Karzaia left the inn with a frown on her face. For some reason, the innkeeper had patted her on the head with a broad smile on her face, and her orc steak breakfast had been free. Some of the adventurers had even slapped her on the shoulder with grins on their faces.

She just didn’t get it.

However, Karzaia wasn’t the type to care much about what those outside her clan thought of her, so she decided to head for the Trial. She had already decided to try the Gauntlet, despite the risk. There were costs and consequences for every action, as Fan’ar had been fond of saying, and few are entirely positive. So, it is best to choose what fulfills your desires and is true to yourself.

For Karzaia, being true to herself meant challenging herself to be greater with every step she put forward.

The Trial was not placed in the temple like the Dungeon was… but then, this made perfect sense. Dungeon cores could be placed anywhere, and most temples had one connected to them, even the one in Manthein. Trials, however, existed wherever the gods desired them to. They even moved at times, some of them wandering along set paths that cycled over the course of centuries or millennia, others transporting themselves randomly.

This Trial had been in this very spot for over fifty-thousand years, though the town was merely the latest incarnation of a settlement to be built around it. It appeared to be a simple dugout hut with a sod roof and a rickety door. It was not meant to stand out, but it did anyway, the aura of a Trial obvious to anyone who had had their System Day.

It would have been difficult for any denizen of the realms to explain what it felt like. That was because it was a sense implanted in them by the system, not a sense that existed naturally. To a being that predated the system, it would have reeked of divinity, but such beings were now rare beyond measure, as the gods had hunted down or bound most of them, the Maker destroying those too dangerous to be allowed to exist in the new, more limited world.

All that was required to enter the Trial was that the Trial-taker place their hand on the door, and Karzaia did so without hesitation, ignoring the painful tingling that spread throughout her body as the Trial examined her being.

A moment later, she vanished in a flash of silver light, leaving the small plaza left open before it empty once more.

When Karzaia next opened her eyes, she found herself in a hall with four corridors leading out of it. Each was marked with a symbol. The first was a shield with a sword crossed over it, the sign of Courage. The next was a picture of a woman placing bread in the hands of a child, the sign of Compassion. The third was the sign of a man prostrating himself before an altar, the sign of Humility. The last was the picture of an ancient man with a stern, judgmental gaze that radiated both the potential of death and for growth… the symbol of the Gauntlet.

She knew what would happen to her when she stepped through the gates of any of the four versions of the Trial. Knowledge of the present and her own past would be sealed, replaced by the knowledge and experiences of another being, influenced only by the essence of her soul. There, her soul would be tested with scenarios based on the past, where she would have to face the tribulations of the original soul and prove her character.

This was a Trial primarily operated by the ‘good’ gods, which was the reason for the theme. The ‘evil’ gods would have created a Trial that tested the passion, pragmatism, and pride of an individual, because that was the nature of those gods and their aegis. It was one of the peculiarities of the Realms that the gods were not actually in opposition to one another as they played their roles, but there were still times where their roles could not coexist, and Trials of Character were one of those.

Karzaia headed for the Gauntlet without hesitation, only the slightest edge of fear battling the euphoria she felt at the idea of what was to come.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The Wanderer sat in an elegant chair made of blue water (not ice) as he smoked the heavily toxic weed cigar given to him by the God of Medicine and Healing as they observed Karzaia’s entry into the Trial.

“Are you sure the Maker won’t punish us for doing this?” The nervous-looking god asked him. In his mortal years, Gaan was a man with thin nerves but a core of iron beneath, but most of the other gods thought him a weakling. Most would have been contemptuous of his obvious fear, but they would have failed to note the strength that lay hidden beneath.

“Any punishments will be light, as the choice of scenarios falls well-within the limits of our authority over the Trial. Indeed, showing her scenes from the various lives her soul experienced will only make the tests more legitimate,” The Wanderer replied placidly. It was unlikely the Maker would punish either of them, though he would likely be unamused at the former Judge’s recent behavior.

