A few hours after he began his evolution, the system came online.

[Congratulations on Evolving]

[Current Class: Shadow Battle Mage]

[Increased Soul Energy: 10,000]

[+8 to all attributes]

[All skills leveled up]

[New skills unlocked]

Aren's eyes flickered open. He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, as if lost in thought.

"Arghhh…" he groaned as he pushed himself up, sitting on the bed with the system screen floating right in front of him.

He glanced toward the window. It was still dark outside, which meant his evolution had taken several hours, at least.

His new class, Shadow Battle Mage. From being classless to this, it was real progress. And it made him feel satisfied.

He had also gained a boost of ten thousand soul energy, massively increasing what he already had. That meant he could summon more shadows without constantly worrying about running dry.

"Now that's a good benefit," he muttered with a small smile. Getting stronger in any way always pleased him.

The +8 to all stats shocked him as well. He wondered if it was because he chose a battle-oriented path that merged magic and combat.

He clenched his fist. His strength was definitely higher. He could feel it clearly. This was growth, real growth, and he loved it. He was heading in the right direction if he wanted to survive in the domain.

All his skills had leveled up, and he had unlocked new ones.

He was just about to check what those new skills were when another notification appeared.

[Second Trial will begin in twenty-four hours.]

The message appeared before every awakened. Hearts tightened across the domain as memories of the first trial resurfaced. Fear crept in almost instantly.

Aren was no exception. He sat on the bed, staring at the screen. He wasn't drenched in panic, but his heart rate rose slightly.

He took a deep breath and calmed himself.

"I guess we're back in it again," he muttered.

Knock. Knock.

Two knocks came from his door, and before he could even say come in,

BAM.

The door was kicked open.

Aren looked up in shock.

Zero stood there with one leg stretched forward. She was no longer wearing her cloak. Instead, she had on tight leather shorts and an oversized hoodie that looked almost comically large on her.

"Did you see the notification?" she asked eagerly.

"Bro," Aren said, staring at his broken door, "you just kicked open my freaking door. You could've waited half a second. I would've opened it."

"Tch. You take too long," she replied.

"It was half a second," he said, palming his face.

"Leave that aside," she said, walking in. "The second trial is starting soon."

"Yeah, I saw it," Aren replied.

"Do you know what it might be?" she asked, eyes shining. "Maybe an underground dungeon? No, that's boring. Maybe we have to kill a primordial monster and take its heart."

She sounded genuinely excited.

Aren looked at her. "You seem too happy about the trials."

She paused, clearly thinking about his words, then spoke calmly.

"It's not that I'm happy about the trials. I've just accepted them."

She continued, "They're inevitable. If we don't face them, we die. So there's no point letting fear weigh me down before it even starts."

Aren studied her for a moment.

"You have an outlook on life I've never seen before."

She opened her mouth, as if about to respond, then closed it and changed the subject.

"So what do you think it'll be?" she asked.

'It's a maze, but the map could be wrong. No point relying on that yet,' Aren thought.

"I don't know," he replied. "It could be anything. Who knows what those angels are cooking up."

"I don't think the angels decide what the trials are," she suddenly said.

"Huh?"

She walked over and sat on his bed. "They're just messengers. They carry out whatever they're ordered to do."

"I can see that," Aren replied, "but I wouldn't say they're powerless."

"They are," Zero said. "At least mostly. They have authority over certain things, like the castle, but overall, they're limited."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?" Aren asked.

"Simple," she said. "Look at Elton. She enjoys our suffering. Our pain is entertainment to her, and she barely hides it."

She leaned forward slightly.

"If she could interfere directly, she would've personally inflicted horrors beyond imagination on us. But she doesn't. That means there's a limit. One of them is that she can't touch awakened beings directly."

Aren was silent.

Damn, she's sharp, he thought. It took me seeing the memories of monsters to realize that. She figured it out from just one trial.

"That being said," Zero added, leaning back and staring at the ceiling, "what they can do is still terrifying."

"I wonder," she murmured, "why the angels hate us so much."

"I wish I knew," Aren said with a click of his tongue. "I also wish I knew what the real aim of this trial is."

The moment he said that, Zero shot to her feet, eyes gleaming.

"Do you want to find out?" she said excitedly. "You and I, we could explore the edges of the domain, uncover what this trial is really about."

"Whoa, calm down," Aren said quickly. "Even if we wanted to, we're far too weak. One evolved monster, or worse, and we'd be turned into meat paste."

"Tch… that's true," she replied, her smile fading into a frown.

"Don't worry about it," Aren said. "One step at a time. You have a goal, saving your mom. Everything else can come later."

Aren and Zero ended up not sleeping, they both talked a bit more about the trials, and the worry of the trials kept them up as well.

He came to learn that despite how impulsive she was, she was a nice person to be around, but she was still very much crazy, that fact remained, after all she was here with him by force.

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