Theo stood In the same stone room as before, the double doors replaced with the engraving of the winged dragon she had seen. Her heart rate spiked as she thought about fighting something worse than the last lizard she had almost died to.

  Compared to any of her other encounters, that was the closest she had come to dying by far. Her fight with the bulb had been dangerous, and she could have died then too. But she hadn’t truly received grievous injuries like the lacerations from the lizards attacks.

  In the arena, if the lizard had continued to toy with her and tired her out. Or just used its superior strength and speed to out class her it wouldn’t have gone well for her.

  But that epiphany from its magic and her defiance of its control over the wind had let her scrape by. In the last moments she had seen surprise in its alien gaze at the fact that she had walked through its storm and that had given her both the opening and the pressure to seize her victory over it.

  Even now, after an unknown amount of time had passed she still felt the rush from the fight. She had won, and when she felt the chill of last warmth of her body bleed out onto the floor, she had held on. The flickers of mana returning to her was the only thing that had kept her going in the final moments. Essence had poured into her from the kill, and it fit well enough with her affinity type that it the essence she failed to absorb filled her mana instead. It was inefficient to the extreme, but if she had been a drop short Theo would have died.

  Theo took a deep breath, more to remind herself that she was still here and had survived and was breathing. She pulled up her System notifications and screen to see the change she had felt while had moved through the reptile’s storm of magic.

  [Skills evolved]

  [Internal mana manipulation -> Wind Mantle]

  [Strike -> Air Strike]

  [Body Enhancement -> Gale Heart]

  [Theo Caulder]

  [Tier 2]

  [Affinity: Myriad Wind]

  [Unique Skill: Geist]

  [Skills]

  [Air Strike]

  [Air Bullet]

  [Gale Heart]

  [Wind Mantle]

  [Traits]

  [Vigor of the Forest]

  Theo couldn’t help but smile, she was accruing quite the collection if she did say so herself.

  “Ugh.” She checked over her body, her clothes were ruined. Again. And she could see still healing slashes covering her skin where the wind blades had cut her. The deepest of them still scabbed.

  Wow… Thanks Bruce.” she said, stunned by the effectiveness of the trait the big ape had given her.

  Theo warmed up her body with her stretches while she felt out her new skills.

  [Air strike] was a further power boost to its predecessor, letting her deliver a powerful blast of air that blasted from her weapon. A quick jab sent a powerful blast of air that would cause serious harm to anything not made out of solid rock., though she was unwilling to test her fist against the mana saturated stone of the room to further confirm her theory.

  [Gale Heart] turned the strength from [body enhancement] into a wind that flowed through her body and increased its strength further than simply saturating her body with magic. It did that too, but the force of the mana moving through her also enhanced the action she was using it for. Similar to how [strike] made an attack have more metaphysical weight behind it.

  Her favorite by far was [wind mantle], letting her influence the wind mana outside of her body. Though that cost her a constant drain of her own mana, it let her coat her body in her own mana which she could more strongly effect at a lesser cost. This bled over into her other skills as it gave her more control of how they acted. [Air bullet] would trail some of that wind behind it and with difficulty that told her she would need to practice, allowing some control over its trajectory after it passed beyond the membrane of her skin and [wind mantle].

  It wasn’t the most directly useful skill, but it felt the most like “real magic” to her and it was fun to play with.

  [Geist] had seen upgrades through her skills, the unique skill shared the improvements of her others, and a [wind mantle] of its own. If she aimed an [air bullet] at it, she could use her connection through the skill to bend trajectories and redirect it in what would hopefully, be completely unexpected ways. She could also now merge her [geist] over her and use it as a less efficient boost to [gale heart] taking the skill to a higher level of strength while it drained the mana invested in the [geist].

  She still felt limited to one [geist] at the moment, but the twisting the System had left in her soul when it had bestowed the skill told her that wasn’t something she was forever limited to. Just more practice or pressure to force Theo to step beyond her boundaries was required.

  Feeling mostly recovered she wanted to see what the door told her, if she was forced to fight the dragon on the door she wasn’t sure how she would succeed. That last fight had been close, if the dragon's magic was stronger, Theo didn’t think her newly improved skills would change the outcome.

