Arson had never felt as much mana as he did in front of the smaller of the two archways that led into the runic skyscraper.
The air around him felt dense to the point that he felt restricted as he ran up what could have been a thousand steps. He wondered if the gravity in the area would increase as the mana density rose.
Arson felt the effects of not constantly being pumped with mana already. He was tired in a way that he hadn’t been for what felt like to him to be a lifetime ago. He briefly wondered if he could practice the new breathing technique he’d been taught as he ran, but was too tired to concentrate on more than his next step.
When he made it to the top of the stairs, he collapsed, just as a hologram was spit free from his holo-watch. He rolled on his back to see Anastasia. The woman danced above him in the air as she sang to a crowd that did not exist.
“I got me a body, I got me a body, I got me a body,” sang Anastasia.
“How exactly do you have a body?” Arson was glad for the woman, but honestly confused as to what had just occurred.
“It’s the arrays, or formations, not entirely sure how that works. I’m not a magical programmer, what I do know is that I was selected as your chosen avatar for this trial.”
“So not only are you a sparking demon that I can’t get rid of, you are now going to be what, my guide through this entire place?”
“Yes, and you will accept that and be happy or I will make sure this place kills you, fair enough?”
“What… no, not fair, not fair at all,” said Arson.
“Hey PRO, you got any back up AI’s I can use,” hollered Arson before Anastasia began to shush him.
“Alright alright, chill, chill, I’ll be cool I promise,” said Anastasia quickly.
“You promise?”
“Yes, I promise, kiddo,” said Anastasia. Arson tried not to be bothered, but he’d only let his friends and mother call him that. He almost said something he may regret, but thought of the woman’s threat earlier and changed his mind.
“So what is next?” asked Arson. His scowl intensified by the stars that spun in his eyes.
“Follow me,” said Anastasia before she skipped away in excitement. Arson couldn’t help but to once again roll his eyes at the AI’s antics.
He followed at a jog behind Anastasia, for what felt like multiple sport stadium lengths, and realized he wasn’t in the kind of shape he’d once assumed he was.
They closed in on the smaller of the two archways, and Arson was even more shocked by the proportions of the building. It was as they arrived at a large platform just within the archway that Anastasia began to explain.
“So this is where you will enter, as you are a humanoid type being, and don’t fit the monstrous or gigantic form factors required to use the other entrance yet,” said Anastasia.
“Yet, what do you mean, I’d never be as large as a sparking building,” stated Arson.
“It’s not only about size, but also about internal power, your mother and father would have to use the other entryway,” explained Anastasia. Arson nodded with sudden understanding and continued toward the center of the platform. Once there, Anastasia spoke up again.
“So to start you have to choose what path you want to take,” said Anastasia and three etherial doorways made of light opened and the AI pointed toward the first of three.
“The path most favorable,” said Anastasia, With an exaggerated gesture toward the middle doorway.
“The path lost to time?” Then she pointed toward the final doorway with a huge smile.
“OR the least favorable path, the path undiscovered,” finished Anastasia.
Arson took his time and looked at each doorway. Each one had a rune that floated at its center. All were largely different in characteristics.
The first was a lit gold that shimmered in a tribalistic halo of light. An image of the sun. Simple, but it drew Arson’s focus in a way that made it difficult for him to look away.
Then there was the second door. Arson was intrigued by the rune of this door, because of the two pillars made out of diamond that stood parallel to either side of a multi colored portal. Runes inscribed the rune itself which made Arson excited to see what that option held.
When Arson took in the last choice, he felt his decision was made for him immediately. The doorway held an image of a lemniscate formed out of stars, Arson pointed to ask a question, and simultaneously made a choice.
“Hey, isn’t that my mom’s crest?”
“No, it’s your family’s crest. Good choice, kid. Who doesn’t like hard mode!” Anastasia cackled, before she made eye contact with Arson, who glared back at her while light consumed them both.
