A Novel Concept - He Who Eludes Death-Chapter 323: Hard Difficulty

Priam had an issue with the Tutorial’s difficulty labels. What did Hard mean? What about Perilous? Nightmarish? Impossible? And if “Impossible” wasn’t really impossible, could “Hard” truly be considered hard? According to whom? Based on what criteria? Priam would have gladly traded the vague label for a detailed risk assessment, a study on the mortality rate of species similar to his own, or better yet, a projection of his survival odds based on his physical and mental characteristics.

These were the thoughts occupying Priam's mind as he stood guard on the ground floor of his family home. His furrowed brow, while his eyes attempted to pierce the darkness of the garden, betrayed his frustration. If only he knew what rewards awaited him…

Bah, might as well do some mental math. [Algebra] isn’t going to level up itself.

Before he could begin grinding his second skill, something caught his attention.

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“Quieeck.”

While Priam’s naturally poor vision was further hampered by the absence of light, his ears thrived in the nocturnal silence. A high-pitched noise, distinct from the groaning branches tormented by the wind, had broken the stillness of the dark. Its origin seemed distant, but...

Silently, Priam rose from the couch and reached for the makeshift weapons piled on the coffee table. His hand hovered over his father’s old hunting shotgun before he shook his head. A gunshot would draw too much attention. Instead, he gripped the handle of a lumberjack’s axe, his fingers tightening around the wood. With any luck, it would do the job.

Barefoot save for a pair of socks to muffle his steps on the tiled floor, he crept toward the sliding glass door. It was open about forty centimeters, letting the cool night air seep in. A curtain covered the opening and the rest of the window, concealing Priam from prying eyes outside.

The reason he had left a clear path from the garden into the living room was simple: an intruder would likely choose the easiest route. A cunning thief might sense the trap, but Priam wasn’t expecting a human. Hidden behind the heavy curtain, he raised the axe above his head and waited.

“Quieeeeck.”

The noise was closer now, and Priam recognized it: it sounded like the pigs he had seen on a farm earlier this year. Except this is a peninsula. The nearest farm’s over a dozen kilometers away.

Even if it was a stray pig, Priam wanted nothing to do with the animal. His sharp memory dredged up a worrying fact: an adult pig could devour a kilogram of raw flesh in under a minute. Earlier that year, a French farmer had been eaten alive by his own hogs.

The thought didn’t help calm his nerves. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as blood thundered in his ears. Priam was half-convinced the frantic drumming of his heart was loud enough to alert whatever was approaching.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Outside, something was crushing the pine needles scattered across the ground. Priam swallowed hard, realizing the creature had entered his yard.

The crunching grew louder, then stopped abruptly. The creature had reached the patio—mere meters from the sliding glass door.

For ten agonizing seconds, there was silence. As ridiculous as it seemed, Priam felt an overwhelming urge to scream, to shatter the oppressive quiet. Anything to end this maddening wait.

A stench of rotting flesh hit him, triggering his gag reflex, just as the curtain began to shift. Something was pushing through, parting the heavy fabric as it advanced. Like a ghost animating the material, the outline of a head emerged.

As the most terrifying moment of Priam’s life reached its crescendo, fear drained from his body. The danger was here, and he discovered he was ready. Channeling his meager lumberjack experience, he brought the axe down with all his strength.

“AHHHHHHHHH!”

The blade sliced through fabric, flesh, and bone before crashing into the tile with a deafening impact. Shards flew in every direction, and Priam felt a sharp pain in his shin. A moment later, the blow ripped the curtain from its rod. Dropping the axe, the fledgling warrior leapt back, flicked the light switch, and grabbed the hunting shotgun from the coffee table.

The sudden transition from darkness to blinding light stung his eyes, but he forced them open. The stillness of the mass covered by the curtain reassured him. Cautiously, he approached the bloodied heap of fabric.

“Priam?!”

“What’s going on?”

Two voices called down from upstairs before his father and Victoire raced down the stairs.

“Everything’s fine,” Priam replied, using the shotgun barrel to lift the curtain.

The severed head of a boar emerged, its neck barely connected to the body. The animal stood half a meter tall at the shoulder.

“A squeaker,” Alain observed as he joined his son. The old man had been a hunter four decades ago. “The young of a wild boar. It must’ve wandered over from the nearby woods.”

That explained the pig-like noises Priam had heard.

“Isn’t it a bit big for a piglet? This thing’s got to weigh at least sixty kilograms.”

“It’s odd,” Alain admitted. “But it still has its stripes. Normally, they lose them around four months and mature by sixteen.” He frowned. “This one looks like a baby, but it’s built like a young adult.”

“The System wasn’t lying,” Victoire murmured. “This world’s turning hostile to humanity.”

