There was a short stretch of clear ground on the way back from the puzzle building. Apparently the portal there would lead to the next level, so they had to backtrack manually to the glade. While he had the chance, Maiz decided to take another look at his Name Sheet.

Maiz-Novice Seeker (Rank 2-10/40)

Title Status-Hidden (Default)

Bonus Titles-None

Health-80/80

Mana-150/150 (+ 1.2 pts/second)

Stamina: 60/60 (+ 1.2 pts/second)

Attributes:

Age

16

Constitution

8

Intelligence

15

Wisdom

12

Strength

6

Dexterity

12

Agility

12

Charisma

10

Luck

10

Skills: None

Spells:

-Minor Icebolt

The attribute changes were not unexpected, but they were nice to see nonetheless. Maiz thought that his mana, mana regeneration, and stamina regeneration had all gone up slightly--he supposed that had come from his attribute increases as well. He thought that it made some sense for Intelligence and Wisdom, as apparently mana was located near the brain and was probably somehow related to the mind, but he thought that stamina regeneration being based on Dexterity was a little counterintuitive. At least, he did until he and Riala began walking out of the building and he noticed how much more easily his body moved, his motions graceful, his balance steady. He could almost feel the energy that he was saving with each step.

Maiz also noticed that the spell list had updated with ‘Minor Icebolt,’ and that the spell was underlined. As far as he knew, that meant that it was a prompt; slightly confused, he opened it.

Minor Icebolt- Fires a spike of ice directly away from the hands of the caster.

Rank: 2

Cost: 22.5 Mana (+50% for invocation penalty).

Effect: Deals 30 damage on impact.

Projectile speed : 80 m/s (+10m/s per rank).

“Riala?” The beautiful celestial woman had been walking quietly beside Maiz, perhaps having realized that he was looking at his Name Sheet. After all, he had been moving quite slowly to avoid tripping as he read.

“What’s up?” She was cheerful as always.

“I was just looking at the description for Minor Icebolt, and it says there’s something called an ‘invocation penalty’ added to the cost. What is that?” He was a little annoyed that the spellbook hadn’t explained this, but it had been fairly focused on the mechanics of the spell and had gone into little detail about magic in general.

“Oh yeah, I was going to tell you about that! See, you get the invocation penalty for relying on a spell formula to cast the spell!”

“The spell formula? I thought that using that was the only way to cast it! The book didn’t say anything about another way.”

“Well, that book is specifically meant for the trial, and using a spell formula is the fastest way to learn a piece of magic. You see, when you say an incantation keyed to a formula, a portion of your mana goes into invoking the entire formula externally! That’s why you had to read the formula, and also why you don’t cast the spell every time you say the words. If you intend to cast the spell, than by saying the incantation you’re sort of doing a mini-spell which sets off the bigger one.”

Wow. Maiz had taken for granted that, because he had learned the incantation, he could cast the spell. Yet apparently there was an incredibly complicated process that went into the magic. He suddenly felt like he had the first time he’d realized how much effort went into the making of a book, from the author writing the words to the alchemist creating the paper, and even to the man who transported the finished product south to Caelos, where his father bought it.

Had bought it.

“How do I make the spell better?” Maiz needed to be as powerful as possible to complete this trial. I will succeed.

“Well I don’t think it’s really possible for you to make it any better. When people with magic titles cast invocations, over time they get an instinctive understanding of the spell’s effect. At either their or the spell’s rank 20, they can cast it nonverbally because they understand exactly what the magic has to do, without need for a spell formula. But… well the changes made by the gods don’t extend that far. You can’t gain internal knowledge of how the spell works because you don’t have the title for it.” She looked slightly disconcerted at his question for some reason.

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry! I mean, these trials are supposed to be tough for a sixteen year-old without an actual title and no real experience, but they’re not ridiculous. Almost all Apprentice-level combatants would have no problem completing it. So there’s nothing in it that requires you to be an Apprentice-level mage!” What she said made sense. There was a ridiculous gulf between a Novice like him and an Apprentice. Their attributes alone, as well as their stronger skills, would make this sort of test laughably easy.

“I guess that’s all right then. Is there anything else you can think of to tell me that could help me complete the trial?”

“Nope! I’m telling you basically everything I can already, and you’re doing a fantastic job!” They were passing the bodies of the goblings, still torn apart and strewn across the path. The bloody gore seemed even more gruesome when contrasted to the gorgeous life of the nature around them. The great trees around them all had thick trunks and huge systems of branches laden with green leaves. Those leaves rustled in the same breeze that had greeted Maiz when he first entered this world. Occasional rays of golden sunlight filtered down through the vast canopy, illuminating the bloody ground and the corpses of the small monsters in stark detail. Night had not fallen since Maiz had entered this place, though by his mark the sun should have set long since.

