“Okay Tess. Here we go. You can do it.” I slapped both of my hands into my cheeks, pepping myself up.

And then, I began.

Down the tunnel, ahead of the boulder.

Atop the lake, over the fish.

Through the woods, past the goblins.

On the worms, up the pillar.

Back again to the farthest I’d gotten so far.

To the lake.

I walked out to the center of the water and summoned up my earth boots, sinking deeper and deeper into the clear blue water. Just as before, the lake soon gave way to a claustrophobia-inducing tunnel. In the interest of not drowning, when I saw a break in the tunnel wall, I went for it, dismissing my boots to swim over.

Intent on pulling me down, strands of kelp reached out from the floor to ensnare my feet, wrapping up around my legs. This time, however, I was ready for them. Resummoning my boots with death mana, I let Withering Steps have a field day with the plants, watching as they shriveled and disa-

Shriveled and did not disappear?

A stony, spine-like webbing took the place of the withered kelp, locking me in place even more firmly than the plants themselves had. It was almost as if the kelp had a skeleton.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to rip the webbing off, I swore, my words getting swallowed by the surrounding water. Seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, I quit out.

You have failed a class trial!

Even before I started into the side tunnel, I turned Withering Steps on. The kelp shriveled away before it could ensnare me, and this time I made it to the tunnel’s end. Much as I’d guessed the first time, it turned upwards, leading me to a pocket of air. After a good few lungfuls, I continued back.

Unfortunately, things could never be so simple. As I sank down further into the cavernous trench, the ensnaring seaweed tried to latch onto me while I was still wearing my earth boots. The first time this happened, it caught me by surprise, and I failed to switch fast enough.

You have failed a class trial!

The next time around, the moment I even thought I saw movement, I switched. Further and further down I sank until-

Oh shit. That’s like, the fastest I’ve finished one of these. The trench bottomed out, with a side tunnel giving me another air pocket. This time around, however, there was also a ledge for me to pull myself onto. In front of it, the path continued, another cavern for me to traverse, but this one thankfully on land.

So, frost and light left. Both at once? One after the other?

I took a cautious step into the tunnel and then promptly slipped and fell on my ass.

Okay. Well. At least frost? I rubbed at my bruised coccyx, lamenting the lack of access to my healing spell here. Unfortunately, the ice was completely crystal clear, or at least it was to my downgraded 10 Perception.

I channeled frost mana into my boots, hoping this next portion would prove easier than its predecessors.

Unfortunately, I had next to no experience with my frost enhancements, and Friction Feet in particular seemed like a hard skill to master. Whereas the rest were simple toggles, either on or off, there was a continuous spectrum of mana I could supply in this case to alter the area beneath me.

I very carefully placed one foot onto the invisible patch of ice, adjusting the mana until the frost beneath it was just as easy to tread on as solid earth. I repeated the process with the other boot — another complication — until I was standing two feet on what should have been practically frictionless ice.

I took another step forward, only to feel like I’d stepped on velcro. I tried to yank my feet from the ground, but to no avail.

The ground changes friction from step to step? Admittedly, annoying, but not very deadly.

I continued to feel things out, slowly at first, and then more assuredly, getting used to adjusting the mana the moment my foot hit the ground. When in doubt, I erred on the side of adding more friction. A second of getting stuck was better than falling, after all.

This continued for a while, with the temperature slowly dropping and the walls growing covered with ice. Stalactites hung from above, completing the quintessential frosty cavern look. Still, nothing bad happened.

After a time, I eventually saw a 90 degree bend in the tunnel up ahead. I was dreading seeing what lay beyond it, but once I arrived, it wasn’t all that bad.

The tunnel widened out, with the only big difference being the occasional pit. Some pits were partial, only covering the right or left half of the tunnel, while others were small, but full width, requiring a short jump to clear them.

Incredibly cautiously, I inched up to one. Looking down, I saw spikes.

