Chapter 39: The Trial Stage 1

Mira started walking forward with her makeshift beast pelt map and Ice Needle. She walked down the hallway where everything looked exactly the same. She decided to test something out. Mira took out her scythe and swung at the wall next to her. She hit the wall, but she wasn't even able to scratch it. She put away her scythe and continued to walk forward. She reached the end of the hallway soon, but it seemed that it went to the right. Mira turned to the right and continued down this hallway as she continued to map out the labyrinth. She didn't bother to try to push every single brick on the way as there would be hundreds of thousands of bricks, possibly millions of bricks to check. The caretaker gave them a hint of brains over braw and making people search through millions and millions of bricks to continue in the labyrinth is the opposite of smart.

Mira continued walking down the labyrinth until she came to a fork. Both sides looked exactly the same so Mira chose to head to the right. She marked the fork in the road on her map and marched forward. The hallway would sometimes go to the left and sometimes it would go to the right. After walking down the right side, she ended up coming across another fork. She decided to continue on the right side, but she marked down this fork on her map.

She continued going down this path until she reached the end. After taking more left and right turns, Mira seemed to finally reach the end of this damn hallway. She noticed a small chest on the ground. It looked like just a normal wood chest. It was a small chest and only covered a total of 4 bricks on the ground. Mira checked her surroundings and like always, saw nothing other than dark blue, bricks with blue torches on the wall that are equally spaced from each other.

Mira walked towards the chest and bent down to open it, but as soon as she opened it the hallway behind her closed up. Now she was enclosed in another tiny room like the tutorial. Soon, magical beasts started dropping into the room from the ceiling. Mira immediately stored her 'map' and took out her scythe. She then started to kill all of these beasts. They were all Peak-Stage Rank 1 magical beasts of different species so they were no different than fodder, but they just kept dropping into the room.

Finally, the beasts stopped coming into the room, but then another beast fell into the room. It was a Low-Stage Rank 2 magical beast. It was a large black snake. It was around 5 meters long and was a shiny black snake with red eyes. Mira didn't know what type of snake it was, but she immediately moved in to kill it. The snake hissed at her and charged forward. The snake seemed shocked that it was all of a sudden dropped into the room, so it didn't notice that Mira had already swung her scythe towards its head before it was too late. The snake's head was removed from its body. Beasts now stopped coming into the room and Mira was finally able to see what's inside the chest.

Mira ignored all of the dead bodies and bent down to open the chest. She looked inside and found 10 Spirit Stones. Mira stored the Spirit Stones but noticed that the chest didn't move when she tried to pick it up. She assumed it was like the torches on the wall. Mira then looked around and found that she was still enclosed in this room even after killing all of the beasts and opening the chest.

"Fuck!" Mira yelled in frustration.

For the lowly price of 10 Spirit Stones, she had to fight a horde of beasts and solve this pain in the ass puzzle. Was it worth it? What if there was something better in the chest? She didn't regret opening the chest, she was just annoyed by this shitty labyrinth.

Mira then began to start checking the bricks.

Time passed extremely slow for Mira as she continued this monotonous task. She found the 2nd brick before she heard a click. She then immediately started to pull on the torches. The first torch did nothing, so she moved to the second torch and the wall finally went back into the ground. Mira then checked to make sure that it wasn't a different wall that opened up. There were a couple of ways to determine this, but she just used the position of the chest as a way to check to see if this was the way she came in. Mira was able to verify that it was. She stored the snake and left the room. Mira was going to check out the other fork that she passed on this side of the labyrinth.

Mira went back in the direction that she came from and soon came upon the 2nd fork that she has come across in the labyrinth. She looked at her map and to make sure that this was the right place. After confirming it was, she walked into the other hallway and continued mapping out. Mira kept walking down this labyrinth but soon came upon another fork in the hallway. She decided to keep right this time and keep walking. After walking and mapping out this hallway she seemed to finally reach the end. There was no chest. Actually, there wasn't anything in the room. Mira walked to the end and started pushing on the bricks at the end of the wall, but she didn't get enclosed in a room this time. She figured this might just be a dead-end in the labyrinth. It would be strange if there wasn't a dead-end like this in the labyrinth. Either way, Mira decided to circle this area on her map as there wasn't anything here.

Mira walked back to the fork that she passed to get here. After walking for a while she made it back to that fork and went to the left instead of right. After walking for a while and making a bunch of left and right turns, she finally made it to the end. What she found made her want to burst out in rage. She saw the same small chest in the middle of this hallway right before a dead-end. She really wanted to just turn around and walk away, but the thought of something important being in the chest made her stay. She stored her map and reluctantly opened the chest. She expected a bunch of beasts to start flooding the room, but contrary to her expectations a giant beetle dropped into the room. It was a Low-Stage Rank 2 insect, but Mira felt like this was more annoying than a Mid-Stage Rank 2. It had long and sharp jaws protruding from its head and was about a meter tall and 2 meters long. This thing was ugly.

