Chapter 5: Adam - ???

Adam backed away from the new person in shock. A human, just like him! Well, not *just*. She wore the same style of tunic that he did, but it did little to disguise the different shape of her body. Adam had no specific memories of people, man or woman, but he somehow understood the concept. He was just ecstatic to meet someone of the same species. Though, he had to admit that he would be willing to accept just about anyone’s company at this point, so long as they weren’t out to kill him.

He cleared his throat. “H-hello? Hello. Hello there, Miss…. Ah, can I get your name, perhaps?” Adam cringed internally, knowing that even though this was the first introduction of his life, it was pretty rough.

The woman seemed to agree, as she acted like she couldn’t even hear him. Wait… she *could* hear him, right? Her eyes were grayed out, so she might have vision issues, but did that imply she was also deaf? Or mute? That would be such a shame, to have the only other person in the world be unable to communicate with him… where had she even come from? Just… out there, in the mist, walking forward…

Adam’s eyes suddenly grew wide with realization. His time endlessly walking forward, thinking of nothing in particular… he didn’t like to think on it often, since his current self didn’t understand why he had been like that, or how he had even survived in such a state. But was this woman in the same state?

It matched up, actually. Even as he tried to talk to her, she walked ever forward, away from him, towards the other side of the clearing in the mist. Adam frowned. If she left the area, would he ever see another human again? He had to take this chance to snap her out of it.

He jostled her as she took more steps forward. “Hey! You! Stop! No, come back!”

Despite her lack of footwear, like Adam had been at the start, she was walking at a rather impressive pace. Not jogging per se, but just… ever forward, never pausing or even slowing.

But when she got to what was, as Adam would later learn, the very center of the mist clearing, everything changed. The woman slowed, then halted, then collapsed. Adam hadn’t even been holding her at the time. He rushed over to try and see what was happening.

Turning her over, he could see that her eyes were actually changing color. From the gray that completely filled them, making him assume she was blind, she now had a beautiful set of green pupils. She groaned, the first sound she had made. Adam was thrilled, since something had apparently broken her trance. The world he had found himself in was strange, but he would take it any day over not having any true consciousness. He assumed she would feel the same way.

Adam sat down on the stone ground, waiting for her to fully awaken. While he watched over her, he decided to check the mind-whispers to see what his Rank Up Trial had changed for him.

Name: Adam

Trials Taken: 0

Trials Available:

-Equipment Trial (Rank I, Rank II)

-Technique Trial (Rank I, Rank II)

-Refreshment Trial (Rank I, Rank II)

-Practice Trial (Rank I, Rank II)

-Enhancement Trial (Rank I, Rank II)

-Group Trial (Rank II)

-Rank Up Trial (Rank II => III)

Adam was surprised at the number of new options, so much so that he didn’t even dwell on the reset ‘Trials Taken’ number. The Rank II options of the Equipment and Technique Trials were not that unexpected, yes. A Rank II Refreshment Trial was also interesting, since the Rank I one already healed him to peak condition. But the other three options… he gave a mental query as to what they were.

Practice Trial: Replicate the exact conditions of any other available Trial. All injuries suffered during a Practice Trial, including death, will be undone. No other reward will be given. Cannot replicate Rank Up trials.

Enhancement Trial: Gain a permanent boost to a physical or mental attribute. Each successful Enhancement Trial increases the difficulty of all future Enhancement Trials, particularly for Enhancements of the same or similar categories.

Group Trial: A Trial that requires between 2 and 5 Trial-Takers to begin. The type and difficulty will be determined by the number and strengths of the group. The highest performer will receive a personalized Equipment or Technique at the Rank of the Trial. The other Trial-Takers will receive personalized Equipment or Techniques one Rank lower than the Trial.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Adam nodded along at the information. A Practice Trial sounded similar to what he had been using the One-Handed Blade Trial for… practice. But it could also be an amazing tool to make sure that a new Trial wasn’t going to be deadlier than its description leads one to believe.

The Enhancement Trials sounded insanely powerful, if Adam was reading it right. A Trial to make him stronger, faster, even smarter? Fantastic. He would have to choose his options carefully, though, since they got harder with each success.

As for the Group Trials… Adam didn’t know what to say. Was unlocking this just after finding a new person luck, or fate? And the fact that up to 5 people could take them… did that mean there was more than just this one woman wandering around in the mist? 3 others? More? Were they all human, or were there some other things like goblins, too? If there were, would they be murder-frenzied like their Trial-made counterparts?

Adam was thinking too far ahead. Maybe there weren’t any other people in the mist, and the whispers were just mistaken. He couldn’t make any assumptions.

‘Wait, what if this woman wants to kill me, too? Just like the goblins?’

Adam hoped *that* was just an idle worry. But as he was enthralled by the new mind-whispers, he hadn’t noticed the woman getting up.

“W-what… what… happened?”, she groaned. Adam gulped.

“I-it’s okay, you’re safe now… safe as we can be, at any rate…”

She sat up. “Who are you? What... where are we? What’s going on?!”

Adam winced, having not expected the woman to be so immediately combative. “I… my name is Adam. What’s your name? Do you have one?”

