She had to use a bit of strength. Though the rain did help loosen the soil. Needing to sit in the rain to allow it to clean herself before giving herself a once over with her mana. She had underestimated the amount of damage she had taken in the past few days. It changed much of what she had to do. During the first night the slave ego was fine until a point. She very quickly realized she had forgotten about the food and water that her slave ego had been ingesting and needed to waste a little bit of mana to burn the impurities in the body. Still she wasn’t a normal person so the effects were very light.
When she got up and moved nobody had noticed her even when she didn’t use a single ounce of mana. This was because they were all heavily drugged. And because of this she could feel a number of things moving in the shadow. At this point it was similar to a horror story as the shadows no longer kept itself at bay as everyone had entered a deep sleep and wouldn’t be easily disturbed. Those that would were sedated and wouldn’t even be able to awake even if they wanted to. Even still they didn’t immediately move in but waited for the sparse fire in the camps to die out some.
She started hiding her existence and just watched a particular camp. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was staring daggers at the man or if it was because of luck. The creatures didn’t eat him first but went for the children. It appeared they liked the soft tender meat before going for the people with more impurities. It was also possible the children would be least affected by the toxins in the berry and water. Regardless of which the man was given a bit more time. His position was also good.
Though she knew she was particularly responsible for that. Even if she took everything away from the slave ego to the point they didn’t even have information on how to speak it wouldn’t change that it was just a very tiny piece of a whole. That whole was her, therefore if she left the slave ego in place she would have woken up and instead of running she would have killed all these creatures even with the mentality of a child. The slave ego couldn’t portray itself as something it wasn’t. It was too primitive of an ability. Therefore she had no choice but to watch from the sidelines as she hid herself.
Still the girl had chosen to take a spot on the inside of the camp so that with other camps in line there was a safe bubble on the outside of her location. Maybe for this reason it took awhile for the creatures to reach his location. She started to get a bit nervous. If he were to die all the damage she took would have been for nothing. Yet the saving grace was when she played back everything the slave ego experienced at night it was also the dinner. He had given her a large portion of his share. Maybe because her slave ego sensed something astray with the food she fed most of it to other children.
Since he didn’t take in as much, he seemed to stir when a creature was eating the person next to him. As she watched she was a bit flabbergasted when he simply watched the creature eat the other person before laying back down. Even knowing she was expecting too much she couldn’t help but feel massively disappointed. As she fought with her thoughts on what to do next there was a change. Very shortly after falling asleep he seemed to awaken again. He still appeared loosely out of it.
What happened next slightly surprised her. When the fire flickered with a bit of light he happened to have his eyes open and she could feel his emotions explode out. He slowly with a decent amount of speed started to claw his way through the dirt. She was slightly disappointed at his display as the flickering of the flame had hidden his movements so he could speed up but he was clearly panicking. Slightly startled she had to move out of his way as he crawled. For a moment she thought he was crawling towards her.
Still when she realized where he was crawling she decided to give him a slight hand. Using a finite amount of mana she materialized her body. It wasn’t actually real, just a rock. But with her mana on it, it would work for hiding his presence. But what disappointed her even more was that he just crawled over it. If it wasn’t for the fact she had taken too many injuries she would have just abandoned him. She had lost too much so she made the ‘body’ stick to him as he continued to move. Near the end she actually came impressed until a good portion of it disappeared as she realized he only knew he was using a body but he couldn’t see it was her body.
This was still a good step in the right direction. She sat on the tree roots as she focused on her injuries. During this time he stayed in the roots hiding himself as he used the body to block the entrance. There were a few small openings that made this pointless but with her ‘body’ acting as a cloaking device his presence was able to stay hidden.
Shining light caused her to open her eyes as she looked around and saw the creatures were finishing up as they were leaving. As she watched one of the creatures had passed by the tree she could see the man’s eyes open as he instantly froze as he looked at the face of the person he was currently using to hide himself. She simply watched without a single trace of emotion as he started to freak out.
Greatly disappointed she could only hope he became more impressive in the coming time. But one thing was for certain, if not for the body hiding his presence he would have hundred percent died because of the freak out. Almost choking to death on his own vomit made her question everything she had done.
It wasn’t until the third day she finally started to see some light at the end of the tunnel. By this point he had started to murmur to himself. It was clear he was hallucinating. As someone that had experienced before she actually asked herself if she experienced this type of situation in his shoes would she be able to stop herself from moving. Hunger was a force at a level high enough that if gods or devils felt it they would be no different than their mortal counterparts. And yet still he didn’t move when he reached the point of hallucinations.
It wasn’t even at the beginning level. Faintly she could hear him arguing before answering the hallucinations with a pleading tone. Even if it was determination to die for his own actions. It was the second time she had seen something worthy of praise. Thus she moved closer to the man and started to whisper into his ear as she pushed tiny amounts of mana into him. Using this method to inject her own hallucinations. By this point she had replaced the body at the foot of the opening. Keeping the body double up was a waste of mana at this point.
