It took me a not-insignificant amount of time to come to the realization that I couldn't just wallow in the wave of complicit apathy that overcame me. The wave mirrored the wind, in a sense, sudden and immense, a force no human could go against as a whole. But I was not as large as the wind, nor was I as large as whatever the circumstances I was embroiled within were.

So I could wade my way through it. Even if every reasonable part of my body told me it was pointless, that every aspiration keeping me going was just as contextually uncertain as it was unlikely. Even if.

Or so I told myself.

It was enough to get me off of my ass again. But it wasn't quite enough to let me free of my head's firmly held position among the clouds.

Oh well.

-

The cave was dank, pitch-black, dreary, ominous, somber, and any other adjective you would use to describe the vague concept of a 'hole that goes deeper than you think'. It smelled like wet dog, which perturbed me until the outline of skeletons of unfamiliar shape and size entered my perception. At that point, I think I learned to not ask any more questions about strange smells. Either I would discover/be discovered by the cause, or, hopefully, I wouldn't.

In a place like that cave (or hole, I wasn't entirely sure on what it could be called), every smell was all-encompassing. I was going to delve deeper anyway, though the confirmation that life existed or had existed on the island definitely gave me pause.

The rest of my time was spent wondering how this hole had gotten here. It had quickly dropped off from the steep curve it had been, and was

An hour later, and still nothing. I was walking extremely slowly, but I was still surprised that it went this far. If there hadn't been a few bends, I was confident that the cave would have ended with a majestic view from the underbelly of the island.

I even sat down and retried my class trial a few times in between. Which also served to boost my confidence, considering how much closer I was getting each attempt to passing. I just wished that I could have used that extra time to practice using Gradient.

It took at least 15 more minutes to arrive at a new location.

Eventually, the cave wound back around to the point where I was pretty sure I was directly below where I had started. The tunnel had stopped sloping down quite a while before I arrived, so my vantage point was within a hole staring straight out over a vaguely conical burrow, sloped down on the sides.

Due to this, I had a bit of an overlook. I glanced back up and saw a few holes above me, but my entrance was close to the top. There seemed to be no light source, and it seemed like any other part of the tunnel before I had entered, but once I arrived I could see just fine, as if I had suddenly acquired some form of night vision upon crossing the threshold.

Convenient, but sort of game-ey. If my experiences up to this point were anything to go off of, that meant danger.

So, naturally, I found a path with no entrances between me and the way down and began to slide down to the vaguely bowl-like shape at the bottom of the cavern.

The most difficult part was dusting off my back. Now that I had a clear view of the center, I could see a crystal embedded in the ground. As much as I'd like to say that it was, it wasn't glowing or pulsing with energy or anything cool like that.

It looked like a normal crystal from Earth, except really big. It was translucent and milky white and tapered to a point from an octagonal shape. Kind of like one of those weird salt crystals you'd see in pictures from deep in the earth's crust.

It was about 3 meters tall and 2 meters in diameter, reminding me of a tree once I was standing next to it. I didn't expect anything to happen due to the lack of the signature mystical light show magic rocks tended to have, but I felt compelled to touch it anyway.

To be clear, I didn't touch it, I just almost did. First, of course, I analyzed it with Gradient.

It was nothing complex, I just thought of people from Earth who I'd like to see dead- I cannot tell you the name of the one I settled on for legal reasons, in case US conspiracy laws apply interdimensionally- and focused on that feeling. The response was immediate and violent, I felt the image of righteous fury, defiance, and restraint coming from the crystal. It felt almost... Majestic, like a royal decree from a beloved king.

I wiped the sweat off of my brow, glad that I had checked for killing intent. I didn't know if touching the crystal would actually do anything, of course, but I knew now that I wanted nothing to do with it as far as any activation procedure could go.

I turned around to climb back up to the hole I came in when I heard a sizzling noise behind me.

A palpable aura of authority was radiating behind me, building by the instant. I wanted to hide and run or bow down in hopes of remaining alive. The conflict between those instincts- the underdeveloped feeling in me of going up against a true predator- caused me to freeze in place instead.

The temperature of the area rose sharply and the smell of spoiled milk drenched the air. My breathing became heavier before being joined by another.

I slowly turned back around, my curiosity understanding it held a chance to sate itself amidst the battlefield of screaming compulsions waging war in my psyche. In my state, it wasn't difficult for the fear of the unknown to overpower my commitment to treat any unknown creature as an unfathomable eldritch deity.

It was a monster, because, really, what else could it have been? It did distinguish itself somewhat from the monsters that came before by being, strictly speaking, beautiful (though still predatory, perhaps exceptionally so).

White feathers small and soft enough to be mistaken as fur lead across a body reaching at least 7 meters in length into into wings adorned similarly on the edges but webbed with sky-blue skin. The wings, still unfurling slowly, pointed down to four sets of crystalline claws glowing with a familiar ocean blue. But divorced from that scheme were the eyes.

As I stared down its stubby snout to its symmetrical, almost ethereal face, the image of serene majesty fell away into something far more primal. The instinct to flee as prey only intensified as its moonlight-yellow glare catalyzed through two pitch-dark reptilian slits bore through me. I felt like nothing, a meal, that the life currently flashing before my mind's eye could be extinguished in an instant.

The instinct transcended any practical measure of power the being could have. Rilu could have undoubtedly done the same, as with any creature I had the pleasure or displeasure of meeting on the Nexus. The difference here was that the beast seemed to see nothing except for that potential. As I saw its eyes, I understood its bestial perspective to a chilling degree.

