The Trial Begins

Elder Zho paced along the front of the dungeon's entrance, his hands clasped behind his back and his nose pointed up slightly. Lyra could feel his appraising eyes as he studied all of the students, gauging their level of preparation. Zho had been working with them over the past week to help them figure out the best equipment each of them were to bring. Aside from the general supplies, each person would bring with them a small device that converted ambient essence into different aspects.

It was an incredibly useful construct that would allow someone to instill it with their chi, and then it would convert the ambient essence to that person's aspect. It had been developed by a super genius in the capital city of the Descending Dragon Kingdom to help them cultivate their unique aspect. The Descending Dragon cultivators all required fire aspect-ed essence to grow their power base, but cultivating dragon's fire required an exorbitant amount of fire essence to convert. Typically a cultivator or soul warrior could not convert one type of chi into another, but dragon's fire was a subset of the fire aspect, a specialization of sorts.

The device would pull in all of the ambient essence around it at a slow rate and convert it to the aspect of the cultivator at rather steep a conversion loss. Zho had described it utilizing mathematics that essentially boiled down to a 10:1 ratio. For an arbitrary unit of essence, it would take 10 of any essence that wasn't the correct aspect to equal one of the desired aspect. The way that Lyra understood it, was that it would take 10 times longer to recover whatever aspect she had then if she was cultivating her aspect directly. This device was revolutionary though, allowing for anyone to cultivate almost anywhere. The input cost was extremely low since all you had to do was start the machine, and then it would use part of what it converted to continue running it.

For freshly awoken this was beneficial since they couldn't power it alone. Each time the device converted from one type, it was actually converting from the input aspect into clean pure essence and then into the desired type. The machine would run off the pure essence and anything it didn't need to operate would then be converted. Each part of the process was imperfect, and a typical conversion from the base to pure essence was about 33% efficient, and then it would be reduced before outputting 33% of what remains after the operation cost is extracted. So, while it was imperfect, it essentially let anyone who could afford them practice whatever aspect they needed.

Lyra jumped slightly when Zho spoke harshly, "Attention! Remember your goals here. You are to enter the dungeon and utilize its high chi density to spark your cores. It will be dangerous, and there is no guarantee for your safety if you are not cautious." Another imperial gaze swept across the line of students waiting to enter the dungeon. "The chief," Zho nodded to the line of elders behind the students flanked by two of the more prominent soul warriors in the clan, "is looking to see which among you will bring glory and honor to our clan."

The chief of the clan, Vaemal Astaire, stood rigid with his hands locked before him. A soft glowing light began to emanate from his body, Lyra recognizing that his Sapphire aura was active. Vaemal had risen to power as the fifth chief to head the Astaire clan, his cultivation of the aspect of radiance. While it did not directly oppose demonic essence, it was not disadvantaged against the tainted energy. Instead of being broken down like the other aspects would, it rebuffs demonic chi. "I expect great things from each of you young cultivators. Our enemies are ever growing, and the demons continue to carve their place along the continent with blood."

Light blazed off of his body, intensifying along with the volume of his voice. "We, the Astaire warriors, are the bastion of radiance against the darkness that would consume everything. This is your chance to prove that you are capable of fighting off the menace that plagues these lands." The light flashed suddenly, forcing everyone to cover their eyes. When Lyra looked back at where the chief has been, she found nothing but empty space. The elders and chief had vanished in a moment, leaving each of the other trial takers with looks of shock and wonder on their faces. Lyra couldn't help but feel the anticipation flowing through her, an excitement to see if her hard work had been worth it.

As she looked around again, trying to see if she could find where the elders had moved to she noticed something was missing. It took her a moment to recognize it, but as soon as she did, panic flashed through her thoughts. Where was Kantan? She knew him well, and if she knew anything about him it was that he wouldn't have skipped his trial. He had a tendency to be a bit tardy, but she doubted his grandfather would let him miss this either. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen his grandfather with the elders either.

Just as she was about to speak up to ask Zho if he knew that Kantan hadn't arrived, Zho yelled "Your trial begins now! Go!" With that Lyra got swept up in the mass of students trying to get a head start on the trial. The cave opening was wide, and allowed for multiple people to walk in side by side. Covering the outermost point of the entrance was a sheen of dark chi that would teleport the trial takers based on the talisman that they wore. The talismans could be found in the dungeon at various points, each effectively allowing a person to reach a specific floor of the dungeon.

Normally groups entering the dungeon had to all be in physical contact, and only one person could hold the talisman. Since each of the trial takers had their own talisman, it would treat them as individuals despite the frenzied mob of students pushing their way into the darkened entrance. Lyra felt a moment of panic as darkness overtook her vision, but there was no seam or shift that she could perceive that would tell her she had been moved. The only identifier was the fact that she was alone when she pushed out of the darkness on the other side.

Almost as soon as she passed through the entry way she found herself walking out into a large square room. There was no door readily visible, but a demon sat in a small stone throne at the opposite end of the room. It had pale white skin, and stood up to roughly her shin. It had a ring of small horns that crowned its head and small but glistening claws on its hands and feet. Seeing an enemy the creature roared in challenge, the high pitched squeal of the small demon catching Lyra off guard. A part of her chuckled at the oddity of the creature, but the other part was analyzing her foe.

This was a Impali, or more commonly known as imps. They were a common form of erthi evolution, not carrying a specific aspect like some of the other evolutions would. With no real strengths, they were not considered a threat by soul warriors without the Astair clan resistances. The average person wouldn't stand a chance, but an imp wouldn't contain enough excess chi to hurt someone at even the basic rank of cultivation. While it was disruptive and potentially lethal to have demonic chi in your system, if there was only a small amount, you could generally process it out before it did too much damage. The downside to imps was their resilience, most of their chi being used to fortify their bodies. Lyra felt that she had a good chance of fending off the creature, though the dark pulses of energy surging through his legs and arms made her wary.

As the same time that her wariness grew, she also felt the adrenaline began to course through her veins. In only a few moments she felt all of the stress and frustration of the past few days begin to recede to the back of her mind. None of it mattered to her now, it would only hinder her if she was distracted. A sublime sense of focus seemed to fall over her, her hands finding the short blades on her back with practiced ease.

All of the training she had gone through began to collect in her mind as each nerve began to fire in preparation of the most important part of her life. It was quite literally do or die, and the thought of it made her feel alive. Lyra unsheathed her blades fluidly, coming to rest in an balanced stance that didn't focus on either offense or defense. Her eyes locked with the imp in front of her, and a small smile began to form at the corner of her mouth. A single thought ran through her mind.

She was made for this.