The relationship between the Wanderer and the Maker wasn’t adversarial, but it verged on that at times, primarily because the Maker had left things be for eons and expected everything to be perfect when he returned, despite none of the ‘caretakers’ he left behind being anything close to perfect themselves. While the Wanderer was frequently punished for interfering in the fates of his followers, he knew when to give way and when to push far better than most would imagine. Trials were one of the few ways the gods could directly interfere with their followers, so he was quite happy Karzaia had chosen to challenge Fantenheim’s Gauntlet. It would endanger her life in the short-term, but all of the possible benefits of surviving it would reward her greatly, increasing her potential for survival and ascension in the future.

“What do you hope she will gain out of this? You didn’t specify a reward to the Trial-keeper this time,” Gaan asked curiously.

The Wanderer took a deep drag on his cigar and puffed out several circles of purple and green smoke that would have killed a dragon before replying, “All the rewards will benefit her, and this Trial doesn’t provide cultivation Talents, so there is no reason for me to manipulate the rewards this time.”

“Are you hoping for a new affinity? That affinity of hers is powerful, but it won’t show its true value until she reaches Tier 30, if then,” Gaan asked.

“That is my thought,” He admitted, “She will need to have as many affinities as possible if she is to gain knowledge of a Dao sufficient to fuel her immortality later on in her existence. While this Trial won’t provide a Greater affinity, there are any number of common and uncommon ones that would enhance her potential greatly.”

“Normally, having too many affinities is limiting for a cultivator…” Gaan said leadingly.

The other god shook his head slightly, “For another cultivator, having many affinities would be problematic. However, with the Soul affinity as a base, she will become capable of fusing and evolving affinities in time. The more she has to fuel the fire, the more powerful the results. If she fulfills the Maker’s designs, she will be forced to ascend in truth, and it will be better for her if her aegis is as deep as possible before that day comes.”

“What of the others? My seeds are progressing only with two affinities at most…” Gaan asked worriedly. Unlike most of the gods, he was fond of his ‘seeds’. They were ‘good children’ in his view, and all nine of them were healers, full of passion for the repairing of the soul and the body.

“Your seeds are healers first and foremost. With the Soul affinity in hand, there are forms of healing that would otherwise be impossible. I would suggest you also add Flesh, Blood, Body, or Alchemy to their affinities if possible. As of now, the two Immortal seeds you possess are too limited to reach their potential. With any of those four in their hands, they will become unmatched healers that will serve well as your subordinate deities,” The Wanderer suggested.

All the gods had a number of the Hooded King’s shard reincarnations devoted to them, and each had at least one Immortal seed, that had the potential to quickly reach the ranks of the Immortals. It was the Maker’s intent that they become subordinate deities that would help spread the responsibilities of the gods and lessen the burden on the individuals, while also lessening the possibility of a full reincarnation for the most terrifying mortal to have ever existed.

Pragmatically speaking, the Wanderer agreed with the Maker’s plan. The Hooded King was like a Realm in and of himself when he was alive, touching on so many of the world’s fundamental concepts that he likely would have absorbed all of the pantheon when he ascended. It was only luck that had prevented that from happening.

His motivations for providing so much aid to Karzaia stood in opposition to the Maker’s goals, in a way. Giving up the Judge’s mantle had freed him in ways he had never anticipated, giving him perspective on his old friend and enemy. He didn’t desire to be once again burdened with a servant demigod. No, what he wanted was…

__________________________________________________________________________

The warrior stood at the back of the wooden-walled feast hall as the elders argued over what they would do about the beast horde headed their way. The Crimson Spear goblins were swarming in their tens of thousands, and most of the warriors had been ordered to protect the walled cities to the north of the Tower.

There were a dozen other young warriors there, all looking terrified at what was coming. They were too weak in Tier to truly make a difference against the horde, and they knew the best they could hope for was to be placed in the rearguard to make a last stand as the elders and their families escaped to the cities.

