Micro stared at the woman for a moment before realizing that the energy around her felt exactly the same as the basilisk who had vanished in a spectacular display of sparking energy.

  “You’re still the same Ura, right?” Micro asked tentatively.

  “I am still Ura, but to say I remain the same…” she replied slowly. “I would expect such a being as yourself to appreciate the nuance of personal transformation…”

  “Personal transformation?”

  “You do not reside in the body you were born with,” Ura explained. “Did you think you were the only one capable of such a thing?”

  “I see!” Micro said.

  “I wouldn’t trust her so easily,” Blue whispered.

  “Indeed, a pixie might find it difficult to accept a being with more than one face,” Ura said with a kind smile. “But my creator expected your kind may one day find yourselves here.”

  “Being a cultivator has its perks, I guess,” Blue shrugged. “But being a pixie is better. You can’t improve on perfection!”

  “You may find the trial you now face quite useful…” Ura replied, a mischievous grin sneaking across her face. “Though it will surely offend you…”

  “Ugh!” Blue sighed loudly. “Figures! Let’s get it over with then.”

  “What kind of trial is it?” Micro asked.

  “There are several chambers between here and the dungeon’s exit,” Ura answered. “Pass through them, and you may leave.”

  “That sounds simple…” Micro began, but his eyes narrowed as Ura’s smile widened. “But it isn’t, is it…”

  “The first room is through that door…” Ura whispered, pointing to the wall to her right, where Micro was able to discern the shape of a door.

  “Okay then. Oh!” Micro suddenly shouted. “Can you give me a moment?”

  “You may prepare yourselves in whatever manner you choose,” Ura replied with a disarming smile. “I am the dungeon’s guardian, not yours…”

  “Thanks, Ura!” Micro replied, then began to walk, but his destination was not the door. Blue and Ura both looked at him in confusion as he began walking leisurely around the room in circles with no discernible path in mind, a contented smile on his face. He continued to walk until the confusion of his spectators had nearly given way to boredom before stopping where he had begun. He finally spoke up with a bright smile. “The floors in these dungeons are so flat… That was really refreshing.”

  ~

  After his brief walk, Micro went ahead of Blue to the doorway Ura had pointed out, and Trill joined Blue on the ground beside him. Micro looked back at the roughly breathing goblin on the ground where it had first fallen near its club.

  “You said the four of us, but the goblin doesn’t have to come with us, right?” Micro asked.

  “You may proceed at your own pace. that creature’s fate is its own. Although…” Ura scratched her chin for a moment, then shook her head and smiled at the group. “Never mind that for now. Why don’t you try walking through the door?”

  “Try…?” Blue repeated, her eyes narrow. “I don’t like your tone, snake lady—”

  “Okay!” Micro said, reaching for the long handle of the door and pulling it open. On the other side of the door was a room which looked no different to the one he was already in, and he began to walk. “Ouch!”

  “I figured…” Blue sighed.

  Micro shouted in pain as his swinging hand passed through the doorway ahead of his body, an unbelievable pain travelling up his arm. Blue jumped up and grabbed the back of his robes, flapping her wings once to yank him backwards away from the door.

  “Well, that confirmed it,” Blue sighed as she landed on his shoulder. “This place is going to annoy me.”

  ~

  “That hurts a lot!” Micro said while waving his hand frantically. “The Armour Trait made my skin a lot stronger, but that room feels hotter than fire!”

  Blue slowly approached the doorway, extending a finger toward the room beyond it. She tried coating it with Turtle Art armour, but it was dissolved almost instantly.

  “Ugh…” she grumbled as her tiny fingernail began to sizzle. She withdrew her hand and sighed. “That’s the trick, eh?”

  “What’s the trick?” Micro asked, looking back to Ura.

  “I think your friend has some idea…” Ura said, winking playfully at Blue.

  “Snakes and cultivators are bad enough on their own…” Blue sighed again. “Combining them was a bad idea.”

  “So how do we get through here?” Micro asked.

  “It’s simple, but it isn’t,” Blue replied with a sour expression. “The room itself isn’t hot. It’s just full of energy.”

  “So, will armour not work.? Micro replied. “What’s the trick?”

  “The room is full of energy with a particularly nasty nature…” Blue explained while glaring at Ura, though Ura only giggled quietly in reply. “It’s a trick some stronger cultivators use. Even some weaker pixies can’t blink all the way through a room full of it.”

