The spatial transition as the system drags me to my trial is noticeable, but much smoother than what the automaton usually did. He may be a robot, but he was not the system.

Though even if I can tell I have been teleported, it is a very brief sensation and I’m not surprised last time I didn’t even could tell I had been teleported over.

The instant is over and the familiar environment shows up. The very same trial as last time. A simple chamber of cut stone and arches.

All that fades from my mind as the system tries to rip my being in half.

My health, mana and stamina are simply gone without a contest as soon as I arrive which I don’t even bother trying to keep. A tug of war with the system would not be to my benefit if I was to lose.

The inner world also starts to move away, but I will not let go of it so easily.

With my greater understanding of space, I keep a hold of it. Like I’m a dog with a bone, the system’s efforts just lift my body as it pulls the inner world upward. Pressed against the 4 meter high curved ceiling in the small chamber, the pull gradually gets stronger but there is absolutely nothing that will force to let go, even the all-encompassing pain on my body as the system tries to invade it.

That resolution is shattered moments later, as Aether and something else squeezes my innards with immense strength.

A scream comes from the new addition in my chest that fused into the root network of my body.

“NOoOOoOo!!!!!!”

“Get away bloody system, you will not harm him.”

Letting go of the inner world I drop to the ground on my back, not even paying attention to it given my physical stats.

“System, you CANNOT touch what is mine, what is part of my body. I do not ALLOW it.”

To make a point to myself or the system, I don’t know which, I finish with a single word:

“MINE.”

Pain radiates from the seed, Aspen’s progeny and I’m almost overwhelmed through our link, but as much as his existence is pain and part of that translates to me, I keep sharing with him all the strength and willpower I can.

There is nothing else that matters more. There is nothing that matters at all, not while he is suffering.

I try to grab the space around and simply force out everything that doesn't belong. Pushing against the thick wall, against the mountain that is the system's will yields nothing, but as I’m about the give up and seek a new approach, I notice the change inside my body and I focus all my will there.

“This is my body.” As the words pass my lips, my control increases a little in a pinprick inside my chest.

“This is my body. This….”

Doing it, again and again, shifts the effort from impossible, to just on the edge of my capabilities. Step by step I exert the monumental effort and push the system out of my core, something I thought impossible just a minute before, Slowly growing the finger wide sphere near my heart, the seed can catch a bit of its breath, but even if its core is now safe, all of its limbs are still in contention.

Leveraging all I learned from the hardest trials of my life, that I internalized every time I pushed myself to the limit and would not accept limits placed upon me: I heave again.

An inch, two inches, three inches.

When my will reaches my skin, I stop to catch my breath.

“My body is my temple.”

“My body is my domain.”

I repeat the simple mantra over and over even as the system tries to push back.

“My body is my temple. My body is my domain.”

Extending this domain further is outside the realm I can achieve, and being strategic, even extending to my limbs would put too great of a strain on my mind for any period of time, so I settle on keeping a firm hold on a sphere in my chest while passively trying to push the system out elsewhere.

My leg calls my attention. Twisted into irreconcilableness, the runes are finally fully distorted and a rush of mana dissipates into the air. The bluish gas that normally would take only a moment to fade instantly goes away as the system simply absconds with it.

Instantly I realize that it doesn’t care about the plant matter, not even bothering with what is left behind, but continues working on the rest of my body trying to get at the mana it contains. Instantly, I release all of this resource spread throughout my entire body except the little rough sphere in my chest.

The seed stops suffering and I grimace.

I never imagined that my actions could have done this. If I had known… I even thought of stuffing even more mana in my body, what would have happened then? Would he have simply blown up in an instant?

Shaking my head, I start compressing the runes on a smaller sphere on my chest. As I do that, I reduce the space in my control until it is smaller than my fist.

The mental effort is nearly gone, at least when compared to a second before and I start a light meditative session. Fighting the urge to rub my temples and cradle my head I keep repeating the mantra until the effort becomes second nature.

This in specific is a new sensation, but the fact that it is a continuous effort in the back of my mind like what I had in place for the inner world’s portals gravity and lights makes this new addition something of an old friend. In one hour, what had been impossible becomes… natural, becomes second nature, almost like breathing, or rather running, given it is still something that takes a lot of effort.

Still, I have a little more room to get used to this new mental muscle and improve efficiency even when acting in a small area and under the best of circumstances, but the system doesn’t give up, or relent for even an instant. So I try to recover my mental stamina even while the confrontation is still ongoing.

If the system doesn’t yield, I will have to eventually let it go, but at least for today, I can keep this up.

An hour of meditating is enough to make me feel mostly normal again, even if I’m still getting more tired.

With a quick accounting of the situation, I reach out for my pool mana, but as expected, I can’t touch it. Every single one of my resources is tantalizingly out of reach like last time even if quite close.

I can sense them, I can smell them, I can see them from every angle imaginable, but like a kid in a store with all the candy locked behind bulletproof glass, all that I can interact with is the cold and unyielding transparent barrier.

Not fair.

Still, I have a smidge of mana remaining hidden away. All that trouble for little more than one point of mana left, but in the possibility that it may come to be useful is too important for me to just give up.

