After Dylan’s mana had recovered, he stood up and looked around the room.

While most of the group seemed about ready to move on, Alice was still meditating. It was a little hard to tell with the dried blood in the way, but from what Dylan could see, her wounds looked significantly better.

The advantages of resilience.

Unless the damage was extreme or perpetuated by some kind of persistent effect, most injuries could be fixed with a few hours of meditation. In more serious cases, it was rare for recovery to take longer than a day. Anything lasting beyond that usually required seeking care from a specialist class of some kind.

Of course, Alice had only been resting for about thirty minutes, but the damage she’d taken wasn’t too bad for someone with a normal resilience stat to handle. The group would have to move on before she fully recovered, but by then, she should be well enough to function normally. And even after getting up, her resilience should continue to slowly drain in order to expedite the healing process.

As long as she wasn’t on the front line of the next fight, she should be fine.

Seeing that everyone was trying to give the Blacksmith as long as possible to recover, Dylan decided to look around the room to see if there were any suitable materials for card creation.

He had his sights set on the shaman and the altar, but chose to start examining the room from where he was by the chasm. There wasn’t much to look at. Mostly rocks and spider guts. Rocks he could get anywhere, and it seemed wasteful to use a Blank Card on what were essentially small pieces of a minion.

Next, he looked at the torches lining the walls. The fires they’d held had been interesting, and even if Dylan didn’t have the mental framework he felt he’d need to make them into a good card, he still wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately, they’d all been used in the shaman’s final attack. And without their flames, what remained of the torches looked like simple iron fastened to the walls. There might be something special about them, but with his limited supply of Blank Cards, Dylan didn’t want to gamble.

When he finally made it to the altar, he was once again disappointed. Although he still wasn’t proficient in making creatures, he would have been willing to try with the shaman. Unfortunately, its body was gone. In its place was a lizard shaped pit burned into the dais. It looked like the creature had melted after it’d died in the same way that it had melted the webs.

The altar itself was full of cracks. One touch and it looked like it might crumble. Dylan suspected the obsidian table had been connected to the shaman’s shield, but wondered how much value it now held in its broken state. Still, without many other options, the material may be useful for something.

Dylan reached down to pick up a shard of obsidian that had fragmented from the center of the altar and put it in his pocket. Partly because he wasn’t sure about how much time he’d have before the party moved on and partly because he wanted to see his other material options before committing a Blank Card, he wasn’t planning on making anything until the group reached the end of the section. And just in case he couldn’t wander back to this room during the rest period, he wanted to at least carry a few material options with him.

He also picked up one of the bowls of incense that he’d seen sitting on the altar. Unlike everything else he’d found, it was intact. Presumably knocked to the ground when the shaman had crashed into the altar, the bowl had rolled down the steps to the back side of the dais and come to a stop against the wall. It was still lined with a greyish-green powder that Dylan assumed had been burning during the fight.

Unlike the shard of obsidian, the bowl was too big for his pockets, but since it was only slightly larger than the palm of his hand, it was easy enough to carry. He could always put it down if there was a fight.

A few minutes later, Chester woke Alice and said, “I think we should go now.”

The Blacksmith nodded. She stood up and stretched her muscles, wincing with a bit of pain, but after practicing some simple movements, she adjusted to her discomfort. “Ready,” she said.

It didn’t take long for the group to find themselves moving down another earthen passage. This time, there were no webs.

Maybe we’ve left the spiders behind, Dylan hoped, but he knew they probably hadn’t.

Five minutes later, there was a fork in the path. Chester scouted ahead and came back with a weird expression. “Challenge doors in both directions.”

“Which one is fourth and which one is fifth?” Dylan asked.

“No clue.”

“Let’s take a closer look at each room,” Sara said. “If they’re both identical, it’s probably just a matter of the order we choose to challenge. First will be fourth and the second will be fifth.”

