Darius opened his eyes, seated within a large chamber with smoke wafting around his face. He regained himself and looked around, to see that apart from him, only 30 others of the initial 100 or so were awakened at the same time.

This included Gunner and Xela, who gazed at Darius with confused looks. Darius smiled smile towards them and gazed forward.

Almost 30 years had passed in his mind, but they felt like a blur out here. Not only that, it had little effect on his mentality and his personality due to his high Intellect.

It was only those with weaker Intellect and minds that would face severe changes after such events occurred, not prepared to undergo some form of time dilation and experiencing so much in such a short time.

Darius sighed as he thought back to his gains. Not only had he acquired the training and deeper understanding of the elements, but he had gained a deep understanding of the soul.

Immediately, Darius created a spell manual for all the spells he learned within the mental realm and learned them. He would gather skill points to raise them later, as practice would not suffice anymore.

He then thought to the ongoing test and noticed that those who had come out all possessed unique traits. All of them had high Intellect for sure, which didn't necessarily mean they had insurmountable will, but it helped.

Mostly because, just as Darius had suspected from the start, the Test of Mettle had nothing to do with 'will'. Not only because what would follow was literally called the 'Test of Will', but due to the nature of the test and the open answer given by its name.

Seriously, it was a matter of semantics.

What was 'mettle'? Literally put, it was the courage to carry on.

However, this was where the trap lay. This definition sounded just like what one would attach to 'perseverance', but 'perseverance' was attached to 'will'! 'Mettle' and 'Will' were similar but not the same!

They were two sides of the same coin!

The same concept, but pursued towards different conclusions!

Will was exactly what the average layman thought, the act of persevering towards a goal in spite of whatever obstacle or pain that may stand in your way.

Mettle though, was the ability to rebuild after facing an obstacle or disaster and to keep going when all hope seemed lost.

To make it less cryptic, pay attention to the keywords for the two. Will = Perseverance. Mettle = Rebuild.

Using the desert realm as an example, the Test of Will would likely be them stripped naked, without magic or any form of help, forced to trod through the ghost sun and endless sands until they fell.

That was perseverance.

In the desert realm though, they had kept all their stats and abilities, not even reduced to mortal levels. There was no danger around nor any threat.

You were given a blank slate to work with. A place that had no use for you and might be your death place unless you took it by the scruff of the neck and rearranged it into something useful for yourself… something you could leapfrog off to success.

Without becoming long-winded, it was that simple.

Darius looked around and saw from the faces of the others who were awake that they had likely realized the same thing. Even if you didn't know that there was a separate Test of Will like Darius' trio did, and so clued you in on the answer, there were enough clues to tell.

Now, what must be going through the heads of the others was how they would decide the next Desert King? After all, as far as they knew, there should have been only one test.

However, Darius noticed that the incenses in the burners of those who had awakened had been swapped. The original one had been of a brownish color, but this new one was green.

Soon, the incense lit up and began to burn, releasing a new set of fumes that wafted into the nose of those who were awake. The ones remaining seemed to understand the gist of what was going on and without resisting succumbed to the call of the abyss once more.

Darius and his two Branded Servants did the same, entering what was likely a new mental realm for the Test of Will.

......…

Darius rose to awareness to see that he was standing in the middle of a desert. Unlike before though, his clothes were sparse and his stats had been removed.

If he still had the Supreme System, he would see that all his stats had been reduced to 10 points, the average of humans on Faust. It seemed that even his Draconic benefits had been overruled this time in favor of being closer to a standard.

The sun was scorching hot and the sands were uneven. There was only more sand and sun in every direction, going on for all directions.

Darius pondered and thought of many clever ways to pass this test. He decided against them all though, as there was no point in trying to be fancy.

It was like a smart kid during an end-of-term exam who completely understood a question and knew the answer, but wanting to show off his knowledge, went above and beyond what was mentioned.

Even if he didn't get penalized, he wouldn't get extra marks for it. After all, the question itself only offered 20 marks.

If you solved it the traditional way, you would get 20 marks and your new fancy way couldn't surpass that ceiling.

So what was the point?

Besides, there was a chance that trying to show off would rather lead one down the path of failure, a terrible situation where instead of securing your guaranteed 20 marks, you might end up with 0.

As such, Darius sobered up and began trudging along quietly. He knew that this bit was going to be long and painful, but he had peppered himself for it ever since he had been in the Test of Mettle.

As such, there was nothing to do now but walk.

Walk, walk, walk….