Ball of Nothing

Merlin was waiting. Right now, whoever manages to slip behind the other party's defences will have the advantage. There was only one more point left before the test concluded. So far, Truen had scored fifteen out of sixteen while Merlin only scored twelve.

The final test was simple. In order for Merlin and Freya to give Truen the green light to travel Earth and make the necessary preparations, both Gods needed to know if the wood elf would be able to handle any situation that came his way.

Truen was an archer with magic to aid him. Due to the lack of time to train in those skills of an archer, Freya's bow Sureshot was heavily relied on. Truen focussed most of his energy training his body to cope. Elves had good agility and fast reflex but after the training, Truen's reflexes were only a fraction slower than Freya's. Coupled with magic sensing, the archer had virtual eyes all over the place. It was very difficult to sneak past Truen and launch a sneak attack.

Merlin smiled. Although his grimoire was more powerful, Truen sure knew how to pick his spells for Sureshot. Although the wood elf still had four more empty slots, the eight spells that Truen chose worked very well in a combination. Merlin's grimoire paled in comparison when it came to effectiveness.

The test arena was in the dream dimension. The invigilator was Freya who was in charge of controlling the space restriction and illusions. The targets were often moving around in disguises such as monsters, beasts or stationary boards. Both Merlin and Truen had to seek them out after discerning them from illusions and destroy them. If any of them fell for illusions, a point will be deducted. For every successful destruction of a target, a point will be added. The first to get sixteen points will be the victor and for Truen to pass this test, he had to reach sixteen before Merlin.

The wizard found out how inconvenient some of his more powerful spells were in the test. The massive scale destruction spell he used at the beginning made him go into negative hundred. He might have destroyed all the existing targets but he also wiped out ten times more illusions that Freya prepared. Merlin called out foul but Freya wouldn't hear it.

"It's fair. I explained the rules and you should have understood."

After that, Merlin could bite his hat in frustration and slowly work his way up to sixteen from a negative two hundred and six points. Thankfully, the Wizard God was a lot faster at discerning illusions and shot down targets without difficulty. Truen decided that staying close to Merlin wasn't going to do him any good and for the first hour, the wood elf hunted miserably at the other side of the forest arena.

Merlin quickly recovered his points after sniping every single one of Truen's target and the wood elf got pissed. Changing his tactic, Truen locked-on a target on Merlin's back instead. He sent his indestructible elemental golems to hinder Merlin's hunting. Once Merlin spotted a target and fired a spell, Truen's golems would stand in the way and block the spell while the wood elf took a snipe at the target.

Merlin got angry and called out foul play again but Freya told the enraged wizard that there were no rules against tactics like that. Ever since then, Merlin tried everything at his disposal to get rid of Truen. He only needed a few more points to win but Truen kept stealing them from under his nose. Hence, the petty wizard could only resort to hiding from the wood elf's sharp eyes and hunt silently.

Merlin wasn't doing so well because while he lay low, Truen was already moving independently. the scores increased steadily and Merlin figured out that he couldn't simply focus on himself. He had to stop his student somehow!

It was exactly that conclusion that arrived at the current stalemate for both parties. Merlin had set traps all over the arena and Truen had to be careful of them or he would spend too much time trying to get out of it while Merlin bagged the win. two of Truen's golems had fallen into those traps and the wood elf tried to free them to no avail. Traps of this complexity had to be carefully disarmed with a lot of patience that the archer didn't currently have.

The last target stared at the hunters and galloped away. Freya was enjoying the spectacle way too much. Seeing Merlin's usually prim and proper appearance looking so dishevelled brought joy to her sadistic heart. Truen was turning out to become the best investment she ever made.

The gazelle was a quick animal and Truen didn't want to spend time trying to look for it again so he moved. Likewise, Merlin didn't want Truen to have that last point and activated the trap ahead. The target fell right into Merlin's trap and gave out a pitiful whine before disintegrating.

Having been lured into giving away his initial position, Truen quickly made his escape before Merlin could place one of those pesky tracking spells on him. All he needed to graduate from this hellish training was just one more point. Merlin's persistence was starting to get on Truen's nerves and he briefly considered using Soul Count on Merlin. Imagine the surprise the Great God and King Yama will have after realising that the person they were after turned out to be Merlin. Still, he ruled that option out. Soul Mark was for enemies, not for annoying wizards. He will win this as fairly as he could.

Splitting his parallel mind, Truen created another golem to act as a decoy with his form. The golem ran in the opposite direction and fired an area detection spell so that Truen could identify the new target. Once the clone was returned to him, Truen turned to the right sharply. One more target and Freya actually made it easy this time.

Truen fired a time distortion spell and cast a strong illusion barrier while hiding the Pagoda Prison trap beneath so that Merlin will step into it if the sneaky wizard decides to interfere again. At the same time, Truen made several clones and had them act as lookouts while one tested the ground for traps.

True to his suspicion, the clone he sent ahead avoided a trap that Merlin placed earlier. The activation of the trap must have alerted Merlin about his whereabouts so Truen had to act quickly. The target was hidden well but once Truen was settled in an angle, he fired six shots in rapid succession, all imbued with different elemental magic.

