47 Soul Recovery School Trials (2)

Suddenly, a rumbling reminiscent of a thunder began to fill the room. It took the children a while to realize that the rumbling was coming from the wall behind the captain. In fact, they only realized this because a few seconds after the rumbling began, the wall started to open up as though it was been sliced apart in two. Soon, the wall had been totally parted like a gate on its own, and at the other side was pitch black darkness. It was so dark that no one could see through no matter how hard they tried to look.

"This is the entrance to the first level. Get in before the door closes." As soon as Captain Jarjaha said this, all the children swept past him through the parted walls. A few minutes later when all the children were at the other side, the walls closed up without a single fracture. It was like it had not even opened up a few minutes ago.

"Good luck." The captain whispered to himself, a sly smile gracing his rough brown face.

Whatever dark room the children found themselves in must have been incredibly large since all of them, almost two thousand in all, made it in without feeling like it was crowded at all. However, the whole place was still very dark. But as soon as the wall closed up, the entire place was immediately flooded with a bright white light. That was the first time they saw where they really were for the first time. It seemed they were in some kind of a wide endless tunnel.

A serious sounding voice of a man started speaking out of nowhere causing the startled children to look for who was talking. But there was no one in sight.

"Welcome to the red level." The voice said. "It is your duty to find your way out of this tunnel in one hour. On your wrists you would find your own time monitors."

Instinctively, the children looked at their wrists and true to what the voice said, there was a countdown of one hour written in red on their skin. When did this suddenly appear on their wrists?

"You are free to use your essence and soul armos however you see fit. Your time starts now." A beeping noise emanated from all the time monitors simultaneously, then the countdown began. As soon as the countdown began, a thick cover of gray fog filled the entire room, thus making it impossible for the children to see each other anymore.

Ovandarrak was left standing alone in the fog. So he had to clear this level and get to the end of the tunnel in one hour. Was the fog perhaps the trap in this level? It did not sound particularly dangerous, however, it could prove to be a problem if it hindered his sight and thus, delayed him from reaching his goal. He had to think about how to get through this without getting disqualified. Fortunately for him, he did not have to worry about the oppression of the red essence since it was too weak to have any effect on him. He only had to concentrate all his effort on reaching the end of the tunnel.

"What a bother!" He whispered to himself, while touching his forehead thoughtfully. Then he checked his time monitor. He had already used three minutes of the time. He sighed to himself. These examiners were quite clever. The time monitor in itself was a way of mounting pressure on a person's mind, thus causing the person to make rash decisions. He couldn't let something like that be his fate.

Slowly, Ovandarrak closed his eyes, then began the mental breathing exercise meant to expel all thoughts from his mind. Once his mind was as clear as water, he opened his eyes. Instantly, his bright green essence emanated from his body and his brown eyes transformed to green. Because Ovandarrak was not sure if the other applicants were still around him, he kept the oppressiveness out of his essence so as not to harm the weaker ones. Besides, there was no danger yet that required the use of such aggression.

Revealing his essence heightened his already sharp senses to a hundred fold. Ovandarrak spread his green essence as far as he could, like a river of green light. He was trying to use his essence to read the presence of any soul energy around. That way, he could easily sense his way around without having to use his eyes.

The green essence penetrated through the fog easily and he could feel his essence flowing for a few meters until it hit something. Ovandarrak knew this because he felt the jolt within his soul, as though essence was echoing back from a surface. The farther his essence flowed, the more jolts he felt.

Without saying another word, Ovandarrak sped in that direction until he came to a stop in front of one of the things blocking his essence from flowing freely. He lifted his hand to touch the block in front of him, however, he still did not know what it was, since the fog was too thick to see through. His hand, surrounded by green light, felt a rough hard surface. It was cold to his touch, like some kind of a rock.

"Is this some kind of a maze?" He asked himself. It seemed the fog was not the only trap in here. "It doesn't matter. I'll just use my essence to avoid running into any traps."

So he sped off again, leaving the trail of green light wherever he went. He was so fast that it was as though he was just a blur. However, as fast as he was, he swiftly dodged every rock pillar in his path. A swift glance at his time monitor and Ovandarrak knew he had been running for about fifteen minutes.

Though it seemed like a very short time, he knew that at his speed, he must have covered several thousand meters. Exactly how large was this room? He thought. Was this even real or was it another trick to get them to be more anxious than they already were?

As he kept running, he felt the fog slowly losing its density. Another two minutes of running and the fog was completely cleared. For the first time since the trial began, Ovandarrak could see everything around him again. He found himself alone in a long and narrow tunnel. Though the tunnel was quite long, Ovandarrak could literally see the light at the end if he focused intently.

He came to a sudden halt in the tunnel, warily observing everything around him. Did he just have to run to the end of the tunnel for everything to be over? He only had thirty minutes left and for some reason, the whole thing sounded too simple. He could not help but feel that it would not be that simple. After all, the examiners must have already known that there were green users among the applicants who would have no problem with oppressive red essence. Thus, they must have made the traps more problematic for the green users.

Maybe he was been too cautious over nothing. He would just run. So run he did. But barely had Ovandarrak moved when an arrow came flying at him to which Ovandarrak instinctively caught with his left hand.

"These people are really trying to kill us." He said to himself. Of course there were arrows hiding within the walls. How was it that he could not sense them? This was not the time to be thinking about that. And it really was not the time, because then several arrows started firing from the walls towards Ovandarrak.

