Diane followed them and stepped through the mountain. It was at this point that they saw a sight that raised thoughts. For Aiden and Connor, this was a very familiar sight, one that they had seen and walked through before, however, it was wrong in the order that it appeared.For the rest of the group, their thoughts ran back to memories of Aiden and Connor explaining their experiences. They also figured that the order was not as it should be, despite fitting the description that was given.As for Princess Eleanor and Eloise, their thoughts were a lot different. Their only memories of anything similar to the sight were through Aiden's explanation of 'the plan'. They were very surprised by this sight, and the order meant nothing to them as they glanced at Aiden simultaneously.At the same time, Aiden and his group crossed the threshold, stepping out of the mountain into the grasslands with an overwhelming resemblance to the one that they knew in one way or the other. The crowd of arcana
At the gates of the third community that they came across on their way, Fraser and his men looked out of the window of the carriage. They had gone through two other communities, and now that they got to the third community, they found a trend.The farther they went, the smaller and less developed the communities were. This was also very understandable, given that the farther they went, the closer they came to the boundary.They had been traveling at a relatively slow speed. Fraser did not explain his reasoning for doing this and his men did not question this decision after he told them that They should leave this particular one to him… As they entered the community, they found that people came out of their houses or looked at them from the windows, curious as to who was passing by.With this kind of reaction to their passage in the last two communities, the men had formed a rough understanding of why they were doing this.Looking past every person that came out to see them, Fraser see
"We need to do something to avoid getting destroyed by any beast that shows up", Tristan of the house Grist, started the conversation with a massive conundrum.In his relatively husky voice, as well as his oversized frame, he looked and sounded like someone who shouldn't be taking part in this test. This made it so that his voice drew enough attention, such that they listened to him.They all agreed with what he said and responded with nods of agreement, shown to varying degrees. There were more than fifty party leaders there, including the nobles. So, Eugene pitched in a much more reasonable tone, "if you have any ideas, it would be very helpful to share them with us", he said.You could almost see the gears turn in their minds as they all considered ways that they could fix this issue. They knew the horror of the attacks well enough, having gone through one already.For a moment, every person there fell into a ruminative mode, and the silence persisted. But this was until a hand sho
"Move", Hadrian and Tristan shouted at the same time, speeding up the process of choosing sides… And as you would expect, only a few people were indecisive, bouncing back and forth between the choices laid out for them before ultimately choosing to sign away their freedom.No one had chosen to be an outlier, standing against everyone else to hold onto the idea of freedom. They had all decided that the rules were okay with them and that they would follow them even though, they did not know if the rules were reasonable or not.Oscar looked over the crowd and nodded, "since that is the case, the second rule is this: order is paramount, which means that, if any of the party leaders, as well as we nobles, give an instruction, you are to follow them immediately, and without question… Of course, if a party leader uses this power unjustly, or orders anything immoral of you, you can report to any of the nobles and we will see that the party leader is stripped of his authority.In addition to t
"The next test will be a test of your strength. No one cares what your bound artifacts or any others like that are, all we need to see is your base strength... So, what do you say to arm wrestling?", Eugene said to them.They were taken aback for a moment, but it was a relatively quick way to determine their base strength. The good part there was that activating their fighting techniques gave a boost to the body, even if they did not actively use the moves."You will be ranked based on the number of wins you get; this means that you wrestle with everyone. So, pick someone and begin", he gave the order.It was that simple and they got to it immediately. The atmosphere grew heavy as the force of fighting techniques came pouring out of more than half of the Arcanas who were there.This was understandable, because, fighting techniques were a commodity that could be bought with points in this test world.Same as advancement elemental potions, they cost a lot of points, but many managed to
"Three days?!", Raven started."Oh, don't get worked up, it was more like two and a half days", Princess Eleanor chipped in.Unfortunately, this did not change the reaction Raven had; in fact, her reaction got worse at that moment as she got frantic and almost lost her mind as she looked around."Calm down, Raven. Things are not as bad as you think. We are out of the grassland maze; of course, we had to wait for everyone to de-petrify before we continued…", Deirdre explained."So, what trial do we have now?", Raven asked and immediately got a response."Oh, the long rope bridge, strung across the chasm that has a tentacled beast living in it", Deirdre responded like that piece of information was of no consequence.Raven was silent as she stared off into space for a moment. When she got her mind back, she asked almost immediately… "Are we crossing now that I am awake?"A question to which Princess Eleanor answered in a snarky and sarcastic tone… "Hopefully". Her comment got a few gazes
With Aiden and Connor leading the way, they stepped onto the rope bridge. The silence that fell on them at that was quite unnerving, but it helped them keep their focus. This meant that their reactions were spot on as they responded immediately to Aiden making any signals.This was the moment that they finally understood the danger that lay in the chasm beneath them. Apart from the scary chasm that looked like a bottomless pit, a sight that already promised them death should they fall into it, there was something else living in the chasm, and the dreadful atmosphere it brought with evidence of its existence sent chills running their spines. The conclusion here was very simple, there was trouble and they needed to be careful.Listening carefully, they heard the silent rumbles gradually fade away, taking with it the tense atmosphere they felt. You would expect Aiden to make a sudden dash to get across as quickly as possible, but he didn't. He was taking no chances, so continued steadily
Raven who had suggested was the first to move, and the moment she did, everyone else followed her one after the other. They got to the stone coffin amidst their careful creeping without any problems. The unnerving feeling that they felt from the statues kept them on their toes as they expected everything to go wrong at any moment. "Now what", Raven asked. Aiden and Connor stepped here, and as he instructed; "Keep an eye out", the two of them pushed the lid off the stone coffin. They were right to be worried, because the moment the stone coffin opened slightly, light burst out of the opening. They were taken aback by this absurd light show, however, the light was like a tonic, one that breathed life into the surrounding. Life into the several warrior statues that lined the walls. Each of their eyes opened with a snap, glowing a bright orange, followed by cracks that came from the loosening of the joints on the statues. Gadiel was the first to speak regret about the situation, but