Lan froze, still holding the scroll in his hand. ‘Can I make it to the town in time?’

“Pst,” Cece whispered.

“What? I’m kind of in a hurry,” Lan snapped.

“Can I give you some advice?”

All around the hall, hundreds of the gathered pathfinders were scrambling to collect their gear, running off towards the town that was weathering the second wave at that very moment.

Lan was itching to join them, but since he might end up working for this lady in the future, he decided to hear her out.

“Sure, but can you make it quick."

“Great, you won’t regret it,” Cece leant down towards him and covered her mouth conspiratorially, “Don’t bother with this wave,”

“Huh? But I need to get some points, I don't have any at the moment,"

“Yeah, I know, but the points you get for the first few waves aren’t worth much compared to the final few,”

“Still… It’s a good opportunity for me to level up,”

“That’s true, but I can give you a better opportunity,”

“Is that even allowed?”

“Technically, I’m just giving you advice, not any specific directions… if anyone asks,” Cece eyed the fuming man on the pillar next to hers.

Lan shrugged, “I’ll take all the… ‘advice’ I can get, thanks,”

“Right, then like I said, ignore this beast wave, and while everyone is distracted with earning points and topping the leader board, go challenge the sheer steps,”

Lan turned the thought over, “Hm, so you’re saying I should take the risk that they will succeed without me and selfishly build up my personal strength and accolades,”

Cece grinned, “Exactly,”

“But there must be some reason that people want to top the leaderboard, won’t I be losing out on those rewards?” Lan could tell from the way some of the second-generation kids had been fighting in the previous wave, coming out on top must be worth a lot.

Cece glanced at the two tallest pillars where the bearded man and Leon were sitting in silent meditation, ignoring any pathfinders that tried to approach them.

“The top two places join their clans, it’s a pretty big deal for up-and-coming pathfinders to have that kind of support system,”

“Right, but you think I’d be better off climbing the steps?”

“Exactly, aside from the fact you need to reach the eighth step if you want to fulfil our contract, there are plenty of titles and skills to be won by climbing them,”

Lan was definitely tempted to give it a shot, just to see what all the fuss was about, “What exactly are the sheer steps anyway?”

Cece winked at him, “You’ll see,”

***

Taking Cece’s advice, Lan avoided the town and passed through the forest, heading directly towards the huge steps carved into the mountain behind the town.

In the distance, he could hear the muffled screams and swords clashing, along with bestial growls and roars. He could practically smell the blood drifting off the battlefield.

The sounds of fighting made his blood boil, but he steeled himself and ignored them, continuing to the foot of the mountain.

Rejoining the path, he craned his neck up at the peak of the mountain that seemed to meld into the sky. Low clouds obscured anything above the ninth step and what could be seen was confusing, to say the least.

Now that he was closer, he could vaguely make out that the steps, which were carved from black granite, were covered in indistinct carvings that flowed and twirled, somehow both stationary and in motion. Each carving seemed to tell its own distinct story, and the further up the steps Lan looked, the more detailed and fantastical the carvings became.

His footsteps ground to a halt at the end of the path, where granite stairs led up to a massive stone platform surrounded by ancient basalt pillars.

At the far side of the platform, he could just about make out the wall of the first step, but he couldn’t quite figure out how he was supposed to climb it. It stood tens of metres tall and was a sheer face that couldn’t be scaled.

Right as he was about to step onto the platform, muffled talking drifted over from behind a nearby pillar.

“What a waste of time, there’s no way anyone will try to climb during the second wave.”

“Shut-up Mark, this is the fourth time you’ve said this already!”

“Yeah but…”

“Yeah but,” the second voice repeated mockingly, “You know how the prince gets, she doesn’t want anyone getting an advantage, no matter how small,”

“Ha! An advantage? She’s already reached the seventh step and it’s the second bloody day, how the hell is someone even meant to catch up with her?”

“Ugh, it’s the principal of it… Sh did you hear something?”

Lan froze where he was standing. He had been trying to creep around the side of the pillars to reach the steps without them noticing.

“Hold on, let me just…” The first voice muttered.

Lan felt something wash over him and he got the prickly feeling that someone was watching him.

“Shit, Mark there’s really someone there!”

‘Look’s like sneaking in won’t work,’ Lan thought glumly, flicking up the hood of his robe so that his face was covered.

He could hear the clatter of weapons and armour as the pair rushed out from behind the pillar. One was a tall girl with long brown hair and strange eyes, the pupils of which were abnormally large. The other, presumably Mark, was a shorter man with a heavy axe resting on his shoulder.

But perhaps the most important thing Lan noticed was that they were both wearing school uniforms. It was a luxurious red blazer with purple lapels and a pristine white shirt that looked freshly pressed.