The warrior was afraid, as well, but his fear was for the peasants that would be left behind when the high-blooded elders fled. He knew what would happen to them, the women used for breeding, the children eaten, and the men sacrificed to empower the shamans and warriors of the Crimson Spears.

He also knew his fate if he dared to disobey the commands of the elders. His soul would be forfeit to the Trials, regardless of the fate of his body, a fate that was far worse than mere death.

The idea of dying for the scum who pretended in better times to care for the peasantry filled him with rage, and he had to resist the desire to draw his axe and sever the elders’ aged heads. None of them was worth as much as the least peasant child. They had nothing to contribute, no wisdom to take the place of their loss of a warrior’s ability to fight.

The rise of the system was empowering the people slowly, but it was still poorly understood, Talents taken without consideration for the future, affinities picked without comprehension of their utility.

The cultivators, who were now peasants, their qi vanishing from the Nine Lands rapidly, raged against the rise of the mage-warriors and sorcerers of the cities, but they no longer had the power to oppose them. Their way was slower and costlier, in any case, and now that there was almost no qi to cultivate, their path to power was closed.

In the eyes of the elders, the value of a single aged sorcerer-warrior far outweighed the lives of ten thousand failed cultivators.

None of the elders argued to defend the town, only on which of the massive walled cities they would escape to and which of the youth were too valuable to sacrifice to the rearguard.

To his surprise, he was one of the warrior-mages considered too valuable to sacrifice in the rearguard. The disgust became stronger when he recognized this, and it was also directed at the part of himself that was relieved.

However, as expected, the peasants were to be abandoned, though no one phrased it like that. In the minds of the elders and even most of the youths, the fallen cultivators were of no use to anyone, so they could be sacrificed with impunity, whereas every warrior was weighed for his potential as a mana-wielder.

The next morning, as they were about to depart, the young warrior-mage met the eyes of a child standing amidst the crowds, and immense rage at himself burned within his gut.

He knew the child would die, that no one would be able to defend her against what was coming. He knew her fate, as a snack for the Red Spears at best, a toy at worst.

He made a decision then, easing himself out of the line of escaping warriors just after they began to pass through the forest outside the gates. He then slipped back into the town and began organizing the men, forming them into defensive lines with spears and farm tools.

His efforts were most-likely meaningless. He was a warrior-mage with a powerful affinity and a deep well of mana due to his Talents, but against the tens of thousands that were approaching, it would be like trying to wash away a hill of dirt with the water from a clay pot.

Nonetheless, there was no hesitation in him as he mounted the short stone wall around the town and prepared to meet his fate…

________________________________________________

Karzaia gasped as she came back to herself, clutching her belly where the spears had pierced her only moments before, lifting her up with gleeful laughter as the goblins pulled her off the wall. She remembered the fierce battle after hiding the children in an underground cellar. She remembered the fallen cultivators, squeezing out the last of the corrupted qi in their bodies to take just one more goblin with them into the thereafter.

She remembered how they fell, one by one, swarmed by the goblins’ sheer numbers. She remembered as their wives raised the knives and drove them into their own hearts, the odd peace she felt when she was the last one standing, burning hundreds of goblins with waves of fire, even as they got closer and closer to penetrating her defenses.

Death had not been kind, and she had a feeling the soul of the man had suffered even more afterward for his decision. However, she sensed no regret from the remnants of the warrior as his spirit left her.

You have passed the first part of the Gauntlet, the test of Courage. You have ten minutes to prepare yourself for the test of Compassion.

Karzaia grinned fiercely, despite the phantom pain in her belly. She’d taken the first step forward, now all that was left was to finish walking the path.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The general frowned as the looked upon the camp of exiles who had intruded on his clan’s lands. Clan Dalzein was one of the more powerful in the region, and he was a general of its legions, tasked with protecting the borders from intrusion.

