Otherworld Adventure

When Cecil arrived at the other side of the teleportation gate, he couldn't help but close his eyes do to the piercing light flashing into his eyes.

After Cecil's eyes adjusted themselves to the brightness, he observed his surroundings. It was windy. Like very, very windy. No, it was like he was standing next to a giant tornado.

Before he was down underground most likely in the World Tree's roots, but now he was high up on top of the branches.

The bright piercing illumination was from the sun high above his head, but because he was high up on the World Tree's branches the sun looked much larger and its rays were much more glaring.

"...Ugh," Cecil groaned from the piercing sunrays. He struggled to just open his eyes, not to mention it was also extremely hot.

Cecil was a little bewildered. The mana density high up on the branches was really dense, and he felt that they originated not from the World Tree, but from the sun's rays.

"Could mana...be originating from the sun?"

If this was true then it was no wonder the mana density rose exponentially when he got higher up into the sky. The closer one was to the sun, the more mana there would be.

No wonder such a large tree was able to thrive and not cause problems to the surrounding areas. A large tree like Urrugdrasil would undoubtedly need an absurdly large amount of nutrients. If it sucked up all the nutrients from the ground then the area where the Elven Kingdom was located on would have turned dead and barren long ago.

Now Cecil understood why the Elven Kingdom was able to thrive and the World Tree was all healthy. This sun was providing an abundant amount of mana to nurture the tree so it wouldn't need to suck up any from the earth.

Cecil began to explore the area. He was surprised that he wasn't blown off of the branches due to the wind. The idiot even tried to jump and see if the wind might pick him up and blow him off of the branch. Of course, it didn't work and he just dumbly landed back onto the branch.

"...good thing no one saw me."

Cecil began blushing in shame, but he was feeling a little disappointed. If Lucia was here, she would have probably smacked the living daylights out of the fool.

"Well, enough joking around...just what, am I supposed to do now?"

Cecil looked around. In front of him, the branch continued to expand far into the distance. Behind him, was a wooden wall that he assumed was most likely the large tree trunk? The boy turned his eyes forwards and began walking.

"No other way but forward~ tree tree tree~ I'm walking on a large tree~" To stave off his boredom, Cecil began to sing a tune he randomly came up with.

It didn't take long until bird-type and insect-type monsters were attracted to his voice. Cecil unhurriedly took out his sword.

Only the monsters that dove down to attack him would Cecil cut down. As for the ones that kept their distance, Cecil sent a mana bolt to greet them. It was a fatal greeting that sent the monster plummeting down to the earth if they were unfortunately hit.

The trial was...easy? He only had to deal with the monsters that swarmed at him from the skies, the extreme heat, and the annoying illumination. Normally, if anyone wanted to pass through the trials it would take much more effort. The winds that blew in the tree tops, the extreme heat, and the bright surroundings obstructed many mages' and warrior's ability to retaliate against the horde of birds and insect-type monsters.

The winds also caused the trajectory of most spells and long ranged attacks to deviate. Not Cecil's though. He didn't know any spells and only used his mana to attack. He also attached a homing function onto each of his mana bolts and they would soar straight towards their targets.

Sometimes they would explode in mid-air because of the strong wind drafts, but it was inconsequential to him since he could just send more mana bolts over.

As for the diving monsters, Cecil's close combat abilities were too overwhelming. He didn't have to worry about falling off the branch if he decided to jump up to attack. He already tested it and the winds couldn't carry him off the branch if he only decided to jump straight up.

Cecil countered the bright environment by simply closing his eyes and using only his senses to fight off the monsters. His Mana Sense was practically a cheat on this trial. He leisurely made his way through the branch while singing and cutting down the monsters swarming at him. It took him about 2 hours or so to arrive at the end of the branch and find another teleportation gate.

Cecil walked through it and arrived at another branch. This time however he was at the end of the branch. He would have to walk back towards the World Tree's Trunk since that was the only way forward.

"Phew...this is exhausting instead of challenging..."

Cecil walked forward and he had to deal with swarms of flying monsters soon after. It was an unrewarding fight since the monsters would immediately dissipate into light after he slashed them down or blew them up.

When he arrived at the trunk, Cecil was greeted by another teleportation gate. He walked through it and another tree branch greeted him.

"..."

He was about to turn around and walk back into the teleportation gate, but he noticed that it was no longer active!

"...you're kidding...right?"

