Summer of 343, A.D.

Kai was surprised that he wasn’t the first to arrive. Neil had lit the fire, and Alex, intrigued by what Neil had prepared for this lesson, had arrived first.

“Hey, Alex.”

“Hey, Kai. Sup?”

“So. What has that old fox cooked up this time?”

“I heard that!” Neil barked from a distance. Alex and Kai laughed.

“I don’t know. But it looks fun. I hope he calls me up first today,” spoke Alex.

“Nah. Old Neil smells fear.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Come on, man! You’re not afraid of anything!”

“If only that were true.”

“Oh yeah? Alex, the prodigy, has something he’s scared of?”

“Maybe.”

The notion genuinely surprised Kai. Alex was always so perfect. The thought that he had a phobia made him a little more human. Kai was genuinely curious. “Like what?”

“Hey, boys.”

Ariel had arrived right when Alex was about to reveal his fears. Kai, for once, was annoyed at her arrival. Alex had been so close to disclosing the chink in his armor.

“Hey, Ariel,” greeted Alex as his sister kissed him.

“Hey,” said Kai, trying to sound and look cool.

She sat down, observing Neil doing the final checks. Sophia appeared right after that, then Albert, then Clara. As the group gathered around the fire, they continued the discussion that had been going on for the last few days.

“I think it’s a weird box with a hole in it. You have to put your hand in it, and Neil will ask you a question. If you answer incorrectly, you lose your hand,” suggested Alex.

“I think it’s just a bunch of survival kits. Everyone has to grab one and live in the mountains for a day,” tried Clara.

Everyone had theories about what was hidden under the large cloth. Neil refused to answer any questions about what lay beneath it and just sat quiet, pretending he wasn’t there. Sometimes, one of the suggestions made him laugh. Other times, it looked like he was considering implementing one of the ridiculous suggestions in a future class.

On the other hand, Kai was still thinking about what Alex had said. What could he possibly be afraid of?

Finally, Sunny arrived. For some reason, she was always the last to arrive whenever Neil was the firekeeper.

“Good. Everyone is here. We can begin now.” Neil limped toward the covered contraption and unveiled what he’d been working so hard on. “I present to you my latest creation!”

Kai studied the contraption curiously. It consisted of a metal armchair wrapped in wiring coils and tied to what he guessed were batteries.

“What’s that?” asked Ariel. “Isn’t that just a chair?”

“It might look just like a regular chair, but I can assure you it’s much more fun than that.”

“And it took you two weeks to put this together?” asked Sunny. A wave of laughter went through the group. Neil was too proud to ask for others’ help, and engineering wasn’t his strongest suit. He ignored the jab and continued, “As you can imagine, today will be a practical class.”

The mood chilled at the mention of a practical class. Neil began looking for his prey. Neil’s ancient eyes met Kai’s, but he tried not to look scared this time and put on a brave front. Neil’s eyes moved past him and landed on Ariel. She didn’t do a good job hiding her fear; Neil finally picked up on her reluctance and called her.

“Ariel, do you want to give it a go?”

Ariel stood reluctantly, and before Kai noticed what he was doing, he was already walking toward the chair.

“Kai! You’ve grown a spine. Such a brave young man! Aren’t you quite the catch?” He winked at Ariel, and the rest of the group laughed.

“Maybe I’m just annoyed at the preferential treatment you always give Ariel. How come you never ask me that nicely, Neil? You just bark at me to come without caring whether I want to.” Another wave of laughter went through the group.

“Fair enough. Come over, then.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me what I must do?”

“Of course I will. Just sit in this chair.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Kai walked toward the chair, bracing for the worst, closed his eyes tightly, and sat down. Nothing happened. Other than the metallic frame of the chair making it slightly cold to the touch and uncomfortable, there was nothing particular about it. He relaxed.

“It wasn’t that bad. Was it? Now, tell me. Do you like poetry, Kai?” asked Neil in a loving voice.

“Sure. I think everyone appreciates some nice poetry every once in a while.”

“Ariel, come here.”

“I thought it wasn’t my turn anymore,” she protested.

“You won’t sit on the chair. All I want you to do is read poetry for our brave boy here.”

When Kai heard that Ariel would read poetry to him, he blushed. “And what do I have to do?” he asked, trying to sound relaxed and confident.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You have to enjoy it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

This exercise sounded ridiculously simple. What was the point of it? Ariel stood opposite Kai and started reading Shakespeare:

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang…”

Ariel’s voice sounded so soothing and melodic. The way her hair cascaded over her shoulder really… Kai’s thoughts were interrupted as his whole body convulsed. He felt the hairs in his arms stand up, and all his muscles tensed. Startled by Kai’s pained grunt, Ariel stopped.

“Keep going, Ariel,” said Neil.

“Neil, did you do that?” Asked Kai between heavy breaths. That had frightened him.

“It’s nothing much, my boy. Just a little electric shock.”

“What could be the point in having Ariel read poetry while you electrocute me?”

Neil turned to the rest of the group to ensure his words reached all of them. “When we’re on a trial, we are under tremendous pressure. Pressure is the enemy. It clouds your judgment and saps your strength. This exercise aims to teach you to find enjoyment even in a difficult or painful challenge. Learning to relax your mind by appreciating a cup of tea or lingering on a beautiful sight for a few seconds can be what your tired mind needs to keep you fresh and at the top of your game.”

Kai sighed. He wondered if all these lessons that Neil taught were worth this trouble. Could this make any difference during the trials? As he studied the eyes of the old-timers around the fire, he saw no humor, only determination. He gulped. The trials must put a lot of strain on the challengers.

“Ariel, resume,” prompted Neil.

She resumed her reading, a little more hesitatingly but still sounding loud and clear. “Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

Kai felt another shock. This one was more powerful than the last one. He had a feeling that he was going to hate this class.

