Chapter 248: Sticks and Stone
Kael continued forward through the forest with far more caution than before, his attention now divided between the environment around him and the growing list of sensations his body was refusing to forget.
The tiny thorn prick in his foot remained as irritating as ever, no dulling, no fading, no natural shift into the background like ordinary pain usually did.
The freezing sting on his exposed skin also persisted, lingering across his face and neck as if the cold wind from several minutes ago was still actively biting into him. It was not debilitating, not even close, but it was distracting in the most irritating way possible.
That alone made this trial dangerous.
Kael was beginning to understand that the point was not overwhelming him with pain all at once, but accumulating enough minor suffering until his own mind turned against him. A severe injury could be planned around.
One adapts to major pain. But dozens of tiny discomforts stacked together? That was harder to ignore.
His pace slowed slightly as he adjusted the way he walked, carefully stepping over roots and uneven snow patches while avoiding dense clusters of bushes and thorned undergrowth. The forest floor was a trap disguised as terrain. Snow concealed too much, and now that every unnecessary source of pain mattered, recklessness had become expensive.
After another half hour of walking, Kael paused near the base of a large frost-covered tree and crouched slightly, brushing snow aside with his gloved hand. The soil underneath was dark and frozen solid. No visible tracks. No signs of prey. No obvious trails. The place was annoyingly devoid of anything useful.
He clicked his tongue and rose again.
The silence remained oppressive.
No birds.
No insects.
Nothing but the occasional groan of frozen branches shifting under their own weight.
Kael kept moving.
Not long after, his right foot suddenly sank deeper than expected.
The moment it happened, Kael’s expression changed.
"Shit."
He pulled back immediately, but not before his leg plunged knee-deep into freezing water hidden beneath a thin crust of snow and ice. The frigid liquid soaked through his boot and lower pants almost instantly, wrapping his skin in a suffocating cold so intense it bordered on pain.
No.
It was pain.
Sharp, invasive, and immediate.
Kael pulled himself free and stepped back onto stable ground, cursing under his breath as he looked down at his soaked leg. Water dripped from the fabric, already beginning to stiffen as the surrounding cold worked against him.
A notification appeared.
[Cold Shock registered.]
[Mental Fracture +4]
[Mental Fracture: 9/100]
Kael stared at it for a few seconds.
"Four?"
That was significantly worse.
He crouched immediately and began removing the boot. The moment his fingers touched the soaked material, another wave of discomfort crawled across his skin. His foot was freezing, skin pale and numb in some places while painfully sensitive in others.
He needed to fix this.
Now.
Kael looked around quickly before spotting a cluster of large rocks partially shielded by tree roots nearby. It wasn’t much, but it offered slight protection from the wind. He moved there and sat down, placing his back against the stone while removing the soaked layers from his leg.
His first instinct was simple.
Fire.
The only issue was that everything here was too damn wet. Still, it won’t be an issue for his fire rune.
He carefully snapped a few frozen branches and collected some on the ground, making sure that he doesn’t foolishly get something from the shattered wood into his eyes, god forbid an eye injury that lasts seven days is a pain in the ass by itself.
Once he collected enough, he piled them and pointed his left gauntlet at the pile. He pressed on the [Heft] rune once, and it dove in its groove further than unlatched, removing it from the connection, leaving only Anchor and the Fire rune connected. The fire emerged from the red core in his palm and burned the ice out of the frozen firewood.
Soon, Kael stopped the flames as half of the area around the firewood melted off in steam while the firewood caught fire.
"Good enough," he muttered as he sat down next to the fire. The comfort was sadly also a pain as Kael realized, getting too close to the fire isn’t very helpful as one might think, that warm sensation could also get annoying if one was feeling it all day long.
Kael exhaled quietly, holding the damp boot and fabric close enough to dry without burning them. Or burning himself.
The warmth was minimal, but even that slight heat felt absurdly comforting after the freezing shock.
For a while, things were quiet again.
Too quiet.
Kael remained seated, eyes scanning the tree lines while he waited for his things to dry. He opened his Mini-map, checking to see any monsters. But the minimap showed him the worst thing possible.
[Mini-Map unusable in a trial floor.]
He clicked his tongue again. This was terrible. He hoped to use it to scan for monsters, enemies, humans, and treasures. But that won’t be the case right here.
Then he heard it. A soft, subtle crunch behind him.
He twisted sharply and threw a punch toward the sound.
His fist connected with something small and soft, sending it flying into a nearby tree trunk with a wet crack.
A tiny creature fell limp into the snow.
Kael blinked.
It looked like some sort of rodent, though slightly elongated, its body covered in white fur lined with thin needle-like spines. Its mouth was open, revealing small, sharp teeth.
It had apparently been attempting to bite his exposed foot.
"Not happening."
Kael stood and approached the corpse, crouching to inspect it.
A mistake.
The moment he touched it, several of the creature’s spines embedded in his gauntlet. But it was made of hardened metal. Nothing would pierce through that.
But still, he hissed sharply as he realized one thing: his foot, the one without a boot, had stepped on something. Pulling his foot up, he noticed one of the spines of the creature had fallen to the ground, and he, like the unfortunate fool he was, managed to step on it.
"Seriously?"
A new notification appeared.
[Puncture pain registered.]
[Mental Fracture +2]
[Mental Fracture: 11/100]
Kael stared at the screen with visible irritation.
He removed the spines one by one, each tiny extraction adding insult to injury. The wounds themselves were shallow enough to be irrelevant, already beginning to close thanks to his body, but the pain remained exactly as fresh as the moment the spines entered.
Now his foot joined the list.
Foot prick.
Cold burn.
Hypothermia.
Hyperthermia.
Face sting.
Neckache.
All still present.
Kael slowly lowered his hand and stared at the dead rodent.
"This trial is bullshit." Kael cursed out loud. But there was no one to listen to his whining.
He meant it.
Not because it was impossible, but because it was annoyingly well designed.
Every careless mistake mattered.
Every lapse in focus was punished.
Even victory carried consequences.
Kael suddenly understood how terrifying this would be for most climbers. Someone unaccustomed to hardship would probably spiral within the first day. Not because the forest was lethal, but because it was relentlessly irritating.
A death by a thousand inconveniences.
His boot and clothes were mostly dry by now, though still unpleasantly damp. Kael put them back on and stamped his foot against the snow a few times, testing mobility.
Usable.
Not ideal.
But manageable.
He extinguished the fire and resumed walking.
As he moved deeper into the woods, the sky above remained as dull and lifeless as before. There was no visible change to indicate the passing of time beyond the increasing fatigue settling into his body.
The discomforts accumulated slowly and with an almost methodical cruelty.
By what Kael guessed was several hours later, he had gained several more additions to his growing collection of annoyances.
A shallow scratch across his forearm from brushing too close to a branch.
A bruise on his shin from clipping a rock hidden under snow.
Dry cracked lips from the cold.
Mild hunger.
A stiffness in his lower back from constant tension.
None of them severe.
All of them present.
A constant choir of tiny suffering.
By the time Kael finally found a fallen hollowed tree large enough to crawl into for temporary shelter, his Mental Fracture had reached 17.
He crouched inside the narrow space, protected from the worst of the wind for the first time in hours.
Reaching shelter should have felt relieving, yet the moment Kael stopped moving he became painfully aware of everything that hurt
The thorn in his foot.
The cold in his leg.
The punctures in his palm.
The bruise in his shin.
The dry split in his lips.
The ache in his shoulders.
It all became louder in stillness.
Kael leaned back against the inner bark and exhaled slowly.
He already hated this place.
And it was still Day One.
