“Herb Mask?” Zeris muttered around a mouthful of cookies. “It's kind of a silly name, if you think about it. Why didn't you pick something more mysterious?”

  “They gave me a list of limited options to choose from,” Caen said, reclining in a comfortable armchair as a hundred threads danced between his fingers in an intricate configuration. A small portion of his mind handled this complex Flora magic exercise, stacking enough modifiers to sink a boat. An even smaller portion of his mind observed his soul structure and Chasma's, hoping to find better ways of Mimicking the fragment's abilities.

  Most of his attention, though, was here on this conversation.

  He and Zeris were seated in their grandparents’ living room. It was a much larger apartment than the accommodations generally provided to the hordes of freshly arrived Ereshta'als.

  Sh'leinu, Ergen, Grena, and Vensha were out visiting cousins.

  Caen's grandparents were seated across from him and Zeris, reclining comfortably on a sofa.

  They both specialized in rejuvenation magic and were thus unusually youthful in appearance.

  Niodt, Caen's grandfather, was a stocky man with graying hair at his temples and hairy forearms, but he didn't look a day above forty. Elemna, Caen's grandmother, was a tall woman with a devious smile. She looked only slightly older than her husband.

  “This is still too much to wrap my head around,” Elemna said, watching Caen with a smile on her face. “My little tri-healer is participating in the trials.”

  “And knowing that we wouldn't have to worry about his spirit tearing itself apart,” Niodt added, shaking his head. His eyes watered for maybe the fifth time this evening. “We used to have to—” he broke down into tears again.

  He'd cried when Caen had brought them up to speed.

  Elemna patted his thigh affectionately, then turned to Caen, her expression growing sober. “If your parents are to be believed, you've been training every day,” she said, eyeing the threads on Caen's fingers. “We worry that you might burn yourself out.”

  Niodt nodded. “You should take some time to rest. It’s just as important for growth.”

  “It's fine, Ketur,” Caen said, addressing them with an honorific often used for one's elders. “I'm resting, I promise. I have an advantage that perhaps few others in the trials have: I'm still growing. And I can't afford to lose any of that momentum.”

  He shrugged. “I obviously won't be able to raise all my affinities out of abjection this month alone, but I have to keep trying. Soul-sense, too, has a lot of room for improvement. This is how I hedge my bets.”

  His grandparents silently digested his words.

  “Have you picked your weapons yet?” Zeris asked, tactfully redirecting the conversation.

  “My Parthran fragment takes up a slot for magical equipment, but for the second slot, well, I was going for something that might make an impression.”

  “Uh-oh,” Zeris said. “What did you do?”

  “Stormsong,” Caen answered.

  Zeris started laughing.

  Concern marred his grandparents’ faces.

  “Isn’t that weapon dangerous?” Elemna asked.

  “I took extensive precautions,” Caen assured them.

  Stormsong had a few pinnacle enchantments that rendered the weapon formidable and horrifying. It was one of few weapons in the Hall of Choosing that came with heavy drawbacks due to how detrimental its magical effects were on its wielder.

  “The attendants had to speak with a supervisor, who needed to speak with another supervisor. But it was eventually clear to them that I understood the risks.”

  Zeris’s eyes were wide with excitement. “Were you able to communicate with the sword?”

  Caen scratched the side of his face.

  “You did! What did it say?”

  “A lot,” Caen replied. “It's quite… rude. I don't think it likes me very much.”

  Every wielder of Stormsong was able to, in a sense, communicate with the weapon, and it had a reputation for denigrating anyone who channeled their mana into it. This was the stuff of legends here on the island.

  “Well, if you're looking to cause a public stir, this is the way to do it,” Niodt admitted.

  “Ancestors. The rumors that would spring from this,” Elemna said.

  “Speaking of which.” Niodt exchanged a glance with his wife, who returned a nod. “We should bring you up to speed on the factions and who their popular participants are.”

  “This is important, Caen.”

  Caen listened attentively.

  ***

  Caen was as prepared as he could manage, though a small part of his mind wished that he'd had more time.

  By 4 in the morning, after he'd dyed his hair black and wrapped his face in green bandages, he used the secret warp gate in Vai's basement and teleported himself to the first stratum.

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  All the equipment that Caen had selected days ago from the Hall of Choosing had been kept safe for him. There were strict policies against the removal of weapons from the premises.

  This early in the morning, the central district was busy. There were huge crowds of people streaming into the grand arena. One entrance had been secured for participants. Without an identifier necklace like the one that Caen had been given, passing through the wards would have been all but impossible.

  Thousands of participants crowded the halls, standing in groups chatting, meditating, or sleeping in corners while attendants moved around helping them gear up and carrying out other tasks. The air of tension was palpable.

  Caen retrieved his selected equipment from the Hall of Choosing, and an attendant helped him don the armor.

  His vines went around his shoulders and waist. Chasma was shaped into a large round shield on his left arm.

  He walked up to the display case and opened the glass containment. The sword, Stormsong, hovered in the air. It was half as wide as he was and longer than he was tall. There was a soft, menacing hum coming from the weapon.

  Bracing himself, Caen grabbed the dark silver hilt, and a surge of electricity traveled through his entire body, causing his limbs to tremble.

  Caen gritted his teeth from the pain of being constantly shocked.

