Enlightenment Space

Beyond the cathedral doors was a grand hall adorned with statues, murals, and engravings that all faintly glowed with a warm golden light. In the center of the hall at the most prominent place stood the statue of the God of Light doing a cool pose. Her beautiful features had a hint of resoluteness bewitched the little children.

'What a beautiful Onee-chan!' Adam thought to himself.

The origin of the golden beam of light that supported the barrier protecting the city was a beautiful and delicate crystalline staff within the grasp of the statue. Engravings of lifelike flames danced around the base of the statue evoking a palpable sense of heat.

Under the guidance of the priests, the children was led before the central statue where the Head Priest faced the statue and bowed his head crossing his hands over his chest; a gesture that expressed gratitude and respect. The other High Priests followed suit and the children imitated them.

The Head Priest turned around towards the children explaining: "Soon, you will all enter a special space that will greatly benefit your future cultivation. You have 7 days, try your best to pass the tests within to get a higher evaluation. Each stage you pass will allow you to choose one soul of an ancestor to communicate with. There is a total of 7 stages with each stage increasing in difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the more powerful the souls of the ancestors will be when they were living. Now go, you will be the future hope of this city!"

With the ending of the speech, the Head Priest grabbed his staff floating beside him and pointed the tip towards the base of the statue. With a blinding flash, the flame engravings at the base of the statue started burning with translucent golden flames and the statue above actually moved!

While maintaining the cool pose, the statue pointed her free hand towards one of the murals the the left wall. The mural which previously depicted armoured soldiers in a defensive formation around a small town transformed into a silvery vortex.

The Head Priest gestured towards the vortex indicating for the children to step through. Adam followed the older children in first while some smaller children hesitated. They eventually all entered after being given encouraging pushes from the other priests.

Once through the silver vortex, Adam discovered that he was in a vast forest at night. Examining his unfamiliar surroundings, he discovered that he was alone and at some point, he was holding onto a candle. In the flickering candlelight, the surroundings only appeared even spookier. Before him was 3 paths, the one on the left was paved with stone, the middle path was a dirt trail, and the final path was rocky full of thorny vines.

"Heh, isn't this like selecting the difficulty of a game? Remembering what the Head Priest said, Adam headed to the thorny path on the right. The higher the difficulty, the greater the reward. Before entering, Adam broke off a sturdy stick from the nearby bushes and plunged into the unknown.

Soon, Adam emerged in a forest clearing full of cuts and bruises. He looked up and for the first time since arriving to this world, he saw the stars. Up in the sky, thousands of shining blinking lights dazzled the night sky. The moon was large and round like a giant saucer and upon further examination, it looked strangely familiar.

Returning to his senses he looked around the clearing and from underneath a rotten log, he caught sight of something shiny, it was an old sword. The previous owner clearly took good care of it as it only had a few spots of rust over the countless years of lying in the dirt.

It was a difficult task for a one year old to dig up a sword meant for a full grown man but Adam managed to because of the fast development of his body in this world. The sword conveniently shrunk its size after Adam picked it up. Now it looked more like a dagger than a sword.

The next moment, a monsterous boar suddenly appeared out of thin air and gave Adam a big scare. Recovering his wits, Adam felt like he realized something. Looking back up to confirm his guesses, Adam saw a familiar constellation. Wasn't this too much of a coincidence or is this entire forest simply an illusion?

The boar did not give Adam any more time to think as it charged forward. Clenching his teeth, Adam thought: 'To hell with it, i'm going all in and if this gamble doesn't pay off, then I hope I don't die'.

Actually, Adam guessed correctly as he was indeed inside an illusion. No life threatening dangers would befall the children unless they got scared to death. Broken arms and missing legs was not a really big deal if a High Priest was willing to use holy healing arts on the injury.

Back to the fight, Adam doged to one side and hit the grass as a shadow followed by sharp gusts of wind nearly crashed into him. Everything felt so real that Adam was starting to doubt his decision. With no time to lose, he scrambled to his feet and dodged the second time but this time, he wasn't so lucky. His right arm was nicked by the boar's tusk and a fiery pain exploded in his mind.

Holding back tears, looked around for anything he could use to his advantage. A hole caught his eye, it should be small enough for him to fit in. Leading dodging a few more times, he lead the boar towards the small hole. Preparing himself for what was about to come, he brought up the dagger like sword holding it pointed up in his left hand and laid on the ground in a small hole as the boar charged at him once again.

Adam was never really religious but at that moment, he prayed to all the gods and deities he could think of opening his eyes wide. 'At least this time, even if I die, I will see what killed me' Adam thought.

Shliiiick~

The expected resistance did not arrive as the sword cut through the boar like a hot knife through butter but Adam was unfortunately also showered in blood and guts. 'I really wish this was a little less realistic' Adam thought as his tensed body softened and relaxed.