The exiles were a mishmash of criminals and outcasts from a dozen different clans, forbidden to dwell upon any lands claimed by one of the clans by ancient law. As such, their presence in the small camp beside the river of pure, untainted water made them a target for extermination.

The general knew his duty. Clan law required that he obliterate the camp and kill its denizens to the last man, woman, and child. Exiles were removed from the clans for good reason, those who could not coexist with clan law, those who had natures that could not put the many over the few, and those that had committed crimes that were insufficient to earn an execution but too terrible to allow them to remain as a Servitor.

However, most of the exiles were young, only a few elders and more children than he would have expected. Could it really be said that the children had committed a crime?

He recalled the face of his daughter, whom he was not allowed to acknowledge. She was being raised by his uncle, and she was doing well… However, his occasional distant views of her play with the other children of the clan filled him with an indescribable warmth and a resolve to protect his people.

He had risen from a mere captain of the guard to general precisely because of how much she motivated him to push himself.

He knew that to strike those children down would be a betrayal of himself and his daughter’s innocence. Others would not see it that way, his own men would not see it that way. However, he knew it to be so, in his heart of hearts.

Someone would have to pay the price if those children were to have a future. A faint fear and a deep sorrow at what he was about to lose settled on his heart, even as the resolve that had driven him to rise so far took over his soul.

He stood before his men and spoke the words that dwelt within his heart, “The exiles must die, by clan law. We all know this. We are taught the laws from the time we are born, and we are reminded of them until the day we die.”

He looked over his men, seeing a mix of sorrow and resolve in the eyes of the veterans, uncomprehending confusion in the eyes of the newly-minted warriors. In the eyes of his captains, he saw a desire to stop him from doing what he was about to do, and in the eyes of his aide-d-campe, who was also his wife, he saw a desperate pleading for him to step away from the path he was about to choose.

“We know what the law requires. However, though law requires that they die, I ask that you obey the oldest of the laws, the Law of Compassion laid before us by the gods. Though we cannot save the adults, for they have committed crimes that earned them their fates, the children have done nothing. Law requires their deaths as well, but I ask you, by the Law of Compassion, to spare their lives and bring them succor, that they might know the embrace of clan and home,” He bowed his head, drawing the long, curved dagger at his hip as he removed the heavy metal breastplate covering his torso. For clan law to be eased, a price had to be paid, a price in blood that the gods not punish the clan for breaching the ancient vows that bound the people of the Nine Lands.

He looked up and met his wife’s eyes, apologizing her for this betrayal, that he would leave her not on the field of battle but of his own free will. He thought of his daughter as the knife slowly pushed through the skin of his chest, its enchanted edge cutting through his ribs as if they weren’t there. Slowly, as the ritual required, he cut open his own rib cage, exposing his heart to those in front of him.

He smiled apologetically, ignoring the agony that threatened to bring tears to his eyes as he reached inside the hole formed by cutting away at his flesh, grabbing the pulsating organ within his gauntleted fist. With a cry of triumph, he ripped the heart from his chest in a spray of blood, golden light rising from his body as the gods blessed his act of sacrifice.

His last sight was the uncomprehending face of a little boy, who would probably never forgive him for what was to come. Still, he smiled as the light faded, knowing he had chosen correctly, even if the results would not be perfect.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Karzaia came back to herself with a gasp, clutching her chest, tears running from the corners of her eyes as she remembered the noble death of the general of Clan Dalzein. Dalzein was a dead clan, only remembered in the ancient histories, its lands too close to the Tower and so inundated during one of the many horrifying beast waves.

However, the stories of Clan Dalzein’s willingness to accept the children of exiles as its own, if the exiles would give up their lives, was a famous one, one that was honored by all other clans in the Nine Lands, even to this day. She felt honored to have experienced the final minutes of the man who had created that tradition, even as she felt humbled at the resolve he had shown in tearing out his own heart for the children of strangers.

