Chương 188: Obstacle Course

"Every week leading up to Vaelheall Week, you will complete an obstacle course," Owl said, pacing in front of my training group.

"You will practice daily, trying to reduce your time. The course will change each week. This is in preparation for your restricted runs on the final week—you will have to complete the run in your full gear, burdened by riftrocks, and in an unforgiving time limit.

"For this week, don't worry about your squad. Get a feel for the obstacles, then later, you can worry about moving through the course as a team." He stepped back, motioning to an obstacle course that they'd set up between the inner wall and the outer wall. It had sprung up overnight. The castle's regular staff, as well as the lieutenants like Owl, had worked all night to set it up, and now, it circled the entire green space between the outer wall and the inner wall—save for the sparring pits.

"Best of luck," Owl said.

"I expect you to all attempt it to the best of your ability today. You will find your increased attributes make it surprisingly easy at first, which is why you will be pushing for speed. Show us how far you've come, and why you deserve to be the strongest Dupes in Gate." We were the first training group to arrive at the starting line. The other groups waited behind us, but their lieutenants would send them in waves. Today, the sky was overcast, and it was a mixture of humid and hot.

I didn't want to imagine how hot it would be if it hadn't been for the clouds. It must have rained last night, because the mud churned up under the workers' feet as they had set up the training course had turned soggy. Puddles sprawled between the different obstacles, forming challenges of their own. As for the obstacles? Well, I'd face them as they came up.

"Begin," Owl instructed. We raced forward, climbing up a simulated fortress wall made of wood. We didn't have grapples to help us climb, but we wouldn't need it. The wood was slick and slippery, even more slippery than a real wall would've been, and it was higher than Castle Urcia's outer curtain wall. There were no footholds, either.

I covered most of the distance with a leap, springing up as high as I could, then sprinted the rest of the way, using the slight friction the slippery boards gave me to raise myself higher than the wall. When I reached the top, I was already panting. We weren't supposed to practice with riftrocks right now, but I wanted a challenge, and I needed to keep increasing my attributes as much as I could.

I'd filled my pockets with them, and I attached a few of the thinner ones to the inside of my tunic with some leftover leather belts. They bit into my skin and shook at an awkward angle, throwing off my balance, but I survived. It was all part of the challenge, even if it resulted in me swaying in unusual directions. Maybe I looked drunk, but no one commented. I slid down the other side of the wall. My boots splashed in the muck, but I kept pushing.

I sprinted to the next obstacle, pushing aside any thought of what the Dupes around me were doing. All that mattered was me right now, and going as fast as I could. I slid under a low barrier, then turned sideways to fit through a set of bars. I navigated over a puddle on a thin beam. It didn't really matter if I stayed clean; my clothes were already soaked. However, it would be faster, and it would help my balance and Focus. Next was an upright rope mesh. We had to scale it again to get to the other side.

It was loose and elastic, and swayed. I wasn't the only Dupe trying to climb it. My hands slipped, and my grip wavered. The ropes were, as expected, slippery. Someone had covered them in grease, and it took all of my enhanced strength to overcome the slipperyness. The humidity was the worst part. Each breath felt like I was sucking an ocean into my lungs, and the air just didn't feel like it was working properly. Again, I reached the top. Some Dupes paused, trying to catch their breath.

They didn't have riftrocks—as far as I knew, that was—but they also weren't Silvers. I had to push harder. I was a Silver, sure, but I'd weighed myself down with riftrocks, disadvantaging myself and putting myself closer to their level. Not closer. I'd tried to match it with what I remembered from Titanium. I had to do this properly. Still, I was a Silver at heart, and no way would I let them get ahead of me. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I didn't take a break. When I launched myself over and jumped down to the other side, I was the first to hit the ground. I kept running. The next was a series of stepping stones. I jumped onto them and traversed the course one stone at a time, only worrying about where I had to plant my next foot so I didn't slip. The stones were slippery. They were actual rock, and as with everything else in the course, they were wet. I had to put my foot down at just the right angle to get across.

