Chapter 12: Your Trial Has Already Started

"That's typical for a damned shade, Slick." Teng was busy clearing up the misunderstanding. "They skip the physical oriented realms because it's irrelevant to their physique, but take longer in mental accumulation. Their cultivation speed returns to normal when they finish mental accumulation. Most shades specialise in mental attacks due to their familiarity with what they learn in the realm. Its current realm is roughly equivalent to 4th realm 5th stage for normal cultivators."

"I am normal!" Appa interjected. It was sulking as it considered everyone else weird. How could it be the weird one? Flesh? Squishy. Metal? Sharp. Definitely not normal! That being said, being pet by a flesh hand felt nice... Would a metal hand feel good too if it wasn't done by a pointy part? Appa floated over to Slick. "Pet me!" 

"What?" Slick felt like today would be the death of his sanity.

"Pet me!" Appa repeated.

Slick obliged while Appa's blank eye sockets stared directly into his soul.

"Nope, too cold. I don't like you." Appa nonchalantly turned around and floated away.

"... Well screw you too." Slick didn't even know what he'd done to offend this odd little creature, but he wasn't going to take whatever this treatment was lying down!

"Alright, settle down you two. Your trial will start in three, two, one, BEGIN!"

"Rime Climb!"

Appa immediately took to the skies with the ice eagle it had used in the earlier round. It knew Slick couldn't use mana to catch it, making his life that much harder. Appa kept up a barrage of ice attacks while creating layers of water above Slick whenever he tried jumping. The water wouldn't stop him, but it did slow his ascent quite drastically. 

As this was happening, Rud returned to the hall with a crystal ball in his hands. These crystal balls were well known and no one present wasn't familiar with them. In fact, everyone other than Ares had used one before. The crystal balls were used to test pillar affinity. Aejaz had been tested when he was young using one of these. His parents confirmed he had an affiliation for the darkness pillar using a crystal ball which led to everything that came after. Ares knew what it was as he had seen members of the Chen Clan using them. He was a slave to them though and wasn't allowed to cultivate, let alone touch one of these things. 

Although most of them had been created in recent years, there were quite a few ancient crystal balls in existence. There was no real difference ever discovered between the two, people simply decided to create more for supply and demand. For once though, there might actually be a notable difference. There was no way an affiliation for a pillar no one knew of would show up on the modern crystal balls, but what if it could on the ancient ones?

"Here, put your hand on this and release some mana." Rud held out the crystal ball and Ares did precisely that. 

He was curious too. Ares was actually somewhat confident it would detect 'something' thanks to some information he had learnt from the Primordial Blade prior. 

When encountering a treasure, by imbuing mana into it, it's possible to learn its name, origin, and capabilities. The Primordial Blade was a little different and would only ever give its name and incomplete fragments of information. When it became a personal treasure, only then could its user learn of its storied history in its entirety. When Ares lost consciousness six years ago, information about the Primordial Blade flooded his mind and he learned something truly awe-inspiring from what he saw. Something that no one else in the entire universe knew. Because of both what he learnt that day and the value of the sword, he almost never carried it around openly, instead opting to hide it within himself which was a neat little trick the blade was capable of. He couldn't actually wield it properly yet anyway so it was pointless to even consider. Unlike his pillar, a treasure was something that could be coveted. If someone possessed the means to take it from him, it would cause serious complications for him and unnecessary strife. Well, it's not like anyone but him could use it though; the prerequisite to using it was to have an affinity with the aspect of nothingness. This requirement was related to its shocking history.

At the dawn of time, nothing existed. Even the concept of time and existence itself was fleeting. Just sheer nihility and nothingness, stretching into the infinite, red void. This state of 'being' was maintained for hundreds of billions of years, until an anomaly appeared. It's unknown, to Ares at least, what exactly caused this anomaly, but it led to the birth of a universe within the expanse of nothingness. However, space cannot exist where nothingness exists, and vice versa. The vast nothingness was far larger than the anomalous universe filled with space, so it had the advantage when it came to removing the foreign object.

Ares had once explained to Aejaz that all of nothingness is connected so, when a universe appeared within an area of nothingness, it began to fold into itself as all parts of it were directly connected to one another. Any two living creatures that try to exist in the same spot will simply explode, but non-living objects and 'things' will merge with other objects and 'things' to become a single entity. The universe was constricted and intertwined with all other parts of itself in an endless loop thanks to the properties of the void it was trying to inhabit. It was forced to merge and continue folding in on itself for an inestimable number of centuries. Eventually, the empty universe folded one last time and took the form of a blade, more specifically, the Primordial Blade. In order to forcibly maintain that form so the universe wouldn't spring out again and lay claim to the 'space' the nothingness inhabited, the nothingness severed part of itself and used it to form a sheath to lock the sword within. 

