Ebony woke up when Gao' Larg's voice echoed past his safety sound shield.

'Why does the Soldier have Gao' Larg's voice?' Ebony witnessed the lance swing down with momentous shockwaves breaking through the Mantle of Reservation and causing the gravitational mana to disperse kilometres away before the spell could reform under Dusk's control.

The spiny lance had a sharpened blade now, looking more like a halberd. In contrast, the Soldier's skeletal structure was modified closer to a Troll's skeletal structure.

It hasn't been long - about 8 minutes.

His body was back at peak condition, but his mana wasn't topped up. It did increase, even with the expenditure Dusk had against the Elementals and Jetfins that was still going on.

Not able to leave it all up to his Domain and Apparition anymore, Ebony quickly popped out of Dusk to meet the Soldier that charged into his Domain, unlike the main aggressor Elemental and Jetfins that were kept out successfully.

Clashing thrice, 'It's not just mother's spear style anymore, it has Gao' Larg's greatsword techniques mixed in.'

That made it far easier for Ebony.

Not to mention, he was more familiar with the structure of the Troll, and its skeletal structure made his predictions more accurate.

Ebony wasn't impressed by the sub-par mixture of spear technique, used by a lance turned halberd and a greatsword. However, the Soldier had increased its stats. It was no longer using the same speed and power as Ebony.

Having assumed the challenge would get tougher, he was surprised that the Soldier's incorporation of techniques made it slightly easier for Ebony to avoid attacks and dish out a few more in exchange. He didn't even need to end up with a stabbed heart before he reached half the amount of mana he previously built up and had just as tough a time reconnecting his Will to activate his Coreflame of Sequester.

'messed up there.' Ebony failed to put the Soldier down or hit the 'threshold' as the semi-Troll-shaped skeleton was still moving after he blasted it up.

However, Ebony saw the positive side of this reaction. The fake Saint that was forced to have similar stats as him was deeply frozen and couldn't fight properly, yet was not 'dead'.

Ebony quickly set his Numbers on the Saint and got back to regenerating as much mana as he could.

It only happened once, but he was already certain what was going to happen the moment he pushed his target past its threshold.

There was no food in his kitchen but he had a feeling he didn't need traditional sustenance to convert to life force, stamina or mana. Even so, he would go under the assumption that he would go into an exhaustion state sooner or later.

The destroyed Jetfins disappear into light particles, so he couldn't hunt for food either.

'I'll be good for a few dozen regeneration cycles, but it'll be better not to treat limbs as disposables, that'll eat into life force and stamina, which are more sustenance heavy to regenerate.'

Ebony bought a lot of time, enough to recharge Dusk back to its original state before the first script and double that before the Soldier broke itself down or Ebony's Coreflame's residual freezing had lasting effects

'Ting' 'Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 2 Threshold exceeded.'

'Ting' 'Generic Skill Vigour Kneading Potential infusing...'

'Ting' 'Generating Script 2 Aggregate Trial.'

'Ting' 'Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 3 Commencing.'

His assumption was correct.

Only a singular Jetfin was spawned along with 5 Elemental, but each was stronger than they should be.

Soldier healed and reformed faster than before, into a proper Troll's skeletal structure.

"MOUNTAIN REND!!"

The shockwave was marginally stronger once more. The increment in stats seemed to have increased, a slow rise in difficulty that was speeding up.

'His techniques aren't clogging anymore.' Ebony felt the halberd seemed to have perfectly shown off what a Tier 6 Art would be.

He chopped his arm off after it was infected by sand that ate the mana chassis even faster, and they spread.

Fortunately, his scales could block the wide range spray of sand. Only close contact hits tears through his magical armour of ice.

'It's breaking my Mireloom down directly and slowing my mana regeneration. I can't block or dodge them all.'

Ebony changed his approach and tested the Coreflames of Preservation. The previous script led him to believe that this wasn't the Saint in its full form and could be sealed.

If it could be sealed or frozen, it could be weakened and slowed, and he might not need to waste as much mana on Coreflames of Sequester. The threshold likely rose compared to the previous script too, and there was a good chance this threshold referred to damage in some form.

