{Welcome disciples, I am Scorn, he who was never known by any other name. This is a trial of my design, so that you can prove yourselves to receive my legacy.

  You will compete against each other in some rooms.

  Colborate to face challenges in other rooms and will show your individual abilities as well.

  Not everyone who joined this trial will get out alive, but those who do will do so stronger, much stronger.

  This trial is designed to challenge you as much as to reward you, be alert constantly.

  The entire pce is hostile, and the entire byrinthine wants to get rid of you. Don’t let it.

  You will learn my story as you go, as that’s the entire purpose I made this legacy, to ensure that my goals are reached, even from beyond the void.

  But above all, as newbies, you will learn of yourself. You will learn about your strengths and limitations.

  Time runs differently inside this Labyrinthine.

  One year here equals one hour in the real world, and one year is all you will get.

  If you fail to reach the st room before the year is over, you will be kicked out of here.

  But don’t worry, you will live. You will live to regret not reaching the grand prize!

  The grand prize is a Body Dismantling Cultivation Manual. This manual will cover all the levels of the first cultivation stage.

  Perfect cultivation, the best gains, and the easiest way to the top.

  It’s very rare to achieve perfect cultivation at any stage.

  This will let you and your sect, after you have a significant head start.

  Let the trials begin, and may the best man win!}

  ****

  Seph gulped once he heard the name of that manual, Body Dismantling. He felt that his body was failing him already. Everything was much weaker than before.

  All his senses, all his muscles, and there was even more dismantling after that?

  He looked behind and thought, Yeah; the portal is gone. I guess I am stuck here, no turning back.

  Regardless, this was what he heard after he entered the portal inside the bck tree. He was the first to enter. There were over 100 Yin disciples entering this pce.

  All newbies, without any power or any skill to their name, except for what they knew from their past lives.

  There were a few martial artists in the group, or at least that’s what he heard whispered.

  Which made this all worse, since they will compete against each other.

  He was never in a fight, except that one time a husband beat his ass, after he saw his wife in inappropriate attire when he was delivering water to their house.

  It was a one-way beating, honestly; he doesn’t like to think back on it.

  He got chosen to enter the tree portal first, even though he was the newest of the bunch.

  But the Elder said it was his fate since he was at the tree before all of them.

  That probably wasn’t the best thing that could have happened to him, since he saw all the newbies look at him hatefully.

  Once the elder said that, he recited some incantation on the tree, and the cavity shifted, revealing an even bcker portal that looked like a void in space and time.

  He was already hating the color bck. How did his life ever come to this?

  When he entered the portal, he lost all sensation, even though he knew he was still walking forward, but it was like all his senses stopped working.

  He could see nothing at all, hear, or smell anything, and didn’t even feel any wind or the ground beneath his feet while he walked. He only knew that he was willing himself forward.

  The first thing he saw was a door, a brown door, with vines climbing over it, it looked old and unused since nature had overtaken it, as well as the entire room, which was made of white stone, and also had vines climbing all over it.

  The voice of Scorn came out of nowhere, disembodied. It felt weird to hear an introduction like that from Scorn. The man is a big deal, after all.

  He was alone, so either the others would take time before they spawn in the same room, or they were already in different rooms around this pce.

  He had a feeling, though, after hearing this introduction, that he didn’t luck out by being the first man here or anything. He would see his peers, eventually.

  He looked around after the introduction was done, and the room was empty.

  He guessed there was nothing here to do, so he braced himself and opened the door to the first room in the trial.

  ****

  After he opened the first door, he found himself in what looked like a garden. There wasn’t a white stone floor under his feet this time, but soil.

  The wall was adorned with vines, the same as the st one, and there were three herb plots in the middle, with enough room to walk between the entire garden.

  He recognized one bed was Vitality Grass. He was ecstatic, even though he couldn’t get it to his mother now. Each herb plot had 8 herbs, and there were three different herbs in the room, one for each plot.

  He noticed a wooden bucket in the clear path and decided to put the herbs he would gather inside it for now.

  Reaching his hand down to pick his first Vitality Grass, a small creature that looked like a mythical fairy flew toward his face from between the herbs.

  It had what looked like a skirt made of a colorful flower and a naked upper body. It was very tiny, but it was terrifying! screaming while flying towards him, a look of absolute hate on its little face.

  Its little teeth were very sharp, its hair looked like a flower sepal of some kind, a little green thing that covered its head, and it had a little wand that was fshing white, while it was waving it towards him.

