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The big problem with humanity, for all their hype, was that in a direct comparison with aliens and fantasy creatures, they actually stacked up as rather average. They had powerful souls, but that was about it. It was actually rather confounding for some of the more powerful creatures in The World to think, 'really? These are the ones who beat The Trials?'

After all, The Trials were no joke. It was, aside from not being a joke, many other things; a constitutional convention; an emergency escape; a means of apotheosis; a suicide switch; the barrier and the primary interface gate between The Real, The World, and The Beyond; an ancient promise fulfilled, among other things. It was also a scam designed to stimulate the residents of The World into killing more monsters for The System, but the same could be said about literally everything The System did.

Questors were granted power and privilege beyond what standard adventurers got, but at the end of the day, if you completed your quest, you would be standing before the council of one of the three signatory races while they decided what to do with you. The point of The Quest was that it would reward you with the opportunity to activate The Trial of Renegotiation, which, frankly, no signatory race would ever activate.

The Trials were fucking dangerous.

Eight dungeons, scattered across The World. Three of them were located inside the main branches of the three banks, The Bank of The Sun; of the Aeons; and of Eternal Life. Four of them changed locations constantly, The Ultima Tower; The Flying Fortress; The Trap Labyrinth; The Infinite Stair. The last one was the Final Fortress, supposedly at the core of The World.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Gather the eight Singularium, the objects which were, are, and will be truly unique among all planes, among all of the universes, among all of The Beyond, everywhere, and bring them to the Final Fortress and unlock The Gate.

So, that's pretty hard. Humans, at some point in the very distant past, succeeded, and by now, nobody really remembered how, or why they were able to do what they did.

I mean, humans were pretty strong, but they weren't exceptionally strong. They were smart, but not exceptionally smart. They had forceful, powerful psychic presences, but not the most forceful, or the most powerful. The only really stand-out feature of humanity was their exceptionally powerful souls, which while rare, wasn't unique.

The thing that set humans apart from all other species, the thing that they excelled at more than anything else, was imagination. Unfortunately for humans, imagination was basically useless in the 'early game' of evolution. Did it matter that you could conceive of a glowing, flying cloud that ferried you around at high speeds? Not if you were half-monkey living in a fucking tree, naked, and thinking your shitty spear was pretty much the most powerful weapon in the universe.

Then, there was the problem of the scheduled extinction events. Every time, every fucking time, humanity got close to what we in the modern age call 'the singularity', which could be triggered by pretty much fucking anything, not just computers, the Earth basically exploded, and humans were back to imagining wild shit in trees, hoping the shaman would figure out a potion for that fucking rash everybody had.

God, the fucking rashes we've endured as a species. Next time you see a doctor or a pharmacist, just say 'thanks' for their profession inventing rash cream. We didn't use to have that shit.

Here's the thing, though. Humans? They weren't on Earth anymore, and fucking Space Elves dropped them onto a world with the most wild, advanced magic/technology anywhere, ever. A world where finding a fucking wish, was merely uncommon, rather than impossible. A world where our wildest sci-fi dreams were common, mundane reality.

Humans, in a straight comparison to all the other species in The World and the universe, were basically average. This. . . wasn't a fair comparison. It took humans as they were on Earth and compared them to species that had had millennia worth of exposure to very advanced technology, that had been allowed to shape their development into what their species viewed as perfection. It compared Humans in their most infantile, basic form and compared them to the mature, adult forms of other species.

They were called the Children of God for a reason, and that was because they were children, and their enemies took great pains to ensure they stayed that way. Smothering them in the crib, beating them, breaking them, abusing them. . . anything to keep them from growing up. Anything to keep them from becoming what came next. The single most terrifying phase of development of any species, anywhere, anytime.

To keep the Children of God from becoming. . . The Teenagers of God. What a terrifying thing to imagine.

That is, if you aren't human.