John's body was working overtime to repair the damage his fists suffered, but it would take more time. Unfortunately, time was not something he wanted to squander, and instead, he lightly tapped into his reservoir of Fate.
Doors marked by the fist and the eye radiated a significant threat, and after inspecting the ear he recoiled back in shock. That one seemed lethal, making him cross half of the tests out immediately.
The heart and the brain seemed doable, but surprisingly the least dangerous challenge appeared to be behind the door bearing a mark of a foot.
Well, the Lynx's obstacle course it is.
Touching the carving made the door lift up, and he was able to step into a small room made out of a simple rock with another door on the other side.
What is the purpose of this? He wondered as he walked the short distance and touched the other door.
That made the door behind him slam down with a loud boom followed by a small tremor spreading out from its impact and initiating an opening of the door in front of him.
As the door slowly lifted up, a green mist started seeping through the widening space under it, making John back away until he hit the closed door behind him with his back. Unable to do anything else, he took a deep breath, crouched down, and pushed himself through the space from where the mist came in.
The air was thick with a noxious mist that obscured his vision, making it difficult to see in the dark room more than a dozen feet ahead. The only sound he could hear was a creaking of rusted metal walkways swaying in the distance.
Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he finally saw the outlines of the vast cavern before him. Dozens of walkways that were currently visible were suspended high above a swirling chasm filled with mist, making it almost impossible to see where it all led. John could feel his heart racing with both excitement and trepidation as he prepared to face the challenge ahead.
Holding his breath became obviously a futile effort, and he slowly breathed out and took a tentative breath in. Feeling his sense of balance slightly impaired and his legs growing unsteady, the effects of the mist became apparent. The mist induced a feeling of drunkenness, turning an already treacherous terrain into a deathtrap.
Walking on a foot-wide swinging walkway while drunk, what a brilliant idea for a test, John chuckled.
As he stepped onto the first walkway, he could feel it swaying beneath his feet. Peering down over its edge into the chasm below, he tried to catch a glimpse of the bottom, but it was impossible to tell how far it truly went. One thing became clear though, falling down was not an option. John steadied his nerves and began to make his way through the course.
As he walked the ever-shrinking circular pattern, the walkways turned out to be arranged in a large spiral, leading him ever closer to the center. His increased poison resistance coupled with higher Vitality kept most of the affliction at bay, but after a few minutes inside, he started to notice the effects getting worse.
Here it comes, John thought as he prepared for the moment the next walkway swung by.
He watched them swing back and forth for the last couple of seconds, trying to time his move correctly, but as they swung close together and he stepped forward, his drunkenness caused him to shift his balance incorrectly.
He stumbled, barely managing to prevent himself from falling as he crossed into the next platform, but the following backswing as it regained motion lurched him off his feet and made him fall over the right side. Twisting his body in the air, he barely grabbed around the end of the platform before it swung away and held with his full strength, desperately hugging the bottom of the walkway close to his chest.
As the swing reached its apex on the other side, he lifted his legs around the top, locking up his ankles and clinging to the surface, making sure not to be thrown off by the other backswing.
Finally, he steadied himself after a couple more swings, panting with the adrenaline rush. He waited for the walkways to swing back towards each other so he could attempt the next crossing. Funnily enough, this complication served well as a way to clear his head, and he was able to move more steadily toward the end.
Only three more and I am done.
Paying close attention, he successfully traversed the remaining distance, climbed a rope ladder hanging from the ceiling, and entered another antechamber.
[Congratulations!
You have successfully completed the fifth test in Lynx's obstacle course.
Your current score: 15 points
23:46:18 remaining]
Feeling the alcohol still coursing through him, he took his first longer break. Pushing the tests seemed like a good idea, but it was becoming obvious the limiting factor for him would be a mistake inside and not the time limit.
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Finding the softest and most overgrown part of the ground there, he laid down and relaxed.
"Ahhh," he groaned as his tense muscles stretched. The constant stress and the noxious environment left his body feeling stiff and tired.
After finishing his stretching exercises, he attempted to open his deck and found the connection was blocked.
Hmm, what about my bastion?
Even though he was expecting the same result, he reached out, trying to form the link between them.
Yep, it's not… wait!
To his astonishment, he could feel… something. The connection was weak, obscured, but definitely not blocked, and as he reached out he felt it respond.
