35: The Berserker Path
The red corridor sealed behind me before I had walked five meters into it, with the long flat slate floor under my boots and the launch-week red ambient lighting along the walls and the small precise system message arriving at the second of contact between my back foot's heel-strike and the floor's transition seam.
> *Ding!* [Trial Phase 4 Confirmed: Berserker Path Selected. Knight Plan B unavailable for the duration of this trial. Corridor sealed. Re-attempt of trial after failure or death will reset to Phase 3 and require new selection.]
Twelve meters behind me, the chamber's exit corridor sealed with a small low slate-grinding sound that the pass-through carried as the small visceral closing of a door I would not, this trial, be opening from the other side. The Knight path on the right had been the small published Plan B of the launch-week design — the easier subspec, the path the wiki-recommended ninety-two percent of swordsmen took, the path that gave Tier-Two Knight class with its small respectable defensive moveset and its small respectable +30 to STR and its small respectable solo-or-party flexibility. The Knight path was a real path. The Knight path was, on launch-week design's small careful design ethics, a fair fallback for any candidate who took one look at the red corridor and thought *I am not, today, that man.*
I had not, today, looked at the red corridor that way.
The seal behind me was the launch-week design team's small precise ratification of my choice.
I went forward.
The corridor sloped gently down for perhaps thirty meters before opening into a small ovoid chamber with a single launch-week-rendered pre-rendered NPC at its far end — a sword-saint in plain dark robes whose face I knew at twenty meters' distance because the launch-week pre-render team had built him as a younger version of Beigong Yan, perhaps fifteen years younger than the Beigong Yan of the Jianghai south gate, with the same yellow-amber eyes and the same gray-cord-around-the-throat and the same long lean shape of a man who had been a swordsman for forty years before retiring into whatever the Severing Path's small hidden order considered retirement.
He stood at the chamber's far end with his sheathed sword across his back and his arms folded inside the long sleeves of the robe.
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch.
He did not speak immediately.
I crossed the ovoid chamber and stopped at five meters' distance. I did not bow. The launch-week design's NPC etiquette here was reciprocity: if I bowed first, he would close the dialogue tree at the polite-respectful tier; if I waited for him to speak first, he would open the dialogue tree at the aspirant tier, which gave me three additional dialogue branches.
I waited.
He waited.
We stood in the ovoid chamber for the small space of thirty in-game seconds.
He inclined his head a second quarter-inch.
"You wait."
"I wait."
"Mn." A small flicker at the corner of the mouth that suggested approval. "Most candidates speak. You wait. The waiting is the first lesson of the Berserker Path. The Berserker Path appears to outsiders to be the path of the un-disciplined fury, but the Berserker Path is, in fact, the path of the disciplined withholding of fury. The fury must be earned at every release. The fury must not be spent. You wait. You have shown me the first thing. We may begin."
> *Ding!* [Trial Phase 4 — Berserker Path: First Lesson Acknowledged. Reward: +1 to Berserker preparation pool (max 5).]
I inclined my head a precise quarter-inch back. He inclined his a third quarter-inch.
He said, "The Berserker trial is not, like the Mirror Gate, a single resolved combat. The Berserker trial is a long walk. You will descend, from this chamber, into the corridors of the inner shrine. You will walk for twelve in-game hours through a sustained low-density encounter pattern. The pattern will not, in any single combat, threaten your life. The pattern will, in cumulative attrition over twelve hours, demand of you the following: that you take small wounds without retreating; that you receive small gifts without thanking; that you advance through small obstacles without circling; that you, at four specific points in the corridors, encounter a small temptation to break off and rest, and that you, at all four, decline. The Berserker Path is not the path that survives by power. The Berserker Path is the path that survives by refusing to stop. There are no rest checkpoints. There is no small healing chamber halfway through. There is only the long walk. At the end of the long walk you will find me again. We will, then, fight. The fight will be the second resolution. After the fight, the class. Are we clear."
"We are clear."