I skidded a few times, nearly losing my balance, like I was walking barefoot on a tiled pool deck, but I didn't fall all the way. Some Dupes did, though. I winced when an archer from Habit's squad slipped and hit his back on the sharp edge of the stepping stone. Had he been a regular human, that would've paralyzed him for life. But instead, the corner crumbled beneath his enhanced body, chipping off. He was fine. I hadn't thought of it, but the stepping stones were farther apart than I'd normally expect.

Too far for a regular human to leap. Still, I crossed the obstacle like I was running with long strides. The riftrocks made me sway, of course, but I arrived at the other side without a single bad fall. Was it this easy? Was this just how the obstacle course would be? Or had I just improved so much that it wouldn't be a challenge? As I continued down the course, it seemed to be the case. I pulled ahead in a tunnel crawl—which simulated passing through a culvert to get into a city—and then a lateral movement course.

We had to pass between upright wooden panels, moving side to side to simulate passing through city rubble, ducking in and out of cover as we approached a fortified location. Next, I ran over ground made uneven by wooden ramps, then passed through a set of upright wooden cylinders that rotated, meant to simulate passing through an army. I vaulted through a fake window and ducked under another low set of bars. No matter how hard I was panting, I still pulled away from the others.

The riftrocks pulled me down, and the mud gripped my boots, making each step twice as difficult as it needed to be. But I had more than twenty times the strength of a regular man now, even without my spear. Then I reached the ropes. We had to scale a free-hanging, greased rope and reach a bell, then ring it. It wasn't the first time I'd tried climbing a rope, but it was the first time I'd faced a rope this long, and certainly the first time I'd done it with riftrocks.

I leapt at it, using my enhanced strength to cover half the height before catching on to the rope, but Owl shouted, "Levi! No jump! That's not the standard! Climb from a still start. Try again!" I let myself slide down, mildly embarrassed, but tried again from the ground. I wrapped my knee around the base of the rope and began hauling myself. Hand over hand, just make it to the top. My fingers didn't tighten as much as they had earlier.

I wanted to use an Art to fling myself up, but surely, that was against the rules. I had to climb. That was all that mattered. I used my hands and my upper body to make it halfway up the rope before my grip failed me. It was strong, but not enough to compensate for how slippery that rope was. I slid back down to the ground.

"Faster, Levi!" Owl said.

"You can't think your way around this one! Pushing through is the only way!" I tried again, pulling myself halfway up the rope. These were muscles I hadn't used before, nor had I trained them nearly as hard. Once I was halfway, I kept pushing. The others were catching up. Yesman had reached his rope and was pulling himself up with ease. The pressure got me two thirds of the way up before my grip failed me, and I tumbled back to the ground, landing hard on my back. I clenched my jaw. I didn't just get to give up.

If I could investigate a Labyrinth, or if I could defeat Mugreth and Hinfic, I could defeat a slippery rope and a few rocks in my pockets. Yesman rang his bell. Habit rang his bell. Sure, they had targeted Strength as an attribute more than I had, and they hadn't weighed themselves down, but I had no intention of letting them succeed where I couldn't. I pushed myself back up, then forced myself up the rope. Just keep going, and make it to the top.

I targeted the golden, brass bell, locking it in the center of my vision. I turned that one goal into my entire world. No getting distracted with the future. Just one step at a time. My biceps ached. A fingernail ripped as I sank it into the rope. No giving up when things got tough. That was what I promised everyone else. Could I actually embody that myself? It was just a rope course, and it wouldn't beat me down. I reached the top and gripped onto the beam supporting the rope, then exhaled and rang the bell.

I slid down to the ground and took off, sprinting to the next challenge: monkey bars. Compared to the ropes, it was a breeze. I pushed through it, swinging from bar to bar. I couldn't catch up with the others—they were too far ahead, and I'd spent a little too long wallowing, but there was still time to get third place. The last obstacle was a ramp, a jump at the middle, then a stairway down the other side. The ramp didn't seem tough, with its shallow slope, and compared to the ropes, it wasn't.

But it trained endurance, and it was slippery. I reached the top, jumped the gap, then descended the stairway on the other side. When I reached the ground on the other side, I bent over, hands on my knees.

"Got defeated by a little rope, did you, sir?" Habit teased.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I said. I didn't tell them about the riftrocks, of course. They'd find out how difficult it was soon enough when Owl made us all use them.