Finally the third. She offered him salvation. Yet he didn’t reach out and take it. Even when he was on the brink of insanity as his body wanted nothing more than to reach out to anything that could offer salvation. First was his desperation to not die. He clawed his way for fifteen minutes moving slowly as he dug his fingernails into the dry and rocky soil to drag himself across the ground. It would have taken no more than twenty seconds of walking but he was trying to be quiet in desperation.
Secondly he chose death over living because of his own actions. She didn’t agree with this but there were many ways to die. Suicide was a occupational hazard under the watchful eye of the system. Normal contestants likely wouldn’t make it to even an intermediate world. Not at least on the first try. Once one failed a trial their status would drop drastically. Their status wasn’t even high to begin with. It was only out of fear of targeting a person that was in a transitional world.
The worlds between trials had two names. Most common was the transition world, but that was only for people that had the ability to pass the next trial in a short amount of time. Each world had their own name. Before their name was different but slowly over time this was split into two different categories. The official and unofficial names. Unofficial was the name given to it by the natives that would forever call it home. The official name was given by outsiders that would travel through.
Official names were simple and easy to identify. From five levels came the first number. Lowest level worlds were identified by a five. Up to the point peak worlds were identified with one. This was followed by another one through five to identify which position in that category the world was located. Thus an intermediate world that was the highest level intermediate world would be identified as a three-two followed by a number identifying which number the world was. It was estimated that there were four thousand intermediate worlds thus this world would be a three-two-one through four thousand.
As one can imagine with such a vast variety of worlds some were peaceful while others were constantly in war. The worst were those that were ruled by a single power. Every so often one can find themselves in a world that could only be described as hell. These worlds generally didn’t last long and could have a history of hundred to a few hundred years of history. At some point a being from a higher level world will find themselves in this world and one of two things happens. One they ignore the hell in front of their eyes and would leave or two, they destroy everything in sight. Regardless of which, that will continue to be with them until the point they die.
It was easier than not to say you wanted someone that would stick by their beliefs over death. This was only a joke, how many people had actually been in a position and actually made that decision. Even if she didn’t agree with it, one of the most difficult positions to make this decision was during starvation. That alone showed that he had the potential to accept her seed. This alone showed even if he couldn’t he shouldn’t die in the process even if he were to give it up. In her current position this was extremely important. If her seed did take the worst amount of damage it could be fatal to her at this point.
Final positive trait was optional. She waited until he was in between life and death to offer him salvation and he still denied it. It should be said that he was only alive because she had been injecting mana into him to introduce her own hallucinations to sway his decision. It was a double edged sword that could very easily backfire but that was also fine. Extreme seeds didn’t need to be beggars, they were choosers. Even if she couldn’t have him, it would be extremely easy to sell him off to someone else.
In the end he did decide to accept it. And unbeknownst to her it was of his own volition. She was waiting for him to reach a lower level of desperation to offer another hand. And yet something in him shifted. He had gotten up on his own before accepting her previous hand. Since it was what she wanted she didn’t hesitate and transferred her seed to him. This process wasn’t quick and took time. Worse yet was his action during this process. He had actually buried her in a makeshift grave during this process. She had no choice but to allow it to happen as once she started she couldn’t stop, at least not in her current condition. Though she was slightly tempted to devour him and use his soul to heal herself, there would be backlash in that too.
From then on she watched him struggle. When he was struggling to survive she would kidnap an animal and inject an illusion to force it off an edge of a cliff. While he found the animals that were able to give him a slight amount of energy it was still massively disappointing. He couldn’t even start a fire. She had no issues eating food raw but he was from a line of humans that had lived far too decadently. Since he couldn’t start a fire he had no choice but to rip into the meat raw. Even still his race was so weak he barely gained anything from it.
In the end it made his first winter much worse as his body couldn’t absorb enough mana. Part of this was his mana sensitivity wasn’t high enough even after he accepted her seed. Secondly he didn’t fully accept the seed. This would take time but currently the mana he was absorbing needed to work with a malnourished body. Meaning its effects on his body was abysmal. His first winter she watched waiting to see if he would die or not. By this point if she helped him all the work she did in healing herself would likely be lost. She wouldn’t deteriorate but the act would cause a bit of backlash as she was using her mana to heal. That mana injected into his body would give him too much of a boost that it would break the covenant between gods and devils and their apostles with the system.
Thus she could only watch him from afar. She was mainly disappointed with everything she was seeing. The amount of damage she took she did find an apostle with potential it was problematic as he wasn’t gaining anything from hell outside of more mana which was not enough to climb. It was only once he started to adapt enough to start following the overseer’s creatures that she started to see something interesting. She was now a devil thus the way she used mana was vastly different and at a level that went beyond anything that could be learned by others. But what she found was that the mana sensitivity that allowed him to sense changes in mana and thereby sense refined mana by other creatures reached a level that he was able to mimic his own mana to do the same.
The most interesting part came at the end. He only showed fear when he dealt with those creatures. She had no idea when that fear had been clouded by hatred. She only paid small amounts of attention to him to watch his progress. After she ensured he wasn’t going to die she rarely went in person. Yet as he learned their mana control methods he didn’t stop following them. Even more so she felt a small amount of ambition when he stalked them.
Finally that day came. Three months before he would complete the trial and leave this place.