After everyone agreed, the group examined each room in detail, but they couldn’t find any differences. Each was the same semicircular room with five doors lining the one straight wall. Each had the same set of lit braziers hanging from the ceiling. The only difference was their orientation from the fork in the passage.

“I think we just have to pick one and go with it,” Jaiden said.

“So, who’s first?” Rowan looked over at Alice and Sara.

The girls exchanged a glance, and then Alice stepped forward. “I’ll go.”

“You sure you’re ready?” Chester asked. “If you go second, you’ll have more time to recover.”

“I’m sure.” The Blacksmith walked forward, moving into one of the rooms. “It’s not like I’m the one who’ll be fighting when I’m taking the trial. And my injuries aren’t serious enough to slow me down too much.” She paused as she reached her door. “Besides, if I go first, then I can help defend for the last challenge. Everyone knows that one will have five monster channels.”

Once the rest of the group had followed Alice into the room, Chester asked, “Everyone ready?” Seeing no objections, he turned back to Alice and said, “You can start.”

The Blacksmith reached out for the glowing hammer and anvil etched into the door in front of her and the trial began. The door shifted to the center of the wall; the symbol dimmed. Learning from the transformation when Mark had challenged his door, Dylan closed his eyes in time to avoid the blinding flash of light. When he opened them again, he saw the flowing walls reshape the room around him.

Once revealed, the trial space was mostly occupied by a forge. At its heart was a stone table holding the broken pieces of a sword. It was easy enough to guess what the trial would be.

[Blacksmith’s Trial has begun.]

[Defend the Blacksmith as she completes her task.]

The walls melted and four passages appeared.

“As expected,” said Sara, “the first room we chose was counted as the fourth set of challenge doors.”

The group took similar positions to those they'd had in Mark’s trial.

Dylan and Jaiden stayed near the dividing line between the trial space and the combat zone. Chester and Rowan each stood between two of the new channels. And Dena raised her violin in the center of everyone else.

In the moments before the monsters appeared, Dylan placed the bowl of incense he’d been carrying on the ground and asked, “What’s the task?”

“Reforge the sword, and then slot it into that hole in the wall,” Alice pointed to a thin slit to the back of the trial space.

“How long will that take?”

“Don’t know,” she shrugged. “But the System did mention that time will be sped up on that side, so with the addition of my class skills, I hopefully won’t keep you guys waiting too long.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Good luck,” Dylan said.

Alice nodded back and stepped into the forge.

Not long after, the first monsters came.

Like during the Herbalist’s trial, they started as the weakest spiders, but unlike with Mark, more advanced versions followed quickly after.

Despite the increased numbers and variety of the monsters, the group held out well for the first ten minutes. It wasn’t until the appearance of lizard archers that things became more difficult and Dylan decided to summon his deck.

His opening hand had a pair of Mana Spikes, which he used to ease the pressure, and a few turns later, he summoned a Phantom Soldier to help block one of the passages. After that, he began to try to play conservatively.

He didn’t know how long the trial would take and was worried about what state his cards would be in by the time it was Sara’s turn to challenge her door. He didn’t think he’d have the opportunity to restore his deck and, at some point, would probably have to reshuffle.

When he drew Lunadera’s Bloom, he began to come up with a plan.

He wanted to try his best to finish this trial without reshuffling. If he could, he would hold on to both of the cards that restored mana, Lunadera’s Bloom’s and Mana Surge, as well as a couple of energy cards. When Sara’s trial began, he would quickly use his cards to regain as much mana as possible, and then, when he reshuffled, he would be better able to support the deck’s increased maintenance cost.

The only problem would be if this fight took long enough and got desperate enough for him to need to reshuffle before it was over. If that happened, he didn’t know what he would do for Sara’s trial. The increased summoning cost of his deck would exceed his maximum mana, and he wouldn’t be able to call it.

Dylan focused on the fight in front of him and prayed for a quick battle.

