Reincarnated Into Destiny Universe - Volume 1 Chapter 24 The Peaks Of Prestige
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- Volume 1 Chapter 24 The Peaks Of Prestige
(Day 38)
“Hey there, Ikora. You got a minute?”
“Absolutely, Isaac. What do you need?” Ikora was still a bit fl.u.s.tered, by the report that Cayde had given her last night, but tried her best to hide it. Neither she nor Cayde could make heads or tails of it. She wanted to ask Isaac directly what this was all about but was still hesitant. ‘Let’s just see what he wants first. It’s not like there’s a need to rush. I’ll ask him, when it seems appropriate.’ She told herself, as she listened to Isaac’s request.
“I was wondering if you had time to help me take the next step along the Warlock path? I feel like I’ve been ready for a while but I’ve just been busy with other stuff. I’d like to start today or tomorrow, if at all possible.”
“Ah, yes. I’m glad that you’ve finally decided to progress. If you’re truly ready, we can start immediately. So, how about it?”
“Absolutely! Let’s do it!”
“Very well then. Since you’ve already passed the first step, you’re already familiar with the procedure for the second step. The second step requires you to submit the same research as the first but for all known types of Energy. Since you started with Void Energy, you’ll need to submit your research on Solar, Arc, and Kinetic. Once that’s completed, you’ll have passed the second step and then I can tell you about the third.”
“Right, more research. I thought it might be something along those lines. I’ll get started right away. Thanks, Ikora, I’ll see you when I’m done.
“Bye, Isaac.”
As soon as Isaac left Ikora walked over to Cayde. “Cayde, send me the coordinates of that ship. I want to see it for myself. I also want to find out what those people at that farm know.”
“Ooo, can I go with you?”
“No, Cayde, we can’t just up and leave the Tower with only one Representative.”
“Alright, I’ll send you the coordinates but don’t blame me if your trip is lame, because it doesn’t have me.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine, Cayde. Thank you.”
———-
(Day 44)
Isaac spent the next three days increasing all of his attunements. He then spent three days after that refining his theories. On the first day, he had contacted his team to let them know that he had plans to finish off his primary class training and that they should do the same. He then went to Ikora, with his finalized theories.
“Excellent job, Isaac! These are all very well thought out theories. I had been looking forward to seeing your theory on Kinetic Energy and I’m not disappointed. It’s easily the most impressive of them all. That being said, you’ve obviously passed with flying colors and are ready for the final step.
“The third and final step in your training is to visit the Peaks of Prestige. Not too far north from here, there are three mountain peaks that each have distinct paths leading up to them. I’ll send Polter the coordinates and you will start on the middle path. As you progress upwards to the top, you’ll be presented with various challenges that will test not only your understanding as a Warlock but your abilities as well. Each Challenge will be progressively harder, until you complete the final test at the top.
“Each class has a different peak, so be sure to only enter the middle path, until you’ve progressed your training in your other classes. There is no time limit or any other limitations on when or how many times you can do this and it’s also not mandatory. Take your time and enter when you feel you’re ready. The peaks aren’t going anywhere.
“There is a device, within the Speaker’s Observatory, that was connected to the final challenge of each peak, by the more than two hundred Warlocks who created the peaks after the fall of the Warlords. So whenever you do manage to complete it, we will know.”
“A mountain path with multiple challenges and increasing difficulty. I like the sound of that. Since there are no limitations, I think I’ll head over there right now, unless you had something else for me?”
“Not at the moment, Isaac, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
Isaac left the command room, went straight to his ship to, and headed directly to the coordinates given to him by Ikora.
———-
(Day 44)
Polter transmated Isaac, onto the snow covered ground at the bottom of the mountain path. Isaac walked forward and saw a small lean-to, with a Warlock Symbol on its sides. A well marked path led from the lean-to winding up towards the peak.
