Chapter 14: "Adept trials"

Finishing watching after the last projection in the field, a quite dissatisfied boy appeared from the building. A man in a mage's robe patted him before letting him return to other children. He talked a bit with his colleague before moving in the direction of his table near the entrance while his colleague moved to the square and left together with the children.

The "Adept trials" structure was created using a unique method that allowed challengers to enter into the unique illusionary space with a copy of their physical body. Inside those spaces, challengers could only use magic and had to survive in those illusionary spaces. In there, challengers would meet different situations, obstacles, and enemies created according to the memories of the creator of the trials. Each entry to the trial consumed a lot of mana, so all challengers needed to spend merit points as a payment for the right to enter into the trial, but Theo had plenty of them and didn't need to worry about it.

Several moments later, when children and a mage left the square, Theo smiled and approached the "Adept trials", and a moment later he was standing in front of the man in mage's robe.

"Greetings, young master. Do you want to pass the same trial as was now?" asked a man in mage's robe, looking at him. "In case, you don't know, there are several trials that you can pass: Field trial, against the group of wolves, is the easiest one where you just have to survive the wolf attack, the forest trial - test for adaptation to the changing environment and survivability. The others are ..."

"I choose forest trial," said Theo, interrupting the man in mage's robe.

The man in mage's robe nodded before finishing registering Theo before standing and showing him the way.

A short time later, Theo closed his eyes, sitting in a lotus position while the man in mage's robe looked at him for the last time before returning to his place.

***

Opening his eyes, Theo saw many trees around him. He looked around, studying the environment he got into.

There were green trees and bushes around the open space where he was laying. However, several moments later, indistinct sounds began coming from the direction of the bushes.

Quickly jumping on his legs, Theo adjusted his stance and began chanting spells. Moments later a fireball appeared on his right hand, while he continued to chant the 2nd spell. At the same time as he finished his 1st spell, the sound from the bushes intensified, and it became clear that a group of something was coming towards Theo.

Understanding that it might be anyone, including the group of dangerous animals, Theo finished chanting "Earth wall", creating a wall below him, creating a safe distance between him and the ground.

When the wall stopped moving, Theo finally noticed the culprits of those sounds, looking at them 1 meter above than before, and a moment later several big, grey wolves appeared from the bushes and moved in Theo's direction.

Though they were quick, Theo had a vast battle experience, it wasn't difficult for him to read through their movements and predict the pattern of their movements, so he launched a fireball in the direction of one of the wolves.

The ball of fire moved quickly through the air, approaching the wolf that was descending from the jump just at the time when it couldn't evade or dodge Theo's spells. So, it became inevitable and a moment later when it landed on the ground, the fireball hit the wolf, hurting and burning it in the process. The fireball hit the wolf, igniting its fur, and moments later, it was engulfed in flames and fell several meters away from the place it landed.

The other 5 wolves taught, using a real example quickly slowed down their speed a bit, preparing themselves to evade any spells, and moments later they incircled Theo from all the sides and began climbing up using their claws.

One of the smallest and lightest wolves was faster than other wolves and quickly climbed half of the wall, so Theo chanted an "Ice arrow", nailing down it to the ground. A moment later, blood appeared from the hole in the stomach of the wolf, and soon it stopped moving.

The other 4 wolves roared and their eyes became red, increasing the speed with which they were climbing. They have already reached half of the small tower, when Theo finished chanting another "Earth shield", and increased the height of his tower even further, making all the wolves fall back to the ground.

It became pretty obvious that their hunt became much more difficult, but they have already lost 2 of their brothers and had no desire in retreating without the fresh meat of their enemy, making their death useless. Besides, it became clear that those wolves have already met with adepts and had the general idea when they were close to mana exhaustion. So, they roared, looking vengefully at Theo before climbing the wall once again while Theo continued to bombard them with fireballs and ice arrows.

The wolves had an advantage in terms of speed when they were standing on the surface but were vulnerable when they began climbing the wall. Theo knew about that short time period and decided to trick them to make a mistake. He concentrated his attention on one side of his tower, behaving as if he forgot about the other side behind him. At first, wolves continued to evade his attacks on the ground, carefully watching after every Theo's move, but soon when Theo seemed to totally concentrate on three wolves in front of him, the last wolf slowly approached the tower from behind and began climbing. Of course, Theo noticed that wolf but continued to act, up till the moment when it reached the middle of the tower, and only at that moment, he unleashed one of his spells to finish his enemy.

Half an hour later, Theo killed another wolf with his "Ice arrow", leaving only 2 wolves on the ground.

Those 2 wolves got exhausted from constant jumps and dodges, they looked at each other before beginning retreating and disappearing behind the bushes.