Cecil thought that the administrator might just say 'nope' in his head, but no notification of the sort echoed in his mind. He released a tired sigh and continued to walk forward.

The branch he was on was a little different than the rest, it wasn't straight like the previous two, but it twisted and slanted upwards a little. The monsters swarming at him in hordes were annoying him now. The sounds of birds screeching and insects buzzing were pushing him to the brink of crazy.

"Maybe the goddamn trial was actually to endure through the maddening noise and solitary environment that the participant was subjected to." He thought aloud.

Cecil trudged through the trial while single-mindedly killing the monsters coming his way. He continued walking for an absurdly long amount of time. He passed through 20 teleportation gates and walked through 20 branches.

Cecil felt he had been walking for almost a week now, but the end of the trials was nowhere to be found. During the times when he was hungry, Cecil would pull out some of the food he had prepared inside his ring and sit down to take a break and eat.

He would sleep or rest only when he was close to the teleportation gates since the monsters weren't present when he lingered around them. It was a safe zone and Cecil thanked the administrator for it, though he was constantly cursing him or her in his mind for giving him such an unreasonable trial.

This continued on for what Cecil felt like was over half a month or so, perhaps 15 or 20 days. Cecil had lost count after the second week since the buzzing and noise from the monsters forced him to turn his focus into his mind and block out all the noise from the surroundings.

He relied only on his sight and battle sense to fight the monsters. Although the difficulty grew when stronger monsters began to show up, but it was better than him going mad from the constant noise.

If it was any ordinary man, they would have been driven into a corner after the 5th branch by now, but Cecil persevered.

After an unknown amount of time, Cecil finally made it past the 50th teleportation gate. This time however he wasn't sent to another tree branch, but instead he had arrived at dome that was made with intertwining tree branches. Sunlight peeked out from in between the narrow gaps as it illuminated the inside of the dome.

Cecil was exhausted and he immediately plopped down onto the ground. He felt dirty and uncomfortable. He hadn't taken a shower for god knows how long! He didn't have any magic to create water so he couldn't just wash himself whenever he wanted to like Lucia, Ainz and Fina.

He was also almost out of drinking water. When he had the strength to stand back up, he couldn't help but notice the fountain full of water at the right side of the tree dome. The boy immediately rushed to the fountain and began pulling out empty canisters. He quickly filled them up with the fountain's water.

The water was rich in mana and it didn't seem contaminated since it was crystal clear. After filling up all his canisters, he took off his clothes and dipped himself into the water and took a bath.

It was unethical, but Cecil didn't care. He was dirty, sweaty and uncomfortable. When he dipped into the crystal clear cold water he groaned in pleasure.

"Hooohhh...this is great! I'd prefer hot water, but who gives a damn!"

Cecil was about to begin scrubbing off the dirt he had acc.u.mulated, but suddenly felt his body was cleaned just from stepping into the fountain's water.

Cecil dove into the waters and stepped out of the fountain when he felt that he was completely clean. When he turned to look at the water, it was already murky with dirt and impurities.

"I'm sorry," Cecil said as he bowed down in apology, but then the fountain began to gurgle and the water was drained from the fountain. Then more water began to spout out from the top of the water fountain and it was immediately filled once more with mana-rich, crystal clear water.

"Oh!"

Cecil went over to the fountain once again and began washing his dirty clothes. He was humming happily and saw the dirt and stains being magically erased just as he dipped his clothes into the fountain's water. He was worried that the clothes might stay stained, but the water was really effective and the dirt and stains were completely erased.

Cecil's uniform returned to its pristine condition not long after, he dried them and immediately put them back on. Once again the fountain emptied itself out and clear water refilled it.

He smiled at this and thought it was a pretty convenient tool, when he activated his Mana Eyes and observed the fountain he found all sorts of runes and arrays in the interior of the fountain.

"Woah! It's actually a lost magi-tech!"

Cecil really wanted to uproot the fountain and bring it back with him, but if he did so, then he might destroy all the runes and arrays engraved on it.

He quickly took out a Magic Tome from his spatial ring and began jotting down the runes and arrays he saw. Once he made sure he got all of them down, Cecil finally turned his attention to the center of the dome.

At the center of the dome was a pedestal made entirely of branches and wood. On the pedestal was another wooden sword, similar to the Corruption that he got during the previous extra trial.

Cecil walked up to the pedestal and read the inscriptions on its face.

"...The World Tree's Third Thorn, Perseverance..."