The leaves were now a more vibrant, living form of green. The view of the mountain that they had from the other side was now blocked by the canopy. Oyzal's core had replenished as they had sat by the river's edge, immersed in the ethereal orange fog. In the morning, they had scooped up large mushrooms and now ventured deeper into the forest, nearing what they hoped was the ending of the trial.

The experience of the past day still reeled in Oyzals mind. He thought about the amount of power it had required and the cord of awe that it had struck in his heart. It further strengthened his desire to go far in the divine arts. There was excitement bubbling inside of him as he imagined a future in which he could conjure balls of flame or something along those lines. His thoughts were so clouded that he had for the moment forgotten where he was going.

"A clearing", Izar said, she was a few steps ahead of him.

Oyzal sighed. " Hard to match what happened yesterday." Izar nodded, she looked fresher than before, if possible.

Oyzal unstrapped his sword from his back, Izar had her daggers out. He started circulating madra throughout his body, the tiny core spinning till it was a miniature ball of white, the colour of pure madra.

"I'll go first ", said Oyzal in account of the advantage that his core would give him.

He leaped through the last bits of trees, clearing at least six to seven feet before landing in the opening. It was the same as all the other openings, like a line separating two sides. He beckoned Izar to follow as he was met by nothing.

"It alarms me more the fact that we have not triggered anything so far", Izar said as they crossed half of the opening.

" Maybe they didn't expect us to get this far", Oyzal replied with a grin.

"We should have been burned, no?", Izar said.

Oyzal shrugged. "We take what we get."

But her words had planted seeds of doubt into his mind. It was the consistency with which the clearings had proven to contain constructs waiting to be triggered that made them warier as they approached the end of this clearing. Despite being a clearing, views of both sides were blocked by the trees, Oyzal wondered if some sort of illusion was covering the edges, keeping them in limbo as to how much progress they were making. But these were factors he had no control over and he was lucky to be a novice, it had made the trial a lot easier for him.

And just as they were about to step into the forest again, the ground shook. It was followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged and before they could react, the earth underneath them started falling. They screamed as they fell through what in that instance felt like dark walls and then they landed on their feet on something soft. Oyzal looked around, the thing they had landed on felt like a mattress but had the appearance of solid ground. They were trapped in what appeared to be a square with brown walls on all four sides.

Oyzal looked at Izar and his lips curled a bit. "Think we spoke too soon."

She gave a tired smile in return. And soon, the light winked out as the opening overhead closed, leaving them in darkness. But not for long as one of the walls started moving, a grating sound filled the air. It opened up to a dimly lit corridor, no sources of light were visible. The madra here felt denser, but Oyzals core was already filled. They looked at each other, nodded, and started walking towards the corridor.

Torches were embedded inside the walls, which allowed the whole corridor to be lit by an orange glow. Patterns had been carved into the wall, indiscernible were the stories they might have tried to tell. A few minutes later they reached a sort of crossroads in the form of a room with four doorways. The roof itself was huge, ending at least a dozen feet or more above their heads. The walls this time contained tiles with symbols etched onto them. While the four doorways were black voids, preventing them from catching any glimpses of what could be inside. The main source of light in this large room was a broken chandelier that dangled from the roof, reaching halfway to the ground. There were candles, upside down, glowing with flames that did not flicker.

"Which way?", asked Izar.

Oyzal scratched his head." North?"

"Do we separate?", offered Izar.

Oyzal scoffed. "No chance."

Izar almost breathed out loud in relief, but quickly caught hold of herself.

Oyzal brought out a brownish scale, a thin ovoid-shaped object that was only a few centimetres thick. Scales acted as currency, the clearer and more beautiful a scale was, the higher in value it became and that meant only those in the higher realms of the divine arts had access to the higher quality scales. Oyzal only had a few worn-down scales, he had no problems using them now, and he would get more upon completing The Opening.

Izar had a raised eyebrow."Tossing scales?"

