Dumb silence fell upon Kel and his comrades as they gawked at the gate before them for what felt like hours until Tae finally spoke.

“The boy… He won’t survive…” Tae’s voice was filled with more shock than concern.

“Even your uncle, once his generation’s heir to your sect, succumbed to the harsh trials of this dungeon…”

“It would be unthinkable for us to enter the dungeon at our level, but the boy…” Den mumbled.

“Only Kel, who has received a lifetime of training in the Fire Turtle Art from the current sect leader, could possibly survive this trial.” Another man added.

The five attendants mumbled mournfully over what they’d just witnessed, no thought of entering the dungeon themselves even crossing their mind. Eventually, they turned to Kel, wondering what he would have to say.

“My friends…” He began, addressing them without his usual formal tone.

“You have served my family well since before I can recall, and you have helped me every step of the way until here.”

“You waste such words on-” Tae interjected, but she was cut off.

“No, I must thank you.” Kel asserted with a more assertive tone, though his eyes remained warm.

“I was blessed by the teachings of my grandfather, who prepared me for this day, but I was equally blessed to have been in your care for so long. That is why I must proudly pass through this trial and prove to you all, to the sect, to myself, that I am worthy of those blessings.”

Kel suddenly grinned, confusing his friends.

“That boy just got a head start on me, that’s all. I have a feeling he’ll make it out in one piece.” Kel concluded, before he too hopped through the glowing green portal after Micro, despite the worried voices behind him.

~

Micro was confused when he passed through the strange doorway. He expected to see more rocks and dirt, but he was now in a large room made of giant, stone bricks, decorated with statues of creatures similar to but not exactly like the turtles he’d seen before. As his foot hit the ground for the first time, he looked behind him to see the same glowing portal shrink to the size of a mosquito before disappearing completely.

It was then that he noticed a crushing pressure all around him, similar to the discomfort he’d felt around Kel and the others before he learned how to coat himself with his own aura, but a hundred times worse. At first he panicked, running back to where the portal had been, but he crashed into the stone wall and fell to the ground.

Then he remembered what Kel had taught him. He closed his eyes, struggling to concentrate at first due to the pressure, and eventually found himself looking at his core.

“That’s a bit like a valve, if I just loosen that and…” he mumbled to himself while running his hands along the seams of the core, molding it slightly here and there to increase the flow on one side and decrease it on another. After a little while, the energy flowing out of his core and finding its way to the surface of his skin had increased drastically, and he could finally breathe easily.

He awoke in the dungeon and quickly picked himself up off the floor. He knocked on the wall, wondering if Kel and the others might be behind it, but found it to be nothing but rock.

“I guess the exit is somewhere else.” Micro sighed, then turned around.

“Okay, let’s find that card and get moving.”

He wandered around the stone room for a moment, taking in the arched ceiling, and looking around at the floor in search of any core cards. After walking to the end of the room, he came to a stone stairway that led up to another room, at the centre of which was a single statue of a turtle, comparable in size to the house attached to his garage. Beneath the turtle's massive head was a stone altar, the sight of which raised some unpleasant memories in Micro.

He approached the altar, hoping the card might be there, but he was disappointed. As he thought of where the card might be hidden, he recalled the friends he’d left behind in the cave mentioning how dangerous dungeons were. However, he didn’t see anything dangerous in the cave at all, beyond the pressure he had felt when he first arrived. In fact, it seemed even safer than the cave in many ways. The floor was even, the walls were sturdy, there were no monsters, and it was fairly well lit.

“You stupid human!” Blue suddenly burst out of his pocket, nearly knocking his core cards on the floor in the process.

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“I take a quick nap and suddenly I’m in a dungeon!?”

“Oh, sorry.” Micro said as he looked around.

“I’m looking for a core card, but I’m not sure what’s going on in here…”

“This is such a new low for me…” Blue cried.

“Dragged into a dungeon by a broken human… most of my power gone… surrounded by that ancient pain in the neck’s aura…”

“Can you see a way out of here? I think there might not be a card here after all.”

“This stupid…” Blue fumed.

“Fine! Let me see!”

She hopped on his shoulder as he looked around the altar, then sat down with the most annoyed expression Micro had ever seen on a face.

“Well, we’re definitely in a dungeon.” She explained spitefully.

“It’s a completely different realm to the one we’re supposed to be in!”

“A different realm?”

“It’s another world, basically.” She rolled her eyes.

“Cultivators do this all the time, trapping us in these wretched realms between realms, locking us away somewhere…”

“That’s not nice…”

“It means we need a key more than we need a door, and that big monster is the only thing in here with any lifeforce in it, so go ask it nicely to let us out of here before I come up there and-”

“Hello!” Micro shouted at the giant statue.

