Outside of the game, I continued my training in my various new fighting styles together with the real selves of the others. After a few days, Gerard seemed to lose interest in the game. When I asked him about it, he said that there was little that he, a magical being, could practically learn from a game with a magic system that could not be replicated in the real world.
Honestly, part of me thought about buying the binary magic, but I quickly decided that we had enough magic types in the world. Between runic, geometric, card magic, and the stellar magic, there was something that was good at anything we could really want.
Around the same time that Gerard quit the game, Tsubaki began logging in with her real self. This was so that her real self could use the special second account that she was given permission for, and began her Trial of Blood anew in this new game. Every time she did this, I was able to see almost explosive growth in her power, so I was quite looking forward to the results this time.
“I believe that this location will suit your needs adequately.” Fifi smiled, though she did look back at Tsubaki after a moment. “Are you sure that you wish to begin in such an environment without any form of equipment? I have done research on your ‘Trial of Blood’, and I believe that this is going quite beyond the level of difficulty that ninjas are subjected to.”
“Good.” Tsubaki said with a smile, already looking forward to getting into the game. “What I want is something that pushes me. Since I’ve already been through the standard trial, I need to increase the difficulty. However… just to be certain, there aren’t predators that are physically impossible to kill with a mortal body here?”
Tsubaki knew how strong she was, and how much she would need to challenge herself to get the level of training that she desired. However, at the same time, she was well aware of her limits. If she put herself in an area inhabited by god-level threats while maintaining the power of a child, there was no purpose to her training.
“Indeed.” Fifi nodded her head. “Following your request, I have narrowed the search results to include only organic lifeforms and habitable areas. Of those, this is the one best fitting your requirements.”
Tsubaki grinned at that, before adding on her last request. “In that case, one more thing. If I die, please reset my character and put me in a different area. Each attempt should feel like the first one, so I don’t want access to any skills, items, or shelters that I had previously built, and all of the plants and animals should be unfamiliar to me.”
Fifi’s eyes widened at that, no longer believing that the trial was even remotely possible. She had imagined Tsubaki gradually learning the environment, accepting her losses and using them to grow. Instead, she wanted to have to get it right in one try, with no knowledge or preparation that would assist her? “I… can do that.” Fifi agreed hesitantly. In the worst case scenario, Tsubaki could simply change her mind later.
Tsubaki nodded her head with a smile, before a thought crossed her mind. “You use a level-less system for Fragments of Acidia, right? How does someone increase their energy reserves without access to the different classes?” This was the bare minimum knowledge that she would need if she were going to be performing her trial, something that would be seen as common sense to anyone doing it in real life.
Fifi let out a relieved sigh when Tsubaki asked that, having worried that she truly wanted to enter the game with nothing. “Typically through the use of potions or other alchemic products. There are raw materials in the world that will allow you to gain small amounts of energy with their consumption, but they are far more effective when refined into a suitable potion.”
“Keep in mind that the same potion will have diminishing returns if you continue to use it. To compensate, you will need to use recipes with different primary ingredients. If you had access to the galactic market, purchasing such potions would be simple. In fact, there are many people that have drastically increased their mana or ki reserves by buying such potions, and then enjoying the results in the real world.”
Tsubaki shook her head, directly refusing to use the market like that. “If I could, I’d disable the tutorial fairy directly. But, you said that isn’t allowed, so I’ll just refuse the individual tutorials as they appear.”
Fifi gave a somewhat bitter smile at that. “Sadly, the tutorial fairies, as you call them, attach to each player automatically as part of the system, and it is one aspect I have no control over.”
“In that case, I’m ready to begin.” Tsubaki said, crouching down to the ground. She was ready to start sprinting in any direction the moment she appeared in the world. Fifi looked at her in confusion, but soon sent her off.
The world faded around Tsubaki, and she soon appeared in a dense forest. Her eyes scanned the nearby trees, looking for any signs of animal life or harvestable plants. There were numerous fruits with odd colors and shapes hanging from the trees, and she would need to experiment with them later. For now, she hugged one large tree, and began scaling its surface using only the strength of her body.
In order to best replicate the Trial of Blood, Tsubaki had lowered her physical age to that of a teenager, her ki and mana reserves almost nil. She couldn’t afford to use any supernatural energies before finding the ingredients that Fifi spoke of, so she would need to manually create any weapons she wanted to use.
Moments after Tsubaki climbed up to one of the higher branches of the tree, she heard a noise down below her. Looking back at the ground, she saw the dirt shifting from something tunneling underneath. Curved spikes rose up from the highest point of the shifting mound, before moving back underground.