“Still, not awful. The jumps will probably be hard, but if I go slowly, the side pits won’t be too bad.” To prove my own point, I navigated past the first one, never getting within falling distance of it. If this was all I had to do, I was feeling pretty good about my odds.

As if to mock me, the wall behind me exploded into a million pieces.

Icy debris flew everywhere, peppering me liberally, and for a moment, I was stunned into inaction. Exploding walls? What?

It was only then that I saw what had caused the explosion. Or rather, what the explosion had revealed.

There, sitting at the start of the bend in the tunnel, was a boulder.

Half rolling, half sliding, it started to creep forward.

“Are you- Are we really serious right now?” I started to run forward, only to faceplant immediately. As the friction effects didn’t extend to my hands, getting back up was a time intensive affair.

“We did this! This gimmick was already done! Veto! It has to be more original!”

The boulder did not care.

I scrambled back to my feet, trying to run once more, but it was no use. I was only just getting used to walking with the skill. Running, as it turned out, was beyond me. Before I could get squashed or fall into one of the pits, I took the easy way out and quit.

You have failed a class trial!

If the first boulder was the simplest portion of the entire trial, the last (or what I sincerely hoped was the last) boulder was the hardest. Over and over and over again, I threw myself against it. Some days, I had to take off just from the sheer mental exhaustion of it all. The trial now took over an hour each time I ran it, and while I was far more resistant to mental exhaustion than I’d been back on Earth, I still had my limits.

Instead of rushing right into the trapped portion of the ice tunnel, I spent some time practicing on the safe part, trying to figure out how to run.

Until, one day, I got it.

I wasn’t supposed to run.

Maybe with high enough stats, I’d be able to adjust for the friction of the ground on the fly, fast enough to let me run with ease. At 10-across-the-board stats, though, there just wasn’t any way.

What I was supposed to do was slide.

In a sense, the goal was to modify the friction of the floor until I could comfortably skate off of it. In fact, when I started to think of it as a type of messed up skating, things started to get a lot better for me. It still wasn’t easy, by any means — while I’d been a pretty decent skater back on Earth, it hadn’t involved the whole magic friction changing part — but there was visible progress.

I started challenging the trapped portion of the tunnel, occasionally making a misstep early on, but more than not getting a little bit further each day. Sliding. Jumping.

Until, at last, it was over.

The door at the end of the icy hallway came into view, and I practically slammed into it, pushing it open before the boulder could paste me. This time around, however, things were a touch less nerve-wracking. The boulder was much slower than in the first trial section, with the main way to die being falling.

“Bye boulder. I’ll probably be seeing you again soon after I die in the next section.” With that cheery thought, I made sure to close the door behind me and step further in before the massive crash came from behind.

And at last, I was left with what I deeply hoped was the last portion of the trial. The final stretch.

It seemed like we were keeping with the constrained tunnel vibes once more, though this time the walls were coated in metal as opposed to dirt or frost.

I poked a single toe forward, not sure what I’d need to do for the light portion of the trial.

In response, a panel on the wall opened up, and an arrow shot out. Instead of aiming for the space where my toe had been, however, it flew straight at me.

Unashamedly, I yelped, I cursed, and I jumped back.

Unfortunately, however, I’d forgotten where I was. The arrow flew far too fast to dodge with a simple, unaided jump, and failing to get fully out of the way in time, I was skewered.

You have failed a class trial!

The week I spent working through the light portion of the class trial was fairly noticeable to everyone who knew me, largely because I jumped at everything. If there was any unexpected motion — even a hint of it — the response was immediate. Light mana flooded my boots, and I jumped back.

I did it so abruptly that I started scaring everyone else just as much as everything scared me.

Slowly, however, I learned how to turn it off and on. To let myself relax and only get to that level of twitchiness when I needed it.

And I did, in fact, need it.

The final portion was infuriating, if simple. At any point in the walk through the tunnel, an arrow could track my position, and then shoot out at me. Worse yet, it accounted for my current speed, too, so if I tried to just bolt through the entire tunnel, I still got pierced.