At one point during a lull in the defense, Dylan stretched his neck and saw Alice moving out the corner of his eye. She was whizzing around the forge too fast for Dylan to tell exactly how much the System had sped up time in the trial area.

It made Dylan’s mind itchy, but it also made him want to try something. He stepped into the forge and watched as the battle slowed to a crawl. It sounded stupid when he thought about it, but he wanted to try and feel whatever the System was doing to accelerate time. He wanted to increase the pool of experiences he had to draw on when making cards, but there was nothing.

He knew time was moving faster because he could see the slow-motion battle, but he didn’t feel anything different. He tried to calm himself and focus on the mana around him, but he only found the dissonant hum the System used to disrupt meditation during the trial.

Pulling his mind away before he got a headache, Dylan didn’t want to give up his exploration. Instead, after he generated energy at the start of a new turn, he took a deep breath and stepped forward, straddling the line between trial area and combat zone.

He didn’t know if it would work or what would happen if it did, but it was the only thing he could think of that might let him feel what the System was doing.

At first, he was a little dizzy. A fog seemed to separate him from the rest of the world. While still in slow motion, the battle seemed to speed up a bit. It was as if the System was splitting the difference between the part of him standing in the forge and the part of him that had just stepped out of it.

There has to be more to it than that, Dylan thought, once again calming his mind to focus on the mana around him. And once again, he found only the hum.

It wasn’t until his mind split at the beginning of a new turn that things changed.

Pain wracked his head. Usually, each new turn gave him a heightened version of the sensation of thinking about two things at once, but this time, it was as if his mind had become a physical entity only to be torn in two.

He almost collapsed to the floor and felt blood gush from his nose.

Turns slipped past him as he lost himself to agony. Pain repeatedly tore his mind apart until he became numb.

He began to feel as if there were two of him. One was normal and the other fast. Or one was slow and the other normal.

Maybe he was three. One stood in the middle, straddling the divide between speed and stagnation.

Another turn starting sent a sharp ache to his brain and a rush of pleasure through his nerves.

Wwhhyy……aamm……II?

Why…am…I…thinking…that…way?

Why am I thinking that way? I’m not a masochist.

The same question crossed his mind in three different directions, and he had the uncomfortable sensation of racing past his ideas while still formulating the words that made them. When he was done, his dragging thoughts caught up like an echo.

He realized he was experiencing time at three different speeds simultaneously. The normal time of the combat zone, the slightly accelerated dividing line, and the fully accelerated trial space.

He was tempted to activate Lunadera’s Bloom to see what would happen if different parts of its field passed time at different rates, but he stopped himself from wasting the card for an experiment.

When a wave of tearing pain sent an unnerving ring of ecstasy across his mind, another trio of identical ideas echoed through him.

Ccaann’tt……ssttaayy.

Can’t…stay…here.

Can’t stay here. Wasting too much time.

Dylan stepped forward on unsteady feet and coughed blood onto the floor.

Alarmed, Sara came over to help stabilize him before he fell.

“You okay?” she asked.

Dylan tried to answer but only coughed again. After a moment, he finally let out a shaky, “Yeah.” He spit out another mouthful of blood. “I’m fine.”

He took a few moments to calm his breathing before refocusing his attention on the battle. Despite how his subjective experience of time told him otherwise, it had barely been a minute since he’d first stepped into the forge area. Longer than he’d been planning, but not long enough to cause problems at this stage of the fight.

They probably just think I have another bad hand, Dylan thought with guilt.

As he rejoined the fight, he checked his resources.

His delay hadn’t caused him to waste any cards, but he did lose mana. Enough that when he drew Mana Surge, he gave up the idea of saving it and activated the card directly. He’d need it to support his deck.

When Dylan noticed armored spiders begin to appear, the battle got more heated. He contributed as best he could, but this time, he really did get a string of bad luck. He drew nothing but energy cards for two turns in a row. Cursing when he drew a third, he kicked at the ground in frustration, only for his boot to slide across his own blood.