Half a day into the Tutorial, not much had changed. Alain had chosen a non-combatant class, while Priam and Victoire had opted to become fighters. Deep down, Priam refused to abandon his dreams of adventure and exploration.

A final notification had informed them of their mission.

Main Quest: Earth’s Wrath

Cross one of the portals linking Earth to Sector Hope.

Rewards: Access to the Seven Concepts Universe, one Epic rarity skill of your choice.

Difficulty: Hard.

Time remaining: 7 days.

Description:

The introduction of large amounts of aether and the infusion of Concepts such as Mutation, Evolution, Abundance, Fantasy, Mythology, and Domination has triggered a drastic and rapid transformation in Earth’s flora and fauna.

The System protects its users from this effect for seven days.

Materializing a Hard-difficulty portal requires the sacrifice of one gram of aether.

This resource is naturally concentrated by living beings and certain natural events.

Looking at the oversized baby boar before him, Priam better understood what the System meant by “rapid transformation.” If this epidemic of gigantism continued unchecked, Earth would soon become uninhabitable for humans.

It was bad, but there was worse. Priam shivered at the thought that failing to complete their quest in a week would mean losing the System’s protection. What would happen to them then? Would their brains endure such aggressive growth? Would their egos be altered? If so, it was death in another name.

Stolen novel; please report.

“You okay?” Victoire asked, stepping closer to massage his temples. She knew how to soothe him.

Forcing a smile, Priam nodded. “Just lost in thought. Dad, can you fetch the knives? Victoire, could you help me patch up my ankle? I’ve got a shard of tile lodged in it. After that, we’ll haul this body to the basement.”

The half-core of Sumstreh froze as it entered Priam’s pupil, immobilized by one of the draconic sigils. Any further and it would have destroyed the eye and with it, the ritual.

Wasting no time, the add-on redirected the aether into other meridians. As if managing a water distribution network, it used [High Aether Manipulation] to open valves, erect dams, guiding the primordial fluid to form new runes.

Once fueled, they activated, releasing a pulse that struck the trophy directly. Like a comet blasted by a gamma-ray burst, the half-core vaporized, transformed into a mist. Another draconic rune awakened, drawing the gaseous remnants into Priam’s eye and forcing them into orbit around the gate’s seed.

Performing a stellar ballet, the semi-core's remains swirled, condensing to create something marvelous. With each revolution, part of the cloud adhered to the embryonic gate, gradually increasing its volume. For twenty minutes, the add-on oversaw the operation, ensuring the flawless formation of an energy pearl.

The final orb, reminiscent of a planet, comprised a draconic core forged from Priam’s aether and a High Tribulation mantle formed from Sumstreh’s fragmented essence.

Had Priam been conscious, he might have drawn a parallel between the Earth's birth and the creation of a gate. Had the inventor of tempering been inspired by the genesis of his world, or did reality itself favor the symmetry of spheres?

[Priam’s System] didn’t have an answer but recorded the gate’s evolution for its host.

As Priam’s dream accelerated, the planet completed its formation. The orb, the size of a small pea, held half the energy of a Tier 4 and its mere presence influenced the energy within Priam’s body. Each rotation simulated a tidal effect, pulling and pushing the primordial fluid through his meridians. The process was treacherous, and only the add-on’s flawless control prevented catastrophe.

[Second Phase—Seed Fertilization—completed successfully.

Awaiting possible trophy ego awakening.]

The tireless add-on monitored its creation for any anomalies. As a former core of a still-living Fallen, there was a possibility that Sumstreh might exploit a karmic backdoor to destabilize the pseudo-gate before finalization. Since the System had worked on the trophy, infusing the core with a High Tribulation’s essence, the likelihood was slim, but Priam wasn’t one to gamble. If any complications arose, the assistant would immediately activate two rewards—Minor skill Epiphany and Seed of Potential—to bolster [Consequence Resistance]. In theory, this would suffice to repel Sumstreh’s influence.

The action window passed without intervention from the Fallen. No relief overcame the add-on, which continued its mission.

[No foreign ego detected.

Initiating third phase: gate finalization.]

Lvl Up: [Free Will] lvl 15

WILL +6

CHAR +3

Thirty minutes later, Priam had his arm buried elbow-deep in the beast’s belly.

“Think I’ve found something,” he announced as his gloved fingers brushed something hard.

“Please tell me it’s not more guts,” Victoire grimaced. “I’ve never smelled anything so foul.”

“Want to switch places?”

“No thanks, babe. You’re doing great!”

Priam growled and yanked. After a brief struggle, he pulled free a small shard of cristal. A rinse under the tap revealed a milky white hue.

“This looks like what they were talking about online,” Victoire said. “Solid aether.”