“Well, aren’t you funny, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
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“Of course I did, trust me, kid. You’ll thank me later, not like we don’t have four whole season cycles to figure this sparking place out!”
“What do you mean four season cycles? Almarine is going to be back in four days,” said Arson who was forced to raise his voice. The lights around them were accompanied by a sound like a turbine engine. As the lights grew in number and color, so grew the sound around them.
“Have you checked the time yet, bucko? Time moves differently here. For every day outside, we got a whole season cycle in here. Bet we haven’t even been gone for a handful of breaths,” screamed Anastasia. Arson looked at his watch and cursed.
Their bodies burst into light as they were taken to a new destination. When they rematerialized, Arson found himself at the back of a large classroom. Students teleported in and out of chairs all around him. Arson didn’t understand what was going on until a prompt popped up, and told him.
“1-0. Understand the circle?” Arson was even more confused. He decided to look around and eventually found a screen at the front of the classroom with what he needed.
“1. What about a circle is powerful when it comes to rune craft, 2. Is it superior to a square or triangle, 3. What does it truly offer comparatively?”
“This your first trial?” asked a voice nearby. Arson turned around to see a young man with his feet up on another desk. He stared at the board intensely, his brown eyes barely visible underneath his long hair.
“Yeah, doesn’t seem so bad though, it’s just about circles right, can’t be all that bad, I kinda love circles, makes me think of donuts,” said Arson.
“Wow, I thought I had crap luck by getting this as my first trial, everyone I’ve asked says if this is your first trial the gods hate you,” said the young man. Arson looked back at the board and realized, the prompt could be a question that needed a very specific answer, and he could end up stuck in the room without that answer.
He looked around and confirmed the room had no exit and then back to the boy and opened his mouth to scream, but forced it down. He needed to focus, not panic.
He tried to look at the board again, then at his watch only to see no time had passed, and real panic seized his heart and he fainted.
“Welcome back, said the young man behind Arson. Arson lifted his head off the desk in front of him, and looked around. In a daze he looked at the board at the front of the class and read the display once more.
“I like circles because they represent all directions at once,” said Arson to himself as joke. His laugh was smothered by the sound of a turbine, and Arson cocked his head to the side in the same moment.
“No way,” said Arson a breath before a light enveloped him and whisked him away.
And so it went. Arson finished room after room until he’d apparently finished what he assumed to be the runic alphabet, which pretty much consisted of circles, squares, and triangles. He learned that a line was only second to a curve in regards to the importance of shaping runes.
He also learned that practically any structure could be made with his basic tool set and began to learn how to construct runes in many different ways.
Some of the scenarios left Arson in a random workshop or school or in places Arson couldn’t have ever imagined in his wildest dreams.
He was shown runes that did the exact same thing in mechanism, but were completely different in structure. Which only opened Arson’s mind in different ways.
Then he came across his first test. He read the prompt and looked at the area in utter suspicion.
“101-0. Gain as many treasures as you can without death, the more open chests, the grander the final reward.”
At least I am getting a reward for this one…
“Be careful, this doesn’t look as simple as the previous trials we have faced,” said Anastasia. Arson nodded, as their relationship had changed drastically. While Arson demanded more and more from the AI, from note denotation and transcribing, Anastasia seemed to play around far less. Which made Arson respect the AI more.
“What do you mean?”
“There are holes throughout the room, and where they are placed gives me trap vibes, I suggest the use of your living hands for this room, hopefully the trial doesn’t make you move any more forward.” Arson nodded, and summoned his three living hands. He’d nearly completed the constructs and had even began to incorporate runes into their direct use.
Instead of the basic hands that had once been made entirely of electrified water, his living hands, now supported all the elements he’d been aligned with. Arson could tell he was on the verge of the abilities completion, and marveled at the now white gold hands that floated around his mid section.
Each hand was inscribed with different runes, and were primarily used for the completion of different tasks. Whereas rune inscription was normally a difficult and rigid operation of magic, Arson’s creations were formed from elements and could be easily changed to fit varying situations. Which meant that instead of the creation of items that could only support one rune, his elemental creations were fluid and changed often.
