Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex stepped into the hall of the Forsaken Grounds to find Blade already waiting for him. Unlike the previous time, it seemed that the instructor had been waiting around for someone to come bother him. Maybe the tower had just needed to wake him up the first time around.

“You’re back,” Blade observed. “And quite soon.”

“Hello to you as well,” Alex said. “It’s been a few days. You don’t sound all that happy to see me. I’m hurt.”

“I am neither pleased nor displeased,” Blade replied. “Has your body finished adapting to the changes? Pushing yourself too hard in matters like this is liable to cause severe permeant damage to your foundations. A castle is not built in a day.”

“Dunno,” Alex said. “I feel generally fine. But I don’t exactly have a little meter to check how I’m doing. Nothing feels off. Is there something in particular I should be looking for? How long does it normally take?”

He tried inching forward slightly, but this time, it was clear the room was ready for him. Pressure built against his chest the moment he tried to move away from the door. It wasn’t anywhere near strong this early in the room — but it didn’t look like he was going to get to cheese his way through any more challenges.

“It can take days to weeks, depending on how strong your body is and how intense the changes to it are,” Blade replied. “Given that this was your first time tempering yourself, it is equally possible that you would recover quickly or slowly. It depends on you.”

“Wow,” Alex said. “That’s a useful answer. Thank you.”

The corner of Blade’s lips curled slightly. “You’re welcome. The only one who will ever truly know your body is you. No man, no teacher, no king, will ever be able to know you better than you do yourself. And to know yourself is a warrior’s duty. Only you can determine what you are capable of.”

Alex paused for a moment. As badly as he was tempted to make a snarky comment, Blade’s words weren’t exactly the kind of high-brow preaching that had some deep inner meaning. They were just straight up smart. It was good advice.

“That’s… fair,” Alex allowed.

“So, you tell me,” Blade said. He cocked an eyebrow. “Are you ready?”

The question felt considerably heavier this time. It gave Alex a moment of pause. None of the soreness or weakness that he’d had felt after their prior body tempering session remained. At least as far as he could tell, he’d fully adapted to the changes.

“What if I’m wrong?” Alex asked. “If I’m not?”

“Then you will likely crack your foundations and permanently weaken your future,” Blade replied simply. “What do you think would happen if you keep digging up a seed to check on its growth? I would wager to bet that seed would struggle to sprout, much less become a powerful plant.”

Well, that’s grim.

“Right,” Alex said. “Makes sense.”

“Then?” Blade watched him quietly for a moment. “Your decision?”

“I’m ready,” Alex replied.

A smile pulled across the instructor’s features. “Very good. Then you know the rules. Start walking. The door is right there. Where it always has been. Where it always will be. Magic is—”

“You’re about to hit me with some bullshit,” Alex said. “Magic isn’t banned.”

“I never said it was banned,” Blade said with a wry smile. “I just said you can only use what you are capable of using. That still holds true. You may do whatever you see fit in order to advance. The purpose of this room is for you to reach that door. Do whatever you can within your power in order to do it.”

Alex reached for his magic. Just as before, it was blocked off. He couldn’t feel it at all. For a moment, he considered drawing on the Singularity Core — but even if he managed to activate it, Alex wasn’t sure what it would have achieved in this particular scenario.

Even if he somehow managed to use it to drag himself to the other side of the room, the immense pressure would just crush his body. The purpose of the training here was to strengthen his body. Teleporting himself over just to get squashed like a cherry tomato wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

Ironically enough, his best way forward was quite literally brute force. That was what would get him the best benefits… provided there weren’t any more hidden challenges that he could cheat his way into a better result in. That was a pretty big if.

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“Are—”

“No,” Blade said.

“I didn’t even finish my question.”

“And I didn’t need you to,” Blade replied. He smirked. “You were going to ask if there’s more rewards that you can get by getting to certain distances in the room. There are not. The initial test is compete. All that remains is the trial.”

Alex paused for a moment. Something about that sentence prodded his brain in just the right — or possibly wrong — way. It took him a moment to realize it was Blade’s final word.

Trial.

“Is this a Trial?” Alex asked. “Like, a System one?”

It’s been a while since I’ve actually seen one of those. Aside from escaping the Mirrorlands, the Initializations, and making Mirrorwane, we haven’t seen many at all. They’re clearly pretty damn rare. But I’m still not entirely sure what this tower is. There’s clearly way more to it than we understand right now.

