Maiz was in a bad mood.

He stomped along, bare feet comfortable on the slightly warm stones of the temple. The morning sun shone through the windows, still low enough to cast harsh shadows throughout the hallways. Two lefts and a right and… godsdammit. He turned around, rounding a corner at a brisk pace, and smashing into something hard and unyielding. He fell like a stone.

“Good morning,” a deep voice sounded out over the slight throbbing in Maiz’s head. It sounded amused.

“Good morning,” Maiz mumbed back. Or tried to. He thought it sounded more like ‘gmmmf mrnnn.’

His mana shifted of its own accord, moving through an incredibly complex pattern and beginning to heal his headache. The healing bracelet was absolutely amazing, though some of his early experimentation revealed that it was too slow to work in a fight, and in any case its use inhibited his mana regeneration severely. What it did mean was that he could recover easily enough from any injury he sustained during a fight, as long as he was alive to do so.

As the warmth suffused his skull, he struggled to his feet, finding himself facing the man who had woken him the day before. “Good morning,” Maiz repeated, feeling warmth unrelated to the bracelet creep over his face. “I was trying to find the mess hall sir. I apologize for knocking into you.”

Maiz had been using Mana Sense intensively after his talk with Isa had concluded. The careful analysis of the people surrounding him during dinner had distracted him from his fuming, in any case. Almost everyone there had been a Warrior Monk, with their simple, faint blue-green glow that was precisely the same shade as Lila’s. A few were mages, or unidentifiable non-mages. All of the mages had powerfully bright mana pools, though none exhibited radiance as intense as Hakim’s and that strange black-robed mage.

The man standing before Maiz was a Warrior Monk, and from the way Maiz had seen the other monks treating him during the meal, he was not exactly a servant.

“It is no trouble. You may walk with me, if you wish. I am going there myself.” The man’s gruff voice was at odds with the words. Maiz noticed he was much friendlier than he had been when waking Maiz.

Maiz bowed his head deeply, accepting, and they walked back the way Maiz had come. Oops.

“I did not introduce myself yesterday. My name is Adrian.” The words Adrian-Journeyman Warrior Monk appeared over his head momentarily.

A Journeyman. That seemed about right. Despite his size and intimidating appearance, this man was probably in his early or mid-twenties. Journeyman was the rank many combatants reached after two or three years, but it took much, much longer to reach Adept. Maiz had met and seen plenty of old Journeymen. Of course, I’m supposed to get to that rank in six months.

“Maiz.” He ducked his head again, and displayed his title briefly in return. The muscular man glanced up.

“You are young to have reached the Temple.” The words were said as a compliment. “I wish you the best of luck today.”

Maiz thanked him, though he could feel a bit of his irritability returning. When they finally reached the mess hall, Adrian nodded goodbye, making his way to a table of other Warrior Monks. Not that you could tell it from their dress. Everyone wore the same long white tunics belted at the waist. Maiz had found a fresh one by the curtained doorway of his room in the morning.

This room was quite a bit smaller than the hall at the training grounds had been, but the layout was almost the same. Everyone sat at tables, eating simple rice and bread, drinking water. The fare here was much blander than at the training grounds, but it was more than edible, and Maiz didn’t have any reason to complain. He sat at an unoccupied section and ate quickly, annoyance growing as he did so.

Stupid ‘Temple.’ Stupid Warrior Monks, stupid…

After he finished eating, Maiz waited for a bit, simply sitting at the table until one of the younger people at the tables stood. A few of his friends did so as well, and as they exited Maiz followed them at a distance. In a under a minute, they turned into a hallway that ended in a stone door. The only door Maiz had seen in the Temple, in fact. It should have looked a bit shabby, but honestly it was full of age, history, and mystique. Each small crack and chip seemed to tell a story ages old. Countless legends and heroes had probably passed through this door. Godsdammit.

The young man who had stood first in the mess hall stepped forward, and pushed his way through. It took him quite a bit of struggling,as he grunted and strained, before eventually opening the thing. His friends laughed and cheered him on. As soon he opened it enough to slip through, the next stepped forward. They each went in turn, working through the challenge with practiced determination. Two of the smaller ones, both of whom still had the words Temple Acolyte floating above their heads, opted to lay flat and use their legs to push at the door. Those two went through relatively easily, but the others seemed loathe to resort to the strategy. In only a few minutes, they were all through, and Maiz stepped forward.

He pushed experimentally on the door. It was heavy, certainly, but even his push was enough to cause some grinding of rock. It was a nice change--he remembered what he’d had to do the last time he’d faced a door like this. Apparently it had been funny enough to make a god laugh. This time though, he simply applied some of his Strength, and opened the portal.

The next room was already empty, the young Warrior Monks apparently having sped through it without issue. That was to be expected, though. It was a simple enough challenge: the room was split in two by a a chasm at least ten meters in length and of indeterminate depth. The chasm was spanned by a fairly wide beam of solid wood, anchored into the stone on both sides. Maiz frowned as he saw the size of the gap. Isa had said that failure would send him back to the beginning, which meant that the chasm was a portal. How much mana, how many resources, had it taken to make such an enormous portal? That was almost as big as the Arch of Heavens was supposed to be! And it was the first godsdammned room!