A metal sword could only be carved into a handful of times before space and the threshold for the materials mana capacity was met. While Arson’s elemental living hands were entirely made of mana which allowed for far more elemental energy to be stored internally within each hand, as well as the instant change of the runic designs through his elemental control.
Arson began with a test. He opened and closed each of the seven treasure chest that could be found in the room and was astonished by the traps that were sprung with each chest he tested.
Acid sprayed in a continual stream over the position in front of the first chest when its lid was open. Electricity could be experienced through the second, with some sort of trapped plate that thrummed with lightning when it was open.
Arson laughed when the flames came out of the chest itself after one of his living hands opened it. The temperature rose in the room, and he was forced to take a step back until his living hand closed the lid of the third chest.
The middle chest shot arrows throughout the entire room, and Arson was forced to dive to the ground until his skill closed the lid. The fifth and sixth chest were already open, and the seventh was closed.
Arson tested as many combinations as he could manage with his three golden constructs. The hands opened and closed chest rapidly, and Arson was saddened to realize, that the two open chest didn’t like to be closed, and held traps of their own.
When he’d closed both simultaneously, a door he hadn’t seen on the other side of the room, closed entirely. Opposed to when they’d been opened, which Arson found out slid the door open slightly after he re opened them.
He tried to have his hands open the chest one after the other, but that didn’t work and normally left the traps of the last two opened chests triggered. He took a deep breath and stepped toward the first two traps, and doubted what he was about to try would work, but hoped he wasn’t about to gain some sort of acid poisoning stack in his overlay.
“Hey now, I know we’ve been playing it a little fast and loose in these trials, buddy, but let’s not overdo it, you’ve been at this for days, and I get it you’re close to this subconscious meditation thing or whatever you want to call it, but we all have limits and I think that you may be punch drunk if you’re about to stand in front of not one, but two, of the chests which tested positive for traps,” said Anastasia. Arson laughed, only because he truly wasn’t tired. Even less so than when he was back home.
He’d practiced the breathing technique taught to him by PRO without end. Only to realize he was now both dependent on the technique completely to draw in mana, and that his body would quickly grow sick and slow without excess mana to draw on.
When he looked at his soul realm, the stat conversion that had once been an endless uptick of power, now increased slowly. Only to grow in conversion speed when he progressed further into the trials.
The higher the trial, the more mana that seemed to be pumped into the environment.
The problem he now faced was the same problem he’d faced since he learned to fold his mind. He couldn’t fold his mind enough times to handle the magics he wanted to achieve in every situation, i.e. being able to summon enough hands to open all five unopened chest in front of him while positioned far enough away to be safe.
“Here goes nothing…”
Arson stretched between the two chests closest to him, and positioned his constructs next to the remaining unopened chests. His heart began to race, and he barely managed to get a grip on the two lids he held while he lifted them.
All chests opened with a synchronized click. Arson smiled as the door on the other side of the room opened completely, and the sound of a turbine roared to life.
“Hurry up and grab the treasure, kid,” yelled Anastasia. Arson barely managed to gather the goods, but did so with moments to spare before he was teleported once again.
Then Arson arrived in his first ever instanced trial. One of many to come. It was after he read the prompt that popped into his vision that he knew his challenges from that point on would be far more difficult.
“Welcome to Aspire, you have been disguised as a delegate from Cloud Lake, stop the assassinations of your fellow delegates. Only use of runes is allowed for this trial. Additionally, you must not be discovered, or your trial will begin anew in another kingdom, in a potentially new time zone,” said Arson to himself. He looked at his watch in an attempt to hear Anastasia’s thoughts, but the watch’s AI was once again disabled for his trial.
“Wish me luck Anastasia,” said Arson to the screensaver of Anastasia that the AI assigned him. He looked through the large open ballroom, and took a deep breath.
“I bet I am going to need it.”