Chapter 40: The Trial Stages 2 and 3

"Congratulations on passing Stage 1 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 2."

Maria heard the mechanical voice and continued walking up the steps until she reached the end. Once she reached the last step she entered a world full of fire.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Maria said to herself as she heard the mechanical voice speak to her again.

"Welcome to Stage 2. The next 8 stages will be elemental worlds. Stage 2 is the World of Fire. Use this place to temper yourself as well as understand the element and learn how to deal with beasts that use fire. Survive this place for 30 days to reach the next stage. Begin!" The mechanical voice spoke.

Maria looked at the world that would be her new home for the next 30 days.

"NOOOOOOOO!! Why FIRE?!?! I'm sick of living in fire!!" Maria yelled. She had already spent who knows how long in a lava lake and now she has to stay in a fire world for 30 days. And the voice said there are 7 more elemental trials. Are they all going to be like this?! Maria started to despair.

Maria just stood there for a while before she noticed a large salamander-looking creature running towards her. It was huge. Almost 3 meters long and covered in bright red scales. Maria noticed that the aura it emanated was a Mid-Stage Rank 2 magical beast. She immediately took out her sword.

"Why?! Just let me complain a bit!! AHH!! Screw you, FIRE!!" Maria yelled and charged at the salamander with her Light Blade and Triple Draws active. She was just swinging like a crazy person. The first swing cut off its tail, her second swing cut off a leg, and then she stabbed into the salamander's head killing it extremely quickly.

The salamander started to disappear and turn into energy. After the entire salamander disappeared, the energy entered Maria's body and started tempering her body like how the lava lake tempered her body. She felt a burning sensation in her skin, flesh, and blood. It wasn't too effective, but she still got some benefit from it since it was a Mid-Stage Rank 2 magical beast.

It took a few minutes before it was over and Maria looked around and saw no beasts coming after her right now. She then plopped down onto the ground. She had used up most of her energy to kill that salamander.

"So killing beasts here temper my body? It doesn't feel like it was that effective since I just bathed in lava a couple of months ago. AH! I guess I will just try to kill as many beasts as I can here! I refuse to bath in more lava of my own free will though!" Maria yelled out in frustration as she gathered her energy

***

"Congratulations on passing Stage 1 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 2."

Mira heard the voice and continued up the stairs. Once she almost reached the top she turned around to look down. She never wanted to go back into that labyrinth.

'Hopefully, Stage 2 doesn't involve bricks.' Mira thought as she turned towards the next stage.

When she finished the last step, she immediately entered a world of fire. The ground was volcanic rocks, there were volcanoes everywhere, lava flowed and made rivers and lakes. There were even various fire elemental beasts everywhere.

Mira studied the surroundings a bit and sighed.

"This place might have been nice before I entered that lava lake, but after tempering myself with the lava lake this place might not bring that many benefits for me." Mira said out loud as she sighed again. Since the caretaker said that the stages would be set for her stage, she doubted that this could give her a bigger benefit than that lava lake that birthed Vulcan.

"Might as well kill some beasts and hop in the lava to test it out. Hopefully, I can get something out of this place." Mira said as she took out her scythe.

The only thing that seemed to live here was Rank 2 Beasts. They were mostly Low-Stage magical beasts with some Mid-Stage magical beasts. Mira figured there might be a few Late-Stage Rank 2 magical beasts here as well, but they are just not within her sight.

Mira ran towards the nearest Low-Stage Rank 2 magical beast. It was a horse with a fiery mane and tail. It was also a dark red color and stood at around 2 meters. Mira didn't know the name of this magical beast, but it was a cool-looking horse.

Mira gathered momentum into her scythe and went straight for the neck. The horse obviously isn't going to hand her its neck. The horse galloped away from that strike and whipped at her with its fiery tail. The fire extended and lashed at Mira. Mira sent 2 Ice Blades towards its tail and charged back at the horse's neck. The horse repositioned itself and kicked its back legs out towards Mira with an explosive force. Mira managed to block the kick, but still got knocked back.

'It seems that the back of the horse is the strongest.' Mira thought to herself as she charged back at the back of the horse this time. She was going to wait for the horse to kick.

The horse had just lifted its legs off the ground as Mira had already dodged and dashed towards the front of the horse. The horse was mid-kick when she swung her scythe down onto its neck and swiftly removed his head. The head fell to the ground and disappeared and right after that, the body started to disappear as well. The dead horse seemed to turn into some sort of energy and entered Mira's body.

Mira felt a burning sensation along her skin, flesh, and blood. Mira knew what this feeling was. The energy was trying to temper her body. It wasn't very effective because Mira had already tempered her body with lava not too long ago. It stopped trying to temper her body after a few minutes.

