Chapter 197 (2/2)

The bearded man frowned, his face becoming quite unsightly. “I-.....”

There was a long silence that stretched at least a minute. “I…. must admit I don’t know what any of those things are.”

An old hand now at confused customers, the male spear attendant nodded and gestured. “Here, this is our recommended order for newcomers, a cheeseburger and fries, along with a red ale..”

A stumbling and stammering Claptrap came forward and handed the food to the male spear attendant, who passed it to the bearded man. He slowly unwrapped the food, and then brought it to his mouth. His mouth stretched wider and wider, until he took a huge bite that was fully ½ of the cheeseburger.

Chewing very slowly, the man never blinked. Then he swallowed heavily, and took a swig of red ale. There was a moment of silence as the audience watched with bated breath. This bearded man was a social strata above them all. An actual elder of a Style. How would he-

Belch.

“Ohoho, excuse me. Truly, an excellent place, is this Claptrap’s Quick Eatery. I am Aethon Thai. What are you called, boy?”

“Ah, my name is Rog-”

A low gong sounded. Helen turned back to the poles. More Tassles had fallen from poles, and it had apparently reached the 80% cut off. Now more Tassles were being removed, but they were taken to the winners pole, where they hung proudly. But not all Tassles were removed.

6 Tassles remained hanging on their poles, and it announced that these were competing for the final reward for total time spent under the Challenge of Tarnak. The Tassle that had hung alone on the 19th pole remained still drifting proudly.

But what was most interesting about the other Tassles that remained was that there was a single pole where two remained. The Ghosthound’s pole, where his emerald Tassle was facing off with a bright orange Tassle.

For a long while, Randidly was able to simply play with his strange emerald wisps, ignoring the bickering of the outside world as the distracting nonsense it really was. His physical body just needed to stand their and support the weight anyway, there was nothing very special about the task. It was purely endurance.

But after a time, an indeterminate time that resisted all of Randidly's puzzled attempts to measure it, he felt the difficulty inch upward. But still, it was within reason. But a few minutes later, the difficulty shot sharply up. It seemed that although they could withstand that level of weight, there were much fewer people who could handle the increased weight.

Almost unwillingly, Randidly left his emerald wisps and returned to solely focusing on his physical body, meeting the weight head on. The first thing that Randidly did was activate Mana Strengthening. It was a pretty quick depletion, it would last him an hour, but he also engaged more directly with his passive Golden Roots of Yggdrasil, drawing mana from the ground into his body.

As he did so, Randidly focused on the feeling of the warm energy flow, and visualized the thick vital roots of energy that he wanted running up to him. It was a slow and clumsy method, but as Randidly kept his focus up, he felt his Aether start to pulse in response. Those thick roots pressed downward, splitting and spreading, drawing the energy towards him. Slowly, his drawing speed increased, if only slightly.

The weight was a crushing presence, and now Randidly's temper flared wildly. It wasn't even his temper really, it was the primal, vicious side of him that hated the constraints of the world. It hated powerfully and purely, like a child. And to it, this weight was the ultimate evil. He would break the world itself to rip it to pieces.

But again, Randidly reigned in that temper. Although he powerfully desired it, he couldn't allow himself to explode with force. There was no point. He was aiming for a longer goal. He simply had to endure.

Endure.

Endure.

Endure.