1 [Prologue 8]: Trials 2

After touching, pushing, and poking around the concentric rings a couple of times, nothing happened. Though he could feel the presence of a void, it meant nothing if he didn't understand it.

[Okay, this is hard,] he thought to himself before sitting on top of the block. As he examined the room, he noticed that the patterns at the very corners had been clipped.

[Was it always like that?] he wondered to himself before laying on his stomach and pulling out the map.

[So after this there's one more room, and then this'll all be over.] He began fantasizing about what he would do once he got the scroll. The idea of joining a party didn't seem so far off anymore. Depending on what type of ability the scroll would give him, he could sign up for an already existing party.

[And I won't have to lie to Lira anymore. I can tell her that I failed, but that there is still hope for us,] he thought to himself, before continuing his fantasies.

[Something's off.] As he was staring at the walls, fantasizing, he realized that the patterns at the corner had been clipped even more than before.

[Wait, are the walls moving?] After staring at the wall carefully for a minute or two, he realized that he was right. The walls were indeed closing in, the room had a time limit, and if he didn't figure out the puzzle soon, he would find himself squashed like a bug.

Kaion jumped off the block and began frantically searching for a clue. He poked his finger into every nook and cranny of the block, before moving on and doing the same to the rectangular shape on the wall. After two hours of doing that, the room had become so small that he could touch both sides by fully stretching his arms out.

[Fuck that old man,] he complained, banging at the rectangular shape on the far end of the room. Soon the walls would close in on it as well, and he was unsure whether that would affect its opening mechanism, so he felt pressed for time.

"Goddamnit, why won't this thing show me anything," he shouted, before walking back to the block at the center of the room.

"Okay, calm down. There has to be a way, it's a puzzle, I just have to solve it," he whispered to himself, trying to calm himself down. He stared at the concentric rings once again and began tilting his head at different angles. Perhaps it was a matter of perspective.

Nothing.

"Fuck this," he whispered angrily, before shooting a magic bullet at the block in rage. For a split moment, the block seemed to come to life, a streak of blue traveled from the spot he shot it at towards the concentric rings.

"It's mana activated," he smiled, his feeling of frustration floating away. He shot another magic bullet, this one containing even more mana than before. For a moment it came to life, but once the blue streak traveled to the concentric rings, it returned to its former state.

He repeated the same process over and over again, all the while the walls came closer and closer.

"What the fuck? How much mana does this thing need? Or is it because..." This time Kaion aimed directly at the concentric rings, creating the largest mana bullet he had created thus far, before firing it at the center.

The block began buzzing with power, its color changing from black to a deep red. Its deep red color traveled into the imprints on the wall, till eventually, it reached the rectangular shape on the other side of the room.

*Whirr*

That section of the wall sunk in and moved to the side much like the doors of all the other rooms did. Kaion had barely enough space to stand normally and had to move sideways to get to the door.

"That was close," he sighed, trying to catch his breath. After resting for a moment, he began surveying the new room. Out of all the rooms he had been in, this one was the most simplistic, but at the same time felt the most complicated. All six sides of the cube-like room were pearl white, with not a single thing inside it. If there was a puzzle at work, Kaion didn't even know where to begin.

As he was walking around the room, a section of the floor directly in front of him rose up, blocking his path.

"A mirror?" he whispered as he stared at the side of the risen structure. As he reached out to touch his reflection, a loud mechanical whirr emanated from within, before the mirror was replaced by a depiction of a glowing red rune.

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

Kaion's mind went blank. It didn't make any sense, even if magic was powerful, he had never heard of such a thing.

"What are you?"

"What are you?"

An exact replica of him, down to every little scar on his face, stood in front of him. Copying him word for word.

"This is cr-" just as Kaion was about to approach his clone, it rammed into him, slamming him to the hard pearl-white floors.

"Why are yo-"

The clone shot out a magic bullet, hitting Kaion in the stomach. He retched in pain, the fact that there was nothing to retch out making it all the more painful.

The clone didn't give him respite, kicking him in the gut while he was on all fours, before firing another magic bullet, this one aimed at his chest.

All the air was knocked out of him, and his lungs felt as if they had just been used as a punching bag. He couldn't breathe and the pain that emanated from his torso made it impossible for him to even try and focus on creating a magic bullet to retaliate. And even if he did, it wasn't like he had much mana left from the last room anyway.

The clone began preparing another magic bullet, this time taking its time stuffing all the mana it could into the perfectly spherical ball.

"Stop..." groaned Kaion, trying to crawl out of the way.