He had to come up with the most efficient method while he still had resources in spades.

It didn't even take two hits before he saw a slight layer of ice on his target. Ebony didn't even have to land a physical blow. Merely casting Blossoms of Smouldering Frost after pulling forth Coreflames of Preservation and infusing their Will into his spell showed success.

The only problem was a lot more Will-intensive for a ranged spell, and his gravity magic couldn't ensure all of his petals hit due to the Soldier being capable of disrupting mana. Using its sand to surround itself, the sand ate through mana like a corrosive fume.

Ebony had to get into range, personally drag those flames along his sword swings. He might as well infuse Icicle with it and not waste the effort with his spells if they couldn't hit from a range.

It took more time and stamina, but Ebony got hit less after he managed to seal a limb or two of the Soldier. From there, sealing it was only a matter of making sure he didn't mess up.

Thinking he succeeded when looking at a completely sealed Soldier, Ebony was hit with reality.

'Ting' 'Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 3 Threshold exceeded.'

'Ting' 'Generic Skill Will Relay Buffer Potential infusing...'

'Ting' 'Generating Script 3 Aggregate Trial.'

'Ting' 'Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 4 Commencing.'

'Sealing doesn't do any damage. I can't buy time like that.' With his plans for a long break failing, he had no choice but to carry on without fully regenerating his mana pool

It was immediately obvious to him that his opponent was now twice as resistant to freezing, and subtly more resistant to the Will that forces his mana to stick onto his target tightly.

'Each script evolves my opponents according to what I do in the previous script. I'll have to try cycling between a few patterns to see if they lose resistance or skills over a few scripts, or they keep evolving perfectly. If they keep evolving perfectly, learning from all my previous moves. I'm going to be perfectly countered in a few more battles, and its stats are still rising each script.

'Ting' Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 37 Threshold exceeded.'

'Ting' 'Generic Skill Mana Discern Potential infusing…'

'Ting' 'Generating Script 38 Aggregate Trial.'

'Ting' 'Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 38 Commencing.'

Ebony had not been in as many life and death battles in a row before. Not only was his opponent getting a little stronger in stats every script, but it was also improving its technique faster than Ebony had.

If that wasn't enough, the Soldier had evolved in response to everything Ebony could dish out. More resistant, reading his moves better, anticipating his spell target, and predicting his spell modifications mid-cast. Ebony had used the opportunity while the Soldier still had relatively low stats to focus on gravity and sound magic to slowly tear his target down. So that it didn't grow resistant to his ice and cold flames too easily later in the script.

Stolen story; please report.

Potential being infused into all his Generic Skills didn't do much. Even when it added to useful skills such as Sustained Optimum Conditioning or his lightning elemental spells. Because it was just potential, not levels or power. It did increase his speed of improvement, more than he expected for the extremely small percentage of potential he had allocated for his generic skills. He could feel exhaustion resistance improving, but none of his skills immediately got stronger or made a difference in his ability to fight.

After Script 15, no more Jetfins or Elementals spawned and he had single combat since.

However, his opponent no longer resembled the Saint Soldier. Its skeletal self had grown a tail. Instead of flesh, it grew a frosty, dark elemental flesh over its skeletal frame.

It was now capable of water magic, sometimes mixed with sand for heavy defensive magic. It was almost fully capable of resisting his Domain's debilitating effects, but it probably wouldn't take it more than 3 more scripts before Dusk cannot weaken it with gravity or sound anymore. This wasn't a passive ability; his opponent was using mana manipulation to tear all influence away from itself. A lot harder than Intent infusion, but it showed Ebony that there may be mages out there that are so good with dispel, they could even get themselves out of a Domain's effect.

By disrupting mana, Will is also disrupted to an extent, so it should've been obvious to him.

Ebony had managed to use his lesser talents, using masteries he learned from Cinderash.

One, to catch his evolving opponent off guard.

Two, so that it wasn't learning Ebony's Ethereal Form Arts as best as it could.

Three, to test and learn how the scripts are evolving.

