The climb had begun.
Wind howled against the cliff face like a starving beast, and snow lashed sideways in stinging sheets. The frozen ascent of Vaelkarr's Maw was no ordinary trial. It was a crucible of iron and ice, a brutal test that stripped away name, wealth, and lineage until only strength remained. It was a cliff that overlooks the wall, acting as overwatch and outpost for patrols to watch out for monsters, it's repurposed once a year to be where the trials were done. Because of it's height, extreme cold and jagged cliff face, it tests not only the recruits' endurance but also their awareness since it's home to a small contingent of monsters.
Above the chaos, a narrow platform overlooked the staging ledge where figures clung to the cliff face like ants on a towering wall. There, proctors and garrison captains stood with arms folded and cloaks billowing, their expressions grim and eyes narrowed against the biting wind.
"I still think this trial's outdated," Commander Haldren said, voice clipped. "This doesn't test discipline. Just survival instincts."
"You say that as if survival isn't essential," replied Commander Kelra with a smirk. "In these lands, you either claw your way forward or freeze to death. That's clear if you ask me."
"The structure's brutal," added Marshal Elira, her gaze fixed on the distant forms. "But I see a few candidates worth watching. Vaelan Varron, especially. She's not just climbing, she's shaping the cliff to her rhythm."
General Varick grunted. "She doesn't leave footprints. The cliff bends for her. That's not aura control, that's artistry."
Lord Commander Bastian stepped forward, raising a farseer lens with a satisfied smile. "Vaelan's already half a segment ahead. Her aura's flaring at micro-intervals with each one exactly timed. Avalanche pressure with blizzard precision."
Haldren chuckled. "Now that's a calamity in motion."
Far below, other noble climbers were carving their own paths.
"That one there with that brutish climbing style. Bearmantle boy?"
"Eldan. Third son. He's muscling up like he's wrestling with the mountain itself."
"I'd say he's cracking more rock than he's climbing," Kelra observed. "But it's working."
"Lysette Coldmere," Elira pointed to another participant, voice cool. "See how she freezes her own footholds? One step at a time. Calculated. She'll go far if she doesn't stall out in the middle."
"And Greyreign's heir?"
"Tarn," Kelra said, watching the boy tremble with effort. "Still struggling with pulse timing. His storm aura's flashing out of sync."
"He's trying to mimic the other nobles too much," Haldren muttered. "But his body can't keep up. He needs to use his own style."
Meanwhile, not far below the struggling elites, the lower ranks fought their own battles.
There, a figure without sigil or standard pressed himself against the cliff, fingers scraped raw, limbs trembling. His movements were rough and unrefined but never still.
He didn't climb like the noble elites above him. Nor did he look like an amateur. He climbed like he'd done it a thousand times in a place colder and hungrier than this mountain.
Sid's breaths came out in ragged bursts, fogging around his face. He muttered something under his breath and reached again.
Flicker Form. A derivative spell of the third-circle conjuration magic Living Armor. With his mentor's guidance, they had deconstructed the spell that conjures a magical construct that move based on the caster's orders to be a second-circle spell where the construct was just conjured instantaneously and lasts for half a second.
A shimmer, subtle and sharp, flared around his hand as mana gathered and funneled them into the mana the two mana circles in his heart. A conjured blade flashed into existence, not long enough to anchor, just enough to scratch the cliff. He used it as a handhold to hook a new ledge.
Then another. And another.
At first, others ignored him. Too many were focused on survival. But soon, whispers started.
"Who's that?"
"Wasn't he at the back earlier?"
"Does he even have a crest?"
One noble sneered. "Some rat scrambling up the bones of real contenders."
But while they talked, he moved.
Sid didn't answer. He couldn't. His whole body ached, joints stiff and raw. But his mind was still alert as he continued calculating routes, noting crumbling ledges, predicting shifts in wind.
Above him, a pair of Coldmere retainers faltered, drained from constant aura use. Sid bypassed them by sliding sideways, conjuring a narrow blade mid-motion to redirect his weight and swing into a better route. It vanished just as his foot left it.
A small group of competitors had stalled at a sharp incline. They glanced up and blinked as Sid surged past them.
One of them muttered, "He's not even using proper techniques… just… bursts."
"Bursts that work," another added.
It wasn't clean. It wasn't elegant. But it was effective. Some recruits have already fallen down the cliff, rescued by the veteran soldiers and mages that are standing by for the trial. They would be used as transporters, and would have to live like livestock for a year. Some say it's a better outcome, at least it's much safer. But in the North where pride is of utmost priority, it's a social death sentence.
Then came the shriek.
High and piercing, like razors on ice.
The air shifted.
Shadow swept across the cliff.
Frosthawks.
They descended with terrifying grace as their massive, icy forms with piercing eyes and terrifying wingbeats rattled the test takers' teeth more than the biting cold.
They didn't go for the top climbers. They struck at the weak, the staggered, the ones huddled too close to the wall.
The first dove straight at Sid. At that moment, mana gathered around as a spell formula was completed, a magic circle expanding from Sid extending 3 feet from his body.
Flicker Form.
His body twisted, a blade appearing from the air within the area of the magic circle just in time to catch the beast's approach. The edge angled downward, redirecting the flyer's trajectory into the rock. Ice and stone exploded on impact.
Another dove.
Sid grunted, pain shooting through his back as he flung another flicker blade and launched off it. Using the momentum of the attack to generate force and jump to a different ledge. The timing wasn't perfect but he managed to stabilize as he grazed the cliff, another wound spurted with blood.
Far above, the proctors and garrison heads stirred.
"Did he just—?"
"Parry? Yes. Redirected the frosthawk, right into the cliff. That's an interesting technique."
"Those don't look like sustained constructs," Elira murmured as another blade briefly flickers into view to redirect another flier attack to the cliff face.
"Crude… but brilliant," Varick said. "He can track the attack path so well."
Below, Sid overtook another group. A trio of noble aspirants frozen in fear.
"What are you doing?!" one of them shouted. "You'll draw them right to us!"
Sid didn't speak. His body was too taxed for words.
But as he passed them, the frosthawks didn't follow.
They crashed into the cliff where he'd been seconds earlier, redirected by his flickering magic.
The nobles watched, stunned.
"Is he… climbing faster than us?"
More test takers began to notice.
And complain.
"This is madness. We can't compete with that."
"Varron's clearing paths without effort, and now this no-name is leaping through monsters?!"
"We're not meant to pass. They already picked who's worthy."
A few stopped moving altogether, huddling behind ledges or trying to retreat downward.
But not Sid.
He kept climbing.
His breaths came shorter. His hands were scraped raw. But his rhythm had found something more primal now, all that matters is momentum.
He passed a ledge, and one of the proctors murmured, "He's at the halfway point."
"From the bottom to the middle?" Bastian asked. "He wasn't even ranked earlier."
Kelra corrected. "But he is surviving. And survival has its own merit, especially for us."
Sid paused on a narrow shelf, snow whipping past him.
The world was ice and rock and the whisper of falling breath.
He looked up.
The climb wasn't done.
The frosthawks weren't finished.
And above him, the mountain waited.