Just well enough to qualify, just poorly enough to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Simple enough. Dorian looked to his left and right at rigid, clenched bodies. One Zhaopai, who’d likely breeze to first of the heat, one Narong, a smattering of heat-based and water-based lesser tribes, and a couple stragglers—Xiamen, a dreg, himself. Nobody of import.

The sigil beamed out a sickly light from beneath them and they were off, lifting off their feet and climbing by a sustained shove of qi toward the platform. He surveyed the landscape, taking in the horde of humanity bunched together, all shouting and cheering and jeering. Some thumped tribal drums. Kaya and Hento’s faces were soon dots of pink, lost in the mix; seconds later he stood on the first stone with nine other competitors. It was a mossy, misshapen stone block which sagged a little under their combined weights.

The course ahead was littered with traps. For a second he looked down the path, noting each qi artifact and dissecting it in his mind. There were arrow- and fire- traps galore; axes swinging from above; gusts of wind streamed from all directions in set patterns, linking to a mesh of air-currents, an invisible cage of sorts. Step on a wrong tile and and it was liable to release a blast of qi, taking a limb clean off. All in all, not a bad assortment of goodies! He gave brief mental approval to whatever primitive artificer made these, likely some white-bearded Azcan elder. Artificing was yet another of the skills he’d need to pick up down the line.

First thing first: performing at just the right level of mediocrity. He glanced at the ranking stone below. It looked like he’d need about two minutes, thirty seconds or so to clear the top 100, a safe yet relatively inconspicuous slot. As the others about them flared up their qi, some summoning low-level Bloodlines, he let himself draw only a fraction of his own. This kind of puzzle was simple to chart; even as a spectator he’d memorized and drawn up clear paths through this seeming mess. This was, after all, just a high-stakes strategy game, and he was well-versed in sorting out order through chaos. Let’s see…

First, duck under the swiveling axes, time the jump between the stones. Leap over the fire trap, limbo under the arrows, ricochet off the tiles and around the currents, step in a snaking pattern to shirk the explosives… with his set of skills and a judicious few uses of the Cloud-Treading steps, it should be child’s play.

At the starting signal, he let the Zhaopai boy shoot ahead first. He let himself be lost in the shuffle, one of many bodies straining to a run, lapsing into predictable and purposefully slower paths. He felt light as air as he did; he slipped under a scything curve of an axe, caught a reflection of himself in the gleam of the blade as it passed, tap-danced over a minefield of traps, moved with a languid fluidity, like he was going for an evening stroll. Soon they’d crossed the halfway point without incident. Indeed: this first trial would’ve killed him ten times over were he some hapless low-level runt, like he was just a few weeks prior. But to his current him, piloting a thoroughbred of a body, it was as easy as a game of stepping stones.

Then, about three quarters of the way through the race, it happened. Something which pierced his mental model so suddenly and so inexplicably he almost didn’t react in time.

An arrow from screeched up at him, moving with such speed it must’ve been fired by at least a mid-Vigor. Its arc was so vicious and true he could scarcely believe it was meant for him—he was just one amid a pack, a nobody! There was nearly no time to think; he acted on instinct, contorting his frame and bending over with all his might. The arrow whipped by, far too fast for comfort, carving a white-streaked path through the air. It was so charged with qi that Dorian felt shockwaves scattering off it as it darted by him, throbbing angrily. To either side of him his fellow competitors screamed in shock, scrambling away from the danger zone. What was that? Either a cosmic stroke of stupid luck or a cosmically well-timed attack.

Then the floor fell out from underneath him. In almost the same instant he felt a wall of scorching heat materialize from above. To the side nine pinpricks of spearpoint qi were shot out in an instant. He felt all these things in a rush, his chest constricting, eyes widening, mind straining to the peak of its capacity. Time slowed down. A series of realizations flashed through him, whip-quick, as his heart leapt to his throat.

First. That arrow was cleverer than he’d thought—cleverer by far. Somehow it’d triggered a trap, then another, then another, all at once. It was an arrow with a contingency plan: if it couldn’t hit him, it’d at least hit the things behind him. He found himself stranded mid-air with nothing but emptiness beneath him, besieged on all sides by fire and spearpoint, and he had a fraction of a second to come up with a coherent plan before he was turned to minced roast.

Second. This was an attack. It had to be. There was no other way. He still had not a clue why, or how, or when he’d even made such a powerful enemy. None of it made any sense. Yet here he was.

Third. There was only one way out of this. There was no more time for thought. He acted.

It was impossible to get out unscathed; it was too late for that. The only way was to minimize the damage. First he leapt off the air with a Cloud-Treading step, dodging the bulk of the spears, then with one hand drew up two Yama’s chains to catch the brunt of the flames. His body flared up in pain as artifact qi slipped through the cracks and drilled into his new flesh, drawing motes of blood. Spurts of qi-flame signed his chest, reddening the skin; it felt like he’d been branded by a poker fresh out of the forge. But he’d made it out without any serious injury.

