Chương 374: The First Step into the Trials

As I stood at the top of the staircase at the foot of the great tree, I felt a twinge of anxiety. I looked at the ground below us, and saw hundreds of people clustered around the base of the tree. I could barely see them, but something about the undulations of the crowd made me feel uneasy. These were the people of the Sanctuary. They knew that I was a hero. Many of them knew that Felix had made the boots the city guard now relied on for defense against low level threats. They were counting on us.

I didn't want to let them down. I gulped, and tried to fight off my nerves. This wasn't the first time people had counted on me. During our first life, I had planned to lure a great ocean monster to the surface, and destroy the Megailian fleet before they reached our islands. This wasn't much different - except for the fact that I could see the sheer number of people counting on me. We hadn't told anyone that we were coming today, apart from our parents and Elder Veridian.

For so many people to gather anyway, the elder must have let some information slip. Was this her goal? To remind us of how many people would be hurt if we failed? I sighed, but decided not to hold it against her. She had originally said that we would probably fulfill a role closer to moral support, rather than upfront combat, largely due to our limitations in comparison to the natives of this world. Since that was the case, her letting people know about our trip up the special 'hero stairs' was pretty normal.

Just seeing us walk up an invisible staircase that nobody else could access would work to confirm our identities as heroes - and to boost the morale of the city. Still, it certainly didn't help my nerves any. Anise squeezed my arm, and I blinked in surprise.

"It's going to be all right," said Anise, as she smiled at me.

"Just keep moving forward. We'll do our best, but at the end of the day, what matters the most is our research. You and Sallia still have a third ability rune that you haven't used yet, and we know what we're missing to make an artificial sun. We'll see if we can get it from the hero trial somehow, and if we can't, we'll find a way to make things work. This trial doesn't mean much - so relax!" Anise beamed at me. I felt the corner of my lips twitch in response, before I gave in and smiled.

Then, I pulled Anise into a hug.

"You're right. I'm nervous, but at the end of the day, our research is what matters. We've found a way in every other world - this one won't be an exception," I said, pointedly ignoring the second world where we had very much not found a way.

"At the very least, we'll try our best," said Felix, as he flashed a grin at me.

"That's all we can do, after all. We aren't gods - we're just people doing our best. So let's keep doing our best."

"All right, ready?" asked Sallia. I nodded, and the four of us took the last step upwards. There was a flash of white light, and suddenly, we were somewhere else. Or, perhaps more accurately, I was somewhere else. My friends were no longer by my side. I felt a surge of panic, but before I could fully process the fact that my friends were missing, a new System message appeared in front of me. Current Heroes are determined to have reached the proper level of physical maturity for further upgrades.

You will not lose anything while choosing upgrades to your body, mind, or Skills, and there is no risk of any damage to you. That being said, you can still choose to undergo your hero trial later, if you choose to do so. To exit this space and return to your original position, please say 'allow me to exit!' as loudly as you can. If you do so, the trial will teleport you out. Special notes: the Hero 'trial' is meant to give you benefits and strengthen you - but it is still a trial.

The better you do, the better your rewards will be. However, if you wish to skip this trial and just take the rewards, please insert your 'hero token' into the door. This will skip the entire process, but give you all of the relevant rewards. Special note - doing this will give you drastically weakened Achievement rewards, since you will not have genuinely earned any of these boosts with your own willpower or abilities. Therefore, it is not recommended.

However, if you either don't care about Achievement rewards in this world, or simply don't have confidence in passing, this is a viable alternative to a difficult trial. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. If you have lost or forgotten to bind your hero token to an item slot, please contact #$*#&$ by yelling (Error: Missing File) for a replacement and further assistance. I winced.

I wouldn't have minded skipping the 'hero trial' and just taking the rewards. I was sure that creating an artificial sun would give us more than enough rewards, if it worked, and I had no clue how hard the trial would be. If we died during the trial, it would be a huge loss. I suspected that, at least in our case, the risk to reward ratio was wildly unbalanced. Sadly, we didn't have any 'hero tokens.' I wondered if that was something that people who got to this planet 'properly' would have?

Since we had taken a pirated route into this dimension, it was hard to know what information or objects 'normal' heroes would have that we were missing. I sighed, and decided not to think about it. In any case, there was nothing we could do to fix things. Given what had happened to the Market, I doubted we would have survived trying to enter this dimension through the 'proper' entrance, either. Being able to get here in the first place, and find a way to be useful, was already lucky enough.

After I finished scanning the System message, I realized I hadn't contacted my friends yet. <You guys all right? > I asked. <Yeah, I'm fine. I do wish the teleportation was a little bit less bright, though. It nearly blinded me, > said Felix. <I don't see you three. I take it that means that we all got teleported to different places? Are you three also in a giant white glowing void? > <Yup, > said Sallia. <I'm also standing in the middle of a giant, glowing white void.

Honestly, it looks kind of like the inside of a cloud, although I can't say I like the effect much. Makes me feel like I should be falling. > I looked down, and shrugged. I kind of liked the style of the trial's 'waiting room,' but I could see why Sallia didn't like it. If I tried to look through the floor, it did make my stomach feel a touch queasy… <Oh, there's more information, > said Felix, a few moments later. <Ask the weird message for details about what you can get as a reward.

I thought that we would all get the same reward, but it looks like we can customize a bit. > I blinked in surprise, before I did as Felix suggested and mentally 'queried' the System message about what kinds of rewards I could receive. Trial of Heroes Hello user ______. Naturally, every transmigrator has a different build, and some things that would work well for some people would work poorly for others.

A Strength boost would be pretty useless for someone trying to act like a traditional mage, for example, and some builds might benefit greatly from some kind of 'heat resistance' build while others would barely have a use for them. Thus, the Trial of Heroes allows you to select a very wide range of rewards. We have no way of knowing exactly what your build needs, so instead, you can tell US what you need, and we will set the trial to give you pieces of it as a reward. There are some limitations, but not many.

If you need suggestions, try asking the AI for 'build advice'. The AI is not very advanced, but it can at least give you a few suggestions to help you get started! Good luck, Heroes! I blinked in surprise. Felix was right. The Trial had far more options for rewards than I had initially thought there would be - far more than I had hoped for, in fact. Before we entered, I had expected a stat boost - perhaps a very large one, but nothing too out of reach for the rest of this world's inhabitants.

However, this was far beyond that - it allowed me to potentially create something build defining, even if it would be hard to keep it 'permanently.' I could see how heroes came to be so dominant in this world's history. If every single one of them could create a skill that perfectly rounded out their build the moment they turned fifty, they would have yet another huge advantage over the natives. I only thought about it for a moment, before I asked the trial a new question.

"Can physical objects be given as rewards?" Yes. Some limitations apply, but almost any physical object can be created and given as a reward for the trial so long as it doesn't utterly violate the laws of reality in this world. Do keep in mind that physical objects can break or be lost, though. You would likely be better off grabbing a new Skill or a Stat boost of some kind - but do what makes the most sense to you. I grinned, as a thought struck me.

"In that case… can I get a spherical sheet of glass, which allows light through it, but no other form of dimensional law interaction inside of it?" I asked. The object you have requested is possible. It is calculated to be worth the value of the first two stages of the trial, meaning that if you reach the third and final stage of the trial, you can choose another reward. Would you like to set it as your first reward for the trial? I grinned. I knew exactly what our group needed from this trial now.

All we had to do was work out what other rewards our group might need to create an artificial sun, plan who would get each item, and then pass the trial.