Oyzal grinned. "I prefer to refer to it as divining the will of a higher power."

Izar did not look impressed. "Is there a higher power than oneself?"

"Considering our predicament, I think there are", replied Oyzal. Izar shrugged.

Oyzal handed two scales to Izar, asking her to mark one with arrows to the north and south, and to mark the other one with arrows to the east and west. She marked the scales with her daggers and handed one back to Oyzal. Oyzal nodded at Izar and they tossed their scales, south, and east. He pulled another scale-out and handed it to Izar. Having marked the scale, she tried to hand it back to Oyzal.

Oyzal shook his head. " Among the people of the Barren Lands, there's a saying 'fortune favours the fair lady'".

Izar gave him a narrow-eyed look, shrugged, and then tossed the scale, South. And so they headed towards the door to the south. There was nothing about this entrance to differentiate it from the rest. But as they came nearer to the southern door, a slow buzzing sound started to creep out from the black void causing them to halt.

"We should approach the other doors as well, no?", said Izar.

Oyzal nodded.

And so they approached the other doorways and were met with the same buzzing sound which only grew with intensity nearer the doorway they got. They returned to the southern doorway. The sound was reminiscent of an active hive of bees.

Oyzal turned his head towards Izar. " Shall we?"

She nodded and reached out with her hand to grab his hand but Oyzal did not notice as he walked through the door, the door shimmered for a moment as if its peace was interrupted and then become unmoving again. Izar quickly followed and was then followed by the sound of glass breaking.

---

A narrow rectangular room opened up in front of Oyzal as the cry of distress that had accompanied the doorway slowly faded away. It had numbed his ears and stoked fear into his heart, then it was gone and all was back to normal.

Two rows of torches faced each other on either side of the walls, bathing the room in a fiery glow but no warmth emitted from them. The walls themselves appeared golden, either in reality or through the influence of the torches. The ground was of the same shade of gold. Oyzal didn't mind.

"Not too shabby", he said.

He had not taken a single step since appearing in the room and when no replies came, he turned and found no one with him. His first reaction was surprise and then it was quickly followed by acceptance. A feeling of guilt started to surface as he thought of the promise he had made to her and the longing for her holding chip. He shrugged, he had to get out of this room before he could think of her.

So, Oyzal started exploring the room. The walls on the sides were longer, at least twice as long as the walls in front and behind him. The smaller walls themselves were at least half a dozen feet in length and at least a dozen feet in height. The torches managed to fill the whole rectangle with light.

As Oyzal walked, runes started to appear on the walls on either side of him, following his steps. The runes were inked in black, causing a stark contrast against the plain golden walls. This gave him pause and the runes paused as well. Oyzal looked down and saw that the plain ground was slowly being divided into square tiles with the same black substance used as outlines. He traced his steps back but no changes appeared on the runes and the tiles. *A puzzle!* It had to be. Oyzal rubbed his palms, tightened the belt around his divine artist robes, and then proceeded to walk the entire length of the room.

The two long walls were now marked with runes and the ground was divided into numerous squares. Oyzal was now standing in front of the left rune among the first set of runes that had appeared. There were twenty runes in total. The runes were ancient, the ink looked worn down upon closer inspection. Oyzal surmised they were ancient because he could not understand them. He traced his fingers along the lines of the rune and suddenly, a metallic voice whispered inside his head.

**THE**

Oyzal lifted his finger and placed his palm on the rune, the same word was repeated. He hurried over to the ruin on the other side and placed his palm over the rune.

**OPENING**

He moved over to the rune in front of him.

