After the green fire disappeared from the paper, new words could be read: “The first trial is the trial of the mind, the less dangerous and yet one of the most important of all the trials. Answer honestly the questions thou will be asked. To write thou have to think about the answer and the trials will write it for thou.”
After I finished reading those words the paper started to write questions. They were complicated situations, choices and ways to solve problems, questions about daily life, questions about mathematics, and questions about every kind of theme I could begin to imagine; and strangely enough, the paper didn’t ask anything I didn’t know how to answer, whether such answer was correct or not it’s another question, but the fact that I could answer to all made me suspicious, even in Earth there were thousands of things I didn’t know, how was it possible that something from another world and another universe, didn’t ask a single thing I didn’t know?
After I answered the last question after what seemed hours, and while the green fire was erasing the last question with its answer, I discovered something strange. I didn’t feel tiredness, hunger or thirst; it was as if I didn’t have a physical body. I felt powerful but powerless; I didn’t feel anything at all. It was scary, but I related all that to the trials, I guess it was a way to make the tested be fully concentrated in the task in hand.
“You’ve completed the first trial at the 45155th position out of 98129 participants. Your answers have been analyzed in consideration of your planet knowledge, but you still only had knowledge of a 19% of your world.”
I guess I didn’t fare as well as I thought I had. But what could I do about it, it was impossible to know everything in my world, too much knowledge. The desk started consuming itself in the same green fire I had seen until nothing was left of it, and as soon as I stood up the same happened to the chair. Then the room seemed to thin itself, transforming in a hallway which I couldn’t see the end of, in either way. I wondered what would happen next and then I got the answer in my mind.
“Run, run until you can’t run anymore.”
The first thing I wondered was in which way should I run, but then I decided it wouldn’t matter, or they would’ve told me, right?
As the words said, I started to run, and kept running. I realized that though I was running, I didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Hours passed, but I didn’t feel tired and I had yet to see the end, so I kept running. And like this I ran for days; every day I wondered if I was doing what I was supposed to do, but I kept running because I didn’t have an option.
After what seemed a month and it probably was, I thought about giving up but something clicked in my mind.
[I can’t give up now, I need the power, I need to survive, I won’t give up my life for some stupid trial, I’ll keep running.]
I made up my mind and kept running, thought I didn’t feel tiredness, I felt despair and I felt mental exhaustion, I needed to rest, or so my mind said, but I knew it wasn’t true, the trials had made me unable to tire, so I would keep running until I passed the test.
Months passed and I was getting desperate, even after so long I didn’t come anywhere near the end, where the hell was I going?! I had decided to run even if I lost my mind I would, but I thought about something.
I had been running as if I was in my world where I should run not too fast so as to not tire myself before arriving to my destination, but here, here I didn’t tire, so why should I spare my energies?
After that realization I started running with all my might, I ran faster that I had ever ran and I didn’t feel any pain or exhaustion, I could run like this forever or so I thought.
After what seemed years after beginning to run my mind collapsed. I couldn’t do it, the destination was too far away, I couldn’t achieve it, I would fail the test. And with such thoughts in mind, I stopped running, I didn’t even walk or sit, I just stood there, regretting all. That was until the same voice came to my mind.
“Congratulations, you have been the mortal with the strongest will from all the mortals to have went through the trials, with a running time of what in your world would’ve been 2 years 5 months and 11 days and a distance of 353,496 km, the previous contender having a record of 1 year 2 months and 8 days and a distance of 135,096 km. You have finished the will test at the 1st position out of 98129. Now you will participate in the speed test.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Not only did I not fail, I even had the record, oh god, what despair did I feel when I thought I had failed, I was relieved I could survive and I didn’t even feel joy from having beat the previous record, I just felt happiness for not having failed.
The infinite hallway then started reverting to the room, and then extended again, just that this time I could see the end. Then I received the next order.
“Run through the wall and you will get to the goal, run at your maximum speed.”
[Through? I guess the difference in languages had to be noticed somewhere, I suppose he means to the wall.]
I prepared myself, deeply breathed, and then started running with all my might and when I was getting to the wall I realized something. There was no goal there! It couldn’t be, right? It really meant through?!
[I CAN’T PASS THROUGH F***ING WALLS!!!]
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Though I screamed and was angry, I couldn’t help but to trust the trials, because at the end of the day, the one who created it was more powerful than gods, so who was I to judge? Even though I made my mind, I unconsciously started to run slowly, though not much, it was enough, and I knew I wouldn’t far too well in this test.
When I was near the wall, I closed my eyes and even sped up a bit, to end with it fast, and I didn’t feel anything. I stopped and looked around; I was in the room I was in the beginning.
“You have finished the speed test at the 26799th out of 94861 participants. You will participate in the agility test now.”
[Wait what? Did the participants go down? How the f*** is that possible?! There was no danger in the previous trials!]
“To the tested, losing time as you are right now is the reason some participants were disqualified, they lost time in front of the wall and did not cross over, then tried to pass walking which it’s directly against the orders given, as it was clearly said to run through it. When they didn’t go through it for a certain period of time, they were pulverized. The reason you are explained this is because you qualified in the top thousand in a trial. Don’t waste this warning and keep the good work.”
