Glowing words appeared in Ori’s mind’s eye as his gaze found a sliver of silver crystal floating centimetres above the ground. His heart immediately surged with excitement. He crouched, casting several long, wary looks around the clearing as he studied his surroundings, his danger sense warring with his desperate need for a win.
In the end, fear that the opportunity might vanish as suddenly as it had appeared pushed him to act. He reached out and touched the smooth, mirror-like surface.
The crystal vanished.
A spike of fear stabbed through him before he used the command given to him by the Lifewell to confirm its acquisition.
‘Show my catalysts’
Aspirant has discovered the following catalysts:
≥1000× [Will Odemid]
≥1000× [Light Odemid]
≥1000× [Mind Halide]
≥1000× [Will Halide]
43× [Purification Halide]
1x [Disintegration Halide]
1x [Time Halide]
Aspirant has 7 more attempts of the trial remaining.
Relief and confusion coloured Ori’s thoughts.
“Surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it?” he asked himself.
From a sea of fire to simply stumbling across these catalysts while strolling through a park. Had his fate truly turned for the better? And what did finding this Time catalyst signify, exactly?
Ori picked a random direction, hoping to find a clearing or some high ground to get a better lay of the land. Then perhaps he could be more assertive in his search instead of aimlessly hoping for more gifts to fall into his lap.
It wasn’t long before Ori stumbled into a grove. In the centre stood a large, knotted tree with a hollowed-out trunk big enough to fit a Ford Fiesta. The tree seemed to pulse, as if breathing in sync with the swaying branches above. Cautiously, he approached, senses alert for any predators or traps. As he neared, a soft green light emanated from beyond the cavity’s edge.
“Get in,” Ori whispered, gazing at the bounty. Hundreds of glittering catalysts glowed like golden ambrosia.
Due to his high proficiency with specific types of wands, Freya had suggested that Ori likely had a high affinity for Light, Life, and Lightning. With the selection of catalysts received so far, her analysis seemed to hold true.
Now, by stumbling upon such a bounty, he had found a significant portion of the catalysts he had initially been searching for.
The catalysts appeared as gleaming, apple-like fruits in various colours, with a visceral sense of vitality emanating from within, making Ori feel as if he could simply reach out and take as many as he wanted.
As his eyes swept over the scene and words in the Crucible’s familiar language labelled each catalyst, better sense told him to wait, breathe, and think. While his experience with RPGs like Elden Ring and The Elder Scrolls had little bearing on reality, it was enough to make him wary of triggering puzzles or traps.
Gingerly, he crouched and inspected the trunk’s interior. Beyond the soft glow, there wasn’t enough light to make out many details, but the tree’s inside had the same lime-green, moss-coated bark as the outside. The movement of the bark, accompanied by wind rushing through leaves, followed a long rhythm, as if something colossal were breathing.
His gaze returned to the alluring, glowing treasures below. Since all he had to do was touch a catalyst for it to be instantly added to his collection, the temptation to jump in, grab the entire stash, and damn the consequences was strong. Ori was about to do just that when he found himself staring into a pair of enormous eyes. They were huge, glossy, and black, set in the bark like the eyes of a dark god. With no other facial features, it was difficult to discern the entity’s disposition, but Ori guessed the eyes held an inscrutable curiosity.
“Er, yeah. Hi?” Ori tried. He had no idea if it could understand him, but he figured an attempt at communication couldn’t hurt, especially since it was aware of his presence.
“So, I want those catalysts. I hope you don’t mind if I…” Ori said, reaching out to point at the nearest cluster of life catalysts, trying to convey his intent.
The sound of the tree’s breathing shifted as a long root twisted out of the ground and coiled around his outstretched wrist.
“Fuck’sake!” Ori hissed as thorns dug into his flesh. Blood streamed down his wrist as he tried to free his arm, but the more he struggled, the worse the wounds became. The root’s unyielding strength and piercing thorns refused to let go.
