Chapter 24: 24 - The beginning of the test
"A man who has received the kiss of a queen... what a strange sight," a hoarse male voice, as old as the universe itself, rang out and silver eyes opened, illuminating the entire void with a light capable of blinding any observer in an instant.
"No... It's not just a man who's been kissed by a queen. It's..." The voice took on a curious tone and his reptilian pupils dilated as he watched Arthur's body float unconscious in the void.
"HAHAHAHA" The void shuddered as a thunderous laugh echoed through its confines, sweeping away all the stardust and causing all the mana in the universe to stir.
"The time has finally come... Things are about to get very interesting on this plane..." The voice ended and his silver eyes closed, bringing darkness back to that place.
***
Arthur opened his eyes but saw nothing. It wasn't as if he was still in the same dark room as before, but as if he simply had no sense of sight or no eyes at all.
When he snapped his fingers, he didn't hear anything and no matter how much he sniffed, no smell seemed to pass through his nostrils and even the usual colorless taste of his saliva was gone, leaving him with only his sense of touch.
'Shit...' Arthur cursed as he tried to figure out what to do. Sighing heavily, he tried to move forward, but ran into a wall and hit his forehead with a loud thud.
"Son of a..." Arthur cursed but was cut off before he could finish.
(Ah... a visitor... welcome to my realm!) A voice rang out in Arthur's head, as if from the depths of his brain and not from the outside world.
"Your realm? Who are you?" Arthur asked as he took several steps backward, bumping his back against another wall.
(I'm the Keeper of the First Trial, that's all you need to know about me... and this place... call it 'THE LABYRINTH', I think that's an appropriate nomenclature hehehe) The voice laughed, and Arthur felt an immense pressure on his body.
(Your goal here is simple... refine your perception of mana and use it to guide you. After that, proceed into the maze and survive... any questions?" The voice asked.
"Actually... yes." Arthur spoke, but the voice didn't seem to be interested and just exclaimed before silencing itself once and for all (Perfect then! Good luck!).
It didn't react to any more words from Arthur, leaving the young man alone in a world where he only had his sense of touch and his mind to feel and understand this world.
In the end, Arthur could only shake his head in defeat.
'Maybe I should have done a little more research before this,' Arthur gritted his teeth as a bitter feeling washed over his face. He had expected some kind of trial by combat or something, something he could overcome with pure brute force. Unfortunately, his impulsiveness had led him to make a hasty decision.
Pushing all negative thoughts to the back of his mind, Arthur breathed a deep sigh and closed his eyes as he tried to feel the mana around him.
Mana was an energy present in every aspect of this world, at least that was what Arthur had learned from Safira. From the living and breathing to inert things like a stone or a handful of sand, absolutely everything has mana and emanates it, of course in very different intensities.
Following what little he had learned about mana from Safira, Arthur began to circulate the energy throughout his body. He had improved a lot since his arrival in this world and his first contact with mana, but he still hadn't improved his mana manipulation skills by a single level, which made him very uncomfortable.
After the mana began to circulate in his body, Arthur began to send it out, taking it into his hands and expelling it through his fingers in small pulses, trying to imitate a kind of radio wave radar from his previous life.
Although he lost almost all control of his mana the moment it left his body, Arthur still managed to get a response, however faint and weak. After a fraction of a second, he felt a slight ripple of the mana wave on his left side, where the nearest wall was, and after another half-second, he received information on his right side, where the most distant wall was. He didn't receive any information from the front or the back.
Although it was impossible for him to define the distance exactly, Arthur could still make a guess based on the time it took for the mana to return and the intensity with which it returned. The longer it stayed outside his body, the more the mana pulse would dissolve into the atmosphere until it was completely absorbed.
Finally having an idea, albeit not a very clear one of his location, Arthur was able to move forward.
His progress was slow, and every few steps he had to stop for a few seconds and feel his surroundings to make sure he didn't run into any walls like he had on his last attempt.
After a little over 3 minutes of walking, Arthur began to feel pulses of mana coming from in front of him and lost the pulses that were supposed to be coming from his left and right. extending his hands, he felt a rough, metallic wall in his fingers.
"Hm..." Arthur exhaled, right now he was at a crossroads and didn't know where to go.
But suddenly something occurred to him; so far, he had only experimented with sending pulses of mana in all directions at once, but what if instead of spreading it out, he concentrated all his mana in one direction? Theoretically, it could travel a much greater distance before dissipating into the atmosphere.
Pointing his hand to his right, Arthur concentrated, and instead of circulating his mana through his entire body and sending it to his two hands, Arthur circulated only the mana in his arm and sent it to his index finger.
Arthur felt a slight burning sensation followed by a sharp throbbing pain in his finger as more and more mana gathered in it, his arm trembled with pain and his skin turned red, but he ignored it and gritted his teeth hard, releasing the energy.
A crack rang through the walls of the cave and blood gushed from his finger as the force of the pulse of mana shattered his bones and tore his skin.
"Argh" Arthur fell to his knees as he clutched his finger tightly and a memory of his duel with Gabriel flashed through his mind; the mana overload was fatal, and his finger alone was simply incapable of holding that much mana.
Punching the ground to regain his composure and feeling the pain, Arthur promised himself that the next time he used this method, he would focus the mana on more than one finger.
After a few seconds, Arthur felt his mana pulse return.
A dead end,' he thought as he stood up, from what he could feel, there was another wall a few meters away and no entrance on either side, just a dead end.
Without thinking too much, he just ignored the pain and kept walking. Without knowing it, he was being watched closely by a hooded figure whose face was completely covered in darkness and whose body was slowly floating through the sky.
"A common strategy... but still a peculiar attempt." The figure spoke as it watched Arthur. The idea of focusing mana on a single region was a well-known tactic when it was necessary to amplify or send a magical attack from a specific part of the body, but even so, it was rarely used because it was extremely destructive and in battle, it could be the difference between life and death...
After saying this, the figure's vision went to the right side, which Arthur had analyzed and defined as a trap; its walls were full of sharp thorns and its floor led to nothing but a deep abyss.
The left side was the same, but the moment Arthur used that powerful pulse of mana and felt that the right path was a dead end, the left side molded itself to allow Arthur safe passage.
If he had tried his luck at guessing the right side or simply made the wrong decision, Arthur would have been dead within seconds.
"Now... let's heat things up a bit," the masked figure spoke as a powerful shadow appeared in his hands and transformed into a dark, bestial-looking creature, like a cross between a raven and a lion.
"Go on, little one... Give our dear challenger some excitement!"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone