Sam struggles upward as he swims with all his might towards the surface, all his strength isn’t enough to overcome the weight on his back dragging him down.

He can feel and taste the foul water as it goes into his mouth.

His situation is quickly deteriorating, he has little other option than to release the sword on his back before he’s dragged down too far as the water rushes over his head.

He pauses for a moment, thinking things over, not realising he doesn’t have a moment as he’s dragged well under the water.

‘Shit shit shit, I need to live first, I’ll come get the sword later… If I can.’

He reaches for the sword on his back, pulling out and weakly throwing it in the directions of the rocks he was just on. If it won’t get stuck in the rocks, then hopefully it’ll get stuck in a wall in that direction.

Sam feels the sword leaving his hands yet he cannot hear anything, his lungs are now screaming at him for oxygen, he involuntarily breathes in causing a mouthful of water to go down his throat.

Sam’s stomach convulses as he loses swimming power, but he pushes through it, forcing out everything from his muscles to reach the surface.

He swims upward, he cannot see anything, yet he swims upward by feeling the bubbles going by his face.

He swims without caring that his consciousness is blackening over; he doesn’t care his muscles are about to give out.

He pushes his body upward.

His hand suddenly touches nothing, he knows that he’s almost at the surface yet he’s not done yet. He spreads his body out, feeling for a rock or anything, something that he can grab onto for a moment.

He breaches the surface, his lungs wanting to breathe in yet he cannot as they’re partially filled with water.

His fingers skim along a rock face, he reaches out at it yet finding nothing to gain purchase to.

He sinks back under the water when his fingers finally find a hold. Immediately he places all his body weight on a few fingers, his body is still partially submerged In the water yet this stability allows him to correct himself.

*cough cough*

Sam starts to cough up, he coughs up heavily as water flows out from his throat and lungs before clearing out his stomach. His lungs take a big breath as his mind comes back from the brink of blacking out.

He sits there in this position for what feels like hours, recovering his body, his fingers going numb from being forced to carry his weight on such a small area for so long. His body is recovering itself but internally, his mana cloud is shrinking rapidly but that’s not a bad thing as it’s all being absorbed by the egg.

Sam can see the representation of it within his mind, it’s there drawing a lot of energy compared to its usual slow intake. The situation might have awakened it, it’s possible it sensed that his situation was particularly dangerous and woke up.

Of course, it almost killed him by doing that, yet if it wakes up soon, it might be instrumental in getting out of here.

Sam spends time recovering himself while looking about the rock where he’s stuck. It’s like a large rock wall that he cannot feel the top of. It’s mostly a smooth, solid wall apart from some occasional holes.

He luckily found the largest one in his immediate surroundings yet the no-light situation makes it hard to go anywhere, he doesn’t want to lose the safety of this spot yet he cannot stay here for much longer.

His arms begin to tire out, as if his fingers are finally giving up.

Sam pulls out a dagger trying to stab it into the wall, it’s not able to pierce the wall simply bouncing off it. Next he tries the spear, he uses it to reach out and feel if there’s any more rocks when he feels something strange.

‘Am I stabbing into something squishy? Please don’t let it be some sort of creature.’

Sam pulls back the spear and touches the end of it, sniffing the sticky substance on the end before grimacing and licking it.

‘Ah, it’s sweet?’

Sam quickly wipes it off his tongue but feels relieved it’s not something living, he takes a moment to ready himself before swimming in that direction. He swims with confidence, yet always listening out for some sound, some movement that he didn’t do in the distance..

He doesn’t need to swim far before reaching his target; he reaches out and touches them. It doesn’t take long for him to identify what they might be, vines.

Sam grabs onto the vine trying to pull himself out of the water, but finds that they’re crawling up the rock face somehow. He opts to climb along them instead of up them, making his way slowly around the rock face.

This process lasts quite some time as he hangs there without taking a break, Sam has no idea how long it has been as he continues to go along the vines in some direction, the only thing is he knows that he is going in the right direction as a faint hum has entered his ears.

It has been progressively getting stronger as he goes along the vines.

Suddenly the vines stop, Sam reaches out with his spear to feel for more but finds that there’s no more indicating that he has run out of this easy option.

‘Wait… I can go up here.’

Sam uses the spear to feel the rock face is missing from above where he is. He grabs the vine and tugs on them hard, this time they don’t fall off the rock face allowing him to pull himself upward.

He drags up his heavy wet body from the water coming onto a ledge.

He doesn’t care about the ledge though as he’s just happy to be out of that water laying down on the solid ground thankful to find it.

Sam lets his body dry out for a moment as he listens to everything, the only thing that he can hear is that faint hum. Everything else is quiet, there’s nothing making a single noise in the water bringing relief but also worry.

