Very quickly Zeil realised something unusual. The environment began to change drastically as if they were not in a port city, and suddenly there was no buildings, just trees. The proctor speed began to pick up. At first Zeil was the only one to notice, then the tree beings realised it as well. The other beings in Zeil's group eventually noticed the change of pace and begun to hasten themselves.

However, the atmosphere shifted, and some of the beings began to shake in fear. One of them pointed at the trees of the forest and his face went pale from shock.

Suddenly the proctor stopped, turned around and spoke

"Welcome to Hela's forest. the proficiency test starts here. Your task is to follow me for a full 24 hours. Now before some of you get any ideas"

He threw his axe to the left and it hit some sort of animal which squealed and writhed like a slug before dying. It then exploded and its leftover blood ate through the trees and stones in the vicinity around the corpse. The axe then returned to his hand like nothing had happened

"this forest is notorious for having the exploding variant of these little monsters, unfortunately for you lot, if you lose track of me in this forest I'll count you as dead and you're on your own. So, stick close because whilst the monsters explode, they aren't nearly as harmful as some of the weaker creatures of the forest. for example that one"

he pointed to a worm which managed to find its way to one of the beings on Zeil's group. But it was too late. The worm bit into the being skin and almost instantly the being begun to deflate, and the worm begun to inflate

The proctor continued to talk

"you see, this is what I mean. now that worm has sucked up all his blood. He is essentially dead, and if we wait too long more of those worms will continue to come because the corpse of a being is very nutritional for the worms lifestyle, therefore before this gets worse ill…"

And he threw his axe at the the corpse infested with the worm.The axe caught fire and when it landed a huge plume of fire erupted in the corpses location

"heres a tip, you ever run into one of them, burn them, now lets get started with the test. Ready….set…. Go"

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

And he took off in a shockwave of wind

For Zeil it was relatively easy to follow the proctor. He masked his presence and harmonized with the earth. Wherever the proctor was he could tell instantly through his connection to the earth

Since the test seemed too simple for Zeil he went of in his own direction. He began Traversing the forest to find out what makes Hela's forest so feared by the populous.it was interesting how a lack of presence could get you anywhere he mused. He saw a cave eventually, surrounded by unusual variants of bears. Some had sharp blades covering their entire bodies completely like fur whereas other were more crystalline like, with round bodies and sharp edges.

Zeil stepped past them and went into the cave

The first thing he saw inside the cave where baby cubs. He ignored those, however what caught his interest was the corpse he saw sitting in a meditation posture with his back against the wall. From the dust on the corpse body Zeil estimated at least 100 years since the corpse's death. He went up to the corpse and felt his pulse. Just to check. He's had previous experience where a corpse turned up to be a deeply meditated person who was in a trance. Unfortunately, for the corpse it was well and truly dead. A glint caught Zeil's eyes and he looked closer to the positioning of the corpse. His back was hiding something. Zeil picked the corpse up and placed it down to the left of his previous position

Zeil said aloud "allow me to atone for disturbing your rest, by building you a seat so that even in death would your meditations allow you to reach enlightenment"

Zeil using the harmonized connection to the earth created a platform for the corpse and on it he wrote

"அறிவொளி "

He then turned around and picked up what was hiding behind the corpses back. It was an unusual object . A piece of metal which when touched. Fluctuated like liquid.

"how interesting" zeil mused

Zeil decided he had enough exploration for the day and decided to return to the proctor's location before he was written off as dead

But he knew one day he would return to this location as he felt he hadn't even begun to discover the secrets of Hela's Forest.

(enlightenment =அறிவொளி = Aṟivoḷi )