Choerry landed into a silent crouch, glancing at the most - and only - notable things in the room - tablet on the wall and a plain solid bracelet on a small table.

“You are on a Dark Moon Path,” said the tablet. “You have to find your path down in complete darkness. No light sources allowed. Violation of the rule will result in immediate disqualification.”

She hummed, putting her phone deeper in the backpack just in case, in the section where a laptop ought to be. As Choerry grabbed the bracelet on her way to the opening door, a satisfied grin slowly spread on her face. It seemed fortune truly was on her side today! This couldn’t have gone any better!

Two of her friends passed through the Trick Tower and spoke of different experiences in it, JinSoul got something else for the third phase. If Choerry remembered correctly, that involved looking for something in caves?..

Didn't matter, she heard enough tales of this structure. Seeing it slowly grow in the window of an airship, larger and larger, until it dominated her full vision, and then walking on top of it. How miniscule were figures on the other end. How breathtakingly high it rose!

The tallest building in human history!

And not to forget its foundation! When she first heard of it and learnt of existence of the World Trees, Choerry was unable to contain her excitement, dragging Kim Lip out of her office to go see the real one, in Perkassi.

Even if they didn't allow anyone younger than eighteen to try climbing it - Choerry climbed it anyway - that was the second best decision of her life. It was placed right after asking two apricot thieves casually staring down from the branches of her garden if they wanted to come in and have a dinner with Choerry and her cousin.

She never went back to the person that started the climb. Choerry felt that knowledge ring in her bones, howling hungrily at the world below.

Up there, feelin nen running through an over a mile tall sapling that fed itself on the magma deep below the human world, Choerry understood what made her friends free. 

The Trick Tower raised many fond memories. Choerry was glad that her exam let her go through it.

Maybe, if she was lucky, one of the tunnels would pass by the bark of this long-dead, slightly more matured than the other, World Tree.

Choerry put her hand on the wall and walked along it, petting rough concrete. It was cool to the touch, and had many grainy shadows over the surface, thrown by a sole lamp in her starting room. As soon as she turned the corner, it became much darker, almost swallowing the space. 

Choerry flexed her nen, expanding it.

When Kim Lip and JinSoul first met her, they were already experienced. JinSoul wasn’t as knowledgeable about seadwellers and underwater landscape yet, but had a burning passion, solid base in her thorough education and a perfect tool for exploration.

Kim Lip was technically dangerous since she was, what, ten? Eleven? Whatever.

Both of them made it an absolute life duty to train her after they took her under the wing. Kim Lip was joyfully wiping the floor with her body during sparring attempts, JinSoul was busy teaching her how to act and both of them shared what they knew of nen. When she met her third friend - who tried to make things worse, proposing to make it a competition of teaching, the bastard - she was taught how to analyze and how to get into places she really shouldn’t be in. Kim Lip and JinSoul were unhappy when they learned about the last one, but came around to it and made sure he did a good job of teaching her.

That period was a circus of disasters, and a funny one at that! And also very sweet.

The tower was a reliable number-slicing phase, Kin Lip told her. Next phase was likely to be a hunter-hunted one, but for now there was nothing of immediate danger. Choerry could just enjoy her descent!

It was enough for her to sense the first obstacle with her expanded aura - En - once to get the gist of what her path would be like.

Her first obstacle appeared to be rather neat - a hall with walls two meters apart from each other, each with six centimeters wide ledges on the floor level. It had interruptions in places, where on the other side footing kept solid. Between them was a drop down for which she didn’t sense the bottom.

Choerry smirked.

She jumped onto the wall, pushing off of it to another, sailing over the chasm, ignoring ledges altogether. 

---

Choerry entered a new room, expecting a click of the speaker, as it in some of the previous ones and was not disappointed.

“Beware of the floor.”

So concise! Again! Did she get a grumpy observer? They sounded less and less enthused each time they piped in.

Choerry stretched out her En a bit more, covering everything in a proud  - for her! - eight and a half meter radius, discovering a steel grid. Inch and a half wide pipes were set at a regular distance of two meters away from each other, repeating themselves as far as she could "see".

What Choerry also noticed, is that some of them weren’t in the intended places, some jabbing from the middle between two vertical ones, some abruptly ending halfway through and some missing altogether.

She pushed off the porch, leisurely exploring spacious room.

Choerry went down first. Beneath the grid, the floor was covered in something liquid. Grease? Glue? Was she curious enough to check?..

Nah—"Ah!"

That one thought slipped out of as a plank she was supposed to land on folded upon contact in the middle, sending her down. Waiting another moment, Choerry grabbed onto a passing plank, swinging herself forward and landing a couple meters below and further than she planned. Thankfully, both pipes she used to catch herself weren’t traps.

She got an idea that this room wasn’t supposed to be rushed through.

Behind her the traitorous plank clicked back in its position.