"Mn." He inclined his head one more time. "Your timer begins now. You have twelve in-game hours. At twelve hours and one minute the corridor seals and you must exit through the failure passage. The failure passage takes you back to the foothills' edge with the trial unresolved and the Knight Plan B reopened. You may, at any time during the twelve hours, declare a voluntary failure by speaking the words *I withdraw* aloud. You may not voluntarily declare a Berserker promotion before the twelve hours have elapsed."
"Understood."
"Mn."
He stepped aside. The chamber's far wall opened onto a long descending corridor that vanished in the launch-week red ambient at perhaps fifty meters distance.
I walked into it.
***
The launch-week pass-through engine carried the small ambient hum of the inner shrine's corridors with a small careful detail I had not, on the climb up, registered. The walls of the corridor were the same weather-blackened slate as the shrine's exterior, but they had been carved — with the small painstaking labor of whichever launch-week artist had been assigned to the inner-shrine atmosphere mod — with thousands of small horizontal lines at the height of a man's shoulder, each line a finger-width long, each line representing, the artist had clearly intended, one stroke of a sword. The lines covered the corridor's walls for the entire descent. Some of the lines had been worn deeper by the small in-game weather of the last several centuries of the launch-week's narrative chronology. Some had been worn shallow.
I walked the corridor for the first in-game hour without encounter.
At the end of the first in-game hour the corridor opened into a small intersection. A small launch-week-rendered NPC stood at the intersection — an older woman in a pale grey cloak with a small enamel cup of clear water held out in both her hands. She did not speak. She extended the cup toward me.
The launch-week design's small temptation pattern was a real pattern. The cup was the small temptation: rest at the intersection, drink the water, restore HP. The cup's water was a launch-week-rendered Lv-15 healing tonic. The cup's water would, if accepted, take fifteen percent off my HP loss to date. The cup's water would also — by the small careful Berserker Path mechanic Beigong Yan had warned me about — register on the trial's hidden tally as a *gift accepted*, and the *gifts accepted* tally above zero was the small tally that disqualified the Berserker subspec at the trial's end and reverted the candidate to the Knight Plan B.
The Berserker Path was the path that received small gifts without thanking and without accepting them either. The Berserker Path was the path that walked past the cup.
I walked past the cup.
The older NPC did not speak. The cup remained extended in her hands until I had cleared her by ten meters; then the launch-week pre-render dissolved her into a small grey mist.
> *Ding!* [Berserker Path — Temptation 1/4 Resolved. Reward: +1 to Berserker preparation pool (max 5).]
I walked.
***
The corridor at the second hour produced its first encounter — three Lv 18 sword-shades, faintly luminous launch-week-rendered constructs that operated at half the damage of a true Lv 18 mob and that swung at the small precise pace of a launch-week training-dummy pattern. They were the small low-density encounters Beigong Yan had described. They did not, individually, threaten my life. They did, by the small precise launch-week design, take five percent of my HP each across the small four-second exchange that the launch-week design had calibrated for them. I cleared the three of them with three controlled basic strikes. I took the fifteen percent HP loss without flinching.
> *Ding!* [Sword-Shade (Lv 18) ×3 dispatched. EXP +540. Damage taken: 178 HP (15%).]
I walked.
The corridor at the third hour produced two more sword-shades and one small stair-trap that the launch-week design had placed at the small descending lip of a sub-corridor. The stair-trap was a small launch-week-rendered slate plate that, on contact, rose into a small spiked obstacle at chest height. I read the trap on approach — the launch-week design's small visual cue was a barely-visible discoloration at the corner of the plate — and stepped over it. The trap did not activate. The launch-week design pinged the small *Berserker Path — Obstacle 1/3 Resolved* tooltip without further reward. I walked.
The corridor at the fourth hour produced the second temptation. The second temptation was a small launch-week-rendered pre-rendered scene at a side chamber: a small pavilion with a low couch and a small in-game tea service that had been laid for one and that had been pre-rendered to match the small atmosphere of the pavilions of the Jianghai trade district, with the small careful sensory mod of plum-blossom in the air and the small launch-week-rendered low evening light coming from a small window that the chamber should not have had.