He marched over the bodies, paying no mind either to the bloody ground or the unfamiliar plant life around him. He did, however, notice Riala out of the corner of his eye. She was watching him, easily avoiding the obstacles on the ground while keeping her glowing eyes fixed on his progress. As they rounded the grey wall, she finally spoke.

“You know, most people don’t hide from the goblings on purpose. Even back when people knew about the trial, there were only a few who intentionally tried to get them to kill each other.”

“So how did they pass?” Maiz asked the question almost absently, his eyes still on the ground before him.

“They ran away. Most of them hid behind the wall. I mean, that’s not a bad thing: part of Intelligence is understanding when you can handle a situation and when you can’t.”

“That makes sense.” Maiz was scanning the ground again for the traps, though it was much easier the second time around.

“But you were watching the entire time, right? I thought you looked pretty calm when you went into the woods, and then you killed the Keeper at the perfect time. Most times the Seekers would hide, and then they would get attacked by the Keeper once it killed the other goblings. You actually did a great job analyzing the situation and making a measured response!”

“Thanks.” It was odd. Maiz had once loved being complimented for his intelligence. He would talk with his father’s customers as much as he could, trying to show off what he had read, as well as trying to help his father sell more books. Now, he couldn’t bring himself to respond properly to Riala’s words.

They kept walking, Maiz looking around for traps, keeping a measured pace as he advanced back along the path, Riala all but skipping next to him. She was still looking at him, her face now plainly showing curiosity.

“You’ve been going nonstop since we started too. It’s pretty crazy how long you spent practicing that spell, not to mention reading the contract and the spellbook straight through without breaks. I mean, this world makes it so you don’t get tired, but most Seekers still took breaks to rest a bit.”

“I’ve always read a lot. I used to stay up all night reading by candle sometimes.”

“Wow! That’s pretty impressive I guess?”

“Most people where I live can’t read at all. Only rich people buy books, or people from the government.” Maiz took a long step over a seemingly loose branch he suspected was attached to another projectile-throwing mechanism in the trees.

“So does that mean you’re rich, then? Where do you live exactly?”

“I live in a city called Caelos. It’s near the Hankor Waste. And no, I’m not rich.”

“Oh I… think I know where that is! I usually like to watch farther West and South, but the Waste is hard to miss! And if you’re not rich, then how come you could read books like you said?”

“Well my father--” Suddenly Maiz cut his voice short. His chest seized up, and he stumbled slightly, even with his new dexterity.

“Your father?”

“I need to focus on the path, I almost fell in that pit.” He had stopped walking right in front of a poorly hidden pit trap, but he had seen it several meters away. He just did not want to talk any more about his life in Caelos. Or about his father.

“Oh! That’s all right, I’m really sorry!” Riala’s voice held a note of chagrin, which prompted Maiz to feel terrible about lying to her again. He doubted that it was her job to answer his every question and provide encouragement at his every success. Honestly, he’d been taking her kind, friendly attitude for granted, being focused on his goal. But he knew, in some part of his mind, that he would want to have friends, once he had achieved his plans and gotten older. I wonder how long it’d been since she’d spoken to another person. He resolved to ask her about it the next chance he got.

Still, Maiz took advantage of the silence to cover the rest of the path fairly quickly, gracefully stepping over tripwires and pressure triggers. Whoever designed this place may not have made the traps especially difficult, but they had made them blend in perfectly with the natural landscape. That spoke of sophistication beyond some of the more obvious traps, and indicated that they were intentionally easy to spot.

In only another twenty minutes they had passed through the inky darkness of the portal out of the Intelligence test and back into the forest glade. As soon as the darkness receded from his vision, Maiz turned to face Riala.

“I’m… sorry for cutting off our conversation earlier. I just realized I, uh, haven’t thanked you for all the help you’ve given me. So thank you.” Maiz didn’t know if he’d ever felt quite this uncomfortable talking to another person before. When he was younger he would go out of his way to talk to his father’s customers, but it had been a long time since those days.

Riala looked surprised and perhaps a bit embarrassed, though not nearly as much so as Maiz felt. “Of course! I mean, if you succeed it helps me too, and honestly you’ve been doing great on your own!”

Maiz smiled faintly. “I want to talk to you some more, but is it alright if I test a few things first?”

Riala smiled back at him, brilliant white teeth almost blinding in the sunlight. “No problem! If we’re going to do the test of Dexterity next, then there’ll be lots of time to talk! It gets kind of boring there, if you ask me.”