Panic welled up within him, but Ori forced it down. He scrambled out of the opening, hoping to gain some distance from the root while making one last attempt to pull his arm free. The pounding of his blood mixed with his laboured breaths and pained grunts. Numbness crept in as the thorns bit, and he realised the tree was either poisonous or drinking his blood. Either option spelt doom, and with that knowledge, a cold fury settled over him, prompting a change in strategy.
After mentally counting to three, Ori switched from pulling to charging headlong into the tree’s cavity, his free arm extended in a desperate lunge. His fingers grazed fruits that vanished on contact, a fierce grin replacing his terror as he acquired catalysts one after another.
He aimed vaguely for the largest clusters with the most diverse aspects, before the root tethered to his arm yanked him back. His legs pushed, thorns burrowing deeper into his forearm. Ori screamed, not in pain but in determination, driven by his desperate need for more power and the will to survive. It was as if this struggle was a microcosm of life, the tree teaching him a lesson paid for in blood: life was earned, there were always predators and prey, living meant the possibility of dying, and even the lowest fungi consumed and were consumed in turn.
Unconsciously, Ori absorbed the lesson. With his mangled arm now useless, he focused solely on surviving another moment, another breath, another heartbeat. Slick with blood, he tore free as thorns ripped through muscle.
As a result of the last trial, pain from torn skin no longer registered as a serious problem. He threw himself onto the remaining catalyst clusters, rolling over them in haste as more thorny roots lashed at his flesh. One constricted his throat, and Ori frantically snatched the brightest fruits he could find, the elusive halides tantalisingly out of reach, the gap widening with every insistent tug of the vine-root.
Before his vision narrowed into darkness, Ori changed tactics again, twisting his body just before a root could ensnare his foot. He dangled his feet into the nest of catalysts, grunting with satisfaction as each catalyst vanished on contact with his toes, until the root around his neck tightened, thorns bit into arteries, and his spine snapped.
Ori awoke with wild eyes and a sudden, sharp intake of breath.
“Fuck!” he shouted in frustration into the stone chamber that held nothing but himself and the Lifewell fountain.
That place had been almost perfect, a luscious garden, only for him to be killed off just like that. He was also annoyed with himself for letting down his guard and for not being strong enough to pull free.
But as he stood there, panting, Ori realised he felt different. Not stronger, not exactly, but as if some of the vitality and life he had sensed was now flowing through his blood. There was an energy to his body that made the last seconds of exertion feel like a jog instead of a life-and-death sprint.
Ori knew he couldn’t linger, as the time dilation effect applied only within the trials. He rose on legs that, for all the recent trauma, felt surprisingly steady, and checked himself for injuries or any evidence of his ordeal. Finding not a single scratch, he approached the Lifewell, drinking deeply and splashing water on his face to clear his head.
‘Show my catalysts.’
Aspirant has discovered the following catalysts:
∞ [Life Odemid]
∞ [Spirit Odemid]
∞ [Will Halide]
≥1000× [Life Halide]
≥1000× [Mind Halide]
≥1000× [Vitality Halide]
≥1000× [Dexterity Odemid]
≥1000× [Light Odemid]
1000× [Mana Odemid]
≥1000× [Dexterity Tocam]
900× [Vitality Tocam]
490× [Will Tocam]
4600× [Strength Tocam]
440× [Life Tocam]
300× [Clarity Odemid]
220× [Breath Odemid]
185× [Toughness Tocam]
180× [Breath Tocam]
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
180× [Presence Odemid]
160× [Concentration Odemid]
140× [Perception Odemid]
140× [Endurance Tocam]
120× [Spirit Halide]
110× [Virility Tocam]
100× [Breath Halide]...
…
Aspirant has 7 more attempts of the trial remaining.
For a long moment, Ori could do little but stare at the vastly expanded list.
Where greater than a thousand had seemed impressive, the new infinity symbol suggested a catalyst that was maxed out, or fully saturated, though he could not be sure.