I walked past the pavilion.
> *Ding!* [Berserker Path — Temptation 2/4 Resolved. Reward: +1 to Berserker preparation pool (max 5).]
I walked.
The corridor at the fifth hour produced four more sword-shades and one small low-tier sub-elite construct that the launch-week design had calibrated for a small longer fight — the construct took ten exchanges to drop and removed twenty-three percent of my HP in the process. I activated Ironbody Stance once. I activated Severing Form chains twice. The crit chance bumped to +6 and held. The construct dropped.
> *Ding!* [Damage taken total (cumulative): 510 HP (43%).]
I walked.
The corridor at the sixth hour produced the third temptation. The third temptation was the small unsettling one I had been waiting for and had been bracing against without consciously naming it: a small launch-week-rendered pre-rendered figure at a small side chamber's threshold, in the small precise silver-blue tunic of an archer with the freckled cheek and the loose strand of hair at the cheekbone and the Hawk Pin at the back of the pinned ponytail, who was sitting on the threshold's small worn step with the Withered Quiver across her knees and a small in-game meatbun in her hand and a small smile at the corner of her mouth that was the small settled corner-of-the-mouth one I had been collecting since the gully.
She did not look up as I approached.
She lifted the meatbun in the small no-eye-contact way she had been lifting things in my direction since secondary school whenever she had wanted to communicate *take this without making a thing of it.*
The launch-week design's small temptation here was the most precise temptation it had built into the entire trial. The launch-week design team had pulled, from the small subliminal model of my deepest current attachments, the small specific shape of the person I most wanted to walk to and to sit beside and to eat a meatbun with after six hours of corridor descent. The launch-week design team was — the launch-week design team was, I noted with the small detached interest of a man being told a thing about himself by his own trial, very accurate.
I held the corridor's center line.
I did not turn my head.
I did not slow my walk.
I walked past the small launch-week-rendered Wanqing-figure at the side chamber's threshold without so much as breaking stride.
The figure did not speak. The figure lifted the meatbun a second time, after I had cleared her by five meters. The figure's hand, holding the meatbun, hovered in the air for the small visible space of three breaths. Then the launch-week pre-render dissolved her into a small silver-blue mist.
> *Ding!* [Berserker Path — Temptation 3/4 Resolved. Reward: +1 to Berserker preparation pool (max 5). Hidden Achievement Unlocked — *The Specific Refusal.* You have refused a temptation calibrated to your most personally specific current attachment without breaking stride. Reward: +1 permanent to WIL stat.]
The launch-week pass-through engine carried, very faintly, three meters behind me at the threshold of the side chamber, the small soft sound of a meatbun-wrapper crinkling in a small launch-week pre-rendered hand and being tucked into a small pre-rendered pocket.
I did not turn my head.
I walked.
***
The corridor at the seventh hour produced no encounters and no temptations. The corridor was empty for the entire in-game hour. The launch-week design had, in the seventh hour, given the candidate a single small uninterrupted hour of walking — the hour, I understood by the eighth minute of it, that was meant to be the hour in which the candidate confronted the small accumulated sensation of the previous six hours alone. The launch-week design had calibrated the seventh hour as the small private hour of grief, of residual ache, of the small subliminal recovery of the small attached self that the previous six hours of refusal had cost.
I walked the seventh hour with the small clean trace of the launch-week-rendered Wanqing-figure's hand-with-meatbun at the side chamber's threshold sitting in my chest as a small visible weight.
I did not weep.
I did not, in the small disciplined practice of seven hours of the Berserker Path, allow myself to weep.
I walked.
At the end of the seventh hour I activated Ironbody Stance once for the small steady reset of the cooldown timer and let the small twelve-percent damage reduction sit on me for the full thirty seconds, and at the end of the thirty seconds I had walked another fifty meters and the small visible weight in my chest had — by the small clean mechanic of the seventh hour — settled into a small steadier weight that I would, going forward, simply carry.
The corridor at the eighth hour opened into the third construct fight.
