Chapter 157: Trial

“The hell?” Kael blinked twice.

The words came out quietly, half disbelief, half offense. His brain felt like it was trying to catch up to the idea.

An awakening material. From a first-floor hidden piece. In the Reverse Tower. It was the kind of drop that should not exist in the hands of someone still technically level one.

His mouth went dry again, and it wasn’t from the smoke this time.

’An awakening material? Here, on the first floor?’ he couldn’t help but wonder at the absurdity of it all.

The Tower wasn’t supposed to hand out things like this early. Legendary gear was already obscene. An awakening? That was a whole different category. That was identity-level power. The kind of thing that made you not replaceable.

After all, he tricked the Sun Clan into thinking that he had an awakening, ’Smelling Monsters’

He almost snorted, almost, because it was painfully ironic. He’d built an entire lie around his “nose,” and now the Tower was dangling something that could make that lie true in a way he hadn’t expected. He could picture Iori’s face if he ever found out. Not anger. Not betrayal. Simple, frothing greed.

He couldn’t help but laugh at the thought. Now, he really could become an awakened Climber.

The difference between the two was like night and day.

He’d seen it on Earth. Everyone had. Normal climbers trained, learned, crafted, grinded. They got better, sure, but it was incremental, numbers up, gear improved, spells refined.

Awakened climbers were different. They weren’t just stronger. They were tilted. Like the world bent around their specialty.

Where any climber can wear, craft, create, and master anything else that anyone else can do.

Awakenings are unique.

And unique meant you didn’t get measured by the same stick anymore. It meant you stopped being “another guy with stats.” It meant you became a problem.

A mage awakened to Fire magic is far superior to any other mage who is learning the same thing. The power output is different, and the resources used are different.

And those are just normal awakenings. Some have awakened to more extreme things.

Kael remembered one climber. Yenna the Berserker.

Even thinking her name felt like remembering a headline you couldn’t forget. Yenna had been one of those people everyone pretended they could be if they “just trained harder.” Then she went out and proved that no, actually, some people were simply born, or awakened, into a different league.

She awakened something called Bloodlust.

A normal-sounding awakening until you realize how deadly it was.

Kael could still recall the interviews, the way other climbers spoke about her with that mix of respect and fear. Bloodlust sounded like a mood. In practice, it was a weaponized hunger that turned fights into slaughterhouses.

She was in the same guild as Veylan Asher before she disappeared from the media.

That little detail had been a whole drama on its own. People loved building hero narratives, and they loved tearing them down even more. Yenna’s disappearance had fueled rumors for months. Some said she died. Some said she climbed too high and didn’t come back. Some said she did come back and refused the spotlight.

She also reached the highest floors before her disappearance, climbing them by herself.

And it was all thanks to that awakening.

A blessing for some, they say, and a curse for her, she replies.

Kael understood that part too. People loved to envy power until they realized power came with chains.

Awakenings weren’t always gifts. Sometimes they were hooks sunk into your ribs, dragging you toward a certain kind of life, whether you wanted it or not.

The ability to draw blood from any source that she causes damage to, and at the same time, use that blood to fuel her own power further, while weakening the others.

A perfect ability for her Berserker style.

Kael’s mind wandered for a second, imagining what it would feel like to have something like that, something you could rely on even when you were tired, even when you were cornered, even when clans turned on you.

A power that made the world give you room.

The fact that she managed to solo a Vampire Count by herself was enough to make the whole world admit to her incredible prowess in battle.

Even overshadowing Asher’s rise to the frontline of heroes for months to come.

Kael leaned back on the gate, ’Though I’ll never be as strong as Yenna, I’ll probably at least have a slightly easier time in the tower if this awakening is powerful.’

The metal against his spine was cold and steady. It helped him stay grounded. The door behind him vibrated again, and Kael tightened his jaw, eyes flicking to the seam as if it might suddenly split.

He didn’t need “strong as Yenna.” He needed enough. Enough to survive floors. Enough to get the elixir. Enough to go home.

