The Author Reincarnated As An Extra-Chapter 33: • Elora Cassiel (2)

Deremiah continued to stare at her, then he realized that he had not answered her question of what he thought he was to do in this Trial.

He had to regulate his answer here. To Elora, he was a normal boy, a One-Marked in fact, who wouldn’t know anything close to what Deremiah knew. So, he squared his shoulders and responded with feigned assurance.

"To kill the NeonSquid?"

Elora lifted both brows uneventfully, like that was the exact kind of answer she was expecting. "Yes, killing the Paragon beast is the penultimate challenge of this Trial, but it’s not the aim of the Trial. You are being tested. Killing the Paragons ends the test, but how you do it is the test itself." frёeωebɳovel.com

Deremiah pretended to be learning, lowering his gaze in a thoughtful manner, like an uneducated child who was being mentored by a veteran master.

"Can you explain more?" he lifted his head and asked.

Elora looked at him, eyes a bit cold and curious, like she was having a hard time figuring him out. But, she agreed and continued with her explanation.

"Just like other Trials, there’s a goal and there’s a test. Defeat the Gatekeeper, build a bridge, defeat your inner emotions in the form of mirror doppelgangers. Those are the goals, but the test is how you do it.

"How you complete the goal shows the Gate Trials your true character and that in turn creates the kind of rewards that are given to you. For the Gatekeeper, you are to show strength and skill, for the bridge, you are to show togetherness and intuition, for the doppelgangers, you are to show mental fortitude. And for this NeonSquid, you are to show battle intelligence."

Deremiah downturned his lips. "What happens if I fail?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Fail? You mean the goal of the Trial?"

"No. The test."

"You can’t fail the test," she said assuredly. "As long as you reach the goal of the Trial, there’s no such thing as failing. Whatever way you completed the Trial was the test itself. If you showed cunning instead of strength, or self-preservation instead of teamwork, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed the test. It’s the test itself."

Deremiah thought about it for a while. "So you’re saying how I manage to defeat the Trials builds my character as a Mancer?"

"Yes," Elora replied. "A participant who shows great strength throughout their Trials will gain rewards that complement this strength. Same as a participant who uses strategy, or one who uses guile."

Of course Deremiah was aware of this mechanism, being the one who implemented it himself. The Gate Trials were branched into ten. Ten different Trials, each having a goal and a test.

The goal was what to do. The test was how it was done.

As important as the goals were since one couldn’t progress without completing them, the Trials were less about the goal itself and more about the journey toward it.

The Primordials’ mechanism used these actions to gauge the individual’s alignment with their core values and energies, shaping the reward accordingly.

Deremiah added this into the story to ensure that no single approach was deemed "right," but every action carried consequences, shaping the participant’s future abilities and Path.

He wanted his characters to have different dispositions, and for those dispositions to reflect in their abilities. Zenith was passionate and driven, sometimes explosive in his emotions.

This was why Deremiah made him the Flamekeeper, and gave him the ability of fire.

This also explained why all of Deremiah’s properties had to do with deception, lying and corruption. After he had deceived the Inquisitor and survived the First Trial through cunning, the Trials rewarded him accordingly.

That was the same for every other participant.

"You said this Trial is testing our battle intelligence?" he asked Elora, done with thinking.

"The Humongous NeonSquid is a complicated beast. But I’ve been fighting it for almost two days now and I think..." She looked out at the horizon. "I think I have figured out how to kill it."

Deremiah lifted a silent eyebrow at her. This must mean that she’d figured out that the colors glowing in the NeonSquid represented separate things. Separate abilities.

"You’ve been here that long?" he asked her, keeping the conversation.

She looked at him sharply. "Yes, I have. That beast has had my number on all of our altercations so far. The venom I sprayed it will keep it disoriented for at least four hours, and it will continue to siphon energy for another five hours. At dawn I will hunt it down."

She sighed, looking at the far away cliff again. "I realized during one of our fights that it’s weaker at dawn. The Aether Forest’s luminescent plants dim significantly during the day as the sunlight overpowers their natural glow. Without the ambient Aether energy to sustain it, the NeonSquid weakens, and since its own luminescence can’t shine as bright, it won’t be able to use most of its powers."

"Now that I know all of this. I’m going to kill it, and then advance from this Trial."

Deremiah saw this certain look in her eyes, a look of determination and self assurance.

Of course for someone like her who’d taken down men twice her size, being self assured wasn’t difficult. But Deremiah presented himself now as someone who was going to shatter this secured plan of hers.

In her mind, she was going to climb up that neon-covered hill to hunt a Paragon beast of the same difficulty as she had before. But Deremiah was now in the fray, and so was his Threat Level of [15], already adding to her Threat Level of [12].

The monster she was going to hunt was not the same one that she’d been hunting.

Elora’s eyes found Deremiah’s face once again, and then slowly moved to his sword. "You hold that sword like it’s a boulder."

Deremiah frowned, and glanced at his grasp on the corrupted blade’s hilt. ’Really? I thought that I had impeccable control of it.’

"Oh," he replied. "I’m not a swordsman... So, I’m not... very skilled." He twisted his lip. "At this."

Elora watched him quietly as though she was deciding something through a lengthy thought. Then she sighed. "If you are to hunt with me tomorrow, you’ll need to learn how to use that sword as I might not be able to protect you all the time."

Deremiah choked. "Hunt with y—?"

She looked at the sky and saw it was still very dark. "There is still enough until dawn comes." She got on her feet. "Stand," she ordered him.

As though possessed, Deremiah quietly rose to his feet, standing in front of her. He saw he was at least 6 inches taller than her and that gave him some kind of flimsy satisfaction.

Elora looked up at him. "There is a lot of fighting left to do in the rest of the Trials. If you want to survive it, you’ll need to learn how to use that." She pointed at his sword with her eyes.

Deremiah narrowed his eyes. "You’re offering to teach me?"

She slanted her head at him, dark hair falling over her face. "How figure?"

Then she turned around, walking to a clearer space, her hips swaying slightly in both directions as she walked elegantly.

Deremiah scoffed amusingly. ’She’s got jokes.’

She looked over her shoulder as she walked. "Come now. The Dawn doesn’t wait for us."

He quickly hastened his steps and followed after her.

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