TJ's sense of self was forced back onto him. Looking around himself, he was in the middle of the clouds, wind and faint static electricity enveloping him. He couldn't move, but it also didn't feel like his body was present here, only his mind. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, TJ realized he was seeing in every direction, though the strange, superhuman perception didn't disorientate or confuse him. Instead, it was a place where he found himself fully centered, and TJ wanted to investigate what had changed, since he'd ignored the other System notifications that'd appeared in his journey as the winds.
Though he couldn't place it, he'd gained something other than this opportunity for Enlightenment while living as the winds for however long it'd been, but for now, he was forced to think only about what this Enlightenment and Tribulation were. It wasn't so much that they were more pressing, but he felt the foreign demands of the System pressing in on him. Much like when the Integration had begun and the System had quashed all his emotions, his mind was forced to think only about the incoming Dirt tiered Enlightenment and Tribulation. His curiosity, however, was not kept away, and he could still speak in this ethereal in-between state.
"What's this Enlightenment and Tribulation?"
Before one can ascend to each new tier of Divinity, one must touch upon an aspect of divine rule.
Different from every time before, the System's voice and presence was overwhelming instead of tender, aggressive instead of gentle. It thundered in his head, and it continued to speak.
Enlightenment is a necessary step for every Participant to grasp that which makes the most basic governing laws of the natural universe. The mortal mind cannot comprehend that which rules everything. In order to govern, one must understand, and in order to understand, one must be enlightened. With Divine understanding comes Divine Tribulations, and after the period of Enlightenment comes the period of Tribulation. With each step towards the Divine Throne, there must be resistance. From that comes the Tribulation.
"That's not very clear on what a Tribulation entails though!"
The System didn't give any additional information. TJ wanted to ask more, but instead, the enlightenment began and his awareness shrunk more and more as he was whisked from his cloudy, limitless view of the sky. Once brought back down, TJ saw a creature. A large bug trundled through thick overgrowth, its curving horn pushing through brush and branch alike. The rhinoceros beetle walked without care. It was large, strong, and unafraid. The few times that another creature dared to remain in its path, it bulldozed, browbeat, and bullied until its journey was once again unimpeded. With each successive victory, its pride soared ever higher.
"Why are you showing me this?" TJ asked the System. "How is this going to enlighten me?"
He received no answer and suspected that this opportunity didn't guarantee anything. With that realization, he refocused on the scene before him. TJ couldn't begin to understand why we followed the weird bug's path, but he was forced to follow it, his eyes unable to look anywhere else. It was a little tyrant, and TJ witnessed days, weeks, and possibly months of growth in an accelerated fashion. That was, until it met its demise.
When it walked through another clearing, the beetle didn't raise its head. Why would it? It had ascended to a small hegemony in this forest, and nothing dared to cross its path. It was well on its way to ascending to the next step of life, whatever that would be, and its strength was uncontestable! The ambusher struck from above, nothing warning of its approach except for a long, narrow shadow. When it attacked, the speed of its flying descent lent additional strength to the attack.
The bright green serpent's tail smashed into the beetle's skull, just behind its horn. The thick exoskeleton maintained its integrity, but only barely. Even so, a huge vulnerability had been presented, and the smaller serpent didn't hesitate to press the attack. On the ground, it coiled into a springlike circle before leaping into the sky, where the winds held it aloft. With a trumpeting cry, the beetle shook its head in a surprisingly human-like gesture. It was too late for it to react to the serpent's repeated attack.
Again, its tail smashed into the beetle's skull, and this time, thick green blood oozed out of the cracked shell. Though it tried to struggle and save itself, the beetle's pride had allowed the much smaller serpent to strike crippling blows, and as it stumbled back and forth, the serpent rose to the heavens for one final strike. It was too late, and the beetle's demise was definitive. The third, final blow smashed most of the beetle's skull into paste, and it fell to the ground, either insensate or dead. Its killer didn't care if it was dead yet, and the serpent burrowed into the weakness it had created.
TJ was no stranger to the death of creatures after these past weeks of the Tutorial, but watching the serpent eat into the skull of the evidently still living beetle was uncomfortable, to say the least. Once it was protected in the corpse of its prey, TJ felt time pass like it was being fast forwarded, and an hour or more later, the snake emerged. Now that it had evolved, it looked familiar. The green serpent had gained a brightly colored mane of feathers, and its eyes now shone with a much greater intelligence than had been present before. Some scavengers had appeared during its evolution, but as it pushed itself free of the corpse's entrapment, the coatl rushed out and began a new hunt.
Before TJ could react or say anything about the vision he'd just witnessed, the vision shifted to a handsome man wearing a kilt or something like it. The thick linen wrapped around his waist held a copper dagger and a small satchel and he held a very long copper-headed spear in his hand. He walked through a delta, muggy heat making the air shimmer over a nearby river while he stalked something. When he reached a thick patch of bushes, he hunched down and hid himself. The thick growth gave way to desolate desert not more than half a mile away, and the winds whipped threateningly at the outside of the oasis of life that surrounded the slowly flowing river. After TJ took in the surroundings, the vision was slowly pulled back to the partially hidden man.
