Testing

Wei Sha nodded before taking steps to follow.

As he strolled past the statues of the so-called 'previous owners', Wei Sha felt a tingle after another. He couldn't wrap his head around it, but something so simple as their gaze though carved into stone thousands of years ago pressured him.

It didn't help that most of these demons were beyond hideous when it came to appearances. Wei Sha belonged to the Fourteenth Layer's type, the type that resembled humans the most. On the other end was, for example, the one he walked past.

'Damn, those freaks at the Fifth Layer give me creeps every time I have to think of them.' The Fifth Layer had a particularity of their own, they, instead of having a head, had their eyes and everything else in the middle of their chest. 'Ridiculous,' he thought and stopped gazing at the statues, except for the ones that depicted a demon from his layer.

"What's your name." Wei Sha hopped from behind the floating bubble to be next to it.

[M- n—e is ——- - --—]

'It couldn't spell its name? Has nobody asked it? He knew demons were cold — Wei Dai being a perfect example — yet this much was too much.

"I didn't catch that," he repeated his question.

[My nam-e is —— ——]

They passed the statues and began climbing steps.

'Progress.' Wei Sha let out a hopeful smile. 'This bubble might not have uttered a letter in its name; however, it learned to say the word 'my'. And when there is some progress, more can be made.'

"You have a cool name. Can you repeat it a hundred times?"

The bubble halted.

Wei Sha didn't know if it was staring at him as it began, [— -———. —— ———-. —— ———-. . .]

Thirty times did Wei Sha listen to static end and begin before the first letter was revealed.

[L— ——]

Another twenty times did he hear the letter 'L' pronounced with static around it.

[L— S——-]

'No doubt getting closer,' he thought with a smile on his face.

Still, getting closer took ten or twenty more attempts.

[Li- S- -- ---g]

A minute later, the bubble had almost perfected it.

[Lin Si—ang]

"Lin Siniang?" Wei Sha threw out a guess.

The bubble did not move, nor did it speak to him.

It continued.

[Lin Siniang. Lin Siniang. Lin Siniang. Lin Siniang] Yet, as Wei Sha had guessed, her name was Lin Siniang.

[Lin Siniang i-s my name] With the last words, she added in a little flavour.

"So fast." He wasn't lying, as she hadn't taken two minutes. "But I think you don't want to dilly dally here," he said and continued to walk.

[No, th- tests wa-it] Lin Siniang raced to lead him.

The bubble in front, they delved through many halls and corridors before arriving inside a narrow passage where the only source of light happened to be a pool.

Wei Sha took his eyes off the light showing black brick walls and studied the pool. 'This one's the same as the last, it looks like lava, it acts like lava, but it is not lava.'

Demons had a certain hunch for lava related liquids. In more broad terms, everything related to heat came to them as if it were their second nature.

Nevertheless, the crucial issue here was the temperature. Wei Sha knew from a glimpse it was hot, too hot for him.

[Test number one. Cross the pool by walking through its bottom.] Lin Siniang told him the bad news. Though for her, it was another monotonous sentence she could complete without a struggle.

"Got it." Wei Sha gulped and came to the edge of the pool.

To be assured of the temperature, he hardened his scales that protected his big toe before dipping it. Unlike the last time, however, he pulled it back the moment it connected with the surface.

'Hot!' A warning inside Wei Sha's head flared.

'At least a thousand Celsius. . . over a hundred Celsius to what I can resist. With my scales. . .' The damage he would suffer flashed in his mind, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

He suited up, becoming donned in scales from his little toe to his neck.

"Mother," he said as he descended a ramp that started from the pool's edge.

In seconds, his brain became overwhelmed with distressed signals. Starting from his legs, then his torso, his horns. Every cell in his body screamed when the top of his horns had submerged.

Still, while facing these signals, Wei Sha did not panic. He didn't retreat or think about jumping. 'Right foot, left foot, right foot.' He marched forward in the liquid, boiling him alive.

His sight and most other senses had closed for a reason or another from the start, so Wei Sha needed to proceed by feeling alone.

When one of his legs told him it had taken a step, he made his best attempts at giving the other the order to advance.