The reason Kael didn’t immediately activate it was simple.

Each awakening had its own trial. And they are nasty trials at that, too.

He’d heard enough stories. People didn’t discuss awakening trials as they did loot. They talked about them like trauma. Like rites you survived and never wanted to repeat.

Some woke up screaming. Some woke up laughing. Some didn’t wake up at all.

He remembered that one of the easiest ones was the trial of Fire, and that made you feel like your entire body was burning in hellfire, and you had to suck it up until you were granted the awakening.

“Easiest” and “hellfire” in the same sentence. That alone told you how sick the Tower’s idea of mercy was. Kael looked down at his hands, at the gauntlets, at the faint heat marks and old grime.

He’d already been burned enough times on this floor. He wasn’t eager to volunteer for more.

Here, he doesn’t know what the Basilisk’s eyes would do to him, so he was a bit hesitant.

Basilisk eyes… vision? perception? paralysis? venom sight? Something worse? The Tower loved ironic awakenings.

Kael didn’t like unknown trials in a room where he could barely stand upright.

Yet the banging behind him, the closing zone, and the momentum rune that was getting closer made him make the choice.

Because he didn’t have the luxury of caution anymore, the Tower had cornered him with time and teeth. If he waited, he’d be pinned between zombies and fire. If he acted, he might suffer, but suffering was still better than being eaten.

He could lose it all if he failed the awakening, but he could also gain everything if he succeeded. And now, without any energy of his own, only the awakening could probably help him survive this ordeal.

[Do you wish to Awaken, Basilisk’s Eyes?]

The prompt floated in front of him like a dare. Clean text. Simple question. Like it wasn’t about to potentially ruin him. Like it wasn’t about to carve something new into his soul and call it improvement.

“Sure, why not?” Kael said as he manifested the golden eyeball of the basilisk in his hand.

The eyeball felt wrong the moment it appeared, warm, slick, heavy in a way a normal eye shouldn’t be. It was gold and alive-looking even though it was dead, the iris catching the faint light as if it still belonged to something that could blink. Kael’s stomach tried to recoil. His brain tried to treat it like food, like loot, like an object.

But it wasn’t an object.

It was a piece of a monster that had tried to swallow him whole. A piece he was about to graft into his fate.

Just then.

“Who turned off the lights?”

Kael was confused; he had seen the barely lit room not two seconds ago, but now everything was out cold.

Only then did he realize.

“Shit, I’m blind, fuck!” The curses couldn’t help but emerge out of his mouth as he realized the severity of his situation.

Suddenly, he noticed one thing: a blue bar at the bottom right of his sightless vision.

’I can see the system’s prompts…’ He muttered to himself as he moved his hands in front of him.

He could also still feel the kicking and scratching behind him from the zombies, which was still there.

“Map,” He muttered.

And the map came into view. A blue map with a lot of red dots, packed tightly behind his green dot.

Then, a notification appeared to explain what was happening.

[You have entered the Trial of the Basilisk.]

Trial of Crippling Darkness.

You will be submitted to a trial of Darkness and of petrification.

Resist and survive until the trial is over to awaken the [Eyes of the Basilisk]

Time Remaining: 60 minutes.

Kael cursed as he realized that this was not enough time. Not nearly enough time to do anything.

If he were in another location, then sixty minutes would be fine. A relatively short time for a trial, even. But here? In a room packed with monsters? Well, the monsters weren’t the issue; surely the door will hold for the duration. The problem was the creeping red zone in the map.

It will reach here long before the sixty minutes are up.

And not only that, the Zombie with the Momentum Rune was right outside among the packed enemies.

He couldn’t leave, as he is blind and will be torn to shreds, and he couldn’t stay, as he would soon be cooked alive.

’Fuck, it’s already getting hotter…’ Kael muttered as he noticed that his body had begun sweating.

Once the pillars of flame reach closer, he’ll also lose his only path to leave the labyrinth he is stuck in.

A true trap, and he walked right into it.

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