Chapter 189: Nauja’s Trial
Nauja appeared in a dark corner. She was instantly on guard.
There was little she could make of the surrounding space. Everything a few feet away from her was darkness. There could be anything out there.
However, Nauja was a trained warrior. She immediately fell into a crouch and directed her eyes slightly downward, away from the toches above. The better acclimated to the darkness her sight was, the earlier she would see attacks coming. At the same time, she focused on her hearing and made her breathing silent, keeping an ear out for any sign of incoming projectiles. Her bow was already drawn, with an arrow of wind gathering on its string.
How should I proceed? she asked herself.
As it turned out, she didnt have to. A short moment after she appeared, the room burst with light. Lines of torches lit up on the walls, gradually illuminating a long, narrow chamber. Bare stone walls surrounded her on all sides. She stood on a narrow ledge in one end of the long room. Ahead of her ledge lay complete darknessa seemingly bottomless chasm.
There was nothing on the other side of the chamber. No ledge, no door. No windows anywhere. Just her, her ledge, the torches, and the abyss. Everything else was bare stone.
Nauja wasnt used to enclosed spaces. In the Barbarian Ring, she was either in her hut or in the jungle, and this sealed room was even worse than the labyrinth. The stuffy air she only just noticed and the absence of any windows or doors pressured her deeply, making panic rise in her chest.
She fought to push it down. This was not her home. The outside world was dangerous and alien. She had to keep a level head for as long as she was here. Make her tribe proud.
And now what? she thought. A second look around the room revealed nothing. What am I supposed to do?
Welcome, trial taker, a voice suddenly boomed. No form appeared; the voice came directly from the walls. It was feminine, spoken with authority and seriousness. My name is Veheil Maestro Cir, a Planet Breaker of the Crimson Cloud faction.
Naujas body seized. A Planet Breaker. That wasso strong. The equivalent of the B-Grade. An impossibly distant realm.
Wait. She called herself a Planet Breaker. Thats the name my people use!
Before she could consider this further, the voice continued.
On the behest of my Faction Head, I am leaving behind an inheritance for the future generations. I shall transmit upon you my greatest Dao Skill, the Sun Piercing Arrow. This is the technique that earned me my position as Faction Elder and my moniker: Sun Killer.
A moment of silence. Nauja didnt respond; she understood this was a voice projection, and that the person who made it was probably long dead.
However, the Sun Piercing Arrow will not be transmitted to the unworthy. To succeed in my trial, you have to prove your archery, my skills prerequisite. You will be presented with a series of targets on the far wall. You are to hit them all unerringly. If one arrow hits the wall, you will be expelled from the trial and banned from re-entering. If you use means other than archery, you will be executed for disrespecting me. You may use any archery-related skills you possess.
Nauja gulped. This woman, Veheil Maestro Cir, did not seem patient. Yes, Elder, she replied with a slight bow, more to compose herself than to placate the voice projection.
You may begin, the voice finished, then faded away.
A stone basket flashed into existence behind Nauja. It contained exactly thirty-three arrows, each forged of iron, with steel tips and tails of crimson feathers. Before she could stop herself, Nauja walked over to the arrows and picked one up. It was heavyit felt more like a weapon than any arrow shed held before.
The sound of popping air drew her attention to the far wall. Nine targets had appearedred circles the size of her head, each with a color gradient that started red at the periphery and ended at a white dot in the center.
The nine targets hung on the far wall, arrayed in three rows of three; a perfect square. This task didnt seem too difficultthe far wall was only a hundred feet away, and Nauja was a high E-Grade archer.
There was no time limit, either.
Her gaze returned to the arrows. From what she could tell, she didnt have to use them. Her wind arrows were an archery-related skill. However, this was an easy shot, and these arrows were too well-made to ignore.
She nocked one on her bowstring. It was far heavier than her wind arrows, or even her normal, wooden onesnot enough to encumber her, but enough to pull her shot down. Shooting straight would take a lot of strength.
Thankfully, strength was an archers staple.
Nauja pulled her bowstring as far back as she could manage. She could feel her bow strain under the tension, but it was made from the heart of an elder treant, able to handle even the full strength of a peak E-Grade archer. The bowstring itself was nine tyrannosaurus hamstrings entwined tightly around each other.
This bow had taken her father a week to forge.
