The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop

There was a popular folk tale about a poor miner who while wandering the mountains found a motherlode of precious star-metal. Unfortunately, his Mining skill was too low to ever harvest it.

Determined to raise his skill to the point that he could, he started mining the very mountains themselves. One after another, he chipped away day in and day out at the foot of the massive mountains that made up the range.

And as entire mountains started to fall due to his growing talents, he one day turned around and realized that he had found many more lodes of precious metals over the course of his journey.

Orodan felt as though he was the man in that story.

He knew there was no way he could beat the challenges before him at Eversong Plaza at this point in time. He could fight evenly against a single powerful Adept with an active combat skill, but Eversong Plaza had dozens of them. They also had Elite level fighters, and who knew what else was inside. It would be futile death after futile death.

In fact, he could now if he so chose decide to immediately flee to the Capital, display his prodigious talent and be accepted into the Capital Guard for mentorship and being groomed into a military asset of the Republic.

He didnt think the war machines reach was capable of going all the way to the Capital, so fleeing the day he had relived hundreds of times was a real possibility for him now.

But would Orodan be Orodan if he did that?

His heart, his blood, it called to him to batter through even the biggest mountain in his immediate path with nothing more than his head. Either the mountain would break, or his head would.

His usual daily routine was entirely forgone for once, something that left him feeling slightly dissatisfied, but something that was necessary.

A person might think someone in his situation would coordinate with <

/em>the loyalists coming to attack at Eversong.

Orodan would say that person didnt know him very well.

His sword split the first woman in front of him, an Adept enforcer, in half. A combination of Surprise Attack and Power Strike reaping her life in an instant. Most people didnt have defensive skills or the ability to train them like Orodan did. So singular, powerful blows could slay the average Adept in one strike.

What he learned the hard way however, was that this wasnt the warehouse in Loviaston. And the level of vigilance and combat power concentrated here was an altogether different thing.

Before he could begin massacring the non-Adept guards, Two enforcers, one wielding a spear and one a great axe, immediately engaged him with active combat skills of their own, and it took everything Orodan had to defend against them, even with Impregnable Bladewall.

Mages at lower levels were usually sequestered away in magic academies if talented, or doing non-combat magical trades and jobs.

But a powerful lightning bolt sailing towards his face after two seconds of the melee marked Orodans first ever battle against one of the mana-focused.

Four seconds passed, and despite his valiant efforts Orodan began taking some serious wounds.

The great axe buried itself hard in his ribs and the spear impaled his shoulder, all the while the lightning ran throughout his entire body and virtually locked it up, preventing him from using much of his body at all. Even with all his defensive and vitality skills were working overtime to keep him in the fight, he was approaching death.

He was strong enough to resist and not instantly die against the onslaught, but was still overwhelmed. This was probably some of the most intense combat he had ever experienced.

[Combat Mastery 41 Combat Mastery 42]<

/strong>

[Impregnable Bladewall 3 Impregnable Bladewall 5]<

/strong>

Six seconds passed as the moons pale light illuminated the plaza and five more Adept enforcers rushed out of the taverns doors. Orodan also saw a javelin speeding towards his head through the air alongside a second mage about to cast a powerful fire spell.

And as the combined assortment of elemental destruction and weaponry reached him, he knew his loop was over.

[Quest Failed Battle of Ogdenborough - You have died]<

/strong>

A keening wail ringing in the night sky awoke him.

Orodan sat up in bed, brushed away the Quest messages and immediately got to his feet and Sprinted for Eversong Plaza again.

This was his new bout of insanity.

To charge and attempt a rampage at Eversong Plaza in the middle of the night right after beginning the loop. No coordinating with the loyalist attackers at noon. No enlisting allies.

He could only kill one <

/em>Adept in a surprise attack, and that too the one farthest out from the Tavern, before a level of calamitous response fell upon him.

With his first try he only had six to eight seconds of life. His vitality and defensive skills not doing enough at their current levels to delay death against the total bodily destruction that came with being hit with multiple Adept level mage spells.

All in all, the entire loop, from waking up and Sprinting to the Plaza in a minute, till his death probably took less than two minutes.