The third construct was a Lv 22 sub-boss — a small launch-week-rendered armored knight of dark slate-tone, with a long curved sword and a small steady defensive stance that did not reward aggression. I read the small defensive stance. I did not aggress. I waited at five meters' distance for the launch-week design's small Berserker-Path-specific dialogue trigger that I had, at the second of approach, recognized was about to fire.
The knight inclined its head.
The knight said, in a small low launch-week voice the design team had clearly taken extra time on, *withdraw.*
The fourth temptation.
The fourth temptation was the temptation to retreat from a fight that the candidate had not, yet, committed to.
The launch-week Berserker Path's small precise mechanic here was: the candidate had to commit to the fight. The candidate could not, having committed, withdraw. The candidate had to, before committing, choose between the small clean refusal of the knight's *withdraw* invitation and the small acceptance of the invitation, which would dissolve the knight into a small grey mist and end the trial at *Knight Plan B reactivated at the next intersection.*
I drew the Black Iron Heavy Blade.
I committed.
> *Ding!* [Berserker Path — Temptation 4/4 Resolved (rejection of withdrawal). Reward: +1 to Berserker preparation pool (max 5; pool now full at 5/5).]
The knight's defensive stance dissolved into the small launch-week-rendered combat stance.
We fought.
The knight was, at Lv 22 with the small calibrated sub-boss damage profile, the longest fight of the trial so far. I burned twenty-eight percent of my remaining HP across forty exchanges and four cooldown cycles of Ironbody Stance and three of Severing Form, and I dropped him on the small calibrated forty-first exchange with a Crescent Moon Slash that, by the small accumulated +5 Berserker preparation pool buff, landed for an additional twenty-five percent damage that the launch-week design had clearly intended as the candidate's payoff for refusing all four temptations.
> *Ding!* [Slate-Knight (Lv 22 Sub-Boss) defeated. EXP +1,800. Berserker preparation pool consumed: pool now 0/5.] > *Ding!* [Damage taken total (cumulative): 998 HP (84%).]
Eighty-four percent.
The Severing Path's cycle 7 reward — the *small reflexive correction in moments of true peril* — was the small reward I had not, in the Mirror Gate, triggered. Eighty-four percent was past the sixty-percent threshold I had inferred from the cycle 7 tooltip's calibration.
The cycle 7 reward fired.
> *Ding!* [Severing Path Cycle 7 Reward Activated: *Small Reflexive Correction.* Reward: 25% HP restored over 5 seconds. One activation per trial.]
Two hundred and ninety-five HP came back. I stabilized at fifty percent HP.
The launch-week design's small careful generosity, exactly when it had calibrated to deliver.
I walked.
***
The corridor at the ninth, tenth, and eleventh hours produced six more sword-shades, two minor traps, and one small additional sub-boss that took a clean twenty exchanges and another nineteen percent of my HP. I cleared all of them. I kept walking. The Berserker preparation pool, having been consumed at the slate-knight, refilled to 1/5 by the eleventh hour as a small launch-week passive recovery. The cycle 7 reward had fired and would not fire again.
At the end of the eleventh hour I rounded a final corner.
The corridor opened into a small chamber.
In the chamber, at its far end, sitting cross-legged on a small low cushion with his sheathed sword across his lap and his hands folded over the sheath, was Beigong Yan — the younger version of him, the one I had met at the start of the corridor twelve hours ago.
He did not stand.
He inclined his head a precise quarter-inch.
"You walked," he said.
"I walked."
"Mn." He uncrossed his legs. He stood, in the small precise unhurried way of a launch-week swordsman NPC who had been sitting cross-legged for the entire eleven hours since I had passed him at the start of the trial.
He said, "We may now fight."
He drew his sword.
> *Ding!* [Trial Phase 4 Final Combat Initiated: opponent — Beigong Yan (Lv 25). Berserker Path Final Test. Damage taken is real. Death is real. Re-attempt cooldown: 1 in-game day.]
I drew the Black Iron Heavy Blade.
The chamber's launch-week red ambient lighting steadied.
I committed.