The list was extensive, far more than the number of fruits he had felt it ought to represent. With no clear sense of what a good haul looked like, Ori chose to focus on making progress and on the obvious changes within him.
He could feel the shift now, in body and mind. Even the intangible aspect of the soul was becoming something he could sense, if not yet understand. Dying several times in gruesome, ignoble ways might have contributed to that awareness, but how it would help him going forward, Ori could not say.
Surrounded by the Crucible’s monotonous grey walls and knowing that only fire and brimstone lay beyond, Ori yearned to return to the open forest and its expansive, vivid night skies. He knew that, by the trial’s rules, the catalyst types from his last haul would be far more elusive after death. That was unfortunate, because there had likely been six times as many catalysts in that single trunk as he had managed to gather.
Even so, instinct urged him back. It felt like a warning that if he missed his chance to explore that lush forest, he would be ill-prepared for the trials still to come.
Upon re-entering the trial, Ori found it transformed. The forest had become a sparse, arid wilderness, with slender trees, exposed rock, and scrub replacing moss and grass. A harsh, unrelenting midday sun filtered through the canopy.
Beyond the environmental shift, the mood had changed, too. What had once felt temperate and bountiful, rich with life and nutrients, now felt desperate and stripped bare, tense with competition for whatever little resources remained.
Unlike before, Ori knew he had to respect this land, taking the last trial’s lesson to heart.
He chose a direction and set off.
“Affinities are fundamental aspects of reality. It is said the Demiplanes themselves emerged from these building blocks of Fate.
There are as many affinities as there are words across every spoken language in existence, yet some are greater, deeper, and more fundamental than others.
Each Awakened is born with at least one Inherent Affinity. With it, comprehension of the affinity’s deepest mysteries comes more easily, and spells and abilities rooted in it are stronger and quicker to master.
Beyond that, an Awakened can learn or acquire Attained Affinities, minor alignments that can still reshape a person’s nature and talents. It is the interplay between these affinities and classes that drives progress after awakening.
Stages of Comprehension
Threshold (1st): Basic grasp needed to use an affinity in spellcraft.
Immersion (2nd): A clearer sense of what it can and cannot do.
Integration (3rd): Affinity starts shaping the user; power and efficiency rise.
Sublimation (4th): User and affinity become effectively indistinguishable.
Assimilation (5th): User masters the affinity and may alter its fundamental nature.
There is no hard cap on how many affinities someone can attain, but mixing too many disparate ones can destabilise the Mana Nexus and reduce casting effectiveness. Before the Immortal realm, spreading effort across multiple affinities also tends to slow rank progression,
No affinity grants access to everything, and broad alignment often trades depth for versatility, sometimes closing more paths than it opens.
Just as the Demiplanes are thought to have formed from affinities, concentrated sources can spawn Lesser and Greater Elementals, powerful avatars of a single nature. Most are wild, but older ones may be sentient and open to bargains, or serve as guardians in exchange for Grace.
Some energies sit between natural affinities and main paracausal forces: the Lesser Essences.
They can accelerate comprehension, be refined into catalysts, and serve as reagents in spellcraft, rituals, and enchanting. They are commonly found near reality rifts, as dungeon rewards, within dungeon cores, and around wild Aether sources.”…
In the quiet hours between midnight and dawn, Ori often pored over the knowledge his familiar had given him. He used it to answer questions he had not had time to form since meeting Freya, for example, what the Pages of Fate were, what affinities and catalysts meant, and how powerful mortals, gods, and everything between could become.
From what he had learned, Affinities seemed to influence the trial itself, from its environmental themes to how easily catalysts could be found. Yet even if Ori’s nature leaned towards life, light, and lightning, his mindset appeared to shape the trials more than his affinities did.
He also began to suspect that each cluster of catalysts demanded a price: a challenge met, or a lesson learned. Perhaps if he had offered the tree a sacrifice or met some other condition, it might have yielded its bounty willingly.
