On the morning of the third trial, several hours before dawn, Caen inspected himself in front of a mirror. He’d shaped Chasma to cover his breastplate and backplate, as well as his entire left arm, where the fragment formed a round shield only a little bigger than a buckler and far less unwieldy than what he’d been using so far.

  Chasma had grown quite a bit in the past week, gaining slightly more mass than the average Parthran fragment. Then again, those treasures were undoubtedly the most useful and nutritious meal that his fragment had ever consumed.

  Spores streamed into the spatial bag on Caen’s belt. He had potted the tree ferns he excavated from the second trial and placed them by his room’s window where they received sufficient sunlight. This wasn’t the ideal environment for them, but Caen was a Flora practician. Trial rules placed restrictions on the power, grade, and quantity of a participant's elements. He was still within the weight restrictions for Flora magic, though.

  “Stormsong, I’ll be trusting you to help me out today,” Caen said.

  “As you should,” the sword replied.

  Caen descended to the basement and teleported to the grand arena.

  The waiting area was loud and rowdy as Caen walked in. Participants cleared from his path, many of them giving him strange looks, eyes lingering on his armor. He could feel no spirit tendrils grazing his spirit, as he was currently Mimicking Chasma’s resilience.

  He felt as though a blanket of safety was enveloping him each time he used resilience, which was certainly new. The ability didn’t just feel different, though. When he’d conducted various tests on it, the results were undeniable. He could resist significantly more damage than before, and not just to his body. All the more so now that he could add passive augmentations to the mix. He’d spent the past week training with Aunt Vensha in Uncle Vai’s Ser-gwu mansion, and getting used to combining Chasma’s abilities and his affinities.

  Caen was connected to Stormsong as well, but of course, not Mimicking its Lightning affinity since he was already Mimicking Chasma. A constant surge of electricity assaulted his entire body as Stormsong hummed ominously behind him, but it was much more bearable with resilience.

  He sat down on a bench, placed Stormsong beside him, and dropped resilience so he could perform some mental and spiritual warm-ups.

  Someone approached him from his left. Caen turned to see a dark-skinned, lean-muscled man in his twenties walking over. His soul bore the weight of a peak Attuner.

  Yeishi Ereshta’al.

  The eyes of everyone nearby were on the man as he moved towards Caen. He was decked in smooth metal armor and wore his brown hair in tight braids that hung down from his head on all sides. A silver rod longer than Caen’s forearm spun above his head. The legendary weapon, Sequence.

  This participant was currently in first place on the scoreboards. Caen had dropped all the way down to seventh position, though in terms of points, he remained in the lead. Yeishi had been ambushed several times in the second trial and had taken his assailants head-on each time. But rankings aside, Yeishi was incredibly popular, as his grandfather, Oirick Ereshta’al, was a local legend here on the island.

  “Herb Mask,” the man said in greeting, grazing Caen’s spirit as he came to a stop.

  The noise around them quieted slightly.

  Herb Mask was not supposed to have the Ereshta’al bloodline, so Caen kept his spirit tendrils retracted as he’d been doing in the trials so far. All the same, he nodded curtly at Yeishi.

  “I have invited you to duel twice now,” Yeishi said.

  This man evidently loved combat and had issued duels to many high-performing participants, including all those ranked in the top ten. Caen had ignored every duel issued to him since he couldn't risk injury, as that would easily blow his cover. And there was no telling what strange bloodlines or weapons participants had. This was especially true for someone like Yeishi.

  “I am not interested,” Caen said.

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  Yeishi shook his head, smiling. “But you should be. Some might say that it’s a matter of principle. Duty, even. You have two hundred and ninety-five points at the moment, and if you complete this trial, you will join the ranks of those who have, in some way, surpassed my grandfather’s legacy.”

  His grandfather, Oirick, ‘officially’ held the record for the most points earned in the trials—three hundred and thirty points. Unofficially, this record had been beaten by many people, but none of them had ever completed the trials. Only those who made it to the very end of the fourth trial got to keep their points.