The integration hadn’t immediately cut off all sources of information, and the world had flocked to social media for answers. Sifting through doomsday prophets, marketers selling apocalypse survival courses, and trolls claiming they had concentrated large amounts of aether in their testicles after thirty years of celibacy, Priam had found some useful information.

First, a compilation of questions asked during the Tutorial’s difficulty selection.

The entity projecting the interface into their minds called itself the System. It refused to communicate about its creator, the Seven Concepts it had mentioned—possibly because they were related—or anything not directly tied to the Tutorial. As insane as it sounded, the System originated from a universe other than Earth’s.

This new universe was where Earth had been transported, specifically within the Sector Hope, an artificial galaxy. Priam had verified this by observing new constellations when night fell. According to astronomy enthusiasts’ questions, the star the Earth was orbiting was a replica of the Sun, as was the rest of the solar system—except for Venus, Mars, and a few satellites visited by human probes. The System justified this by saying they were part of humanity’s history. This was undoubtedly significant, but Priam had no idea why.

What he did know was that the energy and technique required to transport three planets from one universe to another and recreate an identical star were incomprehensible to humanity. This provided some perspective on the System’s capabilities.

While fascinating, these considerations weren’t critical in the short term. Fortunately, some practical-minded individuals had asked about the Tutorial’s purpose. The answer was simple: to prepare humans for their new life. Quite obviously, its difficulty scaled with the final reward.

Reading those words, Priam had briefly regretted choosing Hard difficulty before chastising himself. He had made his decision with full awareness. He would save his father and Victoire, then explore this new universe.

“With this System, a humble start doesn’t mean a mediocre finish. One day, I’ll visit every peak,” he had vowed.

[Lvl Up: [Free Will] lvl 16

WILL +6

CHAR +3]

Other questions had been raised, but their reliability was questionable. Priam had focused instead on the discoveries made during the first hours of the Tutorial. Three facts were undisputed.

First, only those who had selected the Normal, Hard, or Perilous difficulty settings remained on Earth. The rest of humanity was missing, their whereabouts unknown. Second, the laws of reality in this universe—or perhaps the System itself—enabled the transformation of ordinary skills into Skills. The capital “S” was critical, as it denoted not only a quantified measure of the skill's potency but also a corresponding enhancement of the individual’s attributes. Third, traces of solid aether fragments had been detected in minute quantities within the bodies of mutated animals.

An hour and a half into the Tutorial, Priam’s internet connection had grown unstable. When it finally cut out altogether, his first thought was an EMP triggered by nuclear war. His father had dug a radio out of the basement, and they were all relieved when the host refuted that grim possibility. The man then apologized, explaining his family depended on him, before leaving his post. From that point on, Priam, Alain, and Victoire lost all contact with the outside world. Living in a secluded house in the woods a kilometer from the nearest village wasn’t always a blessing.

After thoroughly examining the crystal found in the boar’s stomach, Priam removed his gloves and reached out to touch it directly. “Only one way to find out.”

Ignoring Victoire's grimace and the worry in his father’s eyes, he closed his fingers around the shard.

“Ow!”

“Priam?!”

“It’s fine,” he reassured them after a second. “Felt like grabbing an electric fence for a second—unpleasant, but tolerable. Now… it feels like I’m dipping my hand into cool water.”

The sensation was alien but pleasant.

Victoire glanced at Priam’s hand, hovering a meter above the ground and far from any actual water. “There’s nothing but air.”

“I know. It’s just an impression. More importantly…” He grinned. “This is what we’ve been looking for.”

Exit Tutorial Portal:

Boar core (bad quality) detected (1.2g).

Aether percentage: 29%.

Sacrificing this object will advance your Main Quest progression by 34.8%.

“This shard—or rather, this core—accounts for over a third of my quest.”

“We need five more, then,” Victoire calculated.

As a non-combatant, Alain didn’t share their Main quests. His only requirement was to obtain sixty levels in non-martial skills. He had completed his quest in less than an hour after sketching a blueprint. For reasons unknown, [Architecture - Epic] had singlehandedly filled sixty levels of his progression bar. Priam theorized its rarity was equivalent to a common skill at level sixty.

“To think people say humanity loves violence.”

The lost look from his father was telling, and Priam explained.

“Anyone with passion, specialization, or advanced education can unlock at least one epic-tier skill and clear the Hard Tutorial as a non-combatant. On the other hand, without a weapon, that boar would’ve butchered me.”

“True, but a soldier with an assault rifle could kill that thing’s mama,” Victoire pointed out. “At least, I hope so.”

Priam nodded, then froze. Sows were known to keep close tabs on their young. Judging by the size of the boarlet, its mother had to be absolutely massive.

“We might need my hunting shotgun after all,” Alain said grimly.

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