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Chapter 376: Trial (1) - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2025-04-11 00:53:55 +0000 UTCThe moment I activated the trial, I was met with a flash of blinding white light. At first, I thought it was meant to be some sort of transition effect, but a moment later, I realized I was wrong. Threads of essence spread out towards my surroundings like the web of a spider. I had the strangest feeling that reality itself was being made and unmade right before my eyes, and my essence sense struggled to keep up with the sudden information overload.
After nearly thirty seconds of chaos, my surroundings and my vision started to settle. I blinked away the spots in my vision, and confirmed that I was no longer sitting in the middle of a cloudy white room. Now, it looked like I was in the middle of a forest. I frowned, and leaned closer to one of the trees, before I touched it.
It felt solid. If I hadn’t seen reality unweaving itself in front of my eyes moments ago, I would never have been able to tell the difference between this tree and a real tree. At first, I had thought the trial was literally created on the spot to suit my needs, but perhaps I had been teleported somewhere? I started to doubt myself as I checked my surroundings.
I clapped my cheeks and tried to settle my mind. Whatever was going on, it was well beyond me. I would remember it, so that I could learn from it in the future - but I didn’t think I even had the relevant knowledge to understand what I had seen yet. So I decided to ignore it. For now, I would just accept that I was in a forest now, and move on with the trial.
The forest itself looked foreboding and sinister. There were trees around thirty meters tall, but none of the trees had leaves - instead, they had twisted, gnarled branches and trunks stripped of bark. The forest smelled ominous, too - almost like a mixture of carrion and old, musty rainwater that had been trapped for years. There were no sounds in the forest, but that made the whole thing more unnerving rather than less.
Strangest of all, there was a sun in the sky. I had grown so used to navigating by starlight that the sun was almost blindingly bright for me. At first, I was baffled - why was there a sun here in the trial, but no sun outside of the trial? However, after a moment of thinking, I realized why the sun was installed here.
The four of us had ways to generate essence on our own, so we didn’t need sunlight - but sunlight did still boost our essence regeneration. The trials were clearly set up to actually challenge us - but it was equally obvious that just behind the scenes, the creators of the trials were trying to tilt the odds in our favor. A trial that people died in was a trial that people would complain about once they returned to the Market, and the corporation that ran this world probably preferred glowing customer reviews.
I sighed, and shook my head, before I looked at the System notification that had appeared when I arrived here.
Hero’s Trial:
Deep within this forest, there is a pool. At the edge of that pool, there is a stone which has a recipe on it - there are three items listed on it. Make your way to the pool and read the stone. Then, go back into the forest, find one of the items, add it to the pool, and take a bath in the resulting water.
Every single item is guarded by a variety of dangers, and each item represents one of the three gates of the hero trial! You may complete this trial piece by piece, or add in all three objects to the water for the best results. However, keep in mind that every time you complete one objective, the other parts of the trial will grow harder!
Note: travel through the forest is not safe, either. The forest is filled with hostile monsters, and they will attack you while you are taking your bath. Make sure to keep your guard up.
(Monsters are not very mobile, so rest assured that you can take breaks as needed. All fruits on top of the trees are also safe to eat and filled with juice, so food and water are readily available for those who need it.)
I scanned the message, before I nodded to myself. Simple enough. Make my way deeper in the forest, find the pool of magic water, and then get a list of further objectives. Based on the way the system message was worded, it seemed like every single ‘bath addition’ would have a bunch of extra dangers surrounding it. I wasn’t sure whether each ingredient would have something closer to a gauntlet of trials placed in front of it, or whether each item would have one single guardian - but either way, I had a rough idea how the trial would work, at least.
<Do you three have the same trials as I do?> I asked out of curiosity, before I shared the details of my trial.
<Oh, interesting. No, I have a completely different trial,> said Felix. <My trial asked me whether I preferred combat or production. I naturally said that I prefer production, so the trial is divided into three parts. The first part is to mine out a chunk of materials from a volcano while the environment tries to kill me. It’s already pretty hot - this is pretty uncomfortable, but I can survive it, at least. After I mine out the materials, the second part of the trial is to acquire a blueprint - apparently, there are two paths to this. I can either do some ‘guided experiments’ to figure it out myself, or fight a powerful enemy and then acquire the blueprint from their workshop. Finally, the third part of the trial is to actually create the spatially condensed bubble.>
<Wasn’t the spatially condensed bubble only worth two stages of the trial?> I asked.
