Arden’s body had died a while ago. Sometime between Vera’s death and his escape, his body finally gave up the ghost, ironically. However, to Arden, his body's death wasn't the handicap that it used to be.

  Such was the case with being a husk. Death was a mere suggestion for the most part. His soul was bound to his body. So long as his body was intact, he could still control it, even if it died.

  Right now, Arden's soul was guiding his body through the snowy slopes of the mountain. Arden didn't feel any different than normal, despite piloting a corpse.

  He expected that the lack of blood and functional hands would make him move a lot slower. But to his surprise, not much changed. Even the cold didn't slow him down much.

  “I guess the limits of my body are gone.” He said as he sat in a cave, hovering around a small fire.

  The embers crackled as Arden stared into it. He almost felt hypnotized at that moment. The comforting warmth of fire was the only solace Arden currently had in the trial.

  Everyone that Arden remotely cared for in the trial was dead. Slaughtered by the assassin group called the Setting Sun.

  Or Nux Valtorin.

  Vera was dead. Hecas was dead, along with all of the servants that he and Arden ate with. The healer Barnos was dead. Bellum was dead. Now, Arden sat watching the cinders rise as he contemplated who would die next.

  “Hopefully the prince. Though I'd be willing to trade his death for an escape.”

  Arden’s thoughts of death naturally brought him to think about his own body. Now that he was a husk, he was much harder to kill. That didn't mean that all was well, though.

  Hunger tore through Arden’s insides with painful regularity. Familiar regularity as well, as hunger was something he had grown used to as a slum rat. Not to this extent though.

  Previously, he had always had access to crappy food, but it was food nonetheless. Now, he had nothing. The only good thing about him starving to death was that his hunger wouldn't get any worse. His body was already dead, after all. He would no longer burn calories, so he wouldn't lose any more body weight.

  “Wait, if I eat something, will I be able to digest it?”

  He thought for a moment, then shook his head. There were more important things to worry about right now. He didn't even need to eat anymore. Sure the hunger pangs were rough, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle, now that he couldn't die.

  There was a bigger problem, though. Although hypothermia wasn't a problem that concerned Arden, the cold itself was. A dead body meant no body heat, and no body heat on a snowy mountain seemed like a good way to become a human popsicle.

  “Husksicle, Pophuskle.”

  He paused.

  “Those both suck.”

  It had been a few hours since Arden’s escape, and only a few minutes since the sun dipped past the horizon, plunging the entire mountain range into darkness for the night.

  When the light vanished, Arden was lucky enough to find a secluded cave to settle in for the night. He advised himself not to explore in the dark. He couldn't even see what was in front of him, so trying to find the Pool of Starlight was going to be impossible.

  The cave was closer to a dug out alcove than an actual cave, but it was enough to suit Arden’s purposes, which was a shelter hidden away from prying eyes. His only hope was that neither the prince, nor the assassins of the Setting Sun knew about his place.

  Setting up the fire had been easy. There were many things that Bellum kept in his pouch before Arden took it for himself. There were several lanterns with the same strange symbol on them. He was pleased to recognize them from his time with Helios Saint Aldren.

  “The star symbolizes heat and life…” Arden muttered.

  He grabbed a lantern by the handle and slammed it into the ground. It shattered into shards of glass, and countless orange sparks came together, causing a brilliant flame to blaze to life on the rocky floor, not needing any fuel to burn.

  “Magic fire. Just what I needed.”

  That led Arden to where he was now. Sitting by the fire, trying to keep his body warm enough so that it wouldn't freeze solid. The flames licked at his cold body, warming it up, and making him feel more alive.

  Arden was tired. He wanted to be back home with his friends. He wanted to eat food. He wanted to train. To live, more than anything.

  That was his first priority. Survival. Just like he was taught. Complete the scenario by any means possible.

  With nothing to do while the night passed, Arden decided to take stock. He pulled the pouch open and poured everything on to the floor of the cave, making sure to not let any of it fall into the fire. A magic lantern was able to create a makeshift funeral pyre just by smashing it on the floor. Arden shuddered to imagine what would happen if any other magic artifacts merged with the magic fire.

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  The gems, being the items added last, were the first to fall out. In no time at all, Arden’s lap was filled with the multicolored gems. Each of them shimmered in the dim light of the fire. Arden’s instinct told him that they were more than just simple gemstones, but he didn’t know what they were exactly. Going off of everything else, he assumed they were magical in some way.

  “God I hope these come home with me.”

  Arden didn’t know if any of the stuff he’d acquired from the trial would remain with him, or if they would be left behind when he left. They were part of the trial after all, like props to a movie. He hadn’t heard of anyone striking it big in their trial and returning with untold riches, but there was a chance. Arden already knew that this trial was a bit special. No first trial would encompass an apocalypse scenario, after all. He moved a few steps away from the gems to empty out the next item, so that the gems wouldn't be reduced to dust.

