Chapter 9: Trials


    Stepping into the gates to ''Girzo lu Zjfzm'', Shinto felt a cold sensation around him as the gates to the previous area closes.


    [ ''Girzo lu Zjfzm'' will now begin. ]


    [ Wave 1/3 ]


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 10... ]


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 9... ]


    "...!"


    Alerted by the system, Shinto quickly took out his sword has he entered into a battle position, skimming his eyes through the new area. It was filled with blizzards of ice within the room, the cold air that protrudes from the icicles on the ice was extremely chilly.


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 8... ]


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 7... ]


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 6... ]


    Analyzing and scanning the fields of the area, Shinto quickly moved his gaze over to his skill list, with the battle earlier, most of his skills have gone on cooldown and with how high some of the cooldowns on his skills are, he won''t be able to use them. But he could handle the battle with what he had at hand so long as it isn''t a raid boss and thankfully it isn''t the case with it appearing to be a wave battle, wherein one battles waves of monsters till the end.


    As the timer continued to go down, Shinto heightens his senses as he prepared to cleanly sweep through the wave battle so he can quickly move on.


    The time went down from... 5... 4... 3...


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 2... ]


    [ Monsters will be spawning in 1... ]


    [ Wave Battle Commences! You have 10 minutes toplete Wave One, 0/35 Monsters Killed ]


    As the wavemenced, a flurry of the cold frigid air blew at him, as suddenly attacks poured towards Shinto all at the same time. From each angle, an icicle spike protruded towards him whilst blizzard-like storms surround him to prevent him from escaping.


    "W-Wow...! They don''t give you a moment of time to react huh?!" Shinto said excitedly as he spun in a circr arc his sword, quickly blowing away the blizzard-like storms that surrounded him.


    As he did that, Shinto quickly dodged the icicle spikes aimed at him as he hurriedly rushes up towards where the spikes had been shot from. The monsters came into view, as he sees multiple [Frozink Slugs] on top of the ice, as they prepared to send more attacks towards him.


    Just as they were about to send the attacks, Shinto closes in on them as he unleashes waves of green light towards the slugs, quickly enveloping them in it.


    [ Lunar Sword Technique: Moonlit Wave ]


    As the slugs were knocked back, Shinto leaps forward as he activates another skill: [Light Ascension] in which he sends a pir of light down towards an area that envelops all enemies within it.


    Quickly as he did so, the four slugs turned to grey-ash, having no time for a breather, Shinto jumps back immediately after sending out Light Ascension as hurricanes of frigid cold wind swiftly shreds the area of where he was originally at.


    ncing over to where the attack was casted from, he sees frozen golems, [Frozink Knights] standing there as they chanted a spell, not wanting to waste any time, Shinto dived headfirst towards them as he protrudes another light attack, [Lunar Flurry] sessfully interrupting the golems attack all in one go.


    With his skills on cooldown now, Shinto closed in on the distance between himself and the golems as he shes through them, sessfully activating his passive.


    [ Swift-Swords Lv 6 ]


    When attacking an enemy with a basic attack, 50% chance of Increasing STR/SPD by 15% for 30 seconds, when you continuously activate this passive, the stat boost will continue to stack up to a maximum of 100%, the duration will reset every time this passive is reactivated.


    Swift-swords, unlocked at level 100 for swordsman is a nice passive that aids the user in battle when they are up against many monsters. Allowing for a high chance of pring the skill due to having many opportunities to continuously strike at the monster without stopping. Compared to when fighting against a boss where you won''t be able to attack as much due to having to manoeuvre around the battlefield in order to dodge the iing attacks from the bosses.


    Though it may be a good passive, sometimes it can be a horrible one too, 50% may seem like a good chance, but... when putting it into probability, 50 out of 100 times will allow one to sessfully activate it which may seem good on paper, but in theory, the chances are brutal when ites to wanting it to activate but it just doesn''t, thus ruining the stacks.


    Luckily for Shinto who sometimes faced this problem, all of his attacks had activated the passive, wasdy luck with him? Who knows. All he knew was that he was extremely grateful for the activation of the passive consecutively.


    Shinto continued to ughter through the countless monsters aggroed onto him as it was proved no difficult. Sessfully finishing wave one.


