After the speech, a sphere suddenly materialized next to me. The sphere was about the same size as a rubber ball. It gave a gray, metallic shine as I continued to examine the spherical object. I looked back at Mr. Chen only to realize that he also had a sphere. “This is what we call a Holosphere. Every applicant is equipped with it when they attend the Heroes Exam.” The sphere emits a short bell tone, and suddenly, a timer pops up, reading 30:00 mins. Then, he pulls a small object from his pocket. The object he was holding was rhombus-shaped. It gives out its pink and sky-glowing color as he shows it to everyone.
“This is an Asthimite Crystal,” Mr. Chen said as we looked at the shiny object with curiosity and awe. “Now this trial we are about to do involves collecting these crystals. If you can get at least one. Just one. Then you will move on to the next trial. Simple and easy, right?” He looked around the crowd to check their reactions, which held a few confused looks. One applicant piped up with a smirk on his face: “Is this, like, some kind of joke or something? I thought this crap would be challenging, but I guess this is more than just a plain damn joke.” Mr. Chen did that same grin on his goatee. “I wasn’t finished. There is a catch when obtaining these. To get this piece of moolah, you need to slay certain creatures to obtain the crystals. And these creatures are none other than…” He quickly snapped his fingers and a dark creature appeared next to him. The creature took the form of a black dust ball, its yellow eyes gave a cute but menacing sight. I looked at the thing to realize that it was a Dark Eater.
Dark Eaters are pureblood creatures that naturally came from a certain dreamscape. At first, the only creatures that Heroes encounter are the most common, which is the Shade. However, at the time of the Dark Crusade, new versions of Dark Eaters were encountered.
“This is what we call Dark Eaters. Now, I am sure that you may have heard or encountered them throughout your journey of getting here. You might be guessing where I am going with this. There are 75 Asthimite Crystals within these creatures. You have thirty minutes to get at least one of these crystals before the timer expires. If you don’t have one by then, you will fail.”
“What?!”, said another applicant. “This is bullsh*t. I’m outta here!” I looked behind me to see the applicant made an attempt to leave the forest but he was thrown back by 20 feet back to the crowd. “What the..? I can’t get out!! Let me out here!!”
“I am afraid I have already given you that chance to leave ten minutes ago. You can’t go back not until you fail or die.”
“I don’t care, let me the hell out of here!”
Mr. Chen sighed in disappointment. He snapped his fingers once more, causing the applicant's voice to be muted. He probably performed a Mastery Art, Silenced. This Art caused their target to be silent, but depending on the caster, the Art could last for up to a minute. Mastery Arts are special skills, spells, and forms that do serious amounts of damage to their targets or do the opposite, such as temporarily buffing the user or to their gear. Performing these Arts required certain amounts of Aura and tapping into that Art’s branch of Power. Some require little amounts while others require more.
“Anyway. Let’s get this started shall we!”, the examiner said. With a snap of his fingers, the Dark Eater on display suddenly vanished into thin air. Then I heard a scream to my far left and noticed that someone was engulfed in blue light and suddenly disappeared. I looked around and saw five, no, ten people engulfed in the same blue light and disappeared.
“Gah!”
“!!!”
I looked to my left and saw Gadge and Riku engulfed in the light as well. I looked at myself and found myself glowing and closed my eyes as I tried to cover myself from the blinding light.
* * *
I took a look at my surroundings to find myself in a field. It stretches itself around the place for about what seems like miles. Behind me lies an abandoned village for about a mile while in front of me lies not only fields but a few large trees and some marshes as well.
Did the examiner initiate a teleport?
If he did, then it probably makes sense why. The number of applicants that attended here was about five hundred and twelve, me included, not only that, there wasn’t much elbow room in the Pathos field, so it makes sense why they teleported us. But the real question remains; where exactly am I?
I called up the holosphere to figure out what area I was in. Instead, I get a message saying that no map data is available. I looked around till I noticed a giant purple screen. The screen itself was about fifteen inches in length and the width was about twelve inches. Odd? The screen wasn’t there when I got here, not until now. Suddenly, a chime was emitted through the screen and a thirty-minute timer appeared on the screen. The above shows the following description:
THE FIRST TRIAL: CRYSTAL COLLECTION
OBJECTIVE: COLLECT AN ASTHIMITE CRYSTAL
BEFORE THE TIMER EXPIRES BY DEFEATING DARK EATERS
TIME LIMIT:30:00
CRYSTAL REMAINING: 75
29:59
“So it started,” I whispered. My best course of action would have to be to hunt down Dark Eaters or find other applicants and team up with them and hope to get an Asthimite Crystal. But both of those options have their problems, one common problem is to find those deadly creatures, but where?