Isaac started walking forward and continued for approximately half a mile, before coming to an abruptly coming to a halt. One second he was walking peacefully along the mountain path and the next he was standing in a room inside Dock-13, right before the room where he wrecked Ricksis with those five Shock Grenades.
Isaac looked around, felt the walls, and himself. Aside from the fact that just a second ago he was on a mountain path far away from here, nothing seemed to be out of place. He began walking forwards into the next room.
He peeked around the corner and sure enough the same Fallen that had been there that day were here now. Isaac then looked a bit more carefully and realized that wasn’t the case. They were all there but this time there were more of them, at least twice as many. ‘Holy F.u.c.k Nuggets! Is that Riksis? He’s already here and for some reason he looks slightly taller than last time. Or is that just my imagination?’
Isaac tried to imagine what exactly was going on and, while he had some theories, actually testing most of them involved pushing forward and killing everything in front of him. Seeing no reason to delay and not being the slightest bit scared, having come this far, he burst into the room and immediately released Void Scatter Bomb.
He cleared the entire room, with the exception of Riksis, in a matter of seconds. Riksis was clearly not doing so well as he tried to recover and fire on Isaac. Isaac, however, wasn’t having any of it. Quicker than Riksis could aim his weapon, Isaac appeared before the Archon, blasted its Shrapnel Launcher out of its hands with a FOMA, and sliced its head clean off with his replacement Void Blades.
As soon as Riksis was defeated, Isaac immediately found himself back on the mountain path.
“Ummm, Isaac, are you alright? You’ve kinda been out of it for a few minutes now. Did something happen?” Polter asked.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I think I just passed the first challenge. I don’t know what those Warlocks did to this mountain but my consciousness was just sent back to the Cosmodrome, to that time that I defeated Riksis. Absolutely everything there felt as real as the first time, only there were at least twice as many Fallen and I’m certain that they were stronger than the original batch.”
“Really? That’s pretty amazing. From where I’m floating, it just looked like you were standing there all spaced out. Although, considering everything that you’ve shown me, I suppose it’s not really that impressive.”
“Well, it’s notable at the very least but that’s neither here nor there. I wanna get to the next challenge. Come on, let’s go.”
Isaac continued walking for another half mile and was once again brought to an abrupt halt. His consciousness was once again transported and this time it wasn’t a familiar place. He was in a pretty barren room with unremarkable grey walls. The only things in the room were him and some type of metallic sphere that seemed to have some type of interface connected to it.
As soon as he saw the sphere and its interface, the knowledge of how to pass this challenge suddenly entered his mind. The sphere was a bomb and the rectangular interface was a device that could defuse said bomb. A timer would begin counting down, the moment he touched the interface, and he would have thirty seconds to send a strand of energy into it in the correct pattern.
In this challenge, all his Light Charge was essentially base non-elemental energy and would only transform into an element by causing it to mimic the natural behavior of the chosen element. In order to diffuse the bomb, he would have to move his non-elemental energy into the interface, cause its flow from the input all the way to the bomb to mimic the behavior of Void Energy, and then maintain that flow and behavior, until the bomb was completely diffused.
Less than ten seconds later, Isaac’s consciousness was returned to the mountain path and he continued forward. His attainments in understanding and manipulating all four energies was not small and so such a simple task posed no real challenge to him. Isaac, however, didn’t take this as a reason to celebrate. These were only the first two tests and he was sure that he would be pushed to his limit before he reached the peak.
—– Three Hours Later
Isaac had quickly recognized the pattern that the challenges came in. The first was a combat challenge and the second was an intellectual challenge. The third was a combat challenge and the others continued that pattern from there onwards.
After the tenth challenge, Isaac continued on for another half mile and could plainly see the peak of the mountain in the distance. As soon as he registered the distant peak, he was transported once again.
The last combat test saw him facing off against Phogoth, by himself with increased enemy mob numbers and strength. He made it through, thanks to his increased speed and power, since the time that originally occurred but he had a bad feeling about this next test. He was almost certain he knew what it was going to be and he really hadn’t progressed that much since then.
