Spatial Magic has reached level 26!

  Mold Space has reached level 18!

  Bend Space has reached level 12!

  Drinking has reached level 16!

  Gambling has reached level 9!

  Singing has reached level 5!

  Based off of my recent skill levels, it should have gone without saying that the situation was becoming dire. The spatial levels were appreciated, the product of me casting my handy-dandy pair of spells pretty much non-stop whenever I was awake. By now, both spells had crossed level ten, each gaining nearly identical augments that helped them fight against opposing spatial effects.

  That aside, anyone who knew me would be very well aware just how boring things had to get before I ended up leveling Singing, of all things. Twice.

  Ultimately, the less said, the better.

  Shrouded in pure darkness, I raced through the lightless void with my head on a swivel. I’d originally hoped that my Illuminated Sight boon would carry through to the trial, allowing me to see in the dark, but it seemed that even the gods couldn’t meddle with my trials. For the first time in ages, I remembered what it was like to be trapped in true darkness.

  At least, I did for a few seconds. Dark Sight took care of the problem handily, restoring my vision. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to see: Every kilometer or so, a small obelisk poked out from the smooth black floor, but that was it.

  Save for the elementals, I guess. As if summoned by the thought, a small patch of darkness in the corner of my vision seemed to darken. Possessing a sort of cunning intelligence that I’d yet to see from its siblings, the dark elemental crept around to my blind spot before surging forth. Had I not already spotted it, that would have been the end. Again. As it was, I lunged to the side as it slid past me, merging back into the surrounding black.

  There were a myriad of reasons that I’d left the light and dark sections for last. For one, the two elementals were the only ones to never leave their respective environments, which meant that killing them wouldn’t help me clear any of the earlier eight. On top of that, much like was true of the fire and frost regions, I doubted I’d have been able to clear them if I had to worry about any of the other assassins. Considering I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of me without Dark Sight activated, I would have lost almost instantly if I’d been forced to switch to any other vision variant.

  As a final bonus, these regions were actually a bit easier than some of the others. Had it not been for their massively powered-up inhabitants, I was confident I would have passed the trial ages ago. Case in point, I nearly fell on my ass as the dark elemental attacked from above, dropping down to right where I would have been had I not bumblingly skidded to a stop.

  The next time it struck, however, I was safe. Directly ahead, stood the border between the light and dark regions, and as I dove into it, my dogged dark pursuer reluctantly remained in its domain.

  The new region was just as blindingly bright as the last one was impossibly dark, and even as I switched to Light Vision, the abrupt transition had my eyes watering. More off of expectation than anything else, I threw myself to the side, knowing the light elemental would use my teary eyes as an excuse to strike.

  The tenth sector was much the same as the ninth, completely devoid of any features save for periodic obelisks. Unlike their dark counterparts, though, these squat monoliths each held a glistening orb, the source of the sector’s luminescence. Without pause, I ran up to the nearest one, snatching the orb from its housing.

  All at once, it went out, dropping a wide sphere around me into an unnatural darkness that rebuffed the light from the rest of the region. Expecting the switch, I’d already activated Dark Vision, but my eyes struggled to adjust. Red spots clung to my eyes as if I’d just spent an hour staring directly at the sun. Seeming to have some sort of preternatural instinct for my blind spots, the dark elemental formed right within the worst of these afterimages, rendering it completely hidden from view until it was almost atop me.

  This time it nicked my side, but unlike many of the others, it needed a more direct connection to hit me with any lasting harm. Instead, my vision just dimmed for a few seconds before returning back to normal.

  After a brief run back to the next unlit obelisk, I deposited the glorified light bulb I’d snatched, the previous process happening in reverse as light dispelled the darkness. I looked about, hoping against hope to get lucky, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  This was the final puzzle the trial left me with. Somewhere in the darkness region was a twinblade that blended into the surrounding darkness, completely invisible even with my Dark Sight running. The only way to reveal it was to light up the nearest obelisk.

  Vice versa, somewhere within the light region was the weapon’s twin, obscured by the light until I plunged the right region in darkness. Annoyingly enough, the orbs locked as soon as I grabbed one, preventing me from knocking them all off or transporting multiple at once. I also couldn’t pick the same one up twice, preventing me from just grabbing one and trying it out in every unlit obelisk.

  The end result was a series of dead sprints as I ping-ponged from one region to the other, gradually bringing light to the darkness and darkness to the light.

  Back before I’d realized I needed to save these two for last, I’d completed them a few times at the start of my runs, each time only finding the weapons after transporting about half of the orbs between regions. If that pattern held, I had a very long journey ahead of me.

  Or, as it turned out, a very short one.

  Right as I was about to place the tenth orb into its new home, I got my timing just ever-so-slightly off, preemptively switching from Dark Vision to Light Vision an instant too soon. Right before the area lit up, the assassin struck, its stygian form crawling onto my face and sinking into my eyes.