*

Present, 353rd Daisy exams.

How could he have been so stupid? When he first saw the pine tree, his brain looked at the whole. It was a tree. When he thought of giving it a closer look, his eyes were opened to other organisms living on the tree, such as moss, lichen, and fungi. But he could go even beyond that.

What about all the different parts of the tree? There were the needles or leaves, the trunk, branches, and roots. There was also the bark that coated the trunk and branches. He hadn’t seen any yet, but there were also pine cones, pine kernels, and other things to look for! The existence of the [Dry Pine Needle] card only added to his suspicion.

He got the camera closer to the trunk, careful not to get moss or lichen into the frame.

Capture successful!

Tries left: 6 of 20.

Pine Bark (Common)

3 out of 5

Hp: 2

Vp: 1

Here it was. It was as he had imagined. He had just found a whole new layer to this challenge. A new card had been hiding in front of him and his competitors all this time. Unfortunately, [Pine Bark] only gave him one victory point. He stopped himself from going for another shot. He was running out of tries and still had plenty of time left on the clock. He’d look for better opportunities to maximize his point count.

Besides, there was still so much of the tree left to explore! Maybe shots of other parts of the tree would give him more points. He looked at the canopy above. If he could just climb the tree, he could get a good picture of the branches and the leaves. He didn’t like climbing in general, but the fact that falling off wouldn’t kill him would make it an easier endeavor.

As his hands reached for the trunk, they went through it. Of course! How could he have forgotten? He was out of sync with this map’s reality. It was all a hologram to him.

Kai decided to try something. He pushed his face against the viewfinder and then waved his hand in front of the lens. There was nothing. The hand didn't show in the viewfinder. He then tried pointing the camera at his feet, with the same result. All that he saw through the camera's viewfinder was the bed of dried pine needles. No hand. No feet.

Why did Daisy make him invisible to the camera? Could it be that just like he went through the objects in the arena without interacting with them, light phased through him as well, making him invisible? He wondered why Daisy had set things up like this.

Shrugging, he focused on what he could capture with the camera. Even though it was quite far, he tried to point the camera upward, framing in the green needles. It was hard to get a good picture. He was getting the branches, the trunk, and small patches of blue sky and glimpses of the sun, too. If only he could get closer or zoom in. Since he had no options, he tried anyway, hoping for the best.

Capture failed!

Tries left: 5 of 20.

It was as he feared. The picture wasn’t good enough. This was an important piece of information. It wasn’t enough to just find something that could be photographed. Probably, if there was more than one item in the frame or too few, or the picture wasn’t clear enough, the capture wasn’t considered valid. Sadly, all these realizations were coming at the expense of victory points.

He looked at the ground and tried to find roots. Only a tiny portion of them came out of the ground, as pine trees’ roots typically stay more underground. There were also pine needles everywhere that he couldn’t move around to expose the roots he did find. He tried doing it with his foot and found it didn’t work. Daisy only allowed him to step on the ground but not interact with the map in any other way.

Left with no other choice, this time, he tried taking a photograph that framed just the trunk of the pine tree. He ensured the background was out of focus and that he got no leaves or roots in it. He just wanted the main trunk.

Capture successful!

Tries left: 4 of 20.

Pine Trunk (Common)

4 out of 5

Hp: 3

Vp: 0

It was another card that granted no victory points. He already had several like that, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to waste his last four pictures on this kind of card. It was even worse than [Pine Bark]. He should have just photographed bark twice and would have been better off. For the first time, even though there was a sure chance to capture a card, he decided to pass on it.

He had learned much from the rules of the game so far. In particular, it was important to look at an object as a whole but not overlook the individual parts.

Now that he was confident that he had explored this principle to the maximum, it was time to decide on his next move. He looked at the cards in his inventory.

[Pine Tree]

2x[Moss]

[Lichen]

2x[Fly Agaric]

2x[Bear Bread]

[Pine Bark]

[Dry Pine Needle]

[Pine Trunk]

Of the 16 captures he had attempted, five had been failures. It was a 30% failure rate. Regrettably, it was more wasteful than Kai would have liked. He counted the points he had earned so far: 20. The frustrating thing was that there was no scoreboard. He didn’t have a reference. He had no idea if this was great or horrible. Finally, there were four captures left for the remaining forty minutes. Time had become a less valuable resource than the number of tries he had left. It was time to shift his focus.

He decided it was time to map the arena. There was a slight chance he would come back to this place or be transported to a similar one if the trial had one more stage like this.

He recalled the trick that Neil had taught him to find north. He studied the trees and found on which side of the trunk moss grew the most. That’s where the north would be. As the sun didn’t hit directly on this part of the trunk and moss liked the shade, finding his way in the lack of a compass was a nice little trick.

Now that he knew where north was, he retraced his steps in the general direction from where he had run after bumping into the wall and found the invisible wall again.

The biggest problem now was finding a good landmark. He could always look for a tree with a particular type of mushroom, but he had a better idea. He grabbed the machine hanging around his neck and tried pulling it off. He then put it gently on the ground.

Since this was an essential part of the challenge, he doubted that he would be allowed to lose the camera. To his delight, the camera stayed still. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. With his right hand against the invisible wall, Kai reached out and looked at the clock, waiting for it to reach zero minutes and zero seconds. When it did, he started running counterclockwise.

He counted how many steps he took for a minute and then tried to keep his rhythm and pace. After several minutes, he hadn’t found a corner. The invisible wall was ever so slightly bent or curved. That told him that he was in a dome-like structure.

He kept in mind that he wanted to maintain a constant speed and kept his eyes on the ground so he wouldn’t miss the camera. He finally found it again. He looked at the clock. It had taken him 21 minutes and 4 seconds to run a full lap around the arena.