But, he would eventually improve.

Each loop was less than two minutes long.

And Orodan began attempting and experimenting training in skills which nobody in their right mind would try training the way he was.

Shield Mastery and Combat Mastery had both risen to Adept level, which would be incredible for one at his age outside of a time loop context, but progress was very slow after someone reached level 50 in a skill, at least without fighting against stronger opponents.

A lot of his skills had increased across the board, and pretty much all of his defensive and vitality skills had crossed the Apprentice threshold at 30. Something which lead to the interesting problem of death taking even longer each time, so he spent the remaining minutes of life being electrocuted, burnt and hacked apart focusing on developing a resistance skill.

What were resistance skills?

They were powerful, very highly valued, but just not deemed safe or practical to train. Some argued that developing a resistance skill essentially involved torturing ones self. Others clamored that it involved understanding something about the nature of the attack one was resisting.

Most resistance skills were the product of Bloodlines or ritual enhancement to alter ones self innately.

But what madman could sit there and forcibly endure lightning bolts till he died? And how many times would this process have to repeat until one received one of the vaunted resistance skills?

The answer for Orodan was three-hundred and forty-nine loops.

[New Skill (Exquisite) Lightning Resistance 1]<

/strong>

Orodan experimented with multiple kinds of techniques to obtain the first level of the skill.

At first he thought simply letting himself be drowned in lightning countless times would do the trick. But he quickly thought focused experimenting would be superior.

So he tried flexing his muscles in different patterns when lightning hit, instinctually trying to give mental commands with his full willpower to the lightning coursing through his veins even though it wasnt his mana, and he wasnt a mage with access to his mana pool.

He also tried getting a better feel for moving while under the effects of fatal levels of lightning coursing through his body.

In the end, it ended up being a combination of the two methods, training the techniques for moving while paralyzed by lightning, and mentally trying to guide the lightning itself, that yielded results.

He had yet to get a Fire Resistance skill, but he figured some focused training in unveiling its secrets would help with that.

The three-hundred and fiftieth loop onward his Lightning Resistance skill immediately began to show how powerful it was. While it didnt let him ignore <

/em>the element altogether, even at level 1 it let him mostly move normally even while being assaulted by furious torrents of lightning from a now flummoxed House Argon lightning mage-Adept.

Outside of the loops, level 1 of Lightning Resistance wasnt enough to prevent severe injuries requiring extensive recovery afterwards. But within the context of this fight where he could retry infinitely? He might as well have been immune to the mages lightning given it had no stopping power against him.

Seeing his face twist and grimace in confusion as his lightning was massively reduced in effectiveness was incredibly satisfying for Orodan. The man must have been an arrogant asshole about his lightning.

Furthermore, the incredibly intense melee against two Adepts, each with their own active combat skills of Power Strike and Multi-Attack had levelled Impregnable Bladewall to 17, and the difference it made at level 17 instead of its previous level 5 was massive<

/em>.

Active combat skills were a multiplier, but even then the Power Strikes and Multi-Attacks of the two Adepts combined, werent capable of getting past his Exquisite rarity skill. It was an Exquisite skill for a reason, and alongside Lightning Resistance he could now survive the first six seconds of the engagement in relatively good condition.

That was when he ran into his new wall head-first however. The second mage was an Elite-level fire specialist.

And now he knew why the loops almost instantly ended once the mans concentrated fire beam reached him.

[Quest Failed Battle of Ogdenborough - You have died]<

/strong>

A keening wail ringing in the night sky awoke him and Orodan nearly slapped the Quest messages out of the way and rushed for the Plaza once more.

His new objective, to find a way to develop Fire Resistance.

Burning to death was supposed to be painful.

But Orodan wasnt sure if it was his ludicrously high Pain Resistance or the fact that the Elite fire mages flames killed him almost instantly; but he barely felt much before he woke up to the sounds of the harpies again.

It was frustratingly difficult to train something you had such little exposure time to.

Unlike the lightning mage who was an Adept and whose spell power wasnt enough to kill him immediately; this Elites fire spells left him with almost no time to analyze what was happening to his own body and appropriately test out counter measures and experiment with trying to grasp the first level of Fire Resistance.

