He was relieved to be free of the suppression field. The disparity between his experience in the trial and the memories he'd viewed made him wonder if something else was going on.
Maybe they increased the intensity this year for some reason?
Hopefully, there weren't any more surprises.
Only seventeen other participants had completed the trial, and they all turned to watch him from their seats. Some of them sat in groups, eyeing him curiously. A woman with a butterfly mask, in particular, was all but glaring.
The lounge was a few times larger than the waiting hall they'd packed the participants into earlier. It was luxurious: ceiling painted with colorful murals, indoor trees, groomed patches of grass, glass sections of the walls with waterfalls, various water fountains, and light projections high up on the walls showing the ongoing trial.
There were padded chairs, recliners, and cushions. Tables stacked with food, drink, and delicacies. Dozens of attendants in neat, stylish uniforms stood by the tables or spoke with the participants.
One of the attendants walked up to him with a stiff smile and asked if he needed help with anything.
“No, thank you,” Caen said, his voice altered by a spell as he dragged Stormsong on the floor behind him. His mana reserves were pretty much empty, and he did not need to keep funneling mana into the sword. He was still connected to its Lightning affinity, though, and the sword hadn't ever stopped making that menacing humming sound.
His Kinesis passive augmentations altered his gait to such a degree that he had to consciously manage it as he made his way to an ornate armchair. Sitting drew a tired groan out of him. He placed Stormsong on a chair beside him.
The tantalizing scents of the various delicacies and sweetened drinks made him salivate, but Caen was well aware of the fact that he couldn't take off his masked helmet.
Aunt Vensha had mentioned how long the wait time tended to be: more than half a day. Thus, Caen had used absorption on a large basket of fruits this morning. With that much vitality, he would not need to worry about hunger or thirst for the rest of the day.
The scoreboards were displayed on a projection on the wall. His name was at the top of the list. Two hundred and five points. Forty points higher than the previous record. In just over fifteen minutes.
He'd hoped to complete the trial much faster than that. Still, Caen smiled behind his masked helmet, feelings of pride and accomplishment stirring in his chest.
Butterfly Mask was ranked second.
I suppose that explains why she was glaring at me.
Caen paid attention to the rest of the trial. His batch’s allotted time was soon up. Most of the participants in the batch had been eliminated. Only eighty-six people out of five hundred had made it through.
A great deal of the newly arrived participants staggered towards seats or tables, panting. The suppression field had been quite strenuous.
The day wore on. The lounge grew fuller and noisier as new batches went through the trial. Caen, with his arms folded across his chest, watched as the rankings changed, taking note of high-performing participants.
He kept being pointed at, and some people stared openly at him. The surrounding participants in the lounge had given his armchair a wide berth. Between Stormsong’s menacing hum, Caen's unfriendly posture, and, perhaps to a lesser extent, his performance in the trial, few seemed inclined to talk to him.
Some members of factions did walk over to strike up conversations, but ignoring them always made them go away.
A participant in the tenth batch summoned a large insect with several pairs of wings that flew him through the tunnels at incredible speed. The man did not solve a single gate till he reached the fifth zone, which piqued Caen's interest.
Summoning was notorious for being quite mana exhaustive. He dismissed his summon and proceeded to solve two gates: Contract and Wind. He solved a Contract gate in the sixth zone, but collapsed on his way to a Wind gate. He vanished in a column of light.
Caen winced.
In the seventeenth batch, as soon as the trial began, a lanky man with a mountain goat mask and light armor emptied two vials of a colorless liquid into the large metal canister he'd been carrying on his back. A curved bronze shield floated beside him in the air.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Several of his batch members began running for the gates and tunnel. Most didn't even notice him. But a few hurled projectiles and spells at him.
Scripts on the shield beside him shone a soft blue, and a dome of force extended from the shield and encompassed him. The dome was mostly transparent.
