Shovels In Spades

Daz stood on the platform and silently asked his instincts which direction would be the best to fly in. No matter which way he faced, his instincts didn't react and his head ached lightly.

"Huh." Ignoring the odd headache that quickly passed, he held his chin as he thought out loud. "So the trial gets progressively harder the exact same amount in every single direction? Oh well. I was kinda hoping for an easier route for maximum points."

He summoned Hamson, and - with the help of his Agility stat - stood atop the blood-red tool. "Rimmy, I'll be counting on you to counter anything that tries to stop me like those lava balls in the recording of that robot-suit girl, 'kay?"

"Rimmy!" His transparent cyan friend replied as it happily floated next to him.

Daz smiled and controlled Hamson to move forwards.

Daz's wisdom told him that he'd just crossed the ten-thousand-meter mark when he started getting hit by a fierce wind. He simply inclined Hamson and hooked his frontwards foot into Hamson's handle to prevent himself from falling.

'Interesting. So the first test was one of natural endurance? Basically, if you can't fly this far by yourself without any obstacles, then you're not worthy of the real test. That makes sense, but still, this is really easy. I wonder at what stage do the lava balls appear?' he thought to himself as he pushed through the gales with ease.

Daz glanced over at Rimmy momentarily and was proud to see his best friend moving like the wind wasn't even there in the first place. 'I wonder... just how far can Rimmy and I get before one of us fails? If Rimmy fails, I can keep on going, but if I fail, it's game over. Well then, I'd better not let Rimmy down, huh?'

Several hours ticked on by in Daz's flying trial room.

Currently, he was at the one-hundred-and-ninety-nine-thousand-meter mark.

He and Rimmy had been met with flying rocks, anti-gravity fields, endless rows of mountains where you had to carve out a path to fly through, the promised lava balls, and many more obstacles that were simply trivial in the face of Hamson and Rimmy's quick movements and the reflexes of the golem and its master.

Daz skillfully used his Survivor's Instinct to dodge an invisible blade which was aimed for his neck as he passed the two-hundred-thousand-meter mark.

Immediately after that, he felt his breath disappear as his surroundings turned pitch black save for a few dots in the distance.

He frowned deeply. 'Space? I'm meant to fly through space? How the fuck does space work? Well, it's not hot nor cold, but it feels... strange. Is there some pressure? I don't think that's normal... An alien space? Regardless, I guess my Constitution is earning its keep since I'm not dead yet, but yeah, I can't breathe at all...'

Daz knew his time was limited in this area. He turned around and used his skill, Death Beam, to propel himself in conjunction with his mental movements of Hamson to fly as quickly as he possibly could through this inhospitable place.

Alas, even with the help of his halo restoring his lifeforce, after twenty-two-thousand-meters in space, he had breathed his last breath.