I exhale slowly, I'm ready for this.
Well, ready is a big word. I'm confident I'm right, and if I'm right, I don't need to be ready.
I studied every information available on Trials, that don't amount to a lot. They are so dangerous and tempting than if the information were publicly available, stupid peoples overestimating their abilities and killing themselves in these death traps.
Trials are dangerous, lethal even, and they test you on something specific. They also scale in difficulty based on your power, so whatever your Tier is, they are hard. But they reward the risk-taker with a Blessing, an upgrade to the next class they take.
Most peoples that attempt Trials does it at level 9 or 19, the last moment they can attempt it before taking a new class, and the time they are the most powerful they can be. But even if information about Trials were public, not that many peoples would attempt them, as the majority of them are under the control of states or organizations that only let selected peoples takes them.
The one I'm standing in front of is not. Well, it's kinda, I had to climb a fence to get to it, and I am in the middle of the city. But nobody care who access it because everyone know it's useless to attempt it. Since the foundation of this city three hundred years ago, no one got out of the Trial. So nobody try it and it lay here useless.
My theory is that this 'Trial of time' challenge is not beaten through power or abilities, not matter what your skills, levels, or traits are, they won't help you. But the Trial still adjusts its difficulty based on your User Sheet so it's impossible to beat.
Except I don't have an attribute sheet, my birthday is in a month, and for the System I'm still not an adult, so no System initialization, no attributes, no traits. Well, kinda no traits, I read a book about proto-traits and System related skills grow before initialization and I know that I kinda have abilities a human doesn't.
But anyway, I think I will trick the System, and it will make the Trial very easy because I don't have a level. Or, at least make it as easy as possible. And since the System is kind, I can only imagine that this Trial is at least feasible, it cannot have added something that just kills peoples.
I may be wrong, but everyone tell me I'm a genius, I know magic, I'm enrolled at the 'Academie of magical arts' of New Farlou, and I thought about it a long time. Nobody gets a blessing on their first class, and the first class is the one with the most impact on your growth. And I don't have the money or network to get help in the academy, so I need to be exceptional.
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Enough stalling, I take a step forward, toward the entrance. Wouldn't know it's an entrance if I was not here for it, it's a spot of light and a shadow in the middle of a square. A moment frozen, the light not shinning and only visible because it's night, and the shadow of a tree long gone. That explain why they fenced the square, anyone could collide with it by accident.
When I enter the space of frozen time, I have a weird feeling, a message I can see and ear, but that doesn't produce sound or image. A message that come from elsewhere while connected to the core of my being.
It focuses on my answer, and whisper a "yes" to the night.
I'm in a room, or a box. 2 meters wide, long and high. Facing me is a crystal mirror 1m80 high and 75 cm wide. All the walls are white, and I can see perfectly, a total ambient light with no sources is illuminating the room. I look more closely at the crystal slab, it's in the wall facing me, seems to have some thickness to it, and give a distorted reflection of the room and me.
I look normal, my leathers adventuring clothes are as clean as when I left home earlier, my boots are still there. I check myself out in case it's the clue, I'm tall, 1m80 the top of my head is just fitting in the mirror. My hairs are blondes, as are the scales covering my chest and neck. Golden, technically, but it's stupid that I should use a different word for my scale and hairs when they are the same color. And I won't call my hair golden. I move my hairs and my ears are still pointy, my eyes are still light blue.
Still two arms, two legs, one tail.
Ok, the Trial didn't change anything about myself.
I turn on myself, checking the rest of the room. No door or corridor behind me either, would have been too easy, I guess.
Oh, some text is written on the wall behind me. It's like a weird System prompt, but written instead of being directly in my head.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Activate to die. To leave the Trial early, you can choose to die, and your soul will be sent to the Death Realm. Dying will still affect your memory of the Trial.
Ok, so definitely not doing that. Is that why nobody finished the Trial ? They accidentally activated a kill switch ?
Maybe if you have a User sheet, it pops in front of you and everyone click on accept without thinking ? I don't know how peoples interact with their System. Really want to get mine, but first I need to figure out what to do.