The woman glared at him. “It’s… Beth. Beth… wait, why can’t I remember my last name?”

Adam gave a look he hoped seemed kind. “I don’t remember my family name either, if I had one. It’s probably an effect of whatever had the both of us walking for so long.”

“Walking… OH FUCK, the walking. That… that was real? That really happened? I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Too real to be a dream, too dream-like to be real… I mean…” The woman – Beth – seemed rather disturbed by the situation.

Adam nodded. “I know, I had to do it too. It’s like… you’re going somewhere, but the destination doesn’t matter? Only that you’re going forward?”

Beth slowly nodded along. “Yeah, going forward… and it’s so important, so important that you go forward that you don’t let *anything* distract you… anything like wondering who you are or what this place is…”

Adam gave a wry grin. “Well, I think those days are behind us. Literally and figuratively. I snapped out of it when I got to this clearing, and so did you. Don’t know if it’s our destiny, but it seems to be our destination.”

The woman looked around the area and grimaced. “This place? It’s nothing but these black rocks! *Please* tell me it’s not as desolate as it looks.”

Adam smiled. “It’s… pretty much exactly as desolate as it looks. I’ve found no evidence of any structures, or landmarks, or creatures… except for you, that is.”

“Fuuuck. Nothing? Literally nothing? I almost – ALMOST – want to go back to walking. I mean, not really, but… how are we going to survive out here? There’s no food! No water! I’m surprised there’s even air, for fucks sake!”

Adam suddenly had a worry. “Can you feel the… er… whispers?”

Beth gave him a flat look. “Can I. Feel. The *whispers*? The hell are you talking about?”

Adam was sheepish. “You know… the ones in your mind. They’re important, out here. I really hope you have them too; I can’t do any Group Trials without you…”

“And what kind of bullshit is a Group Tria- “, Beth’s voice suddenly cut off.

She looked off into the distance for a while. Adam was almost worried she had gone back into a trance, but realized he probably looked like that when reading/hearing/feeling the mind-whispers as well.

Eventually, Beth snapped out of it. “Okay, what is this? You’ve clearly been here longer than me, did you set these… Trial things up?”

Adam shook his head violently. “No no, definitely not! I kind of hate them, personally… well, ‘hate’ is a strong word… I hate that I have to *do* them, but they are the only way I’ve managed out here. You see that ‘Refreshment’ one? It heals you of basically everything. Food, water, taking a… you know… it’s all taken care of.”

Beth was shocked. “No shit? LITERALLY no shit?! It just said it sets something to ‘good condition’, not ‘hey idiot, this is how you stay alive and why you don’t need a toilet out here in Fuckass, Nowhere’. What the hell do you have to do to get that kind of treatment? I bet it doesn’t come for free…”

Adam gave a big smile. “Actually, in this *one* case… the Trial is to sit as still as possible for 5 minutes. That’s it. Oh, and you can do it twice a day… not that there really are ‘days’ in this place… once every 12 hours, anyway.”

“You’re bullshitting me. It can’t be…” Beth trailed off. Then after gazing into space for a little bit: “Or maybe it CAN be? What the hell do I know? Well, maybe these Trial things aren’t so bad! What else can they do, huh? If ‘Refreshment’ can, I dunno, cure cancer and shit, what can ‘Equipment’ do? Make a five-star resort?”

Adam chuckled a bit. This woman was very sarcastic and swore in conversation a bit too much (or a *lot* too much), but she was funny. The first person Adam ever met, and she was funny! Was that common? Or was Adam just lucky?

“Sadly, I don’t think the Equipment Trials can make hotels. But you might have noticed the Rank Up Trial? I just did mine, and it unlocked 3 whole types of Trials I didn’t even know existed. If I do it again, then who knows, maybe there’s a Hotel Trial right around the corner?”

“Sweet! Well then, if it’s that good, I think I’ll do my Rank Up Trial right the hell n-“

Adam clamped his hand over Beth’s mouth in a panic. “NO! No, no, no! Refreshment Trials are the *only* ones that are safe. The others are very dangerous! When I did mine, I had to run at high speed away from dozens of sword-wielding goblins!”

Beth gave him a wide-eyed look until Adam removed his hand. “Okay, one, don’t do that again. And two… fucking, warn me about shit like that *before* I almost die, then, man! You’re such an expert in this shit and you didn’t tell me that?”

Adam rubbed his head a bit. ‘You didn’t exactly give me time to warn you…’, he thought. He didn’t voice that thought, though. Instead, he said, “Sorry… my bad. But in the future, just know that these Trials are no joke, and not really a game. You can get hurt; you can die… ‘shit like that’. Okay?”

“Oof… maybe I’ll just let you handle them then, okay big guy?”

Adam hadn’t really thought about it, but he was several inches taller than the woman. He didn’t have a frame of reference to know if that meant he was ‘big’ or if Beth was just ‘little’. He supposed it didn’t really matter. Still, he didn’t want her to avoid taking Trials altogether. He had been hoping she would help him out, once he showed her the ropes. He was very curious about that Group Trial.

“I think we may have skipped a few steps, here. Trials aren’t all bad. Let me start at the beginning…”