  Theo collected the ruined remnants of her weapon, the gladiator spear having disappeared with the arena, she was up a creek with a broken paddle if she had another fight. Since she had no way to effectively reattach her weapon securely, and the gladiator’s skill empowered had split the wooden haft of her spear, she ended up splitting the remaining half of her spear to fashion a crude knife handle. It was poorly made and wasn’t at all comfortable to hold.

  She slung her bag over her back and placed her free hand on the door. Relief flooded her, washing clear the anxiety that had been bubbling in the background.

  [Trial of the Wind God complete.]

  [Proceed to collect rewards…]

  [Proceed?]

  ‘I like the sound of that.’ She thought to herself as she mentally confirmed the system's query and watched as the doors split wide open instead of whisking her away to another environment to fight in.

  Beyond the doors wasn’t the stone she had been expecting. But instead a winding and polished wooden staircase that led up through what must have been the gigantic tree’s trunk.

  Theo closed her eyes, was the System playing a joke on her? Stairs? After all of that. Really?

  Theo sighed, it wasn’t really a problem. Her body was more than strong enough to climb to the top even without [gale heart]. It was just annoying. A magic elevator would have been much preferred over what was an uncountable number of stairs.

  If she fell somewhere further up, the fall might actually kill her, though she wasn’t too sure at what point her body strength would outpace the damage terminal velocity could do to it. She had made some pretty big jumps from the trees in the forest already but those had been calculated and braced with the enhanced strength of her skill at the time, so Theo figured she was at least a couple of tiers away from leaving that mortal worry behind.

  Step after step she ascended the tree. The monotony was mind numbing and she disproved her early assumption. She was in fact able to count the number of steps.

  It had probably taken an hour, but she let out a sigh as she counted the last step. Finding herself standing on a highway sized branch somewhere near the top of the tree. The foliage was too dense here to see the ground far below, but the idea of moving too close to the edge made her body feel ill. She had never liked heights, and that wasn’t going to change until she could literally walk on air.

  “Eight thousand and forty three” she stated verbally, not wanting to forget the number. An odd quirk of her brain as she walked along the branch towards a platform in the distance.

  When she reached the platform she saw a wide table standing in its center.

  Resting on the table were three objects, a feather, some kind of sword in a wide, open sided sheath and an engraved orb.

  The System helpfully identified each item for her as her eyes passed over each one.

  [Feather of a Wind God]

  [Talon of Ackrikosa]

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  [Wind Aspected Skill Stone]

  Theo grabbed the sword first, unable to resist the temptation of it. The sword was long, almost unreasonably so. The sheath it was held in was wide and more like the sheath of an axe or a hatchet than a proper sword sheath. It was completely open on one side, a simple buckle keeping it closed. Theo undid the latch and withdrew the sword.

  It was somewhere around three feet in length, curved like a talon and bladed on both sides. It had a small hand guard. The handle had an engraved pattern that Theo realized matched the scales of the lizard that had nearly killed her in the trials. It fit neatly into her hand and its weight felt good to her. Her mana reacting with it she blinked as she received a System notification.

  [Bind Talon of Ackrikosa?]

  Theo had no idea how to properly use a sword, but the magic in it meshed with hers like a missing puzzle piece and she accepted.

  Similar to when she had gained her unique skill, there was an odd twisting inside of her as she felt the sword become part of her in a manner nearly identical to how her skills felt.

  The sword almost felt like an extra arm.

  She set the sword aside for the moment as she went to the feather next.

  Grey like the clouds overhead. The mana flowing from it was so pure Theo felt it would burn her hand to touch it. Its mana mirrored that of the realm she was in, stale and lacking something.

  She felt its mana get pulled away by the wind of the great tree to spiral down the staircase she had just climbed. It was probably the source of all the wind mana in the forest. Even its brief contact with other types of mana in the air shifted it to match that of the stale wind.

  She was tempted to leave it, worried that taking such a treasure would kill the forest or harm the life of it. But she knew that was wrong. The feather called to her like a missing piece and removing it would change the mana of the forest for the better. Her fingers brushing against it told her that it was just as much for her as she was for it.