A twang from the bow alerted Truen of Merlin's arrival. Two of his clones were taken out in a flash and the remaining two battled with the wizard God, leading him into their trap. Merlin wasn't easily fooled. He dismissed the illusion and avoided the Pagoda Prison. However, that smirk fell when Freya announced that the match was over.

Truen heaved a sigh of relief. He bought enough time for the last arrow to reach the stationary target and gained that last point he needed to win. That hard-earned point used up all the tricks Truen had and the wood elf didn't want to go through such a test ever again.

Freya returned the dreamscape to its original setting and smiled like a proud mother. She studied Truen carefully with a rare tender look in her eyes. Truen felt oddly nervous and clutched Sureshot tightly. Merlin grumbled at a corner but there were no hard feelings. Although the wood elf was still far from being powerful, his opponent was Sage God. Merlin gave Truen some leeway and still felt a strange sense of satisfaction watching Truen panting hard, covered in sweat from the exertion. the brat really gave it his all and that resolve was enough for Merlin.

"I think it's time I gave you this," Freya said and surprised Truen with a gift.

Other than the body he had, the communicator, some clothes and Sureshot, Truen didn't think that the Gods would give him anything else. It wasn't a necessity after all.

It was a small hand sewn pouch on the outside that many merchants used to store gold coins with but on closer inspection, the pouch radiated with unusual magic.

"This is..."

Freya grinned. "Isis and I worked hard to make it. This is a space-time storage pouch similar to Zero's inventory but it has a limit of about two large chests so use it wisely."

Two large chests worth of space could prove to be very valuable for Truen on his travels. Unless he needed to store a third of the sea from a random planet, Truen wouldn't run out of space so quickly. He thanked Freya and smiled fondly, tying the pouch to his waist. The pouch was valuable so Freya explained that anti-theft enchants had been placed on it with a recognition feature. Truen was touched.

"Congratulations of passing the final test," the Goddess smiled, the pride in her eyes made Truen feel as if all those months of training was worth it.

Merlin also gave Truen something and congratulated him much to the archer's surprise. The wizard simply snapped a cold metal bracelet on Truen's left wrist and the band shrunk to fit snugly around the elf's wrist.

"Don't try. It cannot be removed."

The wood elf looked at his teacher with wide eyes. Was this some sort of revenge punishment or tracker?

"This is a mana bank, it works better than any pills or mana recovery potion. During non-critical moments when your body has more than enough mana, it will charge the bracelet. This is a magical artefact created by me using advanced alchemy so I don't know the limits of the storage but it will stop when it is full. I've tested it out several times. The mana it can store would enable Zero to use the blessing Judgement at least twice before it runs out."

Truen felt his jaw fall as Merlin explained. A magic artefact... who would imagine that the uncaring Merlin would make something so precious for him?

"It was modelled after my first golem that's currently working in Zero's flower farm."

Truen paused. "Robo Mike?"

Merlin cringed at the name but nodded anyway. "That's the one. This thing has a huge capacity so it might take you a while to actually charge it before you see a change. I've set the thing to start absorbing your mana only after your body has reached an eighty percent capacity so that you can still react to situations with enough mana reserves. Don't think of manually force charging the device, it won't work. I've had enough of your recklessness!"

Truen blushed. It might be true that he acted recklessly without care for his well-being at times. However, that was because he had faith in the vessel Gaia gave him. The regenerative abilities of this body were able to cope with many things including growing out missing limbs. there weren't many things Truen had to be wary about in the conventional sense. Thanks to Merlina and Freya's training, he had also gotten used to near-death encounters. The archer simply got up, shrugged them off and moved on. PTSD was a thing of the past now since death has become more or less a norm for him.

"Alright, we won't hold you back any longer. Take a week off. Zero will be coming for the meeting in Heaven so you will get to see him for a while before you leave for your adventures. I heard that Half Moon Village is already starting to move. You might want to join the dragons for a little while to build your connections and resources."

Truen nodded. "Thank you, Goddess Freya. I will be in contact."

Both Gods congratulated the elf on his graduation once more and left the dreamscape. Now that he was alone, Truen decided to take a few hours for a good nap. How long has it been since he had decent sleep? He couldn't recall.

Part of him wanted to tell Zero about the good news but the last time he heard from the teen, Zero was too busy to even eat while working at the clinic in the abyss. The other part of Truen wanted to keep this joy to himself for a little while and surprise the hardworking brunet later when he saw him again.

Whichever the case, Truen had discussed it with Hua Tuo that he would see the physician for a while before he left for his adventures. Once Zero was done with his training in Heaven, they would meet again at Half Moon Village. Truen wanted to acquaint himself with Zero's alliances before he travelled. He couldn't meet them earlier due to circumstances but now that he was finally free, it was common courtesy to show his face to the dedicated powers backing the adorable boy.

With a yawn, the thousand thoughts swimming inside of Truen's head died down into nothing and the wood elf slept like he had never slept before, snoring and sprawled out on the ground, completely dead to the world around him.