The air had felt different since dawn, heavier, as though it carried the hushed secrets of a thousand trembling hearts. Most people in Sunder's Crossing shrugged off the feeling as the usual foreboding before the monsoon rains, but Alden knew better. He stood outside the dilapidated gates of the old train station, where crumbling stone arches formed the shape of broken halos overhead. His eyes flickered to the horizon. A bruise-colored stormfront was rolling in, but he sensed another kind of turbulence, one crawling beneath his skin.
In this world, people spoke in hushed tones of the "System" that had appeared mysteriously decades ago, a phenomenon none could fully explain yet all had come to accept. It was said to latch onto individuals at birth, bestowing them a path to grow stronger through training, adversity, or sheer force of will. Strength, Dexterity, Vitality… these attributes had become as common a discussion as the weather, an accepted fact of life. Yet despite the incessant talk, true power remained elusive, hidden away behind the near impossible walls of perilous Trials. Almost nobody reached them; almost nobody advanced.
Alden wasn't "nobody." He just wasn't "somebody" yet.
He gripped the hilt of his practice sword, a battered length of steel with nicks along the edge from too many sparring sessions and not enough proper forging. His hands trembled, but not from fear, something more akin to anticipation. He'd spent years scouring old tomes, rummaging through half-burnt records, chasing rumors of the next big chance. The slightest clue that could lead him to a Trial, any Trial, consumed his every waking moment. Because Alden was tired of treading the same ground as everyone else. He could sense it in his bones: there was more to the System than repetitive quests and menial stat points. There had to be.
Lightning forked across the sky, a glaring slash of brilliance that snatched his breath away. The echoing thunder rumbled like a monstrous growl, and in that instant, Alden saw it: a vertical tear, a seam in reality hanging in midair just beyond the train station's gates. As if some cosmic tailor had run a scissor blade through the fabric of the world, slicing open a gateway to something… other. The sky bled gold and then black, shifting in swirling patterns, mesmerizing and horrifying in equal measure.
DING!
A disembodied chime rattled his mind. Lines of text, ghostly white, etched in his field of vision, began to form, letter by letter:
A hidden Trial has been discovered.
Authority Level: Unranked
Access Condition: Unbound
Alden's heart thundered in his chest. Hidden Trials were the stuff of tall tales, ridiculous rumors older adventurers spun to reel in gullible novices. Yet here it was, glaring at him, words that shouldn't exist in any known records. This was no rumor. This was real.
From somewhere inside that luminous rift, an enormous pressure pulsed outward, bearing down on his shoulders. It felt both promising and terrifying. Instinct hissed for him to back away, to flee, to remain the "nobody" he was. But curiosity, that stubborn blade in his gut, drove him forward. He forced himself to take a single step closer.
Behind him, distant street lamps flickered erratically, the entire city gripped by an unnatural hush. The wind hissed across broken cobblestones. The only other noise was his own ragged breathing and a single System prompt he couldn't tear his eyes from:
Would you like to enter the Trial?
Yes / No
A small prompt. A simple question. Yet it carried the weight of an entire world. In that split second, Alden felt his entire life pivot. Somewhere, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed faint threads of brilliance dancing around his sword hand. They licked at his fingertips like sparks searching for tinder. A fresh wave of goosebumps swept over him.
He had no illusions that stepping through this gateway would be easy. The realm of Trials was rumored to be merciless, where the System tested your mettle without remorse or hesitation, forging the few who succeeded into legends. Still, he knew that hesitation would get him nowhere. He had yearned for this moment. Perhaps destiny had decided to answer that yearning on a storm wracked evening, at the threshold of a decaying station.
Alden steeled himself.
He clenched his sword.
He chose "Yes."
And as the world exploded into shifting colors and silent screams, he realized the truth: once you passed through a door like this, you never returned the same. His heart hammered in his ears, his body seized by a strange current. Darkness and light warred in his vision until there was nothing at all.
In that void, a whisper reverberated through every corner of his existence:
You have accepted the Trial. Prepare to level up, or perish.
His eyes snapped open to an alien sky. He had arrived somewhere far beyond Sunder's Crossing, beyond even the boundaries of reality he'd once known. And in that dizzying moment, Alden felt exhilaration and terror in equal measure.
Somewhere in the distance, something roared. It shook the ground beneath his feet. A challenge. A welcome. A warning.
The Trial had begun.