Maiz decided not to question Riala about the next test just then, instead nodding to her and turning to face towards the center of the clearing. He raised his hands and prepared to cast Minor Icebolt, imagining the rushing water of his mana pour down his arms and reach his hands. He said the incantation, and watched the spike of ice fly from between his hands, bracing himself against the kick backwards he felt as it sped away. It went quite far, perhaps as much as 50 meters, before hitting the ground. Not bad.

Other tests showed that the bolt functioned much like an arrow in flight, meaning that he could angle it at various trajectories to change the path it took. Interestingly, the spell always kicked backwards in the direction opposite of the icebolt’s path. Maybe I can use that…

As a final test, Maiz waited long enough that his mana had certainly regenerated back to full, then fired off icebolts in quick succession, not bothering to aim or pay attention to the bolts’ paths. He had to refocus his mana each time, though he could feel nothing, in order to cast the spell, meaning that it took about five seconds each time to cast it. He could cast the spell 7 times in that manner before it failed, meaning that he had probably run out of mana. He probably could have calculated that based on his Name Sheet and the spell’s description, but that was math.

After waiting a few more minutes for his mana to regenerate, he turned to Riala. “Ok, I think that’s about it, is it okay if we go now Riala?”

Riala had watched him silently with interest and--maybe--approval on her face. “Sure! Just… just step right into the portal!” She indicated the rightmost archway. Had she been about to say something else there? If it was anything important, she would have told me. She’s been nothing but helpful so far.

Maiz stepped through the archway.

*******

Shadar leaned back on his throne as Digaratoth exited through the double doors. He’d stayed back after the others to handle a few more mundane matters regarding his territories. He was officially Shadar’s coordinator for his regional commanders, and unofficially his spymaster. As Shadar had expected, the state of many of his Dungeons, especially ones far away from the Dragon’s Tooth, was deteriorating fast. He simply didn’t have enough trusted leaders to held that much land, and worse, many monsters refused to be ruled by any but their own kind. It was all but impossible for Shadar to make that possible however, because often several different species lived in close proximity to each other, inhabiting the same Dungeons. For example, the Hankor Waste had been ruled by the leader of the Moskar, a race humanoid insect-people who were ubiquitous in most Dungeons in the desert. Apparently the dragons had killed him as the first move in their attempted coup.

After going over a list of the most troublesome Dungeons, Shadar had given Digaratoth instructions to order raids on human settlements and increased training. The Saurian would speak with the leaders of those areas to make sure the raids would be of the appropriate size--large enough to excite and occupy the rebellious forces, but small enough to avoid the attention of too many Master-level combatants.

Taking a deep, weary breath, Shadar stood from his stone chair, sparing a glance for the room before him. The black stone of the floor was incredibly smooth: he could see his own reflection in it as he glanced down. There was no sign of damage from the fight that had taken place earlier, as he had repaired it to perfection. The walls and ceiling were made of red and black stone which appeared impossibly well-quarried and built. The rock came together to form an intricate pattern of flames across the room--though the red stone was monochromatic it shimmered in the light of the chandelier above, and the stone flames which spread down from the ceiling appeared to move as the real flames of the candles danced.

The throne room appeared at first glance to have a simple layout, with his black monstrosity of a chair being the only piece of furniture in it. But the wavy lines where red and black stone met concealed over a dozen entrances to passageways leading to different locations throughout the Dungeon. Shadar had designed the layout of the fortress so that his throne room could act as a locus for the entire place while appearing austere to guests. He had a more comfortable waiting room to the side of his throne where he would stay if there was no business to attend to, but that was not where he was headed now.

There was a complex system of catches to open the various passages in the throne room, but Shadar never bothered with them himself; he simply willed the catch built in the wall to disengage by manipulating the aura of the Dungeon with his magic. A seemingly innocuous section of the black and red wall swung inwards without a sound, prompting a flash of pride from Shadar at the quality of the construction. He stepped into the darkness of the passage, following the winding, claustrophobic corridor. He didn’t bother lighting this passage anymore--he knew every turn by heart.

In less than a minute he was in a small gray room. There was barely enough space for three people to stand on the fur rugs lining the floor. Inset into the wall across from the door was a shrine. Shadar had kept to the bare minimum necessary to consecrate the shrine to Massahn--his symbol carved into the wall and a ritual bowl for offerings. The symbol, a claw dripping with blood, glowed a soft red and cast the room in scarlet tones. Shadar sat on the rugs, making sure that he would not cramp up if he stayed there long, and uttered a short prayer to Massahn. Almost instantly, the world faded.

“Hello Shadar.” Shadar’s vision was almost entirely black. He felt as though he was floating in an endless void. The only thing he could see was the being in front of him.