He paused for a moment at the reminder of the accelerated time behind him. Feeling the sensation it brought and using it to inspire his card creation wasn’t the only way it could be useful…

Dylan quickly stepped back into the forge and watched the battle slow down once more. He waited for a new turn, drew a Phantom Soldier, and smiled. When he stepped back across the line, mere seconds had passed in the battle. He played the card and the phantom rushed to block one of the channels.

For the rest of the fight, Dylan was mindful about when to move in and out of the forge area. While the battle was going well, he stayed in the combat zone. If the rest of the group needed more support than he could give, he would step back into the forge to accelerate his turns. He was burning through the deck faster than he would have preferred, but this way, it was rare for him to waste time waiting for a useful draw.

Realizing what he was doing, Jaiden was quick to move back into the forge as well. Unlike Dylan, she stayed there for the rest of the battle. At first, she had a little trouble managing how often she attacked with her own mana regeneration, but it didn’t take long for her to find the right balance.

Dylan fell into the rhythm of battle and lost focus on everything else.

It wasn’t until he drew the last card from his deck that he began to worry. All he had left was his hand. Four cards.

Lunadera’s Bloom, Draw, Basic Energy, and Immobilize.

He was considering whether or not to prepare to reshuffle when he saw Alice zip away from the forge with a completed sword in her hands. She ran and sheathed the blade in the slit she’d pointed out in the wall at the beginning of the trial.

There was a clicking sound, and the sword turned on its own. Like a key in a lock. Then a pale light washed over the room.

The living monsters fled back down their passages.

The trial was over.

[Congratulations on finishing the Blacksmith’s Trial.]

[As a reward, you will be given 1 copy of Card: Duplicate Card.]

Dylan let out a sigh of relief and let his deck dissipate. He’d barely escaped needing to reshuffle.

He took a moment to catch his breath before checking his card catalog for the reward. He found a new card with the images of two parallel cards burned into its surface. The first had the symbol seen on Basic Energy and the second showed a partial etching of the same. Like the card was in the process of being copied.

[Name: Duplicate Card]

[Type: N/A]

[Summoning Cost: N/A]

[Activation Cost: N/A]

[Effect: Touch this card to any other card in the Card Catalog to permanently create a duplicate of that card. This card will be consumed once duplication is complete.]

Nice.

Dylan put the card back in the book, deciding to wait to use it until after the dungeon was finished. He didn’t know what other cards he might make or receive as a reward, and wanted to see all of his options before choosing one to duplicate.

When he looked up, he saw Alice walking over holding the sword she’d reforged. She'd apparently just pulled it from the wall and wasn’t watching where she was going. Instead, she beamed at the blade.

“You know that’s gonna disappear at the end of the section right?” Dylan asked.

“It’s not,” Alice stroked the weapon. “This is the reward the System gave me after finishing the trial.” She smiled. “My first work as a Blacksmith, and I get to keep it.”

Dylan raised his eyebrow and said, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

It was then that Dylan noticed that she’d just been moving at a normal speed again, despite walking through the forge area. Time was no longer accelerated.

Dylan moved to stand once more on the dividing line and tried to find the feeling he’d had during the trial. There was nothing; it was truly gone. Despite how painful it’d been, he’d wanted to try to experience it again when he wasn’t under the pressures of battle. He'd wanted one more chance to see if he could get a firmer grasp on the sensation. But there was nothing he could do.

He walked around the forge, but he couldn’t find anything that he’d consider abnormal in the room. Dylan sighed in disappointment. The effect was probably something caused purely by the System rather than by some object he might be able to use as a material.

Still, he hoped the experience of straddling different streams of time would be useful in the future. He didn’t know what kind of material to pair that sensation with, but it wasn’t a loss to have felt it.

Putting the matter out of his mind, he sat down to meditate.

There was still one more trial left.