Its ends curved a bit inward as Nauja pulled, aimed, and released. She shot a bit higher than usual, just in case. The iron arrow pierced the air, shrieking as it flew. It embedded itself in the middle target almost instantly. Surprisingly, it didnt pierce too deep; the entire tip disappeared, but the body of the arrow was fully visible.
The target was made of very hard wood.
Nauja kept this information in mindif she shot too weakly, the arrow might not even stick to the target. Good thing she used these heavy arrows instead of her wind ones.
Grabbing another eight arrows, she quickly hit all visible targets. Besides the first onewhich she hit halfway between the outer edge and the centerall the rest hit bullseye. It was an easy shot for her; nothing more than a warm-up.
The moment she struck the ninth target, they all disappeared. A moment later, they reappeared in pristine condition, with the arrows missing. However, they werent stationary now. They hovered just before the far wall and moved around at high speed; some went right and left, others up and down, yet more diagonally or in a circle.
The trajectory of each target was set, as was its speed, but they were fast. This was a far harder task than the previous one.
Were getting started, huh? Nauja said, unable to keep a smirk from emerging on her face. She aimed for one of the targets. She took a moment to clearly observe its trajectory. She calculated its position, taking a practice shot with no arrow on the string. She got it right.
Then, she nocked an arrow and smoothly hit the target.
She did the same for the other eight. These shots werent easy, but they werent too hard, either. Since she could take her time, she managed all nine without breaking a sweat, though she was no longer hitting dead-center. One of the arrows hit close to the edge, making her curse.
The nine targets disappeared.
When they reappeared, again in pristine condition, Nauja frowned. They were still moving in set trajectories, but this time, their speed wasnt constant. They went slower and faster at set intervals, but not at the same places of their trajectory every time. The periods of their spatial and speed fluctuations werent the same.
Nauja bit her lip in concentration. This was going to be difficultand, even worse, there were fourteen arrows remaining in the basket. Since she wasnt supposed to miss a shot, it meant this was not the final test.
But she could do this.
She pulled the string without an arrow, observing the first target. She took her time. A minute later, when she felt she had it down, she did a practice shot. The result was unclear; it might have missed. Biting her lip, she tried again and again until she was confident she would succeed. Then, nocking the arrow, she observed the target, stilled her breath, and took the shot.
It hit halfway between the center and the edge.
Nauja released her breath. She could do this.
For the rest of the eight targets, she always took her time, between one and ten minutes per shot. She wanted to be sure. Some were harder than others, toothe one moving in a circle was the trickiest of all.
All the while, she kept imagining the results of a single miss. She would have to go out there and tell Gan Salin she had failed. She would have to tell her father that she squandered the one opportunity she had to get stronger.
But an archer needed a clear mind. She kept the thoughts away with all the strength of her will, and made the shots.
Thankfully, she got them allthough she almost missed the circle one.
Nauja released a deep sigh of relief, but she knew the trial wasnt over. The targets disappeared again; when they reappeared, there were only four of them, but they were ridiculous. Not only was their speed seemingly random, but so was their trajectory. They were crawling along the far wall without rhyme or reason, making random turns at random intervals.
Nauja was speechless.
How the hell am I supposed to hit those!? she cried out inwardly, but she didnt dare speak her thoughts aloud. The voice hadnt seemed easygoing; who knew what hidden failsafes she had installed?
She bit her lip in thought. If the movement of the targets was random, she would have to rely on luck. After all, even though her arrows flew fast, there was still an interval between firing the shot and landing it. If the target just randomly moved away during that interval, if it accelerated or slowed down hard, it could cause her to miss. Even her wind-guiding skill, which could slightly alter her arrows trajectory mid-air, could do little at this short distance.
She really hoped their movements were not completely random. Therefore, she set her sights on one target and begam observing it.
A minute later, it still seemed random.
Three minutes later, still random.
Only after ten minutes did she get a sense of the targets movements. There wasnt a pattern, per se. It was more likea combination of several patterns. Like the target was an animal; its movements were random, but not too random. Moreover, each target was moving in slightly different ways; one was erratic, like a rabbit, while another was more purposeful, like a triceratops.
