The centipedes chased after me as I ran. After a few seconds of sprinting, I realized that I needed to speed things up, or else they would catch me. I opened my umbrella and drifted into the air, before tearing through the tunnels at a breakneck speed. When I had been fighting the spider-head of the chimera, I’d needed to be careful, for fear that the creature may paralyze me at an inopportune moment. Now, I didn’t need to fear that any longer. I entered each corridor and cave at a ridiculous speed. The six centipedes fell further and further behind with each turn and with every second that passed.

I kept my eyes open for any other signs of interference. I was afraid of running into another golem or centipede while I was fleeing at top speed - if a golem launched a stone at me while I was moving this quickly, the results could be catastrophic.

Luckily, none of the golems or centipedes intercepted me as I fled the cave. I saw multiple souls start rushing towards me once they got within a certain range, but none of them were able to catch up as I zoomed through the caves.

Soon, I was down about half of my remaining essence, but I was back at the entrance of the cave. Several of the souls still seemed to be making their way in my general direction - but fortunately, the centipedes seemed almost lost as they navigated their home. They were having a hard time making their way out of the cave. I could also see some of the centipedes losing interest as time went on. I glanced at the orb of plants and light held in my hand, and wondered if there was some sort of range limitation on it. Perhaps the centipedes could only sense it when it was within a certain distance? Or perhaps the creators of this trial had installed some other mechanism, to make sure trial-takers didn’t get swarmed after securing their prize. Either way, I suspected that I was free. The centipedes would lose interest before they finished tracking me down. That was good enough for my purposes.

Now that I had secured my prize and I was out of danger, I finally took a look at the System message for killing the Chimera, as well as the new System message I had received for securing my glowing orb.

Slaughter: Kill a Chimera of Distorted Growths for the first time

Wealth: Own a life core

Achievement +4,000, Achievement +400

My grin widened. 4,000 Achievement for one kill was excellent, especially when considering the fact that the Chimera had probably not been subject to the same reward-boosting that creatures outside of the trial were. 4,000 Achievement probably meant that if I had fought the creature normally I would have lost. I had also gotten 400 Achievement for owning the trial reward, which wasn’t a huge boost, but I wasn’t about to complain about more Achievement. There was always a use for more, after all. 

These two rewards pushed me from 55,851 Achievement to 60,251. The Chimera’s reward, in particular, was much higher than I had seen for most monsters I had fought.

Sadly, I hadn’t gotten a new Skill from killing the Chimera. That result didn’t surprise me - after all, most of its death had come from {Dream of Hunger}, and Extinguish’s role in the fight had been dubious at best. Still, I was a bit disappointed, even if it wasn’t surprising.

I sighed, before I brightened up. I might not have gotten a new Skill from the Chimera, but I had still accomplished all of my objectives here. I just needed to find the pool and take my bath. After that, I would see if I could find the two remaining trial locations, and see how strong their guardians were. If they were fightable, I might try to get more out of the trial. If they were too strong, I would cut my losses and exit the trial immediately.

But first, I would rest. I returned to my shelter, and spent the next few hours watching my surroundings to make sure no centipedes or golems crept up on me while I was resting. As far as I could tell, they never even exited their cave, meaning that after several hours I finally relaxed.

Once my essence reserves recovered, I started exploring the trial again. I spent the better part of the next week scouting the northern areas of the forest, searching for the pool that was supposed to be here. The path that was supposed to be highlighted by yellow leaves, naturally, didn’t exist, which made my job several times harder.

Still, after a week of searching, I finally found the pool. It was a great, shimmering lake of glowing water. The water itself was beautiful - it was as if moonlight had been trapped inside of a lake, giving the entire lake a soft, silver glow.

As I stepped into the clearing, a new System message appeared in front of me.

Congratulations! You have found the bathing area!

To empower yourself and complete the first gate of the hero trial, place the prize material into the water, and then jump in. Make sure to remain in the water for at least an hour - you will know that you are done when the water stops glowing.

(If you have multiple materials, please use one material at a time. In between each material use, exit the water, then wait a day. The water will begin glowing when it is ready for your next bath).

There are no monsters in this area, so rest easy during your bath. If you desire entertainment during your bath, such as television, books, or anything else you might think of, please pay a small fee to the assistant AI and request your desired entertainment. (Assistant AI may be accessed by touching the giant steel rod at the northernmost tip of the bath).