  Everything went black, and I knew from experience that there was no cure for this sort of blindness. Too tired to even bother cursing out the gods, I accepted my loss with a heavy sigh.

  You have failed a class trial!

  Week after week, it was the same message over and over again.

  Pushed out of a tree.

  You have failed a class trial!

  Frozen into a statue.

  You have failed a class trial!

  Thoroughly crispened by a gout of fire.

  You have failed a class trial!

  Falling to my death while climbing the icy stairs.

  You have failed a class trial!

  Eyes fried out of my head.

  You have failed a class trial!

  My success rate with each of the first eight regions steadily grew until it was almost unheard of for me to lose before the 7th sector, and weeks later, the 9th. That final hurdle still taunted me, close, but just out of reach no matter how hard I tried.

  It wasn’t a healthy state of mind -- I knew that -- but I’d started to expect to lose. Each time I entered the final two regions, I would silently take bets on which one would do me in, not daring to think that the answer could ever be neither.

  It was, then, almost unthinkable when, one day, just like all the others, I pulled an orb from its position, and the space around me didn’t fully descend into darkness. Off to the side, only a few meters off, a short curved blade cut through the surrounding black.

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  Its appearance caused me to short-circuit for the briefest of instants, almost costing me the run, but by providence, my body began to move before my mind fully caught up. In one fluid motion, I dove for the blade and snatched up with my free hand, weaving about until I was once more within the warm embrace of the light.

  Instantly, the assassin struck, only for the hunter to become the hunted as the blade bit into its indistinct form. Dispersing into motes of light, both the weapon and the elemental alike faded away, leaving me panting from the exertion.

  Nine. That was a first for me. Nine!

  The final elemental wouldn’t intrude while I was within the light, giving me a moment to catch my breath. Before I could wig myself out, though, I was off once more, ferrying the orb I’d taken to a new location.

  The moment I stepped back into the dark, for the first time, I got to experience the wrath of a fully empowered elemental. In line with the trial, it didn’t get much faster, but its camouflage had advanced to the next level, fading into the surrounding darkness until the last moment. After ten near deaths in the span of a minute, I had to admit that sprinting was no longer going to cut it. Fighting against my urge to move, to finish things now, I slowed down to a crawl, giving all my focus to spotting each attack before it arrived.

  And incredibly, it worked. The progress was slow. Painfully so, really. But I could handle slow. The next orb was placed into its new home, providing me with a much-needed sanctuary. No weapon appeared, but I hadn’t expected back-to-back successes.

  As more and more of the darkness region was slowly lit up, the walk to get a new orb grew longer and longer. Where once the trial had been a fast-paced, frenetic death-trap, now it was characterized by long stretches of peace punctuated by brief blips of nerve-wracking action.

  A second orb joined the prior, and then a third, a fourth, a fifth.

  When I went to place the sixth, the assassin seemed to grow even stronger, if such a thing was possible. A blurry hand clawed at my face, forcing me to lean back, but the moment I did so, it was there, ready to wrap around my head from behind. I ducked, awkwardly throwing myself into a roll, only to throw myself to the side as it pounced on my new location.

  A third of my movements seemed to bring me farther away from my goal, but with every step back, I made sure to take two forward. Inch by inch, I crept closer to the monolith, my mind absolutely blank save for the overwhelming desire to reach it unharmed. Big movements tended to throw me off balance, making me vulnerable to follow-up strikes, a lesson I’d learned slowly and almost too late. Instead, I tried my best to escape with subtle leans to the side, single steps, small hops and crouches. Even so, I felt like I’d just run ten marathons in a row, my heart hammering out of my chest.

  Had the assassin had a throat, I had no doubt it would have been roaring with rage as its continuous assault was stymied over and over again.

  One more step. The next obelisk stood right before me, offering the promise of a brief respite before I was forced to head out again. Just one.

  As if taking offense to that thought, the entire realm around me grew darker, as if the assassin had thrown off its trial-imposed shackles, expanding to assault me from every direction at once. Unable to spot a way out, I finally abandoned my economical motions for a jerky, graceless lunge. The dark shell closed in, a single arm away, then right in front of my face, on my nose, brushing up against my eyelashes, until-

  Light. All around me, the darkness fled, and too preoccupied to have switched to Light Vision, it took me a while before my sight cleared enough to look around.

  When at last it did, however, I nearly fainted, spotting a speck of black just off to my side. For a brief instant, I thought the elemental had finally gotten too powerful to be banished, attacking me even while I stood within the light. On second glance, though, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

  Sitting there, awaiting a wielder, was the tenth and final weapon of the trial. The curved, impossibly black twinblade beckoned me closer, and with trembling steps, I scooped it from the ground.

  The trial wasn’t technically over yet. I could still lose if I was careless. With that helpful thought in mind, each step towards the boundary of the light brought on every ounce of doubt and paranoia my mind could muster. I lingered at the edge for a while, steeling myself, before at last plunging back into the dark.