Whatever was beneath the surface, judging by the size of the mound it created, should have been at least six meters long. Tsubaki’s eyes narrowed, able to make some basic assumptions from the terrain and details that she had taken in. There are only a few upturned mounds in this area. It should have come to investigate the vibrations in the ground from when I walked over to the tree.
If that’s the case, I can’t build a shelter on ground level. The primary predators of this region will be either subterranean or those that can move about without touching the ground. When Tsubaki thought to that point, her eyes glanced upwards, beyond the canopy of leaves. She could see multiple large birds flying overhead, some circling various areas.
Knowing that there were creatures with the ability to detect vibration in the ground, Tsubaki didn’t dare to use her voice. The first thing that I need is a tool to carve wood. I’ll have to be careful if I want to get any sharp stones, though.
Her eyes drifted back to the ground again, before she brought herself up to a crouching position in the tree. Slowly, gently, she began to walk along the branch, testing the sensitivity of the monsters below. At the same time, she made sure that there was always the canopy above her to hide her figure from the birds.
With birds of that size, they will either nest in the top of an especially tall tree, or need to have their nests on the ground. If it’s the former, I’ll have to be wary of trees with gaps in the canopy. If it’s the latter, there will be a mountain nearby that would let them be safe from the burrowing monsters. That would also imply that they can’t dig through solid stone.
She was tempted to poke her head up above the canopy to take a look at her surroundings, but doing so would present herself as a target to the creatures above. From the way that they were circling, she could tell that they were actively hunting. She wasn’t about to underestimate the eyesight of a bird of prey.
So she kept walking, lightly hopping from branch to branch when they were close enough, or swinging from vines whenever the canopy allowed her to do so. Like this, she was able to determine the sensitivity of the creatures below, as they only appeared after thick branches broke off and crashed down to the ground.
When one such branch broke, it was because Tsubaki herself wanted to perform that test. She found a weak point of the branch and used her weight to snap it off, then quickly retreated to the base of the now-broken branch. There was still the possibility that those creatures could jump, after all.
What Tsubaki saw… surprised her. A large beak-like maw rose up from the ground after about twenty seconds, grabbing and snapping the wood. Bit by bit, the branch was pulled down beneath the ground, leaving only a patch of disturbed dirt. Herbivores? No, they could still be omnivores. I haven’t seen any animals on the ground that would disprove that yet.
As she was thinking that, the canopy above her parted, her eyes going wide in shock. A black shadow flashed in front of her face, before an unholy screech sounded below. One of the birds, over a dozen meters tall and with a wingspan of twice that, had swooped down through the branches, its claws digging into the dirt.
The screech came from the creature that it was pulling up, roughly a meter thich and with a spiked body nearly as long as the bird was tall. Which was saying something, given how big the bird was. From her own perch, Tsubaki had to hold her breath, pressing herself flat to the tree. The head of the bird was directly in front of her, facing away as it dug out the spiked worm below.
If it turned its head and took notice of her, her trial could end then and there. Assuming that she was even ‘worth’ killing for the bird. With its size, she was less than a snack. Once it had fully uprooted the worm-like creature, it flapped its wings again, ascending into the air with its prize. The new gap in the canopy cut off Tsubaki’s path forward, so she had to find another way around.
At least I understand the food chain a bit better here, now. She thought to herself, having been assuming that it was the underground monsters that were the apex predators, not the birds above. With that in mind, she began to plan her shelter, taking into account the need for camouflage.
After about half an hour of searching, she finally found a small cluster of rocks near the base of a tree. She had to give up on several similar clusters before, simply due to them being too far from the trees for her to safely retrieve.
Carefully, Tsubaki descended the tree, making sure to secure herself the entire way by holding onto different branches or protrusions from the bark. Once directly above the ground, she took a deep breath and began to shift her body around, until she was essentially upside down on the tree with her legs hugging the trunk and hooked on a branch.
Now that she was this close, something amidst the rocks caught her eye. A small, chitinous spike protruding between two rocks. Tsubaki’s eyes went wide, carefully observing the spike. She reached down, grabbing one of the rocks not pressing up against it, and threw it over to another tree. The spike didn’t move, so she risked reaching out to touch it. When she did, she found that it was quite hard, and seemed to be buried only half an inch in the ground.
Do they shed their spikes, or was this one broken off when it was burrowing beneath the tree? She couldn’t help but ask herself these questions, drawing the spike along the bark of the tree. It was sharper than she expected, easily able to substitute for a claw or fang. She tucked it into the rags she spawned with, grabbing three of the most promising looking rocks as well before making her climb back up the tree. Now she had what she needed to make not only a carving knife, but her first weapon.