The heat resistance of nine-hundred Celsius seemed little to Wei Sha right now. He sensed his scale armour not only crush under pressure but also melt away bit by bit. Furthermore, while the scales might be scales, they were still a living part of his body.

The scales did not save Wei Sha from enduring physical pain.

'Mother,' he winced when he sensed a scale in his neck about to break.

In a situation where softening of the scale wasn't on the table, the scale would, in the simplest of meanings, wear and tear till it no longer existed. And when so, Wei Sha knew he would be dead meat in a matter of seconds. His skin wouldn't hold this liquid back.

'Left leg,' he commanded, yet it didn't move.

However, the reason for that would be the fact of Wei Sha having hit the ramp on the other end of the pool.

'Left leg, raise, forward' he ordered a second time, with added commands. The leg moved per orders and found its footing on the ramp going upwards.

'Ah,' Wei Sha sighed in his mind. 'Not today.' His scales still held, and he was on the finish line.

Soon the heat testing his horns lessened. Wei Sha rejoiced with a smile hidden under his scales.

Too soon.

The scale on his neck, the one he had been so worried of, broke. It didn't break with a snap or a crunch; it melted, not leaving a sound in doing so.

From the crack came a shock of pain so powerful it washed away his smile and turned his face into a twisting mess.

Also, a drop of the liquid hit his bare neck!

Wei Sha faltered, the pain from losing his scale for the first time too great alone.

'No!' He shouted and stamped a leg across the finish line. Half of him was now safe, and with one more step, he would clear the first test.

An enormous step considering he had a drop of a thousand Celsius liquid, gnawing against his skin in an attempt to burn into his bone and through it.

"AGH" Wei Sha let out a deafening cry as he fell onto his stomach and from there to his back by rolling.

[Fir-t trial c-ompleted, congratulat— —] Lin Siniang spoke from somewhere he hadn't the time to look as his current aim was survival.

Wei Sha screamed on the floor as his hands attempted with his body movement to remove every trace of the liquid in him. A task which made him stick his finger into his neck, or what the liquid left of its side.

[A-re you oka-y?] Lin Siniang spoke with a hint of empathy.

"No!"

Lin Siniang didn't speak more, though the bubble came a little closer to his neck.

"Are you just going to stand there? Help me out!" He knew using this tone might not have been the one if he wanted her aid, yet he held no regret.

[I can't assist aspirants]

"I can hear that!" Because Lin Siniang spoke her sentence with zero stutter, he could infer that things were indeed so.

[-o- - -]

To the last bit of static, Wei Sha didn't focus. If Lin Siniang couldn't help him, he needed to survive this with his own powers. Begging wouldn't help when demons bartered, let alone in a situation like this where he didn't even have his life to offer.

A finger poking flesh around his bone brought its own pains, but to ease the actual problem Wei Sha needed to endure it.

"Ah!" There came a pain he couldn't suppress when his finger poked at the liquid, nibbling skin as it withdrew. Wei Sha had found no way to pinch it out of there, so he had decided to minimise his losses by dripping it out with the help of gravity and directing the flow with his fingertips.

This became an excruciating task that couldn't be any faster. Millimetre by millimetre the drop turned smaller, flowing outwards whilst burning more of his neck.

"Done," Wei Sha huffed and fell flat on his back.

When he did so, Lin Siniang hovered over his face. [Shal- we contni-e?]

Wei Sha grazed his neck, testing his skin and seeing if blood was flooding from the wound. 'At least it had the decency to burn so hot I didn't get any bleeding.' He found no blood, and his skin appeared to be fine as it could be given the circumstances.

So Wei Sha stood up, shifting his head towards Lin Siniang. "Sur—" He didn't get far before a shock hit him.

'I missed a droplet?' Wei Sha, acting with instinct, dropped back on the floor.

His hand went for a check.

'A scare.' It wasn't anything serious, just muscle damage.

[Can aspirant contin-ue?] Lin Siniang asked as she transformed into a spear, aiming its tips right between Wei Sha's eyes.

"Yes!" Wei Sha jumped to his feet, not minding the pain anymore.