It didn't take me very long to figure what to do. I think, it's hard to figure time passing when you are stuck in a single room without windows. It took me longer to accept what I understood.
The Trial is keeping me alive, if I'm correct in my assumption, it reset my body state on a regular interval, so I'm never tired, hungry, thirsty, and wounds go away quickly but not instantaneously.
And I probably won't age. Which is good, because I'm stuck here for a while.
I checked every single space in the room, and there is nothing else. Three things : Me, the kill button, and a massive crystal slab the size of a door. And all the time in the world.
I have to go through the slab, probably by breaking it, and I need to do it before going crazy. I tried a little, and it's not brittle, at least as strong as rocks, if not more. I'm guessing that if I was many levels higher it would be ten time stronger than diamond, entering underleveled wasn't so dumb finally.
So I sit down on the floor facing the slab, and I focus on the mana flowing inside me. With no Skills to help me, magic is hard, like really hard, but at System Initialization it will take into account everything I learned to do before, and I should get Skills levels really fast. But at the moment, I have to work with no help.
I bring the mana toward my right hand, and with my left start to make the basic gesture of the spell, the mana takes shape and as it leave my hand start to consume itself affecting the world and creating an effect. A spray of water leave my hand and splash the slab, with the same amount of strength as if I emptied a bottle on the ground, but horizontal.
Water can erode rock given enough time, and I'm in the Trial of Time.
I ran out of mana quickly. Or magic point I should say, people use a different word to talk about the same thing dependent on context. I hope the academy will explain why that is the case because it sounds only annoying for me.
I already tested that injuries will heal, I have a brooch in my hair that I used to draw blood earlier. So the next logical step is to use that fact to my advantage.
With another long breath, I rise up, standing in front of the slab, ready my fist, and punch the wall with all my strength.
Oh shit, it hurt ! I think I broke my hand, and I'm crying and damn, I hate this. The pain is rising from my hand through my arm, taking over my whole body. I go down, holding my injured hand close to my chest, quietly sobbing.
After some time, I feel the refresh, my mana is back to full, my hand is fixed, and the pain vanish like it was never here.
The poodle of water is also gone. I hope it doesn't also erase my progress, because otherwise, I doomed.
Let's start grinding.
The water is more efficient than my fist, I managed to learn the cycle pretty well, a few second before every refresh I break both my hand on the slab, and then I use my mana as fast as it regenerates to spray water. And I do the two at different place, not for experimentation, because it's easier to cast while sitting down, and it's easier to strike while standing up. But I can see an obvious vertical slash where I use magic, and only a dent where I strike.
I will keep doing both, as I don't have the mana regeneration to cast continuously, but it's good to know I guess.
I don't know for how long I was here, I have no way to alter anything in the room except the slab, so no writing the second passing and casting while counting seconds is a bit hard. At least weeks. So I don't age, over wise my System will have initialized.
Not sleeping is weird, the silence is weird, and with no new source of entertainment, my mind is starting to get really bored. You can only remember a book so many times before it get old.
I really hate it here. Whoever made that Trial was definitely a sadist. I'm starting to lose my mind, seeing things, catching myself looking at the wall doing nothing for who know how long. I have to start repeating things I know to make certain I don't forgot.
I start crying and laughing at random time, I'm not even certain of how magic is supposed to work and keep casting the same spell as an automatism.
And always, the death button is here, taunting me.
My all fist go in the hole I made, and I dig a rabbit sized hole with the water lower. I don't know how l have left, but I still haven't even made it to the other side.
I should do the water higher, so when it flows out of the hole, it erodes a little bit the rest toward the ground.
Oh, I'm already doing that. I can see the mark of the water flowing from the hole toward the ground, I've been doing that for a while.
I'm not even certain why I want to destroy that slab, it's the only other thing with me here. I can see someone in it, I think she looks like me.
Or is she stuck on the other side ?
The hole is big, I could put my shoulder into it, but it's more crystal after.
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