He concluded that the scripts did not lose any information whatsoever. It still perfectly retained everything it learned from scripts 1 and 2.

However, the more abilities it had, the weaker its past abilities were in comparison.

To make the best of his skillset, Ebony no longer tried to take his opponent down as fast as possible. Even though it gave the Script time to learn, Ebony also needed the time to stockpile mana for later scripts.

He entered with a full mana pool, but his first 3 fights had him expending too much mana. Mana was every mage's power.

As long as his opponent keeps getting more durable, more resistant, and the threshold keeps rising. He didn't see how he could beat the later scripts if he didn't have backup mana, not when he dipped so much into his mana pool in the early scripts.

He might not have used much ice magic to tear the scripts down so far, but after script 15, where its skeletal structure gained the 'flesh' of a mixed frost elemental, Ebony was beginning to doubt if his flames could hurt it much. He would have to get bone deep at the very least. But it was also growing Jetfin scales, and musculature made of condensed water mana with mud for skin mucus that was similarly impact and vibration resistant.

Every script from then forced Ebony into a corner. He used only his martial arts and swordsmanship, and evolved with his opponent.

Just like the old days, pain helped him to adapt his skills, and they challenged each other to see who adapted faster.

Ebony lost in that regard by leaps.

He wasn't improving nearly as fast as the script was improving against him.

He'd already reached the end of his Potential for Ethereal Form Sovereign Arts. It was already near miraculous for him to squeeze out so much improvement in merely 37 death battles.

The only reason he was still alive was thanks to his healing. He just had to regenerate, stand back up and continue fighting.

The script on the other hand, had a threshold to stop it for a moment once exceeded.

Ebony was amazing at avoiding a fatal blow. Make no mistake, his opponent's script had not been trying to train him or letting him off the hook.

He was now confident enough to call himself exceedingly good at avoiding fatal blows. He even learned how to do that without sacrificing as many limbs as before.

The cuisine set buff might have helped him care about limbs he could regenerate, for all he knew.

On that note, the Trial space seemed to be very nice. He didn't get hungry, as of yet, he should have unlimited reserves to continuously regenerate his essence without going hungry..

"MOUNTAIN REEEND!!"

Ebony took up his mental list of weaknesses he found out about his opponent; it was time to make use of one more and focus on that.

Rather than exploiting all the weak points of the new magical-biological opponent, Ebony took note of them and only focused on one in every Script. He found that the weaknesses carried over as long as he ignored them in one script after all.

Ebony's greatest advantage was his ability to plan for the next scripts after learning how the Trial was evolving and countering him.

He wasn't arrogant enough to think that he had an intelligence advantage because his opponent was also smart. The scripts learning wasn't stupid either; they sometimes cover weaknesses he never even made use of at all in a fight.

'Ting' Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 38 Threshold exceeded.'

'Ting' 'Stat - Strength Potential infusing…'

'Ting' 'Generating Script 39 Aggregate Trial. Adding equivalent stat gain to Aggregate Trial'

'Ting' 'Combat Ascendancy Trial Script 39 Commencing.'

'Strength? Come on, you were going chronologically backwards for my generic skills but not backwards for my stats.' Ebony did guess stats were next, but he was assuming Perception would be first and Wisdom next.

Base stat increased 9 times honestly wouldn't help much, even if he got the 9 times improvement all at once.

Ebony's augmentations were powered by his Intelligence stat and 9 times was hardly noticeably compared to his Domain and spell Augmentations. And, he wouldn't get a blast of improvement.

Ebony doesn't get any generic skill level up notifications, but he was sure that he could improve here.

Before his next script fully generated, he tested an unaugmented body. He didn't get 9 times of strength instantly, and that wouldn't break his Constitution but he could feel a grip slowly strengthening.

'The rate it's coming in is quite fast if I can feel the improvement already, faster than generic skills at least.'

"MOUNTAIN REEEND!!"

Ebony's shoulder was split open, splitting his left leg away as well. He'd barely moved out of the way to protect his heart but part of his skull was sliced off with his brain.