“No,” Blade said. “It is not.”

And that was it. He didn’t offer up anything more.

Alex pursed his lips. He considered trying to press the matter further, but he wasn’t even sure what he would be digging for if he did.

Instead, he took a step forward. That was the whole point of the room, after all.

The pressure that met him wasn’t anything truly noteworthy. He barely even recognized it. So early into the room, it was still roughly the same difficulty as walking into a faint breeze. He took another step forward. Then another. Alex advanced through Blade’s room while the instructor watched on quietly.

Neither of them said anything.

Alex just kept walking.

Every step he took came harder than the last. But, before he knew it, he’d already reached 10 steps. The pressure was definitely bearing down on him… but nowhere near as strong as it had been the last time he’d been here. It was magnitudes weaker.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked. The force on his body wasn’t even enough to stop him from speaking. It couldn’t have been described as anything more than uncomfortable. “How come it’s so easy this time? Did I seriously change that much? Or is the room just less difficult for some reason?”

“Your first time tempering your body will provide the most significant differences under most circumstances,” Blade said. “The room is no easier or harder than it was the last time it was here. You are the only thing that has changed.”

Damn. Then again, I have been noticing just how much tougher my body feels. Body tempering is fucking insane. But it almost makes me wonder… if it’s possible to do this for you flesh, can you do it for your soul as well? Is there a Mind Palace tempering or something like that?

That was a chilling thought — and a reminder to just how many advantages that the strongest Outworlders had. Many of them had already likely done things like this. Many had probably done far more.

He took another step forward. The pressure bearing down on him grew stronger, but it wasn’t anywhere enough to bring him to a halt.

Alex continued to advance.

He steadily pushed deeper into the room, one step after another. The pressure built to the point where it was no longer just mildly uncomfortable. Even fi he’d wanted to say or ask Blade anything else, it would have been too great a challenge.

His speed slowed to little more than a crawl. Sweat rolled down back of his shirt and his fists had clenched into tight balls, his nails biting into the beds of his palms. His jaw was clenched so tight that it ached — but it wasn’t for naught. He’d made it well over halfway across the room.

The door was no longer a distant goal. Even though there was still half a room to go between it and where he now stood, Alex almost felt as if he could reach out and grasp it by the handle where he stood. And more than that. He knew for a fact that he could walk farther.

As strong as the pressure was, he could still breathe. He could still think. And that meant he hadn’t reached his limit. Alex still have several more steps in him.

He prepared to advance once more.

And then he paused. A small frown tugged at the corners of his lips as a thought passed through his mind.

The longer he spent within the room, the more his body strengthened. The whole purpose of this room, of body tempering, was to build up his foundations by reaching the door at the far side. Blade had made that very, very clear.

But nothing that Alex had ever done within the System for the purposes of strengthening his future had ever rewarded being fast. In fact, it had always been the opposite.

Those who advanced too quickly would neglect their Mind Palace and find themselves weaker for it in the future. Unlocking a Partial Soul Manifestation took time and effort in locating Soul Gems. He had to painstakingly pluck falling stars from the sky within his Vision. His monsters could have evolved at 100% capacity, but he’d pushed them beyond it. The same had gone for his Town Trial.

Nothing truly powerful had ever come quickly. The doors had opened, the potential had been present, but actually making the most of it took time.

Why would this be any different?

Alex stared at the door in the not-so-far distance. Then his thoughts danced back to Blade’s earlier words.

The purpose was to reach the door.

But the benefit of the room, the whole reason he was here in the first place, was the pressure bearing down on him. Withstanding it was what made him grow stronger. The door wasn’t what he was in this room for.

The whole damn room was just one giant parable for enjoying the journey rather than the destination. Somebody more philosophical probably would have found that quite amusing. Maybe they’d have realized it considerably earlier.

As for Alex — he just sat down. Going as far as possible was good. But he knew that he would eventually collapse. Then Blade would drag him free of the room, and that would be that.

But he didn’t have to keep pushing forward until he dropped. Not when he could sit here, at roughly 90% of what he was capable of bearing, for a much longer time.

“Done already?” Blade asked, walking up alongside Alex and crouching to be on eye-level with him.

Alex met his gaze. Then he grinned. And, even with the pressure beating down on him and trying to wring the air from his chest, he still managed to reply.

“No. Not even close.”

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