No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

Damien's foot pressed firmly onto the last stone of the Sky Bridge, his heart steady, his breath even. The trial had carved a line through his soul and redefined the shape of his will. He no longer burned with fury nor trembled with loss. His steps had silenced the ghosts. His thoughts had passed through fire and come out refined. What remained now was a sharp, cutting intent, a will honed not by rage or pain, but by clarity.

The chasm yawned behind him like a grave that had failed to claim its due. Before him stretched something new.

He raised his eyes and took in the sight of the next path.

A stairway rose into the sky.

It was not just long. It was monumental. A thousand stone steps reached up into a luminous void that shimmered faintly with power. The lowest steps were hewn from obsidian, pitch-black and smooth, each one precisely carved and untouched by time.

Every hundred steps, the color shifted gradually, lightening in tone, passing from black to smoky grey, then to iron, to pale silver, and eventually to marble-white for the final hundred steps. Yet in the far distance, beyond the highest white step, Damien saw a gleam. A single golden stair hovered in the air, detached from the staircase, suspended above everything like a divine punctuation mark.

What was it? A reward? A throne? A test?

He did not know. But he would find out.

He stepped onto the first stair.

Immediately, the air shifted. Not in temperature or scent, but in weight. The atmosphere thickened as though it had been compressed tenfold, and his body responded instantly. Muscles tensed. Blood pumped harder.

The pressure was everywhere, upon his shoulders, in his chest, pressing in around his joints. It was as if the world had decided to embrace him with invisible arms and squeeze gently, just enough to be felt.

But it was not unbearable. Not yet.

Damien took a second step, then a third. With each movement upward, the pressure increased, subtle yet undeniable. By the tenth step, he felt his breath pushing harder through his lungs, and his movements became slightly more deliberate.

It was not simply weight. It was resistance, like wading through invisible gravity.

On his fifteenth step, movement flickered in the corner of his vision. He turned his head and saw the first group of drow appear at the foot of the staircase.

Seven figures. Lyrisa. Vathrian. Vathrian's surviving followers. And, surprisingly, Nyxara.

Lyrisa met his eyes for the briefest moment, her expression softening. Nyxara's presence explained her lack of wounds. The others had not dared attack with House Umbra's heir so close.

All seven stepped onto the stairs without hesitation.

Damien returned his focus to his own ascent. He moved slowly, deliberately, savoring the experience.

Each stair was teaching him.

This was not just pressure. It was structure. The force being exerted on his body was precise, layered, and geometrically balanced.

It wasn't crushing him, it was holding him together and challenging him to maintain integrity under that hold. His body adjusted with every motion, micro-corrections occurring in his core, shoulders, and legs.

He realized he was learning the mechanics of compression. Of stabilization. Of durability under mounting force.

He could have rushed through this. Truly, the pressure, even at the thirtieth step, was bearable for someone of his current power. But that wasn't the point. The point was to feel it, to understand it, to internalize what it meant to grow stronger by enduring without resistance.

One by one, more drow began appearing at the base of the stairs. Some looked haggard, others calm, but all bore signs of internal trials. They began their climb immediately, sparing no time to study, to feel, to adapt. They simply pushed forward.

And they overtook Damien.

Nyxara passed him first, her steps quiet as falling snow. She moved with the ease of someone long used to pressure. She didn't glance at him, but her presence left a vacuum of sound in its wake.

Lyrisa came next, her pace brisk but not rushed. She slowed slightly as she passed him, lowering her head to whisper, "Hang in there. I'll see you at the top."

Damien gave her a smile and waved her off, amused by her concern. He was not struggling. He was learning.

Then came Vathrian and his cohort. They swept past like a gust of disdain.

"Pathetic," one of them muttered. "He's barely on the thirtieth step."

"You overestimate him," another laughed. "He won't reach the seventy fifth. Human bones crack under pressure."

"Seventy fifth? Pfft! You overestimate him. He'll burst into a smear by the fiftieth, mark my words."

Their voices echoed behind them as they climbed without looking back, chuckles fading into the distance.

Damien let them go.

He was not racing them.

By his fortieth step, the last of the drow had arrived and begun their ascent. Some stumbled. Some climbed with desperation. A few passed him quickly, fueled by fear of failure. Damien reached his fiftieth step as the final one overtook him.

Now alone at the back of the line, Damien paused.

He did not feel slow. He felt aware. The steps were not merely obstacles, they were expressions of a design. The creator of this inheritance had not merely built a gauntlet to punish the weak. No, it was more than that.

This was a method of cultivation. A secret disguised as a staircase.

At each step, the pressure did not increase linearly. It increased in specific patterns. The force did not simply weigh him down, it compressed his energy, refined his aura, forced his internal systems to adjust and become more efficient.

He began to see the pattern. The way the pressure slid through his back when he tensed. The way his breath needed to adjust its rhythm to accommodate the subtle increase in air resistance. The way his necromantic core adjusted to minimize wasted energy.

Every step became a teacher. Every pulse of resistance became a lesson.

By the sixtieth step, Damien understood. This was not a trial to be finished quickly. It was a forge. And he was the metal being tempered.

He glanced upward. The stairs loomed far above. But they no longer seemed daunting.

They seemed… welcoming.

He let the others have their head start. He would catch up.

But not until he had wrung every lesson from these thousand steps.