Nothingness held the ability to mould and shape space, thanks to its properties, and was technically superior to space in even quantities, hence its capacity to control the universal-scale blade. That sheath of nothingness still held a connection to the void despite its separation, as all nothingness is connected, which is why it knew precisely what happened to the remaining void of nothingness in the following years. That knowledge was passed onto Ares who now knew the truth of how the universe he lived in came to be.

The thing about an anomaly is that it's impossible to tell what it will be and when it will happen. The first took hundreds of billions of years and formed a universe. Unfortunately for the void, a second anomaly, which just so happened to be another universe, sprung up only weeks later! The amount of time between two universes appearing is indeterminate, it could have even potentially never happened, yet it only took a few weeks. There simply wasn't enough void left to handle a second universe as it had used too much of itself to seal the first and had yet to properly recover from the incident. 

The nothingness vanished. Nothingness cannot exist where space exists after all. In its place, the universe that all life currently inhabits came into existence. It's unknown if that void disappeared permanently, or perhaps was and still is hiding somewhere behind the cracks of reality, but at the very least, a large part of it lived on in the form of a sheath. A sheath that grants its user the power of the entire universe that is held within it. Of course, Ares' cultivation was way too low to wield an entire universe. Even if he increased it, he would still only be able to wield a fraction of that power for a long time to come. Right now, he couldn't even draw the damn sword out of the sheath, but that didn't mean it was useless in its current state. He could hide it within him, but he could also hide things within it. It could function as a spatial ring did and hold objects for him. Needless to say, an entire universe could hold onto far more objects than some tiny ring. It could also house living creatures, but only small ones for now. One day, Ares would also have the ability to control the entire space and effectively be a god within it, but that day was still a way aways. Since this thing had existed for so long, there was a chance the ancients might have been familiar with at least the nothingness aspect, even if no one knew precisely what it was. 

Ares knew no one had ever been the blade's master before him, which also meant no one had ever been affiliated with nothingness throughout the entirety of history. He also assumed this meant no one could use anything from the pillar of destruction at all as the three aspects were really closely intertwined with one another. Perhaps the ancients factored in the potential for an unknown pillar inside their crystal balls thanks to the presence of the Primordial Blade. It's not exactly like the blade hid anywhere. It was always in plain sight, but always unobtainable. Some cultivators with spatial aspects could feel something from it, but that was as far as anyone had ever gotten.

When mana was placed into a crystal ball, the mana would become a specific colour and take a specific shape depending on the affinity of the cultivator. For instance, the water pillar would be represented by a blue wave. The fire pillar would come up as a reddish, orange flame. 

Ares' mana flowed into the crystal ball and his eyes widened at the image in front of him. A black and dark-gold sword with a tiny red gem on the hilt appeared on the crystal ball. The sword was sheathed and looked identical to the Primordial Blade. The ancients really were aware! They didn't know what kind of pillar it was, but they knew there was one that remained undiscovered. This was their way of acknowledging the unknown. 

Rud noticed Ares' reaction and would inevitably question him, but was more preoccupied with the fact that he had actually gotten results. "It seems like the ancients were aware of the pillar. Perhaps you weren't the first to wield it but, still, a long-lost pillar. This is revolutionary news!" Rud said.

"No, I'm definitely the first. Also, the pillar isn't 'long lost', just previously undiscovered," Ares spoke in a confident and assertive tone as he already knew the truth of the matter. This image confirmed it. They would have used a different symbol if they knew what the pillar was, but no one ever found out. The ancients had assumed the sword was related to a pillar when in reality it was just an aspect that came under it. "They were aware of the existence of an unknown pillar but they didn't know it was the pillar of destruction. I'm not going to tell you the specifics, but only I know what that sword truly represents. That sword has nothing to do with the pillar of destruction as a whole, but is instead related specifically to the nothingness aspect. The crystal ball is supposed to represent pillars, not aspects. The ancients had no clue," Ares explained.

"You really can't say anymore?" Rud queried. This sounded like incredible information to be privy to!

"You know how treasures work. I've come into contact with that exact sword before, and I know everything. That's all I'm going to say." 

"You know the history of a sword that's existed since ancient times!? You've not only seen it, but also touched it!? Where is it now?" Rud had a determined look in his eye.

"Like hell I know. I was lucky enough to find it once, then it just flew away," Ares lied through his teeth, but did a damn good job of it without arousing any suspicion.

