It was stated by this man that he thought she had more understanding than she was letting on. This was the truth, Miki wasn't being outright shady, but she had a decent bit of knowledge about this line of her quest because of her previous time spent playing the game Age of Eternity. That being said, she didn't want to tell someone organic to the world that their lives were something that she'd played with for her own relaxing amusement when she'd been on her own home world. She obviously didn't want to cause anyone to have an existential crisis. "Life is pretty complicated right now. I don't want to put that on anyone else..." Miki said with all due consideration being given to the man who was her guide on this path. As someone who was from a completely different place, she didn't want to give him more to consider than he needed. "Alright, Trial of Reclamation it is..." she gave a quick bow and headed towards the pathway opened up for her, little did she know this was about to be one of the toughest trials she'd go through.
The path of soft sand led to an opening, to an alternate space. One, Miki had visited before. It was the Rune Stone Circle which the young Druids were required to visit. It was here, she was baptized the first time. And it was also here that she gave up part of her essence, as it was called. Giving a piece of yourself to explore the world with a handicap is part of the proper experience of being a Druid. Once you receive a connection to at least one Nature Spirit, you are offered the opportunity to reclaim what you gave up. It was considered to be a tough puzzle part of the game, not that Miki had much worry about the kind of puzzles that could pop up in a game. Apparently it wasn't uncommon for certain circles of Druids to not bother with trying to reclaim what they gave up, it was a speed runner tactic to simply give up something you don't need anyways, and move past this point without having to come back. But Miki, had done something different.
She'd taken a route the long way around, and what she'd given up here, was two tiers of her Mana. Yes, she'd been walking around with C-Ranked Mana and the Purge skill, instead of A-Ranked Mana without it. But she'd decided that Purge was an essential part of this character build so the lesser of the evils was giving up power at first to be able to do much more later. Or rather that was the hope. As she entered the Rune Stone Circle she walked around it, passing over several stones until she reached one which looked familiar to her. There was nothing here that she could tell, but the crack in the top of the stone, was in the same shape as the crystal she'd received from the Water Spirit. She held it up in her hand and it glowed in resonance. "Well, here goes nothing..." she said pressing the crystal into the Rock a Puzzle type was revealed. Miki's eyes widened and then a large grin spread across her face. She laughed hysterically. "It's a Sudoku Giant!" she exclaimed. "I have to tell Kou about this later..." she thought happily, wanting to share this information with her puzzle happy companion.
What was a Sudoku Giant? Well, it was a Sudoku Puzzle but instead of being 9 x 9 like a standard puzzle it was 25 x 25 in five by five blocks. Intrisically instead of numbers it contained each and every Rune currently acknowledged by the Druid Language. All 25 of them would need to be inserted, without repeating one in a 5 x 5 block in a 25 length line vertically or horizontally. This was most certainly an interesting problem to encounter, since by giving up Mana as her power, she'd made this harder. She couldn't afford a single mistake, having to un-inscribe a rune wouldn't be worth the lost energy. She had to place each one with care and it'd still take a considerable amount of time until the puzzle was solved. "YOSH! Let's get to work."