As the sun finally climbed across the sky in a steady, predictable arc once more, Arin nearly felt emotional from relief alone. During the Trial, the heavens had behaved like the fever dream of a lunatic god. One day the sun would crawl sideways across the horizon at a crooked angle, hanging low and distant while freezing winds swept through the forests. The next, it would sit directly overhead like a burning eye, so close that the heat became unbearable beneath the heavy camouflage cloaks the rangers relied upon. Trying to hide in those conditions had been a nightmare. A forest trained for normal shadows became useless when the shadows themselves refused to obey reason. So returning home and seeing the sunlight move exactly where it should felt strangely comforting, almost sacred in a way Arin could not properly explain.
The Crimson Forest welcomed them back with the quiet dignity of an old guardian. Every path, every stream, every crooked tree branch felt familiar beneath Arin's boots. It was proof that some things had survived the madness unchanged. The family had already spent the last few days holding internal competitions and training exercises to evaluate how much everyone had improved during the Trial. The results had honestly been absurd. Skills that once took years to refine were now improving almost daily under the influence of mana and the System. Because of that, every participant had been ordered to write detailed reports about their experiences hiding, scouting, and tracking in unnatural environments so the family archives could expand alongside the changing world.
Which was exactly why Arin currently found himself laying flat against the roots of a massive oak tree at dawn, covered in dirt and leaves while pretending to be part of the forest floor. He stared silently toward the narrow pathway winding through the woods below while trying very hard not to feel insulted. Because honestly, this hiding spot was embarrassing. The Sonneberg family had spent centuries refining concealment techniques that allowed them to vanish inside forests like ghosts. Compared to those standards, what Karl had prepared for today barely qualified as hiding at all. Arin was practically visible to anyone with functioning eyesight. He had even complained about it earlier, only for Karl to dismiss him immediately.
"Most people won't notice you," Karl had said with complete confidence. "Not because you're hidden well, but because they'll be too nervous to look properly."
Unfortunately, Arin was beginning to suspect his grandfather was right.
The forest path beneath him was not ordinary by any means. It was the single trail the family had maintained properly for hundreds of years, carefully preserving it while allowing most other routes inside the forest to disappear naturally. Unlike the artificial forests covering much of the Netherlands, where trees stood in neat rows with visibility stretching endlessly between them, the Crimson Forest was wild and ancient. Dense foliage blocked sightlines constantly, while the terrain itself seemed designed to confuse outsiders. Even experienced hunters occasionally lost their sense of direction beneath its canopy. That natural complexity was precisely why the family's archery school had become legendary.
Most archers in the modern world considered hitting a target beyond one hundred meters impressive. Within the Crimson Forest, that distance was treated as basic competence. Before the System arrived, members of the family regularly trained until they could reliably strike targets at one hundred and fifty meters through shifting foliage and uneven terrain. The truly talented eventually pushed beyond one hundred and eighty, though doing so required years of conditioning and increasingly heavy bows that destroyed weaker bodies over time. Reaching two hundred meters accurately had once been considered almost mythical. Even within the family, only one or two people per generation usually managed it before age and physical strain caught up to them.
That was why their small archery association had quietly produced European champions for decades. Two members had even gone on to become world champions, though neither had seemed particularly proud of the accomplishment. One of them had famously caused outrage during an interview years ago by casually stating that "the real archers never participate in tournaments." The statement had nearly destroyed his reputation until he released a video shortly afterward. In it, several hooded figures stood deep inside the Crimson Forest calmly firing arrows at targets the size of dinner plates from one hundred and sixty meters away. Every shot struck perfectly. No explanations were given. The video ended after less than a minute.
After that, the outrage disappeared overnight.
And a legend was born instead.
That reputation was exactly why today's recruitment trials had drawn such absurd numbers. The newly established Crimson Sun Guild-Clan was already famous throughout European archery circles, and the System-recognized Guild-Clan designation only increased the fascination surrounding them. There were only twelve combined Guild-Clan factions in all of Europe. Most organizations simply lacked either the points or the determination necessary to spend thirty thousand points establishing such an expensive structure. The old trade families, however, were wealthy enough to afford it, and strong enough to make it worthwhile.
As a result, more than one hundred thousand applicants were expected to arrive throughout the week.
Only ten thousand would ultimately be accepted into the guild itself. Out of those, merely two thousand would receive the precious loyalty contracts allowing access to the family's true teachings regarding tracking, concealment, scouting, and advanced ranger techniques. The remaining eight thousand would instead be trained primarily as elite marksmen while proving their worth over time. It was still an opportunity most people would kill for. The Trial had transformed humanity overnight, and everyone understood that joining a powerful faction now could determine the course of their entire future.
Naturally, that meant the applicants were terrified.
Arin could already hear the distant sounds of approaching footsteps further down the trail. The first group was finally entering the forest. They moved cautiously, their conversations hushed despite the relatively simple nature of the examination. Honestly, compared to the Trial humanity had survived, this test was laughably forgiving. Karl himself had walked the route personally beforehand to adjust the difficulty, as tradition demanded before every family examination. Unfortunately, his definition of "reasonable" had apparently become warped after surviving eleven months of goblin warfare.
The current test was painfully easy.
Even the routes normally prepared for four-year-old children within the family were more difficult than this. That fact alone left the entire Sonneberg family deeply embarrassed about the quality of their hiding spots and traps. Meanwhile, the applicants themselves were treating the forest like the entrance exam to some mythical martial sect from a fantasy novel. Every snapped twig made them flinch. Every shadow drew suspicious glances. Some already looked exhausted despite only walking for fifteen minutes.
Which, ironically, proved Karl's point perfectly.
Most of them were far too nervous to actually observe their surroundings carefully.
A young man passed directly beneath Arin's tree and completely failed to notice him despite practically staring in his direction. Another applicant jumped violently after spotting one of the intentionally obvious decoys hidden nearby, immediately focusing all his attention there while missing three actual observers positioned around him. Arin slowly closed his eyes in secondhand embarrassment. He genuinely felt ashamed participating in something this easy. At this point, the tree itself was doing more work hiding him than his actual camouflage technique.
Still, despite his complaints, Arin understood why the test had been designed this way.
The people entering the forest were not children playing games anymore. They were survivors of humanity's first Trial. Every single person walking that path had witnessed death on a scale unimaginable only a year earlier. Some had fought directly on battlefields drowning beneath blood and fire. Others had survived sieges, starvation, massacres, or endless marches through hostile terrain. Even if this recruitment test seemed easy to the Crimson Sun family, the applicants themselves carried burdens that could not be seen at a glance.