“Another one…?” A familiar turtle fumbled its way down the little hill of sand it had been perched atop and took a few steps closer to Micro as he approached. “This is unusual…”

  Micro hesitated to call out once more to the two cultivators in front of him as they continued to cry, so he knelt down to greet the turtle instead.

  “Hello,” he said cheerfully. “Are you the same turtle I met in the hallway recently?”

  “The hallway…? Ah…” the turtle replied slowly. “That is another… Wait, he mentioned you… What are you doing here…?”

  “I came to help them escape this dungeon,” Micro replied, pointing at the inconsolable cultivators by the water. He was surprised that they hadn’t yet noticed him, but he then sat down and began to run his fingers through the warm sand. “This feels nice… I never liked sand before, because it tends to get everywhere.”

  “You may have passed the trial yourself…” The little turtle turned around and nodded, then continued with a small but stern voice. “But you may not pass it in place of another.”

  “Can I help them at least?” Micro asked, beginning to make a small hill of sand.

  “They must complete the task themselves…” it explained slowly. “There is a key for every soul… No more… No less…”

  “So they have to find a Core Card? What If I gave them mine?” Micro asked as he reached for his own card. However, it wasn’t in his pocket.

  “Your key is your own… You will gain no second reward… You are welcome to train in this place, but you will be unable to help them directly…” The turtle looked curiously up at Micro. “But then… You are strange…”

  The turtle spoke so slowly that Micro began to have trouble following what it was saying, but he did his best to concentrate.

  “So, is this a test of diligence?” Micro asked while scanning the horizon. “I don’t see any rocks to push…”

  “This is the trial of duality…” the turtle replied. “Your reward has been divided into two parts… One was cast into the endless ocean… One was buried deep in the endless sand…”

  “Duality… because of the sand and the water?” Micro asked.

  “That is incidental…” the turtle explained. “Our creator built this sacred place with much care to detail…”

  “So, we have to look for…” Micro counted on his fingers for a moment before continuing. “Four, five… Six pieces?”

  “You may seek out only your own…”

  “But we can look together, right?”

  “You may…” The turtle looked confused by the question, but replied respectfully. “You must seek out those pieces until you overcome this trial…”

  “Okay.” Micro nodded and stood up. Something occurred to him, however, and he turned to ask the turtle another question. “Wasn’t patience the theme of the turtle dungeon. Kel mentioned something about patience, at least…”

  “How refreshing…” the turtle remarked, its face almost hinting at a smile.

  “What’s refreshing?” Micro asked, still confused about its description of the trial.

  “The cultivators who seek out this trial…” the turtle said wistfully. “They never listen… Half of them fail… Clinging to their inherited misunderstandings…”

  “Misunderstandings? You mean turtles aren’t really patient?”

  “Of course we are patient…” it replied slowly, turning its small body to look out at the water. “But patience is not such a superficial virtue…”

  “Fair enough.” Micro wasn’t sure how to interpret the turtle’s words, but he was relieved when it continued to speak.

  “We live in two worlds, but never at the same time… We see empires rise and fall, but we have no ruler… We move slowly, but we travel greater distances than most… We shield ourselves in armour, but we do not go to war…” The turtle’s tiny voice became like a soft breeze that lulled Micro into a peaceful trance.

  “Just stay off the road…” Micro mumbled with a sleepy smile.

  “Do you understand, child…?”

  “Turtles are complicated,” Micro replied, stifling a yawn. “But I—”

  Micro’s lazy reply was interrupted by the wild figure of Tae, who passed by him like a blur. She scooped up the turtle with a violent motion and held it up to her swollen face.

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  “Let him leave this cruel test! This isn’t fair! This isn’t the way of the turtle at all!” Her screams disappeared into the vast landscape of sand and water. “We’ve been here so long… It’s impossible!”

  She shook the turtle violently as she cried, barely able to hold herself still as she waited for its reply.

  “You dishonour your—” The turtle was unable to complete its reply before being thrown into the sandy ground, the force of which kicked up a massive cloud of dust that took a while to settle. Micro ran to the crater formed by the projectile turtle, well aware of what became of turtles that faced such an impact. However, he was relieved to see it pop out of a small mound of sand at the centre, apparently uninjured.

  “Cruel monster!” Tae shouted, but Micro thought she looked much more frightening than the turtle covered in sand.

  “You are rude…” it commented without a trace of anger in its voice.

  “The turtle explained the test to me, Tae.” Micro smiled, picking up the turtle and brushing the sand off of its shell. He placed it on his shoulder before waving to Tae. “We just have to look for the cards. Sound good?”

  “You fool…” She covered her face with her hands as she cried. “We could search for an eternity and still not find those wretched cards!”