She did not realize that this act was as much from her as it was from the General, due to the nature of the Trial. The emotions leftover from the experience were too strong for any such deep reflections on her own nature.

You have passed the second part of the Gauntlet, the test of Compassion. You have ten minutes to prepare yourself for the test of Humility.

__________________________________________________________________________________

An elf woman sat in a chair in front of a large table, looking over a map of her clan’s lands, her hands shaking as she considered possible routes the enemy might take to enter their lands. The Hooded King’s armies even now marched, their lord at the front lines.

The elf knew there was no chance of victory. In the early years, when the King was rising to power, it might have been possible for the peoples of the Nine Lands, the many races that dwelt there, to unite against him. However, it had been over a century since the conquest began, and his empire now covered half of the Nine Lands, his armies in the millions.

Nonetheless, as the leader of her people, she had to find a way to salvage the situation, or for what reason had she been selected from the other worthies who had competed with her for the position?

Unfortunately, the law of numbers and the law of power were cruel and absolute. The Hooded King’s legions were numberless, and the King himself was a transcendent being who dominated the land wherever he walked.

As despair began to rise, a voice echoed from behind her.

“Young Lord, I do believe I have the solution to your problem in my hands,” A pleasant, mellifluous voice echoed from behind her.

She turned around, meeting the burning orange eyes of an unnaturally handsome man with cloven hooves for feet and twirling ram’s horns atop his head, leathery bat wings curled behind his back. She knew what she was seeing, one of the Tempters, the Corruptors, the Givers of Power and Pain.

A True Demon.

His offer was simple. He would grant her and only her, the power necessary to harm the Hooded King and push away his armies… all she needed to do was sacrifice one in five of her people on an altar to him. For the price of one in five, she could save the other four in five and be honored for eternity by her clan, the dead forgotten within years as the glory of victory outshone the darkness of her actions.

He spoke eloquently of her future in glowing terms, of holding off the Hooded King’s empire for a generation and being remembered far beyond her times as a hero of the Ages of War. He spoke of how statues to her glory would be seen throughout elven lands, of how she would rule over all elves, forming the first united elven kingdom. He also spoke of how she would be the bulwark on which the armies of the Hooded King would break themselves, holding back the tide for centuries and earning herself endless glory and honor before her death.

All she had to do was sacrifice the old and useless of her clan to his hunger.

She knew everything he said was true. That could indeed be her future. She longed for that future… oh how she longed for it. She desired that future above all other things.

However… She slowly shook her head, denying the Demon’s offer. The elves would stand or fall on their own. It was not for her to trample on her people’s will, to one-sidedly demand a sacrifice of them that she would not make of herself.

They would fall to the Hooded King, she knew. There would be no stopping it without the power she was offered. However, she knew that the hunger for power and glory would make her a far worse tyrant than the creature they were fighting. She knew she was too weak of heart to resist the temptations of grabbing for ever more, she knew she would never be satisfied. She would eventually make another sacrifice, then another, then another, unwilling to let any chance of power exit her grasp.

So she made the only choice she could while remaining herself. She drove the Demon away and faced her fate with head held high, knowing her fate and accepting a cost that was far more bearable than the thoughts of glory and power the night before.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Karzaia gasped as she awoke from the memories of the most terrible death yet. She understood now why so many died in the Gauntlet. Each of the tests put a burden on the soul that, even with her tempering, tested her limits. She was touching spirits that had reached far higher Tiers of power, even if the most recent was from an age prior to the system.

The most recent was a woman named Yaivana est Luferia, an elven cultivator who had led a small union of elven clans against the Hooded King during the latter days of his conquests. She and her forces were cornered in the lands of her own clan, leading her to the scenario Karzaia was shown.