Okay. That was. Her mistake, to be fair. Distracted in the wrong place and all, but also kind of low to pull off that kind of stuff in the dark!

In a matter of minutes, she found the exit, somewhat close to one of the other closed entrances, tucked far into a corner. A rope hang from the hole in the ceiling, a decent meter away from the grid. The only way to find it was to blindly flail outside of the rails, searching for something that shouldn’t be there. Were the other applicants expected to do that?

Oh well, shrugged off the question Choerry. It was none of her business.

---

Choerry jumped around the room, splashing ankle-high water around, once she manually found the location of all of the tiles she could stay on. What a sneaky thing, to put water barrier on the path where nen-users might sail through with a breeze!

See, when En was used, an aura expanded and sensed when something moved in it or was just present in it. Due to this fact, the way this technique worked, there was a major difficulty in using it under any liquid and, in particular, water. Besides some weird effects nen could have on it (if it was relatively purified), some of which were quite noticeable, it was simply too difficult to discern through liquid. It was possible, obviously, but required a lot of time and effort to get a hang of.

And also demanded that you weren’t some sort of ed up Specialist or something... 

JinSoul was both lucky and a pro in En, but Choerry have never met someone who bothered to develop it to that extent, other than her dearest water friend.

Choerry's leg dipped below the tile, wetting the hem of her jeans.

It was pretty clear that she needed to dive down, as the only door to the room closed firmly behind her as soon as she walked in. It was her first water-based obstacle in the tower and what invoked fond thoughts of JinSoul in the first place. And all the ways that that woman sweetly coaxed her into mad swimming trainings time and time again.

Choerry still felt like paying attention to the situation, just in case. If she died by drowning, an endless stream of her friends’ jokes wouldn’t allow her to depart to her next life in peace.

It’s not that her friends were so unfeeling or cruel, they just weren’t the ones to grieve in silence, as far as she understood them. If she squinted she could imagine how gloriously would this tower look, falling. Several kilometers high, it was sure to be a sight of a lifetime!

Choerry spent some time shoving all of her stuff from the main backpack zone in the laptop pocket, careful to not knock anything over, and dumped her shoes in the freed space. She’d need to unearth a new pair after this, probably. She definitely had spares stashed somewhere. 

She made a deep breath and dove down in the dark waters.

---

Choerry came on the other side with a splash, but did not inhale immediately. A quick scan proved to her that she would need to stay in it for a while, telling her that the air is perhaps not poisoned. Deeming the room safe, she breathed in.

The tunnel she swam through had several crossroads and was longer than she anticipated. Like, a ridiculous half a kilometer longer.

“Thank you, JinSoul!” raised eyes Choerry, sending her gratitude to the stone ceiling, thankful for all the unholy swimming drills she got. She could easily visualize thumbs up and a self-satisfied smile in response.

That didn't mean that Choerry won't fight against spending their next hangout on training instead of chilling, though.

Just like the previous room, this one had no other normal exit either. In her awareness bubble she couldn't sense any other , this room stretched upwards, slowly arching. Choerry assumed that an exit was somewhere at the top, as her En did not reach that far. Would the wall go horizontal at its highest?

One of the walls had tiny ledges placed on it.

She got out of the water and wrung her clothes and hair before moving on. Deciding to forgo shoes for the time being, she walked up to the wall and started climbing.

---

Choerry laid her hand down on the bark.

It was a tiny wall in the back of leach-filled room, far from both exits.

She pressed her palm against it, stepping closer. Tilting her head forward, Choerry’s forehead made connection with a quiet thunk. Another step, and she was hugging the dead carcas.

Choerry stood there, listening for any echoes of life that run through the other tree, for any whispers of age and might and connection.

Time passed.

Choerry stepped back, patting the silent wood a couple times before heading straight for the exit.

There was no regret in her heart.

---

Behind her eyelids, Choerry saw the light grow stronger as the rumbling door slowly raised up. She completely shrunk her En bubble as soon as first rays hit her, turning her nen to its usual state. As her sensing turned off, Choerry stopped tugging at an accidentally singed hem of her right sleeve, opening her eyes for the first time in hours, blinking rapidly. 

What normally was not all that bright room, now brought tears to her eyes, as she stepped through the doorway. Choerry forced herself to look around past her scrunched up face, discerning jack . A lot of sand and beige colors, with several shapes standing out.

“Hey!” Chuu-shaped and colored person jumped to their feet. 

“Sixth to reach the base of the Tower - applicant 88! Time - fifteen hours, thirty-one minutes,” announced the examiner as Chuu jogged closer.

More adjusted to brightness level, Choerry threw a quick gaze around, noting that there were indeed very few people in the room. No sign of the other two, as expected.

Chuu latched onto her as soon as they were an arm’s reach from each other. “Finally!” Chuu’s legs buckled and she hung off of the unmoving Choerry. “Someone approachable and nice!”

“I am also smart and pretty,” agreed Choerry, half hugging the girl and dragging her to the wall.

