds before speaking up. "No reason? You and I clearly have two very different interpretations of what happened here today... Whatever, your advice... I will take it on board. I have good friends who always warned me about my arrogance. Here''s hoping I haven''t already suffered in reality and been humbled because of it. Then again, I was strong enough to fend off most attackers so I''m probably fine. Hey kid, what''s your name and who are you? You don''t seem normal."
"Ares. Future God of destruction. Also I''ve got Dominus lounging around inside of me." Ares was honest and upfront because, realistically, there was no way he was going to be able to lie low in the wilder world when he arrived there. None of the things he''d just said could ever be hidden so he might as well get used to flaunting himself here and now.
"Destruction? So that fundamental pillar talk was real after all... I see... And Dominus is inside you? I guess he made some progress with his suicidal experiments although not in the way he hoped to, clearly. Hmm... Kid, my name is Caribou Coronos, the sage of time and wisdom and next in line to become the God of the space-time pillar... Not that Astraeus is ever likely to kick the bucket, mind you. If anyone gives you trouble, mention my name and they ought to think twice before messing with you any further. Come look for me when you get a chance and we can talk a bit more. If your duty is to save the world then I shall do my part and aid you if I can. Also, now that I look at you properly, I sense you''ve formed a contract with my God, Astraeus. He''s a difficult one to get in contact with at the best of times so I must admit I''m both jealous impressed you''ve come across him at such a young age. That aside, if he''s helping you then so shall I. Alas, there isn''t much I can do for you in this simulated form. You''ll have to come to me, I''m afraid. Until then, be safe... Well a revenant need hardly watch his back but you get the point, I''m sure. Goodbye for now Ares."
As Ares'' body faded past the doorway and onto the next floor, he etched the name Caribou Coronos into his head because this guy seemed like a big deal. He was effectively the Dominus of the space-time pillar after all. Ares didn''t yet know the name of the servants of Astraeus but Caribou was certainly one of them and at the top of the pecking order to boot. If Gods were at the tippity-top of the hierarchy then someone like Caribou would be right under them so he was probably as big of a deal as he claimed to be. Remembering his name and visiting him in the future would be well worth the hassle. Also, if nothing else, Ares wanted to see what the guy looked like! The suspense was killing him!
That was for another... Well... Time... Right now, Ares had made his way to the third floor and he was currently being sniffed! It seemed all of the trial overseers had their own.... Unique personalities. As for the beast-like Panthera invading his personal space, this one seemed to be rather nosy.