The entity appeared to be a tall, willowy young man. He was pale--an oddity in this part of the world--and bald, without a strand of hair visible on his body, though his voluminous red robes may have concealed some. However, his most salient feature was his eyes--they glowed the same shade of red as the bloody claw had. The light tinged his sallow face a harsh red, emphasizing the shadows cast by his high cheekbones.

“Hello Garth.” Shadar’s reply was calm as always. He had been here too many times to be disconcerted.

“It’s been too long, how have you been?” The Celestial’s words were juxtaposed with his emotionless tone. That had confused Shadar when he’d first met Garth, years ago--of course, the entire experience of his trial had been confusing. But now Shadar knew that Garth was really trying to be friendly with Shadar. He was not sure who that made more uncomfortable: him or Garth.

“The same.”

“Ah, but I know that can’t be true. Despite your Divine inclinations, you are still faintly mortal and thus eternally subject to change. However, I gather that you did not initiate this meeting in order to make small talk. On that subject, why did you not simply wait till you slept in order to meet?”

“I don’t always want to spend my night talking with you Garth.”

“Why?”

Shadar ignored the question. “I have given orders for the Hankor Waste to mobilize.”

Garth’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “Is there a cluster of Dungeons that borders the Waste of which I am not aware? Has some priest figured out how to consecrate new shrines?”

“I’m sending them against the humans to the West.”

The light emitting from the Celestial’s eyes flashed. “Interesting. I cannot say I am displeased, but I believe that this is a departure on your previous position on this matter. And I must admit that thus far you have done much to strengthen the Lord and His children.”

Shadar sighed. Garth didn’t do much in the mortal plane, but something about him brought Shadar back to his youth. “Yes, Garth, but I just killed two Masters from the Golden Nest today.”

“Excellent. Have you gained a rank then? How close are you to becoming a Grandmaster?”

Shadar hadn’t checked his Name or Notification Sheets for weeks. It was hardly important what his rank was--his abilities depended largely on the ranks of his opponents, not his own. “You see Garth, you’re forgetting the big picture.”

“Ah yes. Your theoretical explanation for the lack of substantial victory for Massahn’s children over the millenia.”

“It’s unimportant. I plan to continue uniting the children, but those I already have in hand are becoming restless. This is an experiment.”

Garth appeared to consider for a moment. “It makes little difference to me. I approve of testing the Lord’s children through battle, as you know. You have done this admirably, albeit non-traditionally, for the entirety of your tenure as God-Chosen. However I have my own reasons to speak with you. I was planning on visiting you tonight, in fact, but you have expedited the process.”

It was Shadar’s turn to raise an eyebrow. It was rare for Garth to have something to tell him. He wasn’t clear what the Celestial did when he wasn’t being Shadar’s liaison, but given his obsession with tests and battle, it was undoubtedly… interesting. Either way, Garth did not spend much time actually doing anything on Shadar’s behalf as far as he was aware.

“You are on the verge of officially entering a new Age. I told you that the other gods had begun to choose their own champions, correct?”

Shadar frowned. “No. When did this begin happening? And does the trial not determine who becomes God-Chosen?”

“Oh, it began almost immediately after you yourself were chosen. That was not so long ago, was it? And to answer your second question, the trial does qualify humans to become God-Chosen, but the test is not the same for every god. The Lord Massahn had a sense of your character, and was able to choose for you to undertake his trial. You survived, which qualified you to become his God-Chosen.”

Shadar almost winced. Despite all of his power, the memory of that experience was still burned into his memory. Also, it was trying that Garth apparently considered almost two decades to be 'not so long ago.' “And the Naming Ritual?”

“The Ritual was a brilliant invention of Lord Viselys, a ploy which could be used to ‘weed out’ those unfit for power and allow the gods the chance to view a potential candidate’s suitability for a particular role.”

Shadar had more questions about the process, but he just shook his head. It was unimportant to him now. “What’s this about a new Age?”

“The last god without a Chosen is currently reviewing a candidate in trial. If he decides to accept the boy, then we will have entered an age of God-Chosen again. Even if he does not, it is only a matter of time.”

Shadar sighed once again. It did not mater much to him whether there were other God-Chosen around, so long as they did not get in his way. However, he had a suspicion that they would. “So, which of the Seven is still choosing? Lumia? Ulion?”

He did not know which of those two would be worse. Lumia professed hatred for many of Massahn’s children, while Ulion claimed to be their ally. Both were too wrapped up in their own private struggles to pay much attention to the other gods, which was why Shadar assumed they would be last to pick.

Garth let out a chuckle in his flat voice. “No, they both chose almost simultaneously some years back.”

“Then who?”

Garth told him.