In the end, Yaivana had died without being able to even fight, the approach of the Hooded King and the force of his attention on them killing her army and cracking her soul badly. As one of the very few who had survived what the Hooded King apparently saw as merely ‘seeing’ them, she was offered a chance to submit. However, she refused and her soul was shattered, lost forever to the cycle of reincarnation.

The remnants of her spirit were absorbed into the nascent Trial, which was apparently one of the oldest in existence, pre-dating the current pantheon.

She didn’t know it, but this knowledge normally would not have entered the mind of a taker of the Trial. It was due to the karmic bonds between her soul and that of Yaivana that this knowledge was gained.

The consequences of this would not be known for some time.

You have passed the third part of the Gauntlet, the test of Humility. You will face the Final Test in ten minutes.

The words sent a surge of dread through Karzaia, despite the exhilaration her experiences had left her feeling. She had no idea of what the final test would be like, but she knew it would be far worse than the ones before.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The Trial Spirit, an ancient daemon that pre-existed the Hooded King and had watched over millions of Trial-takers over the eons, pulled at his long black goatee with interest as he observed the girl’s soul. Like all daemons, he had red skin and crystalline eyes, no ears, and a bone-like ridge across his brow, a gem-like third eye burning in his forehead. Of the races of the Nine Lands, his race had once been the most dominant, simply because of their affinity for both cultivation and sorcery. However, their numbers were always small, and after the Hooded King enforced interbreeding between the races, most of them had fled the Nine Lands altogether. As a result, most people in the Nine Lands had little or no daemon bloodlines.

Trials of Character, like this one, served to refine the soul. Before the system, there were no rewards other than coming out with a stronger soul than before. The tests he was using were gauged based on the strength of the soul that entered, so Karzaia’s scenarios were amongst the most intense he was capable of.

Each of the individuals he had drawn from for the tests had been put into a hopeless situation, where they were forced to make a choice that resulted in their destruction while being true to themselves, showing a virtue that few could match. Normally, the tests were drawn from different, less intense situations, as souls as dense as Karzaia’s were rare beyond measure.

That her soul seemed to grow a little more dense with each test was to be expected… but the rate was a bit too high, in his opinion. It was as if the contact with the ancient spirits he had absorbed to create those scenarios were breaking through a shell that concealed what truly lay in her depths.

Normally, he would have been pleased at that, but something about the way the shell around her soul was cracking felt… unnatural. It was as if someone had sealed away the majority of her soul’s power, layering the seals like an onion. He’d never seen anything like it.

Regardless, he still enjoyed seeing the young surpassing their limitations in his Trial, which was why he had been chosen as a Trial Spirit in the first place.

He couldn’t help but be excited at the thought of what her soul would look like if she completed the Final Test.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Wanderer looked on with concern now. Karzaia wasn’t supposed to be breaking the first layer of the seal yet, even with such an intense Trial of the spirit.

Each of the seals suppressed her soul slightly (by divine standards), compressing it so that it could fit within her shell at its current Tier. He was worried her body would not be able to withstand the pressure of the soul energy beyond the first seal… a real worry, as the ‘weight’ of a soul could easily crush the body if the imbalance was too intense.

He tightened his lips as he considered whether Tier 10, which she had reached in both her tempering and affinity after the pressure of the tests so far, would be sufficient to support the results of the first stage of her seal being released, Not a terrible gamble, but it is too much of one for my tastes… then again, if she is to walk the path to immortality, she will need to take risks. I shouldn’t interfere.

Gaan observed the Wanderer with interest. While they were nominally on the same side, despite the ancient god’s former aegis, he found it fascinating how the old creature’s emotions were moving now. In his experience, the Wanderer was inscrutable and nearly impossible to read. However, his emotions were freely on display while he watched this particular seed.

He thought the girl was exceptional, even for one of the Immortal Seeds. However, that shouldn’t have been any reason for a god to invest emotionally in her… was he in love? It was a possibility. Gods occasionally fell for mortals, but that usually meant the god raised them up into the ranks of the Valkyries or the Angels so they could have them at their side for eternity. Letting a potential lover walk the path of cultivation on the off-chance that the Maker’s plan would succeed for that particular individual… was not something he would believe even a god as known for his impartiality as the Wanderer would do.