  The stone altar and Godstone materialized in front of Arden. He wasn’t sure if the altar was important or just a set piece. He was very aware of the Godstone’s importance though. Anything that could put someone on the path to divinity was surely going to be a worldly treasure.

  Arden looked at the Godstone resting in a divot of the altar. The Godstone looked similar to a marble. It glowed a brilliant white, but strangely didn’t hurt to look at, like it was something meant to be gazed upon, or revered. Gold particles of light danced around it.

  Arden extended his hand, and held the Godstone in his grasp. He gasped in shock when he saw a trail of light appear next to the Godstone and point at an upward angle through the cave wall.

  Information flooded Arden’s mind when he wondered what the trail was. It was pointing him to Starlight Grove. He raced to the mouth of the cave and looked at where the Godstone was leading. The trail was directed somewhere near the peak of the mountain.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. "That's a long walk.”

  Arden turned around to return to the fire. When he returned to the fire, a low, loud rumble shook the earth around him. It sounded like an earthquake with vocal chords. He covered his ears to try and block out the noise which eventually stopped.

  Arden cautiously removed his hands from his ears and looked around.

  “The hell was that?”

  Arden returned to the mouth of the cave and looked towards the source of the noise. It too was from high on the mountain. On the path to Starlight Grove. He heard the faint rumblings coming from the source and groaned to himself.

  “Of course it's a monster.”

  He sat down next to the crackling fire and sighed. Things were never going to be easy for him, be it in the real world, or the worlds constructed by the Status. But he could hope.

  He poured more things out of the pouch and stared at them. After the gemstones and Godstone, Arden was expecting to find more miraculous loot, but none showed. He should have realized that the spatial vault in the magicarriage had the lion's share of good loot.

  That isn't to say that the remainder of what was inside the pouch was useless though.

  Like any good bodyguard, it was filled with items to be used in case of numerous ‘what-if’ scenarios.

  Lanterns, check. Rations, check. A map that Arden couldn't read, check. A piece of magical technology that looked like a tesla coil knocked up a radiator, check. Ironically, it wasn't just the mystical items that left Arden confused.

  Arden didn't know how to use the magic lanterns beyond using them like a flail. He could read the map like he had done with many of the prince’s books, but he couldn’t understand it. It just showed the mountain range. Arden didn't even want to begin trying to guess what the last item was.

  The food rubbed Arden up the wrong way, due to the uncomfortably similar appearance the can had to the rations back home, and the inability to know if he could even digest anything with his dead body.

  Arden couldn't help but laugh.

  “Welp, might as well give it a shot,” he said, opening the can.

  Half a can later, Arden felt no more full than when he started. Grumbling to himself, he put everything back into his pouch, excluding the half empty can of admittedly good tasting rations. That, he would continue to snack on.

  “Why can't a technological society with the benefits of the Status create rations that don't taste like sick, but a medieval one can?”

  Screw magic, screw the strange phenomenon that allowed people to ascend based on the results of the trial. This was the one thing Arden needed an answer to more than anything.

  Arden finished the rations and threw the empty can into the fire. As he watched the metal warp and bend in the heat, Arden focused on how unsatisfied he felt after eating it.

  His hunger was still unabated. It tasted good but had no substance. It just felt like it sat in his insides. It wasn't being broken down, it just existed.

  “Story of my life,” he muttered.

  Upset that eating was no longer a luxury that had purpose to him, Arden just sat beside the fire, deep in thought, thinking about what came next.

  It wasn't so much of a detailed plan, so much as it was a mission statement.

  He knew that the assassins would be after him. They were probably already searching for him. Arden saw the results of their strength. The entire expedition crew had been slaughtered by the Setting Sun. Arden wasn't sure if all of their forces had powers like Loris the Blood Master, but he didn't want to find out.

  It was safest to assume that they were all as capable as the blood master, even if it was untrue. Under that assumption, Arden was under no illusion that he could fight them all off. He recognized that he only survived that confrontation because of his unique dead biology.

  Hell, even if his body was fully functional with both working arms, he was only a novice swordfighter. Vera had said that experience was one of the deciding factors of combat, and Arden was woefully inexperienced.

  Arden tied the pouch to his hip like Bellum had done and stood up with his new sword. The fire crackled and dimmed until only orange embers danced on the ground.

  The fire had served its purpose. His body was warmed up enough in one sense, but now it was time to warm up another way.

  He needed to be ready for any unwelcome visitors. He needed to be ready to either escape, or kill at a moment's notice.

  He unsheathed his sword and began swinging, beside the dying fire.