By the time Olivier came to his senses after teleporting, a blast of heat had already filled his mouth with sand.
He spat twice and narrowed his eyes to survey his surroundings. A desert. Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but desert. Rolling dunes stretched to the horizon, without a single tree or blade of grass, only heat-distorted air dancing above the sand.
A fierce wind swept past, whipping sand into the sky. There was not a hint of coolness in it; instead, it felt as though someone were fanning a furnace straight into his face.
The air was so hot it felt sticky. Olivier felt the entire space subtly warping in the heat, the edges of the distant dunes wavering like crumpled paper.
Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes. The silhouette of a magical beast appeared in the distance. It was fairly large, but its outline blurred in the heat haze.
Olivier did not hesitate. With a shift of his feet, he turned into a streak of sword light and shot toward it.
But just as he approached, the magical beast vanished into thin air before his eyes. Only grains of sand swirled in the wind where it had stood.
An illusion? Or a mirage caused by the heat?
Olivier did not dwell on it.
Anything strange could happen in a trial space like this. Rather than puzzle over a magical beast that might not even be real, he was better off finding the way forward.
He rested his hand on his sword hilt and headed deeper into the desert.
In another trial space, the scene was entirely different.
There was no desert here, no scorching heat, only a sinister wilderness. Dead trees jutted crookedly from the black soil, and pale bones lay scattered across the ground, whether human or