  “Blink?” Micro asked.

  “That’s when I disappear from one place and appear in another,” Blue replied. “Getting from here to there, but skipping the getting there.”

  “Oh, that made me dizzy!” Micro recalled. “Wait, you can teleport around it?” Micro asked.

  “Maybe, but I have no idea how many rooms that snake-eyed creep over there filled with this stuff.” Blue shook her head and dropped her shoulders. “There’s a good chance I’d appear in the middle of a room even worse than this one. And the energy in this one can eat through just about anything.”

  “I hope there’s a Core Card that can teach me how to do that…” Micro thought aloud. “That would save so much time…!”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “There are several,” Ura spoke up. “But not on this continent.”

  “That’s a shame,” Micro replied. “Oh well. Blue?”

  “I’ve seen how some people get through traps like this, likely some Serpent Art cultivators,” Blue continued to explain with a look of disgust. “The trick to it is your skin.”

  “My skin…” Micro repeated.

  “Yeah… You’ve been using energy to defend yourself, but the trick to this isn’t defending yourself,” Blue continued, her glare intensifying as Ura’s smile widened. “Ah, it’s so annoying! What a waste of my beautiful skin!”

  “I don’t get it,” Micro stated confidently.

  “Your body makes skin by itself, doesn’t it?” Blue asked.

  “I think so,” Micro replied. “Something about cell division, right?”

  “Enough nonsense words.”

  “Sorry, Blue.”

  “It’s fine, where was I…?”

  “Something about skin.”

  “Yes, when you lose some, it grows back, right?”

  “It does!” Micro replied, looking closely at the back of his hands. “My wounds have all mostly healed.”

  “Well, the trick to this room is speeding up the process,” Blue said while pointing at the room, finally turning away from Ura to face Micro. “Don’t use energy to strengthen your skin or shield it. Use it to speed up what it does on its own.”

  “Not protecting, but healing…” Micro mumbled, beginning to follow her unhappy explanation. “That makes sense. Skin cells are like little vehicles, so giving them extra fuel should help…”

  “What are you talking about?” Blue asked.

  “Just something the old man helped his son with before,” Micro replied. “Cells use energy to divide, so giving them some—”

  “Huh?” Blue rolled her eyes and waved her hand. “Enough of the otherworldly nonsense. But hey, if it works, it works…”

  “What an interesting understanding you have of the unseen living world,” Ura interjected while nodding slowly in approval. “Your knowledge is rare, though your insight is borrowed…”

  “I don’t know much beyond what the old man talked about, though I guess he does talk a lot,” Micro replied. “He’s a very smart man.”

  “It seems you did more than learn from him…” Ura continued. “Your soul was not simply born of his affection for his possession. No, it seems he considered you a part of himself. Your soul was born of his own, in a way… How fascinating…”

  “I do feel like I can remember things that he would have remembered,” Micro replied as several memories surfaced in his mind. “It’s nice to feel close to him like that…”

  “I’d love to meet him,” Ura said with a kind smile.

  “He’d like that—Oh!” Micro clapped his hands together. “Is time flowing faster here?”

  “Very much so,” Ura answered. “You need not hurry, though it is unwise to dwell too long in a dungeon.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous?” Micro asked. “I never feel hungry or tired in dungeons.”

  “That is only natural. Your physical self, in a sense, is currently held in a realm beyond this time and space,” Ura explained. “Although you are not entirely separate from your body, it would be dangerous for a young soul to spend too much time away from its vessel. The consequences are often unpredictable, as you may already know…”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Ura,” Micro said, bowing his head slightly. “Alright, let’s figure this out.”

  ~

  Trill and Blue seemed ready to challenge the room ahead after a moment of conversation, though neither of them looked pleased with their task. They stood by the door for a while, impatiently staring at Micro as he meditated on the ground, though they eventually decided to go for a walk around the room.

  Micro concentrated intensely on his skin, following the natural flow of energy along the physical paths of his body, then raised his hand to the door. He extended one finger to the doorway, and withdrew it the moment he felt a twinge of pain. He brought his eyes closer and closer to his finger, struggling to focus on the tiny processes of his skin. Though he was unable to determine the nature of each skin cell as he had hoped, he became familiar with the paths energy took to and from the wound.