‘That means they haven’t died yet… they must be strong,’ Lan readied himself for a difficult challenge.

“Oi, you there,” the girl shouted.

Lan pretended he couldn’t hear them and started striding purposefully towards the granite wall decorated in carvings. He wasn’t sure what he would do when he got there… but running away when he literally couldn’t die felt like a waste of time.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, stop pretending you can’t hear me!” She shouted.

In response, Lan sped up and he heard muffled curse words behind him as the pair started sprinting towards him.

Breaking all pretences, Lan also burst into a run, moving a lot quicker than either of his pursuers could, thanks to his 25 dexterity his feet practically glided along the ground.

“Shit! He’s pretty quick, do something, Mark!” The girl shouted at the shorter boy.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Mark huffed and puffed as he ran, the heavy axe on his shoulder like an anchor holding him back.

“I don’t know, throw your stupid axe or something!”

“… Oh yeah,” Mark mumbled.

Lan didn’t know if he should be grateful, they just announced their plan to him, or annoyed that they were this motivated to stop him from reaching the step.

He waited until he heard them stop running and then threw himself sideways, just barely managing to avoid the axe that scythed through the air at frightening speeds and slammed uselessly against the cliff wall up ahead.

Seeing that the axe didn’t even make a scratch on the carvings, Lan wondered just how hard the rock the steps were carved out of was. But he didn’t have time to think about things like that now.

He put on a final burst of speed and grabbed the fallen axe as he ran up to the cliff, almost slamming into it from his momentum.

“No! My axe!” Mark roared, digging deep and accelerating towards Lan.

Desperately, Lan reached out and touched the rough granite wall, feeling the carvings shift and move beneath his fingertips.

Alert: The first step is at 67/100 capacity. Join [Y/N]

“Yes! I’ll join!” Lan shouted desperately.

Accepted

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Suddenly his body started to tingle, and he began to melt into the wall, disappearing into the endlessly moving carvings.

Right after he disappeared, Mark slammed into the wall with his shoulder, bouncing off and landing on the ground in a heap. “Agh, why did I listen to you?!” He yelled at the girl who had just caught up with him.

Unable to hold back her laughter, she doubled over, wheezing. “AHAH, the Prince is soo gonna kill us,”

“Nah…” Mark muttered glumly.

“What do you mean? She hates useless people, remember what happened to Jen?”

“She’s not gonna kill you, because I’m gonna do it first!” Mark shouted, grabbing the girl’s ankle and dragging her down to the ground, where a brawl ensued.

***

Welcome, challenger. The first step is yours to overcome.

Lan flinched, a deep voice booming in his head like hammer blows. “What… What is this place?” He muttered, gazing at his strange surroundings in a daze.

All he could tell for sure was that he was somewhere underground, a claustrophobic tunnel surrounded him on all sides.

On the ceiling of the tunnel, a strange purple moss glowed softly, providing the only light in the gloomy underground.

This is the inside of the first step, your challenge Is to complete the first trial of the giants. Fear. To complete the trial simply reach the door at the end of this tunnel.

As if in response, the moss that lit the roof of the tunnel went dark, and the faint light was swallowed by darkness even more absolute than night itself.

Lan held his hand right in front of his face but couldn’t see it no matter how close he put it. And suddenly his breathing became more difficult. It was like the air got heavier and harder to move.

His heart sped up, but his mind stayed clear. The dark had never been a huge fear of his, in fact, it was almost comforting. On some of the worst nights living in the District, when he was forced to sleep on the streets, being in the dark meant you were safe, it meant people couldn’t see you.

So, he put one foot forward and then another, moving steadily until something brushed against his leg. He couldn’t see it or hear it, but he felt it.

It was so sudden he almost yelped in surprise, but he swallowed that, and flailed out with his axe… Or Mark’s axe, hitting nothing.

Once again something brushed against his leg, it was leathery and rough, scraping his robe like sandpaper. But no matter how he swung, his axe never hit anything.

His heart started to race now, his inability to hit whatever was attacking him left him feeling helpless and lost. Something pricked the back of his neck; it didn’t hurt, but the fact that he couldn’t see what it was sent alarm bells ringing in his mind.

‘I’ve got to keep moving,’ Lan gritted his teeth and ignored the cloying darkness that made his skin crawl. “It’s in my head, it has to be,”

Right, when he opened his mouth to speak, something wet and leathery forced its way inside and Lan’s calm and collected thoughts evaporated into an explosion of panic.

He grabbed at his open mouth but couldn’t feel anything, even though it was right there, choking him.

Tears ran from his eyes and he bolted forward, his shoulder slamming into the wall of the tunnel painfully.

In desperation, he closed his mouth and bit down. Whatever was in there exploded, sending a wave of filthy blood down his throat that tasted like bile.