<It is, at least in theory. However, the second stage of my trial is to get a production method for spatially condensed bubbles - and a basic manual on how to do some proper Market item production along with it,> said Felix. <So I’m basically getting my personal reward during the second phase of the trial. I can’t wait to see it!>
I nodded to myself. Felix had spent entire lifetimes hoping for a way to really make good items - the kind of things we found in shops in the market. I was happy that he had finally found a way forward, even if it wasn’t quite the way I had imagined things would go. With any luck, Felix would have time to forge equipment that could surpass the stuff we found in the Market before our fight for more lives.
<My trial also asked me if I preferred combat or production,> said Sallia. <I chose combat, and so I was told that there is a special wire at the end of a hall of traps and monsters. I need to fight my way through it to retrieve the wire. The first stage of the trial is a gauntlet of traps, and it’ll give me a spool of incredibly magically potent wire. The second stage will get me access to a pool, and placing the wire in that pool of water will enchant it to get access to the features we need. If I get through the first two stages of the trial, I’ll figure out what I want for the third gate of the trial afterwards. Maybe I’ll just go with a stat boost, like Miria is getting. More absorption essence regeneration and storage wouldn’t hurt.>
<I also got a choice of combat or production,> said Anise. <I need to fight the ‘twisted artificer’ in order to steal the distorted lens from him. The first stage of my trial is to make my way through his workshop, and the second stage is to actually fight him. I haven’t figured out my third reward yet either, so I’ll figure it out when I get there. I wonder if I can ask for a spellbook compatible with me? I’ve formed most of the Zelyrian spells I could think of that were useful already, but I’m far from exhausting the potential of my magic system. A book could save me a lot of time…>
<That’s a good idea,> I said. <I’ll think about it as well, and toss you any ideas I have, but I think the book might be the best way forward for you.>
<All right, well, it looks like we have customized trials, then. I know all four of you are competent, and that these trials are probably meant to help us out along the way. Still, be careful. It would be a huge waste if we died or had to drop out of the trials without getting our rewards. Good luck everyone,> said Felix.
<Good luck!> I said. A moment later, Sallia and Anise followed suit.
After that, I felt my friends shut off the connection our communication bracelets had with each other. That was probably a good idea, because we needed to focus right now. I turned my attention back to the creepy woods in front of me. I scanned the area using my soul-sight, but I didn’t see anything alive in my surroundings - including the trees. It seemed that they were already dead. I didn’t see any fruits on top of the trees either, which made me wonder if this area had died during the millenia where nobody maintained this dimension, or whether the trial was intended to be this way. It was hard to say.
I sighed, and started walking. I couldn’t see anything useful or dangerous, so there was no point in hanging around the outskirts of the forest. I needed to get moving.
After ten minutes of walking, I was starting to feel even more uneasy than before. I hadn’t seen a single monster, or living tree, or fruit. The entire trial area just seemed… dead. Was this really the intended trial experience? Just as I was starting to sink into doubt, I caught sight of my first living soul.
In the distance, there was a rather unusual, misshapen soul. The strangest thing about it was its shape - most souls were one cohesive blob of color. This soul, however, looked quite a bit more… fragmented. It looked like someone had taken a regular soul, then stretched it out like a ball of yarn, with some bits of larger and smaller soul fragments attached to the string as it wove around and around the creature’s body in an endless loop. I couldn’t see the actual creature very well, but I got the impression that it was some sort of shelled creature, almost like a giant bug. Its shell was a dark reddish color. It didn’t quite blend in with our surroundings, although the rust-colored carapace was still dark enough that it wasn’t easy to pick out the creature, either.
I examined the creature more closely, and then I grimaced. If I had to guess, this thing probably had a [Fortitude] stat of around 12 or 13. It was slightly less sturdy than the spider monsters we had fought back in the Market, but it would certainly be a difficult fight if I tried to fight it head on.
The monsters here weren’t very mobile, right? If that was the case, I could just slide around the monster and it should be fine.
I made a face as I delicately started to sidestep the monster’s territory - only for the monster to suddenly whirl towards me. A moment later, its form flickered, and I saw its soul start to flash in and out of reality as it dashed towards me like a monster eyeing its prey.
This thing was definitely mobile. I suppressed a shudder as I finally confirmed the bubbling suspicion in my stomach.
Something had gone very wrong with the trial during all the time this world was abandoned.
Author’s Note:
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