No… there was an odd sense of… fondness? Did he think of the girl as a daughter? That seemed more likely but was somehow off… though a Spartan attitude toward parenting might explain the Wanderer’s actions.

Still, this was not – yet – something he could use. The Wanderer rarely bothered with the games the gods played with one another, so there was little meaning in discovering his personal weaknesses to use against him later. When he did bother, it was usually because the Maker had sent him to deal with one of them breaking the rules. He still had much of his power as the Judge, so he was capable of punishing any of them, if they were truly in breach of their contract with their master.

He would have to keep an eye on this seed, just in case the Wanderer revealed something later.

_________________________________________________________________________

The slave bowed before her master, enduring as he whipped her, for no better reason than he wanted to. Livid scars covered much of her half-naked body where past whippings had laid the flesh beneath exposed to the air, ruining what little in the way of looks she had possessed in the first place.

Over the past decade, she had been used, abused, tortured, and even mutilated on any number of occasions. Her right eye was missing, replaced with a glass fake only put there so the master wouldn’t have to look upon the empty socket. Her finger and toenails had been removed with pliers a dozen times. She was missing the big toe on her right foot, and her pinky and index finger on her right hand had been sliced off in a fit of pique.

She had never served him any less than perfectly. The fat, middle-aged merchant was not tormenting her out of any anger at her, but rather to relieve the stress from his wife’s nagging and his rivals’ attempts to interfere with his business.

Normally, a slave as capable as her would have been treasured and kept to train the less competent, her perfection of grace of movement as much value as her ability to serve. However, for some reason, the merchant had desired to torment her from the moment he had first laid eyes on her.

The same could be said of all her past masters, as well. Each had tormented her, as if trying to break her. However, it was only with this master that she had started to lose parts of her body and scars were left on her skin. This master had no interest in sex with her from the beginning, preferring the children he thought he hid so well in the basement.

He took out a silver knife and looked at her thoughtfully, weighing her value as a toy vs a sudden impulse she was all-too-familiar with. It was an impulse she had seen rise in the eyes of others more than a hundred times in the past, and she knew her death was approaching.

The desire to break free, to obliterate this vermin for daring to touch her skin, much less cut into it, surged within her. The terrible force of a will suppressed across lifetimes threatened to erase the entire continent from existence, kept chained only by her honor and belief in atonement.

There was no outward sign of the immense reserves of qi and mana that surged within her. Her control was too great to reveal her aura to an insect like this one. It was humiliating beyond measure that she had to leave her life in the hands of such a creature.

At the same time, the flash of the face of a beautiful elven woman appeared before her inner vision whenever she thought of just… breaking free of all restraints to act as she would once more.

However, there was no true contest between the rage and her honor. She looked into the merchant’s eyes as he made the first cut, laying the skin over her remaining eye bare, revealing the blood-smeared bone of her skull beneath. A second cut slid delicately between the blood vessels on her right arm, cutting the tendons there, leaving it to flop uselessly at her side.

She merely stood there as he slowly took her apart, disabling her limbs, removing patches of skin, healing her only to damage her once more. Occasionally, he rubbed alcohol, almost gently, into the wounds, but more often he simply salted the wounds, causing surges of agony to blast through her body.

It took her almost two days to die, when he finally grew bored of the game. His knife penetrated her remaining eye, which had been left alone until now, popping it before moving into her brain, ending her current existence.

She never once released her grip on the will that could crush continents, her honor intact yet again as she died.

You have passed the Gauntlet.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Karzaia awakened gasping on the stone floor of the Trial’s main room, remembering the horrific pain she had suffered vicariously through the strangely-familiar slave woman. She remembered every cut, every burn, every thrust of the knife as if it had happened to her.

