Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

While most of the members of the two races on the planet were simple; in life and belief, they all belonged to a major force on their side of the planet.

At the heart of each hemisphere in this planet was a faction, a grand city, each city housed an idol and was a marvel of technology and civilization, they were respectively, Sandaria of the sand walkers and Terraria of the forest dwellers, two forbidden cities.

To enter the city, one must be of a certain standard, mental and physical. Each parent brought their newborn child to try and gift them a wonderful life in the forbidden city. Those who had the aptitude were selected, their parents compensated, and the parents will strive to birth more good children because when those children reached a certain level of power and influence, they could bring their parents to the forbidden city.

The only reason those from the forbidden city ever included new blood from the outside lands was the degeneration of bloodlines, they had once been ruled by inbreds and dimwits born of superior bloodlines, but such dilution and degeneration were barely noticed until they almost took over and destroyed the world.

As such, the custom of injecting new blood from the world came to be, as long as new genes of certain standards entered the gene pool, things would not go too bad.

The opposite also happened, when those born in the city had no aptitude, they would be given to those living in the world, making sure only those who were superior lived in the city.

What had the forbidden cities used to trade for the new blood and the other things they acquire from the population? They used things like cures, pills, training manuals, and general knowledge.

A clan of sand walkers would prosper if they were able to give birth to a sufficiently good child, or a number of good children, to trade for a manual that taught them how to identify the rarer metals and resources, and a clan of tree dwellers could prosper if they gain the techniques of rearing animals and fruit trees.

Clans would die out or be robbed, killed or simply assembled, thus, the level of technology could be kept very low. if the people residing outside the forbidden cities had no time to upgrade their technology and had to work hard for a living, the forbidden city would disseminate technologies at a pace that would never threaten them.

It was rare for a clan to assemble three or four techniques before they are robbed and killed for the precious manuals they traded their children for, that way, it would be hard for just one clan to dominate, although it happened that some clans were capable of growing to a certain extent, they no longer feared the power of the neighbouring clans, the forbidden city would bring them down no matter what, even going as far as to wipe out the entire clan and call it divine retribution through natural disaster.

And then, the occasional war comes, stating the stupid reason that the numbers of the population must be controlled, all those infirm and ill and old are sent to fight in the neutral zone, they are told it is mandated by the god, the ill and infirm must prove to the god that they were worth as much as the ordinary and healthy ones, they must obtain resources through force, since they can no longer work like the rest, they have to sacrifice their lives in order for the children to grow stronger and healthier.

Religion is the opium of the masses, and religion controlled this planet, its origin was the two seemingly opposite poles of power, but in reality, they were the same, they had frequent contact and exchange, they worked together to further profit themselves and eventually reach the exalted state of godhood.

Gods ascended from the forbidden city and used their power to further power up the city, an endless cycle, the end goal was to dominate the entire universe.

Yunan's test had turned into a history lesson about the force that dominated the universe, but it was at this point the explanation ended and the test started, the old man gave Yunan one simple task.

"As a ten-year-old child, you must live and work to bring down the forbidden cities, you can not use your knowledge, you must not divulge your identity and must follow the rules of the planet to ultimately reach your goal".

Yunan frowned and looked troubled about what to do, he kept a close eye on the projection and asked one simple question, "how many times can I try again?" to his surprise, the answer was very suspicious, the answer was "as long as you have the will to try". That answer only made Yunan's frown deepen and his face contort further into contemplation.

Cattolu was looking very excited, he was preparing to watch a good show of a futile struggle that would go on in a cycle until Yunan was mentally broken, but to his chagrin, he looked at the screen and the child who just put a spike through his heart.

It did not take five minutes for Yunan to die in the test, that was a failure, suicide was not common amongst the challengers, especially one with no rhyme or reason, most of the challengers would only kill themselves if they were stuck and had no path for recovery.

Cattolu wanted to scream foul and curse at Yunan for a few years but the Test had already reset, and the projection of the old man returned to offer Yunan his next chance, that or the choice to leave the test, as one failure was considered enough to leave.

"Would you like another chance? Change somethings you found undesirable? After each failure, a single detail could be changed in this test, alternatively, you may also choose to abandon the test, if so please state the reason why you ended the test so fast".

Yunan gave a weird smile to the old man before slowly saying the words that made him the first and sole victor of this test.