The metal canister erupted in a cloud of green smoke that was unhindered by the dome of force. Green smoke suffused the entirety of the first zone in mere seconds.
More than half the participants in his batch scrabbled for the tunnels or fell to the ground, clawing at their throats and eyes. Few managed to escape.
It was the most eliminations Caen had seen so far at the hands of one person. For every ten participants that a person killed in the first trial, they earned one point. On the scoreboard, Goat Mask’s points slowly ticked up to thirty.
The victors’ lounge was filled with jeers and curses, though quite a few people cheered.
Goat Mask was coughing and hacking as he hopped onto his floating bronze shield and hurtled towards a Venefic magic gate there in the first zone. He solved it, sped towards another gate in the next zone, solved that, and then used the tunnels all the way to the end, propelled by his shield.
He completed the trial in just over four minutes. Only two minutes slower than the current record for speedrunning the first trial.
Butterfly Mask let out a shriek of pure… rage? Members of The Tried and True faction were seated around her and tried in vain to comfort her.
She dropped down to the third position on the scoreboard, replaced now by Goat Mask.
Surprisingly enough, nearly a hundred and twenty people from that batch completed the trial. Goat Mask appeared in the lounge, hacking and coughing as he made his way to the nearest table. Participants leaned away from him, and some stood up and changed seats to avoid the man. A few other people jeered at him.
Caen was curious about the strength of the man's Venefic and Blood-healing affinities. The passive augmentations had probably helped him survive the effects of his poison cloud. That or an antidote.
Caen connected to him.
A black and incredibly stable cord of connection extended from Goat Mask all the way to the wall behind him and through it.
Caen's brows creased.
This was similar to the kind of connection that existed between magically bonded individuals, but more weighty.
The man's soul structure was even more curious. His Venefic affinity cluster was prominent, but his Contract magic affinity was even more prominent than that. Caen rarely encountered affinity clusters this active.
Caen Mimicked it.
And was immediately shoved into the Sub-astral: the lowest layer of the Astral Realm.
The world around him was a severely blurred version of the Material Realm.
What the…
Goat Mask stood to Caen's left, much closer than he'd actually been a moment ago. He was facing another direction.
Rithya, Caen’s cousin whom he'd met in the library weeks ago, was seated across from him. Frail threads extended from her in every direction. She stared at him, shock plain on her face.
Three cords of connection linked Goat Mask, Rithya, and Caen to each other.
Caen, with his speculon, could tell that his masked helmet was still on.
He cut off the connection, his mind racing.
Did I just hijack someone’s mental communication?
Whatever that had been, Rithya had seemed to be at the center of it.
She had three bloodlines. One of which was a dud Dream-guarding bloodline.
Goat Mask turned to look at him. As if unrelated, an attendant nearby walked up to Caen with a tray of pastries.
“May I interest you in some pie, sir?” she asked with a bright smile. At the same time, her spirit tendril flicked against his spirit in a basic tap code.
Who was this? Rithya? Was she communicating through this woman?
Caen kept his spirit tendrils retracted and watched the attendant quietly. In her soul structure was a prominent Contract affinity. Same as Goat Mask, a cord of connection stretched from her towards the very same point in the wall.
“If those don't interest you, then how about confectionery?” she asked aloud, then rotated the tray to reveal new items, as she described them.
Caen's attention sharpened. Similar abilities. Our kind? Was she talking about magical phenomena like Mimicry? His curiosity nagged at him to say something. Maybe he could pretend to be this person she assumed he was and get her to reveal more. But Caen kept his mouth shut. He didn't know enough to fake his way through.
she continued.
“If I change my mind about the confectioneries, I'll let you know,” Caen said.
She nodded and walked away. They'd drawn many stares, and some people watched the retreating attendant with suspicion.
Eventually, the remaining batches finished their trials. All thirty of them, and it had only taken sixteen hours.
A little over fifteen thousand initial participants had been whittled down to just under five thousand.
Caen was still in first place in the rankings.