Just before I could make more of my situation, I heard a pitching sound and suddenly an arrow from my right pierced the ground with a thuk! I looked behind me to see a man in white robes, holding a bow. The creature itself was wearing a white robe with crimson lines surrounding the robes, his skin shows a decaying darkening yellow and green. As for his face, it was covered with a cloth, bearing the Dark Eaters symbol: three crimson claws. By the looks of it, this Dark Eater is an Archer, one of the creatures that can do long-range attacks.
I turned around slowly to face the Archer, and he spoke with a rasping voice: “I am going to enjoy feasting on your flesh as soon as I kill you” He grabbed another arrow from his quiver with delight and aimed right for my forehead. “Say goodbye”, the Archer said with an insane grin and shot his arrow. Before the arrow was ready, I performed a Mastery Art known as Phase Wait to see what the Archer's main attack would do. This Art not only slows time to study an enemy’s movement but also allows me to grab the arrow and perform another Art called Single Shot, which allows me to throw projectiles at opponents with no difficulty. As soon as the arrow was a foot from piercing my skin, I dodged to my right and grabbed the arrow from its tail. As I grabbed the tail, I performed the Single Shot Art. The arrow glowed a golden yellow as I aimed for my target. I flipped the arrow, and quickly threw it at the Archer, leaving behind a yellow trail like lightning striking a tree.
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With a loud shink! The arrow that I threw back, stabbed the Archer straight at his forehead. It tried to speak but no word came. He started to fall backward, disintegrating into black ashes in the process. All that remains is its bow and arrows.
“Sweet, at least it left its equipment,” I said with glee.
I grabbed the Archer's equipment and checked to see if it had a Crystal with sadly, no luck. I grabbed the dead Archer’s bow and its quiver full of arrows and headed into the abandoned village. Once near the village's houses, I performed the Mastery Art, Moon Leap, and leaped onto one of the village buildings to take a better look at what was going on.
The village itself was huge, filled with identical buildings, however, I am glad that I chose this spot because this whole village contained Dark Eaters, mostly Shades and Scouts. So this will be easy enough for me to take them out. All right, this ought to be a piece of cake.
* * *
It has been about 10-15 minutes and I have gotten nowhere doing this strategy. Despite being safe from my little haven on the roof, I haven’t been able to get a single Asthimite Crystal from any of the Scouts and Shades that have been stalking around the abandoned villages searching for any applicants that they can consume. I called up my holosphere to check the time. What I saw was, of course, shocking.
THE FIRST TRIAL: CRYSTAL COLLECTION
OBJECTIVE: COLLECT AN ASTHIMITE CRYSTAL
BEFORE THE TIMER EXPIRES BY DEFEATING DARK EATERS
TIME LIMIT: 30:00
CRYSTALS REMAINING: 30
15:59
Sixteen minutes?! You gotta be freaking kidding me!!! I gritted my teeth in frustration, if I don’t hurry up and get a Crystal soon, then that will be the end of it. I would fail, and all of that training that I did would be for nothing. I took a deep breath and tried to think of another plan. While I was thinking about it, a voice was heard behind my back: “Help!!! Can somebody please help me? Anyone!!!” I jumped with surprise as soon as I heard a voice and looked behind me to see who was pleading for help. It was a young man wearing padded armor, and he was running from a large Shade, and when I say large, I mean large. The creature itself wasn’t that tough to beat unless it ended up using an Evolution stone. Then that will make things a lot more complicated.
If this guy keeps on yelling, he is going to attract a lot of these things, I thought. I used Moon Leap to jump from roof to roof while keeping an eye on the two. I also had to make sure no additional Dark Eaters approached the two, otherwise, things could get dicey. The chase ended up leading to the village square. The square is about 400 sq ft, with a few broken cars and some trash all over the place. In the center was a stage about 70 ft wide and 70 ft in length.
As soon as I saw the stage, I made one last leap toward the stage with my bow ready. As the large creature cornered the frightened applicant, I aimed at the Shade for its mask, a viable weak spot for critical damage, with my arrow and launched with a loud zing!!
That is until the Shade snatched it with quick speed with its tiny hands.
“-!!”
With a quick snap, he broke the arrow and proceeded towards me. Crap! There wasn’t enough time to get another from my quiver. My mind was racing about what to do next. my heart stopped beating. My body froze.
Crap!!Crap!! Move dammit! MOVE!
I thought that was the end of me until I heard a loud zing! from behind. The arrow shot through the mask with a teal color trailing behind it. The Shade didn’t move a muscle at all, suddenly it started to implode, growing bright red cracks as it continued to implode.
Wait? That thing is about to explode?!!!
I looked at the young man with the padded armor and yelled out loud “Run! Get to cover!!” We made a quick sprint and jumped out of the creature’s blast radius. With a huge kaboom, the creature blew itself to pieces. Big chunks of darkened flesh flew from all sides, along with black blood and ink. I opened my eyes and looked around to see the Shade’s remains. Luckily for us, we managed to get away from the Shade’s Death Boom, otherwise, we would have been severely injured or worse.