By this point, I probably should have known there was no easy cheat to use.

Despite turning me into a twitchy mess who lived on a hair trigger, I actually liked this part of the trial, if for nothing else than its simplicity. It had no gimmicks. No steep learning curves. Just a ton of arrows set at exactly the speed that someone with 10 Dexterity, Intelligence, and Perception could reasonably dodge if they had some magic boots.

Day by day I waded deeper and deeper into the metal tunnel. The distance stretched on behind me until I could no longer see the door I’d come through.

Day by day by day.

Over and over again: You have failed a class trial!

Until at last, the gauntlet of ducking and dodging about became second nature. An arrow sped out, and I threw myself to the side. Another shot out behind me, and heart hammering, I lunged forward. Three at once this time. With my Intelligence downgraded, it took me a fraction of a second too long to pick which direction to go, but my indecision only cost me a shallow gash to my arm.

A simpler, single arrow this time, but as I jumped to the side, a second joined it aimed for where I would land. I narrowly managed to contort my body away from it, darting forward the moment I hit the ground.

The dance continued arrow after arrow until I was sweating, panting, wishing for it to be over. Another trio of arrows. Then four. Then five. A rapid succession, like a bow turned into a gatling gun.

Scraped, cut, and occasionally punctured in non-vital areas, I dashed through the last stretch of the tunnel.

I didn’t consciously see the final arrow that came rocketing towards me. By all rights, it should have skewered me. As if to laugh at my efforts, it was far, far faster than its predecessors.

Some burgeoning form of instinct saved me, honed from running through the tunnel time after time. My body reacted before my mind possibly could, and with one final scrambling leap-

It was over.

The metal coated walls lay behind me, and only one thing lay ahead.

At last, the only thing standing between me and the end of this cursed trial was one last door.

Triumphantly, I opened it.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. A giant treasure chest. To get teleported out with some golden, gleaming notification informing me of my prize. To get immediately sent on an all-expense-paid vacation to the fantasy bahamas.

It sure wasn’t this, though.

The only thing that greeted me once I entered the door was an empty room. Admittedly, a massive, massive room, but just an empty room nonetheless.

Okay. Prize time? No? I hesitantly looked around, not understanding what I was seeing.

The ceiling above me was styled after the rooms of my class space, covered in gray fog so that it was unclear just how high the ceiling really was, if there even was one.

The floor was plain dirt, but with thin lines running through it, forming a giant grid pattern. Each square was about twenty meters across, and I guesstimated the room was about 40 or 50 squares in length and width, making the entire thing about a full square kilometer.

Cautiously, I walked in, wondering what exactly I was supposed to do. Scarcely had I taken a few steps when it happened.

At the far, far side of the room, an almost blinding beam of light appeared, shooting straight up into the fog above it. The very moment I saw it, I somehow knew its purpose. It wasn’t a passing guess, either: I knew it with absolute and complete conviction.

That’s the end. I just need to touch that and then the trial will be over. I didn’t doubt the sudden knowledge, though it was a touch bizarre. Why put it all the way over there, though? I was done. I was done!

As if waiting for that thought, the ground began to shake.

Concerned, I turned behind me to head back to the light portion of the trial until everything figured itself out, but the door had vanished.

Well, that’s not ominous at all. Had I actually been able to die here, I would have been getting pretty nervous right about now. In fact, even knowing I couldn’t die here, I was getting pretty nervous right about now.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, I didn’t have long to wait. Up ahead in the very center of the room, the floor opened up. Slowly from the depths of the earth rose a figure.

For a split second, it was as if my Perception had been fully restored to me, as I could make the figure out perfectly even with the distance between us. It was fully clad in dark armor and with a sword almost the length of its body. Its flesh, if it even had any, was completely hidden away behind the thick metal.

It turned to face me, and I shuddered.

The rumbling didn’t end there, though. Gaping, I watched as the entire floor was terraformed before my eyes.

Lakes formed from nothing. Trees shot up like weeds. Hills dotted the land, followed by low ravines.