'…don't tell me my opponent instantly gets 9 times in strength.' Ebony did not like the sound of that. His opponent wasn't Intelligence or magic focused, its strength came directly from the Strength stat. If its baseline was already so much higher, getting 9 times in improvement was going to be nasty for him.

Ebony didn't even regenerate his body before a horizontal swing bisected him once more.

The wide horizontal swing seemed to slice everything in the surroundings and cut halfway into Dusk.

His house was already left with 1 floor but even that was demolished with this swing.

Ebony had no choice, he was going to die in the next moment if he didn't have Dusk use its plum bomb filled with Coreflame of Preservation. It was more cost-effective than Sequester, and also less powerful.

Having learned its threshold increments per script, he was confident each prepared plumb bomb wouldn't waste much mana or Will to exceed the threshold like his first script.

'Small calculation error. My plum bombs can't gravitational lock themselves onto it due to its resistance.' He had considered this, so there was excess mana prepared for the area of effect explosion to disregard direct impact

Dusk even waited a moment more and unleashed one of the Plum bombs of Preservation.

It sealed everything in the area, including Ebony himself; for him, it heals.

'it didn't go over thresholds? The threshold increments increased after the stat increment or sealing doesn't count anymore….' Ebony quickly rejoined his body when he saw his frozen opponent shake.

It was not outside expectation that his opponent, with an explosion of strength increase could break his seal. He didn't panic and sent another prepared plum bomb. Those were limited, and he needed to make them count.

What if his opponent fully recovers how strong a Saint was? He needed his mana for that.

'After Strength is Vitality, then Constitution. Both would make it harder to damage past the threshold while doing nothing for me to increase my offensive power. Endurance and Agility come next. In this pattern, I need to get through 5 scripts as fast as possible before the infusion of Potential into Intelligence that would benefit my spells far more than it would benefit it.'

Taking advantage of the half-sealed opponent, Ebony's Crystlline Avalanches stormed down as fast as possible.

"MOUNTAIN REEEND!!"

"MOUNTAIN RE!"

"MOUNTA"

"MOU!"

Without waiting for the notifications, Dusk sent its plum bombs one after the other.

If they had both Agility and Strength, Ebony didn't see how he could survive even a split second.

And he was right, Potential was infusing into his stats in that order.

Finally, he felt his mana strengthening when Intelligence Potential was infused.

Now came an issue, his opponent might as well be immune to ice now. And he was down to 3 Plums of Sequester and 1 Plum of Preservation when he should have 6 to 8 of each by his prior estimation before he knew the order of stat potential gain.

It had more frost elemental 'flesh' than ever.

'I just need to test if my Intelligence increment exceeds its magical and elemental resistance.'

While his opponent's new body was being generated, he prepared his gravitation vortex. In hindsight, it wasn't smart to let it build even more resistance to his spell and elements, but he needed to know what the difference his growth in effective Intelligence stat did.

Gravity Vortex came alive with force and speed that caught him, of all people, off guard. He hadn't even received the full growth into the stat, but his mind was pulling his gravity cube's mana with immense force.

His mana was converted to his elements without so much as a transition period compared to before. Mana compression went from squeezing an iron ball to squeezing a balloon.

He didn't need the cover of a runic plum to hold the same amounts of mana and easily fed the spell more mana than before with just his control over gravity. He covered the spell up and fed the plum with more mana than he could handle at such speeds.

It sucked up his Will down below 50% before he could pull it back.

Not letting the evolved growing intensity of his headache bother him, he didn't let his opponent say the M in mountain before he let the heaviest plum drop.

A growth in Intelligence strengthens his Domain along with all his Augmentations. His base Constitution, already fed with Potential, let him take in those changes with ease.

Otherwise. He might have just killed himself when the generating Soldier was annihilated from the face of this world.

'I could've Flickered away, why did I let it blow in front of my face…' That being said, he wasn't hurt since he had his Potential infused into his new physical abilities and was able to augment himself sufficiently.

Only the headache bothered him, but that also started to fade after the next ringing notification in his head.

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