Marcos Vereli stood in the waiting area on the docks of LA, in front of a warehouse with blue light coming out of its skylight. The sun was just starting to rise.
When the book store in Junction City had been destroyed he had fallen back on his grandfather’s dojo. The increased danger caused by the portals resulted in a large increase in customers, but when the military got the gate under control people started to move away from hand-to-hand combat and visit shooting ranges and drill courses more. Most of them thought it was easier to learn to use a gun than to fight with their hands or simple weapons, and the fact that you could change the power of your attacks by swapping magazines helped persuade them even further. Still, business had started to slowly improve recently, with several loyal customers showing up at his dojo on time. Last month he had earned nearly enough to pay himself minimum wage, and if things continued to improve he might be able to move out of the back room and back into an apartment.
Then last week Liza had contacted him and offered him a position as a security guard starting at thirty dollars an hour, full time, with full health benefits. Somehow her business had started expanding rapidly, even hiring Gabriel for the electronics division and Deb for HR. It was definitely a tempting offer. But was it what he wanted to do with his life? He was working at the bookstore because the dojo couldn’t cover his expenses. He didn’t want to work for a big company, he wanted to teach people martial arts, to keep his grandfather’s dream alive.
Wanting to take some time off and think about it, one week ago he had traveled to LA, where his distant relatives lived. Marcos’s grandpa had lived here thirty years ago until he got remarried to a woman in Junction City, so he had cousins here which he hadn’t met for years. He only remembered a few of them, and few of them remembered him, but they were the only family he had left. His parents had died when he was fifteen, after all, and, with his father being the black sheep in the family, his grandfather had been the only one willing to take him in. That was why he liked the dojo so much. It was the one place he had fond memories of, and practicing there and learning martial arts from his grandfather had been the one thing to keep him from ruining his life as an orphaned teenager.
Two hours ago he had found a social media post from the LAPD about a hidden realm gate opening in the city, and the fact that they were looking for volunteers to enter it within three hours. They had warned that it would be dangerous, and that survival wasn’t guaranteed, but had also posted that there were many secrets and resources inside. They would only allow Gathering level people to enter, however, as it restricted people above that level and mortals would be at too much of a risk.
He was about 90% of the way through Gathering, so he was eligible, but wasn’t sure if the adventure and possible rewards would be worth going. Then he noticed that his Aunt Eve was in one of the photographs. She wasn’t his real aunt, but an old army buddy of his grandfather from when they were in Iraq together pre-qi. He was pretty sure she was also grandpa’s ex GF, or at least a FWB, but neither of them would talk about it, so he never had conformation one way or the other. She had kept in touch with the family after his death a few years ago, so when Marcos had seen her picture he had contacted his actual aunt, his grandpa’s ex-wife’s daughter, to get her number.
After calling her and verifying everything that the post had said, he had grabbed his bug-out bag and brass knuckles and taken a ride-share down to the dock. With all of the civil unrest that the portals had caused he kept his bag near him at all times. The knuckles were something he bought yesterday at a pawn shop, made of level two brass and able to break through solid concrete without breaking your hands.
After arriving he paid his fare and went to talk to his aunt. She, of course, wouldn’t be entering the portal, as she was at far too high of a level. Theoretically, she could lower her cultivation from level four to level one by deactivating her core so that it drained without recharging, draining her qi so that no more liquid could form, then deactivating her dantian by blocking its recharge as well, but that would take hours, be extremely physically taxing and there was little chance of her getting anything worthwhile from the realm if she did that.
A few minutes later a man in military fatigues flew onto a shipping crate in front of them. Marcos wasn’t sure what level he was, as once people got so much stronger than you it was difficult to tell the difference, but he felt far stronger than Aunt Eve. The man introduced himself as Wang Liu, a Nascent Soul level Illaryan mercenary that worked for the USAF under General Adams. He quickly gave them a crash course on hidden realms. He covered the types, what could be expected inside, and what dangers they might face. He then started talking about this specific hidden realm. He didn’t know much about it, as his skill at reading gateways wasn’t the best, but he did know that it was an Eternal Night realm and, judging from the number of artifacts he could detect, likely a trial ground.