    [ You havepleted Wave One! ]


    [ Wave Two will now begin. ]


    [ Wave Battle Commences! You have 20 minutes toplete Wave Two, 0/50 Monsters Killed ]


    "Tch..." Shinto clicked his tongue as he didn''t get any breather whatsoever as the next wave immediately started. Much like the first wave, Shinto was bombarded with attacks, though he managed to sessfully dodge them all and finish up the wave.


    Like how wave two started, wave three was no different, there wasn''t any room to take a break as more monsters jumped at him and barraged him with attacks. Besides the tiredness and fatigue, he felt from battling through countless monsters, it wasn''t all that difficult, sessfully ending the wave and the trial as well.


    As he killed the final monster from the wave, he looked over to his system logs.


    [ You have cleared the final wave! ]


    [ You have obtained ''Torn ??? Page Piece'' ]


    [ You have defeated the ''second'' trial on the path of Zjfzm, you may now proceed onwards to the next trial! ]


    A rumble was felt around Shinto as he quickly looked towards the middle of the room, where an obelisk began to take form from the broken ice from the aftermath of the battle.


    [ The frost has formed, The obelisk of ''Gifgs'' has been revealed. ]


    "So it seems that every room has an obelisk..."


    He said as he walked up towards the icy-like obelisk to observe it. The sixth obelisk had a mural, depicting that of a lonely child, cursed with eternal winter. She who wields the power of ice is branded a monster and ran off into a frozen cavern, much like where Shinto is at.


    ''A child of ice...?''


    Shinto thought to himself, there was a legend about a cursed child that excels in the arts of eternal winter, the ''Frozen Nova''.


    ''No matter how many clues I get so far... It doesn''t make sense.''


    Moving his head up, he sees a passageway where he could go through now, earlier he couldn''t see it, maybe it was due to him just skimming through the area that he didn''t notice or perhaps ice blocked the entrance and it only melted down after the wave ended. Maybe it was this as he couldn''t possibly have missed such a big entrance.


    Entering the passageway, the next trial began, ''Girzo lu Gsfmaz''.


    This trial didn''t have any battles however, it required to meticulously dodge through countless attacks from above. What were there? Streaks of lightning.


    The fog-filled chamber that hinders ones ability to see while random lightning strikes down to the ground from above proved quite difficult for Shinto to dodge all the attacks, he had to rely on his senses of hearing and instincts.


    In Spiritual Warriors, all senses are exactly like how it felt in real life: taste, touch, hearing, smell and sight. The feeling almost felt surreal as if it was not a VRMMO, though of course there were some key differences between reality and in-game. For example, the feeling of pain is reduced in the game, you don''t expect to feel the pain of getting stabbed by a knife-like in real life do you? That would be masochistic.


    Although it was difficult for Shinto, he managed to pass the trial receiving the rewards from it.


    [ You have sessfully avoided the strikes of thunder! ]


    [ You have obtained ''Torn ??? Page Piece'' ]


    [ You have cleared the ''third'' trial on the path of Gsfmaz, you may now proceed onwards to the next trial! ]


    Reaching the end of the foggy chamber, what waited for him was a stone gate as well as a monolith and a te-shaped obelisk.


    "Oh...? A monolith?"


    Curious that there was a monolith here unlike in the previous room, he took a step forward to check it, however before doing that he went ahead and checked on the obelisk.


    The seventh obelisk was about a chivalrous knight, with a thundering might and pride, as he slew through and defended against his enemies, defending those who he vowed to protect.


    ''A chivalrous knight, this huh...?''


    There was a story about a knight who sworn his loyalty to the king, putting his life on the line in order to follow his code of honour, to serve and protect, putting loyalty over doubts, he who follows a chivalrous path.


    An Elementalist, a Magician, a Person Divided between Dark and Light, a Huntress, a cksmith, a Cursed Child and a Knight. What could all this mean? Shinto still couldn''t connect the dots. There were still three more obelisks left to check out, maybe if he checked it all out the bigger picture wille.


    Thinking to himself for a bit, Shinto finally headed towards the monolith as he checked on it, though just as he was about to take a look, he received a sudden system notification: A quest.