The scenery of the forest remained as it had been before. Green and beautiful, but Dalian now knew it was a facade. In such a short amount of time, he had already had two near death experiences. He listened to all of his senses with the delicate care that a mother would give her child.

He steadily advanced, unsure of how far he still had to go. The distance wasn’t as large as it seemed, but he felt that his initial estimate might have been too short, if his competition really had such a leg up on him from being strengthened by qi all their life. So, even though it meant that he would be less ready to face sudden dangers, he sped up.

So, several hours passed like that, with nothing special happening. The sun had travelled to the centre of the sky, and the forest still looked the same. Dalian took a swig from his water jug, when he suddenly felt a strong sense of danger, and leaped backwards. Where he previously was, a small green humanoid figure had appeared, slashing a short blade down.

Saliva dropped from its mouth and it snarled at him. It’s head seemed to be deformed, with craters dotted throughout. It wore grimy rags which looked like they might have once been quality white robes.

Dalian wondered how the creature had gotten so close to him. Usually he would’ve noticed long before he could be sneak attacked. Perhaps he hadn’t yet recovered. He thought of the qi pills, but chose to look around for any other enemies.

Not seeing any, he felt he had good chances at defeating the monster.

It charged at him. Dalian let it get close and, as it was pulling back its arm to chop his torso, he stepped to the side. The creature fell to the floor as it lost its balance.

Without missing a beat, Dalian stomped on its arm and took the weapon from it. Then in one motion he slashed its neck half open, splattering blood all over himself. He struggled for a moment to pull the short sword out again before attacking again and decapitating it.

Suddenly, a bestial cry rang out, and another creature charged at him, with a sword in its hand as well. It was bigger, and when it got closer, it stopped and held its blade out in front of it.

Coating the rusty metal was a layer of snotty green liquid. Dalian raised his own weapon, ready to fight. He didn’t know what the coating was, but he didn’t want it to get in any wounds. The creature was intelligent enough to use a weapon, so he assumed it was smart enough to use poison.

They both stepped forward and slashed their swords. Dalian aimed at the creature's weapon, but at the last second, it changed the trajectory of its attack. Without any challenge, Dalian cleaved its head off in one go. However, with its final attack, the monster sliced his thigh wide open, covering it in the green muck.

Dalian cursed to himself. He looked around for any other enemies. Not seeing any, he sprinted off in a random direction. It only took a few seconds for a burning pain to come from his leg. It felt as if somebody had lit his leg on fire.

He stifled a moan, not wanting to reveal his position any further than the trail of blood already had. The pain continued and after he had run for a minute, he stopped and pulled out his jug of water.

He braced himself and poured the liquid onto his leg, at the same time rubbing away the green poison as best he could. Quickly, he ran out of water. The pain was still there, and it felt like it had even worsened.

He decided to keep pushing onward to find some kind of water source to fully clean it out. However, when he tried to move again, he was stuck. His leg wouldn’t respond to his urging. He collapsed to the floor.

He desperately pleaded with his body to get back up, but even his other leg was also unresponsive.

He thought of the pills, maybe they could overcome the poison?

It was no use, his whole body was completely paralysed. The only thing he could feel was the torturous pain coming from his leg.

Sleep came quickly, his final thought that the forest had way too much poison in it.

—

Dalian awoke groggily with a blaring headache. It was dark all around him with only a single torch keeping everything alight. He was inside somewhere, laying against a hard cold wall.

As his consciousness recovered, he looked around and saw several other sect candidates in similar positions to him. They were in some kind of cave. A few green creatures stood guard over them with spears longer than their bodies.

One of his fellow test participants suddenly cried out. “Please don’t hurt me! Please!”

Everything was silent for a moment. One of the guards started walking over. It stood over the boy, glaring ominously into his eyes. It then garbled something. The other guard seemed to reply. Hearing this, the creature smiled and then stabbed its spear through the boy’s hand.

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A loud scream echoed through the cave, as everyone else flinched in response except from Dalian. “Please stop!”

The creature garbled something again, then raised its spear to attack. The boy suddenly grew very quiet, not wanting to encourage any other attacks. After that, the creature lowered its arms and walked back to its original post.

There were three guards in total, all blocking the only exit. Surprisingly, none of them were shackled or anything of the like. However, Dalian still felt extremely weak. Ignoring the massive headache, just shuffling about slightly sent great pains through his body, stemming from the wound on his leg that had been badly bandaged.