Lan gagged and threw up what remained of the creature, keeping one hand on the wall so that he always knew where he was.

When he was finished, he stood up and kept the other hand tightly clamped over his mouth, refusing to let anything else sneak in.

Every time he felt something brush against his skin or robe, he just repeated in his head, ‘It’s not real, it can’t hurt you,’

And after what seemed like an eternity of fumbling in the dark, blinding light flickered on in the tunnel, forcing him to squint painfully against the glare.

He covered his eyes with his hands so that he could get acclimatised to the light better and sat down, exhausted.

Wind rustled his hair and robes, blowing the dark lanky strands off his face and… "Wind? How is there wind underground?”

Lan’s eyes shot open and all he could see was blue, an endless sea of blue. He looked down and he wasn’t sitting on a rock anymore but a cloud, it was much harder than he had expected clouds to feel, it was cold and damp, like sitting on a block of ice.

But by far the most eye-catching thing was the red door on a distant cloud. He could see it from here and instinctively knew that if he wanted to pass this trial, he needed to reach it.

‘Trial, I’ve got to remember that this is only a trial, it’s not real,’ Lan reminded himself again, staring intently at the red door.

He walked over to the edge of the cloud and peered down below him, there was nothing but an empty sky, there wasn’t even any ground to fall towards.

Taking a deep breath, he double-checked that the next cloud was close enough for him to jump to and leapt across the abyss, landing on the cloud with a thud.

‘Heights aren’t that bad, I used to sleep hanging off the side a…’

Suddenly the clouds were gone, and Lan found himself in a place he had hoped never to return to. Below him, he could hear the never-ending roar of traffic and neon lights lit up the street. Above him… was the night sky.

‘Is it reading my thoughts and trying to put me in the situations I would fear most?’ He wondered after seeing the sudden change.

‘Still, even if I know it's not real, I really want to get out of here,’

Lan was lying in a ragged sleeping bag on the corner of metallic fire stairs that ran up the side of the hotel he worked in. Before one of the cooks had found him here and offered him a job and a tiny room, Lan slept out here, with nothing but the stars as company.

It was cold and noisy, but safe, which was more than could be said for a lot of places. The rats couldn’t get up here either which was always a bonus.

Here, he was out of view from the roof of the building and had managed to set up a tarpaulin to keep off the rain, living in relative peace from the elements. As far as he was concerned, if he didn't get frostbite or trench foot, it wasn't a bad spot.

He poked his head around the side of the stairs where he could just about make out the roof of the building and the big red door that stood at its centre.

Just as he was about to move to reach the door, all the energy was sapped from his body and his stomach became a gaping cavern that had never known food.

Cold and hunger washed over him, and he grabbed the sleeping bag tighter, wrapping it around himself so close it felt like he was trying to make it a part of his skin.

This is how he had spent many nights up here and even if he knew the feelings were artificial, that didn’t change the fact that they felt real.

It wasn’t so long ago that he had spent his nights like this, hungry and cold and alone. Perhaps the trial had truly figured out his greatest fear because he was rooted to the spot in abject terror.

Shivering and starving, he would rather wait for death to come than leave the meagre warmth of his sleeping bag.

‘It’s not real, I. Need. To. Move.’

Lan shuffled slightly and did his best to throw off the sleeping bag, but it was wrapped around him like a boa constrictor.

“Get off,” he grunted, trying to shake off the sleeping bag that had somehow become a straight jacket, trapping him in that wretched stairwell, where he would rot for eternity.

“I won’t go back! I will change this world for the better!” He yelled, straining against the bag and fighting off waves of hunger that felt like a knife in his gut getting twisted.

“I swore to myself that I would avenge them!” Lan screamed and managed to wriggle one of his arms free, grabbing the axe and shredding the bag.

He staggered to his feet, wobbling on weak legs. All the strength from the stats had been stripped away and he was left with a frail body that came from eating leftovers from bins.

“Move!” He grunted, putting one leg forward.

“Again.” Another leg, he was out of the stairwell now and onto the roof, he could see the red door so clearly, he could make out the grains of wood on its surface.

He moved again, inching closer, he was almost there now and felt like the further he got from the stairwell, the stronger he grew.

“I can do this, I am stronger now, I am…”

Lan froze where he stood, the door had just turned and then it swung open. A man stepped out, he wore a beautiful white suit that was stained red.

His hands were drenched in blood and gore, but his face was empty and uncaring like he had been pruning plants or washing dishes.

Lan started to shake uncontrollably, and the man took a step towards him. Lan wanted to fight, he wanted to rip his throat out, but he couldn’t move because more than anything, he wanted to run.

In front of this man, he was still that little kid that watched his parents die helplessly. The man looked down at him and scowled like somehow Lan was at fault for being upset.

