“I presume you are taking about Neo Hargraves who entered the same passage as you?” freewebnσvel.cѳm
“Yes,” Jack answered.
The doll, E #23, nodded in understanding.
“Neo Hargraves is going through a qualification test at another site.”
“Qualification test?”
“An agreement should be a better word in your language,” the doll said. “The Shadow Supreme is a generous ruler.
“He doesn’t attack anyone just because they enter his world.
“Instead, he gives them a chance. A trial.
“If you complete the trial, he will fulfill your wish.
“You can ask for anything.
“Did you enter the world of treacherous shadows by mistake? Then the Shadow Supreme will help you go return to your world.
“Do you want desire power? Then, the Shadow Supreme shall make you the strongest.
“Is there someone you want to kill? The Shadow Supreme will erase them.”
The doll added,
“All you have to do is complete the Trial of Supreme and prove yourself worthy.”
Jack took a few moments to digest the words of the gatekeeper.
‘Yeah, this place is damned crazy.’
‘I don’t think there is another elemental world that invites invaders like this.’
The Shadow Supreme was too welcoming.
The fact that he fulfilled one wish of the invader if they completed his trial was suspicious.
‘Forget it. It’s not like I can do anything about it.’
Jack shook his head and posed a question.
“So what’s the agreement about?”
“It’s something you must agree to before we start the trial,” the doll said. “As I’ve told you, the Shadow Supreme is a generous ruler.
“The trials he gives reap omnipotent rewards.
“However, the trials are made to be difficult so as to match the level of the rewards.
“Due to the high difficulty, the Shadow Supreme understands not everyone wants to participate in the trial.
“We won’t force you.
“Only if you agree to enter the trial will we start the trial. This is the qualification test,” the doll explained.
‘It’s quite simple,’ Jack thought.
“What happens if I reject the agreement?”
“…”
The doll stared at Jack silently.
“You will be treated as an intruder.”
The doll appeared before Jack as if she had teleported and slashed with her hand.
Jack’s neck was separated from his body—
“Huff! Huff!”
Jack clutched his neck, breathing heavily.
“I’m… I’m alive?” he said. “But I was beheaded a moment ago.”
“That is what will happen to you if you become an intruder. I hope you will make the right choice,” the doll bowed.
A bitter smile appeared on Jack’s face.
‘So the qualification test is a ruse.’
‘We don’t have a choice but to accept it.’
‘Or they will kill us.’
Jack shook his head.
The Shadow World was still friendly.
It wasn’t attacking them as soon as they entered, at least.
“I want to enter the trial,” Jack said.
“Very well.”
The doll snapped her fingers.
Jack felt a sense of weightlessness.
Everything around him disappeared, turning into a dark void.
He was falling toward a small beacon of light far below him.
“I wonder if Neo and I will have the same trial.”
Jack spoke to himself to calm his palpitating heart.
He had no idea why Neo wanted to enter the World of Shadows.
Neo avoided the question whenever Jack asked him about it.
Still, Jack followed Neo into the World of Shadows.
‘Blind trust.’
Jack thought to himself.
‘Is it right to put my life on the line for someone else?’
A chuckle left his lips.
‘It’s not even a question.’
‘I’m going to help Neo no matter what.’
Jack hadn’t forgotten the Shadow Window they entered in the academy.
He was useless back then.
Neo had died to save him.
Jack knew Neo was immortal, but it didn’t change the fact Neo saved him at the cost of his own life.
‘I’m always depending on others.’
Jack’s family had been chained by the duty of defeating the Necromancer.
Neo saved them from the burden.
Jack was thankful to Neo, but it did not mean he didn’t loathe his own weakness.
‘Always. I’m the one receiving help.’
Jack had to be stronger.
To stop depending on others.
To help his friend who had been helping him until now.
‘I’ll complete the trial.’
Just as the thoughts strengthened his determination, Jack reached the beacon of light.
It was a hole in the dark void, revealing a destroyed city on the other side.
