Theo found herself standing in a claustrophobic jungle. Compared to the days and days she had been surrounded by giant trees, the normal sized trees and vines felt odd. It closely matched what she knew of rainforests back on Earth, but the feeling of wind mana that matched the doors told her she probably wasn’t back home.

  Knowing that she was definitely not safe, she spent a moment to summon a [geist] and mentally directed it to hover beside her. The skill followed her silently, its “feet” not touching the ground as she held her spear ready and started to progress through the jungle.

  After so many days spent with only the sound of wind and then more recently, the infrequent bird calls of the forest. The constant buzz and sounds of the jungle set her teeth on edge.

  Wading through vegetation and slapping at the occasional bug brave enough to come close to her, Theo tried to understand what the trial wanted from her. She hadn’t received a system message and all she could do was search around until her objective became clear.

  She wandered for what felt like an hour until she eventually noticed something strange.

  The jungle was looping.

  ‘Yeah. I definitely recognize that tree.’ She thought as she turned in a circle. She was missing something. But what?

  She started examining things more closely, using her mana sense she started to carefully look at everything around her.

  She frowned.

  ‘What’s that?’ A strange bulb was attached to the middle section of one of the trees near her, then she saw another one. Then another.

  Something tickled in the back of her brain as she approached the nearest of the weird shapes.

  They were perfectly camouflaged, matching the bark they were hiding on like bulbs of wood. Or looking like small bundles of leaves buried in the deepest parts of the foliage.

  As she drew close to the one she was examining it twitched, splitting open to reveal carapace and wings.

  A loud drone filled the air and suddenly the jungle sounds were drowned out by the buzzing of large insects.

  Dozens of beetles revealed themselves and Theo realized they matched the engraving on the door. Still camouflaged and hard to see, the closest one flew at her like a brick. A sharp stabbing pain pieced into her upper arm as she failed to react in time due to her surprise.

  With a pained yelp she swatted the insect away with [body enhancement] it crashed into the ground, part of its shell and legs breaking from the impact. She didn’t have time to finish it off as several more of the bugs rushed her.

  She was surprised when she got a System message, though it didn’t stop her from swinging her spear as more scarabs drew close.

  Essence flowed into her as her mind processed the message.

  [Ambushing Jungle Scarab]

  The information was a little too late to be of any real use, but she had other worries for the moment.

  For every bug she smashed out of the air or grabbed before pelting them into the ground, two more flew at her.

  She received dozens of stabbing bites. Most of which were on her back from where the scarabs flew into her blind spot.

  There was no poison but she had a dozen of freely bleeding wounds and the pain was more than a little distracting. Realizing she had forgotten about her new skill she directed it to start swinging its spear made of wind at anything she noticed coming close.

  With the extra help, she slowly gained ground on the swarm. [strikes] and [body enhancement] working to whittle down their numbers as she received less and less bites.

  When she had stomped the last of the wounded beetles to death, she tried to catch her breath. Thankfully this place also seemed to count as a forest for her trait and she felt vitality rushing through her body from the jungle around her.

  There was a shift in the mana, a vortex of wind condensing somewhere in the jungle to her right. She turned, having to spend mana to resummon her [geist] which had dissipated after expending all of the mana she had invested in it during the hectic fight.

  She was tired and hurt, but her gut told her this wasn’t over yet.

  A shape stalked out from between the trees. What she had thought was a small lizard engraved on the doors was a doberman sized reptile that snapped at her before it rushed her. Its gait not too dissimilar from a crocodile sprinting across land.

  [Giant Jungle Monitor Lizard]

  “Fuck you.” She sent her [geist] to attack the creature with a [strike] as she charged just behind her skill.

  Her skill struck first, The lizard ignoring it in favor of continuing its charge in her direction.

  The [geist] jabbed into the flank of the lizard and blood dripped as Theo drove her spear into its back as she jumped over it. Its head bending with gross flexibility as she narrowly avoided the “clap” of its mouth.

  It turned on her, approaching with a wary fury as it tried to go for her legs. Theo was having none of it. Pissed off from the pain she was in, she baited out a bite before driving the tip of her spear into the lizard's eye.

  She bared her teeth in triumph as [strike] tore through the lizard's orbital bone and passed into its brain. A flow of essence confirming her victory.

  Suddenly the jungle vanished. A burst of wind all that remained of its passing and she found herself standing in a small stone room. Light glowing from swirling runes that mimicked the wind mana in the air and a set of double doors much smaller than the ones she had first entered through.

  They showed her a new carving this time showing the lizard she had defeated moments ago, but this time larger. Standing at shoulder height with the engraving of three men armored in something that looked vaguely Roman.