Even though the tempering from the energy was a lot less effective than what it would normally be, Mira was still slightly happy. At least this place wouldn't be useless for her. Mira then recovered to peak condition before running off and attacking more fire beasts.

***

Mira and Maria continued fighting fire elemental magical beasts for the rest of the month. Mira ran around to kill all of the Low-Stage Rank 2 magical beasts in the area first. Even after killing all of the Low-Stage Rank 2 beasts in the area, it still didn't temper her body that much. She then moved onto trying to kill Mid-Stage Rank 2 magical beasts. Her first target was a salamander, like the one that attacked Maria when she first entered this place. The salamander could spit fire out of its mouth, but there was something Mira realized after killing all of the Low-Stage Rank 2 Fire Beasts and that's if she had a layer of ice surrounding her body, she could face the fire head-on and would only leave slight burn marks. Mira decided to test this against the salamander. She created a layer of ice around her body and charged through the fire breath attack. The fire started to leave melt the ice and leave slight burn marks on her body, but nothing that would scar. Mira hen stabbed her scythe into its head and killed it. The energy then entered her body and started tempering her body. It was more effective than the Low-Stage beasts, but still barely worth it. Mira then recovered back to peak condition and used the remaining time to kill more Mid-Stage beasts

Maria had a different strategy. She just walked aimlessly in this world and killed anything that she came across. She was sick of fire and just used her full power attacks on everything that she saw. She wasn't using her energy that efficiently but was just taking her anger and frustration out on these beasts.

Like this, 30 days passed and Maria was the first to hear the mechanical voice again.

***

"Welcome to Stage 3. Stage 3 is the World of Water. Use this place to temper yourself as well as understand the element and learn how to deal with beasts that use water. Survive this place for 30 days to reach the next stage. Begin!"

Maria was then thrown into an ocean. She tried to stay afloat above the water to look around. She saw nothing but endless water. It looked like this stage was going to be nothing but water. Maria just wanted to cry now. She didn't even have a place to stand!

Maria then looked down into the water and saw all sorts of different water elemental magical beasts. All of them seemingly Low-Stage Rank 2 and above. Some creatures looked like sharks, fish, sea turtles, and probably others that she just couldn't see right now. Maria began to think if she can make or use something that she can at least stand on, but she didn't have anything. When she was done with this trial she promised herself to always have something with her that allowed her to stand on in the water.

As Maria was trying to figure out what to do, she saw a Low-Stage Rank 2 Shark coming towards her. It was deep blue and around 1.5 meters long. Maria readied her sword, but not having a place to stand limits her power by quite a bit and she can only rely on her arm strength. As the shark was about to attack her, Maria used her Light Sword and started to shoot light beams toward the shark. She then used her legs to propel her in the water as she dove down into the water as she swung her sword down. The swing was much slower than usual and the shark was able to dodge easily.

As she watched how easily the shark dodged her attack she had an epiphany. She needed a mount! If she could just subdue this shark and ride on its back then she could survive a bit easier in this Water World. Maria put away her sword and took out some extra rope she had in her space ring. She then waited for the shark to get close enough to her to try and subdue it.

The shark charged towards Maria with its jaws open. Maria waited until it got close to her then she elbowed the shark in the nose and propelled herself onto its back. As the shark was a bit dazed, Maria started to repeatedly punch the shark on the head. She then wrapped the rope around its jaws and tightened it. After the rope was secure, she took out her sword. She held the rope in her left hand and her sword in her right.

"You will be my mount for the next 30 days or until you die! Let's go kill some Low-Stage Rank 2 Fish!" Maria yelled at the shark. The shark still didn't move so Maria just started beating its head again before it reluctantly complied and started swimming towards some fish-like magical beasts.

Maria didn't know the name of any of the species here and just charged towards anything that had an aura of Low-Stage. The shark swam towards her first prey which was a large blue and yellow fish at Low-Stage. The fish was a bit scared of the shark and Maria so it began to swim away, but Maria was shooting light beams at it and activated her Light Sword. The fish had to slow down a bit to dodge her light beams and the shark was able to catch up. Maria then chopped it in half.

The dead fish began to disappear and turn into energy just like the fire beasts. After the whole fish disappeared the energy entered Maria's body and headed straight for her organs. The energy rampaged through her all of her organs. It didn't seem to be tempering the organs directly, but the liquid that made up her organs. It was painful yet soothing at the same time. Maria was surprised that killing these water elemental beasts would bring such a benefit and also that someone was able to create something like this. Tempering the organs is usually extremely difficult as they are more delicate than the rest of the body along with being a vital part for living beings.

