The next time Ri Young opened his eyes he was frankly not shocked. Of course he would be sent to the Trials. He fit between ages of 16-26, didn't have a wealthy or powerful family to protect him, and most importantly, didn't have the will to truly defend himself.
So once the skinny (but not as skinny as the old guy) young man with raven black long scruffy hair and an average height ended up knocked out and awoken in a beautiful almost galaxy like room. He knew where he was instantly.
The first thing Ri did was remember he is safe, for now. Many people have experienced and survived doing what was happening to him right now. The process was simple, he wakes up in a beautiful transparent room where he feels like he's going to fall past the see throug floor into the starry sky. Until he doesn't. Then after some time a weird but oddly soothing voice will enter his mind.
"Hello Challenger! What is your name!"
"My name is Ri Young"
Of corse his response was almost instantaneous, as it was the modern age in the world. Everyone knew about the Trial so everyone who participated (and lived) would tell the tales, and try to help whoever was unfortunate enough to be dragged into this.
After he says his name a long timeline will appear in front of him, he can't interact with it or really do anything except feel powerless and pray for mercy by the Trial... After all that the timeline will go way back and give him around 3 seconds of preparation before dropping him into whatever and where ever the Trial takes him, now all that awaited for him was to actually see where he ends up.
"Please anything that doesn't require me to actually push myself." Ri Young knew he was stupid for saying this. Not only is his luck incredibly bad but there's also no track record of anyone surviving the Trials by doing nothing.
The timeline swept backwards and backwards until it stopped at a date clearly a long, long time ago.
Or maybe in the future?
"4202? What?" Now Ri Young was actually decently knowledgeable about the world and prided himself on his history grade in school, but his knowledge of history only really applied to the past. Not the future.
"Gods, why, what did I do in my past life to be so unlucky?" Ri Young stupidly expected a response but heard nothing.
"Shouldn't it be teleporting me by now? Or do I have to wait until that date arri-"
***
It was a cold and lonely night inside the castle in the province known as Astoria. 2 guards were keeping watch in their heavy metal plated armor and were carrying very sharp and deadly swords. The shields they had also showed a symbol of a yellow star illumating the surrounding dark and dangerous area around it. One of them yawned and it seemed the second the guard looked away a bright white light was seen a few miles out, followed by a very loud bang much like a cannon. If they could see who made the sound and who was currently sitting in the crater just a few miles away from the kingdoms main keep, the two guards would be very confused. Almost as confused as the young man inside that very crater.
Ri Young had a very exciting start to his Trial. First, he found himself blinded, again. And then felt nearly every part of his body slam into a hill of mud and dirt. After screaming and saying words he didn't know the meaning of but would hear his uncle say only when losing way to much at the casino. He simply looked around without moving at all, because he was in way to much pain.
"This definitely isn't gonna be Earth in 4202. Is it?" he said shyly.
After that brief moment of surprise Ri Young decided to already break his wish and started to push himself up and stand. Which would normally be an actually somewhat challenging task since he was but a scrawny man with little to no muscle but also just hit a mountain at what felt like 200 miles an hour. To his surprise he got up very swift and felt so light on his feet he thought he was a ghost, that's when he looked down and noticed he was actually fairly muscular for the first time in his life. Not like the brawn over brains superheros he would see on TV from time to time. But he was definitely stronger than he originally was.
After admiring himself he heard something in the distance. It sounded like horse hoofs? He was in a forest full of decently dense lush green trees so he could only rely on his sense of hearing which was oddly also better than what he originally had. He weighed the options he had in his head. Either, stay here and try to talk to whoever is coming and pray they 1. Can understand him and 2. Aren't bandits or murderers who would take his heart for testing. OR he could simply hide and get a good look at whoever or whatever was coming towards him before trying to confront it.
Safe to say he stayed back and hid.
After what felt like hours waiting in anticipation he not only heard the sound of hoofs but also could see the source, it wasn't a horse. But also was? There were 2 "horses". Each carrying a man in heavy plated armor and had a sword and shield with a emblem of a yellow star surrounded by a black void embroiderd on the shield. The "horses" seemed like distant relatives of what he knew horses were, with 4 legs and covered in hair. But the heads of these things was a weird mix between an alligator and an anteater. With a semi-triangle flat head with a long whip like tounge appearing every now and then, Ri Young assumed they didn't have a good sense of smell or he simply had to much mud and dirt on him for the horses to notice.
Speaking of noticing something, when Ri Young took his eyes off the horses and looked at one of the guards. Ri Young immediately had an immense chill fall down his back.