“Are you a real turtle?”

Micro ignored Blue’s increasingly energetic complaints and awaited a reply from the statue. At first, he wondered if the statue was really capable of answering, but after staring at it until his feet started to ache, he noticed that it did feel less like a statue and more like a sleeping giant. Its eyes glowed so faintly that he hadn’t noticed at first, but as the minutes turned to hours, he became increasingly unsure they could see him.

He walked around the room once, looking at the big stone slabs that made up the intimidating walls of the dungeon, not a single one of which he was confident he could ever carry. As his feet ached more and more, he eventually came to sit on the altar in front of the great turtle, and he waited. He looked up at it, patiently waiting for something to happen while Blue sat grumpily on his shoulder.

Suddenly, a voice did fill the dungeon.

“Micro!”

Micro turned around, awaking the pixie on his shoulder, who suddenly dove into his pocket, and saw the source of the voice.

“Kel!” He shouted back.

“This dungeon might be broken. The turtle is ignoring me!”

Kel joined Micro at the Altar and looked around the room in awe.

“So this is where my ancestors trained…” He marveled as his eyes fell upon the turtle.

“It’s like my grandfather said. Even if it is the lowest level dungeon, the amount of life force in the ancient turtle is astounding. It’s impossible to imagine how long it has lived, how many eras it has witnessed, how many lives it has seen…”

“So how do we turn it on?” Micro asked.

“I should have mentioned this earlier, Micro.” Kel sighed.

“But do you know what the core teaching of the Fire Mountain Turtle Sect is?”

“You walk across the road dangerously slow.” Micro answered immediately.

“What? No…” Kel scoffed.

“It’s patience. Patience is the key to unlocking our most advanced techniques. And patience will aid you in escaping this dungeon with your life.”

“With a core card.” Micro corrected him, drawing a rectangle in the air with his hands.

“You can’t possibly be thinking of challenging the trial, can you?” Kel asked, dumbfounded.

“These trials are not the same for every cultivator who challenges them. Years of training are required to steel yourself for whatever challenge you face. Even my uncle-”

“I need core cards, and there are core cards here. Tell me how to turn the turtle on, please.”

Kel was about to rebuke Micro, when he suddenly smiled. A dry laugh escaped his mouth next.

“Oh, ancient turtle.” He sighed up at the giant.

“We both must look impatient to one as great as you. Wait, perhaps…”

Kel then held his hands out over the altar, and Micro jumped off of it when both the altar and Kel’s hands began to glow.

“Ancient dungeon, gift of the immortal realm, bestow upon us your ancient wisdom…” Kel asked of the statue before him with his head bowed.

Micro was excited to see the statue finally move its head to look down at them. He waved, but the turtle was preoccupied with Kel.

“You…” Its deep, gravelly voice shook the air.

“A new generation… Very well…”

“Oh, sacred beast!” Kel shouted respectfully.

“Would you not spare the boy beside me from the trial? He was mistaken in coming here.”

The turtle's head slowly turned to face Micro, who waved again.

“I would spare a lost child…” It bellowed.

“Oh, thank you mighty-”

“But not these souls…”

Shocked at the turtle’s refusal, Kel pleaded.

“But why? He is young, weak, and inexperienced. He would only…”

“I see no hesitation in the younger soul…” The turtle grumbled, its voice causing Micro’s entire body to vibrate.

“In the older soul… I see no weakness…”

Kel’s confusion gave way to despair as he looked back at the smiling Micro, who looked fearlessly up at the giant with an impatient smile.

“Wait, you said ‘they’ can take the test?” Kel whispered mostly to himself.

“Micro, didn’t you have a pet mouse in your pocket or something similar? What pet would be forced to take part in a dungeon trial?”

“Oh, she’s actually very helpful, but she’s shy, so-”

“Who do you think you’re calling a pet, you good for nothing, cultivating, piece of-”

“This is Blue!” Micro shouted over her angry introduction. He placed his hand over her head worried that she might stumble off of him as she flailed her arms.

“A pi- pi- pixie…?!” Kel stuttered with a look of horror.

“So I can apply for a card here?” Micro shouted back at the turtle.

“We’ll take your silly test!” Blue added while making a rude hand gesture to Kel from atop Micro’s head.

“Just get us out of this place. Time isn’t even working right.”

“All three of you…” The turtle declared as slowly as ever.

“...shall challenge the trial of the Jade Fire Turtle Dungeon.”