John looked around him. Where was he? It looked to be the inside of a tower. Had he reincarnated again?

“You seem disorientated,” said a voice.

“Where am I?” He looked around trying to find the origin of the voice. He couldn’t find a thing.

“You’re in Trial Tower 236.”

“236,” John repeated. He remembered entering the tower all those centuries ago, with Ara and the rest. “How long have I been here?”

“A few seconds.” That didn’t sound right. He had spent an entire lifetime on his planet.

“Are you the artifact spirit?”

“Yes.”

“Was everything I experienced in the first trial an illusion?” It would take great power to create an illusion so real.

“It was a dimension I created based on the rules of this universe and your mind’s greatest fear.”

“So, the test was to overcome my greatest fear? What was my greatest fear?”

“Loneliness.”

“Where are the others?”

“Most have proceeded to the second trial. Do you wish to proceed?”

“Sure,” John said, not very enthusiastically. “What’s it about?”

“You shall soon see.”

The floor rose up and John entered a new level of the tower. Lights came on, illuminating the entire floor. It was about a mile long. The tower must have used very sophisticated space weaves to create all of this. Across from John stood a monster. It was the size of an elephant, with a head like a vulture, upper body of an ape and lower body of a snake. John couldn’t help feeling disgusted by its grotesque appearance. He let loose a river of fire at it and the monster burnt to a crisp. He had gone overboard with killing it. John felt weak. He’d used up his aura reserves too quickly. In the illusion, his aura reserves in the latter stages of his life had been massive. He was not used to having such meager power. He even found it hard to adjust to his teenager body.

As soon as the monster died, John’s mind changed places with the monster. He began to see and feel the monster’s memories. It was once the lord of a mountain. When other monsters dared trespass on its territory it would finish them in a gory spectacle that proclaimed its power. John saw its unique movements in combat and its weaving. This monster was a fire type, and could cast whips of flame at its enemy. He lived the monster’s entire life, until it was finally slain by him. The river of fire really hurt. He should have gone easy on it. John’s mind reentered his body.

“Artifact spirit,” he called, “how long has it been since I killed the monster?”

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“A few seconds.”

It was just as John had thought. Time flowed very strangely in this place. The Astari were masters when it came to manipulating time.

The next monster was an ordinary dinosaur of the earth type. John took his time finishing it off, placing more importance on the efficient use of his aura energy than on making a quick kill. Just like the last time, his mind became one with the monster’s, and he witnessed its entire life. He learned how to weave earth traps, quagmires and earthquakes which were superior to what Sor Al had taught him.

Next came a small green snake of the wood element. It spat out poison at John. He wove a wind blade and easily beheaded it. The snake’s memories were ordinary. It poisoned anything stupid enough to threaten it and hunted without a worry in the world. That was the life!

Then came a wind elemental, a water shark man, an ice sprite, a roc made of lightning, and a giant howling hyena weaving the element of sound. John passed the test and stole their memories. His rate of aura replenishment was now able to keep up with his use of energy. Wind, water, ice, lightning and sound were elements John was already familiar with, and the monsters had not been anything special. He did not learn much of anything new, which was a pity.

The next creature was a blob of darkness. This monster was tricky. It could merge into its surroundings, hiding in plain sight. John had to use more of his aura energy than he liked. He weaved bolts of light and sent them crashing down on wherever he thought the blob was hiding. It attacked him from behind, too quickly for John to phase dodge. John felt pain, and spat out a little blood. He immediately turned around and pierced the monster with a blade of white light. The dark blob was too slow to react and hide. The secret in killing this creature was in letting oneself get hit first. As long as it did not hit anything vital it was fine.

Its memories were strange, mostly of hibernating in dark places, and the occasional hunt for food. It stalked its prey with great proficiency, its stealth circuits superior to John’s own. It used darkness to smother its prey to death. John devoured this knowledge and tried out the stealth circuit as soon as he reentered his body.

Next came a white fox of the light element. John used an earth weave to try and trap it but it was too fast. The only thing he could do was phase dodge and try to hit it with his aura blade. Eventually, the fox grew tired and John had the upper hand. He severed its body into two and his mind left his body once more. He was starting to get used to this feeling. He learned how to turn parts of his body into light, and move with great speed. This was almost as fast as phasing.

Then came a floating black cube of the space element. John’s strikes passed through it, or bounced off the cube rebounding on him. John wove a fire storm. No matter how the cube warped space it could not escape from an area of effect attack. The memories of the cube were strange. It moved from one dimension to another. The laws of the universe were not the same in all of them. In some, he transformed into a two dimensional object. In some, he grew corporeal shadows. It was just too strange for John to learn any new ability, but it increased his understanding of the space elements.

Then, a tiny nightingale. It flew across the room singing a song. When it sang, John felt parts of his body age, and parts of his body revert. He became a weary old man at one moment and a crawling baby the next. The nightingale was not as masterful of this element as the others were. The aging was random and only happened for a short time.

When John moved to strike the bird, his glaive stopped moving as though meeting great resistance and reversed back to its original position. John’s fireballs stopped in midair, levitating over the ground for a few moments. The bird easily dodged as the fireballs slowly moved forward once again. How was he supposed to kill this?

John’s glaive crackled with new energy and he struck the bird. He wove the spatial element on the tip of his glaive. A spatial rift formed where he cut into the air, and with a flurry of thrusts he cornered the bird and drove it into the rift. Time could heal these rifts but the bird didn’t have enough energy to do so even if it was able to see them.

The birds memories were pleasant, flying through the sky, confusing any predator with its time magic, singing its tunes from one corner of the world to the other.

“Now what?” John asked the artifact spirit.

“You’ve passed. You can leave.”

A blue portal appeared before John and he walked through it. He was once again outside the tower. Mosquitoes buzzed around him, irritating John no end. With a spark of lightning John killed half of them. It was because of these damn patrons that he had been forced to kill his friend. John found the others waiting for him by a fireplace.