Sora and LeeLee were standing outside of the shrine of The God of War for nearly 2 hours now. At first Sora wanted to do something like killing enemies so as to maximize his time, but he couldn’t bring himself a single step away from the shrine. He was nervous, not for himself but for Blossom. She may seem like an aloof girl who is always proud but Sora knew that something like failing would eat her up on the inside. Sora decided to take out some Gel Tree Lumber after Blossom went into the shrine to pass some time. He would carve out little figures of different enemies, people, and places while looking at the entrance to the shrine every 5 minutes or so. Sora had just leveled his Shaping Skill, which was used to shape weapon hilts, staves, sculptures, and other things that used materials like wood and stone. He had went to check the doorway to the shrine for what seemed like the thousandth time and saw the figure of a proud woman, practically skipping towards him with a huge smile on her face. Before Sora could say anything Blossom had already jumped towards him and hugged him like a little girl who just got candy from her big brother.

“I did it mister fisherman! I don’t know if I could have done it without you.”

Sora was surprised at her sudden action, to him such a simple thing like giving some advice to her wasn’t seen as a big deal. Sora failed to understand the importance to someone like Blossom and LeeLee, they were not professionals who had a vast amount of knowledge like Sora was. Maybe if Sora and Blossom switched places then he would truly understand how much a gift those little bits of advice were to Blossom. Sora patted Blossoms head and praised her for her hard work.

“Since you're in such a good mood, are you ready for the fly back?”

“...”

“Blossom?”

…..

After a lot of convincing Blossom boarded the giant crow with Sora and LeeLee, she ended up sitting between the two and held on for dear life. Occasionally the bird would make a slight movement, possibly due to air currents, Blossom would scream and start saying goodbye to her family and friends. It wasn’t until Blossom was fully off the bird that she suddenly had a hop in her step and acted as if she wasn’t just clinging onto her two companions begging to be let down.

Sora looked at LeeLee, she knew it was her turn to get a class now and has looked very nervous ever since the trio left Mount Valor. Blossom was used to LeeLee being quiet but she still knew something was wrong, the two has been friends for a long time now and could sense it by observing her movements and interactions.

“Hold on a second mister fisherman.”

“Al...right.”

Blossom drug LeeLee away to a secluded area, after 5 minutes the two girls came back out. LeeLee had a confident look in her eyes and seemed to have stop fidgeting as the trio continued walking to the hall for The Order of the Assassin.

…..

As the group walked into the hall for the Order of the Assassin, they were greeted with a dimly lit room. The walls were decorated by casting shadows onto them and depicted a lone man behind a horde of enemies, plunging a dagger into someone's neck. Standing in the middle of the hall was the shadow of a man who seemed to be there one second and the next second seemed to not be there. Sora pulled the group into one of the corners to go over the plan with LeeLee.

“So, here’s the plan; Once you talk to the instructor he will have you go down a staircase, this leads to the assassin training tower. The tower consists of ten floors which gets harder the further you go down, there are traps and transparent enemies you will have to get past. The instructor will give you a small token and say to meet someone at the fourth floor in order to get the assassin class, your mission is to sneak around the instructor on the fourth floor and continue all the way to the tenth floor. At the end of the tenth floor is a dead end, but if you insert the token the instructor gave you into a small slot on the wall, it will open up. The rest doesn’t require any explanation, once you get past that wall it’s just talking to an NPC.”

“... I’m not too confident about this mister fisherman, I haven’t played long enough to know the aggro range of enemies so it will be hard to sneak around.”

Sora took out pebbles and started placing them down one by one, he made a cone shape that had a circle at the point of the cone. Sora stepped inside the circle and faced forward towards the end of the cone shape.

“This is the aggro range for normal humanoid monsters.”

Sora then started to make a thin rectangle shape with a circle on one end of the rectangle. He also made another shape that was just a large circle. He first stood in the middle of the circle with the rectangle and faced towards the end of the rectangle.

“This is the aggro range for enemies that have helmets, scales, or other things that protrude in front of their eyes. The circle is the aggro range for beast and spirit type monsters. That should be enough to help you for now, you will learn the rest in the future.”

