Haw remembered the day like it was yesterday, six years ago when he first saw the sun. The scions of House Gallia, like any noble house of a mortal line, lived each and every day with more fear than even the least of their servants. As surely as they schemed against their rivals so too was it a certainty their rivals would scheme against them, for all the gold in their coffers the risk of sabotage, subterfuge or straight up slaughter was never low enough to buy comfort. And so like every other child of their family he had grown up in the Estate, for all intents and purposes a fortress beneath the ground, a sprawling complex of luxury and security at the heart of their house’s power.
It was a prison.
And he had lived his life so blissfully ignorant of that fact until his 16th birthday. That burning orb scraping against the heavens, so impossibly high his mind was unable to even comprehend the idea. He had seen images, his family even had a working Lumo Mirror from which grainy images of a world long dead would be played on special occasions, but to feel his skin burn in the unfamiliar light… to taste air that was not processed through a dozen decaying filters… it was like a dream.
His family had scoffed when he announced his intention to try becoming a true cultivator, it was not uncommon after all for nobility to simply buy an associate rank in a sect, but to actually attempt the trials? To for all intents and purposes poison yourself in a desperate reach for the heavens, to walk the path of martyrs knowing the sacrifices that would be paid for in both flesh and spirit? The number of cultivator bloodlines that managed to produce trueborn heirs by blood could be counted on two fingers, to even breach the Mutant realm was grounds for instant disinheritance even for a Sceo, and for all their power the Gallias were merely Exeks. Surely he had to be joking they had said, it was a phase he would surely grow out of they said…
A ball of fire consumed his vision, it was as bright as the first glimpse he had of the sun, and it burned almost as badly. The phoenix, despite its clipped wings, was impossibly fast, and even with all the training, all the preparations, he was just too slow to truly reach the creature. Initially his strategy was to hit it at range with his chosen weapon of a sling, but once he had run out of rocks he made the fatal mistake of mindlessly moving into the range of the phoenix in an attempt to recover his missiles. When the beast first started to spray its deadly oil he tried to roll out of the way, but having been just a moment too slow the fire still managed to reach him. While his imperfect dodge did turn what would probably have been a lethal blow into merely a debilitating one and the bird was unlikely to hold enough fuel to replicate the attack at the same range the searing agony and swimming vision told him enough that it didn’t matter. One way or another at the edge of consciousness and halfway burned to a cinder there was no possibility of him passing the trial now. Perhaps they were right, he was not ready for this, that he was a fool to think he could even make it this far. Even so…
Screaming in pain and fury he had not even known he possessed Haw leaped forwards. Inflamed by his will the Si in his core swelled to the surface, blood burst from his veins as half opened meridians were forced well beyond their capacity. The world ceased to move, the image of the phoenix blurred into a sphere of golden light. His body was well past its reasonable limits, it hurt even to breathe, there was no chance he would recover in time to participate in the rest of the trials and yet he moved with a clarity of purpose he had never felt in his life. He reached out to grab that ever so elusive sun that hung in the endless sky, heat like he had never felt before threatened to simply melt flesh from bone but he couldn’t stop now. Not when he was so close… just a little more…
He felt his fingers make contact and threw the unfortunate phoenix towards the ground below. A small fireball erupted where the creature’s fragile corpse made contact with unyielding stone and he soon followed, the last of his strength long since gone as he drifted into unconsciousness.
Quickly a group of medical cultivators picked up Haw’s charred form and ferried him out of the arena on a stretcher. Watching from above on a gilded seat Elder Cinnabar made her judgement telepathically broadcast to the entire arena.
Haw of house Gallia has bested his opponent, however his reckless behaviour moments before intervention would have disqualified him had the extent of his injuries not already. Unfortunately he will not be accepted as an Initiate this year, but I feel he has at least earned a pass for the first trial. Next!
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The gathered Aspirants that had not yet attempted the trials were held in a room to the side of the arena, supposedly so that those who would hold their trial last would have no more of an advantage than those who had gone first. In practice however John found the wait to be mostly boring… and concerning.
It was far better than before, in fact an outside observer would probably not see it at all, but he could feel a distinctively noticeable swelling in the knee that was used to throw him into a wall. Not debilitating but certainly far from ideal for combat. Similarly there was a dull ache in one of his middle ribs, perhaps just a bruise that was no longer visible from outside, more concerning was the idea that it may be a broken bone.
Maybe this was a mistake. He could not help but think.
[LEFT KNEE JOINT ESTIMATED 7% LOSS OF FLEXIBILITY DUE TO INFLAMMATION. RIGHT SEVENTH RIB RECOVERY STATUS ESTIMATED AT LESS THAN 82% PRESENTLY. STRENUOUS ACTIVITY NOT RECOMMENDED]
Yes it was stupid, who did he think he was? He was the youngest person here, by far the smallest in size and with only the dumb luck to stumble across a relic from the Golden Age to distinguish himself from the Rats who had little future but cramped damp tunnels that could any moment become their tomb.
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He looked around at his fellows, by now conversation had mostly died down, the atmosphere was silent with anxious anticipation, restrained excitement and the all consuming fog of dread. People with lives and stories and ambitions just like him, half of them one way or another will not make it to the next trial, this was a fact drilled incessantly into their heads. Still, they all came, not a single person had walked away when asked. He had come this far, how could he possibly stop now?
There was a knock on the door. “Aspirant John Zhou, clan Aurelium, come forward, you are next!”
He took a deep breath and rose to his feet, keeping his eyes straight forward not daring to look back. It was time.