  He panicked immediately, but his reaction surprised even himself. When he lunged forward and bit the little fairy in half, his teeth cut clean through its tiny body. He panicked again, spitting the upper half of its body that was inside his mouth.

  At this moment he realized it tasted good!

  He steeled his heart and swallowed what little blood was still inside his mouth, and he felt like he got very little energy from it. He couldn’t expin it.

  Now that he thought about it, nobody ever told him how yin cultivation worked, not even the other newbies, to make sure that nobody cultivated before entering this pce.

  Did I turn into a carnivore killer when I died and became a yin immortal? Seph Thought.

  He tried not to do it; he tried not to eat the rest of the little fairy, but unconsciously his hand reached out towards it, picked its upper half again and put it in his mouth.

  He gulped it down in panic, then he noticed! I got a little more energy this time, but he was constantly gaining energy little by little now!

  He couldn’t stop a terrifying thought inside his mind. It’s delicious!

  He let go of his inhibitions, picked up its lower half, and put it in his mouth.

  This time he chewed, he took his sweet time, and he felt great.

  He was getting way more energy. He was feeling satisfaction, as if he was eating mundane food, and his act didn’t feel unnatural at all!

  He swallowed the little fairy after thoroughly eating it, and he got back to his original task of picking the herbs. He picked all the vitality grass.

  Then moved to the second bed, which had grass that looked like it was going to catch on fire. It was even hot to the touch.

  This Must be Fire Grass. I am not sure what it’s used for, but I will collect it as well. He thought.

  He started picking and when he reached out for the final one; he noticed another of the little fairies hiding in.

  It’s really scared of me. I can see it, since this one isn’t trying to attack me. The issue is, I don’t think I satiated my hunger by eating that st one. He thought to himself.

  He then lunged for this one with his hand. It screamed and flew away, the wand in its little arms lit up, and he sprinted after it, till a ball of light hit him straight in the face.

  He felt his forehead burning when he got hit, but it didn’t feel like a severe injury at all. He stopped for a second, pondering his next move, but the screams he heard didn’t give him a chance to do that.

  Two more screams came from the second Herb plot, with two more lighting wands flying towards him, they were pretty low, and he was standing up, he did the first thing that came to his mind and he threw himself at them in a weird angle, to fall on them with his entire back.

  True enough, he nded on both of them, and even though his back hurt from the nding, they got it much worse, even if they were still alive. He clutched both groggy fairies in his hands and bit both their tiny heads off.

  The st fairy saw all this and was flying away frightened, but there was no other way out of this room but through the single closed door.

  He just threw one of the two fairies in his mouth, started chewing, and ran after the st one, feeling energized by the energy entering his body. He caught it and bit its head off.

  He sat on the ground, panting, thinking of what he had just done, not feeling any remorse at all. He closed his eyes and started breathing in and out. Calm washed over him after the intense fight, even if it was easy.

  He felt the pain disappear from his back and forehead, and then he felt extreme pain when the right half of his chest cage popped back into its original pce, and healed, the process was very painful, but an extreme sense of relief came over him right after when he did this, the energy inside his body was gone, but he was healed!

  He wasted no more time at this point and ate the st two fairies.

  He meditated again right after and the rest of his chest popped back into pce, fully healed. He was back to his former self, as back as he could be anyway, since he still looked like a walking corpse.

  He opened his eyes trying to make sense of what he knew so far, eating other creatures energizes him, and chewing them gives him instant energy, but if he swallows them whole, the energy trickles in for a while in much slower amounts, as if he was digesting food.

  This energy doesn’t leave his body. He can sense it to an extent, and with meditation, he can heal himself by consuming this energy.

  Is this what cultivation is for the Yin immortals?

  He had no idea, but he will need to make more tests in the future as he moves along.

  He headed now for the st herb plot and looked at it wearily. Wondering if there were more of those fairies inside; He thought to himself, it’s great that monsters can get scared that way. It would have been annoying to continue running after that st fairy.

  Speaking of fairies, he looked down in his hands to the st two dead fairies, and decided to put them in the bucket for now.

  The herbs in the st plot, looked weak, like straight strings of grass sticking out of the ground, he knelt and tried to pluck them out, only to be met with force he wasn’t expecting from the frail grass, he grabbed it with both hands and pulled, only for a bulb root to come out of the ground, the root looked like it’s made of soil; he didn’t know what this was, so he put it in the bucket, and continued towards the closed door in front of him.