MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

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As Nyxara walked away, Alex was left alone at the table, his mind full of anger and regret, as the same questions he had thought a thousand times flashed through his mind.

Alex thought of why he agreed to the wager when he knew the boy was no easy opponent? or he should have stayed put and found another way to get that nameless blade, and now, because of his greed, he has lost his precious sword, and many more such similar thoughts plagued him.

'There is no point in regretting the decision I made in the past, and it does not matter now whether it was the right choice or not because regret will serve no purpose besides hindering my progress,' Alex thought, using the same reasoning he always relied on to clear his mind.

'I have three years to prepare and get my sword back from that bastard, but in three years, I won't be able to advance to the Elemental Ruler Rank, even if I have the necessary law tokens,' Alex thought, understanding that time was too short to achieve that level of strength.

While it was true that using a law token gave one an understanding of their law, it wasn't exactly accurate.

Instead, using the token brought one into a state of enlightenment, where all their thoughts were removed, and their minds focused solely on the now much clearer truth of their element, making it much easier to comprehend the mysteries of their element.

This meant that no matter how many tokens one gathered, one could only gain an opportunity using the token and one needed time and effort to understand their element, and the stronger one grew, the harder it became to grasp these mysteries.

'I will keep searching for intel on Zarach's skills, but seeing that even the Information Ring is keeping his intel locked, it won't be easy,'

'My only options to have a decent chance of victory against him would be to practice the Abyssal Resonance Spirit Art to a high enough level that I can defend against soul attacks up to Elemental Ruler Rank and reach the peak of Sixth Rank with great control and understanding of my two elements.' Alex thought as he set his future priorities.

In the past five months, Alex had barely spent any time on anything other than hunting adventurers and using law tokens to grow his understanding of darkness and chaos.

While it had brought him to the edge of the Sixth rank advancement and refined his skills far more than a few months ago, he knew he was not ready for whatever skills Zarach was capable of using.

Alex had thought about learning the element of time, knowing he had a talent for it, but he dropped the idea even before he had reached the deadline of three years.

Now that he had secured a deal, irrespective of whether it was good or not, Alex had a time frame to achieve the best possible results in it.

With the immediate concern of his sword's wager dealt with, Alex decided to focus on the Epochal trials, as he had yet to complete even one of them.

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"First Two, Epochal Trials"

All three objectives were defined metaphorically and could be completed in various ways.

The first objective, stealing the Breath of a Light Dragon, had several approaches, and the safest way to achieve it was by killing a Light Dragon, but while it gave certain success, it was far from easy.

One could also infect a light dragon with a rare parasite that could affect his mana heart over the course of a few weeks, making it impossible for it to wield mana, but since this option had a cure, its chances of working were slim.

The final known option was to exhaust a light dragon in battle until it could no longer conjure his bloodline flames, and that was as difficult as the first one, if not more so.

However, one very lesser-known option to completing this objective was to impress a dragon so well that he would grant one the dragon blessing, and Alex knew it because he had learned about it from the Domain Guardians.

Alex chose the last option not only to achieve the best results but also because it was the easiest for him to complete, even though it also carried great risk.

Alex found the city of Ianard, where a branch clan of light dragons lived in harmony with smaller clans of Light Elves, Elder Dryads, and High Dwarves, a city located close to the forest of Vluabert and was a perfect place for him to execute his plan.

Alex knew the Light Dragons were kind-hearted and better than all other dragons, but even then, earning their favor would typically take months of effort, and he did not have such time to spare.

So, over the course of a month, Alex orchestrated a plan to impress a Light Dragoness by alerting the city of a massive Beast Tide forming in the forest of Vluabert, an event he had orchestrated himself.

To do this, Alex had convinced a Beast Emperor of early Night Rank to be the scapegoat of his plan, and he did so by showing him the magical effects of the Ancient Red Gem.

Alex convinced the Bear Emperor that the dwarven clan head could forge a second artifact to unlock the gem's true potential. 𝒻𝓇ℯ𝘦𝘸𝑒𝑏𝓃𝑜𝓿𝘦𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓶

Since the clan head would not work for an evil tyrant, the only option to make him work was by force, and to do so, they needed to kidnap him.

Whether this was true or not didn't matter, and what mattered was that the Bear Emperor believed it and struck a deal with him to kidnap the dwarf clan head.

Alex agreed to a deal with him and even took a law oath to make it official, but the oath just made it certain that he would use the artifact for the bear king once the dwarf make the artifact complete.

The oath prevented Alex from informing anyone of the plan, but nothing prevented him from already having informed the city and the dwarven clan of the incoming beast tide and the Bear Emperor's scheme through a proxy.

So when the Bear Emperor used the tide as a distraction to capture the dwarven clan head, he was ambushed, captured, and ultimately killed as he tried to flee.

Alex achieved his goal with flying colors, and while many beasts died in the beast tide, making him feel some guilt over their deaths, he felt better knowing that the Bear Emperor was no peaceful creature and had some heinous acts on his list of crimes.

The Dragoness, impressed by Alex's help and resourcefulness, bestowed upon him her personal dragon's blessing, but not before she asked him many questions that could have cost him his head instead of a reward.

But expecting such a situation, Alex had prepared for it, and while not really satisfied with his answer, the Dragoness gave him the blessing, and he was on his way to the second trial.

The second objective, silencing the footsteps of an Ether Wraith, also presented a significant challenge because Ether wraiths were mindless, aggressive creatures known for their ability to phase in and out of the void, but to do so, they always created a destabilized wormhole.

The common and easy method to complete this objective was killing one or imprisoning it using a sealing array.

The hardest known method was to teach an Ether Wraith their own bloodline technique that would make one capable of entering and exiting the void seamlessly.

Alex left the Magi Empire and made his way to the Cultivator Domain, where he spent an entire week researching Ether Wraiths and understanding their behavior and capabilities.

Alex understood that Ether Wraiths, despite their mindless aggression, had an instinctual understanding of their bloodline techniques, but the challenge lay in making them break through their feral nature and tap into that instinct.

Alex found that the only publicly known way of making an ether wraith awaken his instinct was by ensnaring them in a Mirror prison, which could only be acquired from a certain sect.

In addition to a large sum of money, one required connections to get the prison array.

However, even employing the array, the chances of a wraith learning the bloodline technique, which was a step toward his next evolution, were very minimal, with the records saying only one out of a hundred learned the bloodline technique.

Alex did not have time to impress a sect and get the array that might not work, so he decided to find an ether wraith and engage him in a battle of cat and mouse, exhibiting him his void walk that was similar to the creature's bloodline technique yet also much different.

Alex did not know if the mindless warith could learn from his technique, but it was worth a shot, so he utilized the following three weeks involving in hit-and-run chase again multiple warith, having many close calls and numerous failures, either because he required to make a run or the creature simply ran away.

It was a painstaking process, requiring immense patience and focus, but when he was close to giving up and finding a team to hunt an ether wraith, Alex finally discovered the wraith that was special.

The wraith was different from others, as he was persistent in staying engaged with Alex and unlike the others, after a certain period, the creature even stopped attacking him and was just following him like a dog.

After six hours of grueling chase, the wraith finally mastered its own bloodline technique, its movements becoming as silent as a ghost as he vanished and reappeared hundreds of meters away, with the need of wormhole to the void.

Alex was done with the second objective, having accomplished it with great results.

Now, only the last objective, which was arguably the hardest one, was departed to complete, but the good thing was that he still had around three months left before the first year ended, and he was days away from the Sixth Rank Promotion.