The moment Leon asked about his Trial, Ghostwire froze.

From the body language of the Synth for the past few minutes, Leon could tell that he was feeling guilty about something.

’Is he feeling guilty because of my injuries?’

’He thinks I suffered like this because he didn’t follow us on the operation?’ These thoughts were why he decided to pull Ghostwire into the conversation, to make him feel at ease and reassure him that he didn’t hold grudges.

Besides, it wasn’t even his fault in the first place.

Ghostwire quietly stared at Leon for a few seconds, then he looked at Talia who looked back at him.

"Uh, well, I was trapped in an island".

Leon raised his eyebrows and laughed. "That’s all?"

"Uh, no". He was as taciturn and awkward as ever but this time, Leon didn’t intend to let him off the hook as he just stared at him, waiting for him to explain.

Ghostwire’s face twitched slightly, but lucky for him Daren rescued him.

Daren grinned. "His Trial was different, it was not like the ones we usually hear of. He was sent to an island that we still haven’t recognized anywhere in the current map of the world, we suspect it’s not a real island meaning he wasn’t sent back to history or something".

"There were over 1,000 Neon Beasts there, most were F Rank but many were E Rank too. For an F Rank NetRunner, that’s already dangerous but his situation was made even worse by the Trial".

"All his abilities were locked except Data Lash, most of his physical augmentation as an F Rank Ascended was gone too".

"He had to survive in that island filled with murderous Neon Beasts as a mundane human with access to only Data Lash. And even worse is the fact that the Trial objective is for him to hunt and kill exactly 1,000 Neon Beasts."

Leon hissed. "That’s harsh".

Daren nodded. "And that’s not even the worst. Unlike regular Trials, his had no time restriction. The only restriction is that he can’t get nutrition from the Neon Beasts he kills even if he roasts their meat and eat them".

"So the longer he stays without killing a thousand Neon Beasts, the more he’ll lose nutrition and strength, meaning the weaker he becomes".

Now, Leon was horrified. "Then how did he survive?"

That sounded like a death sentence.

All eyes instinctively turned to Ghostwire after he asked, and subjected to their stares, the Synth squirmed, clearly not comfortable with the attention.

It seemed like he became even more taciturn and awkward after surviving his first Ascended Trial.

Lucky for him, Daren saved him again.

The Cyber Gladiator sighed. "I always knew that bastard was strong. I mean, he’s always been such a force on any battlefield with that Rifle of his, but I thought he was only good as a sniper from range. I never knew he had such rugged survivability in his repertoire too".

Leon looked at Daren. ’What do you mean? Were you actually expecting him to die?’ He thought but when he heard what Daren said next, he had to admit too that even he was stunned by how Ghostwire survived.

Against the daunting task of hunting a thousand Neon Beasts with nothing but Data Lash and his mundane strength, Ghostwire decided to go feral.

That was the only way to survive.

As a fan of reading webnovels from the psionic network, he had a lot of knowledge from reading medieval webnovels.

He borrowed knowledge from them, turning the island into his personal hunting site as he spent the entire first day creating numerous traps that would make hunting the Neon Beasts easier.

On the morning of the next day, he created his weapons, crafting a crude wooden spear and a round wooden shield.

Necessity births invention and pushed to the wall, Ghostwire unlocked his craftsmanship talent.

With his crudely crafted weapons, he finally started his hunt, cleverly utilizing the crude weapons and his traps to hunt and kill the Neon Beasts.

But on the first day, he only managed to kill 3 F Rank Neon Beasts. And well, that was a problem.

If he continued at that rate, it would take him 100 days just to kill 300 F Rank Neon Beasts. And by then, without nutrition, he would long be dead already.

Ascended or not, there was no surviving 100 days without food.

And since the more he killed, the less F Rank Neon Beasts would be left on the island, a point would come where he would be forced to challenge the E Rank Neon Beasts lording over the island.

When that time inevitably came... he dared not even think about what would happen then and how fast he would be able to kill them, that’s if he could even kill them in the first place.

That presented Ghostwire’s first dilemma in his desperate quest to survive.

But he didn’t stop at the first hurdle, he kept on trying to survive.

At first, it was hard as he even sustained a few injures during the first few hunts but once he got the hang of it, he slowly climbed the ranks to become one of the apex predators of the island till the extent where other Neon Beasts began to avoid his territory.

That made things harder for him since he now had to go out of his established territory to hunt, but unwilling to fail his Trial and with his body weakening due to lack of nutrition, Ghostwire embraced the grind.

He pushed himself past his limit as for days, he stayed within the island, turning feral with each subsequent day as he slowly turned into a barbarian.

In 5 days, Ghostwire slaughtered almost 30 F Rank Neon Beasts with just Data Lash, his traps, a crude wooden spear and a wooden shield.

One of Leon’s greatest fears in such a scenario was losing his mind due to meeting only murderous Neon Beasts who were after your life, there was literally no other intelligent person there to communicate with.

But to Ghostwire who was already taciturn in nature, these were ideal conditions for him. He adapted seamlessly.

And soon, from just surviving, he began thriving.

But not for long. After 5 days of hunting non-stop without any nutrition, Ghostwire became just bones and flesh.

He was dying from inside.

Instinctively, he knew that he was not going to survive for long. Desperate, he began trying different things. He ate the leaves in the forest, he ate tree bark, he ate anything but nothing gave him nutrition.

On the 7th day, desperate and dying of hunger, Ghostwire looked into the horizon, at the mass of endless waters surrounding the island.

That was when a spark of an idea ignited in his mind.

Without hesitation, he acted on the idea immediately as he charged towards the ocean and dove in, and with his crude spear, he hunted and caught a fish- a mutated Tuna Fish.

Too weak to make fire to roast it, he ate the fish raw and there it was. For the first time since coming to this island, Ghostwire received nutrition.

He almost cried.

But after that, things changed. His eyes gleamed with something dangerous as for the first time, he found a way to survival and completing his Trial.

And so, he resumed hunting Neon Beasts within the island for the Trial objective while hunting for fish in the Endless Ocean for nutrition.

He became a true barbarian.

The ocean was far more dangerous than the island, filled with untold horrors that Ghostwire dared not attract their attention. An especially harrowing encounter taught him a lesson that he never forgot.

And since then, he learned to be ingenious about it, he was able to hunt for relatively harmless fish and keep himself strong.

And well, Ghostwire continued this routine for over a year, a period of time where his entire outlook on life and survival was overturned.

He spent 387 days trapped inside a Trial.

And after it, he never quite remained the same anymore.

Leon shuddered. ’What the... how is a mere E Rank Trial that difficult?’

He looked at Ghostwire again, and finally he understood why the Synth was even more taciturn, cold, and unapproachable than before.

This was a Synth who was still carrying demons of his Trial with him.