Stranger yet, the landscape didn’t make sense. Each square had its own, coherent landscape to it, but where the squares met, the land was disjointed. A perfect square of water connected directly to a square of forest, the earth touching it still completely dry. It was as if each square were in a world of its own.

What… What?

As if to make things one step more confusing, a sword suddenly materialized in the air before me, falling and clattering to the ground.

Apparently deciding I’d been messed with enough, a notification finally popped up.

Congratulations! You have reached the final room of the class trial! Make it to the end to clear the trial.

I stared at the notification incredulously until it finally hit me all at once. “I did all the mana types! That was supposed to be the end already! I beat it!”

Unconvinced, the notice carried on.

New runs of the class trial will now bring you back to this point. If you would like to practice one of the previous sections, all of them will now be selectable when you enter.

For this portion of the trial, your Wisdom and Endurance have been increased.

Good luck!

“God- Seriously?” The notification admittedly was a nice one. Having to run all the previous sections twice a day and then getting hit with whatever the hell this was would be torturous. In fact, for all the shaking and the freaky suit of armor, so far the room seemed a lot better than most of the others. Nothing about any of the squares really screamed “danger” to me.

Still, I couldn’t say I was feeling particularly happy right now.

I picked up the sword that had materialized. If the trial was offering me a weapon, I’d take it.

“Who knows?” I tried to inject some levity into my voice. “Maybe I’ll be a natural this time around and get it in one try.” Thus emboldened, I set out, moving towards the beam of light on the other side.

Much of the earth in the first square had fallen away, leaving it a series of cliffs and ravines which seemed to fall endlessly downwards. Not seeing any hidden tricks, I simply jumped from cliff to cliff with Jet Step, finding it fairly straightforward as long as I took my time to aim properly. With only 20 meters to traverse, I finished it shortly.

The next was a water square, though somehow turbulent and choppy. I tried to walk atop it with my water boots, but it was as if I was standing on an amusement park ride. The water bucked and threw me down, and my water boots failed to keep me afloat as my body fell into the churning waves.

Surprisingly, though, I quickly discovered that the water was only about neck deep. I activated my earth boots and started walking across, getting many a faceful of water, but otherwise unimpeded.

I continued on a good five squares before anything really changed. Having just finished sliding through a square of differing-frictioned ice, things now grew rough and mountainous. The terrain stretched upwards, offering me a steep hike if I wished to proceed in this direction. Considering the downhill portion would be fairly simple with Featherfoot, I figured there was no reason not to continue straight.

I scanned the tops of the mini mountain — really more of an exceptionally rocky hill at this scale — looking for a good path up.

It was right about then that I saw it.

The armor.

It was also right about then that it saw me.

It didn’t wave or say hello. Didn’t nod and then continue on. Nope. That would have been too simple.

Instead, it charged.

“Oh. Oh shit.”

Bolting down the side of the mountain at speeds which defied logic, the armored figure descended on me with wrath.

I turned to run, heading back into the ice square. It was clearly faster than me, but if I could make it slip and fall, maybe I could buy some time.

I got a solid halfway through the square before the armor caught up and stepped onto the ice with me.

It did not fall. Or stumble. Or flail about.

Instead, in a show of almost haunting grace, it slid forward, making the process look effortless.

“Oh, double shit.” My heart started racing as I tried to speed up, escaping from the suit of armor which pursued me.

Trying to outpace its fluid movements proved to be a mistake, though, as I ended up crashing to the ground only seconds later. A stream of obscenities poured out from me, some mental, some verbalized.

I scrambled against the ice, trying to lift myself up, but to no avail.

Okay, I know they gave me this sword and all, but I’m feeling like I should probably just qui-

Faster than I thought possible, the armor departed from the ice and leapt at me, bringing its sword to bear. In one clean swipe, it was over.

You have failed a class trial!

Class space locked for 12 hours.

I sat up in my bed before rapidly conjuring myself a drink.

Huh. Well, guess that’s a fun new part of my routine now.