He began trying every single experiment and theory he could think of to counteract the temperature and increase his own bodys resistance to fire.

Loops three hundred and fifty to four hundred were spent trying to mentally command the fire once it hit him and before it killed him.

Loops four hundred to four hundred and fifty were spent trying to forcibly cool his body via powerful breathing and mental commands while trying to command the fire in tandem.

It took all the way till the seven-hundredth loop for him to gain a second of life due to his Unyielding Vitality hitting level 44 due to the sheer number of times he died and his dogged concentration on gaining even an extra split second of life.

And Orodan treasured this extra second as though it was the finest of treasures.

He began even attempting to somehow harness the hostile lightning coursing through him into defending against the near instant-death fire beam. But it was for naught on that front.

Finally, by loop eight-hundred and ninety-eight Orodans Unyielding Vitality had progressed to 50 and hit Adept, and for a Rare skill to be at Adept level was unfathomably powerful and it allowed him a full three seconds of life as he now began living long enough to experience the feeling of being charred to a complete crisp as his flesh disintegrated to the bone and the bone turned to ash.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

While he kept experimenting and grinding, occasionally hed get slightly bored of the routine and spice it up by talking to his enemies mid-battle.

Hey, lightning **er? Whats your name? You must be an embarrassment to your family with those piddly little bolts? Orodan asked before the man even cast his first spell this loop.

What the hell did you just say?! I Sagatos Astrapium wont brook such insults!

And so a furious torrent of deep blue energy came Orodans way.

Which was summarily ignored as Orodan only pronounced one word during his melee against the two Adepts.

Weak!

In a surprising turn, the man actually didnt cast a single further lightning spell that loop! The ugly look of shame and red face he had at Orodans insult alongside the shock at his lightning being ineffective actually sidelined him entirely.

Of course, the fire beam came along and ended his loop all the same.

Hey, who taught you to use that axe? Your movements are inefficient, you should be striking with more conviction, your Power Strike skill must be low huh? Orodan insulted the man on the next loop while turning away his active combat skill. Whats your name?

Im the third strongest great axe Adept of House Argon! Say the name Buximus Valadiyadris around town and everyone will know! Who the hell are you?! the great axe-Adept angrily replied as he attacked with greater fervor.

Which was still easily defended against by Orodan, as by now Impregnable Bladewall had reached 24 and the issue wasnt defeating the Adepts in melee, but surviving the Elite fire mage who cast his beam of death from atop the balcony.

Filling his seconds of life each loop with some dialogue was one of the things that helped spice up Orodans training. For even for one as stubborn and dogged as he, doing the exact same thing over and over could get repetitive.

I heard this Adept archer with a great bow in Scarmorrow talk about how hed turn you into a pincushion the other day, who was that?

Erestur? That weak **er doesnt even have an active combat skill! They sent him there as a demotion for being so weak! Id shove my axe up-

The fire beam hit him before Buximus could finish talking and he then focused too much on training against it to ponder more.

But once he woke back up in his bed he made a mental note of the name. So thats who the cunt archer was? Orodan resolved to spend at least one loop bullying him as recompense when he decided to take some time off far down the line.

Hey fire mage! Why the ** <

/em>are your flames so hot?! Orodan asked on his next loop.

He received no reply besides a cold and indifferent look as the Elite fire mage killed him with the fire beam all the same.

Hey, you hit pretty good with that axe of yours, whos that uppity Elite fire mage on the balcony? Orodan asked on the next one as he Perfect Parried Buximuss strike.

Dont concern yourself with Lord Aeglos! For daring to interrupt his star-watching youll die here for your transgressions!

The fire beam sent his way by Lord Aeglos ended his loop as usual, albeit with a delay of several seconds that surprised even the usually stoic man.

Orodans brute force method was paying off and he was starting to get somewhere. He felt something <

/em>there in the beam of fire that killed him, something beyond just the fiery temperature and subsequent death.

Elites, particularly those who were Elite-level in a combat <

/em>skill were some of the most powerful people in society, so for Orodans killer to be a member of the nobility was hardly shocking. Virtually all Elites held some kind of powerful position in society.