His only possible allies in this situation were three other youths, each of them in bad shape. With great difficulty, he began inching towards the boy close to him. After every movement, he stealthily looked at the guards to see if they noticed him, but none of them seemed as if they were paying much attention.

After a few minutes, he had made his way to only a metre away from the boy.

Dalian cleared his throat to try and get his attention, but the boy was in some kind of dissociative state and didn’t make any movements. Without any response, he reached his arm and tapped him on the shoulder. Still nothing. So he shook him.

Finally, he slowly turned to him. His breathing was ragged, and his eyelids were drooping, even his complexion looked pallid.

“Were you poisoned?” Dalian whispered.

He looked as if he was trying to open her mouth, but his lips only quivered. He shook his head.

“Can you speak?”

He shook his head again.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

Another shake of his head.

“Can you move?”

He didn’t move his head this time, instead bringing his arms up and shifting his position.

“Okay, I don’t know why they captured us, but it can’t be for anything good. We need to escape somehow.” Dalian reached into his pocket, and carefully pulled a qi gathering pill out. He held it up. “Do you know what this is?” He asked.

His eyes widened, and he nodded. A pang of energy shot up Dalian’s spine. That response seemed good for his plan.

“Can it fight the poison?”

He nodded vigorously. Relief came to Dalian, and for the first time since he had arrived at the sect, he smiled slightly.

“I’m going to give a pill to everyone. Don’t take it yet. Wait for my signal, and we will all act together. We need to wait for the right opportunity.”

He placed the pill in his hand and began shuffling over to the next person. After a half hour, he had succeeded in briefing the other two boys.

Both had been poisoned, and both were in much worse shape than him. The boy who had cried out was the first person to be captured. He had come shortly after the test had begun, and had been there for hours. The other boy had come just before him.

They were both poisoned, and only the first boy could speak, although he didn’t dare to after his punishment. Dalian had compared their symptoms, and found his to be much better. He wondered if it was because of the anti toxin he had taken. It must’ve stayed in his system somewhat.

The guards didn’t seem to be paying attention, but they were still facing the prisoners. Dalian assumed the only reason they didn’t stop him from moving around was because they didn’t care. So, he got a reasonable distance away from them, and sat in a comfortable position.

Time passed by slowly, with only the thrumming headache keeping him company. He counted his pills to pass the time. Twenty two in total. After doing that ten times he got bored and started counting the rocks on the floor. Eighty three. Then, he began counting the cracks in the wall. Three hundred. Finally, he settled on just looking at the creatures, analysing their movements and body language.

Occasionally they garbled to one another, but for the most part, they just stood there blankly.

Two hours passed like that, with nothing happening. Dalian was just wondering why not all the creatures' weapons had poison when he heard footsteps coming from further down the cave. He sat up at attention. He retrieved a pill and held it in his hand. Several creatures dressed in better garbs than the guards entered the room. The one at the front of all of them held a wooden staff, and garbled loudly.

Dalian wondered whether they should’ve taken their chance when it was only the guards, but he didn’t worry about it. None of the newcomers had weapons, so clearly they didn’t think any of them were a threat. Perhaps they would take them past many potential enemies they would have otherwise had to fight.

The leading creature walked over to the boy who had arrived first and picked up his hand, looking at the stab wound. Its face contorted and it garbled angrily. The creature which had stabbed him lowered its head and went down on one knee and garbled in response.

Finally, the leader shook its head and all the other creatures went over to each of the prisoners and pulled them up by their arms. Dalian saw them nervously looking at him, as if asking whether they should take the pills now. He shook his head very lightly, so that the wardens didn’t notice.

They began to be pulled along through the cave, going past many other guards at first. Then they were brought to some kind of living area, in a large expansive space. Many creatures of all different ages and gender wandered about, but as soon as they saw the boys, they all began to grow excited and started causing a commotion. In the distance, Dalian could see the cave continued further, likely out to the surface.

Unfortunately, they weren’t being taken there. Instead they were led directly into the centre of a plaza, and arranged to stand at the four points of a square. In the middle of them was an altar, holding an orb, about the size of a hand. As soon as Dalian saw it, his heart began to beat like a drum.

He felt drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. If he didn’t stop himself with a great effort, he would’ve started walking over to it. Somehow, as soon as he took notice of it, he felt an invisible force manifesting itself around him, nudging his back to push him towards it. The only other time he had ever felt like this, was when the sect disciple had come to his village.

Back then, he had followed the feeling, and been invited to apply for the sect. That had been perhaps the greatest stroke of fortune of his life, so he knew, no matter what, he had to leave with the orb.