Warlock of War: My Ares System

“You’re strong,” He muttered before suddenly turning into mud that flopped onto the ground lifelessly.

The cave fell silent as a tsunami of relief washed over it, filling it to the brim and filling everybody present with absolute joy.

“How long has it been?” I asked Master before falling onto my ass, panting hard while gasping for air.

[You have passed Round 100]

[You have acquired the Healing Pill: Natures Bloom]

.

[You have passed the Ancient Torterras Trial]

[You have acquired the Rune: Ruthlessness]

All of a sudden, a stone with a rune carved into it appeared in my hand out of nowhere, frightening me as I was already on edge from the passing trial.

“Alright, you son of a bitch, get some sleep, and we’ll proceed with the actual training tomorrow… because now that you have that rune, attuning your body to the power of my tongue will be a breeze,”

“You didn’t answer my question,”

“Oh, it’s been about three days… but don’t worry. Time in here passes much slower than the time outside this cave. It’s like a normal dungeon but skewed even higher. A month in here is a week out there,”

“Oh, shit… that’s actually kind of good,” I muttered and then instantly flopped onto my back, falling asleep only after chewing limply on the green pill.

Bitter…

…

After waking up, I saw Master in the corner of the room, lying with his back against the wall, but his godly presence continued to permeate through the cave.

He was completely carefree yet scared back anybody that tried to come near him, whether that be to sneak attack or just get a small hit in before starting an even larger fight.

“*sigh*… Rune of Ruthlessness… I wonder what it does?”

Suddenly, as if the stone had reacted to my words, it glowed a bright white light, and the rock cracked open, crumbling into pieces but revealing an ethereal mass of disgusting brown and green liquid.

The liquid slowly edged towards me and then wrapped around my neck, entering through my ear and injecting itself into my brain like a parasite.

But strangely enough, I could barely feel it.

I thought it would hurt like shit, so I braced myself, but it was a strangely soothing feeling having the liquid almost clean out my ear and give my brain a massage.

“Oh nice, the rune has already reacted to you. This will make it much easier later on,” Master yawned as he slowly stood up, brushing the dirt off his lap.

“What is this stuff?” I asked while rubbing the back of my neck.

“It’s the rune, dumbass. Eat some breakfast, and then we’ll move to a better place for training… this place is too stuffy and will ruin your sense of time,”

“Okay, but what is the rune doing?”

“The rune is planting itself into your consciousness. It will make your soul, body, and mind much stronger and reinforced at the cost of having ruthless outbreaks. But, that is what this training is for… so you can handle not only the ruthlessness but the cost of using my tongue as a mortal,”

“Ahahaha… I understand nothing,” I wearily chuckled while snacking on a hot plate of food.

Time and space didn’t move inside the storage ring, so storing hot meals inside them wasn’t uncommon… it’s just that these rings are crazy expensive, so only the wealthiest or strongest of adventurers use these.

“You’ll understand with time….”

“Yes, sir,”

Once we had feasted on the part of my storage, a part of the cave began to crumble into itself before twisting into a green and brown portal.

It moved like it had zero gravity and its ethereal material produced an otherworldly sound.

“Let’s go to my throne world,” Master said, and so I followed him into the portal with the man in a fur coat in tow.

Surprisingly, he hadn’t died yet, but I could tell he was close, so I decided to put him out of his misery just as we entered the portal.

As we stepped through the ethereal door, we reappeared at the top of what seemed to be the peak of a mountain range.

The mountains were slim and tall but still sturdy enough for them to not sway in the wind… I mean, these mountains were still pretty massive.

A breeze of wind brushed through my hair, fluttering it as I took in the untainted atmosphere; it was almost heavenly.

The uncared-for grass below us shifted back and forth with the light breeze, the scattered trees following in its footsteps as the leaves shuttered.

“This place is beautiful,” I muttered to myself, completely shell-shocked by the beauty of this natural mountain range.

“Back in my day, before the continents had split up, there was this place called Asia. There were these beautiful mountain ranges that I would always train on, isolating myself from the mana-dampened world… but once the continents split, I lost all of them, so I decided to recreate it within my throne world,”

“Hm? You predate the mana conversion shit?”

“Yep. In fact, most gods predated that place. Gods didn’t exist in the first place until Zeus first rose after becoming so strong by continuously absorbing mana. Now you mortals have the system to help you with it. In fact, you’ve probably lost the ability to naturally absorb mana,”

“Is that bad?”

“No, I’m just complaining about how you kids have it easier these days… Anyway, sit down and look in the mirror in front of you… *snap*,”

Master snapped his fingers, creating two mirrors with one behind me and one in front of me… and with this, I was able to see the branding of runes in my back.

“What? Did you think they would be pretty ethereal tattoos? I had to literally carve these guys into your spine and back muscles with sacred elemental lightning,”

“Thank you?”

“No need to thank me,” Master said, but I could tell he was loving the praise, so I immediately shut up and didn’t feed into his ego.

After he stopped muttering to himself about how great he was, he finally began to speak to me again.

“Alright. Let me teach you about each of these runes….”