Watching after the disappearance of the wolves' backs, Theo released a sigh of relief, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.

Theo spent more than half of his mana in his mana reserve during this short battle, so sat in the lotus position, and began gathering mana.

It was already the beginning of the night when he opened his eyes, the stars have already appeared, illuminating the skies while the forest dived into slumber.

Theo looked at the dark trees and saw a long line of dark green color that stretched in all directions. He tried to see as much as possible, saw something resembling the open space a bit further on the south, but it was already dark, and he couldn't discern anything that was further than 200 meters from him.

Theo continued to look in all directions before sighing and laying down and closing his eyes under the sounds of night forest and bugs buzzing.

***

Opening his eyes, Theo woke up because of the smell of smoke, and the sounds of the passing, running animals. Theo stood up and turned his head at the north. A moment later, a scene of slowly approaching fire appeared in his eyes. The north side of the forest was totally engulfed in flames, the animals were running in all directions to escape from the danger, while the thick layer of smoke covered the north part.

Without wasting any more time, Theo quickly climbed down, and moments later he was already running to the south as fast as he could.

The flame moved fast and was already 1000 meters away from him while the temperature in the forest began rising with each passing moment. Theo chanted "Moisture", covering himself with a layer of water to decrease the temperature, and continued running.

15 minutes later, when the flame was already 50 meters away from him, he finally left the forest and reached the open space he saw yesterday. It was a small open green field with small steam, surrounded by trees. Theo quickly approached steam and began chanting "Earth shield", creating a small shelter around the steam.

A short time later, when the fire reached the open space, the grass got ignited and soon everything was engulfed in flames in that place except Theo's small shelter. The flame was so strong that even the part of the steam that was passing through the trees got dried up. Even the walls of the shelter got a bit heated, increasing the temperature inside the shelter.

While the temperature rose Theo continued to chant "Moisture" as many times as he could, but the effects of his spell decreased with each new usage as the temperature in the shelter increased even further. He even chanted an "Ice arrow", creating a thick icicle just to chill the temperature in the shelter.

The time continued to pass, and soon Theo ran out of the mana, and could only hold an icicle as the only way to comfort himself, fortunately for him, the main wave of fire has already moved further to the south, leaving the burnt forest and small fires behind.

Theo spent the whole day in that shelter, trying to gather as much mana as possible in those unpleasant conditions, but after filling successfully half of his mana heart, and he climbed the wall to look at the forest and field behind the walls.

Climbing the wall, Theo saw a burnt black field, and the burnt tree remains while the smoke was rising from different places where the fire hasn't got extinguished yet.

Theo looked in all directions before making a decision and chanting "Moisture", and moving to the north.

He continued to travel through the burnt forest, using "Moisture" to minimize his discomfort, but the further he moved to the north, the more temperature decreased, and soon he was walking through the fields filled with ash.

Soon, he arrived at the place where he appeared and looked at his small tower and the skeletons of the wolves. Theo sighed and climbed on his tower to recover his mana. Just as he sat and closed his eyes, a loud noise came from the south direction.

Theo turned his head to look at that direction from which the sound was coming, but the smoke in front of him covered the skies and blocked his vision, hiding the sources of that sounds, but with each passing moment, the sound became more and more distinct.

Several minutes later, when the sound approached him, Theo saw a huge wave of water above 2 meters in height that was quickly coming in his direction.

As the wave moved further, the flame got extinguished everywhere while the trees and earth joined the wave current.

Theo quickly realized what to do and began chanting another spell when moments later the wave-current reached Theo and hit the tower on which he was standing.

The surface below Theo's legs began staggering, and moments later the tower began heeling to the left. Theo tried to keep his balance without stopping chanting the spell, but several moments later several tree trunks and big rocks hit the wall, sending Theo into the flight.

As a result, he immersed in the fast current of water. With each passing moment, he felt how stones, tree branches, and other small things began hitting his body, blood appeared in his mouth. Fortunately for him, there was a tall burnt tree that was still standing under such current, and Theo was able to grab it by the branch and stop moving together with water. That was enough for Theo to finish chanting an "Earth shield", making it appear in front of him.

Theo sighed with relief for several moments and began climbing the tree, chanting the "Fire dust" in the process to dry himself, but moments later, shelters appeared on the wall he created, and soon it broke apart, swallowing Theo and the tree behind him.

Several moments later, his figure and the tree disappeared in the current of water.

***

Opening his eyes, Theo sighed with relief and felt that he exhausted his mana. Finishing stretching his body, Theo quickly realized that only several hours have passed since he entered into the trial.

Several moments when he finished talking with the man in mage's robe, it was already the beginning of the evening, when Arthur appeared calling him for a family gathering.