There’s no immediately obvious exit, he has this area around him to explore for now but there’s still no light. He’s basically walking around blind right now, not even striking his weapon against the wall will create a spark.

Sam feels around his body for anything on him that’ll help his situation and stops on his pocket. A large object is in it. He pulls the object out of it, he cannot see it but he knows what this is.

It’s the items that he doesn’t want the military to find, they’re wrapped tightly in a waterproof secure bag.

Sam undoes the packaging and checking each item to ensure they’re safe. The first item is the stopwatch. He pulls it out, flips open the face of it and presses the button a few times. The time seems accurate and the device seems fine.

He pulls out the next thing, it’s his phone.

He turns it on. The battery is still mostly full, but it has been turned off. There’s no signal so he has nothing to do with it but luckily it has a torch function. He turns it on to look around, leaving him startled at the sight.

“The vine is bright red? Wait, there're bones everywhere? Shit.”

Sam looks around, the torch goes all over the place where he’s at. There’s countless dried out bones, tattered remains of clothing are around them but nothing else remains but that. He follows the source of the vines and spots an opening.

A rusted airlock door is ajar.

Sam walks over in that direction. The doorway leads to a metallic hallway that is covered with vines. There’s no movement and no noise, but he still pulls out the light-weight sword and walks through it cautiously.

He has little option but to hurry his steps as the torch on the phone must rest for a period between use, it also drains the battery quickly which won’t charge underground, especially

The walls of the hallway are lined with strange metallic fins, the vines seem to love that as they run through it and it allows an easier time walking through it. The floors are well worn from countless footsteps before him.

Sam walks down the hallway and spots several doors. Many of them lead to other large open watery areas but most of them smell like absolute death. Some of them are filled with offices but they have been long-since ransacked with nothing of value laying about.

He begins to wonder if he has been going to right direction when he spots something on the wall. So far it has been the fins or a random door, Sam walks over to it and feels that the wall has shifted to a solid piece of metal without any seam.

Sam peers down the rest of the hallway and can spot the end. The vines have disappeared as he walks towards the end of the hallway. The single piece of metal continues even until he reaches the end where two double doors stand.

The door are still standing with a flashing light on it, there’s countless marks on it as people have tried to open the door by force over the ages yet no one has been able to do it. This isn’t the first door like this, yet it’s the most worn one.

“Ingistellar-tech —ù—— Testing Course #001?”

One of the words is entirely illegible to him, it looks like 8 horizontal lines stacked on top of one another but he can understand the other words, Sam walks up to the door wondering how it works when,

*BZZ*

A humming sound comes over his ears, he feels dazed for a moment as everything disappears around him. This lasts a moment before he returns to his body, Sam looks around in dazed yet spots nothing changed.

*DING*

A green light comes from the door.

The doors split apart revealing the pathway before him. There has been no reason for that yet he still walks through the open doors. It’s the first set of doors that haven’t smelt like death on the other side.

He walks a few steps into the door and looks around. Everything looks clean and white yet also dark.

A large red platform stands out on the white, he walks over to it standing on top of it causing the entire space to suddenly light up. The sounds of motors and engines spinning up, fans spinning fill the room as everything comes to life.

Sam looks out at everything and immediately feels like it’s too much, but things in the distance are still lighting up. He cannot even see anything anymore, but he can hear the lights loudly switch on.

He steps off the platform where a bunch of numbers appear on a wall nearby, Sam walks over to the wall and spots a bunch of writing on it. This writing did not exist until this timer appeared yet as he’s reading it, his face twists.

“Once a participant has entered testing room, they will have as much time as needed to complete the course, but there are penalties for those that take too long to complete the course. This course is selected as the hardest and most trying course, only the most elite can attempt it as such the harshest penalties apply.”

“What does it mean by harshest penalties? That guy that threw me down here said that this place had a high death rate… is it death or was this thing just too hard to complete?”

Sam reads it again and cannot gleam any more information from the piece of text, he takes one last look at the timer on the wall before pulling out his own stopwatch

“I guess I’ll use this to keep time, better turn off my phone too.”

Sam presses the button on the side of the stop watch starting it, the counter begins to count up. He confirms the times before switching off his phone and storing the both of them away again. There’s nothing else here to see, he walks towards the first door that opens smoothly.

The lights come to life revealing the room. There’s nothing in here except for a single difference that he walks over to.

A small gap.

The young man easily leaps over the 20cm gap, he stops to look down into the water at the bottom. It’s much like the water elsewhere in the countless rooms, yet seems darker without letting any light go through it. Sam walks towards the door and it opens by itself revealing the next room.

A room much like the last.

Sam feels disappointed yet still jumps over the small pit, walking to the door that opens itself.

He lets out an audible sigh at the room, it’s the same.