  The attack was immediate. Unavoidable. Barely slow enough to see, let alone react to. The dark form of the elemental crashed into my eyes, obscuring them as it made contact.

  But even then, my hand was moving. My blade shot forth, swiping down in front of my face at where I knew its body must have been.

  Whether my attack connected or not, I couldn’t say, leaving me to stand there in a tense silence. With each passing second, I worried I’d been a moment too late. That I’d failed. That I’d have to do it all over again, and again, a hundred more times and then a thousand after that.

  When the reliable weight of the blade suddenly vanished from my hand, though, I finally knew that I’d hit it. The tenth and final assassin was no more.

  Over a year after I’d first attempted the trial, a long-awaited notification arrived, bringing me to my knees.

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CLEARED A CLASS TRIAL!

  As much as I wanted to know exactly what my months of hardship had won me, in the wake of the brutal trial, it took me a while before I could bring myself to read through my new wave of notifications. Not for any physical reason -- as was always the case, my body had been entirely restored and my stats had been returned to me with the trial’s completion. Compared to how I’d felt only moments before, it was night and day.

  Mentally, though, it was a different story. In the end, I’d estimate that the full run had taken several hours, and it always took me a while to reorient myself after each loss.

  But it wasn’t a loss today. Curiosity finally managed to overtake mental fatigue, and I read through my newest upgrades from the top.

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CLEARED A CLASS TRIAL!

  Multiple Arcane Vision variants may now be used at once.

  The mana cost for this skill is now removed while using two or fewer basic variants of Arcane Vision. Activating additional variants will use increasingly more mana.

  Each variant may now be toggled on and off rather than consciously maintaining its upkeep.

  In and of themselves, those were some serious rewards. I’d long since stopped noticing the mana cost of the skill, but using multiple different mana types at once was a game changer. The trial had demonstrated just how vulnerable I was while switching between different variants, and now I wouldn’t need to.

  I’d have to see exactly how much the mana cost was, but if I could handle it, I would try to keep Arcane Vision, Light Vision, and Tremor Sense permanently activated. I’d always been a bit disappointed with Light Vision, as it only made me immune to blind effects if I used it before I got hit with them. Keeping it perpetually active would make that point moot. As for Tremor Sense, it was one of the fewer helpful variants that wouldn’t overwhelm me. Perhaps I’d try to slowly add the rest in, but I was guessing that if I kept Heat Sight, Frost Sight, Vitality Sight, Ghost Eye, and Water Sight on at the same time, I’d struggle to handle the influx of information, even with my heightened Intelligence.

  Base effects of most vision variants have been upgraded. For the standard Arcane Vision, your visual Mana Sense has been greatly enhanced, and your visual Perception and identification-skill bonuses have been doubled.

  Nothing truly life altering, but exactly what I would have expected. My Perception was already high enough most of the time, and gods only knew my identification skills didn’t need the extra boost, but I’d take it.

  The next set of rewards was both familiar and strange at once.

  All visual detection skills are now considered class aligned.

  Note: You have gained levels in one or more class-aligned skills while they were not considered class aligned (God’s Eye, Detect Secret, Detect Trap). As such, these skills are lower-leveled than they would be had they been class-aligned from the start. To make up for this difference, these skills will have their leveling speed temporarily increased.

  That was certainly new. Finishing Mana Feet’s trial had made my movement skills class-aligned, but I hadn’t had any that were past the Initiate rank at the time. It looked like my class wouldn’t magically grant me a bunch of instant levels in my newly class-aligned skills, but I’d get a catch-up bonus to eventually bring me back to where I should have been. Unexpected, but thoroughly appreciated.

  Only one last line remained, and though I’d known it would be there, a wave of relief washed through me as I read it.

  Arcane Vision may now be activated with advanced and composite mana types.

  At the same time, I felt a dash of trepidation. I’d be able to use Arcane Vision with spatial mana now, which had been my entire goal. That wasn’t a guarantee that it would actually be helpful, though. What would we even do if I activated it, and it wasn’t useful? Give up? Keep wandering about for years on end?

  Stop. There was no point in spending ages fretting about it when I could just check for myself.

  With a thought, I exited my class space returning to the real world. Before I could second guess myself, I channeled some spatial mana to my eyes. The skill accepted it readily before toggling on my newest variant, taking over the act of supplying it with mana.

  Instantly, the world around me exploded with brain-numbing stimuli as the underpinnings of space were laid bare to me.

  Whether I’d spaced out or it was something in my expression, Verin came over and nudged my shoulder.

  “You have succeeded.” Rather than a question, it was a statement, and all I could do was nod. Evidently having had the same doubts as me, she asked the natural follow up. “Is it as you’d hoped for, then? Something that will help us escape?”

  I was hesitant to answer her as I slowly parsed through the initially baffling inputs of my newest sense. As the scene before me slowly resolved into some semblance of reason, though, I could feel a giddy grin spreading across my face.

  “Yes,” I responded at last. “I think we’re finally getting out of here.”

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