Greatest Legacy of the Magus Universe

In his youth, Adam was scared of serpents. He was terrified of them.

Then he tried to use his fear against his enemies. Made it his symbol. Whenever serpents appeared on Tron, people would think of the Dark King.

That was a long time ago. He believed he had overcome his fear of snakes. But when the first of the Seven Sacred Trials began and he plunged into a pit full of vipers, that fear returned.

Thousands upon thousands of snakes writhed across the ground. They covered the floor in a living mass of scales and coils, their bodies sliding over one another as they crawled in every direction. Some were tiny. Others were thick enough to crush a man. Their countless eyes stared at him from the darkness.

Adam’s heart thundered in his chest. His clothes were gone. Weapons gone. Every artifact he carried had vanished during his fall. He was completely naked.

A cold shiver ran through him. The snakes began crawling over his feet. Then his legs. Arms. Torso. Neck. Adam’s breathing became ragged. He wanted to move. Wanted to run. But there was nowhere to go. Snakes everywhere. The pit was filled with them.

Then, in the blink of an eye, more than a dozen snakes struck. Fangs pierced his flesh. Adam screamed, not so from the pain as from sheer terror. Poison flooded into his body.

But something strange happened. Several of the serpents convulsed the instant they tasted his blood. Their bodies twisted violently before they collapsed and died.

Adam barely noticed. More snakes were already coming. They poured over the corpses of their fallen kin, biting into his legs, his arms, his stomach, his back, his neck. Again and again and again.

Poison coursed through his veins. His body began to neutralize the venom entering his system. But more poison was injected as more serpents sank their fangs into his flesh.

Adam’s entire body trembled. This was not a battle. There was nothing to fight. He couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t understand the objective of the trial. The fear of surrounded by thousands of serpents had numbed his decision-making capabilities.

He screamed for help. None arrived. The chamber was dark. It was just him and the serpents. Just him and the terror. He was scared. Tears streamed down his eyes, brushing against the scales of a nearby snake.

He screamed again, but this time, a small serpent in hiding sprang into action and burrowed inside his mouth. Adam choked violently, but the serpent was small and devious.

Was this truly a test? Or were they trying to kill him?

Tinier serpents approached his head and slithered into his ears. Pain. Unbearable pain in his brain. In his mind. In his soul. He could no longer tell. His eyes rolled over as his body violently spasmed. Before he knew it, the pit of vipers had consumed him.

***

There was a reason why Lord White hadn’t made Adam go through the Sacred Trials of the Serpent back then.

At the time, Adam was merely a boy. An Apprentice. There was no chance he could have passed the trials. He couldn’t even have passed the first one.

There was a reason why the Coil was so selective when choosing its Summoners. Most never survived the trials. Perhaps one in a thousand years would successfully make it through. And that was an optimistic probability.

That was why the Coil had so few Summoners. The serpents were cold and vile and ruthless. They did not care how young their candidates were, nor did they care about their suffering and pain.

To them, the Sacred Trials were not a test to be overcome. They were simply a means of separating the wheat from the chaff.

How many days had passed since the first trial began? Days? Weeks? Months? Perhaps years?

When Adam came to his senses, he felt cold scales around his body. Darkness everywhere. Numbly, he swam to the surface. This was a pond of snakes. Dead snakes. And venom. And his own urine and feces.

He broke through the surface and inhaled a vast mouthful of air. He looked around in horror to see thousands of snakes dead. He hadn’t killed them. Not directly, at least. They had all tried to take a piece of him. But he had taken their lives instead.

Shivering, he made his way to the edge of the pit. He climbed out and lay on his back, chest heaving. Eyes trembling, thinking of what he had just endured. Countless dots pockmarked his body. Every inch of his flesh. These were the bite marks left behind by the serpents.

How many times was he bitten? How many serpents had tried to kill him? And how many had died instead? Was this really a test?

Adam felt so cold. So afraid. So alone. He curled into a fetal position, shivering. Eyes trembling in fear at what he had just gone through. And that was just the first trial.

He lowered his gaze. The aurburn band was still there around his finger. He had managed to protect it, after all. Before the serpents overwhelmed him, he had coated a layer of mana around the ring. Even unconscious, he had protected it. This was the symbol of his love. He would protect it with his life.

Rumble!

His world trembled. The floor shifted. Walls rose. Adam quickly rose to his feet, looking around in panic. The pit behind him had vanished.

Countless walls erupted from the ground all around him. Corridors bent. Then disappeared. Then overlapped. A long time later, the rumbling receded.

Adam now found himself at the edge of a labyrinth. This was unlike any ordinary maze. He had stepped into a world where pathways twisted endlessly, vanished without warning, and overlapped in ways that defied the laws of space.

Paths that seemed familiar would suddenly lead somewhere entirely different, while places he had already passed through would appear ahead of him again. There was no map to help him. Definitely no guidance. And no escape.

All he had was himself. The deeper he went, the more distorted the labyrinth became. And somewhere within the endless maze lay the center. Adam simply had to find it.

The second trial had begun.