  Stormsong had a reputation for being a weapon for foolhardy participants who thought themselves special. Only three people in the history of the trials had ever wielded the weapon without discomfort.

  Awakened weapons—or spirit tools as they were often called—preferred to be wielded by individuals with whom they possessed a high synergy. However, what exactly passed as ‘high synergy’ was often left to the awakened weapons to decide for themselves, which introduced quite a bit of chaos where such weapons were concerned.

  Caen connected to Stormsong and Mimicked its Lightning affinity. As he'd learned days ago, this was a very strong affinity.

  The painful jolts ceased immediately, but the hum persisted. He began channeling the absolute bare minimum of mana that he possibly could into the weapon. This allowed him to lift the ridiculously heavy weapon easily. In actuality, Stormsong weighed hundreds of pounds, but its enchantments made it near weightless for its wielder.

  “You again!” a snarky voice echoed in Caen's head. “It’s been a decade since a stingy idiot developed enough of a backbone to dare use me.”

  Caen sighed. Most people only got impressions of the awakened weapon's insults. Some former wielders reported feeling a sense of unworthiness along with alien thoughts appearing in their mind. Mimicry was definitely allowing the sword to communicate more clearly with him.

  Caen let go of the large sword, and it remained hovering in the air beside him. He turned to leave, and the weapon followed, one of its more impressive enchantments at play.

  People parted around him as he moved through the corridors.

  “Mother of spirits!” someone barked. “Is that sound coming from the sword?”

  “Is this guy fucking serious?” another participant asked.

  “Every few years, there's always a dumbass that thinks they're hot shit,” someone else answered. “That thing will wipe him out of mana halfway through the trial.”

  Caen drew stares, jeers, snide remarks, and chuckles as he made his way to the waiting area: a very large hall with benches and light displays on the walls to project the fights on the trial grounds.

  He took a seat and leaned the sword against the wall beside him.

  Stormsong continued to ramble. Caen tuned it out and closed his eyes to meditate.

  Over the hours, the waiting hall had grown packed with eager participants. The press of presences was the most significant Caen had ever experienced. He could feel the thousands of souls around him, and spirits grazed his every half-second.

  Most of the participants were looking up at the projections on the walls. The batch divisions would soon be announced.

  Caen had gathered that there were just over fifteen thousand participants this year, which was standard. The participants would be randomly divided into thirty batches of roughly five hundred each.

  Being in the first batch was undesirable for obvious reasons. Everyone here would be watching the performance of whatever batch went first. Caen hoped for a later batch. Not one of the much later ones, of course, because having to wait several hours for his turn would be grating.

  Names and batches were displayed on the walls.

  Caen found his name seven rows down. First batch.

  Three realms.

  Caen let out a resigned sigh.

  “Batch 1 participants, make your way to the trial grounds immediately,” a disembodied voice echoed from sound projection enchantments in the walls.

  Caen channeled mana into Stormsong and made his way towards one of many exits. As before, people moved out of his way, staring and making remarks.

  Stone steps led up to the trial grounds, and he could hear the faint sounds of a commentator speaking. Caen and so many others filed out to the loud cheers of the spectators. The crushing weight of existences startled Caen.

  The arena seats rose all around them, filled with hundreds of thousands of people. It was slightly unnerving. He’d danced in front of crowds before, but this was very different.

  The trial grounds were vast and stretched for miles, though at the moment, he could only see a small portion of them due to the long wall in front of them. A long row of spaced-out gates was built into the wall, and each gate had a small platform in front of it. There was an entrance to a tunnel at the very center of the wall.

  The ground all around was covered with coarse sand that was sure to give Earth practicians an advantage. The constitution of the ground was switched up regularly. Two years ago, it was ice.

  “And here they are, the children of the Spirit Mother!” the announcer cried, and the spectators cheered loudly in response.

  Many participants lifted their hands, waving and basking in adoration. Caen kept his gaze fixed on the wall.

  “This crucible of the first trial is upon you,” the announcer declared. “I will explain this only once, so pay heed.”

  The first trial was pretty much the same every time, with only a few notable differences here and there to add variety. Still, Caen paid attention to everything the announcer said.

  The wall in front of them had four hundred gates divided equally between twenty disciplines of magic. Each gate bore a slightly complex puzzle corresponding to its discipline.

  There were eight zones in total, each with its own wall of gates. The gates were reduced by twenty for the first four zones, then afterwards, the gates were reduced by forty. Meaning that the eighth wall would have only one hundred and eighty gates, as opposed to the four hundred gates on the first wall.

  Each discipline of magic granted only five points when any of its gates were solved. Forty points were needed to complete the trial.

  Every wall had a tunnel at its center that led into the next zone, but using the tunnel did not earn anyone points.

  Each batch had only thirty minutes to complete their trial, which was sure to result in chaos.

  As the announcer completed his description of the rules, the crowd grew blurry around them until Caen could no longer see outside the trial grounds. Even the noise of their cheering cut out.

  At the same time, the suppression field kicked in. Caen could feel a heavy weight on his spirit, mind, and body. This was designed to primarily suppress the magical affinities of people within it, bringing everyone down to roughly the same level of lowered magical potential. It was akin to abjection in some ways, but not quite as bad.

  Caen only felt slightly encumbered. Behind his mask, he smiled.

  The time display spell hung in the corner of his vision.

  “Her spirit encompasses all things,” the announcer said. “Now, begin!”

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