  Its mana melded with hers and formed something similar to the monster essence she had received when she killed the flowers or even the spider. It was missing something and Theo felt like her mana fit neatly into that. The feather’s essence was incomplete, but Theo’s own wind essence flowed into the mix, a trickle compared to even the flowers that she had killed. But the feathers' essence felt constant and seemed not to diminish the feather in any way. It mixed with hers and ever so slightly pushed her towards her next threshold.

  Compared to the sword the feather seemed plain, but she knew that it was probably the real treasure of this trial, a source of essence that would let her increase her strength simply by drawing its mana into herself was probably invaluable and would make progressing through tiers a less daunting task. After reaching second tier, she had known the quantity and quality of essence she would need was jumping in a scaling rate. Even the essence she had received from the trial and defeating the blight hadn't moved her more than halfway to the next tier and the slow trickle of essence the feather gave off was going to be a huge boon as her days passed.

  She would no longer need to hunt monsters if she wanted to progress and the old adage of “slow and steady” echoed in her mind.

  Theo carefully tucked the feather into the deepest part of her bag, later she would figure out a way to make a necklace out of it, but at the moment the last object called to her attention.

  The skill stone was surprisingly heavy. Wind magic had been twisted inside of it and she could feel that there was in fact some kind of skill inside of it. Though she wasn’t quite sure what it would do, she didn’t hesitate to accept the system prompt that appeared when she held it in her hand.

  [Skill gained: Wind step]

  Much like when she had gained [geist] she felt an understanding of the skill flow into her as her soul twisted yet again, a new part of her expanding and settling naturally.

  Theo wondered if the System had been reading her mind earlier. She could now literally step on air. It wasn’t flight, but the skill would let her gain a foothold made from her wind mana at a fairly cheap cost to her mana.

  She couldn’t resist testing the skill and she took a step on the wind and it fully supported her weight

  ‘That was cool.’ She thought to herself as she landed back on the platform with a grin.

  Theo was pleased with what she had received as rewards and when she recollected the sword she received a system message.

  [Trial realm complete.]

  [Title gained: Claimant of the Wind God’s Trial.]

  Mana swirled around Theo, and she felt the fabric of reality rip a glowing portal appearing a few steps away.

  She stood there confused. She had expected to be left stranded at the top of the tree, forced to walk back down the stairs and into the forest she had been in since her arrival. But she could feel the System urging her to step through the multicolored gate. She could see a much more mundane forest beyond the swirls of mana and with one last look at the canopy above, Theo stepped through.

  Vara lowered her mana rifle, the last of the flanking rats laying still as she took a moment to catch her breath. She was tired of this. The world had gone to shit since the System had announced the start of the integration.

  It had been two weeks of constant pest control from the seemingly endless wave of giant rats that had appeared a few days after the world had shifted.

  What was worse was that entire portions of the kingdom had been displaced by vast territories more often than not contained threats that could wipe out entire squads of well trained people without leaving anything more than a trace, not to mention any of the other peoples and civilizations that had been shoved into these new territories.

  The System had cut up who knows how many worlds and stitched them together like it was making a damned quilt. Reinforcements were apparently coming, but who knows when they would get here. There had already been talks of abandoning the city among some of the people but the road to the nearest city of Caphus was now more monster than pavement. Only the strongest of the guild groups could make the journey while escorting others safely, and if Vara knew one thing about how the nobles would react was that they often refused to act unless it benefited their house in some way.

  Things hadn’t reached that point… yet. And this said nothing for those too poor or too weak to even give the idea real consideration.

  The fact that these rats were large and mana dense was the only thing they had going for them, the meat they had was quite tasty, even if everyone was growing sick of it. Once their grain stores ran out, Vara knew things would begin to escalate.

  Vara’s rifle snapped up. Her skill [threat alert] had her expecting another rat to be lurking around as it sought to attack her when she wasn’t paying attention. But the skill stopped its warning when she locked eyes with a woman who looked like she had walked through a sword shop during a wind storm.

  Her evolved [threat alert] told Vara that whoever this meant no harm at the moment. Her raised hands were nowhere near the hilt of the sword she had stuck through the straps of the bag around her shoulders.