With his other hand he chucked out a third Yama’s chain, latching onto the bottom of the nearest stone, and he gritted his teeth as a fourth realization flashed through his mind.

There goes the last of my plans on anonymity. Desperate times, desperate measures. He swung. It was not unlike swinging from a vine in a forest. In a flash he’d flown a wide arc; below, he heard the rising shouts, the clamoring in disbelief as he swung by. At the end of the swing he let go, letting momentum carry him up and over the next stone. He dropped to a knee, panting and manic but alive.

What the hells was that?!

Then he looked up, saw the backs of six people in front of him, and realized precisely where he was.

That was a nearly ten-second delay. Three unfortunate souls had perished by a trap almost certainly meant for him. The rest roared ahead to the finish. It was his own fault, really, for choosing to sag this far behind. Choosing to feign mediocrity for the sake of anonymity meant he had nearly no room for error. At this rate he wouldn’t make the cut for the top 128.

Screw it. He dashed for it.

Qi flared to his feet. His eyes brightened as his mind flew through the rest of the route, mapping out a new path. He took off like a comet.

Air shrieked by. He kicked off a stone, twirled around two slashing swords, rushed between jets of flame, fueled by a raring propulsion of thick Bloodline qi. If there was one strength to his mystery bloodline, it was that it was jam-packed with qi and dense and all hells. It was a fuel beyond all fuels, and now he was burning with nearly all his inhibitions removed. In four more steps he’d outstripped the three in front of him, leapt through a ring of fire and knives, and ground to a halt on the final stone. He’d flown like a meteor, for a few seconds streaking as fast as some of the Zhaopai, a signal flare of black qi. He finished fourth in his heat.

He glanced to the ranking stone, scouring the list for his name. Had he made it? A pit opened in his stomach as he got past thirty, forty, fifty, sixty…at last he found himself and he let out a breath. Io Rust. 114th. Worryingly close to the top 128 cutoff. He didn’t bother masking the contemplative frown on his face as he was lowered back to the ground. He blocked out the pointing and the shouts and the whispers from all around. He’d become something worse than a top performer: he’d become a figure of intrigue. Of mystery. But a part of him didn’t care about that. A part of him seethed.

Kaya rushed up to him as he touched down, shouting. “Are you okay!? Do you need a healer?”

He waved her off and started to pick his way back to Rust grounds. Kaya followed like a mother hen. “I blocked most of it. The rest are skin wounds. I’ll be fine,” he said. Then his eyes narrowed. “Did you see who fired that arrow?”

She matched his frown with her own. “I… no. It went by way too fast. I—are you sure you’re fine? It didn’t hit you or something? You look like you’ve been pulled fresh out an oven! You smell like burnt rib and you’re hair’s all charred black!”

Three patient assurances later, she was finally convinced enough of his wellbeing to leave him to his thoughts. He was aware as he went back to the Rust section of the whispers and stares leveled at him from all around as he waded through the crowd, flowing around him the way ripples follow a boat as it glides through a lake. Was there motive? None to his knowledge. Rust Tribe had no serious enemies. Jealous retribution from within? But where would they have access to an expert of this caliber? Nowhere. It’d have to be either Tuketu or Rust. He frowned. He supposed there was a marginal possibility that Rust had felt threatened enough by his power in the Tribe to take action. If so, sabotaging him in a very public manner like this was a very stupid way to go about it; there were a million different ways besides causing him minor injury and forcing him to nearly lose a qualification round. Besides, wouldn’t Kaya have seen if it’d been fired off this close?

He thought for a few minutes, scanning the crowd for any suspicious characters, before deciding there was no use thinking on it further without gathering more evidence.

There were five heats left, he saw. On average, three from each heat slid into the top 128. Which meant he’d need some luck if he was to keep his spot.

Kaya’s turn soon came up. She both gave it her all the whole way through and had no sudden targeting to contend with; she finished in the mid-seventies. Hento came up after her. He’d been on some self-improvement binge as of late, cultivating late into the night, actually practicing his forms and sparring. It seemed something had kicked him out of his foppish languor. He finished 86th.

Kuruk was in the third-from-last heat. Nobody in his cleared the top 128; he fell far outside of it, so far he was probably doomed save for a top-tier strength finish in the other Trial of the Body. He went in stone-faced and came out with equal expression. It was like he’d expected it and had walled himself off, had resigned himself to his father’s berating.

Dorian let himself relax a little as this Trial wound down. He’d had some luck. By the end of it, he was on the cusp of qualification. He’d been shoved down to 124, but unless half of the last heat qualified, he was safe. Of them, he eyeballed, maybe three would make it. Two Zhaopai disciples, a Vigor-strength boy from some random tribe.

“Final Heat, step up!” said Zhang, baring his pearly whites.