  “Furthermore, you wield Stormsong,” Yeishi continued. The spinning rod above his head let out a low thrum. “Those of us given the privilege of using such glorious artifacts have an obligation to test each other. It is only proper that I stand in your way. Not out of ill will, of course. This is ceremonial.”

  Caen had seen Yeishi fight. He was incredibly skilled. And he had both the Ereshta’al bloodline and a Dampening bloodline that Oirick was known to possess. Caen could not see himself winning a fight against the man. Especially not with Herb Mask’s limited skillset.

  He suppressed a sigh. “My answer is still ‘no’.”

  “Think it over,” Yeishi said confidently. “I will be waiting for you at the end of this trial.” He turned and walked away.

  The area around Caen erupted into a din as people began talking excitedly.

  He’d initially thought little of Yeishi’s issued duels, but this was a problem.

  At the far end of the waiting area, Fahptis sat in his ice armor, arms crossed as he glared intently at Caen while Gebda spoke quietly to him. They were surrounded by members of the Faithful Descent faction, many of whom kept casting sullen looks in his direction.

  The light projections on the walls displayed various highlights from the previous trials, as well as the scoreboards. His eyes were drawn to those in the top ten with powerful artifacts of their own.

  Butterfly Mask, who sat in second place, wielded Galeshot. A powerful recurve bow with devastating attacks. This year, she’d had the best time in the first trial and had also shown herself to be a truly formidable marksman. Both she and Yeishi were from the Tried and True faction.

  Anomis, from the Zenith faction, was a new face, but he wielded Gloom, an awakened sword with pinnacle enchantments: some of the best possible enchantments for a weapon of its grade. Pairing this with his bloodline made for a very deadly combination. He was in fourth place.

  Soza, a grizzly man with a signature toothpick in his mouth, was unaffiliated, having no ties to any faction, but he had been participating in the trials for six decades at this point. He’d completed the trials twice in the past and was as veteran a participant as one could be. He used a different legendary weapon each time and was currently in possession of Birlbreed, a pair of bladed throwing rings. He was in fifth place.

  Dilino, in tenth place, wielded Lance of the Morning. It wasn’t from the Hall of Choosing, but the legacy weapon, a golden polearm, had been used by six generations of children, all of whom had made it to the fourth trial without fail.

  Any one of these could share Yeishi’s sentiment, which wasn’t a popular one by any means, but there’d been participants in the past who’d held steadfastly to it. Also, spectators loved watching fights between participants with acclaimed weapons.

  Caen put all these out of his mind and focused on the present. Of the participants who had made it through the second trial last week, nearly four hundred of them would not be participating in today’s trial. They had bowed out due to the perceived brutality of the third trial. It was colloquially referred to as the ‘Cull’ because of how large a percentage of participants tended to be eliminated in it.

  “Greetings, children of the Spirit Mother,” the announcer suddenly declared through the voice enchantments.

  All discussions in the waiting area ceased immediately.

  “The third trial is upon you! Listen attentively to the rules. There are eight element-themed zones…”

  He listed the zones out of order. Making it past the eighth zone earned a participant their forty points. Each zone imposed afflictions relating to its theme and had hostile creatures, sprites, and elementals fully intent on killing the participants. Some of these creatures possessed color-coded ‘heartstones’, which granted extra points or temporary immunity to the zonal afflictions.

  There were various safe areas within the zones, which granted respite from the afflictions and hostile creatures.

  Collaboration was evidently necessary, even though groups of people working together would attract more hostile creatures. Caen had already made arrangements in that regard.

  There were seven batches this time around, and they would be transported into the trial grounds in five-minute intervals.

  “Her spirit inhabits this vessel. Good luck!”

  “Batch 1 participants,” another disembodied voice said. “Brace yourselves for spatial transport in five, four, three—”

  Caen used a breathing sequence to calm his nerves. I’m here now, he told himself. I’ve come this far, and I’ll go farther still.