  With the image of refuelling a fleet of tiny vehicles in his mind, he then channelled more energy to his fingertip. At first, he found himself instinctively creating a shield, but the moment he finally managed to pour energy directly into his skin cells felt like an electric shock. The damaged skin was cast off violently as his wounded fingertip healed in a brief moment, then the flow of energy returned to normal.

  “Very interesting!” Micro shouted in his trance. “Now just a little more…”

  He sensed Ura’s amused gaze as he moved the rest of his hand through the doorway, wincing as the energy began to corrode his skin. However, he recalled the sensation he’d experienced moments before and was soon able to heal his hand as quickly as the energy in the room could damage it.

  He opened his eyes and saw clouds of dust being cast off of his hand as his damaged cells were replaced with new ones, and in his excitement sent more energy into his hand than it could use at once, creating a painful flash of light. He tried again, but this time he failed to provide enough energy to his middle finger. Again he tried, and again his balance failed.

  “Ouch,” Micro yelped as he cradled his steaming hand.

  “Your progress is fast, but you rely too much on your mind…” Ura whispered.

  “I do?” Micro mumbled as he tried to quicken his hand’s healing. “My mind is usually the problem…”

  “You may have done well in jade dungeons, where the mortal mind is challenged, but this is an amber level trial,” Ura explained, kneeling down beside him. “You have learned to make the impossible possible through your will in jade dungeons. You must now trust your physical form to do the same.”

  “My body can make the impossible possible?” Micro gasped.

  “You can not hope to control every minuscule component of your body at once, can you?” Ura continued. “Trust your vessel with your will.”

  “Trust my body…” Micro said sadly. “But I don’t really know it that well.”

  “Then let it speak to you,” Ura continued. “And let it show you what it can do.”

  “Hmm…” Micro nodded, then returned his attention to the doorway. “Thanks, Ura.”

  “You are a humble soul with great potential…” Ura said cheerfully. Her enthusiasm only seemed to be growing as their conversation went on. “I may be inclined to offer you more advice than I should…”

  “You ready yet?” Blue suddenly called out. “This place couldn’t be more boring if it tried.”

  “Let’s do this…” Micro nodded, and placed his hand back in the room, keeping Ura’s advice in mind as he fell back into a trance. “Trust my body…”

  The more he thought of his body, the more the image of his former vessel manifested in his mind. He could easily visualize his tires on the ground of the room, rolling through the dungeon at a safe speed, but now it was a human hand that informed him of the pain he was experiencing.

  “You’re really my hand, huh…?” Micro thought to himself while maintaining his hand’s healing processes despite the pain. Almost as if to respond to his acknowledgement, his hand twinged awkwardly. “I guess I haven’t been that nice to you recently… It’s not your fault though. I just miss my tires, you see?”

  His hand began to ache more as Micro recalled the sensation of his tires on a paved road. However, as he replaced the memory with thoughts of all the things he’d learned to do with his hand, from eating food to playing with children, a feeling of guilt grew in his heart.

  “I’ve relied on you more than I realized,” he said to his hand with his head bowed while Blue stared up at him, her face frozen in confusion. “I might leave this body one day, but I should appreciate the hard work you’ve done so far, even though you don’t have any wheels, or an engine, or doors…”

  As Micro dwelled on the genuine appreciation he had for his body, imperfect though it was, his hand suddenly stopped aching completely. While it continued to consume his energy, his skin began to heal even more rapidly.

  “Finally,” Blue sighed. “I’m not going to ask what sort of conversation you just had with your… hand…”

  “You’re very proud of your body,” Micro said to Blue.

  “I’d be a fool not to be,” Blue said with a proud tone, thumping her chest once with her fist. “Look at me!”

  “I just realized that thinking too much about my old body was making this one harder to use,” Micro explained. “You can do this easily because you trust your body so much. I need to do that too…”

  “So you’re fine with being human now?” Blue asked.

  “No, but I need to work with what I’ve got for now,” Micro replied, shaking his head. “I’m a truck, but I’ll be a dead truck soon if I don’t get used to being human for a while.”

  “You’re boring me. See you in the next room,” Blue declared as she led Trill into the doorway, apparently not bothered by the harsh energy. Micro was impressed at the speed with which they were able to proceed, but understood now that it wasn’t a conscious task, but a physical response which he had to encourage in himself. He looked back to Ura and nodded.

  “Thanks again, and goodbye,” Micro said, then stepped into the room.