As best as anyone knew, trial grounds were set up in order to test societies and the people in them to see if they met some kind of ideal set by the god that created them, or to try and push society to develop based on the god’s ideals. Of course, in this context ‘god’ referred to high level cultivators, but he did know that beginning at level six one could gather the passive faith of sentient beings, not just sapient ones with a mind, and turn it into a cultivation resource similar to qi. This was something that many of them did, creating religions to gather faith from the more powerful sapient beings, even mortals and those in realms without qi, so the term fit. Even some of the ones on Ilarya did so, though they never had huge followings, as everyone knew their powers came from cultivation. Only in smaller mortal-populated areas were such religions popular.
While he had no idea what this specific realm would be testing, Eternal Night testing grounds tended towards either Yin cultivation, things like Darkness and Ice, or towards martial and body cultivation, while Eternal Day testing grounds tended towards Yang cultivation, such as fire, light, and lightning, and mental or soul type cultivation, the sun being a symbol for enlightenment. This meant that most likely they would be facing yin attribute tests or martial tests, possibly both.
The National Guard troops that were there then started pulling out the latest generation of military storage bags. While they would barely even qualify as such on Ilarya, they could let a person shrink objects to half their size in any direction, allowing you to fit eight times as much stuff in the bag. The military quickly taught everyone the shrinking technique and informed them that they would buy anything that the people collected from the other world which they didn’t want. While none of them knew much about spirit beasts or alchemy, it was unlikely that those would play a significant role in the trials. Wang Liu did inform them that if they fought demon beasts, animals that were unreasonable hostile and whose bodies exuded malice even after death, they should check them for a core. He pulled a level three core out of his storage ring and showed it to them, both the ring and core having come from Ilarya via the Junction City gate.
Wang Liu told them to sense the flow of qi in the atmosphere and head towards where it was heading, as that was where the exit would form. After the police chief warned them that any foul play would result in criminal charges, so they shouldn’t think about robbing or harming other cultivators just because they would technically be in the wilderness, they were let into the warehouse. The police watched them to make sure no one tried to take anything that was stored in the warehouse, and soon all two hundred plus people had stepped through the gate.
After stepping through, Marcos found himself in a field in front of a holographic sign. Strangely, the writing on it was in English. This meant that it had to have been tailored for the people of Earth to some degree. The sign read “Vast Cold Hunting Grounds”. Underneath it was another sign, seemingly projected from nowhere. “To test one’s determination and stamina, fight your way across the field. Fifty seven kilometers from here is a gazebo which contains a teleportation array. Reach that point and you will be allowed to enter the reward grounds and select a prize.”
He looked across the field, but was unable to see anything except the strange, slightly bio-luminescent grass under his feet. It was probably some type of spirit plant. After verifying that it had a bit of internal qi, he dug up a clump of it and threw it into his storage bag. He doubted it would sell for much, as most of the people here would probably collect it and it wasn’t impressive to begin with, but he might as well bring it back. If nothing else, he could give it to Aunt Eve as a house plant.
He stepped forward, past the signs, and, so that he could see better, used thermal sight. That was when something showed up, a series of cold spots that seemed to be moving together. He slipped on the brass knuckles. With this being called a hunting ground, he could guess that there would be wild animals for him to hunt. The fact that his objective was just to reach a place in the middle of the area likely meant that those creatures would be hostile as well, and when it was this dark, it would be quite easy for them to hide, especially if they had black fur.