Though he couldn't change what he was looking at or how detailed the vision was, TJ didn't want to watch as this man was ambushed by the coatl or whatever other creature was lurking. Time passed, the sun setting, and TJ felt his anxiety spike then die down. After all, this was an opportunity for him to learn how to touch the skies and embrace Divinity. If he had to watch a long dead stranger die for it, then that was far from the worst thing that could happen. As the man huddled and waited, TJ stretched his awareness out, feeling the movement of the wind. It was harsher here, somehow more selfish. It didn't want to merely move around and seek freedom, or even cut through stone if it stood in its way like it did to the mountain peaks in the Tutorial. Here, the winds scoured everything clean, and hated anything that dared to challenge its sovereignty. The air and lack of moisture killed all but the toughest, and even those things bowed to its fury.
Overhead, TJ saw a huge bird, maybe an ibis? He couldn't tell and he was randomly guessing, while the System still didn't respond to him. Regardless of what kind of bird it was, how had it touched on the most basic principles of the heavens and wind? It was pushed to greater speeds by the unforgiving gusts overhead, but that was far from noteworthy over every other bird in existence. It glided down towards the river's side, long curved beak slightly ajar. Only then did TJ realize just how massive the creature was. Its wings spread at least twenty feet across, and its body was truly massive, at least eight feet long. If he was forced to fight the monstrosity, he wasn't sure he could win, or even survive. It continued its dive, unconcerned with the hiding man. Did it not see him, then?
While TJ watched the two, the man set his spear against the ground and gauged the distance between himself and the ibis. Then, as it dove to pull something out of the water, the man murmured something in a language TJ couldn't recognize and a 30 foot-long column of wind whipped into existence and yanked it off its path. With its inertia and the influence of the man's Wind Manipulation, the bird was out of luck. It flapped its wings wildly, but the trap had been sprung and it was the planned victim.
Screams echoed through the delta as the spear pierced through the bird's breast before protruding out its back. Red blood sprayed across the man, painting his face, chest, and hands while he shouted something in that same language he'd spoken in before. The bird's huge beak snapped threateningly, but the man jumped back out of its reach. It tried to walk on its long legs, or to take to the skies once again, but once the bird was grounded, the man jumped and wrapped one arm around the bird's beak, holding it closed. The other hand held his dagger, and he plunged it again and again into the bird's eyes and head until it died.
The man glowed in the dying light of the sun, his head bowed in respect to the dead bird. He gathered it into his arms and spoke in a reverent tone. Then, as he walked towards the flowing river, TJ was whisked away again.
His third vision showed another man with aquiline features and stormy eyes. He stood atop a small mountain while a shifting mass of monsters assailed his position. He sneered, a spear and shield in hand and a simple bronze breastplate. Others stood around him, carrying similar equipment with their faces screwed up in terror, but this man's visage showed nothing but arrogance. With a shout in a different but still foreign tongue, the man struck out with his spear long before it could have reached the enemy, but a spear of wind so furious as to be visible exploded into being in front of him. It battered several of the attacking monsters to death, the wind carrying the glow of lightning within it.
Arrogance still marring his face, the man led a charge into the roiling mass of enemies, uncaring of if his fellows followed him. He lunged forward with a rictus of a grin as TJ was, again, pulled away.
A fourth vision was of a redheaded woman standing on a steep cliff. Turbid clouds massed overhead, and rain lashed against her, the sea in front of her, and the fleet of sails marking an attacking fleet. Her face was twisted in fury, and she spoke in a language that almost sounded like English to him. She swirled her hands over her head, and the clouds obeyed. As she continued to speak, her words rang like thunder. The seas heaved more violently, the weather's rage matching her own. Then, with a final cracking shout, the woman sent a massive scythe of wind, hundreds of feet long, into the assembled ships. Masts and hulls splintered and fell apart, and hundreds of men screamed for mercy as the woman's rage was replaced with a vengeful joy.
A fifth vision showed another woman, dark locks framing her face as she used Wind Manipulation to carry thousands of seeds through a freshly tilled field. The seeds were spaced and placed with loving care before the wind drilled a small hole for each and placed them within. As soon as the seeds were carried to their destinations, a soft rain appeared, also under the woman's apparent control. A moment later, she relaxed and allowed the control over her Skill, or Divinity, to cease. She smiled with genuine joy as TJ was pulled away from this vision.
A sixth, seventh, tenth vision, all the way up to at least twenty flashed past in increasing speed, each one showing a Participant's Skills and skills. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, TJ was wrenched back to that formless, cloudless vision where the System asked one question.
What have you learned?