The teacher looked at him solemnly and then told him to follow him. He walked down the path, as Alexander tried to do the same he felt a sense of anxiety. With each step the thought of him falling down into the void brightened. It was scary.
For the teacher who walked ahead of Alexander walked with no issue, it was not a problem for him to do it. Alexanders legs were all wobbly as he walked across, the thought of falling had made the risk of falling greater.
When Alexander had arrived in front of the crystal the teacher told him the requirements for success: hug one of the spirits. The harder it is to embrace it, the stronger the spirit. These particular spirits should manifest themselves as devils. Be wary, some of them will want you to touch them, if you capture one of them you will fail the test after this one.
Alexander found the entire notion comical, he was going to see devils and then he would have to hug them in order to catch them. Nevertheless he treated the entire scenario gravely, his goal was to capture a strong spirit.
Alexander put his hand on the crystal his entire world view changed. Around him was no longer a teacher, a stone road and a crystal.
He stood on a red rock, there were multiple red rocks around him. In his sight he saw a waterfall but instead of water there was molten lava, it spewed and exploded, Alexander struggled with taking breaths the air was burning his lungs. There were birch trees around him as well, they had a birch shape but their leaves were crimson and their wood was coalish. Some of the trees were giant, as he looked up the trees he realised that there was no sky instead there was a stone roof with vines hanging off them.Everything in this room felt as if though it had a red tint to it.
As he looked around the room he realised that he was not alone. Around him were multiple humanoid figures, a lot of them looked like small imps. they had short legs and a short body. Each imp varied in a sense, the teeth could be longer or shorter, so could their length and ever other limb.
There was not only imps, there were other creatures in this room. They had a bigger and more humanoid shape, he saw a giant showering in the waterfall. Above him in birds flew, he questioned how he would be able to embrace one of them, he remembered the trees.
There were also beasts, he saw a dog like creature eating a imp, this one had three heads and saliva was dropping out of it. All around him he saw multiple varied creatures and each creature had multiple different variations of itself. Alexander thought about this, maybe the creatures themselves symbolize some sort of trait.
Nevertheless, Alexander's goal was to catch a mighty spirit. He would not suffice with a imp. He looked around one more time, he saw three distinct landmarks. First he saw a giant cave opening further to his left, in front of him was a giant tree, to his right was a pool of lava and in the middle a giant stood showering.
The options seemed all to resemble a trait in Alexander's mind, the tree symbolizes speed, the giant symbolized might and the cave symbolized… Alexander was not sure about what the cave was supposed to be, but something in him strongly advised Alexander to travel towards the cave. You could call it a gut feeling, or a calling from god, Alexander thought it was his intuition speaking to him and he decided to trust it.
However as he stood there and thought a Imp had encountered him, the second it saw him it gave of a childish scream. However this was enough to catch the attention of almost every creature in Alexander's radius. They all looked at him, some of them had vary eyes and some of them distanced themselves. However, some of them did not; a few of the imps around Alexander went mad. They started running at their fastest pace towards Alexander, needless to say this was not very fast but they came from every angle.
Alexander freaked out from this revelation, he started running towards the cave. He tripped. He tripped on a branch that he had not seen, his hands landed on the grass and started burning. Alexander wanted to scream but his fright of the imps stopped it, he fidgeted to a standing position and kept on running his eyes on the floor this time.
He tripped again, this time it was not his feet, instead something from his head had pushed him down. Ignoring the burning sensation he felt on his hands he looked upwards. He found a bird flying up to its flock. Every creature was eyeing him.
He stood up again and kept on running, the imps had gotten significantly closer. This time he tried focusing on every creature around him. Then he saw it, the giants standing in the pool of lava bent down with cupped hands. Then they threw it at Alexander, Alexander quickly changed his trajectory to dodge the incoming attack, a bit of it hit the floor and spattered onto his pants which quickly burned onto his skin. Only one word could describe the pain, hell.
This in itself almost made him trip, the pain after all immobilizes the control. However it was not enough, in Alexander's mind this wasn't a simple test. This was his life. One of the birds above him dived to hit him again, this time Alexander noticed and he got an idea. He took out his hands almost as if to grab it, the bird quickly did a 180 and flew away, it was as Alexander had thought.
He looked around once again, the three headed dogs, they had not attacked him just yet. However saliva was spewing out of their mouths, Alexander thought that they had not attacked for the same reason the bird flew away. Alexander kept running avoiding the raining lava, getting hit by a splatter now and then, whilst focusing on not tripping.
He finally made it to the entrance of the cave.