So I get up and spread my perception field to full bloom. Absorbing my surroundings and going over the solid stone with my roughly 69 meters perception field.

As I step away from the central spot in the chamber a system prompt blinks and the light is simply gone, no gradual fade of my senses, simply a switch flick.

What the trial is up to?

As I try to get used to relying only on the perception field, which is fairly easy by now, all the memories taken away hit me like a truck. Disoriented and ripe to fall, I try to keep my balance, but thankfully the sensation fades quickly and everything fits right back in its proper place in only a few seconds. Every single recollection a sliding folder perfectly heading for their own little corner of my mind.

Finally what was stolen is back. I hadn't succeeded in remembering anything before coming back, but this time I'm more prepared and fully aware that the system would try to intrude in my mind.

This floor is strangely similar to the last trial, at least in the little that I explored. Extending my perception field to full again after letting it drop during my struggle, I run at a decent pace with my fairly impressive stats. Going through everything again, I try to open the system prompt, and like last time even the simplest of screens is gone. This time, I can't even summon the ‘leave trial early’ screen, instead being forced to rely on voice commands for that particular function.

Even as a grin is plastered over my face the rough stone floor vibrates silently and the imagined burn of my physical effort gets to my brain. All my senses and stuff I greatly rely on are simply gone, even my running gate is slightly different without the physical senses my muscles normally return to me.

I try to reach out for everything else. The space tied to the seed in my chest has a small cache of supplies. But although it hasn’t moved away from me like the inner world, it may be out of reach. This pocket of space that overlaps my body is just another layer of reality.

Tentatively hopeful, I reach out with a tendril of my will, find the opening of the space and try to ‘open the lid’ of my space bag. But as I do so, a hard and painful slap comes buffeting me back.

A bloody slap?

The system is SLAPPING me?

I let out a belly laugh fueled by the absurdity of the situation because I wasn’t expecting that… at all. I expected something… but a slap? That is new!

I reach out to space again to measure the system’s response. I try twisting it but don’t generate any reaction. So, it is just prejudiced against bags of holding and similar items… interesting.

Without letting the thousands of little details distract me, I start earnestly running with the perception field unfolded to its full glory. So far there is nothing that fails to match my memories of this place. Long stone corridors with no distinct markings. Just like the newly unlocked memories tell me.

Though in the first intersection, something different than both of my experiences shows up, I’m greeted by a three way that splits into options to continue on the current level, to climb, or to descent.

And as my memory tells me, instead of the 3 layers from the first trial, this second one will have a few more. The distance between them should be small enough for me to detect something below and above with the size of my perception field.

I move to add this first split into a map by folding a few roots inside my body, but even as I do that, the strangeness comes to the forefront of my mind.

I think… I KNOW I have done this before. I didn’t erase anything but still arrived back on the instance with the roots all in their normal place instead of shaped like the maps I drew.

Hell, I didn't even realize this missing piece of the puzzle after the system erased my memories. I also just found out that one of my ideas to take knowledge of the trial outside won’t work.

With the system’s interference in mind, I’m certain, its intrusion is far from something simple. It erased a lot about myself that would have questioned the lack of a map or other notes in my root network, not even the first map that I recall painstakingly drawing had remained, something I would have likely left behind if the second layer of the trial didn’t require this particular skill of mine.

Shaking my head and ignoring another frustrating aspect of the system’s interference I keep heading straight and try to navigate using a few of the principles governing both mazes I walked. It won’t help me to map the entire place faster, but by following the logic of the place I find the spots of interest sooner, like the central chamber and a pair of places with the sliding puzzles.

I leave the bread loaves on the table and return o the maze with no plans to rush into eating them.

Running at a superhuman level that very few athletes ever reached back on Earth, but keeping that speed for hours and days is natural to me and many other endurance people after the advent of the system. I will probably just slow down later to save the small energy stores I have available.

Strategically mapping the place while keeping an eye on the environment is paramount. Soon in my run, I start coming up the corridors either above or below showing up in Perception field.

They sit at about 53 meters from each other, and just when I’m going to dismiss that number as random, its significance shows manifest to me.

That is the smallest distance you can have considering the 8-foot tall tunnels and still keep anyone with the standard 50-meter perception field limited by their Inner World size even when using strategies to ‘extend’ the range. Even laying on the ground or climbing in the ceiling wouldn’t let someone sense the other tunnels being just a few inches too short. But simply extending that range to 51 meters is enough to cross this small barrier. Laying on the ground, you would just reach the ceiling from a tunnel directly underneath, and vice versa.

Rapidly expanding the map, I let the simple and fairly tedious task consume me while trying to add a few other exercises to make the most of my time.

Inside the perfect environment to train the natural use of mana, I throw myself into it with vigor while conserving my resources carefully.

It may never come to anything, but I wanted to be entirely independent of the system…if at all possible. Even if just for my peace of mind.

Now on to the next step.

The soundless and unfeeling slaps of my feet against the floor continue. Even with all the information of my perception field, it is still strange that all my other senses are completely muted, but what could I do?