White. As far as the eye could see. Pure, unblemished, white.

The entirety of Rai’s surroundings resembled nothing but the snowy days on the farm. He took a step forward.

The ground... was soft. What reminded Rai of snow was actually, in fact, snow. How does it go so far?

Rai enjoyed the satisfying crunchy feeling of snowflakes being pressed against the ground with each step. Regardless of his enjoyment of the little things, Rai was slightly peeved off.

“Hey! Is there anyone there?!”

There was no response.

The endless field of snow didn’t react one bit.

It didn’t help that the sky was as white as the ground, Rai couldn’t tell where the horizon was. Or even if there was a horizon.

“How is this supposed to be a trial... There’s nothing for me to do here!”

He kept walking aimlessly as he shouted into the nothingness.

There were no echoes, no reflection of his own voice at all. The feeling it gave Rai was... maddening.

“Can we start the trial already!”

As if in reaction to his words, the snowy floor became a body of water.

Rai sank.

He panicked for a moment, but quickly realised that this must be part of the trial. Initially, he attempted to swim upwards to avoid being crushed at lower depths.

It didn’t work. He couldn’t reach the water's surface no matter how hard he tried.

Rai was running out of oxygen, and his frantic movements made it even harder to stay conscious.

After a few more seconds, he had no breath left.

Water invaded his body, and the unbelievable horror of not being able to breathe caused him to faint.

Rai drowned.

And then reappeared in the same snowy field.

He screamed. Air was the one thing he wanted the most right now, since he’d just been deprived of it in such a horrible way.

Rai gulped down throatfuls of air before realising that he wasn’t in the water anymore.

“What... what happened?”

Both panic and confusion set in.

Rai sat down for a few minutes to calm himself down and think about what just happened.

After a decent amount of thought, there was no denying it. He drowned. How did I drown, but somehow not die? I’m back where I started...

Rai thought about the trigger words that he called out when the world became water. He summoned a ball of air around his head.

“Can we start the trial?”

The floor disappeared once more. Rai was enveloped in water. The ball of air supplied him with oxygen.

Ahh... okay, this is how it works. My bubble won’t last very long, but it gives me the time to look around and think about this at least. If I fail, then I’ll probably just start again at the beginning... But what’s the trial? First, I should expand this spell so I can keep breathing...

Rai pictured the air bubble of his siphoning oxygen from the water around it. He supplied enough mana to the bubble to make it work.

Success.

Rai could continually breathe now, without much worry. He breathed a sigh of relief. Still, he wanted to avoid using too much air just in case.

Rai’s curiosity ran through what it believed to be the possibilities of what the trial could be.

If swimming up didn’t work... what about swimming down?

Rai reoriented his body and maintained the air bubble. He swam downwards in the seemingly endless body of water. Something about this is... familiar. Didn’t Amy’s spell make me see something like this? Rai recalled when Amy healed him using the magic of the Sirens. The nightmare that she induced; Rai remembered clearly enough. It was similar to the situation that he was in now. However, this time there was no voice telling him that he was about to be eaten. Rai shivered for a moment upon recalling the terrifying voice before bringing his focus back to the situation at hand.

The further down Rai swam, the harder it was to breathe. The more pressure there is, the harder it is to breathe...

Wait... What the fuck is that?

Rai looked into the distant depths of the body of water.

Light?

Until now, the water became darker the lower that Rai swam.

But how can light... okay, only one way to find out.

Rai made a beeline for it. Not like there was anything else he could do.

His breathing slowly became more and more ragged as he swam, but Rai pushed himself to reach it.

The light at the bottom of the sea.

Seconds passed.

Minutes passed beyond those.

Rai was getting closer.

Another minute passed.

He reached it. The light... was... an orb?

Rai panted and heaved for air as he reached for the orb.

His bubble popped under the pressure.

‘tap’

He touched the ball.

Rai could breathe properly again. He did the same as before, gulping down throatfuls of air. Even though he had the air bubble before, it failed once he reached the orb. The orb... what happened. I touched it, but... Rai looked around.

Trees. Lots of them. Rai was surrounded by massive trees with humungous trunks. Each tree trunk was far larger and wider than the buildings in Aurum. They reached into the sky past the clouds, meaning that Rai couldn’t see their canopies. The roots were so large that different trees’ roots merged into one another aboveground.

“What in the ever loving fuck is this shit?”

Rai was flabbergasted.

“Did I pass the first trial?”

No response.

“Can I get literally any information whatsoever?!”