Maybe.
But whenever his thoughts returned to that solitary Time catalyst, unease followed. He had a sense the lesson tied to that crystal was still waiting for him.
Ori slowed when he spotted ferret-like creatures guarding the first cluster of catalysts he had seen since returning to the trial. They had already noticed him. He backed away, careful not to startle them. With long, vicious claws and a liquid speed through the undergrowth, getting closer would be fatal. Though each was no longer than a foot, the group radiated hostility.
Beyond them lay the prize: eggs and broken shells, bone splinters, claws, strips of hide, feathers, fruit, and meat, at least a hundred pieces, all gleaming despite their grisly nature. He retreated until the nest was out of sight. Some of the catalysts tempted him, but failing now might remove them from the pool. He needed to be smarter about this than last time.
An hour later, he had a sharp slate shard and a six-foot branch, stripped and carved into a staff. It was thicker than a broomstick with a point he hoped could punch through flesh.
He climbed a tree to reach a tangle of vines he thought could serve as a rope, and found a nest. Inside were hatchlings that looked like ordinary birds, and a scatter of catalysts, golden feathers fluttering in the breeze. No mother or father was in sight, and Ori had a good idea what that meant.
He tried to hook a feather with his staff. The chicks lunged with unreasonable strength, stabbing with razor beaks. If it had been his hand, he would already be back at the Lifewell. Too slow to take them head-on, he changed tactics.
Wary of the parents returning, he avoided smashing the nest. He slid the staff between the chicks and the feathers, edging closer until he could touch each catalyst in turn. He was so focused on the last catalyst, a blood-red Ferocity Halide, that he missed the silent shadow overhead.
Instinct took over. He snatched the Halide as it vanished in a shower of light, then jumped. A man-sized, owl-like bird watched from the next branch. Ori grabbed the vine and swung away, stopping his fall at the cost of a raw rope burn.
After that, he treated the forest like a survival exercise. His hands still worked, but burns and torn nails ruined his fine dexterity. Without the Lifewell to clear fatigue and heal injuries, he had limited time in this environment. Leaving would likely cost an attempt, so he pressed on to see how far he could get.
As twilight deepened into inky darkness, Ori sat with his back to a tree, letting his thoughts drift towards home. A faint, wistful smile crept in as he pictured the absurd chain of victories it would take to make it back.
If he survived this trial, pushed his speed, strength, and endurance to the human limit, refined himself, hunted down the bitch who had brought him here, then politely demanded to be sent home, he would end up a superhero. Especially if he learned to use magic properly. He would probably have to hide it from the government, unless he wanted to be turned into an asset. Which meant a secret identity, because of course it did.
“Earth-world problems,” he chuckled to the darkening forest, then exhaustion pulled him under.
Ori woke to pain.
Something bit his leg. He jolted upright, swore, and ran. Within moments, he had abandoned most of what he had scavenged, sprinting through the trees with only a crude spear and a thin barrier of bark. Behind him, at least a dozen predators yipped and howled as they ran him down. He looked for anything, a climbable tree, water, a clearing, anything that would stop them from swarming him.
He barely had time.
He hit the ground hard, a snarling beast on his chest, snapping for his face. The bark shield was the only thing between its claws and his throat. Ori shoved up, catching the edge of the shield under its snout. Its head twisted, exposing its neck.
He drove his spear in.
Blood sprayed from a gash in its throat. Ori rolled aside as another lunged, then scrambled back to his feet without stopping to check whether he was hurt. His breath tore in and out, sweat stinging his eyes. And then he ran again.
He would not understand it until much later, but he had just run a marathon for the first time in his life, fuelled by stubbornness, his growing list of Catalysts, and the simple advantage of bipedal locomotion.