Maiz walked contemptuously across the beam, not missing a step. Of course, with 17 Dexterity, he’d better not have. Still, he was reminded of the last time he’d faced a similar challenge, and he couldn’t help but smile a bit to himself. It was only at times like this that he could really appreciate how far he’d come. Then he opened the--less heavy--door to the next room, and his annoyance returned.

It was a narrow corridor. But, if Maiz deduced correctly, there was only one thing this room could be. Sure enough, as he started walking, he spotted and quickly hopped over a tripwire. He continued, avoiding a funnily colored bit of stone and ducking underneath a rather obvious hole in the wall. When he came upon the first fork, he sighed. A trapped maze. This seemed like a step the other two challenges, but if all of the traps were as easy to spot as that, it wouldn't be a problem.

He picked a turn at random, committing it to memory, and walked around a pit in the ground with a shake of his head. With a moment’s consideration, he turned on Mana Sense and continued.

Just as he’d expected, his Mana Sense made the challenge, already not too difficult, almost trivial. All of the traps were enchanted--they had to be, to force the user back to the beginning if they failed. Again, Maiz was astounded at the sheer amount of resources that had gone into the creation of this place. After reaching the next fork, Maiz realized there was only one bit of expense spared: the wrong turns were not trapped at all, which made it much easier to navigate in general and for him in particular. He still saw no sign of the Warrior Monks who’d gone in before him. They’d likely gone through this room enough times to do it even faster than Maiz.

Maiz let out a deep sigh. There was absolutely no doubt that this place was as old as Isa had claimed. It was obviously designed after the Trial, to such an extent that the comparison was clearly meant to be made. This place was older than the last age of God-Chosen.

And the whole godsdammned thing was made for someone else.

A growling sound interrupted Maiz’s thoughts, and he realized that it was himself making it. But honestly, an ancient temple in the middle of the desert with a society of powerful, knowledgeable warriors that had an ancient mission to serve a prophesied figure, and it was someone else? And not just anyone, but the God-Chosen of Nomenadon, the person who was, if Viselys’ attitude was any indication, going to be his mortal enemy! It was a travesty. If there was any justice in the world, his secretly powerful teacher would have, with his last act, led him to the place where he could grow surrounded by every advantage and aid imaginable. After nearly dying in the journey, he would have realized that he had reached salvation, and trained hard in his new home to eventually return leading an army of combatants to defeat an ancient evil. Or something.

Instead, he had to work just like everyone else.

If I ever find that asshole, I’ll kill him. Or her, I guess. Maiz wondered where the other God-Chosen was, right that minute. Maybe they were finding some ancient tower filled with ancestral servants of Viselys. That would only be fair. Imagining the scenario with a petty vindictiveness even he recognized, he stepped through to the next challenge.

There were three of the young people still in the next room, and they glanced at Maiz as he opened the door. One nodded at him, and he returned the gesture. He also blinked a little at the unexpected heat, which was explained a moment later.

It was an open room with quite a high ceiling, but the edges of the room were slightly higher than the middle, like a miniature ledge. There was a strange, winding pattern carved into the depressed floor--just complex enough to be an enchantment matrix by Maiz’s estimation, but with enough aesthetic charm to be a simple decoration. One of the young men took a deep breath, and stepped down from the ledge and into a large circle described by the pattern. Immediately, the entire pattern began to glow a soft reddish-orange and at the far end of the rom a door opened. An enchantment, then.

The boy, who was quite lanky and looked like he might have been from Caelos from his features, took off, running swiftly atop the pattern, arms pumping. Behind a trail of fire sprung up. For a moment Maiz thought that the flame was somehow triggered in response to the young man’s running, but when he turned a corner, slowing slightly, the flames did not match him, and he had to speed up along the next straightway to stay ahead. The pattern looped around the room, easy enough to follow but annoyingly nonlinear.

The boy followed it exactly, and reached the door well before the flame. Gods that seems finicky. Maiz wondered what would happen if he stepped off of the pattern. The next person to step up gave him his answer. It was a girl, maybe 13 or 14, with the words Temple Acolyte above her head. She stepped onto the square and took off like the first had, navigating easily through the first set of loops. She was markedly slower than the boy had been, however, and was clearly working to stay ahead of the flames. As she navigated a particularly tight series of turns, her feet strayed outside of the carving, and she simply… vanished. Gods, this place is so amazing. Maiz huffed a little to himself, but this challenge was extremely interesting. Clearly it tested one’s Agility, but there were elements of Dexterity and even Intelligence Though it wasn’t too challenging for someone with a title, Maiz could see how it would be invaluable training for a youth. No wonder Lila was so Massahn-touched good at everything, if she’d been training like this her entire life.

The next person had a title, and though he was a little slower than the first, he made it to the door easily enough. Then it was just Maiz. He stepped onto the box like the others had, and began to run. The first part was a simple long, sloping line. He made it through that easily enough, moving at what felt like a fast jog but was twice as fast as any untitled person could achieve. There was a tight curve which he rounded easily enough, and then a few loops. After that, there was what Maiz could only describe as a ‘squiggle.’ Here he tripped up on placing his feet, slowing down. It’s fine I have time, I just need to--

--Maiz caught a glimpse of fire out of the corner of his vision and took a single, panicked step.

He found himself staring at the stone door full of chips and cracks, no flame or enchanted floor in sight. Just gray stone, seeming to mock him. He sighed. It was going to be a very long day.