**YOU**

One by one, he moved over all the runes. He had pulled out a piece of parchment and quill from his holding chip and wrote down the words that were whispered to him. He ended up with:

**THE, OPENING, YOU, ARTIST, OWN, PATH, A, LEND, SO, THEIR, AND, SOUL, OF, HEART, GUIDE, YOUR, THE, DIVINE, IS, SHALL**

Upon touching the final rune, the one on the top left, a golden square appeared in the centre of the wall at the head of the room. In the centre of the square appeared a sapphire gem, which sparkled under the torchlight. Oyzal approached the sapphire gem. It was the size of his fist and three shards of the same material were sticking out. It was intricately crafted, and the edges were sharp to the touch. Upon contact with his finger, a word entered his mind, "SPEAK".

Oyzal was caught off guard for a second before he spoke all the words he had written down on the parchment. Nothing happened and he cursed inwardly, it was obvious he had to arrange them to mean something. The first sentence came easily to him, it was common.

He placed his hand on the sapphire, just below the shards. " The Path Of A Divine Artist Is Their Own".

The shard on the left crumbled to dust that drifted down to the floor.

He was left with **opening, you, lend, so, and, soul, heart, guide, your, the, shall.**

Oyzal circulated the words in his mind, trying to come up with coherent sentences.

"The soul shall guide your heart". No responses.

"The opening shall guide your heart."

"Lend your heart."

Oyzal sat down cross-legged in front of the gem. As soon as he sat down, the sentences formed themselves in his mind.

He quickly got back up and placed his hand on the sapphire. "The Opening shall guide you".

The middle shard dissipated into dust.

"So lend your heart and soul."

The last remaining shard fell away and only the sapphire remained. There were no marks on the sapphire to suggest it had been host to three shards, the finishing on it was pristine. But the wall remained the way it was. Oyzal had a spark in his eyes.

His palm held the sapphire. "The path of a divine artist is their own, the opening shall guide you, so lend your heart and soul."

As soon as the words left his mouth, a huge crack appeared on the sapphire that gradually extended to the centre of the wall. Dust erupted, forcing Oyzal to cough. A grating sound and the walls were moving, the sapphire had disappeared. A tunnel emerged in front of Oyzal. The walls of the tunnel were made of jaded granite, with gleaning edges. There were no sources of light, only what filtered through from the rune room. At the end of the tunnel appeared a dim whitish glow, that to Oyzal, felt like a beacon.

He entered the tunnel, and sharp spikes of granite descended from its roof. A few seconds later he reached a cave. The cave's roof was shaped like a dome, perfectly crafted to the point where it felt like the roof glittered, raising questions as to whether this was a gift of heaven or the creation of men. And at the centre of the cave stood a pedestal. The pedestal had the colour of absolute black, a black that felt like it could suck in all the light from the surrounding. Wrapped around the pedestal were what appeared to be golden vines, shimmering in the darkness. On top of the pedestal, stood the only source of light in this cave. An orb with a strange glow. The orb itself appeared to be transparent but a few wisps of mist could be seen dancing around. It was these mists that generated a light, dim but enough to ensure visibility in the cave. Oyzal looked around and only found the orb to be of significance.

Oyzal studied the orb, he concluded it was made of glass and was convinced that the mists were a part of a construct. Which meant that the orb itself was a construct. Oyzal hesitated over touching the orb, shrugged, and then placed his right hand over the orb.

Cold, it felt extremely cold to the touch and that slowly started to seep through his hand and spread across his body till Oyzal shivered. It felt like his whole body was drenched in icy water. He quickly pulled his hand off of the orb and the cold immediately left his body, but it took a few more seconds for him to stop shivering.

He inspected the pedestal and the orb again. Nothing had changed appearance-wise. He cautiously placed the tips of his fingers on the pedestal and found it conveyed the coolness of metal, he traced along with the golden vines and saw they were indifferent. Oyzal took a deep breath, readying himself, and then grabbed the orb with his right hand and tugged. It did not budge and Oyzal quickly let go, the cold had crept to his right shoulder. His lips curled for a moment, it was worth the effort. He had wondered if there was a key or sort under the orb. He waited till the feeling of coldness fled from his shoulder and then placed his hand on the orb, again.