  “The task is to search for—” Micro tried to interrupt her, but she barely heard his voice.

  “You!” She pointed at the turtle again. “This is a trap! This is no trial at all! You foul beast!”

  She kicked the sand behind her and flung herself at the turtle in Micro’s hand, sending the three of them tumbling violently across the shore. When they came to a rest, covered in sand, Tae jumped on top of Micro, her hands on his old collar, shaking him up and down.

  “You… I remember you now! How did you make the turtle free you?!” Tae demanded with a foggy look in her eyes. “How?! Tell me, or Kel…!”

  “I—I don’t—” he stuttered, his head shaking back and forth. “I just… followed… the instructions…”

  Before Micro could confirm whether his words had reached Tae or not, her body was suddenly ripped away from him. Standing in front of Micro was Kel, holding Tae by the arm, his own face barely recognizable through his grief.

  “So you were trapped here too…?” Kel lamented. “I’m sorry… To think we were so unprepared…”

  “Rude…” the turtle mumbled as it crawled out from underneath Micro, shaken but unharmed. “Each generation has been worse than the last… without fail…”

  “Hello again, Kel,” Micro greeted him calmly, once again picking up the little turtle. “Let’s start looking for the cards soon.”

  “It’s impossible…” Kel sighed, his eyes wandering down to his feet. “An eternity would not suffice… We will perish here regardless of the time we have…”

  “Are you hungry?” Micro asked, confused by his friend’s pessimism.

  “A soul can be nurtured indefinitely in this place…” Kel replied somberly. “But no matter how much faster time passes here compared to the outside world, our spirits will eventually wither away… We’ll have turned to dust long before we turn up all the sand here… never mind the endless sea…”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Micro looked out at the horizon again, his eyes adjusting to the bright, summery day. A faint smile found its way across his face. “It’s different with eyes…”

  “Huh?” Kel blurted out, surprised by the change in topic. However, he turned around, letting go of the distraught Tae in the process, and took in the scenery for the first time. “I guess it is… I’d forgotten… I thought so too, the first time I saw it…”

  “I used to take the old man to the beach every summer,” Micro continued. “The salt and sand weren’t good for me… But I loved seeing him play with his son in the water. Seeing it with human eyes though… is really something…”

  “At least we’ll die somewhere beautiful,” Kel concluded, his voice cold with resignation.

  “Didn’t you want to get the turtle card?” Micro asked.

  “You wouldn’t understand, I suppose…” Kel sighed. “The Jade Turtle Art Core Card is the reward for an impossible test… We’ll never see it for ourselves… I was unworthy, after all…”

  “Impossible? I don’t think so. I got mine already,” Micro corrected him, still looking out at the water. “I pushed a rock down a hallway until the turtle woke up, the turtle gave me some cards, and here I am.”

  “Nonsense…” Kel chuckled. “But I appreciate you lightening the mood.”

  “The big turtle kicked me out of the dungeon after that, but he said you were in trouble,” Micro went on, his eyes wandering up to the shining sun.

  “If only…” Kel muttered, shaking his head.

  “It’s true…” Tae whispered, almost too quietly to hear.

  “What?” Kel looked down at her as she rose to a kneeling position.

  “He passed the trial… But he came back…” She held back her sobs as she explained. “I came to help, but I couldn’t do anything… This cruel trap—”

  “It can’t be.” Kel looked back at Micro, questioning Tae’s ability to perceive the truth in words for the first time in his life. “But to leave the dungeon again after beginning the trial, you’d have to clear it again.”

  “That’s why we should get started, soon,” Micro stated plainly before turning to the turtle to speak. “I think I’ll start in the water. Humans can’t rust, right?”

  “I’ve never seen a rusty human…” the turtle answered thoughtfully. “But I haven’t lived long enough to see it all just yet…”

  Micro placed the turtle on his shoulder and began walking to the water’s edge. The turtle clung tightly to his shoulder, watching curiously with sleepy eyes, but it said nothing.

  “You’ll never find it, Micro…” Kel called out after him, but Micro didn’t stop.

  “The turtle said to look for it,” Micro shouted back over his shoulder.

  “Yes…?” Kel frowned.

  “He didn’t say we had to find them,” Micro added as he began scanning the horizon. After a moment of silence, he wondered if Kel had heard him. “Kel? You ready?”

  “Micro…?” Kel murmured so quietly that Micro thought he might have fallen asleep.

  “Hey,” Micro called out, then turned around to see Kel staring back at him with his eyes wide and his mouth drooped open. Tae wore a similar expression, and Micro thought they might not have heard him properly.

  “The turtle said to search for them…” Kel mumbled. He turned to see Tae with a similar look of realization on her face, and she repeated the words Micro had said with a heavy tone.

  “He didn’t say we had to find them…!”