Despite being surrounded by trees, the deeper we went into the forest the colder the air became, and the harsher the winds.

‘He said (I) was going to be hunting monsters… He changed it from us, does that mean he’s going to leave me here?’

Suddenly the horse stopped, we had spent well over an hour riding, not only that but the forest had no clear path. I may have been good with directions, but I was still nervous about getting lost if we ended up separated.

“Here, this is where you will be tested.”

He got off the horse and leaned over a ridge that I couldn’t quite see the other side of. ‘Here? But there aren't even any monsters?’

He grabbed me off the horse with one hand, holding me the way a mother lion would grab a cub. “If you make it back to the castle alive you pass.”

My blood ran cold. The next thing I knew I was falling, sliding down a rocky wall into a deep pit. It was so sudden I didn’t have time to focus my magic or properly brace myself.

The cold jagged stones puled up the hem of my shirt, cutting into my back as I tried to make sense of what was happening.

Finally, my feet hit the ground. I quickly took several steps forward to keep my balance. The new scrapes on my back and legs stung, but the adrenaline numbed the pain. My fighting instinct had taken over, and the only thing on my mind was what I needed to do next.

‘This pit is deep, no easy way out, and if I’m right… I won’t be alone…’ I looked up at my father, only seeing his back as he got on the horse and rode away. The hooves pounding slowly becoming overshadowed by the growling of wolves.

‘Wolves… Ok… Normal wolves… That’s not so bad…’ The growling soon separated, coming from several distinct areas as the wolves broke up and surrounded me, starting to circle and wait for the perfect time to pounce.

‘I need to become tougher. As hard as iron, no… as hard as steel.’ My skin hardened until my body felt like solid rock, my bones became like steel and my skin like iron. ‘More… More.’ My breath quickened as more adrenaline pumped through me, and my skin became harder still until it started to become difficult to move.

The instinct to survive pushed me until I felt invincible. Of course, whether or not I was, I knew I was soon going to find out.

‘Who am I kidding, normal wolves are bad too!’

One of the wolves jumped at me going for my neck. I raised my arm, blocking its teeth. Even as hard as my skin felt to me, the wolf's teeth sank into it all the same. I wasn’t invincible. ‘I should have known it wouldn't be that easy!’

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I cried out in pain as its jaws clamped down and tugged at my arm. The second bit into one of my legs pulling it in the opposite direction, and the third clamped down on my other thigh. I felt like I was being torn to pieces, but somehow my body was being held strong.

I froze time giving myself a moment to think, but the pain remained, ever-present in my mind. ‘What's the best way of getting them off me…’

The wolves were each nearly as large as I was, physically overpowering them didn’t seem like a real option. ‘Magic then. What magic could I possibly use to get out of this?’

My options were limited, but there was still one spell I had cast that came to mind. When I forced ice to explode all around me. It may have been a double-edged sword, sometimes hurting me as well, but the jagged spikes certainly seemed lethal enough to be good in a fight.

I focused on those feelings, and the manna welling up inside me, then I resumed. Having spent so much time building up the emotion behind the spell, I was able to cast it nearly instantly. Ice exploded in random directions from the ground beneath me. Erupting with a surge of energy flooding out from my body, leaving me feeling empty and cold.

Jagged spikes covered the area some piercing the wolves, some penetrating my own flesh, and others winding around the pit like a death trap.

My whole body began to feel tired and heavy, but I wasn’t bleeding from manna loss, so I took it as a win.

Two of the wolves let go, backing away, the third staying limp, skewered in the air like a kabob. ‘I only managed to kill one of them…’

I tried to move back as well to gain distance, but the same spike that had killed the wolf in front of me had pierced through my leg as well, sticking me in place.

It hurt and stung with a burning chill, but that same spike had killed the wolf that was gnawing on me like a bone, so it was hard to be upset at the outcome.

‘I just need to breathe, I can get rid of the ice…’

As I looked down at my hand everything started to get a little blurry. ‘No, using any more magic isn’t a good idea.’

I calmed down, having to consciously force myself to keep breathing. leveraging my weight, I broke the ice with a scream of pain and began walking to the other side of the pit.

The walls were too smooth to climb and far too straight to be natural. ‘This pit was man-made…’ Continuing to scan my surroundings, I backed into the far corner, away from the wolves. Thankfully, they seemed to have given up for the time being.

They pawed at the wall, trying to climb out but failing. ‘It's too slick for them, but the holds over there don't look too bad.’

One was always watching me, never taking its eyes away, never blinking, it made it hard to relax. ‘I need to try and rest and recover my manna. Since there isn’t any food healing my wounds would cause more harm than good…’

I looked at a few of the bite marks on my skin and the scrapes from when I was first thrown in. ‘It doesn't seem that bad at least… I need to get out of here fast though, before the wolves start to starve. If that happens before my manna recovers I’m screwed.’

I hugged my knees to my chest, ‘Just… Stay calm… And rest… I’m fine…’ After a while, I managed to at least get the adrenaline to stop coursing through me, but it was hard to rest with a predator's eyes watching my every move.

In the end, a full day and night came and went like a bad dream, my body was never able to fully fall asleep, constantly put on edge by the wolf's daunting gaze. No matter how much I tried, I never managed to actually calm the anxiety building up inside of me.

As the sun finally rose, the wolves became more aggressive, wanting something to eat.

I took a deep breath and stood up. My hands and feet were red from the cold, making me even more unsure of my footing. ‘I might feel terrible, but at least I have enough energy to use some magic again… Now I just need to figure out the best way to take care of this.

They approached slowly but quickly backtracked as I stood up. ‘Two will be a lot easier to handle than three.’

I let out a sigh. “Yeah… Thats right. You saw what happened last time, didn’t you? Let's see what you got…” My voice was a bit shaky as I tried to convince myself I was the stronger of the two sides, pretending to sound tough to light my brain into thinking I would be fine.

It didn’t work, my nerves being put on edge more than ever before I started to become so anxious I started to shake. Still, I knew It was at least possible for me to win, and I had a rough idea of how so all that was left was the execution.

‘Let’s fight.’