Isaac found himself facing a massive circular gate that was slowly opening. As it revealed the scene on the other side, just as he had suspected, he could see the Black Heart surrounded by far more enemies than during his original fight.
Isaac silently cursed as he stepped into Black Heart’s domain and swiftly and ruthlessly began putting down its minions.
—– Three More Hours Later
Isaac was released from the peak’s powerful illusion and despite everything having only occurred inside his head he was visibly sweating and panting. He fell to the ground in a completely exhausted state.
“Isaac, what happened? Was it really the Black Heart again? Did you win?” Polter asked.
“No, I didn’t win and yes it was the Black Heart. I put everything I had into it but it just wasn’t enough. So many enemies and so much more powerful than the originals. I even made it a point to save all of my Light Charge, for the mass summoning after killing the Progenies, but all that did was buy me more time. In the end, it was still a quarter of its original size when I died.
“Dammit! I really thought for a moment that I was going to pass this thing today. As much as I hate to say it, I really hope I’m not the only one who failed. It really wouldn’t look too good on me as the leader to be the only one who failed, especially when it was my idea to go forward with this.”
“True but your teammates becoming stronger is important and necessary for your future plans. Them staying behind you just because you’re the leader wouldn’t really be ideal would it? If you do happen to be the only one to fail, then just use that as motivation to get better.” Polter said.
“Well, of course, you’re right. I was just being selfish is all. I should probably put a quash on that though, if I’m gonna keep doing this whole leader thing, huh?”
“Yep, you really should.” Polter agreed.
“Well, I’m already this close. I want to see if the last challenge will appear, since they always come in pairs.”
Every intellectual challenge, except the last, one had been an increased difficulty version of the bomb diffusing test. The last test literally had him going through a stack of research papers, looking for errors, and then having to write out an explanation as to why the errors were errors.
As Isaac approached the last stretch of the now almost sheer path not really expecting anything to happen, his consciousness took one more trip away from his current location.
After initially feeling a bit surprised, Isaac quickly recovered and took in his surroundings. As with the other challenges, the knowledge of how to complete it was part and parcel of the peak’s illusion. He was in a lecture hall and he was the professor standing in front of a class full of students.
This challenge required him to give a lecture on the nature of Elemental Energies. At the end of the lecture, he would have four students approach him each with a question they can’t answer. The answer to each question is that specific student’s final barrier to finally understanding a specific Elemental Energy. Once each student has successfully understood the Elemental Energy they are struggling with, the challenge would be complete.
Isaac had found each consecutive intellectual challenge to be slightly more difficult than the last but nothing he couldn’t easily handle. This challenge required him to work with others and be able to not only understand the material himself but also be able to convey that understanding to others.
It took Isaac an hour to complete the lecture. It then took another six hours, with the students, to finally get each of them past their roadblocks. It was by far the most difficult intellectual task he had been given but that was to be expected, as it was the last one. However, as difficult as it was, the difficulty paled in comparison with the last combat challenge. Even though it took seven hours, at least he was able to pass this one.
Isaac, having had quite enough of this Peak of Prestige business, made his way back to the Tower to get all of his attunements to the fourth level amplifier. He was already at level five attunement with his Solar Energy and was very close with the other three. He suspected that it shouldn’t take more than three or four more days, before those meditation chambers would no longer be of much use to him. According to Ikora, being able to sit completely unphased by the chamber’s energy, for twenty four hours and with all four pillars activated, marks the attainment of a level five attunement to that particular energy.
With these thoughts in mind and after having been on the mountain all night, he arrived at the Tower in the early morning and began his meditations.
(Day 45)
———-
(Day 45)
“Hey, Ikora. I heard that your prodigy managed to complete his Peak of Prestige challenge early this morning. Is that right?”
“It is indeed. He is quite talented. I’m not sure if he’ll be coming by today on his own or not but I think I should ask him to come in. Now that he’s finished his primary class training, I think it’s time to get to the bottom of these secrets of his.”