"The sword flew?" Rud asked.

"Yep. Believe me. When I first saw it, I was quite literally shocked to the core. Horrified even." Ares most definitely wasn't actually lying when he said that. The stupid sword was so eager to finally meet a master it almost bloody killed him. 

The reminiscent look on his face and the conviction with which Ares spoke that last sentence single-handedly convinced Rud he wasn't lying. "Well, if you ever change your mind, please let me know about that thing's history. I really am very much interested."

Ares had no such intention. The Primordial Blade's history was enough to make even a sane man covet it. The power of an entire universe at your beck and call would inevitably put a massive target on Ares' back even if no one else could feasibly find a way to wield it.

After Rud said what was on his mind, he went back to watching the remainder of the trial. He was sure there was more to this than Ares was letting him know, but he wasn't going to force the matter as he wasn't that kind of person. He also had the gut feeling he wouldn't get anywhere anyway. At least a new pillar had been confirmed though. He had witnessed history in the making. His name would probably end up in history books! Sticking around for the trials had absolutely paid off!

Speaking of, the current trial had been relatively uninteresting and had continued in the same manner it started for quite some time now.

---------------------------------

Slick decided enough was enough and finally put some extra oomph into his leap. He reached out, smashing all the attacks headed his way, and broke the ice eagle. 

Appa was falling flat, face down, completely motionlessly. Damned shades really were minimalistic in their movements whenever mana wasn't involved. 

"Horrors Of The Mist!"

Everyone on the side-lines were baffled. Why does something so cute know such an awful sounding art!? 

When Appa smacked face first into the platform, it burst out into a dense fog surrounding the entire hall. Slick couldn't care less about the fog as it only obscured his vision a bit. For everyone else though, little ice insects started crawling up their bodies and entering the orifices on their faces. Some people panicked and started trying to attack the bugs. Dirk, Onno, and Ares all dealt with the issue in a different manner though as they knew this wasn't real. It was an illusion in the form of an ice aspect mental attack. 

Onno was very familiar with the illusion pillar so, although he couldn't guard against a mental attack because of his low cultivation, he could at least recognise it and gradually dispel it after being hit by it. 

Dirk had no way of removing it but simply ignored it by changing his body's form to an immaterial blood mist to avoid feeling the discomfort. It wasn't real or particularly strong so it wasn't going to injure him if he paid it no attention.

Ares ran his disintegration magic through his body, vaporising any bit of fog that would otherwise touch him as he correctly speculated that the fog was what caused the hallucinations.

Rud made a safe zone for everyone else so they would stop running around like headless chickens and being a nuisance.

"Ohh~hhh nnnno~ooooo," a sarcastic, high-pitched voice that made you want to punch the person speaking, rang out from the platform. "What~ever will I~do? Attacking a robo's non-existent mental realm! I'm soo~oooo sca~red." 

Robo's were usually completely unaffected by mental arts as they didn't have a mental realm. The mental accumulation realm for Robo's was often called the 'processing refinement' realm instead. Their consciousness is an A.I programmed to have free will;, it isn't actually a consciousness nor is it free will that can be interacted with in any meaningful way. It was basically just a bunch of numbers and data. You could maybe short-circuit a robo's 'consciousness', but any other mental attacks were typically fruitless.

Slick could just barely make out a white, ghostly, little figure standing in the fog. The usual cute cloth now had a spine-chilling appearance thanks to the other-worldly fog, and was staring deeply into Slick's eyes from afar. When Slick focused a little more, he noticed something was off. Usually, the rope around Appa formed a knot and wrapped the shade up quite tightly in the mid-section. Now though, there was no knot and the rope had loosened slightly. It wasn't enough for the rope to fall off though as a damned-shade's rope couldn't ever be removed. 

The end of the rope that was previously knotted was now taut and stretching off into the fog. 

Slick followed the rope and immediately raised his arms to block the incoming attack. At the end of the rope was a giant, black icicle that was about 12 feet long. The rope was fastened around Appa on one end, and the icicle on the other.

Bang

Slick stood firm after he slid back around four steps worth of distance. When he looked up, he saw his arms had frosted over. In front of him, the icicle was planted deep into the platform. The platform was slowly icing over because of the magical aura the icicle was emitting. Slick was too slow to notice the rope was swinging in his direction once again. 

This time, however, it was Appa that was being swung instead by using the icicle as the anchor. Appa wasn't on a collision course with slick, but would curl around him, tying him up in the rope as it kept circling around him. Appa had landed and opposite it was the planted icicle, in the middle was Slick who was enfolded and practically mummified in rope.