“Alright… I’ll try my best.”

“One more tip, some enemies with a low AI can be attracted to noises so use a pebble to draw attention towards a certain spot but be careful to not use this trick against enemies with a higher AI.”

LeeLee stared at the shapes drawn using pebbles for 10 minutes straight. She would measure out the size of the shapes by using her paces and then try to recreate the shapes with her own pebbles. She finally let out a deep breath before walking towards the instructor.

…..

“Greeting adventurer… do you have any interest in joining The Order of the Assassin?”

“I-I do.”

“The test is simple, bring this token to an instructor on the fourth floor of our training tower as proof of your ability. Once you have completed this challenge we will accept you into our order.”

LeeLee carefully received the token, it looked like bronze but had a deeper shade of red and felt extremely heavy for it’s size. LeeLee tightened her hand around the token as she walked into the dark stairway. After walking down the dimly lit stairway she entered into what looked to be a labyrinth, the walls, floor, and ceiling were made from a dark gray brick and torches could be seen here and there. LeeLee wrapped her cloak tightly against her before silently walking down the corridor.

[Floor 1]

The path seemed completely empty, LeeLee could already see the next staircase at the end of the hall and thought it was a little suspicious. She suddenly stopped before crouching low to the ground and looking ahead. A few meters in front of her there was a sliver of light just above the ground that went from one side of the hall to the other. LeeLee carefully stepped over the string before continuing on, down into the next stairway. If Sora hadn’t told her there would be traps then she might have already failed to get through completely undetected.

[Floor 2]

The next floor was a little larger than the last, there were what seemed to be dogs walking around this floor, the only difference was that the dogs were transparent and had very mechanical movements. LeeLee closed her eyes to think back to the aggro shape of beast types, when she opened her eyes she seemed to be able to see a circle of pebbles moving around every dog. It was fairly easy to find an opening between the dogs and made her way into the next stairway.

[Floor 3]

This floor was similar to the last floor, except there were goblins that were patrolling around the room. This time LeeLee had to watch the goblins as they did the same route over and over to make sure she could find an opportunity to sneak past them. All she had to do in the end was stay behind one gobin as he circled the entire room and led here directly to the next staircase.

[Floor 4]

The floor consisted of many swinging traps that needed you to time your movements in between swings in order to reach a circular room. In the middle of the circular room was an NPC wearing the same clothing that the instructor she talked to was wearing, she decided that it must be the person she was supposed to find in order to get the assassin class and started to look for ways around him. LeeLee pulled out a pebble and was just about to throw it before she stopped her motion.

“Be careful to not use this trick against enemies with a higher AI.”

LeeLee recalled what Sora had said and decided not to throw the pebble. She deduced that if the NPC was the one who gave players a class then he would be quite high leveled and have a smarter AI. She started to look around the room again to try and find a way around him. After 5 minutes she still didn’t find a way and started to lose confidence in herself. Just as she was feeling down, the NPC yawned and stretched before walking around the room, looking at some decorations around the room to kill some of his boredom. LeeLee instantly reacted and swung around the other side of the room, successfully making it into the next stairway. LeeLee let out a sigh of relief but tensed up once again when she realised it will only get harder from here. The first four floors taught the basics of trap detection, enemy aggro range, enemy behavior, and patience, now it was time for the real test to begin.

[Floor 5]

LeeLee walked into a room that had many turns and pillars, the rooms before this have been pretty much open with little amounts of structure to block your view. LeeLee silently approached one of the corners and heard footsteps, she quickly backed up and hid behind one of the pillars. A translucent looking man walked past the corridor LeeLee was in and continued in a straight line down another hall. LeeLee decided to follow behind him thinking that most NPCs don’t cross when they are patrolling. She was luckily right in assuming that as the NPC led her to the next stairway.