And as the understanding grew, my Imprint was suppressed. My perception retreated back into my body, until, like the insignificant, powerless human that I was, all I could do was stare into its eyes.

I thought- no- I knew that I was doomed. At least, in that sole moment. In the span of less than a second, I had come to terms with death, taken in a knowledge that there was nothing I could do.

And then it stopped.

It broke eye contact as if our staredown was one-sided, and I couldn't help but feel strange at that thought. It stood inverse to the feelings of complete primal simplicity and fear roaring through my veins.

It stared across the room toward a far wall. The glow of its eyes built to the point where it began to dye the lower area of the cavern in amber, but I just saw an unremarkably blank segment of the space.

That changed before I could so much as glance back at the beast.

The wall was no longer blank, instead indented with a tunnel I already couldn't see the end of, and a suffocatingly dense cloud of dust and dirt joined the smell of rotten eggs in the air. My mind's eye was unclogged, Gradient settling over the area once more, hungrily analyzing the remnants of the elusive power of Mana.

-

At most fifteen minutes later, exhausted in every sense of the word, I emerged from below the surface of the island in a crater. Trees were uprooted and thrown to the side, the ones beyond tilted away from me as if they were cowering in fear. Hilarious.

It was nighttime, and the glorious sky distracted me for a brief moment. I idly registered that there was no longer any wind.

Dirt caked me far more than it did the blown-apart earth and foliage. Every labored wheeze I took welcomed in a new storm of that same dust. Coughing, I poured half of the contents of the Well of Life over me to cleanse me, and I drank the other half to cleanse my insides and get rid of any sharp pains on my skin and in my muscles.

I nudged it along with my Imprint, but it would take a few minutes yet to completely refill.

I quickly glanced around to find the most climbable tree in range- something I had been doing strangely often recently- and quickly discovered that there were in fact no trees I could climb in a reasonable amount of time in my vicinity.

'Then my only option is to head deeper into the forest. The odds I meet that thing are low, it seemed to have a goal. I can't imagine it not.'

I pushed my mind to take in ever more information from Gradient, clearing the forest in record time. Even the smallest clues were illuminated, the nigh-imperceptible signals I had left in my path showing me the way.

My fears were confirmed on the way as a thunderous collision shook the world around me. I stumbled and felt as if my eardrums were going to explode. I focused on Gradient, seeking more input from it to parse, to overwhelm the pain. I took another step. No flash of light followed, but I didn't doubt that there was one, perhaps below the island or on the other end.

After what felt like moments later of winding vaguely in the direction of the center of the Island (the hole was somewhat close to the edge), I arrived at the clearing with the stream. It was the clearest view of the sky I had before

And, no, I did not want a clear sky to look at the Web.

The tree overlooking the point where the stream lowered was both far taller than any tree in the vicinity and had some of its branches arranged in a ladder-like formation.

I'd be able to see something. Probably.

With familiar franticness I scurried up the tree. I nearly slipped a few times, especially as the branches grew thin and unstable near the top.

I managed to perch near the top in one go, though, which impressed me.

It didn't take much time searching to find

Explosions bloomed a royal purple and gold near the northernmost tip of the island, with enough intensity that I heard them like fireworks. Just like fireworks, the glowing remnants of the collisions illuminated a dance of sword and claw. My vision was sharp, so I could see with great detail while the chaotic energies yet dyed the airspace.

Rilu seemed to teleport, gusts of air swirling around with every stroke of his wings, but the beast seemed even faster, not bothering to chase him. Judging by the viscous blue liquid streaming out of its side, it had learned its lesson there.

Instead, its yellow eyes danced around with defined intensity. While Rilu's 'teleporting' movements seemed wild and explosive, the beast seemed to blur inches away from Rilu's attacks.

And what attacks they were.

The ghostly fire trailing off of the edge of Rilu's blade threaded lines throughout the world-speckled sky and the forest below in a mesmerizing dance. His deep blonde hair trailed behind him, the cast from his flames and the golden trails left by the thin-feathered beast danced in conflict across his visage as he and the beast fought.

In the midst of a swing where the scene was illuminated with incredible clarity, I could see his battle-drunken roar painted on his face. A roar I could not hear over the approaching clashes, often sudden bursts of wind that built into a cacophony, interspersed with thunderclaps.

I was entranced by this display.

Until the creature roared and, out of nowhere, a blast of crackling golden energy shaved off the surface of a quarter-kilometer thick line of forest running all the way across a portion of the island, leaving scorched earth and disintegrated trees in its wake.

The golden blast had come so near that I nearly fell off of my tree. Half of the clearing I was just outside of was erased. No blast radius or wind or heat, it was simply... Gone, corroded, erased, something like that.

Right across from my perch, in the center of this path of destruction, was a particularly sorry-looking Rilu.

The beast, confident in its supremacy, just watched. From the brief moment of understanding we had shared, it was taking time to relish in the hunt. Convinced of its victory, it sought to allow its prey to recover, to continue the hunt that had allowed it to stretch its wings after its long slumber.

I needed to do something. I knew that I did. But what could I do? I had nothing, I was completely out of my depth. I had been here for no more than a month, yet here I was expected to compete with a warrior grown in a fantasy world for their entire life?

The futility was as crushing as the battle was incredible. There wasn't anything I could do. There couldn't be. Nothing that would matter. It would be arrogant to try anyway.

'Fuck it.'

[Do you wish to reattempt your Class Trial?]