Chapter 4: Adam – Rank Up I to II

Adam panted, having pushed himself a little bit to defeat the dummy in only 2 exchanges. He had been able to do it in 3 pretty reliably, but getting that number down was surprisingly difficult, even after several trials. The trick, he found, was running up and using Punch before the dummy attacked first.

The dummy faded away silently, the *POP* sound apparently only happening when a reward was gained. But while Adam couldn’t earn any physical rewards…

Swordsmanship (Rank I) Level 4 reached!

Punch (Rank I) Level 5 Reached!

Adam grinned, having gained 2 levels from that one fight. The 3rd level of Swordsmanship was gained relatively easily, after only a couple Equipment Trials, but the 4th took quite a bit longer. As for the 5th level of Punch… he had been starting to get concerned that it was maxed out at 4.

With how long it had taken Punch to get to level 5, Adam decided that it probably wasn’t worth it to spend who-knew-how many trials to get Swordsmanship up there as well. Especially not when the Trials had their rewards blocked.

More importantly, though… it appeared 12 hours had passed since his last Refreshment Trial. Time flew surprisingly fast when undergoing intensive training like this. Weirdly, Adam had only been getting a little hungry towards the end of that time, and once he sat still for the requisite 5 minutes, he wasn’t hungry at all. That was rather nice, considering there wasn’t much in the way of food around here.

Feeling quite… well… refreshed, and with his skills newly leveled up, Adam felt he was as prepared as he reasonably could be for the Rank Up Trial. He did wonder what it would be like… it seemed to be a capstone, something that all the other Trials were in preparation for.

“Alright… I want to rank up. What are the Trial’s details?”

Rank Up Trial: Rank I => II

-Trial Details: Survive the Trial.

-Trial Constraints: Only Rank I Equipment/Techniques can be used.

-Failure Penalty: Death.

Continue?

Adam was rather disturbed by the calculated simplicity. Not for the first time, he wondered who, or what, was creating these messages. The constraints listing was also rather curious: Adam had no way of getting items or skills beyond Rank I until after this Trial… so why would the constraint matter in any way? Was this like the listing for how many Trials he had taken, where it only made sense later on?

“Well… whatever. Alright, continue.”

Trial Selected. Transporting…

The world distorted before Adam’s eyes. His surprise was substantial: what did it mean, *transporting*?

After a period of time where he felt like he was about to throw up, Adam found himself in an unfamiliar place. The first indication he was somewhere new was all the green. Adam knew what a plant was but had no concrete memories of actually seeing one until now. And not just one… many. A whole forest, with sunlight barely peeking through the treetops and shrubs covering the ground.

Adam was enthralled. Was this where he would be living from now on? It was certainly an upgrade from the desolate place he had been in before…

You have entered the Forgotten Forest.

Calculating Trial Aspects…

-Aspect 1: Sword Combat Technique.

-Groups of sword-wielding enemies will appear every 5:00 minutes until the Trial ends.

-Aspect 2: Vambraces (+ Greaves)

-Enemies will each be given 3 random pieces of Rank I Armor

-Aspect 3: Footwear

- Trial-Taker must reach the edge of the forest in 1:00 hours or the Trial is failed.

Adam looked through the long message, getting more and more wary by the second. Just being in a place called the ‘Forgotten Forest’ seemed ominous, but what the hell was this Trial? It seemed to be based on the rewards he had received for his past few Trials. Adam was rather angry that whatever system governed this place didn’t see fit to warn him of that. It seemed not only was there a limit on the Trials he could take, but each one ran the risk of increasing the difficulty of the Rank Up Trial. Adam was just glad that Punch didn’t seem to factor in; he didn’t want to know what that would have done.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Begin.

Adam looked around, expecting to see the ‘sword-wielding enemies’ coming at him. Instead… nothing. Then he remembered. They were set to appear every 5 minutes, that meant he had a 5- minute head start. Well, probably more like 4 1/2 minutes by now. He didn’t know which way the ‘edge of the forest’ was in, so he picked the direction that looked to have the fewest trees and ran like his life depended on it. Which it did, come to think of it.

‘Okay, so if there’s an hour to the trial, that means… what’s 60 divided by 5? 12. 12 waves of enemies. No wait, only 11… unless I have to fight the final wave after I escape the forest.’, Adam thought to himself while sprinting forward.

When the ground in front of him changed, Adam’s thoughts almost distracted him sufficiently to trip. Thankfully, he was paying at least a little attention to his surroundings and was able to dodge around a rocky overhang. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that the 5 minutes were up.

3 green-skinned creatures who were only slightly shorter than Adam burst out from behind the trees. True to the Trial system’s warning, they all had swords, as well as a mismatched assortment of helmets, chestpieces, footwear, and, yes, greaves and vambraces. Adam paused his sprint for a little bit. He needed to test something.

