As soon as Tide crossed the threshold he felt a rush of cold air, looking back he saw that the door behind him had disappeared leaving him in a room with five doors. Tide took a minute to examine the circular room and its doors. There was one door for each of the four basic and one that was locked without a label. Tide tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge.

A blue screen popped up when he tried to open it.

Only those with advanced tickets are able to proceed to the next tower floor.

Well with nowhere else to go Tide needed to decide which element he wanted to work on. Deciding it was best to try and obtain an air affinity before just increasing his other ones he walked towards the door labeled air.

Upon opening it, Tide step forward into darkness only to find himself falling. A red rock beneath him quickly rose as his body slammed into it. Tide grunted as he hit the rock. Confused Tide stood up and dusted himself off. Once he stood up his was dazed by his surroundings. He was on a small streak of rock stuck in the air above a canyon. The streak of rock led to one of the canyon’s sides and was about fifty meters from the other side. Behind him was a ten-meter gap to the other side. Looking down off the side of the rock bridge, it was a good hundred or so feet to reach the ground.

Tide waited there for a couple of seconds unsure of what he was supposed to be doing. After a bit a screen popped up cluing him into what was happening.

Welcome to the challenge of the Wind. Your goal is to reach the side of the canon. During the challenge you cannot use any skills. The challenge ramps up based on your stats. When you fail you will be returned to the main tower floor. You have unlimited attempts during your training duration. Good Luck.

Seeing the message Tide was kind of confused it was only a good 50 meters to reach solid ground. It seemed pretty simple. So, Tide started walking his way towards the edge. After the first five feet he began to feel a breeze hitting his face. Continuing forward the wind began to pick up pace until Tide found it hard to continue on. Feeling himself slipping back Tide quickly fell to one knee. Pushing forward he stood back up and made it forward a couple more steps before he was sent sprawling by the force of the wind. Despite falling back, a couple of meters the wind remained at the same strength. Soon Tides boots lost traction with the rock Tide was sent of the rock path. He was left falling towards the bottom of the canyon.

Right when Tide was about to hit the ground of the canyon he suddenly found himself lying on the ground in the towers main room.

“What the fuck” Tide muttered as he stood up. He spent a minute reflecting on what happened before going back to the door labeled wind. Once again, he found himself on the strip of rock over the canyon. Tide knowing what he had to do started running as fast as he could towards the end of the bridge. He tried building up as much momentum as possible while the wind was lighter. Once he found his momentum was halting he threw himself to the ground and started crawling. It wasn't the most dignified strategy, but it works. Eventually though the wind became too strong for Tide to even move his arms forward while on the ground. It like he was crawling on top of a plane that was going full speed eventually his muscles gave out and he was launched a good teen foot backwards off the edge of the rock. He managed to make it within twenty feet of the canyon wall, but in the end, he found himself back at the tower again.

Not one to give up Tide threw himself at the challenge again and again. Each time he managed to get a little bit closer, but each attempt always ended with Tide being launched off free falling. No matter what he did he couldn’t reach the canyon’s edge. It was literally feet away, but he couldn't make it.

Frustrated Tide took a break. Sitting down on the edge of the rock path during one of the easier sections Tide just let the gentle breeze flow through his hair. Grabbing small pebbles next to him began to throw them at the canyon’s edge and watch them get blasted away by the fierce winds. Each time the pebbles were repelled and launched back at him, one even managed to make its way past him heading in the opposite way. Watching it Tide saw it fall and eventually hit the other wall of the canyon.

Suddenly it hit him. Why was he trying to fight the wind? The whole point of this training was to have the element work for him. Standing up readying himself Tide began to once again run farther down the rock bridge. As soon as he started feeling too much pressure from the wind he spun with it and began to run the opposite direction with the wind pushing against his back. He began to build up a ridiculous amount of speed as he reached the other end of the rock path. Just before its end Tide pushed off of the rock into the air as high as possible.

Fully in the air Tide was propelled over the 5-meter gap between the rock bridge and the canyons side. He tumbled to a stop and quickly stood up victorious. He had made it to solid land!

The trick was to use the wind to cross the gap, not fight against it towards the other side!

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You have completed the Wind Challenge. You will receive +15% air affinity for this feat.

Tide dismissed the window and found a door in front of him. Walking through it he found himself back in the towers main room.

He looked at the other three doors before striding into the next one.

