Limitless Path

It only took Beth a little over half an hour to tear apart the hundred golems, and she was hardly even tired at the end. She was even sort of wishing for more golems to fight, as she had just leveled to twenty near the end, as leveling seemed to be getting slightly more difficult the stronger her and Blood got. Another few hundred golems and she could easily get to at least twenty-one before they had to leave. But sadly, such things were not to be, as the golems were all dead, leaving only shattered stone and dust coating the floor.

Beth sat next to Blood at the center of her area of destruction, meditating for a moment to restore a little mana and stamina. After her rest, she assigned her two free points for her level up and inspected her status screen quickly. It was nice to see her steady progress, though a bit unfortunate that Blood hadn't gained a level from not participating in the battle. She stood up from her quick meditation and review to get to the grizzly task of body searching.

Luckily for Beth it was golems this time, which were composed of stone and…mana? She started sorting through the rubble that was left of the nearest golem to see if there was anything of value. She pushed around some of the rubble with her gauntlets, sliding them to spread them out and see if there was anything under them. She stopped when a glint of light caught her eye, reaching down to pick up a small sphere. It was about the diameter of a quarter, pure white in color, and glimmered very faintly as she held it in her hand.

Blood moved over to her and sniffed the sphere before padding away, herself looking for more of the spheres. The two girls spent an hour searching through the destruction that Beth had wrought upon the constructs before they found all one hundred spheres. Beth assumed they were the power cores of the golems, but she had no real-world experience with golems before this, and she definitely needed someone to look them over.

After the cores were collected, the two began to explore the warehouse. It didn't take too long for Beth to find a crate that wasn't part of a pile, and she took a moment to examine the crate. It was made of some kind of dark wood that she didn't recognize, with white letters printed on each side and the top in a language different from Universal Standard. She decided this crate would be a test case and, even though it was rather reckless, she started trying to get it open. This process evolved from trying to pry it open with her hands, to using her sword, to hitting it with her sword, to hitting it with an empowered punch. No matter what she did, she didn't so much as scratch the white paint of the lettering on the side.

She decided they would have to explore around and see if there was anything they could get into, one way or another. This proved to be more than a little fruitless, as they were empty handed after over an hour of attempting various crates, boxes, chests, pallets, and containers. Beth finally called it off, frustrated at the strong build of everything and the lack of any loose items in the enormous warehouse. The pair returned to the starting area, Beth lifting the smelly sack before walking up to the final door out of the area and pushing it open.

They emerged into a room similar to the one they had been in several days ago, including the spectral person in the center. There was a key difference this time, in that there was a platform with a number of items set on it off to the side of the projection person. Beth walked up to the specter carrying her sack before setting it down beside her.

"Greetings, Trial Taker. Congratulations on a successful trial completion," said the projection in a rather monotone voice. "Now that you have finished your time in the trial, it would be my pleasure to present you your rewards."

"Pleasure. Right," Beth replied with a quirk of her left eyebrow. "Anyway, what do you have for us today."

"You see beside me," he replied, ignoring her skepticism entirely, "three possible rewards. Considering your speed of clearing this trial, you will each be awarded two of these three possible items."

Beth looked over at the platform, a gleam in her eye, examining the three items present. It quickly became apparent that the options available to them related to attributes, and it looked like they offered permanent increases. Beth was a little upset that it wasn't money or armor, the two things she needed most right now, but figured these options had to be fairly good. The three items on the table had little windows that popped up in her vision when she looked at them, and they were as follows:

Fruit of Calm Knowledge

{Increases INT and WIS by 10 each.}

Elixir of Mountains

{Increases STR and END by 10 each.}

Speed Gem

{Increases DEX by 15.}

After examining the choices, Beth turned to the projection and asked, "Is it possible for us to pick two of the same option?"

"Certainly," replied the projection. "I have at my disposal a number of copies of each item. If you desire two of one item as your reward, simply inform me and I will provide you with two such."

"What about you, girl?" Beth turned to Blood. The wolf replied by walking over and tapping the image of the fruit and the image of the gem. "Seems like a decent choice to me. One fruit and one gem for my companion, please."

"One moment," the projection said and made a motion with its hand, causing a circle of strange metal to appear beside it. The circle was of a red metal and covered in intricate black runes, with the interior of the frame appearing to be a silver liquid of some kind. With another gesture, the projection caused copies of the two items Blood desired to appear from the portal. The projection gestured and the items floated over to Blood, who plucked each from the air and set them on the ground. The projection turned to Beth and asked, "As for you, Trial Taker."

Beth thought for a moment, but she had made her decision. "I'll take two elixirs."

"Certainly. One moment." The projection gestured again, and two small bottles of what looked like clear glass floated out of the portal. They were filled with a light blue liquid that seemed to shimmer slightly in the light, a small sparkle flickering within. Beth had never before seen anything like it, and she also had never had such a sudden and overwhelming urge to eat something so badly in her life.

She turned to Blood as the two small bottles floated into her hands, only to see the last of the fruit disappearing down her companion's throat. The wolf immediately sat down, appearing like she was meditating to absorb the effects of the item. Beth followed suit, sitting on the floor and setting the two bottles before her, taking one in her hand and pulling out the glass's stopper. She brought the vial to her lips and started to drink, chugging the entire vial in a blink before she even knew it.