Damn… I was scared shitless, but I had to continue, less they determine I wasn’t complying.
I did what the trial asked of me, and kept doing with different tests. Agility, jump length, jump height, strength and more until I received the first combat trial, the unarmed combat test.
I encountered myself in the initial room again. In the room had appeared 30 doors, out of which only one was opened and was glowing, I went towards it and as I passed it eveyrhing banished and I was in some kind of dojo.
“In the combats tests, every and all enemies will have the same physical capabilities than you, the only thing that will change will be their ability, defeat as many enemies as you can showing your best, and you will be awarded a position depending on what you show.”
Ok, this seemed perfect to me, unarmed combat was what I was better at, and I hope I get some marks. As I was stretching a bit, though it wasn’t necessary at all, a shadow appeared; it wasn’t a person, but a shadow in the form of one. It was weird, but I readied myself. As it approached I noticed it didn’t even walk correctly, so I was convinced it would fight far worse.
It just punched forward as if that could beat me. I just tilted myself to the side a little, and then I punched him with sufficient strength at the face. When I was about to hit, it just banished. Then something appeared near the 7 meters ceiling. It was a sign, and as the words I had read before, I knew their meaning, it meant 1.
I fought a hundred of enemies before I started to be a little serious, they each had a different technique, the first was a punch, then there was a chop, also kicks, knee hits, shoulder tackles, elbow punches, and more, and after 20 of them, they came again to the punches, but this time they punched faster and better, though not near enough, this loop repeated itself until the hundredth enemy, then the one hundred one came and I was surprised.
It started with a punch as it should have, but then when I was going to hit him, he surprised me with a chop! I dodged backwards and looked at him astonished, it seems they started to fuse different types of attacks as I went further.
Since that moment, I didn’t underestimate them anymore, because I knew this could have gone badly.
I fought for hours, and I was happier than ever. At first combats lasted seconds, but as I went further, fights started to last longer. It came to a moment when they were fighting all with the same style, instead of changing styles, they just improved. The last fight I had lasted 2 and a half hour before I beat my opponent. I was happy not because I lasted hours, which was good enough, but because I could try my hardest and learn from mistakes. Of course I couldn’t make too big a mistake, or I would lose, but minor mistakes I could recover from them, and learn from them.
I fought like this for days, not because I fought many people, but because the next ones were better, and as neither they nor me got tired, we could fight at maximum strength all the time.
After I fought with an opponent for 4 weeks, I got to beat him, but I knew the next one would last long if it lasted at all. As I predicted it didn’t last a lot. He came to me running and jumped at me to hit me. I dodged to the left not wasting any time, but then I noticed he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and I sensed something at my left and I turned with haste bringing my arms at my face to protect myself from the kick he had launched. I got knocked backwards 20 meters.
[How the hell did he do that?! The voice said we had the same physical capabilities, so this must have been accomplished with technique!]
I was astonished, but had no time to waste on idle thoughts, he launched himself at me again and seemed to be giving a strong palm strike, so I covered, but I was looking around in case he came from another side. Then I noticed myself fly backwards even thought I had been standing very stably, but not before I noticed the reason.
I had been hit by that simple looking palm strike, but it had nothing about simple, it had hit me 9 times in the instant it touched me! Can you imagine if by every hit you gave, the enemy received the damage and force of 9 hits? As I hit the floor, I noticed I was in the initial room.
[I guess that could have killed me if I hadn’t blocked, and as such the trial ended there.]
“You have finished the unarmed combat test at the 2357th out of 89612 participants. You will participate in the sword combat test now.”
[I guess the people either stayed in the room or died to some of the shadows. I wonder why they stay in this room.]
The trials went on with different kinds of combats; mostly of them I didn’t pass the 151th enemy, which was the level after basics. The only exception the sword combat and the staff combat. Thought I didn’t fare near enough as well as in the unarmed combat, it was pretty good. I ended 13087th in the sword and 19172nd in the staff one, thought by the time I arrived to the staff one there were only 51839 participants left. In the others I didn’t pass the forty thousandth mark, but I can’t do well in everything, can I?
“You have finished the hammer combat test at the 41823rd out of 46137 participants. You will participate in the soul test now.”
[Wait, soul? Does that even exist?]
I was wondering what kind of test when I noticed I wasn’t there anymore. Even though I could sense around me, my body had vanished, and with me all the room. I encountered myself in a black space, full of nothingness, and empty of everything.
“Embrace your soul, and be ready, because the trial now is the hardest of all, and the most painful. Pass it and you will be awarded, fail and you shall perish. Good luck Lyon Ironblood, I wish you the best.”
[What?! He knows who I am? Isn’t it some kind of IA? How can that be po…]
When I was thinking that, I felt something I had never felt before. Utter pain.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!” - I couldn’t help but scream as that feeling invaded what the voice said to be my soul. Then as the pain grew, I lost consciousness again.