Now entering a safe zone, please pick your rewards. 5 minutes remaining until you are forcefully ejected from the safe room.
The room was completely white. A stark contrast to the inky black that was the Arbiter's Void. A large wooden table sat in the middle, an array of medieval equipment neatly organized on top.
Rhys appreciated none of this as he tripped over his own legs from getting pushed. He saw the notification from the Trial System as he laid on the ground.
"What the fuck!"
He jumped and stormed around the room, he paced around the blank white room trying to make sense of the entire interaction. The Arbiter, the entity that oversaw The Trials, The Dominion, and was often hailed as a god, had completely screwed him over. Rhys no longer believed that the entity didn't know what it was doing.
How was he supposed to deal with that? How was anyone?
More importantly, why had this never happened to anyone else? Rhys had poured countless hours into excerpts of others meeting with the Arbiter. None had been like this.
Actually, who would admit that the Arbiter was a raging asshole to them? He sure as hell wouldn't be telling anyone about his encounter.
4 minutes remaining.
He snapped himself out of it and went to the wooden table in the center of the room. Rhys pretty much knew all of the gear he'd find on the table by heart. From helmets to swords to bows of varying sizes, everything was there.
You may pick two sets of equipment.
He picked up a one-handed sword and a strap with three throwing knives holstered in it. Holding the blade in his hand, he checked at the balance and weight. He was more practiced with two handed swords but against the boss of the Initiation Crucible, this was the safest option.
Rhys was undergeared. Other Chosen could exit the Trial, go to the Adventurer's Guild on Terra Prime, get training and a free minor healing potion. Also, an emergency gun, that would have been nice.
Hell, he was still wearing his bloody Manaburger uniform. Rhys took his shirt off as he inspected his own chest. Surprisingly, no bullet wounds – that was odd. It probably had something to do with the fact that he'd technically died in the Arbiter's Void.
There'd be some clothes in the Trial. The beginning was always the same.
"Skills." He didn't need to say it, but it felt appropriate.
Trial skills: None Learned skills: None Free skills: [Enter The Dominion] [Return to Terra Prime] [Translation] [Inspect]
Available Trial skill slots: 4 Available skill point allocations: 1
Now it truly felt real, he opened the skill selection menu.
Available Trial skill options: [Twin Strike] (common, active) (cooldown 10 seconds) [Dodge] (common, active) (cooldown 30 seconds) [Double Step] (common, active) (cooldown 15 seconds) [Enhanced Vision] (common, active) (10 seconds active, 20 seconds cooldown)
He tried not to be disappointed at the lack of uncommon skills. Very few mortals did get them, truly talented and famous mortals would have them. He was neither.
He picked [Twin Strike] without bothering to check the description. Common skills didn't have much variation and were fairly simple. You just stabbed once and a second stab would happen in the same location… It wasn't that good at level 1 but the other choices weren't much better.
Low cooldown skills were the best early choices, and [Double Step] needed practice. Practice he wasn't allowed to have because he couldn't exit to Terra Prime. Arbiter's damned bullshit.
[Twin Strike] was the right choice. Probably.
Trial skill selected: Twin Strike! Twin Strike: level 1, (unlearned)
He spent a minute and a half throwing knives at the table and adjusting as needed. A minute and a half, that was all that he had needed with his new [Infiltrator] class. He could feel the muscle memory from years ago come back quickly. Perfect to face the boss with.
30 seconds remaining.
There was only one exit in the room. A simple wooden door, in the opposite side of where he had first entered. It looked like a decent kick would break it open. Rhys walked towards the door, gave the room one last look, and decided to march straight back to the center of the room.
A claymore glinted in the white room, calling to him. There was a good argument to take the longer sword. It would help with the early mobs, even if it would be a weaker fit against the boss. He hesitated, then shook his head.
The damn Arbiter had messed with him so much that he was doubting himself. He glared at the table with the neatly placed equipment.
5 seconds remaining. 4 3
Rhys grabbed the table and flipped it over, he watched the conteone.lclatter to the ground as he was kicked out of the room.
You are being removed from the saferoom. Trial selected automatically. All forms of dimensional teleportation have been disabled. All forms of direct recording will be disabled. Good luck Trialist!
He appeared on top of an old flight of stairs, staring down at the landing of a large room. He started walking down the stairs but stopped.
The Initiation Crucible was supposed to be standardized. A classic dungeon outbreak quest that the mortal kingdom had set up for beginners. It should have started him at a panicking waystation inn that was evacuating. There should have been an abundance of noise and chatter below.
The only things Rhys could hear were groaning and some scraping on the ground. His blood froze as he checked his quest notification.
Trial Quest complete conditions ??? Capacity 3/3 + 1
Oh shit.
He had joined in the middle of another team's Trial. That by itself shouldn't have been bad news, there were protocols in place for Chosen like him accidentally intruding in the Initiation Crucible. The problem was that the team in question had abandoned the inn and chose to take a nonstandard route. Most likely a team going for crafting classes.
It also meant they hadn't taken care of the zombies.
The groaning got louder as the zombies approached the stairs. He retreated back to the second floor. It was a simple layout, a hallway with five doors, leading to five bedrooms. He kicked the first door open. No longer caring about the noise he made.
The room was a mess. Scattered clothes and a fallen chair indicated that the adventurers had already searched for the map. A small oil lantern sat on a table, lighting up the room.
Rhys picked out a simple tunic and pants and quickly shed his uniform pants. That was the last time he was going to be wearing a SpiritSpring uniform again.
He walked to the bed by the window and looked outside, the scene made him suck in a breath. The inn was underground in a massive chamber of old stone, that wasn't what took his breath away. It was the crowd of zombies that scattered around the inn.
This current Trial was scaled to three mortals. That meant a mob of zombies three times larger than what his Dominion zero ass could handle.
"Oh shit. Plan B it is."
It wasn't impossible for him to dodge the zombies, it was just far too risky. If he ran out, then he'd risk dragging the zombies to the village before they were ready. If he went deeper into the dungeon, then he'd have a horde of zombies at his back.
Rhys slammed the window and started yelling.
"Oh nooo-" Rhys cut himself off as he heard his voice shaking from the nerves. He cleared his throat, "please I need help!"
The zombies, hearing the noise, started to shamble towards the inn. Clearly wanting to give aid to the distressed caller.
Good.
No time to watch, he grabbed the bedding and linen on top of the bed with one hand and grabbed the only chair in the room. He ran back into the hallway to the top of the stairs - only to come face to face with a woman with stab wounds in her chest.
No, not a woman, a very, very fresh zombie, with very, very fresh muscles.
It lunged at him as he swung the chair and slammed the four legs into its chest, launching it backwards down the stairs. The zombie landed on another that had started making its way up.
Another disturbingly fresh, slightly larger zombie jumped over the fallen pair as it started sprinting up.
What the fuck?
These two zombies were too fast. If all of them were like this the Trial would have been impossible to complete. He ignored a System notification. He had to focus on the larger zombie that was launching itself over the stairs. It leaped at him, teeth open, ready to bite.