The liquid was like a fire in her throat, burning as it descended towards her stomach. She had never tried any alcohol, but this matched the description many people gave of drinking hard liquor with no mixer. The liquid never even got to her stomach, however, as it felt like her body sucked it straight out of her esophagus and through her bloodstream. She felt her entire body grow hot before it seemed like every cell in her body was being stung by a bee. The feeling was deeply painful, her copper level Pain Tolerance dulling the sensation a minute amount, but it still hurt worse than anything she'd ever felt, even a full blast of the lightning salamander beasts. She could both feel and hear her joints popping as her body added a small bit of muscle and height, while also becoming a little denser.

The painful re-forging of her entire self tapered off over the course of nearly five minutes, Beth finally opening her eyes with a groan, wiping them free of tears before cleaning her nose on the tattered remnants of her right sleeve. She had set the first vial back down as soon as it was empty, and she looked at the second vial for a minute while biting her lip. She turned to check on Blood, seeing her companion touch the gem before closing her eyes, starting to absorb the power of the second item. Beth clenched her jaw before taking a deep breath and grabbing the second vial, tugging the stopper out before practically shoving half the vial in her mouth, eager both for the liquid and for the experience to be over.

It was only marginally less painful the second time around, the elixir washing through her body and being absorbed into every cell, strengthening her immensely. Beth endured the pain, sweat beading on her forehead, her scalp, her armpits, her back. By the time the elixir was done transforming her, she was nearly totally drenched, teeth clenched and breathing heavily. She relaxed her jaw muscles while taking a few deep breaths, dropping into meditation instinctively to calm her mind. Once a few minutes had passed, she opened her eyes to see Blood staring back at her, the projection watching both of them without comment.

She stood up and grabbed her smelly sack, ruffling Blood's fur in the process. She turned to face the projection before moving over to the door, asking, "Is there anything else we need to do or know?"

"There is only one thing I should warn you of. If you should find another silver door of ours before reaching level one hundred, you will be unable to undertake the trial. If you find one of our Gold, Gem, or Star Doors, you may undertake such a trial before hitting level one hundred," the projection explained.

"So, the different types of trials can only be done once every so many levels?" Beth asked for clarity.

"Indeed. The trials such as this one set up by our empire are limited based on level and number of rebirths. The first limiter is no rebirths and below level one hundred. I should also note, before you depart, that the Silver Trial is the easiest type. I would recommend training, increasing both your level and skill, before attempting any of the other three doors, if you know the location of any such."

"OK, really good to know. Thank you for the information and the items."

"It is no trouble," replied the projection. "I am happy to help with any other matters. If you have nothing else, then the door behind me will lead you back out whichever trial door you used to enter this space."

Beth simply nodded in response, not really bothered much about being shorter in her goodbye to what she guessed was basically a computer program. She headed forward, passing the projection, and approached the double door, this one with script engraved on it. It was the same type of door she had used to enter, and she pushed the door open and stepped through quite confidently, Blood following behind her. The two found themselves back in the cave they had departed from days ago, though through the magic of time dilation, only around three hours had passed.

They made their way out of the cave before Beth easily hopped up on Blood's back, only slightly further from the ground than before their first Trial adventure. She held her sack in front of her as she gripped Blood's mane with her left hand, squeezing just a little with her knees to stay mounted and stable. Blood shot off like a bullet, the surroundings blurring by the two girls as the wolf made for the CRA Hall, circling around the town they had found themselves on the far side of during their earlier scouting.

It took hardly any time at all to reach the CRA building, Blood's fairly ludicrous DEX combined with peak copper Swift letting her move like a bolt from the blue. Even the forested terrain was nothing to her, her pace remaining essentially the same even trotting through the woods. Beth hopped off her back once they were at the steps to the main entrance, trotting up the stairs and into the lobby side-by-side with the wolf.

She was rather surprised to see the lobby had more than just two of the senior Enforcers present, and she quickly scanned the crowd with Identify before relaxing. Everyone but Tazeen and John were either level zero or level one, likely unable to do anything to her even with a firearm. Not that she would take any chances, but she certainly wasn't worried, even not counting in Tazeen and John's absolutely bonkers strength.

"Dear God, what happened to you?" exclaimed one of the women in the group.

"I was fighting. Enough that I can afford actual armor now," Beth replied coolly. She had not been super impressed by any of her interactions with other Earth humans at the CRA Hall so far, and she wasn't going to be overly friendly with total strangers here from now on.

"Oh honey, let me help you out," the woman, undeterred, approached her across the lobby. Beth, however, wasn't having any of it. As the woman drew close to her, Beth made a gesture to Tazeen, who had raised a brow at her, stopping him from interfering. She then drew her sword in a blindingly quick motion and pointed it at the woman, who took another step before coming to a stop, nearly impaling herself on the blade.

"I don't know you, and I certainly don't need your help. Randomly approaching people you don't know in this new world might get you in all kinds of trouble, some you don't expect," Beth said to her.

"What are y-" the woman started before she was interrupted by Tazeen.

"That young lady is a member of this Hall. If you had attempted to approach her further, I would have interfered, and I can assure you, I am far stronger, and far less polite about such matters, than she is," he intoned coldly, the patterns in his eyes glowing brightly.

While the rest of the room, except John, who was muttering under his breath, was staring at Tazeen in shock, Beth and Blood took the opportunity to slip through the lobby and into the back rooms.

"What, wait, why can she walk back there?" Beth heard one of the men say as she walked down the corridor, laughing as she heard John curse, feeling his aura surge as well as she strode away.