Her eyes burned with unshed tears as she struggled to put herself into a sitting position, looking up at the daemon standing above her, caressing his long black goatee with interest as he looked upon her.

“Well, well, well… that was interesting. I hadn’t expected that particular test to pop up. It was one I never thought I’d be able to use,” He remarked, seemingly fascinated with something inside her only he could see.

“You see, your soul shouldn’t have been strong enough to have to face that particular scenario. It’s one of the worst ones in my repertoire, and I usually save it as a punishment for the unworthy who still managed to survive the other three tests. You must have had some kind of connection with that slave… karma is a strange thing with you old souls, after all,” He mused, mostly to himself.

“The last test is one of honor and restraint. Most people who face the last test fail it and die. It’s why most people don’t even attempt the Gauntlet anymore, despite the better rewards,” He explained.

“I can give you one of three affinities, a soulbound artifact that will aid your use of mana-based techniques and Talents, and a Talent that will build on your current status. Which would you prefer?” He asked.

“A new affinity,” She said immediately. Though strengthening a second affinity to match her current one would take time, she might be able to cover for her affinity’s weaknesses with a new one.

He observed her for a few moments before nodding and telling her her options, “The options I can give you are limited by your base affinity, so please don’t be angry if what you want isn’t possible. What I can offer to you as a reward for passing the Gauntlet are Metal, Undeath, and Essence.”

Her eyes widened at the last two, but she clung to the first with all her might. Undeath was a powerful affinity valued by necromancers and vampires for the potential of near-immortality and the ability to create armies to fight off the beast hordes. However, it was… harmful to a living user, sapping their lifeforce slowly and transforming them into an undead monster over the course of years. Most necromancers ended up as vampires or liches within a decade of manifesting the affinity.

Essence was less problematic, being another unusual affinity. Essence was an abstract affinity that allowed the user to potentially extract, utilize, or bring out the full potential of a material’s nature. It was an ideal affinity for someone who wanted to be a crafter, but it was almost completely useless in combat, regardless of what Talents one possessed.

In the end, though… what she wanted was metal. Metal was lightning, metal was the strength of force, metal was the speed of thought. It was considered the best of the elemental affinities in terms of utility and the ability to directly combat a wide array of enemies.

“Metal, please,” She managed to croak out.

He looked at her searchingly for a moment before sighing, “It might be kinder for you if you go down the crafter’s path with essence, child.”

“My path is one of battle and adventure,” She replied instantly.

He shook his head sadly before granting her what she wanted.

You have been granted the Metal secondary affinity as a reward for passing the Gauntlet Trial of Character and Spirit.

She felt the affinity click in place, melding with the soul affinity within her. She would need to adjust her cultivation to match her new affinity, but that shouldn’t be much of a problem, given her current level of cultivation.

She smiled happily before falling unconscious.

_________________________________________________________________________________

“She survived,” The Wanderer said with relief. She almost hadn’t. Witnessing one of the Hooded King’s past lives during his punishment was dangerous and it had broken down the first seal completely. However, it had also strengthened her on a level that couldn’t be measured by her tempering Talent.

Depending on the individual, Trials of Spirit could be beneficial or harmful. However, it appeared that Karzaia had benefited immensely, the reward of a secondary affinity merely the cherry on top.

“That was… interesting. Did you recognize that era, Wanderer?” Gaan queried.

“Yes, but it is something you should not dig too deeply into. The Maker would not be pleased,” He warned. The Maker didn’t want his new pantheon looking too closely at the past before the system. The Hooded King’s danger was not something he wanted them to recognize, as it might drive them to take actions that would interfere with his plans.

Gaan shuddered in fear before turning away, “… I understand.”

Now, I need to move on. I’ve spent too much time watching Karzaia already, and my aegis demands I wander, He thought with a grimace, vanishing from the misty gray space of the gods.