“Congratulations to the winner of today’s Challenge race, who will receive 10 trial merits. For the remaining 6 participants who completed the race, each will receive 5 trial merits. For those who did not complete the Challenge, 0 merits are awarded.”

Hudson struggled to his feet, extricating himself from the woman who had come close to choking him out. He had failed the Challenge, but so had three of the cheater group left behind by their leader to block them. And both Vince and Cor had completed it, netting them a whopping 5 trial merits each. Hudson counted it as a win.

A door opened on the side of one of the walls, and they joined the other participants back at the beginning of the obstacle course. There was definitely something strange with the geometry of this trial area. There was no logical sense in the distances and turns that the obstacle course had taken to bring them directly back to the beginning.

Hudson had noticed a few more oddities previously – most notably how the space inside of his room seemed to be larger on the inside than would fit in between the doors to the other participants’ rooms. He couldn’t see any rifts or portals – that particular cold, inky blackness was hard to miss – but there was definitely something strange about the space and dimensions of the trial area.

Cor came over and clapped Hudson on the back.

“Appreciate the assist there at the end, son. It was a good plan, even if you didn’t make it in.”

“Two of us got through, and none of the jerks trying to keep us from finishing did. So I think that counts as a win,” Hudson replied. “Hey Vince, come over here for a sec, I forgot to tell you and Cor something.”

The three started lining up to move to the next activity – presumably breakfast, if following the same pattern as yesterday.

“So did you look at purchasing anything with your trial merits last night?” Hudson asked.

Cor nodded affirmatively. “The free primers on S.E.C.T. and the trial, as well as information on meditation techniques. I’ll tell you, that ‘Intro to Meditation,’ that was wild.”

“We could purchase things? And what do you mean, wild?” Vince said, looking lost.

“Did you check out the new desk in your room?” Cor asked. Vince shook his head ‘no.’

“Well tonight you go check that out, alright? Couple things in there you should take a look at,” Cor continued. He paused to listen to directions from their robotic voice of a director directing them on how to eat breakfast.

“So this Introduction to Meditation item, one of the creepiest experiences of my life. Some freaking mind-reading stuff going on.”

“What do you mean?” Hudson turned to ask, as he piled as much of the flavorless goop as he could into first one bowl, and then a second.

“It was like I wasn’t in control of my body, or even in full control of what I was thinking. I could tell what I was thinking, and how I was thinking it, and what I was doing, but it was like watching someone else do it… very strange, I’ll tell you what.

“But maybe the strangest thing is, well, it worked. Rather than just learning how to meditate, I feel like I’ve been meditating for months. Maybe years.”

The three found a bench to sit down at and started shoveling the unappetizing goop into their mouths.

Hudson didn’t know what to make of Cor’s story about Introduction to Meditation. He had assumed the rest of those items were just like the free primers – like a book to read. He was clearly wrong, but without experiencing it himself he didn’t really know what to think. Based on Cor’s reaction, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to experience it himself either.

“So you guys, how many trial merits do you have now?” Hudson asked. “What I wanted to tell you is that for 10 trial merits, you can purchase a cultivation technique.”

Cor looked thoughtful, but Vince frowned unexpectedly. He had thought Vince would jump all over the news that he could purchase a cultivation technique, especially after the failure last night to learn Hudson’s.

Hudson didn’t think about Vince’s reaction too much more, though, because a familiar figure walked past their table.

“Clara!” Hudson called out. “Over here, sit with us.”

Her ponytail bobbed once, and she stopped walking. After a brief moment, and what might have been a slump of her shoulders, she turned and walked back to sit at the table across from Hudson.

“How are you feeling?” Hudson asked. “You were really cut up when you got back through the portal.”

“I’m fine,” she said irritably. “Why do you mouthbreathers care?”

“Hey now, hey now,” Cor said, pointing his spoon at Clara. “While we might very well resemble that remark, that don’t mean we don’t resent it neither. Did your momma not teach you to thank people when they stop you bleeding out on the daggone floor?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” she asked, clearly confused.

“You almost didn’t make it back through the portal before it closed, but you did, and then you collapsed unconscious almost immediately, bleeding from deep gashes on your legs and arms. And you had a nasty one on your head too, right over your eye.”

“Ah,” she said, and slumped down. “I thought George and the team had bandaged me up. So I was confused when they knocked me into the rift pits and back to the beginning of the obstacle course… And as to why they won’t talk to me this morning… I guess I knew but didn’t want to admit it…”

A few tears started making their way down her cheeks.

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“I’ve been shunned.”

“Shunned?” Hudson asked, looking askance at Cor and Vince.

Clara didn’t respond. She just stared down at the table, shoulders slumped, tears streaming down her face.

Hudson wasn’t sure what was going on or what to do. The atmosphere at the table was now incredibly awkward. He decided to focus on shoveling his breakfast into his mouth, finishing his two bowls and reaching over to grab Vince’s half-finished bowl.

He looked up as he heard a sharp smack. Cor reached back and slapped his hand against Clara’s back again.

“Stiffen up. This ain’t no pity party. And I still don’t have my thank you yet,” he said.