"A damn Rank 2 insect! The body from the insect is probably worth more than whatever is in that chest!" Mira yelled. She readied her scythe and attacked the beetle before it could even do anything. Mira turned her scythe into a double-bladed scythe and jumped on its back and started to twirl her scythe as fast as she could. She then started to attack its outer shell. With every rotation of her scythe, it dug into the shell more and more. The beetle started trying to fling Mira off it, but this room was so small and he was too big. He then tried to jump and slam her into the ceiling, but as soon as it jumped Mira hopped off and went underneath it. She then swung her scythe and all of its insides were cut in half even it's head. Mira immediately ran out from underneath it so she is not drenched in bug juices. The beetle was still alive even though its insides were coming out of it. With one last-ditch effort, it attacked Mira. Mira was twirling her scythe and as it was rotating she threw it at the beetle's head. The Ice-Blade side of the scythe lodged in the head of the beetle and Mira charged forward dodging his jaws and grabbed hold of her scythe and brutally ripped off its head and removed her scythe.

Mira made sure nothing else was going to drop into the room and walked over to the chest. She opened the chest and saw the familiar sight of 10 Spirit Stones. She unhappily stored the stones and looked around the room only to find she was again trapped.

"Ugh."

Mira got to work and started looking for bricks. She wanted to try to figure out a pattern, but they seemed random. After finding the two bricks and pulling on the correct torch, she looked at the beetle. Mira decided to store this thing in one of her spare space rings and then left. The right side that she had gone down originally in the labyrinth was now completed. She made her way back to the first fork she came across.

After going back to the first fork she crossed, she confirmed that this was the correct place on her map before continuing her journey to the left side of the labyrinth.

Time slowly passed for Mira.

The more she walked down this fork the more annoyed she got. Looking at the same dark blue bricks, the same blue torches that are equally spaced out, finding dead-ends, fighting enemies only to find a chest with 10 Spirit Stones, then having to push on the bricks to get out of the room that trapped her in with the chest and beasts. Mira was sick of it. Nothing was different! She also must be incredibly unlucky too. Every time she came across a fork, she would choose to go to the right first. But it seemed the right side always led to a dead-end or chest. The left side always continued towards the end of the labyrinth. After finding her tenth fork in the labyrinth she chose to go left. She hit another fork after choosing left and chose to go left. She reached a dead-end and cursed that of course the left side this time was wrong, but she didn't give up and went back to go to the right side of the fork she found on the left. That one was a dead-end too. Mira walked back over and went to the right side this time. After hitting another fork on the right side, she chose to go to the right this time, and of course, that was the correct way to continue in the labyrinth.

Mira decided that she would just stick with the right side whenever she had to choose.

After enough mapping, fighting, and dead-ends, Mira finally reached what seemed to be the end. It seemed to be the end because there was a set of stairs that went up and past the ceiling. She had come across 25 forks and around 10 of those had chests. This means that she had to fight and break out of a room 10 times. Some of those chests had nothing in them, some even had a weak magical beast in them that attacked her when she opened it. She ended up getting around 60 Spirit Stones. If she only focused on cultivation, this amount would last her around 2 months. She wasn't sure if this amount would be able to bring her to Stage 3 Qi Condensation though. She needs to consolidate her cultivation after reaching Stage 2 Qi Condensation and those 60 might not even be enough for her to break through if she only focused on cultivating for the next 2 months.

Mira shook away these thoughts and looked at the ground. There was water that went up to her ankles.

"No time limit my ass! This Labyrinth would try to kill me if I didn't complete it quick enough!" Mira said as she started walking up the stairs.

As soon as she started walking on the stairs she heard the same mechanical voice from earlier.

"Congratulations on passing Stage 1 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 2."

***

After Maria completed the tutorial she went ahead and started Stage 1. She didn't know exactly what a labyrinth was but just started walking. After walking for a while she reached her first fork. Except hers was a bit different from Mira's. Mira had to choose between right and left, but she had to choose between left, right, and straight. Maria chose straight as she felt like other people might choose right or left because straight was too obvious.

Maria continued straight and then soon ran into a fork where she had to choose between right or left. Maria chose to go to the left for no reason other than she felt like it. There was no logic, reasoning, or mapping behind it.

Maria continued with this method of choosing directions. She didn't run into a single dead-end or a single chest. She chose the correct way every single time. Maria was starting to wonder what that tutorial was for. Maria soon reached the stairs that seemingly led to Stage 2 of the trial. Maria then stepped onto the stairs and heard the same mechanical voice as before.

"Congratulations on passing Stage 1 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 2."

Maria had finished this Stage much faster than Mira did and was able to start Stage 2 before she could as well. Maria felt like there was much more to this labyrinth, but she was already at the finish line. She didn't know if completing the stage faster was better or if she was supposed to take longer, but just decided to stick with her decision and started to go up the stairs.

Was Maria luckier than Mira? Maria didn't get the resources that were in the labyrinth and didn't figure out there was essentially a time limit to each stage like Mira did. But Maria took only a fraction of the amount of time to complete Stage 1 compared to Mira. They didn't know how the rewards were calculated. Was it by time or does just completing it get the full reward?

***