Maria didn't feel like her organs got stronger, but they got more elastic or flexible. She felt like she could take a stronger hit head-on and not sustain internal injuries. It took around 10 minutes for the energy to finally stop raging in her organs. Maria felt great and was extremely happy.

"Let's go kill some more fishies!!" She yelled at the shark and the two searched for more fish.

***

Meanwhile, Mira had just reached the 30 day mark of Stage 1.

"Congratulations on passing Stage 2 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 3."

Mira was then thrown into an ocean. The mechanical voice rang out again right after that.

Mira did exactly what Maria did and looked around to see where she was. All she saw was water and frowned. There was nowhere to stand either. She then looked down and didn't see any magical beasts coming towards her, but was able to spot a bunch of different sea magical beasts swimming in the ocean below her.

Mira then tried to see if she could freeze the water around her with her Ice Dao. She was happily surprised to see that the water around her started to freeze over. Mira then tested it further and tried to make an ice platform from freezing the water. It took her a couple of minutes, but she was able to create something small enough for her to sit on. She crawled up on it and started to spread her icy aura to expand and thicken her platform.

After about an hour, her platform was 2x2 meter square that was around 20 centimeters thick. Mira nodded and stood up on it. She took out her scythe as that would be her paddle. Then Mira took out some rope, a couple of chunks of meat, and a magical beast body. Mira tied the rope around the meat and only let it hang around 15-20 centimeters in the water. Then she started to drain the blood of the beast she brought and spread the blood all around her platform. Now she just needed to wait for a fish to take the bait.

It didn't take long for a Low-Stage Rank 2 fish to swim towards her as it could smell the meat and blood. The fish swam towards the meat, but his face got immediately pierced by the spear end of a scythe. It then started to disappear and turn into energy, which immediately went into Mira's body after the fish completely disappeared.

Like Maria, the energy rampaged through her organs, seemingly tempering the liquid that is making up the organs. Mira squinted in pain but also felt a nice cooling sensation along with the pain as well.

"I see. It's targeting the water that makes up our bodies. Most of the water in our bodies is located in our organs. I can even feel my muscles becoming a bit more flexible without losing the strength and power in them. I guess I should try to kill more of these fish or sharks as this is a huge benefit for me right now." Mira thought out loud.

Mira spent her first 2 weeks in the World of Water sitting on her ice raft, fishing. One might say this is incredibly lazy for how Mira usually does things, but fighting in the water is a lot different than fighting on land. The pressure from the water along with the water itself can dull your swings, not to mention that there is no place to stand to help gather momentum or increase the force of an attack. Mira knew that using a scythe underwater would be many times harder, so she decided to get what benefit she can out of this place as well as waiting for a nice mount to assist in killing things. After 2 weeks, Mira took out some rope and a chunk of Mid-Stage Rank 2 Meat and waited for a Mid-Stage Rank 2 Fish to come over here. Mira made a noose to set a bit of a trap for the fish.

Soon a Mid-Stage shark came in for the food. It was about to eat the food when a noose tied around its neck and Mira jumped off the platform onto its back. She had an ice needle ready and stuck it just far enough inside its skull that it didn't reach the brain. Mira then tightened the noose and start to beat on the shark until it calmed down. Mira used the ice needle in the skull as a handle to hold onto and the noose around its neck to control the shark.

"Listen here, for the next 2 weeks or so you will take me around the ocean to kill some fish. If you don't I will just drive this needle in a bit further." Mira said to the shark as she tapped the needle. The shark started to calm down and stopped trying to shake her off. It would just die if it continued.

"Now go!" Mira yelled at it as the shark swam off.

***

Both Mira and Maria had the same idea of using a shark as a mount to kill more and more fish in the sea. The water in their organs tempered more and more and after thirty days they could feel the elasticity in their internal organs and muscle to an insane degree. The muscles in their bodies became incredibly smooth like silk but carried the force of mountains. It was incredibly freeing. But as Maria got closer to the 30-day limit she ran into an issue that made her feel not so free.

Maria was currently riding on a shark yelling at it and screaming.

"GO GO GO!!! RUUUNNN! No no no no! Why is this thing after me!? I didn't think there'd be a Late-Stage Rank 2 squid magical beast waiting for me!! Keep swimming little guy!!" Maria screamed as the shark kept swimming away from this squid and trying to dodge its tentacle.

Soon she heard the mechanical voice that seemed like the voice of heaven itself to Maria.

"Congratulations on passing Stage 3 of the Trial. Please proceed to start Stage 4."

Maria heard this and her body was forcefully dragged and thrown into a different world.

CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Dreyerboys

Leave any ideas for future stages in the comments if there is something you want to see. I will try to keep 2 chapters per day, but I have finals for University this week. Thanks for reading!

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