“Hey,” I said to the frightened man. He looked up with a bit of fright and tears. “It’s over. The Shade self-destructs itself.”
“Thank god that was over. What was that thing?” he asked. “I don’t know what that thing was,” I responded. “ I thought it was just a Shade. But when I attempted to kill it with my arrow, he just simply grabbed the arrow like it was nothing.”
“That’s because it wasn’t a Shade,” a cool, female voice spoke. We both froze and slowly looked behind us to see a figure, wearing a gray cloak. By the looks of it, she must be around my age. As for the rest of what she was wearing, I couldn’t tell because of her cloak, but she must be the one who shot at the creature because she was carrying a bow.
Ok. This is a bit awkward. I got up quickly and, with a stutter, said, “Um...Th...Thank you for the help.” The cloaked figure walked towards the remains and pulled the arrow that was sticking out of the ground. I looked at the arrow more closely, it was not just the smooth, dark onyx that covered the arrow but also I noticed that there were some runes engraved within the arrow. “Hey,” I said. The cloaked figure looked in my direction. “What kind of arrow did you use and what the hell is that thing?”
“The arrow that I used was an Onychis Arrow, and as for that thing. That was a Nightmare carrier.”
“Nightmare…? Carrier…?”
“A high-level Dark Eater. It usually consumes anything till it gets ready to hatch. When it gets ready to hatch, its stomach explodes, unleashing either a Rune Beast or something equally dangerous.”
“A high-level Dark Eater? In an exam like this?” I muttered to myself. Dream Eaters are categorized by their level by how much Aura they have. Low-level Dark Eaters have little Aura, while those that have High-level have powerful Aura and need to proceed with caution.
“All right. I see your point. I thank you. If it weren’t for you, we would have been its food.” I said.
“We?”, she asked.
“Oh yeah. I was jumping from roof to roof, luring that thing to the village square. All while trying to save this guy from being Carrier food.” I said while pointing to the guy that was behind me.
* * *
“Anyway, with thanks out of the way. I should explain to myself what was going on.” the young man said. “My name is Cleavo, and I need your help, well both of your help. I used to be with a party during this Exam and we were hoping if we teamed up, we could collect more of those crystals easier. However, when we entered a cave system, we were ambushed by some Dark Eaters, I was the only one who made it out.”
“And the others?” I asked.
Cleavo shook his head. “I don’t know. But all I do know is that I can’t do this. Not without help.” He kneeled as he said his next words, “So, please. Please help me save my friends. Please help me.” I looked at the cloaked figure to see what her reaction was, but I couldn’t tell. I assess my options for this situation.
This guy needs help saving his friends otherwise they will be killed, and this is also during the exam with a time limit. I called up my Holosphere, and the timer read saying we have eleven minutes to collect an Asthimite crystal or otherwise, fail. My options are limited both with their pros and cons. I can choose to help him save his party from Dark Eaters and risk either losing the Exam or dying to those vile creatures. The other choice was to walk away from Cleavos' plea for help and hopefully continue hunting for an Asthimite Crystal on my own. This is also a stupid decision to make; not only would I back down from someone’s plea for help, but also I’ll be marked with being a coward not caring about saving one’s life.
Two choices. Both with pros and cons. Little luck in both.
I clenched my teeth, as I decided my final choice. “I'll go.”
“!!”
“I’ll go with you to save your party.”
“Hold up,” said the cloaked figure. “You two are both going to that cave system?! You don’t know what there is down there!”
“I know,” I said. “But if we don’t help them. They’ll wind up dead to those things. Or worse.”
The cloaked figure breathed a sigh and said “All right, but I am coming with you guys. As much as I wanted to. I can’t go back on someone asking for help.” After her sentence, she produced a friendly smile from under her cloak. “Besides, you need help to watch your back.”
I looked back to Cleavo, his face was full of tears and fear, but also I could sense his determination and hope as well. “All right then,” I said. “We’ll help you save your party. But where is this cave system?”
Cleavo grabs a map from his back pocket, unfolds it, and shows the full map. The map itself consists of the area we are in. In the center is the abandoned village while the north is filled with forests and plains, while the south consists of a cave that must have been going for miles. He points to the south end of the map near an entrance of a cave system.
“Here, this is where we were ambushed,” he says.
“The Crystal Caves. That would make sense.” the hooded figure muttered. “Wait, you heard about these caves before?” I asked.
“Only stories. These caves are said to hold untold riches but also cause travelers and adventurers to be lured to their deaths. It only makes sense that if your party is ambushed, then it is because that a certain creature might be the same one that is told in the stories.”
“Well, we can’t waste any more time, we better head to the Crystal Caves. And fast, we are running out of time.”
“All right. Cleavo, lead the way.”