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He started to make his way across the field when one of those sets of cold spots stopped moving. He stopped as well, and a few seconds later the cold spots got closer to the ground and started slowly moving towards him. This reminded him of a cat stalking its prey. He had tested himself for spirit roots, and hadn’t found any, but that didn’t mean that he was defenseless or that he lacked ranged attacks. They just wouldn’t be as specialized as those of people with roots. He called some qi into his palm and formed it into a ball, then threw it at the cold spots. There was a yelp and the spots started moving towards him much faster.
About two seconds later he noticed a large cat leap at him just in time for him to dodge to the side. It landed and snarled at him, and he saw that the skin on the side of its face was torn a bit, likely because of his qi bolt. He had never been much of a caster, so he wasn’t surprised that was all he could do. This creature appeared to be a large black panther, but with his thermal vision he could tell that its chest and claws were much colder than they should be. It leapt at him again and he shifted to the side, punching sideways and connecting with the side of its head. There was a satisfying crunching sound upon impact and it started yelping. The brass knuckles had likely allowed him to fracture its skull. He charged and punched it between the eyes, and it fell to the ground, dead.
Unsure of what would be worth taking from a Panther, and wanting to learn more about his enemy, he looked the dead beast over. From what he knew, mostly from a bit of biology in school and dealing with pet cats, the only thing special about it was the claws and something in its chest. If he cut it open and looked for the cold spot, he should be able to find that spot. He pulled out a knife and was about to start looking when he noticed several groups of cold spots near him. That must mean that the noise this one had made had drawn in its friends. He put the knife back in his backpack just in time for one of those panthers to run at his back.
After five minutes of fighting, Marcos was starting to get tired. Some of these panthers seemed to be stronger than the others, and able to take his punches. He guessed that they were Early Condensation, whereas the first one was middle to late Gathering. Thankfully he had taken the durability enhancing pills on Earth, so even the attacks of a level two beast barely injured him. Still, the few light scratches and bite marks all hurt. They had frozen at first, as the panthers seemed to have ice powers, and he was pretty sure that most of the pain was actually coming from minor frostbite. He couldn’t afford to take time to bandage them, however, even if they had started bleeding once the frozen blood ice thawed. He was currently surrounded by three of them, and was certain that more were either waiting their turn or on their way.
At least he knew why this was a trial. Killing one panther would draw several others, so the only options were to either evade them or to kill most of them so that no more were near you. He hadn’t known that when he started, though, and that had cost him considerable pain, pain which he focused on to try and keep going despite how tired he was. He was reasonably certain that the combat itself wasn’t causing the fatigue. He had fought for over an hour before in sparring sessions. It might be that his injuries had caught up to him, but he didn’t think that any of them were that serious or that he had lost that much blood. Then he realized that until two minutes ago the cold breath attacks of the panthers made him shiver. Then he stopped shivering, and now they didn’t even bother using it any more.
Right, he probably had hypothermia. That would also explain why he felt a bit stiff. He would need to get out of here and warm up quickly if he didn’t want to risk going into shock. But he also knew that it would take too long to kill all of the panthers in the area. If he had a gun he might be able to manage, especially with Condensation or Foundation ammo like some of the others had brought, but all he had was a set of knuckles and a level one skinning knife that only had the minimum amount of qi to keep it from dulling and prevent the edge from chipping.
What if he flew? Panthers can’t fly, right? He wasn’t very good with such techniques, but he had learned them. He focused on the qi around him pushing on him and he flew upwards at high speed. Right, he reminded himself. This world had extremely dense qi. He ended the technique so he started to fall from over one hundred meters up, and focused on only using the amount of qi necessary. His fall slowed down and eventually he was hovering five meters above the Panthers. Some of them tried to breath cold air on him, but he dodged it.
A minute later he had bandaged a few wounds, something which was difficult to do as he wasn’t good enough yet with levitation to split his concentration, and had floated away from the panthers by one hundred meters or so. The feeling of cold had started returning to his body. He started shivering and knew that he was recovering. Once he was fully bandaged he could hover here and pick them off. Well, he’d like to, but wasn’t sure that his qi reserves would hold up to the full fifty seven kilometer flight, especially now that they were partially depleted. Still, he was about to try attacking them from safety when the something grabbed his shoulder. Sharp claws dug into it and he lost his concentration and fell to the ground. While the fall didn’t hurt him, and barely caused any pain, the panthers had heard him hit the ground and were coming towards him.