John wasn't exactly sure how long he spent in concentration, but as his headache began to get worse, he decided to stop. During this attempt he was able to pull the destination by roughly one-fifth of the way toward him.
A glance at his knuckles revealed only pristine white skin, making him smile and head to the doors.
It's time to face another test, he thought as he closed in to the one with a brain. Feeling for danger, he found… nothing.
Huh?
Walking to the one with a heart, he could feel a moderate threat. Did it mean the brain posed none? It was possible, and he decided to find out.
After passing through, he stepped into a large room, and his eyes widened in awe at the opulent sight before him. It was adorned with intricate golden carvings and precious jewels that sparkled in the dim light coming from the four large windows around him. At the end of the room was a grand throne perched atop a dais, and seated on it was a massive golden statue of a king.
The room was silent except for the soft echo of John's footsteps on the marble floor, but as he walked further into the room, he couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. The stillness of the room and the frown on the golden statue's face made him pay extra attention to everything around him.
He cautiously approached the throne and looked up at the statue. It was twice as tall as him, and a life-like likeness of an old monarch with a stern expression and a regal bearing. He couldn't help but wonder who the statue was meant to represent and what kind of ruler they had been.
Kneel before your king!
The command hit John like a physical blow, making him take a step back and feel it reverberate through the entire throne room. There was a moment his whole being wanted to submit and fall to its knees, but that alien feeling was immediately crushed and he remained on his feet, standing tall in defiance of the foreign king's will.
Obey… obey… obey… obey!
The words echoed between the white walls, pressing upon the intruder from all sides, but John stood unmoved like a large rock in the middle of a pond.
After a minute, the echoes died down and the room returned back into the previous stillness, however, now John felt none of the previous unease. He withstood the monarch's will and was found worthy to proceed. The statue's expression morphed into one of begrudging respect, and it opened the previously closed fist, revealing a palm-sized translucent gem.
Walking up the dias, John reached up, touched the offered gem, and the whole room bathed in bright golden light. He regained his sight a mere moment later and found himself standing once more in the center of the antechamber.
[Congratulations!
You have successfully completed the sixth test in the Rooms of torment.
Your current score: 21 points
19:36:52 remaining]
"What?" He exclaimed upon seeing the remaining time. "I've spent over four hours trying to open the archway?"
It wasn't actually a problem for him, but he had a feeling of spending only thirty minutes there… maybe an hour at most.
How am I doing? He wondered, after looking at his current score.
John was aware that his overall points would be halved, but even now, he was doing better than everyone who passed the fourth test.
Thinking about the mounting difficulty, he wasn't expecting many people—if any—to pass through the fifth, and even he knew he wouldn't be able to push much further.
His greatest advantage, the D-grade Fate, was strong enough to give an advance warning of the dangers he would face, but even that will soon prove futile.
His current inspection revealed four lethal, one significantly dangerous, and one moderately dangerous door, and going with the least threatening option, he entered into the Crucible of flesh.
As the door opened before him, he stepped into a well-lit room made out of large dark slabs of rock and with a white marble walkway splitting it in half, and dividing it into four square-shaped sectors. As he made his way to the center, he saw that each sector was designed to test a specific aspect of his body.
To his left, the sector had a torch engulfed in bright flames, with intense heat radiating outwards and painting the walls orange. Strangely, none of the heat reached over the boundary of the walkway.
On his right, the sector held a snow globe filled with icy cold mist, spreading frost outwards and covering the walls and floor with a light-blue sheen of a crystalline substance. He could almost feel the chill seeping into his bones just from the casual observation, making him shiver involuntarily.
Ahead of him, the sector was shrouded in unnatural darkness, with only a strange dark ball suspended from the ceiling by a fine black chain like a chandelier, making him wonder what would this part focus on.
Finally, to his back, the sector was overgrown with vegetation and had a large purple flower growing in the middle that was spreading out dark-green fumes and making it shrouded in thick mist.
The only other object of significance was an inactive archway placed directly opposite the door he entered with.
Hmm, this seems fairly straightforward, John thought after finishing the thorough inspection of the entire room. He hadn't figured out what the dark sector contained, but apart from heat and cold, the green one was most likely poisonous. That was something he felt currently most confident in, and he stepped off the walkway and into the soft grass before him.