When you walk down a straight corridor, without any changes or wind, it's like walking in a continuous calm, a strange feeling that everything was the same, any alteration in that dynamic was like a warning; that's why, further ahead in the darkness, when neither the crackling, nor the light, nor the heat of the torch could be noticed, Ikky could feel a draft from his left.
With his improved vision, he could see how the tunnel continued forward, straight as before, but his gaze went to that wall... he felt it again. In the smooth marble, the block on the right protruded just 2 millimeters. The air filtered through a thin crack.
The boy tried to grab the block from the wall, but he couldn't. He pushed it to the side, and nothing, it didn't move even a millimeter. He pushed in, and nothing happened either. He didn't like the solution, but there was no other way, so he started to hit the wall with his knuckles to hear the sound it made. If there were any monsters, the echo in the hallway would alert them even if they were miles away. The wall sounded hollow.
Not willing to be carried away by euphoria, Ikky hit a stone block different from the one that had caught his attention to compare. The walls returned a more solid sound, muffled by the mass behind them.
Not everything had to be precision in a game, so he took the hand axe and hit the marble block in what he thought would be the weakest part by pure logic, the center of the stone.
The first hit only took out stone chips, making a small crack; with the second, the crack widened in several directions. With the third hit, a piece the size of a fist fell on the other side of the wall. It didn't take long for Ikky to reduce the block to rubble and discover a small cavity 1 meter high and 80 centimeters wide, which seemed like a couple of meters deep.
Bingo, a small wooden chest was waiting at the bottom, luckily it didn't have a lock. Just in case there was a trap, he opened the lid by prying it open from a distance with the tip of his spear. Nothing happened, which calmed his nerves at the moment. Inside was what looked like a gold ingot about 10x5x4, another silver ingot of the same size, and another bronze ingot exactly like the previous ones.
Ikky collected the loot and returned to the torch that remained lit. He turned it off, it was another absurd decision, another call of his instinct, or a strange reasoning, nothing different had happened as he advanced in the light, except for the small puzzle of the torches. Wrapped in darkness, he continued walking with the clear desire to reach the end of the infinite corridor. He moved forward with his hand resting against the wall on his right, attentive to any change in the environment around him.
I can't tell you how long Ikky spent like that; for him it was hours, although in that emptiness he couldn't calculate it, at a certain point he stopped counting the steps, it was a useless mental effort.
Ikky couldn't see how the tunnel ended a few meters in front of him, it was only when a marble wall blocked his way that Ikky knew he had reached the end.
He cursed, despaired, hit the wall and felt it firm under his hand, there was nothing on the other side, no hollow sounds, no protruding edges, no mechanisms... nothing... He tried to see if he could detect any magic by concentrating on his surroundings, but he felt nothing, only the cold of the stone.
If this was a test it was a very bad one, did he have to have gone somewhere? Was there an exit on the left wall that he hadn't noticed in that darkness? Or was getting there the test itself? There had to be something. After resting and considering his options, he returned, this time resting his hand on the opposite wall of the tunnel.
Another half hour of walking in the tunnel must have been in complete darkness, when his fingers felt a small protrusion in the wall, he rapped his knuckles on it, and heard that wonderful hollow sound. Blindly, in the dark, he broke the wall again, hoping the solution was behind it, but it was just another chest with three more ingots. For what Ikky assumed was hours, he moved forward in the darkness.
Hearing Data's voice startled him.
"Congratulations to the Player for reaching the next level with the dim vision skill. Dim Vision Skill*Common* Expert Rank: 1/5000...
The difference was noticeable, before in complete darkness he could only see the outlines of things when there was a minimal light source, now however it was like seeing in black and white. The change was pleasant. It gave him the encouragement he was lacking just a few moments before.
He continued walking for what he thought were days, without feeling hungry, thirsty, or sleepy, it was a continuous walk back to find the wall at the end of the tunnel. With that black and white vision detecting the niches became easier, in the process another 23 niches with ingots appeared.
He had a total of 25 gold ingots, 25 silver and 25 copper. To put them in the backpack he had to empty it of the torches, of which he only kept one, but the problem was not the space, it was the weight, each ingot weighed about 500 grams on average (each metal weighed differently), so he carried a total of 37 and a half kilos on his back, it was hard but bearable with that enhanced body he had.
For Ikky this was like walking the Camino de Santiago loaded to the rafters, a physical and mental torture, if we add the weight of my equipment and weapons he surely carried more than 50 kilos continuously. He had cramps in his legs and many times his mind broke down and he stopped in the middle of that black and white image to rest.
Arriving at a point in the path that was impossible to determine, Ikky decided to return to the beginning, if he continued walking like that he would end up losing his sanity.
He refused to believe that this test was over, that there was nothing, besides the return trip was being infinitely longer than the outward journey, and he never found those lanterns that, due to all the distortion of time and space, the boy thought could not be more than 4 or 5 hours from where he was. Although in his mind something told him that he had far exceeded that time.
He was not sleepy, nor hungry, nor thirsty, but on that eternal journey his legs hurt, his back hurt. As he moved forward, he found other niches that seemed to appear out of nowhere. When he counted more than 50 ingots, there was no more room.
The backpack and the straps threatened to break. He left the backpack on the ground and began to drag it. It was a relief, although moving forward became slower as he dragged that weight at least his body did not hurt as much.
The next niches were a new problem, he did not have a bag to put the ingots in, he loosened the straps of his armor and began to store them there, imprisoning them between the armor and his clothes. When there was no more room, he began to put some in the rods of his boots, in his forearms.
Surely many of you will wonder why he kept accumulating so much weight, what was the point, however he could only see the image of the symbol of this tunnel, a man pushing a stone... he was imitating him... Even if he was a turtle advancing in a monotonous and continuous black and white world, he would continue forward.
He no longer had space or place to put more ingots. Ikky housed several ingots inside his cloth pants. Ikky lost count of how many he was carrying, but he probably had about 75 ingots in his body, plus the 150 he was dragging between his backpack and the bundle he had made with his cape.
Slowly, agonizingly, he advanced in that black and white world without stopping beyond the time just to catch his breath. However, no more niches appeared, only an infinite tunnel.
Driven by an insane madness, he continued forward dragging the weight, scratching for each meter of advance. At some point his head told him that something had changed. It was a light... A light at the end of the tunnel...