Chapter 153: The Times When Even Sleep Had Yet to Be Invented

It was the Drakon boy, sitting cross-legged in front of the extinguished campfire, his face completely covered by a thin black cloth mask.

He didn’t even turn his head to look at Magna. He was only looking straight ahead, completely focused on the hut where Master was staying.

Apparently, it had been quite a while since he woke up and came outside to start waiting for the trial to begin.

Magna walked toward the sitting boy while Matrim followed behind him.

His leg looked completely healed. He had even taken out and thrown away the 2 pieces of wood holding his leg together.

When he saw that only the Drakon guy was outside, the doors of the other huts still closed, he guessed the others were still sleeping.

’If not for Magna, I would be one of those still sleeping too.’ He silently thanked him in his mind before approaching him and whispering into his ear.

"Do you think the trial has already started?"

Magna stopped for a moment, since he was thinking the same thing.

It could be some kind of mental and endurance test where everyone was given sleeping gas to find out who was the most resilient.

He also wanted to get the Drakon guy’s opinion, so he called out to him. "How long have you been awake?"

But he couldn’t get any answer.

Not wanting to make things awkward, he didn’t ask again, instead turning his eyes toward Master’s hut as he started waiting as well.

They kept waiting like that for a while until another hut’s door opened and a boy came out quickly.

The boy looked quite panicked, like a university student who had missed an exam.

When Matrim saw him, he leaned toward Magna again and whispered into his ear. "He’s the second strongest one I told you about yesterday."

Hearing that, Magna looked at the boy more carefully.

He didn’t look any different from an ordinary child. Only his hair and eyes were light red.

The panicked expression on his face made him look even more like a normal kid.

After looking around with that panicked expression, he finally walked quickly toward them and asked. "Am I late? Where is Master?"

Drakon still remained motionless at his question, while Matrim also stayed silent, giving Magna the chance to speak like a good side character.

"We don’t know. We also woke up not long ago." Magna answered, making the boy look a little less stressed, though only a little.

Soon after, the doors of the other huts also started opening one after another, and all the boys finally woke up and came outside.

At last, all 10 boys gathered in front of the extinguished campfire and started waiting for Master to open the door of his hut and come outside.

Finally, not long after, the door of his hut opened with a loud creak, and his skinny body slowly came outside.

"Master." All the boys bowed their heads deeply the moment they saw him, to greet him.

Magna also followed them a second later, mimicking their behavior so he wouldn’t look out of place.

Master’s aged eyes swept over the bowing children for a while before he finally spoke.

"How was it? Did you sleep well?"

His words and voice were quite normal, as if he were simply asking someone how their night had been. However, none of the boys took the question at face value. They all tried to find the hidden meaning behind it.

Before anyone could found out, the old man asked another question.

"Did you know sleeping wasn’t even a thing in the earliest days?"

He started walking toward the extinguished campfire. "They say when the First Child was born, there was so much pain that even sleep was afraid to exist."

None of the boys tried to find answers to his questions now. They simply kept listening carefully.

The old man suddenly stopped in front of the extinguished fire, slowly bent down, and picked up 2 pieces of stone from the ground.

He started striking the 2 stones together, sparks beginning to fall onto the ashes left from the campfire.

Though there was nothing left to catch fire, strangely, the moment the sparks touched the ashes, they started to burn, and the flames suddenly rose again, warming the surroundings.

At that moment, Magna felt like all the sounds had suddenly returned.

The wind started blowing again, the birds in the trees started chirping, like the world that had stopped had suddenly started moving again.

The old man kept watching the dancing flames for a while before extending his hands toward them to feel their warmth, his aged voice spilling from his dry lips.

"Pain was the very first trial our ancestors had to go through."

He slowly lowered his hands after getting enough warmth for his body and turned his back, walking toward his hut, saying his last words before going inside.

"You all failed the pain."

All the boys stared at the closed door of the hut with wide, shocked eyes.

"We failed?" Matrim muttered in disbelief, not expecting to fail like this at all.

"Is it because we fell asleep?" Another boy asked, trying to understand what he had done wrong.

"What should we do now? I can’t return home. My mother will kill me." The redheaded boy said in terror, the one who was supposed to be the second strongest according to Matrim.

Suddenly, all the panicked and worried voices mixed together, everyone trying to make sense of what had just happened and what would happen from now on.

Magna was the same, a slight frown crossing his face.

He was questioning the old man’s words in his mind, trying to find the meaning behind them.

It had recently become a habit for him, thanks to constantly trying to understand the hidden meanings behind Gaia’s options.

First of all, the old man hadn’t directly said, ’You all failed. Now go back to your homes.’

Instead, his words, ’You all failed the pain,’ sounded more like he was saying they had disappointed someone.

So there was a possibility that they still had a chance to take this trial again.

The next problem to solve was how. What was Master expecting from them?

To make a better guess, he turned his attention to the masked Drakon boy and asked, "You were the first one to wake up, before everyone else. Can you at least tell me whether you woke up before or after sunrise?"

If the trial was about waking up at the right time, then the first person to wake up among them should have been able to pass it.

His question also caught the attention of the other boys, and they all suddenly fell silent, turning their attention toward the masked boy, waiting to hear his answer.

The Drakon boy didn’t even look at any of their faces. He simply started walking toward his hut.

He was either too shy to speak or had already figured something out but didn’t want to share it with the others.

Magna, though he didn’t get the answer he wanted, didn’t stop thinking.

’The old man just failed us because we were unable to wake up in time, or were we supposed to endure the pain caused by staying awake all night?’ He thought, feeling like he was about to understand the real purpose of the trial.