*****************************

After five-day past Tide was teleported back into the center of the room. It was a grueling weak going through the various challenges. Each was extremely different than the other.

The worst was fire. Its trial was to just reach the center of the room. The only problem was that in the middle of the room was a pool of molten lava and each step closer to it Tide could feel himself burning. To complete the trail, he literally had to step into the lava and melt himself. Tide couldn't find some mind-boggling lesson to this, but it was most likely about heat concentration or some bullshit.

For water he had to embrace drowning and overcome the instinct to fight against the pull of water. It was an awful feeling and Tide now realized why waterboarding was such an effective torture mechanism. After drowning an ungodly amount of times Tide was able to willingly accept the embrace of water.

For earth, he was forced to stand as gravity continually got stronger forcing him to exert more effort to remain standing. Quickly, Tide realized the lesson was about foundation and structure.  In order to beat the trail, he had to be in a position where all of his muscles strained together.

In the end, Tide just believed that this place was designed to entertain some sadistic god who was laughing at him throughout all of it.

Tide had just finished the earth trail which he had left for last knowing that it would most likely be the easiest. All of his muscles were still trembling due to the strain they had just gone through and he flopped to the floor. Laying there, Tide let his hand massage his strained muscles as he opened up his character sheet.

It was actually the first time he had opened it since reaching the training grounds. He was too busy trying to make sure he could finish the four trails before his time ran out that he kind of forgot to. Now that he was finished he could finally look at the progress he had made.

Tide Blackwater

Lv: 13 (17%)

Class: Elementalist

Health: 170(Regen 34/h)

Mana: 190(Regen 114/h)

Stamina: 125 (Regen 75/h)

Vitality: 34

Strength: 17

Endurance: 25

Reaction: 21

Agility: 15

Willpower: 26

Intelligence: 21

Wisdom: 38

Control: 40

Affinities-

Earth: 40%

Fire: 25%

Water: 28%

Wind: 15%

Once he finished looking over his stat screen, laid down on the marble floor unmoving drifting into an exhausted sleep.

The next day when he woke up his muscles were still quite sore, so he spent a while massaging them. After that he decided that he shouldn't waste his last couple of remaining hours in the training dimension and began to meditate. After an hour or so he gained a point in wisdom and his muscles once again felt ready to be used.

Right now, his weakest stats were agility and strength. Normally they were important to mages for casting their spells, but they were incredibly important for surviving. Also, because they were low he could make much more progress with them than his other stats.

Tide took a couple seconds to come up with a good workout focusing on those two stats. He started out by doing burbes, in which he did a push up before springing to his feet. From their he would jump back to the ground and do another pushup. After words he quickly created some weights from the marble floor under him and started doing weighted squats and lunges. Up next was russian twists for his core. After that he sprinted back and forth inside the room until his legs gave out.

Tide then started doing pull ups with a freshly created bar. Upon completing these exercises he took a ten minute break and started making mana patterns in the air just to keep himself busy.

Ten minutes later he would spring to his feet and start the whole process over again. After two hours of these exercises Tide was struggling immensely to keep going but forced himself to continue. He kept himself at the brink of exhaustion and slipped into a trance where he just mindlessly moved his body through the same motions. While this was going on the door to the tower creaked open and the old man entered.

Tide who was immersed in his training didn’t notice and continued for another half an hour. He only stopped his training once the old man let out a rather loud cough.

“Boy, your time here is over. I can see that your time was well spent.” The old man said with a sparkle of respect in his eyes.

“I would be an imbecile to waste any time in this place. Time is a luxury for those in the Trial. Thank you for having me.” Tide said while giving a bow to the old man.

The old man let out a small chuckle before pulling out a small vial out of his sleeve.

“Ah it was no trouble to host such a diligent youth. As a reward for your devotion take this medicine. It will help you recover to peak condition. We can’t have you leaving here in such poor conditions.” He said while handing over the vial.

“Many thanks” Tide said before quickly downing the liquid in the vial.

It tasted like bitter mint and was quite refreshing. Once it hit his stomach the effects were instant. A cooling sensation quickly rippled throughout his body, slowly refreshing all of his wrung-out muscles. Soon all of the pain ring throughout his body faded.

“Seems you’re ready to leave now” the old man said.

“Yes, I am” Tide responded only to find that he was already back in the cave where the boss fight had gone down.