An intense wave of green light erupted from the giant turtle’s eyes, washing over Micro, Blue, and Kel before they could even brace themselves. Micro flailed his arms helplessly as he felt his body being dragged through space, unable to see anything but that swirling green light. It reminded him of his experience being sent to this world, but this was far less uncomfortable. He even thought it felt nice to be free of gravity for a moment after spending so much time on his feet.
As he expected, however, his feet eventually found themselves planted firmly on the ground again. As his feet began to feel the weight of his body again, he looked down to see yet another stone floor expanding out from underneath him, as if the room were being assembled before his eyes. Brick by brick, the floor grew in all directions until turning vertically to form walls and arches.
“I wonder where they get all the stones for that so quickly…” He wondered aloud as he watched the magical scene unfold.
Before long, three walls had formed to his back, left, and right, and a long, straight tunnel he couldn’t see the end of extended endlessly in front of him. As he was about to begin walking, another object suddenly appeared out of nowhere. A round boulder almost as tall as him fell to the ground with a thud that caused him to lose his footing briefly. When he looked closely at the boulder, the next thing he noticed was a very small, glowing turtle resting on top of it, looking at him with squinted eyes.
“Hello.” Micro greeted the small turtle.
When the turtle didn’t immediately reply, he reached out to grab it in his hand, bringing it closer to his face.
“Hello, turtle.” He said again with a friendly tone.
“Are you lost?”
At those words, the turtle’s eyes opened slightly, and it spoke with a slow voice, quieter than Blue’s, but not quite as high pitched.
“I am where I am meant to be…” It replied.
“I am an avatar of the overseer of this dungeon…”
“I’m Micro.”
“Your task is simple.” The turtle explained, then pointed lazily to the boulder behind it.
“Push this boulder to the end of the corridor…”
“Okay.” Micro replied quickly.
He placed the turtle back on top of the rock, then placed both hands against the boulder. He took a deep breath, then pushed with all his might.
“Hah…” He grunted as the burning sensation in his legs increased. His back ached, and his arms began to shake, but he took another breath and pushed again.
Finally, the boulder budged. Micro knelt down to examine his progress, understanding the distance it had travelled by the deep marks it had carved in the stone floor. He pushed again, this time with a better understanding of which muscles to use, and it moved a little more. Again he pushed, and again it moved.
After a dozen or so attempts, the boulder had traveled about the distance of a single pace. He frowned and looked at the turtle.
“Is there a problem, child…?” It mumbled as if it were woken from a nap.
“I’m just worried this will take too long. I need to find a way home as fast as I can, you see?” Micro explained with a worried look.
“Fear not, child…” The little turtle replied.
“This is a separate space… and a separate time…”
“Separate?”
“This dungeon does not exist in the world you are from…” The turtle went on.
“An eternity here… is but a moment…”
“Umm…” Micro wasn’t sure what to ask.
“However long this trial takes… whether a day or a thousand years… if you succeed, you will be returned to the gate in your world… only moments after you entered…” The turtle yawned.
“Your only concern is succeeding in this trial… time matters not…”
“So…” Micro scratched his head.
“Even if it takes me a long time to get back, I won’t be late?”
“Yes…”
“That’s convenient!” Micro shouted happily.
“How does that work? If I could do something like that, the old man would never be late again!”
“What…?”
“Teleporting, speeding up time…” Micro thought aloud.
“This world has lots of convenient ways to travel. I wonder what else there is…”
“Wonder as you will…”
Micro’s imagination eventually calmed as he remembered the job in front of him.
“Okay.” He took a moment to stretch, then returned to his favoured stance and pushed the boulder once again. It moved a little.
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He pushed it again.
It moved a little.
Again.
It moved.
Again.
Again…
Again…
As he pushed the boulder endlessly, he occasionally looked behind him to see how far he had gone. The first time he looked back, the wall behind him was still close enough to count the stones it was made of. The second time he looked back, it was difficult to see. The third time he looked back, he realized it looked no different than the tunnel he was walking down.
The fourth time he looked back, he realized that the only way he could be certain which way he was meant to be going was by the trail he’d left behind him. That was the last time he looked behind him. From that moment on, he looked only ahead.
At one point, he noticed he didn’t feel like he was running out of fuel at all, so he asked the turtle if he would need to eat something. The turtle looked nervous and replied more quickly than usual that his energy needs would be seen to by the trial itself, and that he need only concern himself with pushing the boulder until he reached his destination.
His thoughts wandered often for a while, filling the time with memories of his home and driver, imagining the places they would drive together when he returned one day. He thought of less happy moments in life, like the accident that brought him to this strange world, and the unpleasant experiences he’d endured in his short time in a human body.
He thought about Blue, and wondered if she’d continue to be his passenger much longer. He thought about Kel, and hoped he would also pass his trial as the heir to his sect.