He reached for his shoulder and grabbed a bird leg. He squeezed and heard something snap, and the claws released. A black hawk with icy talons started calling for backup, and he quickly snapped its neck. He threw it into the storage bag and started wrapping his shoulder as he ran away in the direction where he thought the gazebo was. He could feel something powerful in that direction, at least. Normally he wouldn’t run from a fight, but he hadn’t been able to take on the panthers, and now hawks were starting to join them.
He thought as he ran. He needed to find a way to keep both groups away from him if he was going to survive this trial. The fact that there were two predator species here likely meant that it had a complete ecosystem. He would need more evidence for that to be sure, but it was likely that the panthers hunted the hawks whenever they landed. That meant that it was possible to get the panthers to kill the hawks if he got them to land, but how would he do that?
A few minutes later he stopped to look around. The enemies were either too far away to bother with him or he had bought himself some extra time. He quickly pulled a flashlight out of his bag and looked around. It would definitely give away his position, but with the enemy already knowing approximately where he was that wasn’t as important. As hawks generally hunted small creatures, he looked over the ground. He saw a large mouse run into a hole, scared by the sudden brightness, and knew he had found the hawk’s food source.
He went over to the hole and shined his light inside. This appeared to be a burrow with a whole family of mice inside, with two fully grown ones and seven about half their size. This would have to do. As all of them were blinded by his light being in their eyes, having eyes adapted for night vision, he was easily able to reach in and grab one of them. It panicked and started biting him, but he ignored it and snapped its neck. After throwing it to the side he repeated the process with the next mouse, until the whole family laid around five meters away, dead. This might sound coldblooded to anyone he told about it later, but for now it was his best bet at survival.
Soon the hawks reached him, being a bit faster than the panthers, but when they saw the dead mice they landed on the ground, preferring the easy prey to the large creature that had killed several of them with some sort of qi attack. He ran away again, content that he had gotten the hawks off of his back for now. A minute later, however, he was pleasantly surprised to hear sounds of battle coming from behind him. The panthers had likely decided it was time to eat as well, and now the two sides were killing each other rather than him.
He had to repeat the trick two more times before reaching the gazebo. These panthers and hawks appeared to be slightly higher level, but they didn’t appear to be any smarter, falling for the same trick. The last time he had managed to catch a mouse in passing and throw its corpse in front of a chasing group of panthers, causing the hawk that went for it to get swarmed by a pack. Once he got to the building though, he stepped onto the first step and all of the sound of the outside world was cut off. It was only then that he realized that this building was protected by a barrier of some sort, which cut off outside sound.
“Congratulations.” a message said, appearing in front of his face. “Total time: Two Hours Nineteen minutes, Seventeen seconds. You are allowed to attempt to repeat the trial, however your reward for subsequent runs will be decreased. You have accumulated a score of one hundred and seventeen points, one hundred for completion and seventeen for ingenuity. Do you wish to travel to the reward grounds, repeat the trial from the beginning, or be sent to another trial which was selected for you?”
Marcos sat down to catch his breath and tried to ignore the message. He had just run more than a marathon of distance at a faster pace than most people could handle, sprinting most of the way, and needed a break. After he could breath again he started meditating to recover his qi, and a few minutes later he was finished. Only then did he respond to whatever system was overseeing the video-game like trials.
“So, what is available in the rewards?” He asked while pulling out a bottle of water and some satiation pills from his bag. They would only substitute for a light meal, but he had heard that there were some on Ilarya that could substitute for a large meal or multiples. Some even let you not eat for days, as they included enzymes that let the body recycle almost all waste products using qi to reassemble the original proteins or carbohydrates.