“Will you stop shaking and shut up!” The man snapped coldly.

Too frightened to disobey, Lan forced himself to stand still, his face was sheet white and his stomach churned in fear.

“Ugh, look what your parents did to my suit, this will cost a fortune at the dry cleaners,” The man groaned, flicking blood from his hands onto the floor of Lan’s living room.

‘How… How am I here? He took the house after they died, he took everything, he…’ Lan's mind was collapsing and he couldn’t stop it with just willpower, this was primal, there was nothing in the world he feared more than this man, nothing even came close.

He knew not to look at the broken window his mother’s body had fallen through, or at the coffee table his dad’s corpse was splayed out on, those images were already so ingrained in his mind that he would never forget them. And he had sure as hell tried.

With wide eyes, he stared at the red door behind the man in the white suit, it was so close, but he would never make it there in time, the man was too strong, too fast, he was a pathfinder and Lan was…

A pathfinder…

His heart started beating again and he summoned every scrap of will and courage he had, using them as fuel to power his first step.

He stumbled forward.

“Stay still, will you? I’m trying to think!” The man snapped impatiently.

Lan ignored him and kept moving, brushing past the coffee table and making sure not to look at the unseeing corpse that lay there.

“I said stop moving!” The man bellowed, slamming his fist straight through the wall of their house in rage.

‘Now’s my chance,’

Lan bolted, ducking under the man’s swinging fist and barrelling through the door. The last thing he heard before passing through, was a roar of anger and fury that shook the very frame of the door.

Outside, he felt strength rush into him, or return to him, whichever it was didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was away from that man, he was free.

Still shaking in fear, he looked up and saw that it was completely dark in the tutorial, no stars twinkled in the artificial night sky.

Alert: The first step has been passed, and all five fears were conquered: +3 to all stats. Challenge the next step? [Y/N]

Lan took a shuddering breath and declined, still reeling from the shock of seeing that man again. A lot of memories he had been trying to bury were getting dredged up and he didn’t want to experience something like that again, not so soon anyway.

He picked himself up off the ground and looked around, he was lying just beside the platform that contained the first step.

Now that it was night, the platform was packed full of people, all of whom seemed to be standing in lines that snaked around from the first step to the edge of the platform.

Curiously, Lan walked over to a girl standing at the back of one of the lines. She was fidgeting nervously and had a staff clenched tightly in one hand, with a book in the other.

“Why is everyone queueing?” Lan approached her and asked.

She glanced up at him, “Because only 100 people can challenge each step at the same time, duh. Didn’t they teach you anything in your academy?”

“Oh, right, I remember seeing a message like that,” Lan muttered, he hadn’t read the message carefully since he didn’t have time, what with him being chased and all.

“You remember… have you already challenged the first step? How far did you get?” Her face lit up when she saw that he had passed.

“How far?” Lan echoed.

“Yeah, there are stages, right? At least that’s what my teachers told me,” the girl asked nervously.

Once again, Lan cursed that everyone seemed to know more about the tutorial than he did. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to be more specific,”

“Well, I was told that you have to face five fears. If you overcome the first fear, you pass and can challenge up to the third step. If you overcome the second fear, you can challenge up to the sixth step. Beat the third fear and you can reach the ninth step. And if you somehow manage to overcome the fourth fear, you can challenge up to the twelfth step,”

‘I suppose my fears were, darkness, heights, hunger and cold,’ Lan figured, “Then what about the final fear?”

“Ha, the final fear. Some maniacs try to overcome that but why bother? It's not like they’ll be able to reach the twelfth step anyway so why put yourself through all that?” The girl laughed.

“Yeah… why would someone put themselves through that…? It would probably be traumatic,” internally Lan was cursing Cece, ‘Why the fuck didn’t she warn me!?’

“Exactly, anyway, how was your challenge?”

Lan shrugged, “The first two fears weren’t that bad, they were kind of impersonal. But the next two were really bad,”

The girl sighed in relief, “Thanks, for the heads up and well done on reaching the fourth fear, by the way, best of luck on the rest of your climb,”

When she had finished talking, she seemed to have relaxed a little, looking more confident and assured.

Lan shook his head, leaving the girl behind and heading off to catch some sleep. Just as he lay down on his death trap of a bed that reeked of blood, he heard a knock on the door.

Stifling a curse, he shouted out, “Who is it?”

“U-um, ssory t-to b-bother you, It’s m-me, Rachel,”

‘She sure picked a shit time, ah well it might be nice to get my mind off… things. I’m sure If I went to sleep now, I’d end up having the nightmares again,’

“One second,” Lan shouted back, clambering up out of the bed and opening the door that creaked on rusty hinges.

Hi, Rachel waved awkwardly at him.

Lan smiled wearily and waved her in.