  Instead of approaching the door right away, Theo sat down. The flow of vitality hadn’t stopped with the evaporation of the jungle and she wanted to rest completely before moving onto the next stage of the trial.

  The fight with the bugs hadn’t been close, but it had been draining on both her mind and her mana and it would have been stupid to not take advantage of a moment to rest.

  When she finally recovered, eating a small meal of dried meat and the last of her beans. She stretched before placing her hand against the door.

  [Enter?]

  Theo wondered if she could leave, not that she wanted to. But she wondered if it was even an option.

  Accepting, she felt her world suddenly shift again and she found herself standing in a sandy arena. Slightly worrying was the loss of vitality that came from her trait and she knew she had made the right decision to rest.

  The arena was simple sand stone, empty stands surrounding a pit of yellow sand that had been stomped flat from constant foot traffic. She was centered in the middle of the arena and she turned as she heard a gate open to reveal a man wearing studded leather armor and a leather skirt.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  [Ancient Gladiator]

  The man’s weapons of choice were a two pronged spear in one hand and a whip in the other.

  Theo didn’t believe in such a thing as a fair fight and as the man saluted her. She sent a reformed [geist] to attack him as she once again followed her skill.

  The man used his whip, attempting to disrupt the wind avatar, but her skill ignored it. Raising its spear to [strike] at him while Theo rushed low, unwilling to give him any moment to out maneuver her.

  The gladiator was forced to dodge the attack from her skill which put him off balance as she aimed a stab for his throat.

  With a blur of speed she felt a jarring impact as the gladiator moved his spear with some kind of skill, catching the tip of her blade and wrenching it free from the haft she had tied it to.

  Eyes wide, Theo felt the coil of the man’s whip snake around her leg with a flick of his wrist and pulled her from her feet.

  Grunting as she landed on her back, she rolled with [body enhancement] and barely avoided the quick jab that was aimed at her still tangled leg.

  She was stronger than the man it seemed. The quick movement with her skill pulled on the whip and dragged his body to the side.

  A handful of sand that she threw at the man's eyes briefly blinded him as she forced herself to summon an [air bullet] as quickly as possible before shooting it into the man’s face from her prone position.

  He went down like a puppet with cut strings as the projectile entered through the soft tissue of his cheek and forced blood and grey matter from his eyes and ears.

  Theo gagged, but didn’t have too much to think about what she had done as two more of the gladiators entered from the gate, they didn’t bother to salute her and rushed her in the same manner that she had done to the first.

  Scrambling to grab the gladiator’s spear, she drained her mana even more to create a [geist] as she circled to keep one man between her and the other.

  They worked together as they started to attack with their whips, the movements odd and controlled and Theo felt some sort of skill at play as she tried to figure out what to do.

  Thankfully she was faster than the two men, and despite their attempts to corner her against the wall, she was able to slip past them each time. She fired a couple more [air bullets] as she tested them. Her mana was depleting quickly, but she still had gas in the tank as she made her move.

  Directing [geist], Theo made it circle around the two men who were standing shoulder to shoulder as she charged them. Just as they readied to attack her as she made her skill shoot an air bullet into the back of the man on the left, not wanting to go for a kill shot and risk missing. The man staggered and she saw blood hit the sand as her [geist] dissipated with the expenditure of its mana. It was enough, her spear sunk into the man’s throat, dispatching him as he was pushed out of formation and closer to her before she completely abandoned the spear to deliver a nose crunching [strike] to the other gladiator as he tried to cover for his companion.

  He hit the ground hard as he flew back as Theo snatched the spear from the fallen gladiator, driving the two pronged tip under the chin of the prone man.

  The men hadn’t given her any essence upon their defeat, and she watched as their bodies evaporated before another vortex of wind rushed through the gate they had entered and Theo’s heart raced. She knew what was coming and she was nearly drained.

  A small blessing was the spear she had stolen was still in her grip, and she readied herself as the giant lizard appeared. The gladiators had been taller than her and so the lizard’s head was eye level as it stalked her with a malicious gleam in its eye.

  [Wind Reaper Monitor]

  The reptile watched her for a moment, a snarl half formed in its maw. A low rumble came from it that Theo could feel in her chest as they stared each other down.

  “Well come on you big bastard!” She shouted, her voice urging it to make the first move.

  Its tail snapped out with a sonic crack and Theo yelped as a slash of wind took a chunk out of the arena wall behind her. She had no escape, jumping into the stands gave her the same feeling of death that the lizard's teeth and claws did. Something about this place telling her it would have been a very bad idea.