Chuu’s antics were unexpected but not unwelcome. They never got overly tactile, the two of them, mostly due to whatever tension redhead got around her. It was much simpler for Choerry, honestly.

If you weren’t after her or her friends - you’re cool! Not an immediate friend, but cool!

Chuu seemed cool. She was too notably conflicted to have Choerry as her target.

After a day of interactions and a day separately, Choerry felt it was time to appoint the redhead her new friend. It pleased her to see that maybe this wish for companionship wasn’t one-sided.

She’ll have to mention Chuu to Kim Lip later, just in case, so if their paths are crossed, the blonde would leave the girl criming in peace.

“Have you been waiting for long?” Choerry sat near the exit she came from, Chuu naturally sitting too, still hanging onto her. Some glances were sent to them as soon as the girl rushed to her, but now most of the examinees returned to their wall-staring. Whether they weren’t interested or decided to be less conspicuous, didn’t matter. Choerry hummed, giving each of them a more appraising glance...

Uh? H- What? A couple of bloody gashes caught her eye, short-circuiting her thought process.

“An eternity!” replied Chuu. “Six and a half hours, can you believe?!”

Choerry absentmindedly nodded. She stared at Hisoka’s wounds, bleeding long since stopped and dried on icy blue top...

Stared for a bit too long, thought Choerry, when the magician's gaze moved away from his card tower and made eye contact with her. A long second passed and he returned to building, a thin smirk on his face.

Her shoulder was gripped in a heavy grip. “Are you crazy!?” Hissed Chuu in her ear, shaking her a couple times for good measure. “Stop staring at him!”

“Yeah, stopping, stopping,” tore her eyes away Choerry. Who? How?.. “What was your path like?”

Chuu made a long-suffering groan, throwing her head back, shutting her eyes, face all scrunched. Then groaned again, louder, rubbing eyes with balls of her gloved hands.

“It was a blast?” guessed Choerry. 

“Annoying! It was annoying! Bleh!.. A low oxygen path that went for miles! I had to go upward for kilometers several times! And spiraled around the tower! And was stuck in pattern puzzle rooms! Bet, those rooms were the most bland uninspiring "tricks" this Trick Tower has!.. ugh!” Chuu heaved a sigh, deflating. “It was fine, I guess. Medium tiness. Mostly benefits from some never-have-to-go-through-it-again." Chuu semi-rolled to her side, flat expression telling volumes. "What was yours like?”

She smiled cheekily. “Oh, just a neat complete darkness one! It was fun!”

Chuu sent her a brief glare and Choerry patted her soft gloved forearm to soothe the girl. A quiet vague thought rose in the back of her mind, as she leaned back on the wall.

It was closer to midnight than early morning - hopefuly breakfast would be served sooner than later. Choerry was starving. And kinda tired from using En so much. She took breaks several times and it wasn't Ren, throwing her nen down the drain, but this was still a lot.

...They should be fed here, right? Choerry asked her closest information source.

“Yeah, three times a day, but portions are meh-sized,” vaguely waved her hand Chuu.

Choerry glanced at it while she was doing it and it clicked - wasn’t her forearm solid previously? Back when she grabbed Chuu’s forearm in the swamp? Was she imagining things?

She looked away, but the longer Choerry thought about that, the surer she got - back in the swamp, when she pulled her aside, it was something unyielding.

She wanted so badly to check what it was, but Chuu would definitely notice. Choerry didn’t want that. The girl just began warming up to her! What if that'll make her standoffish again?

In any case it wasn’t anything overly serious, placated herself Choerry. Just something she would have to watch out for later.

...Wait, wasn’t that also when she got scolded for suddenly grabbing her arm?

...Oops? She did it again?

But Chuu initiated contact first, so maybe it was fine?..

“How do you think girls are doing?” pondered Choerry aloud, raising an unrelated topic. 

“They are doing fine,” said Chuu in an uncompromising voice, crossing her legs. “They’ll get here soon.”

Choerry quickly glanced around, to see if they still had an illusion of privacy. It didn’t look like they gathered any more attention than before. 

“You think so?” Choerry tapped her chin. “I’ll easily bet HyunJin is going to pass, but HeeJin… She isn’t as physically fit as rest of examinees that finished third phase and, on top of that, tired from yesterday…”

Chuu raised an unimpressed brow. “But she did get up yesterday, didn’t she? And pushed onward the day before. She will finish, for sure, she has emergency shoving her forward. Both of them will get here before the time’s up.”

There was a note of finality in that statement. Choerry cocked her head. Seemed Chuu wasn’t the kind of person to place bets on the failure of her friends nor wanted to continue this topic, so...

Shame. Choerry liked juggling interesting what-ifs around.

“I don’t know how they’ll fare if they get a path resembling mine. But we will see!” Choerry's grin turned impish. “While we wait - do you want to hear about my projects?”

“Sure,” made a carefree mistake Chuu.