The next weeks blurred into a grind of hiking, running, scavenging, and frequent brushes with death. His caution paid off. He built a solid haul of catalysts, halides like Speed, Sharpness, Ruthless, Passion, Menace, Cruel, Cunning, Decisive, and Dynamic. He found new Tocams in nests and smaller caches, including Ambidexterity and Perception. A single Omniscience Tocam came only after a desperate fight with a dog-sized badger, all claws and rage.
His makeshift arsenal, bow and arrows, spear, and slate dagger, kept him alive more than once.
He could feel the changes to his mind and body. Isolation hardened his thinking and sharpened his choices. The future shrank until only the next minute mattered. At first, that focus took effort he could not sustain, but as his body began to move with growing ease, it became automatic, a kind of walking meditation that caught every detail.
And the improvements were not just in his head. After sleep, after food, after a good harvest, he would wake feeling faster, stronger, more certain. The knowledge that the trial itself was making him better only drove him onwards.
Another week later, Ori’s hands were a ruin. The raw skin had gone bad with infection, aching and weeping yellow pus. Deep gashes scored his thighs and calves, and the fever made even simple choices feel slow and distant. He could sense this run of the trial was nearing its end.
Late in the day, after securing another Omniscience Tocam, he fixed his eyes on the forest’s edge and forced himself onwards. Blood loss and exhaustion had pared him down to minutes or hours of life at most, but the thinning trees dragged him forward. He limped until the forest fell away behind him and he stumbled out past the treeline, stopping only when his lungs and legs refused to give more.
Beyond the cliff, mossy boulders gave way to sandy scree and broken rock. Ori crept closer, careful, though blood still seeped from wounds he could not properly bind. More than a hundred feet below, colossal crystals braced the cliff’s base. Between them moved alien, reptilian creatures, grazing or nesting as they watched the world above with wary eyes.
Past the crystals, the land stretched into a sparse savanna, then darkened towards something volcanic and infernal. On the horizon, the earth itself seemed to warp, as if pulled into an immense chasm cut by shadowed ravines and lit from within by the orange glow of molten rock.
The view punched the air from Ori’s lungs. It looked too much like the world outside the Crucible, the prison he had tried not to think about. When he forced his gaze away from the abyss, he noticed it was not all descent. In the distance, the land seemed to rise, as if there might be a counterpoint to the hell below, something like heights, or heavens.
He doubted he would ever reach this part of the trial again. If he was going to collapse, he would do it after taking everything he could. With trembling legs and bloody hands, Ori began his descent.
Free-climbing the cliff, every muscle in his body shook with fatigue. Loose stones slid and clattered into the depths. Each fall brought an odd, chiming music, like a glockenspiel instead of rock. He ignored it until a larger boulder broke free.
It struck crystal, and lightning exploded.
A violent arc leapt from one cluster to another, filling the air with luminous dust. The charge was strong enough that, even from hundreds of feet above, Ori’s skin prickled and every hair stood on end.
“Piezoelectricity?” he rasped.
The discovery gave him a brief surge of energy and clarity. He fought the urge to rush the descent and forced himself to think. Instead, he traversed the cliff face, watching the largest cluster of creatures below. Maybe they were adapted to the shocks, and his plan would fail. Maybe he would provoke them into climbing or flying up to tear him off the rock. But his strength was running out, and he could not risk this region vanishing on respawn without him taking everything he could.
He found the biggest boulder he could manage and anchored himself with a vine-like rope looped around a car-sized stone. Hanging above a slab already cracked away from the cliff, he steadied his breathing and kicked down hard.
Nothing, except pain.
He tried again, then jumped and stomped with both feet. The shock travelled up his shins. And then the rock split with a dull, destabilising clunk.
A slab the size of a bus tore free and dropped, triggering a small avalanche. Ori forced his eyes open and watched as it smashed into the crystals below.
Lightning detonated in every direction. Thousands of volts arced and seared across the cliff base, and the roar of shattered stone and thunder rolled out for miles. Creatures scattered in panic.
Ori was too exhausted to smile. Relief could wait; he still had to get down there and claim his prize before anything else moved in.