He wondered what an heir was…
He wondered how core cards would help him return home…
He wondered where home was from there…
He wondered how much time had passed…
He wondered why time would run faster in this world than in another…
He wondered if he’d need to refuel when he returned…
He wondered how much time had passed…
He wondered if he’d been pushing the rock for a day…
He wondered if it had been a year…
He wondered if it had been ten years…
He wondered if it had been a thousand…
He wondered if it mattered…
He wondered…
He wondered…
Until he wondered nothing at all.
The sound of the rock in front of him scraping against the ground each time he pushed it became like the ticking of a clock in his ears. The archways he passed beneath became like clouds floating by. The ground beneath him became like a river, flowing peacefully along.
The darkness that extended endlessly in front of him stopped feeling like a distant goal. It stopped feeling far away, but neither did it feel near. It felt less and less like he was pushing his way toward the darkness, and more like he was falling into it.
Moments passed by without him noticing, until there eventually came a time when he stopped noticing time at all. Some time after that, he couldn’t be sure whether it was a moment or an eternity, he stopped noticing anything at all.
The pain in his arms and legs were too distant a memory to recall.
He wasn’t sure where his body ended and the boulder began.
He only knew his destination was ahead of him.
CRACK
The boulder suddenly split into two parts with a deafening sound that made Micro feel like his entire world had just been cracked in half.
However, the turtle which had been resting atop the rock without making a sound for so long didn’t fall to the ground. It landed softly in the palm of Micro’s outstretched hand.
The sudden change in scenery, scenery which had become a permanent fixture of his existence, made him want to cry out in despair, but something glowing in the remains of the boulder caught his attention.
“Interesting…” The turtle’s tiny voice mumbled, the sound of which sounded equally familiar and foreign to Micro’s ears.
“You didn’t think to wake me…?”
“Waking a passenger…” Micro struggled to vocalize.
“Taboo…”
Micro couldn’t find words to reply, so he simply nodded at the turtle in his hand.
“To pass this test…” The turtle yawned.
“To overcome this trial… One must perform their task… Until one can disregard their place in time… You went far beyond…”
“My place in time…” Micro replied, his voice weak and dry.
“Doesn’t matter…”
“Correct… But what you have done… Never mind…” The turtle shook its head.
“This is the beginning of the Art you seek. Patience is not the ability to endure through time, but the ability to detach yourself from it entirely… But you…”
“Me?” Micro replied, clearing his dry throat.
“Your will is inhuman…” The turtle nodded as it spoke.
“You were not tempted a single time to fall into madness… Your thoughts never veered from your destination… You never questioned whether it existed… You only pushed forward…”
“So, this is the core card.” Micro said as his attention to the turtle’s words waned. He picked up the glowing green card from the rubble in front of him. It bore the symbol of a turtle which he recognized from the gate’s entrance.
“I’ve seen no human with such will…” The turtle continued, unfazed by Micro’s lack of enthusiasm for its praise of him.
“I’m a truck.” Micro commented as he closely inspected the card.
The turtle froze in his hand for a moment before raising its voice with a less grand tone.
“What is that…?”
“You probably wouldn’t understand.” Micro shrugged, recalling his previous conversations over the body he’d inhabited until he was summoned to a new world.
“Not a human soul…” The turtle's little eyes glowed for a moment, and then it nodded.
“Indeed… Interesting…”
“So where is the exit? There aren’t any signs here either…” Micro complained.
“Very interesting, indeed…” The turtle commented, his voice slightly shaken as Micro began to turn and look around the hall again in search of a door.
THUD
Micro was suddenly aware of his head making contact with the hard ground in the room with a giant turtle in the middle of it, having apparently fallen backwards to the ground.
He looked around, and he noticed Blue sleeping on the floor next to him, and Kel was resting with his head against the altar. Above him, he saw the great turtle looking down at him.
“You have overcome the trial of the Jade Fire Turtle, young one…” It growled.
“You may leave.”
“What about them?” Micro pointed to his friends, who were still unconscious on the ground.
“They have yet to pass the trial…” It replied.
“The older one is stubborn… The younger one may fail… But you… Your will shall be rewarded…”
Before Micro had time to protest, two glowing core cards materialized in front of him.
“For overcoming the trial, you are awarded the Jade Turtle Art Core Card…” The turtle’s voice boomed with authority as it bestowed the cards.
“But to you, whose will is immune to the temptations of time, are deserving of more than I can offer… Take this Jade Armour Trait Card in consolation…”
“Oh, thank you.” Micro said as he triumphantly plucked both of the cards out of the air, one in each hand, then quickly stuffed them into his pocket.
“Fair well, strange soul…” The turtle growled as a glowing green portal appeared behind Micro.
“Wait-” Micro began to argue, but a powerful gust of wind suddenly pushed him through the portal, and he was once again lying on the cold, rocky ground of the cave.