Nero was seated whit a pensive expression on his face. About five minutes had passed since the administrator offered him the two options, but he simply couldn´t make up his mind.
Most people would have thought that it was an obvious choice, after all, Nero had nothing at stake in this trial and the only thing that mattered was that he kept his life, but that's where they would be wrong.
'My worth. The problem is my and Bianca's worth to the sword clan people.'
Nero's sister had a rare disease that appeared together whit the gate, essence poisoning. Her body was incapable of blocking the essence of the atmosphere from entering her body, when that same essence would reach certain thresholds inside her she would slowly lose her mind until her body exploded from to mutch energy contained within it.
It was a painful and almost incurable disease, and the only option for common people would be essence dispersers, very expensive little pills that would expel the accumulated essence from her body. Nero always thought she was doomed to die at some point, but now, new hope filled his heart.
'The treatment she requires will not come cheap, even for the God clans. We are a package deal, if I'm not worth the investment, she will lose her only shot at a normal life. But, if I die, she will lose the remaining time she has left and die a painful death all alone in that crapy building.'
A dark atmosphere permeated the white administration room. The administrator stopped speaking after he offered the two choices and was only looking at Nero's dark expression whit a lot of interest.
After a couple more minutes passed, Nero got up from the chair. A decided look rested on his face.
"Have you decided?"
"I will go whit the second option. I can't risk damaging my future worth"
A smile appeared on the administrator's face.
"Splendid choice"
"When will the trial start?"
"Right now."
He snapped his fingers and Nero felt a huge pressure fall upon him. Darkness enveloped him and the white room disappeared. He closed his eyes and, for one instant, he felt total deprivation of the senses. When the deprivation sensation stopped, he was in a completely different place.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Pain. Never-ending pain.
Every breath he took was lighting his lungs on fire, the strong wind was cutting his body like sharp blades. He fell to the ground in pain, but that was a poor choice, when his hands made contact whit it, he felt something enter through his skin and, after a second, the worse pain of his life assaulted his body.
It was like his blood was running in reverse. It started to flow out of his eyes and ears, and he vomited a huge amount from his mouth.
"I´m dead. I´m gonna die! I don´t want to do this anymore! Administrator, save me! PLEASE!"
Nothing happened. He tried to open his eyes to see what was causing him all this great pain and what he saw shocked him.
Nero was in the middle of what seemed to be a blood swamp. The whole ground was made of some strange red mud, floating in the air was a strange purple mist, and sizzling sounds appeared whenever it got low enough to touch the red ground. In the distance he could see what seemed like silver tornados flowing down from some strange silver clouds in the skies, sometimes jets of silver wind would leave these strange tornados and ravage everything on their path, himself included.
'Hell! I'm in hell! I´m sure of it!'
He was squirming in pain on the ground. Seconds felt like hours, and when he was sure he was about to die, something happened. A white glow started to appear from within his body and heal him, every wound he had sustained in the last minute was healing itself up.
Rage filled his heart.
"Is this what you meant by protecting my body!? This is just torture! How am I supposed to comprehend anything in this hell? TAKE ME OUT OF HERE!"
Silence. Nothing happened, and despair filled Nero´s heart.
A long cycle of destruction and rebirth began. Nero lost the notion of time and only pain remain inside his mind, he was sure that he would remain like this forever, but the decrease in the light glow intensity each time it healed him indicated that his time was slowly running short.
'Maybe that's not so bad. The pain will end when I die at least. I'm sorry Bianca, your brother failed you…'
Tears fell down his eyes, but a sudden sense of peace enveloped his spirit. He had given his best shot, and he had failed, that was nothing to be ashamed about.
More time passed and his mind was starting to divagate after the initial shock of overwhelming pain passed, after all this time interacting whit the three elements, he was gaining some little understanding of them.
How deep was his skin being cut by the silver wind, how wide were these cuts, the way the red mud entered his body through his open wounds in opposition to his intact skin, how the purple fog corroded anything it touched, be it the ground or his body. Small details about the natural hazards were slowly appearing inside his mind.
'Maybe this is it... If I try and focus on these details, I will understand what makes this place so special!'
New hope was forming in his heart. Nero slowly turned his lying body to one of the silver tornados, he felt a strange affinity whit them, like they were calling him.
'I will focus on one of them at the time. I'm sure this is the answer!'
With a crazy and desperate look in his eyes, he spent what seemed like days studying the silver tornadoes. How they acted, how the silver jets were released from them and seemed to cut and pierce everything in their path, be it the purple fog or the red mud.
'How can wind make such clean cuts on the ground? And how can it sometimes seem to destroy the purple fog instead of just pushing it away? When the silver jets leave the tornados, they assume two forms, it appears like a blade sometimes, slashing everything and causing a wide area of destruction, but their real power is when it appears like a line, piercing everything in their path….'
Nero's eyes opened wide, a realization appearing inside his mind.
'Piercing everything in their path, slashing everything that dares to exist around it… It´s almost like the silver wind is a living sword!'
At that moment something changed in Nero's mind. A strange sword mark had appeared inside it and the silver winds were no longer causing any damage.
He understood the sword codex.