The spider had spawn. I hadn’t noticed them at first. But when I ran, I heard skittering. They were tiny versions of their mother. They followed me, floating on tiny webs floating with green fire. If any of the fire touched me, I was dead.

I dug my fingers into the pouch at my belt and clutched a sphere. A quick glimpse behind me and I saw a large cluster of hungry green flames. I stopped. The spiders advanced relentlessly. My legs trembled with adrenaline and I felt the need to move, but I took aim and pitched the explosive marble at a tree in the center of the swarm.

Blue flames fought green, and the explosion turned into an implosion. A few green lights winked out, but there were more. I bolted. There was only one place that might hold safety now. I navigated by memory, orienting myself by the light on my spear and familiar hills and trees.

I ran until I thought my limbs were about to fall off, but I found it. I scrambled into a tunnel in a rocky hill until I found myself back in a circular chamber.

It was different now. The pedestal held a blue crystal and the room seemed smaller. I slumped to the ground. “Please.”

I could hear phantom skittering even now. Or was that real skittering? Were they coming in? I turned around, eyes fixed on the entrance. I saw nothing, but what if they were lurking right outside, waiting for me to blink? Or maybe a few had slipped inside already?

“They’re coming,” I whispered.

The mana around me was lighter than before, a mist instead of an ocean. There was another change too. Before it had felt almost curious. Now it was cold. Watching. Somehow, I knew there’d be no help on that front. No help, but—

The crystal. I backed away until it was between me and the entrance. It was a mana crystal the size of my head. Incredibly valuable. If I returned it to the camp I might even be able to outright buy my freedom.

If that camp still existed, anyway. The entire place had been burning when I’d left. Maybe the green flames would run out and leave everyone intact. Maybe. I didn’t really think it was likely. The spider demon felt like the air when I got too close to the Hellmouth, and that never did good things to you.

But mana crystals weren’t used as money. They were crystallized power. I just had to Awaken and then I could use it to do magic. The old dream swept over me again. I snatched at the mana crystal. But it felt like something seized me right before I could touch it and threw me away.

I swayed dizzily. Then a chirp sounded next to my ear and my eyes flew open, giving me an excellent view of absolutely nothing. I looked down and saw only a tiny circle of light around my feet, enough to see that I was standing on some sort of leaf.

Looked like the trials had begun. At least I’d prepared. I’d thought of the pitch as more of an emergency fuel source but now it was invaluable. I’d have both a light and a way to torch this underground forest. I groped my way forward until I found a tree, then snapped off a branch. I’d already had flint, steel, and tinder from before my trip to the camp store. I made a small fire, smeared my branch with pitch, and lit it up.

I wasn’t in a forest, I was in a jungle. The ceiling was so high I could almost mistake it for a really, really dark night. Moisture dripped from every leaf I saw, and I saw a lot of leaves. There was a thorny bush that would’ve torn through my robes if I’d gone just a few steps to the left. Roots slithered around the ground and the soil sucked at my boots with every step. Something rustled and I spun around. A bat dangled from a branch, starting at me with yellow eyes. It hissed.

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An exit, I was looking for an exit. The Domain had probably handled the demon spiders already, so now all I had to do was survive in a forest. My torch flickered as water drizzled on it from above, and I yanked it out of the way.

I had a time limit. My chances of finding the exit went down greatly when my torch ran down. I had enough pitch for one more, and then something would probably come up behind me and chomp off pieces.

Accepting trans-universal travel between worlds from dragons was a bad idea. Next time I saw that dragon I was going to fling it into a giant pit full of teeth and see how he liked it.

For now, though, all I could do was go forward. I tried burning a path through the forest at first, but the amount of moisture in the air made that impractical. Small fires were feasible, but anything too big seemed to attract water to it. I had a feeling the soulstone was quenching any fires that might spread too far.

I decided my best bet was to just travel in a straight line. Domains weren’t infinite, or else one would have already taken over the world based on how powerful they were, so if I hugged the walls I could travel around in a spiral until I found the exit.

When I found the edge, I was mostly just confused at how I’d missed the massive vertical stretch of jagged rock. Then I changed my plan. The rock looked natural, like it was part of a very large cliff. I could climb it and see everything.

That plan was aborted when a giant jumping spider leaped down at me. I brought my spear up just in time when I noticed its glow and speared the thing on the end, then flung it away. Right, there would be no climbing for me. Not when spiders lived up there. At least it didn’t seem to have any magic like the demon spider, only size.

My spiral plan still had merit, but only if my torch lasted long enough for me to effectively search the area. Best to get a move on, then. I forced aching limbs into motion, trying for a steady jog but eventually falling into more of a lurching zombie. I bet I looked like a zombie. Blisters had formed all over my feet and the water everywhere was more muggy than moist. The sooner I got out of here the better.

Things hissed and chittered in the jungle. It might have been my imagination, but it seemed like there were more animals here than before. And I met more of them too. Not a minute after I’d started my spiral, some sort of monkey with a spiked tail wrenched my torch out of my grip and scurried away, hooting triumphantly. I looked after gloomily, then sighed and groped around for another branch.

Hours of tired trudging interspersed with seconds of adrenaline-fueled combat later, I found the gap in the wall. I poked my spear in suspiciously, but nothing leaped out. Abandoning caution, I then eagerly squirmed into the crack until I reached the room beyond.

A blue glow surrounded everything, allowing me to see without the torch. Which was good, because I was no longer surrounded by vegetation drenched in moisture and the smoke could actually be a problem in this small room. I stepped on my makeshift torch to extinguish it and slid it into my pack, then stepped fully into the chamber.

There was an archway in front of me with another large mana crystal set above it. When I stared at the crystal, I felt something there, something—

Continue?

Hell no. I turned on my heel and marched away. The way back was surrounded by another archway with another gem above it. I stared at that for a second.

Leave?

Along with the idea of leaving, I got the impression of a hand touching a gem attached to it. Yep, that’s what I wanted. I reached for the gem, but hesitated.

I’d completed a trial. Was I Awakened now? The first stage was supposed to just make me stronger and faster and more durable than normal. Now that I thought about it, I probably would have just collapsed if I’d gone through the jungle on Earth. But maybe the fact that I hadn’t was just the result of exercise.

Hm. I swung my fist into the wall, then screamed and clutched my hand. On second thought, that had been a terrible idea. I reached up to the gem with my good hand and left.