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The afternoon sun had its rays scattered by metal crisscrossing over the arena almost producing an effect like sunlight filtering through leaves in trees. Red, black and brown stained the compacted sand floor, the legacy of countless battles, and things he would rather not think about. On the opposite side of the arena a surprisingly small cage was hauled in by a large cultivator containing a small creature clad in armour of bone. It seemed almost harmless like this, still as a cold stone sculpture, beady red eyes unblinkingly staring at him beneath gnarled twisted horns and two long ears. Its true threat was belied however from the deep gouges in the sturdy looking metal cage, large dents visible through inches of steel seemingly in contradiction to the mostly harmless creature they contained. Unmistakably the beast that shared a name with the Empire, the humble Jackalope.
A green robed cultivator rather disgustingly retrieved a selection of weapons from holes in his flesh and placed them before John on the sand, answering at least part of the stains, and suddenly reminding John that he was very much barefoot. Besides the thin film of mucus the weapons looked of fine quality, a small blade, a hammer, a sling with a bag of stones and even a spear somehow. He looked at the selection of weapons, most of which he only knew the intended usage during the short week of training he took, and he looked at the angry red coils of ARTOS around his arm. He simply shook his head, and with his choice made, the weapons were taken away with a truly unsettling sound and the cultivators left with a bow. There was a beep, a small red light lit on the cage, and the creature was let loose.
At his current level John’s reaction time was immeasurably more than what it was even a short few years ago, he had almost forgotten how it felt to be slow again. When the jackalope moved it was as though he was merely tracking its shadow, in its wake a trail of sand and dust choked the air making the nigh invisible little blur nearly impossible to track. It circled around the arena perhaps three times before it seemed to realise there was no easy way out, and as any cornered beast tends to do, it lashed out at the nearest possible threat.
The first charge John barely dodged in time, a small trail of blood leaking from his side where the vicious horns of the beast made contact and broke skin. It spun around again and sped towards his back, which this time he dodged more fluidly now that he at least partially understood the patterns of the creature. The third time the fear was almost done and a fire of confidence lit within John, he was ready, he could do this!
A pain in his knee heralded disaster.
[POSSIBLE LIGAMENT DAMAGE DETECTED: AD-
ARTOS had not even the time to finish speaking in his head before he was knocked on his back by the blur of a beast. Time slowed down in a way he had not experienced since the last time ARTOS used its adrenaline rush, in a moment the world seemed to shrink. The beast rammed into him before he could fully catch himself, seemingly knowing his weaknesses as it targeted his weak rib. Instantly it hurt to breath, and John found himself tumbling towards the floor.
[SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO HOST DETECTED: SURVIVAL THREAT IMMINANT]
He didn’t want to die…
[ASSESSING…]
He rolled just in time to avoid the blur slamming into his head, the air itself cracked in the wake of the small monsters passing. The ringing in his ear was so bad he could not hear anything but the pumping of blood in his ear…
[ALL RESTRICTIONS TEMPORARILY RELEASED…]
A new pain erupted in his body, before he knew it he jolted back to his feet, only vaguely aware of his own actions. Time now seemed to cease entirely, he felt something moving within him, twitching eyes travelled around the entire arena observing everything, from a cultivator apparently about to step in to save him, to the beast dangerously near where previously his head would have laid. Without even thinking it he found himself moving towards the jackalope, and half dragged by ARTOS wrapped his fingers around the creature’s unarmoured neck.
[HOST NERVOUS SYSTEM AT 109% CAPACITY, BLOOD HORMONE SATURATION 45% ABOVE ACCEPTABLE PARAMETERS, HEART RATE AT 230BPM. CONNECTION STABILITY DROPPING: 78%... 77%... 76%...]
[CONCLUSION REACHED.]
With strength he did not even know was possible from him his fingers clenched showering him with blood and gore. Time resumed as normal, but still everything was silent but the beating of his heart in his head.
Unexpectedly John has managed to best his opponent at the very last second. Nothing unusual was detected besides minor increased activity from the relic, and as it is a bonded artefact which is impossible to remove no rules have been violated as far as I am aware. Congratulations John Aurelium… Zhou, you pass. Next!
He fell to his knees, exhaustion started to overwhelm him, eating at the corners of his vision. Vaguely he felt some power expand in his chest, but that was the least important thing at the moment.
He won…
How much of that was him?
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Magni dispatched his opponent with ease. For all its speed, power and tricks it was a dumb animal at the end of the day, and when you lived a life where nobody would blink if you disappeared? In the end he had only a bruised arm as evidence he had even fought at all.
There were a few others already waiting for him when he passed his trial. Ferrin seemed to have no problem in the slightest, not visibly injured at all. There was that blue haired guy, Svike, obviously proud of his nomad heritage based on the various patches he bore on his Bousin Leather jacket, but now devoid of his usual pompous attitude and nursing an admittedly nasty looking burn. There was the bald guy, honestly he forgot his name, he was surprised he was even alive to be honest let alone beat his beast. His body clearly bore the marks of the Curse more than anyone else here, but he made it in the end, and he could in fact begrudgingly respect that. There was also Copper, a weaselly looking girl that did remind him of a Great-Roach… and apparently was as good at surviving as them too given the fact she was seated in this very room.
Finally through the door came the latest member to join their small but growing band. The brat walked in, shuffling on one leg. At first Magni wanted to let out a taunt, but something about the distant expression in the boys eyes made him stop. He had clearly won, but it was also like he was a corpse shambling towards his own grave.
“Founding Fathers, are you alright?” Ferrin asked with concern.
John seemed to open his mouth to ready a response, then his eyes rolled into the back of his skull, and the boy fell face first almost comically onto the floor. But Magni wasn’t laughing.
On the contrary and to his surprise most of all he was the first one to go out and call for help.