A large face formed in the side of a nearby tree trunk, “Will you shut up? I’m trying to sleep here. You’ll wake up the whole forest if you don’t stay quiet!”

Rai jumped when he saw the face. It gave him a right fright. He stared blankly at the tree’s face while it talked. After the tree finished speaking, Rai continued to stare at it.

The tree stared back at him, “What? Now you can’t speak?!”

Rai tilted his head, “You can talk? You’re a tree...”

The tree somehow frowned, “Who are you to talk?! You’re a human, so why are you talking to me! Stupid humans, just sit in your cages like you’re supposed to.”

Rai’s expression was nothing but befuddlement. He looked at the tree like he was crazy. In all honesty, Rai felt like he was going completely insane. “What are you saying about cages? Humans live in cages?”

The tree rolled its barky eyes, “For crying out loud, just shut up and let me sleep!”

The face disappeared. The shaved wood that made up the face returned to the normal bark of the tree trunk.

Rai looked where the face once was.

He genuinely had no idea how to react. Instead of reacting, Rai decided to sit down for a few minutes to allow himself to adjust to the environment that he was now in.

After those few minutes, Rai decided to try the trigger words from the previous place, “Can we start the trial please?”

Nothing happened.

Rai hung his head. At this rate, he’d accomplish nothing. Rather than doing nothing, Rai got up and started walking in a single direction while looking around for clues.

As he walked, Rai noticed a number of things.

The trees weren’t staying still. As Rai walked, the trees moved just as much. They weren’t following him per se, but they weren’t stationary.

Is this just a society of trees? They’re moving a lot... what else do they do?

Observation. One of the first lessons Jin taught Rai before even picking up a sword. Rai’d learned from Jin to observe his surroundings and the people within them to get an understanding of the area before making a decision. The same applied to observing a specific person, but that part of the lesson didn’t quite apply in this situation.

Rai perched on a tall root. The tree he found himself on was still. Must be sleeping, like the other one. Rai watched. He remained quiet to avoid waking this tree up.

The trees moved, ever so slowly.

The roots that were once merged slowly separated themselves from their counterparts.

Rai focused on one tree in particular for an hour. The behaviour of this strange group of sentients was fascinating. This tree that Rai was focusing on had separated its roots from one tree, and reattached them to another. The same action, it repeated numerous times with different trees. Is that a communication method? It’s very strange how their roots merge together since it’s not exactly magical.

Since the actions of the observed tree varied no further, Rai moved on.

He walked and walked, often using wind magic to propel himself higher onto the taller parts of certain trees. Watching them silently interact with one another was both interesting and somewhat disturbing.

Eventually, Rai came to a different tree. This tree’s trunk was thicker than all of the previous ones. It’s a wonder that I didn’t see this before... this thing is huge! Rai looked at its roots, which were fractured throughout. Regardless of the damage they’d somehow taken, they spread to every single one of the trees surrounding the bigger tree. The bark of the tree was darker than the previous ones. It reminded him of the grand oaks back home.

Rai began circling the grand oak, trying to figure out what was so different about it.

After nearly ten minutes of running, Rai finally decided to look up. Why... why didn’t I do that to begin with? He facepalmed at his own stupidity.

A hole in the tree.

It was easily the size of a small town.

How can a tree have a hole this size, and still stand?! This is just absurd.

Rai questioned it internally, but his questioning spurred his curiosity about the grand oak.

He wanted to know what was in the hole, so Rai imbued his feet and arms with propelling wind magic. Quickly, Rai leapt up to the hole.

It was like a gigantic window that looked inside the grand oak’s trunk.

What was inside the tree was horrific.

Humans.

In cages.

Rai’s eyes widened. They were battered and bruised, with many fresh cuts and scars across the exposed parts of their bodies. The part that Rai found most disturbing was their... lack of facial features. All of the humans had completely blank faces, without eyes, noses, mouths, or any of the things that one would typically find on a human’s face.

What the fuck is this? That first tree mentioned something about humans and cages... Rai’s horror at the scene was shortly interrupted.

A smaller floating figure, that looked like it was made entirely of tree roots, made its way into the centre of the cages. Rai had never seen a creature like this before. There were no humanoid features on its body. It was almost entirely just a mass of miniature tree roots that resembled those of the grand oak’s.

In a guttural cry, the floating mass of roots yelled out, “FEED FOR THE FOREST! FEED FOR THE FOREST!”

Is that the language of the Ancients? It sounds like how Ig’lyn spoke! What’s this feed for the fo-... the humans... they’re the feed for the forest...

Rai sighed. I think I get the point of this trial now.