[Floor 6]

This floor was similar to the last floor in terms of structure, there were pillars and corners all throughout the floor to provide less line of sight. LeeLee started to go towards the first corner while listening carefully. She didn’t hear anything and decided to peek around the corner, just as she peeked around the corner she could see a woman who was floating coming towards her. LeeLee bolted to the nearest pillar and just barely made it in time as the floating spectre went past. LeeLee’s heart was racing, she didn’t account for the fact that enemies would sometimes not have footsteps. She followed up behind the spectre and proceeding smoothly when a small protrusion in the wall caught her eye. A sudden realization dawned on her, traps won’t be activated by floating enemies. LeeLee crouched down to look at the floor and noticed that some bricks were elevated slightly. LeeLee carefully stepped around those bricks and continued to follow the spectre. She finally found the staircase and quickly ran halfway down before taking a break to calm down.

[Floor 7]

This time the room was completely open with a large amount of goblins patrolling, some of them even crossing paths. LeeLee had to watch each enemy for a full rotation and then started to group them according to which ones crossed paths and which ones had a smaller aggro range due to wearing helmets. She ruled out using a pebble to draw them all away because that would only attract a few of them and throw off their patrol paths. She decided to finally move after 20 minutes of watching. She stayed by the side of a goblin as it started to go straight across the room, it was wearing a helmet so wasn’t able to see LeeLee as she stuck to his side. After the goblin made it halfway across the room she suddenly rolled between the aggro range of two other goblins that were turning around to restart their patrol. Her position was awkward looking due to the fact that she ended up rolling right behind a goblin who seemed like he was going to turn around. LeeLee had watched this specific goblin the longest because he had a habit of stopping at this wall every three patrol rotations to scratch it’s back and stretch. This little amount of time let LeeLee wait until another goblin that was wearing a helmet started to pass by which she snuck next to. Her position was between the wall of the room and the goblin wearing the helmet. The goblin finally made it to the stairway and LeeLee slipped in without a single goblin knowing she was there.

[Floor 8]

This floor had only two enemies, both were a demonic looking hound that stayed directly in the center of a long hallway. LeeLee waited to see if anything would happen but the hounds would simply sit there without moving an inch. LeeLee pictured the aggro range and it seemed to reach all the way to the walls on both sides of the hallway. LeeLee pulled out a pebble and waited another 5 minutes before finally deciding to throw it. The pebble hit the right side of the hall and the hounds reacted to it. Both hounds went to the right side and left a tiny opportunity to slip through. LeeLee got past the hounds and could see the stairway ahead. She was suspicious and decided to check the floor, to her surprise there was nothing there and she continued down the stairs. LeeLee decided that it was only simple because she knew about the pebble trick. Most players wouldn’t know about the trick and especially not be carrying pebbles on them.

[Floor 9]

LeeLee entered into a room that had many twists and turns, enemies could be seen going into different corridors, and she had already spotted a trap right at the beginning. The trap was a wire spread across the hall with slightly elevated bricks just on the other side of the wire. LeeLee had to jump over the wire to clear the bricks. As she continued down the one of the corridors and hit a dead end, it seemed that the place was also a maze. LeeLee backtracked into the beginning corridor and continued to take each path she came across. After she had dodged many traps and enemies she was down to the last couple corridors in the floor. She went through one of them and hit a dead end, as she backtracked she noticed a goblin coming down the corridor, she was stuck between an enemy and a dead end. As soon as she saw the enemy she pulled out a pebble and launched it down the corridor she had come from and bolted for the other hall. The pebble she threw would surely attract more than just that one goblin and if the enemies had a high AI then she would be in trouble, she decided to risk it all at once. She successfully slipped passed the goblin and was running down the last corridor, she could hear the footsteps of many enemies from where she threw the pebble. As she was running she saw the staircase, guarded by a humanoid figure wearing heavy armor patrolling back and forth in front of the staircase. All LeeLee could do was pray as she kept running and luck seemed to be on her side as the armored figure was turning around as she slipped into the stairway.

[Floor 10]

The floor was completely empty, and it wasn’t really a floor, it was more of a small hallway that led to a dead end. LeeLee didn’t let her guard down as she checked the floor for traps, but there were none there. She slowly walked towards the wall before confirming that this was the end of the tower. She felt around the wall before finding a small incision made in the rocks. LeeLee took out the token the instructor gave her and slid it into the slot, after a small clicking noise the room lit up and the wall slowly opened.