…
“Selene… Selene…”
The child, barely thirteen, cried.
His knees were scraped and his clothes were torn, covered in soot.
He walked through the abandoned city, searching for his little sister.
“Selene!” he shouted. “Where a-are you!?”
…
Neo opened his eyes with a groan.
He massaged his temples.
“Where am I?”
The Gatekeeper sent him to another location without even telling him what the trial was about.
Neo looked around.
He was in the middle of a destroyed road.
The place had multiple craters, broken buildings, and shattered cars.
“It looks like a war happened in this place.”
Neo jumped, using his superhuman strength to reach the top of the tallest structure in the vicinity.
The city was in the same condition as the road.
Crumbling buildings, cracked roads, and rusted cars.
The sky was gray, casting a dim light over the ruins.
Smoke rose from distant fires and silence pervaded the air.
An ominous premonition crept into Neo’s heart.
“I feel like I know where the Shadow Supreme sent me for the trial.”
He moved around the city.
There was not a single soul alive.
After searching for a bit, he found what he was looking for.
A newspaper.
Neo read the first page.
><
Daily Titans.
26th October, 2062
Today fifty years had passed since the Apocalypse began. The war between awakeners is getting more intense. The monsters continue to invade…..
><
Neo closed the paper after reading it thoroughly.
The first line was enough to tell him where he was.
“Fuck.
“I’m in the Age of Gods.”
He massaged his head.
“Is this really happening?”
Neo had not time-travelled to the past.
World of Shadows was a world that ‘mirrored’ the real world.
Everything that happened in the real world happened in Shadow World too.
The only difference was, in Shadow World everything was made of Shadow elemental.
Be it air, water, buildings, humans, or monsters.
Of course, since Shadow elementals could mimic real objects, the objects in Shadow World were nearly identical to real worlds.
They could do everything that a real object or entity could do.
“If I’m not recalling it wrong, the entities living in Shadow World don’t know they are Shadows.
“They think they are real.”
It was weird how the Shadows thought they were real and had their own will.
And still, everything they did was what was had happened in the real world already.
“A shadow is but a mirror to the reality,” he muttered, recalling what they were taught in the academy.
Neo stood up.
He scoured the place for more information.
The Shadow World was a mirror that reflected everything happening in the real world.
Then, how did Neo appear in the Era of Gods?
Shadow Supreme could ‘record’ events happening in Shadow World and use them later as a trial.
Neo was inside one such ‘recording.’
“The information of the trial should be somewhere here.” Only on freewebnovel
Neo continued his search.
Hours later, he found a vault made of shadows.
The vault opened as soon as he approached it.
Inside, there was a folder and a bag filled with elixirs.
Neo took out the file.
The file had only one page.
Only a single line was written on it.
[Trial: Rescue the Child of Mana before others.]
“No information about where the Child of Mana is, who the Child of Mana is, or if there is a time limit to the trial.
“Goddammit.”
He turned to the bag with elixirs.
“I gave this bag to Jack. Why is it here?”
Confused, Neo looked through the bag.
It had a note inside it.
[Jack Hanma is a Shadow element user. Between him and you, you are the one who needs these elixirs.]
Neo frowned when he read the note.
Demigods could use Divine Energy to sustain their bodies.
Jack could eat the food and water inside the Shadow World to sustain himself.
But Neo couldn’t.
Everything here was made of shadow elemental, eating them wouldn’t provide Neo pure Divine Energy.
The elixirs were Neo’s only hope.
“Fuck.”
Neo re-read the note.
His face contorted.
A demigod of his rank could live for months without eating anything.
The act of Shadow Supreme giving him something to sustain himself meant two things.
The trial was going to take years – decades if Neo was unlucky – to complete.
The level of difficulty was nightmarish.
The Shadow Supreme wouldn’t help him – by giving him the elixirs – unless the trial was astoundingly difficult.
“Fuck.”
Neo sighed.
He massaged his brows.
Not all was bad news.
The time flowed differently in Elemental Worlds.