There were two ways to shoot an animal in the jungle. The easiest one was waiting for it to stay still, but these targets never stopped. The second way was to try and identify when the animal was in a set trajectory, then predict and shoot it. For example, an animal running away from a predator was predictableit would just follow the most direct route away.
Unfortunately, these targets werent animals. They werent going to run away from anything. How could she know when theyd fall into a pattern?
Nauja bit her lip. Patience was an archers friend.
She watched the targets for half an hour, trying not to memorize their patterns, but rather get a feel for how they moved. Instinct was a powerful force. One that was often overlooked.
Nauja opened her mind and watched. When the half hour was past, she kept watchingobserving. She had all the time in the world. No matter how bored or frustrated she got, she wouldnt give up on this opportunity.
At one random point, it struck her. The targets werent completely random; they chose their paths in relation to each other!
When that clicked, everything began to make more sense. One target was a predator; it usually moved towards the other three targets. The others were prey; they liked to move close to each other, but prioritized escaping the predator when it approached enough.
Naujas eyes flared with realization.
Of course, her task remained difficult. These patterns were nowhere near easy to see. The targets still moved erratically and almost unpredictably. Even when she focused on just one of them, she couldnt predict its movements. But she could see the driving forces now. She could calculate when the target would change directions because of the predators presence nearbyas well as where it would head: in the exact opposite direction.
Nauja played the game for a while. She kept trying to see the patterns. She didnt need to predict everything; just the split-second after she shot, at any moment she wanted. She could do this.
Keeping her eyes on the target, she reached for an arrow and nocked it. She was holding still in complete concentration. Her eyes were taking in the movements of all four targets, focusing on the one she was aiming for.
There!
She released the arrow before realizing what she was doing. Panic overtook her in the split-second when her shot was in the air. Had she rushed it? Should she have waited more?
Time slowed down. It seemed like she was going to miss. Then, the target abruptly rushed aside, directly into her arrow.
She hit dead-center.
Nauja released another deep sigh. This trial brought immense pressurebut it wasnt anywhere near over. She couldnt afford to relax yet.
She returned her attention to the targets. The arrow sticking out of one of them didnt seem to change their patterns. That was good. Nauja focused on another. Ten minutes later, her eyes flickered, and she released her shot.
It hit the target near the edge.
One hour later, all four targets were cleanly pierced through, even the predator one, which had been the most difficult. Nauja was sweating all over. There was an element of luck in this trial; if there had been more targets, she might have missed the fifth or sixth shot.
Thankfully, she had succeeded.
Nauja hadnt mentioned this to Jack or Gan Salin, but she was actually a pretty good archer. She was by far the best in her tribe. Even in the surrounding tribes, it was hard to find someone who could meet her shots. She always came first in all contests.
Even the arrow-wielding delvers were defeated by her, with the exception of one man two years ago, who was a Lord.
That this Trial pushed her to her limits spoke volumes about its difficulty.
However, even after shooting all four targets, Nauja didnt allow herself to relax. There was still one arrow in the basket. The trial wasn't over.
She waited for the last target to appear, but none did. After a while, she began to wonder whether the trial was completed already, but the voice didnt speak.
What is happening?
Suddenly, a creeping suspicion entered her mind. She focused on the far wall and squinted, running her eyes over its entire surface.
There. Right in the center of the wall was a tiny white dot. A target only the size of her fingertip, a hundred feet away.
The final test.
Are you kidding me!?
She wanted to call out the Trials ridiculousness. This was clearly a joke. How was she supposed to hit something like that? She was barely able to see it!
Even when she hit the other targets dead-center, it wasnt that dead-center.
And yet, the final arrow waited in the basket, and the voice was not speaking up. Left with no choice, Nauja grabbed the arrow and nocked it. The shot was unfairly hard, but not impossibleafter all, she was nearly an immortal.
Unfortunately, mock shots wouldnt help with this one. Neither would observation or patience. This was a test of pure archery skill. All she could do was aim and shoot.
Nauja half-pulled on the string and focused. She let her breath die out. Her world narrowed to a point. The Dao of Archery flooded her mind, making her one with the bow, and the Dao of Wind rose in the space between her and the target, ready to guide the arrow precisely to its destination.
Nauja took a deep breath. She blinked to clear her vision. Her entire body went taut and still, like a statue, as her eyes pinpointed the dot that was her target.
She loosed the arrow.
And missed.
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