  The lizard used her surprise to rush her, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off of it since the moment it had entered the arena, its scales almost matching the gloss of Bruce's mirrored fur, it cleared half the arena in a single bound as wind coated claws slashed at her.

  [Body enhancement] carried her mostly free of the attack, a long line of red trailing up her arm as the flesh split open from the passing wind of the claws and as she stabbed at the side of the reptile. It sent more swipes her way.

  The first swipe drew more blood, but a well timed block caught against the forearm of the lizard sent her flying back as she tumbled head over feet across the arena floor. A shower of sand marking her passing as she used her supernatural reflexes to turn the worst of the tumble into a roll that put her back on her feet in a low crouch.

  It was faster than her, stronger too. Another blade of wind impacted the sand where she would have landed had she not found her feet so quickly, she realized it was probably better with its magic too.

  This was an animal evolved to kill. The place she had managed to [strike] was only a shallow cut, but it bled, and everyone knew what that meant.

  The lizard rushed her again, speed that shouldn’t belong to something so large and vicious, letting it close in on Theo within the space of a breath. She didn’t try to dodge this time, sometimes the only way out of a situation was straight through it.

  It swiped out with both of its front claws wide, attacking her from both sides, its tail dragging on the ground behind it. Theo met the charge with a spear thrust as she slid under the beast, scoring a deep gouge on its underbelly as she shot a completely ineffective [air bullet] at the same time.

  A shell of wind negating the blast of her magic.

  The pain caused it to roar as it turned on her again, blood dripping from both of them.

  Then Theo felt the air of the arena shift.

  Swirling gusts of wind collecting around the reptile as they took on razor edges. Blades of wind began to fly at her in rapid bursts.

  There were so many of them that even at her fastest cuts appeared across her entire body. Some were stronger than others and Theo had no choice but to take the weaker lashings as she avoided ones that would pass cleanly through her body.

  The arena was a storm of sand and dust. Only her mana sense and familiarity with wind magic giving her a chance to avoid the lethal attacks.

  This lizard wasn’t playing around anymore, and was content to simply bleed her to death from a distance. The magic coming from it was much less limited than her own as it sent streams of bladed wind at her.

  Theo hissed with each new cut, her skin loose in places where the air had cut her. This was supposed to be her element. From the moment she had appeared in this world the wind had been her constant companion. Whether it was the stale magic of the forest, or the lively wind from her own core of magic. This was supposed to be hers.

  She refused to let some overgrown gecko dictate the flow of it to her, to tell her where she must go and how she must dodge.

  Her remaining mana flared inside of her, mirroring the anger that was bubbling from her element being usurped.

  She didn’t have much mana left, but it was enough. A small nudge here, a slap of air there and soon the most dangerous of the lizard's wind slashes were missing her by a hair’s breadth.

  She still took some of the lesser slashes and cuts, but what was one more cut when she had opened a path.

  She ran into the storm of sand and death, refusing to let her story end here. Theo had waited her entire life for something she was good at to call to her, and she now knew it had been this. Wind magic was as much a part of her as this lizard and she wasn’t going to let it beat her at it.

  The air split around her as she twisted attacks away from her, and ducking or side stepping the worst of them.

  A blade of wind too powerful for her to simply shift aside flew at her. A well timed [geist] took the attack and burst apart from the blade of wind that would have split her shoulder to hip.

  Uncaring as the last dregs of her mana welled up inside of her. She barely remembered the moments it had taken her to draw close to the reptile, but that hardly mattered as the tips of her gladiator spear bit deeply into the upper chest of the lizard.

  Its futile claw swipes as readable to her as the wind with the magic it had coated them in. Then she pushed the last of her magic free. Feeling something in her soul change as a stab of wind tore into the lizard's body, shredding what must have been its lungs and its heart as it staggered. The magic storm around her stilling in an instant as she felt sand fall around her like ash from a forest fire.

  Both of them collapsed on the spot, [body enhancement] failing as she had no more mana to give it.The lizard gave one last weak swipe at her, but it only battered her to the side as she fell. Its cold reptilian eyes taking on the glossy sheen of death.

  Theo struggled to stay focused, if she let herself sleep now she would die. She knew that with every fiber of her being. But she wasn’t going to let that happen. If death wanted her, it was going to have to try a lot harder, and she clung stubbornly to her consciousness as the arena faded around her to be replaced with another stone room.

  She felt her trait activate and with a shuddering sigh finally felt the darkness creeping up on her be pushed back. The stone floor felt freezing but she let herself just lay there and enjoyed the feeling of life flowing back into her.