I walk slowly for half an hour, peering carefully around each bend. There's no sign of any other monsters, or any life in general. Another hour after that, the urge to shout or sprint grows until I can barely stand it. I know it would be suicide, but the constant tension feels like sandpaper on my skin. The sky overhead brightens towards a pleasant lilac, and I force myself to relax, at least a hair. Breathing deeply, the knot between my shoulder blades eases with each passing step.

  In spite of everything, it's pretty damn cool to be walking in an exotic forest on some god-spawned alien world. The violet sunlight brightens throughout the ‘day’ until it feels like I'm swimming in the light of my new powers. Luckily, the purple of the sunlight and the purple of my powers are pretty distinct; I checked in case I had to hastily put up a gravity field. The trees, regardless of whatever ominous presence lurks within them, are ancient and snarled, their branches bent in strange patterns, as if they aren't seeking sunlight, but something else I can't fathom.

  There are several forks in the path, though each is like “The Road Not Taken,” identical until chosen. And, like that stupid poem, you'll never get to know what was down the other path. I pick left every time. Because why not.

  After what feels like another hour or so, the path finally widens out into a semblance of a clearing. Stretching into the distance is what looks like an… obstacle course? Some magic bent the trees unnaturally into very clear ledges and swinging bars, something out of one of those ninja reality TV shows, except below them, instead of a safe pool of water, jagged roots point upward with obvious lethal intent. I'm not sure what I thought a Challenge would look like, but I imagine I've found one. And a pretty shitty one for me, personally. I can't help a glance at my skinny arms forlornly.

  “Why? I admit, if you were relying on your substantial, glaring, and pathetically obvious physical infirmities, this Challenge would be a hopeless impossibility.” Dear God, Kora, a woman can only take so much. She continues like I didn't speak at all. “But, unless it includes a suppression of your Skills, your current Class is perfect to make this Challenge trivial.”

  When she says it, I feel pretty stupid. I can weaken gravity until I can practically float. How hard is it to jump or run when you're weightless? I take a step forward, and words spring into existence across my eyes.

  Challenge! This is a moderate Agility Challenge! The goal of this Challenge is simple, even for the slow witted among our Competitors. And humans, which is an incredibly low bar. Roughly akin to an Earth limbo contest, the stone sober kind where no one has any fun, but there are a few tryhards past their prime who hurt themselves to win and still lose to the one twelve year old present. That kind of low.

  Right. The Challenge. Make it to the other side without dying. Though for you, the dying restriction is lifted.

  Reward: A Class-Specific Artifact

  Of course old Dickhead can't just say ‘get to the other side.’ The first obstacle is a long, steep slope formed of a fallen tree and shaped into a relatively smooth ascent. It makes my legs burn to even think about. At least I can weaken gravity, because…

  “That isn't the first obstacle, Competitor. That is the ramp to reach the first obstacle.”

  Looks pretty fucking obstacle-y to me.

  “Don't waste soul energy to make the entry ramp easier. Your legs may well be the difference between life and death in the future. Train them, while you can.”

  I bring up the ability anyway, letting its purple haze hover tantalizingly over the ramp. I can do magic, and my stupid Mentor wants me to…

  She doesn't say anything. Sighing, I cancel the ability and set off up the slope. As predicted, my legs begin to burn, and my lungs ache in my chest before I'm halfway up. As I ascend, a gentle breeze kicks up, bearing with it smells strange and familiar. It reminds me of the great pine forests out in Arizona where I went camping as a kid. Dust and pine, yet, somehow, this forest also smells like the ocean on a cool day, which makes no sense at all. It's refreshing and, purple sky notwithstanding, nostalgic enough that my chest hurts in an entirely different way. Before I have time to process any of that, I make the top.

  The entire obstacle course is crafted out of a series of trees, or what were once trees. Someone with a very different magic than mine shaped the wood like clay into a series of unnatural, and sadistic, shapes. The first gap is something out of a nightmare where you try to make a leap and fall infinitely until you wake up, Matrix style. At its bottom waves a series of serrated roots stabbing towards the sky.

  Okay. If I were not now some sort of wizard, I'd turn my ass right around. There are leaps deeper in that transcend humanity, and a swinging course that looks more for underwater acrobatics than death defying stunts. Even with my power, a single mistake, a single moment outside a gravity field, and I’m dead. Hell, even running out of energy would be fatal. I have to be careful, surgical. Squinting, I look deeper, past all of the slopes and holds and branches. There's something glittering, a flicker at the barest edge of my vision. If I can just…

  Identification: Challenge Artifact Chest (moderate)

  The typical reward for simple Challenges in the Tournament. The moderate version often fits a direct need of a Competitor in the short term.

  A direct need? What do I need? A weapon? Some protection? As the breeze licks across my bare hip and stomach, I kind of hope it's something I can wear. Not that it matters. Even with my power, the Challenge seems a bit out of reach. There are just too many ways this goes wrong.

  “Competitor, I thought you decided to stop being so timid. Wasn’t that the point of your little internal monologue earlier?”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Hey, whoa. Internal monologues are meant to be private, Kora. No one is supposed to hear them. But yes, I guess you’re right. Balking doesn’t really fit with this, uh, version of myself. But stupidity also doesn’t fit. This feels like an unnecessary risk.