“I don’t suppose we could talk things out, here? I was told to take this Trial, but I didn-“

*SCREEEEE*

The creatures made an ear-piercing sound and moved towards Adam at once. He sighed, knowing that diplomacy was not going to be an option.

He blocked the attack of the closest one’s sword with his own, then lunged backwards and turned to face another. Before it could react properly, Adam Punched the creature in its un-helmeted face. It fell to the ground, not unconscious but at least dazed.

The other two grouped up together, not wanting to let Adam get another easy hit in. Adam didn’t have experience in group fights, having only fought one training dummy at a time…

Still, necessity is the mother of invention. Adam decided to force Swordsmanship to treat the two creatures – goblins? – as one attacker. He managed to get the right movements to feint towards the right side of one of them, but actually swiped at the left side of the other. It managed to work, though Adam hadn’t quite noticed that the one he sliced at had a vambrace as good as his. Still, his slice managed to knock the goblin off-balance and into its ally.

Adam spent a bit longer trying to stab the goblins, to reasonable success now that their rough formation was broken. He managed to kill two of the three, all while trying to ignore the bizarre green blood that came out of them, when…

3 *more* goblins came out of the trees. Adam cursed to himself, knowing that his five minutes had been used up and then some. If this kept up, he wouldn’t escape the forest at all… and the Trial’s penalty for failure was regrettably clear.

Turning back to what he *hoped* was the direction he was traveling in (or at least, not the direction he came from), Adam began to run. The goblins, who now numbered 4, didn’t like that, if their horrible sounds were anything to go by.

The next several waves of enemies, who each managed to find Adam as he was running, were quickly sped by. Adam thanked his lucky stars that these things weren’t all that great at running. It would have been a much harder Trial if he had to defeat all of them.

Still, the things did have one trick up their nonexistent sleeves. A sword was in theory a melee-range weapon, but it could be used for range… if you threw it.

Adam’s Swordsmanship gave him the knowledge that throwing your sword at the enemy was a rather stupid idea. Sadly, though, stupid ideas had an effectiveness all on their own. Especially if you were willing to try again and again. The goblins started throwing their blades at Adam from the moment they saw him, and the laws of the Trial meant each one would see him at least every 5 minutes.

Adam struggled to dodge all the improvised projectiles. He was rather glad for his bonus leg armor, because he was pretty sure that’s where the goblins were aiming, meaning to slow him down. Did they know he was on a time limit, or were they just angered by a fleeing enemy?

There were other dangers in the forest as well. At one point, Adam was blocked by a wide, flowing river. He decided to change course to follow it downstream, hoping that it was the fastest way out of the forest. At another point, he encountered a large cave. Just looking at the cave gave him a strong sensation of dread. Adam was curious, but not curious enough to go anywhere near it.

After the 11th wave of goblins, Adam was almost at the point of despair. But just at the last moment, the trees of the forest started to get smaller. The forest was giving way! And it was giving way to… to…

Nothing.

Nothing*ness*, rather. A pure black void, blacker than even the dark rock that made up the first area Adam had been in. He gulped. Was this some kind of trick? Or perhaps an illusion? Or was the forest not only ‘Forgotten’, but… lost? Lost in the void, just like he had been on his never-ending walk to nowhere?

Still, there were goblins on Adam’s heels, and these ones seemed a bit faster than the ones before. ‘Just my luck’, Adam thought.

Caught between an advancing army of angry warriors, a wall of sudden darkness, and an ever-approaching time limit… Adam decided to risk that the Trial wouldn’t hurt him so long as he did as it asked. He jumped into the void.

There was a sensation of falling. His stomach dropped, fearing he had made the wrong choice. But after a few horrifying seconds…

Rank Up Trial (I => II) Conditions met.

You have succeeded.

…Adam was suddenly sprawled on solid ground.

He got up as quickly as he could manage, although his nausea made him regret it. But as he looked around for the angry goblins, he instead found himself… where he started. A vast plane of black stone surrounded by some sort of mist.

Adam kept his guard (and his sword) up for a while, but nothing changed. He relaxed for a bit and wanted to see what kinds of changes his new rank-up had brought him. But just as he started, Adam noticed something. Something he hadn’t ever seen before.

Movement. Movement in the mist! Adam rushed forward to see what was happening, fearing that his Rank Up Trial had triggered some sort of enemy invasion. There was a silhouetted figure in the mist, and it reminded him of the training dummy. Had it come back, outside of a Trial, somehow? For revenge?

But while Adam thought through wild scenarios, they didn’t prepare him for what he found.

A human. A woman. A human woman! And she was… walking forward, eyes full of gray coloration, as if in a daze…