I checked the northernmost tip of the bath, and sure enough, I could see the wreckage of what had probably once been a giant steel rod. It was rusted and broken beyond repair.

I rolled my eyes, then tossed the orb into the bath, and jumped in. I could live without the extra entertainment - I just hoped the bath itself hadn’t broken during the time this trial had been left to its own devices.

Luckily, the water seemed to be working. The moment the glowing orb touched the water, the plants, fungi, and glowing bits of essence in the orb spread out into the water. Oddly enough, I could also see bits of the amalgamated soul of the orb spread out through the pool. The water swirled and bubbled for several seconds, before I hesitantly stepped into the water.

The moment I entered the water, I felt the water pouring itself into my body. It was an odd sensation - it felt as if the water was seeping into every single pore, muscle, and bone in my body before boiling itself inside of my body. However, the sensation didn’t carry any real heat with it - just the strange sensation of fizzing and changing.

I hit myself with a renewal, to make sure I wasn’t getting hurt, but got no results. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t damaging my body.

I spent a few more minutes making sure the pool wasn’t hurting me before I finally relaxed and enjoyed my bath. An hour later, the water stopped glowing, and my body stopped changing.

I sighed, dried myself off, and made my way back out of the bath, before I checked the new System message that had appeared at the end of my bath.

Power: Use a special empowered bath to enhance your body’s essence storage capacity 

Achievement +300

I blinked, and then smiled. 300 more Achievement put me at 60,551.

I checked my stats afterwards, and confirmed that this material had only improved my Alteration stat, unlike the mushrooms. My alteration stat had grown by two grades, rather than the three I was initially expecting. Perhaps it was because the mushrooms were also related to this orb, and so I had already built up some immunity to it? I shrugged. It didn’t really matter - I had gotten everything I could out of the first stage of the trial.

More importantly, I had jumped from Grade 10 to Grade 12 Alteration. Two extra grades in my most useful stat was an incredible boon, and I was sure it would pay off when we started constructing the artificial sun.

After finishing my bath, I spent a few days experimenting with the changes to my body and my essence pool. My alteration essence had more than doubled again - although I did notice that the percentage increase was smaller for each grade improvement now that I was in the double digits. Still, it wasn’t a big deal - I had still gained a substantial power boost.

I spent another two weeks searching for the other two power-ups in the trial, even though I figured that they were probably beyond my reach, even with my power-ups. I was correct.

The first of the two guardians wasn’t even really accessible to me. At the northern end of the trial, I found a giant abyss that seemed to simply go down forever. Somewhere near the bottom, I could see another giant source of life force - and guarding it was some sort of massive soul attached to what I could only guess was a dragon. The first time I caught it use an essence ability, I estimated that it was probably sitting at around grade 20 manifestation essence, and had around grade 20 fortitude. I quickly decided that it was beyond my means to kill it.

The other prize in the trial was walled behind a giant sheet of living ice, at the eastern part of the trial. The giant living glacier had killed the entirety of the nearby forest life, and was slowly dragging itself across the forest while launching ice shards at nearby trees for some reason. I had no clue what it was doing or why, but the ice ‘shards’ it used as basic combat tools were twice the size that I was. Getting hit by one of them would probably turn me into pulp, and it was launching dozens of those attacks every second. Since its life force was only slightly lower than the dragon’s, I realized it was also an unwinnable battle. Since the other prize was contained right in the center of its body, it was out of my reach.

Once I confirmed that I couldn’t access the other two prizes in the trial, I asked the trial to kick me out. After a few confirmation messages, stating that if I left now I would be giving up any future prizes, I was booted out of the trial. I returned to a white misty room, before I exited that and returned to the city. Even though I had only passed one third of my trial, I smiled. I was home. I had grown substantially during the trial, and unless something bad had happened in the last hour or two, my friends were finishing up what parts of their trials they thought it was possible to complete. Felix had already finished all three parts of his trial and exited, while Anise’s pace had slowed to a crawl near the end of the second part of her trial. Sallia was slowly whittling away at the third part of her trial, and thought she would be done soon.

Soon, we would all be reunited and ready to start working on the artificial sun!