  She was nearly naked with how damaged her clothing was and at first Vara thought she was some poor traveler who had been dragged away by the rats, but besides the healing wounds that covered the woman, she looked completely uninjured and was wearing clothes in a style that Vara had never seen before.

  “Uh- Sorry…” the woman spoke, her voice holding an edge of nervousness to it as she stared at the barrel of Vara’s rifle. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just haven’t seen anyone in weeks and was hoping you could tell me where I am?” She took a step back, her hands still raised at her shoulders.

  “Sorry, I thought you were a-” Vara lowered her rifle and gestured at the nearest of the dead rats. One of the tier two variants that even as it lay flat in death, was nearly as tall as Vara’s knee.

  “Oh, no worries. Totally get it. You wouldn’t believe the last… weeks? I’ve had.” Responded the woman, waving away the apology as she lowered her hands.

  Vara heard the unsure tone of the woman’s statement and figured the woman had been lost for quite awhile and her mind connected the dots that she wasn’t native to the Kingdom of Ardonnia. Or probably even the rest of the world Vara had known before integration, as her clothes were made from materials she didn’t recognize off hand.

  Vara’s head raced, if this woman had traveled from a nearby settlement of some kind, maybe they could extend peace talks and get some help with the swarm of rats that raided their walls and crops daily.

  She was clearly strong, while [threat alert] told Vara that the woman was tier two, the quality of her mana matched the inner kingdom nobles she had met or seen in passing. Wind mana flowed off of her like she had never once considered trying to suppress the magic around her and the mana itself practically danced with its movements as it interacted with the air around the woman.

  Vara took a moment to formulate a response, but the sound of scurrying through the underbrush drew her mind away from the questions she had.

  Rats. Always more rats.

  “Look alive!” She gestured in the direction her skill told her they would be coming from with her rifle. Racing it at the rats that were rushing them from the underbrush.

  Vara’s rifle let out a series of low “pops” as she killed members of the large swarm that seemed to ignore her in favor of rushing the woman who was leaking mana everywhere. Holy hells that was a lot of them, what were the scouts doing? She should have gotten warning for a swarm this large approaching the flank of the frontlines currently trying to figure out where the source of these beasts were coming from.

  A few of the rats split off from the main hoard as they targeted Vara who had to drop her rifle, it slapped against her chest armor as her bandolier kept it from hitting the forest floor. She drew her short sword and began to cut.

  Then Vara felt a rush of wind mana, her eyes glancing at the woman as [threat alert] warned her. Then the strange woman turned into a blur, her sword free from her back as she swept it in wide arcs, stepping through the swarm to meet the cluster of tier two animals that were solely focused on her.

  Blooded fur flew into the air as the woman battered the animals aside or cut clean through them with some kind of [strike] skill. The rats her sword didn’t kill were so crippled that the woman ignored them as even more magic left her body and a humanoid shape made of air stepped beside her to begin its own reaping harvest.

  It actually moved to support Vara, drawing more attention away from her as the woman reached the tier two rats and dispatched them with easy swings from her sword that were too fast for the animals to dodge.

  Vara stabbed her sword into the ground and raised her rifle again, aiming to support the woman as a large rat pounced on the woman’s back. But then the woman really moved. Her free hand grabbing the rat on her back as she threw it bodily across the forest to slam into a tree. Leaping up, her foot stepped off the air and she grabbed a low hanging tree branch before pointing her sword at one of the few remaining tier two monsters.

  The rat partially exploded as a blast of air entered its body and caused untold damage to its internals as Vara finally had clear shots to start finishing off the rest of the swarm.

  The skill that had been supporting her faded as it struck another rat and it reformed by the woman where it began its bloody work again.

  At first Vara thought the woman was tiring or injured. She had blood on her back from where the rat had cut her with its claws and teeth. But then she dropped back into the remaining swarm of rats as she started to slice and blast through them at a rapid pace.

  One of Vara’s scouts must have heard the commotion because she heard a signal whistle before more shots from nearby began to pick off more and more of the animals as the scout began to help the two clear the swarm.

  Half a minute later, and the last of the swarm met its end with the woman running her blade through the final one as it leaped at her.

  She tossed it off her blade with a slightly feral grin before glancing at Vara, who stared dumbly back.

  At least the woman had the decency to look embarrassed after a moment.