Why is this rope so hard? Slick pondered as the temperature in his bindings kept getting lower and lower. Well, whatever. I need to be sure to spook that ghostly thing at least a bit before this ends. Slick raised his power and forced open a gap in the rope, allowing him to jump out. He rushed toward Appa who was suddenly jerked off to the side in an arc pattern. 

Appa was being flung around the icicle as if it had used a grappling hook! Appa made use of the momentum to propel itself away from Slick, with the icicle trailing behind it. The icicle caught up and overtook Appa, once again planting itself and icing over the immediate area where it landed. By repeating the earlier process, Appa could continually sling itself around at remarkable speeds by using the icicle as a sort-of movable grapple point.

Slick wouldn't catch up at this rate, so he decided to increase his speed and give one more attempt at stealing the token before the time ran out. As Appa hurled itself once again, Slick vanished from his previous spot and appeared directly in front of Appa in mid-air.

Appa's response was quite simple really. If it couldn't go forward, it would change direction! The icicle behind Appa slammed straight down, causing Appa to be immediately halted in mid-air in a C shape. Appa had no internal organs, though, and felt no pain from this sudden stop. The rope unravelled itself from the icicle and was retracted back to Appa who activated Rime Climb and formed another ice eagle underneath itself, flying away in the direction it had just come from. Appa had surprising aerial mobility for a piece of cloth that literally never moved. It could freely mix and match between swinging with the icicle for speed, and the ice eagle for control, swapping between them at any given moment. Appa used this to its advantage while pestering Slick with long range ice attacks until time ran out.

"Congratulations Appa, you are now the first shade to have ever become a disciple of our sect!" Teng gave the usual speech.

Ares was certainly happy for Appa, but he was incredibly concerned with the current momentum at which Appa, the 'mini missile', was hurtling towards him. He couldn't just dodge, he would never forgive himself, and he wasn't that much of an asshole to begin with. He was really in a complicated spot, but he decided to endure and simply take the hit. Appa was really soft, maybe it wouldn't be so bad? The things Ares would do for cuteness truly had no bounds!

Thud

Ares was knocked to the ground on his back and sent sliding along the platform until he eventually came to a standstill. He managed to successfully hold on to Appa who was wiggling in his arms while quite happily and affectionately nuzzling his neck. Worth it! "Haha, congrats Appa. I'm going to have to go up now, but I'll be back in a minute, ok?" Ares said as he was rubbing Appa's head.

"Mmmmm. Ok." Appa clearly wasn't happy, but ended up accepting it nonetheless. 

Ares got up and gently placed Appa to the side. He walked back over to stand in front of Slick with an evil smile on face. "3rd realm, 8th stage," Ares declared proudly as he made the throat-slitting gesture in as dramatic a fashion as possible. If Slick was going to talk shit anyway, he might as well goad him first.

"..." Slick had nothing to say. What could he say? Everyone else had some clear sore spot to attack, but Ares? He'd been confident since he arrived, but that Shock Bead proved it wasn't misplaced. He had no known background other than the whole bandit thing and was surprisingly strong considering his cultivation. He wasn't ugly and he wasn't annoying. He wasn't dumb nor was he loud and egotistical all the time. Sometimes he could be a little arrogant, but not enough to insult him over. Slick couldn't think of a way of insulting him at all as he just didn't know enough about him. There was only one thing he could say that came to mind, so he decided to roll with it even if it wasn't an insult as it was better than nothing, "How about we make a bet?" 

"Oh? And what would we be betting on?" Ares' interest was piqued.

"If you can make me use mana, not only will you immediately pass, but you'll be put straight into the highest tier of outer court disciples."

"SLICK!" Rud was not happy with this development. "You can't make that decision yourself."

Outer court and inner court disciples were separated into five different tiers. Usually, the highest tier a new disciple could be placed into was the third tier. Slick was offering Ares a potential route straight into the fifth tier. In order to become an inner court disciple, one had to be at least fifth tier and have the appropriate cultivation to attempt the promotion test. Getting into the fifth tier was a struggle in and of itself; a struggle which numerous disciples constantly failed to overcome. It involved fighting fellow disciples and completing numerous missions to get in. Even if Ares' cultivation wasn't high enough to take the inner disciple test, this would probably save him a great deal of hassle in the long run. It would also grant him immediate benefits in the form of cultivation materials as they were distributed based on tier.

"Wait, let me finish." Slick seemed rather determined. "If you can't make me use mana, even if you pass the normal way, you'll have to tell us about that sword's history." Slick had been paying attention to everything that went down on the side-lines during the previous trial. He too was just as curious as Rud and thought this would be a golden opportunity to get some information out of Ares. 