With the green essence hovering around him, Ovandarrak swiftly dodged every single arrow as he kept running even faster than before. He had been using his essence for a while now and he could slowly feel his energy waning. If he lost his soul energy before reaching the end of the tunnel, everything would be for naught. With that in mind, Ovandarrak concentrated everything in him into one single thought; reaching the end of the tunnel before the one hour was up.

Under normal circumstance, he could use his essence for several hours without feeling exhausted. But then again, under normal circumstance, he did not need to dodge arrows in his everyday life.

….….

"So many of the applicants have already aborted. Only half an hour is left and the boy in the lead still has a long way to go. Ovandarrak, that's his name." Captain Jarjaha said, his eyes fixated on the large screen in front of him. Then he directed his gaze towards another young woman sitting from across the room. "Kakami, do you think he's going to make it?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Kakami asked in a nonchalant tone. With her very petite frame, it was very hard to believe that she was the captain of the Combat School.

Jarjaha chuckled. "Well, this is your master's soul armos so you probably know something about it."

But Kakami Rendo ignored Jarjaha's words. Just because Master Koo Minchii was her master did not mean she knew how Naa Vah worked. All she knew was that Naa Vah was the most terrifying weapon-type soul armos she had ever encountered. The Combat School used Master Koo Minchii's Naa Vah to conduct their trials, however this year, the Soul Recovery School was adopting it too.

"I want him in my hall." Benu, the captain of Yugaki Hall said.

Benu now had the attention of all seven captains in the room.

"The trials haven't even ended yet." Jarjaha said his eyes not leaving the young man.

"Well, he's going to pass and he will fit quite nicely in Yugaki Hall. Any objections?"

The other three hall captains shook their head in the negative. Besides, they had selected some new residents from among the applicants who passed the trials in the School of Beast Studies and School of Weapon Studies. Benu on the other hand did not think any of them was good enough for his precious hall, thus, he selected none of them. If he wanted this applicant, then he could have him.

"Handini-Yarra is not here though." Kakami said. "Maybe she objects."

"I just don't care. If she thought it was important, she would be here. She knows we the captains are supposed to make an assessment of the applicants together during the trials… here. But is she here?"

"Benu, tread carefully." Kakami said in a low voice, her usually indifferent expression turning unusually steely and cold.

The room fell quiet and the tension became so heavy that it almost felt tangible.

"Oh look. I think he made it. I better get going." Jarjaha shouted, breaking the spell of silence in the room.

The captains watched the large screen and just as Jarjaha had said, the young boy with the long dreadlocks was at the end of the tunnel.

A streak of green light was emitted from Jarjaha's body in mere seconds, he was gone from the room.

…...

A bright light emanated from the end of the tunnel as Ovandarrak got closer. He checked his time monitor. He had twenty-eight minutes left. Once he ran straight into the light, there was a loud boom and a slight tremor in the ground. But the tremor lasted for less than three seconds. Instantly, the bright light cleared and the tunnel faded into nothingness as though it was never there.

Instead, Ovandarrak found himself back in the large hall; the very place the captain of the Soul Recovery School had given them their orientation. Why was he back in the Grand Hall and how did he even get back here? Wait, was the tunnel even real? The thought sent a slight shiver in Ovandarrak's spine. If that tunnel and everything in it was not real, then it truly was frightening, after all, everything had felt extremely real. The fog, the arrows, the light, they all felt so real. But the more Ovandarrak thought about it, the more he was convinced that it was all some kind of illusion. It must be on powerful illusion for it to feel so real.

"Congratulations." A voice snapped Ovandarrak backed out of his thoughts. A man in white robe walked towards him. Following the man was someone Ovandarrak recognised; Captain Jarjaha.

"You are the first to pass the red level. It took you thirty-one minutes forty-two seconds."

Ovandarrak looked at his wrist to check the time monitor, but it was nowhere to be found.

"The time monitor only works during the trial." The man said with a smile.

Ovandarrak stared at the man, wondering who he was. Then he looked at the captain.

"Oh, forgive me, Lord Thark. My name is Rashimi Din-Yommu and I am a teacher in the soul Recovery. I am also the examiner in charge of this level and the next two levels."

"Do I begin the next level now?"

"Well, no. This level needs to end first and that will happen in twenty-seven minutes. Once the level ends, those of you who qualified will rest for ten minutes. Only after those ten minutes will the next level begin."

Ovandarrak decided to ask the teacher about the tunnel. How was it that he never saw anyone else the whole time he was in there? Was is it all really an illusion?

"An illusion?" Rashimi chuckled. "You can say that. But everything you saw in there could be real at a mere thought."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't think you should concern yourself with that. You passed anyway. But the reason why you did not see anyone was because you were the only one in the tunnel. Your trials were made to suit your essence level. As a green user, the red essence would have no effect on you so there needed to be another way to make this level a little more challenging for you."

"So you are saying our traps were all different?"

"I'm saying your traps were different from the red, orange and yellow users. You and the other green users had the same traps except that you were in different tunnels."

"Oh. That makes sense."

"But it's still impressive that you found your way out of the fog in such a short time. It was not only to impede your sight. It was actually a substance that made one slowly lose all rational thought."

Ovandarrak raised his brow when he heard the revelation. "I did not notice that at all." While he was in there he never felt himself losing his mind. In fact, he was even thinking more clearly than ever.

Captain Jarjaha laughed. This boy was very interesting.