“Thank you…” Clara mumbled through her tears, then wiped some snot leaking out of her nose onto the sleeve of her tunic. “But you did me no service. I would be better off dead.”

“Now that right there is what my momma would call a ‘lie straight from the pit of hell,’” Cor replied.

“Your mother’s been to hell?” Clara asked, confused.

“No! What’re you talking about?” Cor asked himself, shaking his head. “Don’t talk about my momma like that.”

“There’s a rift world called Hell that the Disciples send criminals from S.E.C.T. to sometimes,” she replied. “What Hell are you talking about?”

They were all speaking English, and it might be the same language, but there were clearly some cultural differences at play. Many cultural differences.

“Doesn’t matter,” Cor said, not willing to dive into an explanation of Earth religions. “What matters is there is no situation where you’re better off pushing up daisies.”

“What?” Clara said.

“Taking the long nap. Sleeping six feet under. Closing your eyes, never to rise,” Cor replied.

Clara just looked at Cor before turning to Hudson and Vince. “Is he mocking me?”

Hudson coughed slightly into his hand before responding. “He’s just saying that there is no world in which you would be better off dead.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, that may be a kind sentiment, but it is not true. Because I have been shunned and deemed too weak by the leader of our trial – that would be George – I am doomed. After the trial is over, my cultivation will almost certainly be crippled and I will be sent to one of the low-grade maseki rift mines that S.E.C.T. is responsible for.”

Hudson’s mouth fell open in shock. “What?”

“As the rulers of this world, we cannot afford any weakness. My failure to be strong, to fight and defeat the cave silverines… that weakness must be pruned. Cut from the branch and shunned, so that the tree may grow strong…”

The tears started coming back at her last few words. It was a terrible concept, going beyond even the rule of the jungle; more Machiavellian than Machiavelli. But what Clara described made a certain kind of twisted sense. If you wanted to maintain your power and control across generations, then you couldn’t afford to have any weak links.

“My parents… my brother… they will lose their standing in S.E.C.T. as well,” Clara said miserably.

It was even worse. Not only would Clara be pruned, but her parents and family – the ones who had produced the weak link in the chain – they would be punished as well.

“But you’re not weak. What happened, and how were you wounded so badly?” Hudson asked.

“I… didn’t follow orders. I was too excited; I dug too deep and we were swarmed. I was at the front, and was wounded, and became… a burden to the team,” Clara stuttered out, in between her tears. “So the team leader made the right decision, and left me behind.”

Cor shook his head at that in disbelief. “You should have followed orders, sure, but that’s not how it should be. That’s not leadership at all.”

“What were you swarmed by? How did you get wounded?

” Hudson asked, but Clara didn’t answer, as tears just rolled down her face.

Vince had been quiet this whole time, the expressions on his face a mixture of horror and fascination, but he decided to chime in with a question. “Why is George the leader? Is he the strongest or something?”

Vince’s question brought Clara out of her own thoughts, and she nodded. “He’s by the far the strongest; his cultivation is at the peak of the Qi Gathering stage, and the cultivation technique he inherited from his family is considered one of the best within S.E.C.T. His talent at visualizations is extreme and he can already use qigong techniques, putting him far above the rest of his peer group. He is considered one of the best young prodigies of our generation. It was a great honor to be chosen to participate with him in his First Trial.”

“So the strongest gets to be the leader?” Vince asked. “If that’s the case, then why can’t you become the strongest?”

Hudson struggled not to roll his eyes. If only the world was so simple.

“Huh,” Clara said, looking at Vince with disdain. “Little rooster. You are naive, and you speak of things you know nothing about. You have no idea of how strong, how far ahead he really is. Of the advantages, advanced knowledge, and support he has. How impossible it would be to catch up, and then how impossible it would be to challenge him inside this trial, much less outside of it.

“You have no idea of the strength of his family. Their reach and influence within not only S.E.C.T., but with our patrons the Disciples.”

Despair and scorn shone in Clara’s eyes, but they were gradually being replaced by something else. Anger, and perhaps a glimmer of hope.

The conversation collapsed into silence as the four ate their breakfast. The goop – Hudson could only call it that – was a mysterious combination with the texture of oatmeal, the consistency of grits, and the flavor of air. It was growing on him.

Clara put her spoon down. She stared deeply into her bowl of goop.

“You cannot even see the mountain you are suggesting I climb, or the impossibility. You’re asking a carp to jump up a waterfall and turn into a dragon.”

There was a manic gleam in her eyes. Hudson stared at her with growing concern. Just minutes ago she had been in tears, but now, she looked like she was getting ready to jump off of a cliff.

Or stab someone.

“Despite your stupidity, Rooster,” she said, “you are not wrong. My thanks.”

“Don’t call me a rooster,” Vince mumbled under his breath.

Clara suddenly stood up and climbed on top of their table, kicking bowls and spoons out of the way. Turning toward the tables where the cheaters sat, she pointed her finger at their leader, George, and yelled loud enough for everyone to hear.

“George Adams, I swear on my cultivation.”

She paused to take a deep breath.

“I will take your breath. I will take your blood. I will take your bones, and I will make your strength my own.”