  “You have to risk—”

  Wait. Wait. I focus again on the distant chest. The Identification pops up again, and I flick it away irritably. The obstacle course is static; only the runner has to move. If I have a straight shot to the goal…

  The hazy purple light of my power blinks into view. When I turned gravity on its side to kill the dog thing, it had been, for lack of better words, remarkably effective. Doing so now gives me a traumatic flash of slamming into the tree trunk, my bones cracking—

  Whew, nope. Shake that one off.

  There’s nothing in the way. Kora, who has been silently contemplative as I try to work this out, hits on a problem right as I do.

  “The field of effect isn’t long enough.”

  So I have to string them together. I can see when the field is coming to an end, and use Gravity Shift again.

  “I’m not as sure of this plan. It is all or nothing; if you take your time and go from platform to platform, you can rest and think and consider. This… what if you run out of soul energy? What if you misjudge the angle? Your Tournament will end before it really begins.”

  I have far more faith in my ability to draw a line than my ability to jump a bunch of times. We need to do a lot of these Challenges as quickly as possible, right? Well, this is the fastest way to get this one done.

  “Very well,” she says with the air of a resigned mother.

  It’ll be fine.

  My soul energy has climbed to a respectable 113 in the time since my battle with the dogs. Enough for three Gravity Shift activations and a bit of other stuff mixed in. It might be close, but you have to risk it for the biscuit. Bringing up the field again, I mentally draw a line between my chest and the distant, uh, chest. Taking a page out of my dad’s book from when he was trying, and failing, to teach me how to play golf, I pick out a nearby obstacle as a reference on the line of my descent.

  Here goes nothing.

  Activating Gravity Shift, I back up a step or two. I should probably fall feet first to minimize the risk of clipping something on the way down. It might make the landing trickier, but I just need to make it there. I also draw up, but don’t quite activate, Weaken Gravity. Just in case.

  Alright. No time like the present.

  “May the Twelve bless you, Competitor.”

  Whatever.

  Bracing myself for a tailbone bruise if I fuck this up, I take a step and jump, feet first, into the field. There is an instant where my upper body still knows normal gravity and my legs start to fall sideways. It twists my sanity and my guts for the longest second of my life before the field takes over and I begin to fall in earnest.

  There’s an instant’s pressure, and a gentle pop. The world, once serene, is different. Where there was empty air, glittering blades hiss about in dizzying patterns. The magically altered trees whip their branches in swift jerks and starts. I hardly have time to scream before I have to twist in the air to avoid a stabbing blade. A waving tree branch nearly brains me, ruffling my hair as it passes. It is chaos, insanity.

  What the actual fuck?

  “Something was blocking our view until we began the course—the field! Quick, Competitor!”

  I’m falling fast enough that I barely have time to register that the end of Gravity Shift is rapidly approaching. Concentrating for an instant, I activate the Skill again. The moment of distraction costs me. A blade digs into my side, but I’m gone before it can bite too deep.

  Only speed gives me any modicum of safety. Two branches stretch towards my legs. I tuck my knees to my chest and fly past before they can skewer me.

  Speed. Speed is all I have. Dropping my hold on Weaken Gravity, I Strengthen instead. The world blurs together like a nightmarish watercolor, the blades flashes of light, the branches smudges of brown. A third field of Gravity Shift drains my soul energy low. Really low. I cancel Strengthen Gravity, but still it drops.

  4/128

  3/128

  2/128

  My side burns, the flesh knitting back together. I can’t cancel Psychic Telos, not even to save my own life. The malicious obstacle course can’t adjust to my ridiculous speed, so I’m safe enough for the next few seconds, but I’m never going to be able to slow down. I’m going to crunch against the trees on the opposite end of the course, trees that are rapidly growing in my vision, way way way too rapidly.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to splatter. I’m going to—

  There is a blur of green and brown. I don’t have time to dodge, or think. I slam into it feet first. The thing grunts at the impact. The living thing. But the collision slows me. Us. Enough that I can see the final platform coming into view a few feet below. I cancel Gravity Shift.

  We hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. I slam into the reward chest, my breath whooshing from my lungs. Whatever I hit rolls over the top of it and slides towards the edge of the platform. There is a flash of vivid green eyes, wide with terror and surprise, before they disappear over the edge.

  I lay wrapped around the chest for a beat before—

  Victory! You have completed a moderate Challenge of the Tournament! Claim your prize, Competitor!

  That’s it. No added snark, no false surprise. Dickhead must not know what to make of this. Groaning, I force myself to my feet, clutching at my aching ribs. My soul energy rests at a single point, which is easily the least comfortable number ever when zero means nothingness. It ticks up to two, and then immediately drops back to one. My chest feels a little better as my soul burns itself to heal my injuries, but my anxiety only spikes higher.

  I can evolve Psychic Telos, right? Like maybe, if I evolve it, I can turn it off sometimes?

  “It is possible, though evolution is not guaranteed to have the outcomes you anticipate.”

  Of course it isn’t. Not like fucking anything can be easy, yeah?

  “Competitor, we have larger concerns.”

  Like what?

  “Even if unintentional, you should have received a large influx of soul energy from the creature you struck in your fall. As you haven’t, the only logical conclusion is that it must still be alive.”

  My skin goes cold. The thing hadn’t been much bigger than an adolescent beagle, but if it managed to survive the fall… Why was it flying through the air in the middle of the obstacle course, anyway?

  “I believe we have found our first rival species, Competitor.”