“Alright , let’s see how many there are.”

Some time passes, Sam is still going along the testing course.

“Ahh, why is it all pits? It’s like every 5 rooms there’s pits, then something that’ll try to kill me. The pits are always so tiny too. It’s like they’re for people that cannot jump.”

Sam jumps over another pit, he looks down in the water but spots nothing. Internally he is still suspicious of the water, something has to be up with it as it’s almost pitch black.

He stands at the entrance to the next room and looks in, a single figure stands in the middle. He walks up to it ever vigilant and presses the button on its chest.

*SHHNG*

A large blade appears from the side of the room and above the figure, Sam jumps over the large blade coming from the side while easily avoiding the one coming from the ceiling.

The blades disappear and a door opens on the far side. This is the 4th room like this he has done.

Sam walks through the next door and lets out another sigh, another pit.

He jumps over it and repeats the process for another 200 times, each time is exactly the same as he gets tired. This whole process has been tiresome and boring, there’s nothing to do but go forward yet he can always go forward since it’s not difficult.

He comes across the room with the figure again; he approaches it but doesn’t press the button.

He stares at it for a few moments. It looks like a human wearing armour with a balloon for a head.

“What is the point of this test? To see if someone has a consciousness? A baby could do this stuff.”

He doesn’t do anything and just stands there waiting for something to happen yet nothing happens. He brings out the stopwatch and looks at the timer.

“4 hours…”

Sam puts the stopwatch away and thinks about the situation, he has no information to go off other than the increasing room number. He attempts to go back to the previous room but finds that the door has shut itself, sealing his route.

“This better end soon. It’s stupid.”

Sam walks up to the figure and presses the button. He readies himself yet nothing happens.

He waits and waits, yet still nothing happens.

Sam presses the button again and readies himself, nothing happens again.

“That’s not what I meant by ending, this thing better not be broken… Don’t tell me that’s why no one could finish it.”

Sam walks over to where the door should be and carefully runs his fingers along it, he carefully feels for the seam.

“Ah there it is… Now let’s try this…”

He uses a dagger to try to get between the doors yet cannot as the dagger point snaps off.

Sam pulls uses the weapon’s pouch to retrieve a hammer, he uses it to hammer the pointless dagger into the seam yet it simply chips the dagger away into nothing as it falls on the ground. He looks at that pile of rubble blankly.

“What can I do? Fucking open fuck sake!”

Sam attempts to pry open the door with his hands in frustration. A strong hotness comes from his body as his fingers feel strange. He can feel something happening in his body, but he doesn’t care about that as he notices something.

“It’s opening, what the fuck.”

Sam opens it only a few millimetres, but that’s enough as he slams several daggers into the gap using his feet. He slams them in there without care causing the door to open; he slams all of his daggers into the door before pulling his hand away.

He looks at his fingers and doesn’t spot anything special with them so he doesn’t know how that happened.

Sam places his sword between the gap and carefully pries the door open further before switching it with the hammer. It holds steady with the hammer holding it open, he picks up the daggers before checking the room one last time before slipping through the narrow gap.

He pulls out of the door, and the door closes behind him.

It’s dark all around him, he’s about to pull out his phone again when the lights flicker alive.

Sam looks at what’s before him, “Well, I asked for change and this is change.”

Sam looks out at the large area before him, you could say that they kept with the theme.

It’s a pit.

It’s just much bigger and this time, the water seems to move about as it splashes about occasionally. Sam walks over to the edge and looks down, yet spots nothing that looks to be of use. It seems to be a sheer drop of around 100 metres into pitch black water that has multiple currents going about.

All around it are smooth white rock walls that have no holes or gaps in them.

Sam walks up to the wall and touches it, “Huh?”.

He pulls his finger away and notices it sticks for a split moment; he repeats it over and over again and wonder’s what is going on.

“Wonder if it’ll hold my weight?”

Sam attempts to rest his body weight on his fingers against the wall, it strangely works.

He wonder’s what’s going on but doesn’t question it as he uses this method to make his way across the room. He dangles across the pit in the murky water, held by something that he doesn’t understand fully.

His situation is precarious and could shift at any moment yet, he manages to make it over.

He climbs off the wall and onto the platform on the other stage, “That… was rather easy.”

He walks over to the door and waits for it to open yet it doesn’t, frustrated he repeats the same process before jamming his weapons into it and prying the door open slowly. Sam peers through and notices it’s another completely dark room.

He steps through after opening the door wide open but it doesn’t close after him, the only light is coming through the door revealing almost nothing apart from a floor. He looks forward, trying to spot what’s ahead when a red light appears.

A large red light appears only metres away from him.

Sam stops breathing as the red light shifts upwards, with the lights turning on revealing the scene.