Rud, who was previously against the bet, remained silent. This was a proposal he was willing to accept as he still had a great deal of faith in Slick not screwing things up. Besides, if he really did lose the bet then, honestly, Ares deserved the reward. Rud wasn't too keen on bending the rules like this but he was willing to take a chance for such ground-breaking information.

"Alright then, sounds interesting. I have a stipulation though."

"Big words for someone with such small chances. What is it?" Slick asked.

"If you're unable to continue fighting, that will also count as my win. You could just be stubborn and refuse to use mana even if I decapitate you. I'm not so foolish as to take you, or anyone really, up on an unwinnable bet."

"... Fine, that's fair, but you understand that's never going to happen right?"

Ares winked at Slick. "We'll see." 

"Cocky brat." 

Lopping Slick's head off actually wouldn't even be that big a deal, he could simply put it back on again. Robo's were hard to kill as their 'bodies' didn't work in the same way as humans due to a lack of organs. They could also recover from wounds far quicker than humans and could even rebuild themselves to make the process quicker. The hole in Slick's arm, from the Shock Bead fiasco earlier, had already repaired itself.

"Are both parties satisfied with the contents of the bet and ready to start?" Teng was in 'official business mode' as the results of this bet were actually rather important.

"Yep," both Ares and Slick replied simultaneously.

"In that case, your trial will begin in three, two, one, START!"

Everything and everyone in the hall went dead silent. Everyone was paying rapt attention as this trial had become quite the significant event. So, when Ares completely vanished, only to materialise directly in front of Slick, everyone was amazed at his speed. Too fast! That had to be some kind of movement art. Of course, no one could possibly know anything about his arts as no one was familiar with his unique pillar. The Elders and Slick noticed weird traces of mana that felt like spatial magic, but was somehow, some-way, completely different.

Ares had his right hand on the hilt of a sheathed katana on the left side of his waist. This was just an ordinary sword he looted from a criminal's corpse a few years back and had no special properties. Ares had no real preference for his weapon as long as it was light. The only reason he picked a katana over any other kind of weapon is because he felt it would be good practice for the primordial blade later. 

Ares performed a sword draw that, while incredibly quick, looked as though it had minimal power behind it.

To Rud and Teng, the attack looked rather unimpressive. It was good for his cultivation stage, and considerably faster than someone at his cultivation should ever be able to do, but nothing that should give him such unwarranted confidence. Ares was certainly very well versed with swords though.

Something inside of Slick was screaming at him not to get hit by the sword. 

Something felt off. 

There were traces of some unknown type of mana lingering on it that had yet to be made into magic. Slick felt an immense sense of danger from that mana which was simply unfathomable to him. Not only was Ares the first person to ever run towards him at the start of the trial, he was the first test taker to ever make Slick feel a looming sense of death. What the hell was that mana going to do? He wanted to dodge, but he also wanted to know what he was up against. In the end, he opted to jump back. There was no need to risk it against something so unusual.

This looked quite odd to everyone else. Why had Slick jumped away? Was he seriously running? What from?

Ares wasn't going to just let him off like that. It wasn't just his 'Shift' art that allowed him to move around quickly, he was naturally quite nimble on his feet too. The first swing missed, but Ares beautifully, seamlessly redirected the upward momentum of the swing in a counter-clockwise arc until it became a downward slash while taking a lightning-fast step forward. The follow-up attack was sharper than the first attack, and much quicker too.

Slick was completely unable to dodge as he'd only just landed from his jump. Even if he raised his strength to the limit of his lowered cultivation, he couldn't do anything from this position. Ares had clearly done this on purpose, intentionally showing off a slower speed than he was capable of to bait him into this situation. Slick had no other option other than to take this mysterious attack head on. 

Slick uppercut the descending sword and sparks flew as metal collided with metal. Slick could see and hear the sword grinding against his fist which confused him. How was he not winning this exchange? The sword strike had speed, but lacked power. It should have clanged off and been reflected. He could tell that weird magic was doing something, but couldn't tell what exactly from this angle, so he quickly retreated and looked at his fist. What the fuck WAS that!? Slick was inwardly yelling. Slick's fist had a massive, deep, wound running along the proximal phalanx of all four fingers other than his thumb. If he kept up that last exchange for any longer, those four fingers would have all been severed.

"Weren't you listening?" Ares interrupted Slick's thoughts and leisurely stepped towards him. With his sword resting on his shoulder and his chin slightly raised, he looked down at Slick as if he were lording over a peasant and continued, "Your trial has already started."