Chapter 51: Examination Day 2
"Wait. What? Go west?"
Yuki spun toward the girl with raven black hair.
"Do you have a problem with that?"
The girl’s tone shot high.
"What do you mean I have a problem with it? Everybody should have a problem with it because every second we waste should be accounted for. We haven’t even reached a checkpoint and yet we want to head west for some thief. Can’t we just report them? Stealing scrolls certainly wasn’t part of the rules!"
Yuki studied her with a mix of indifference and mild disgust.
"Well, losing your token certainly is. You can try to reach the academy gate on your own and report that while you were asleep some hoodlums stole your token. I wonder if it’s first a question of them stealing your token or you failing to protect it. The rules were simple: no matter what you do, do not lose your token."
Shen stepped forward beside Yuki and added with a measured tone.
"Miss Yuki is right. There wasn’t any rule saying the tokens can’t be stolen. Although the act itself could cause mark deduction—which most likely means that the people who did this to us don’t care."
The group fell silent. The weight of dread pressed visibly against everyone.
Yuki gave everyone a stern look.
"We need to move fast. We’ve already lost a night and morning."
She turned away from them and walked in the direction of the arrow. Shen glanced at the others and followed. Marcus followed too.
The black-haired boy hesitantly scratched his head and followed. The remaining four hesitated but eventually trailed along. The girl with raven hair was last.
***
After a few hours, Kage was still lying down with his eyes wide open. There was only one reason why he couldn’t sleep. At first it was because of getting ambushed—of course, he was a very light and alert sleeper so he couldn’t be raided like the fools earlier. It wasn’t getting ambushed by humans he was worried about.
If there was anything that living for over forty years had never failed to teach him, it was the fact that this world had too many surprises for anyone to think they’d seen it all.
In a world like this, your first damnation is thinking you’ve seen it all. Besides, he just needed to rest his body, not his brain.
However, over the past few hours, Kage had discovered something ridiculous on the ceiling of the tidal cave.
For a while, Kage pondered what it was. He hadn’t expected to find something like this here and only wanted to take shelter.
But when he thought about it, it actually made sense. The hints to unsealing the scroll had to be around. To avoid overcomplicating things, they would place them where examinees were most likely to reach—but would need sharp observation skills to discover.
’How convenient.’
Carved into stone at the highest point of the ceiling was a circular dial with symbols.
The outer ring of the dial had twenty-four symbols—twelve of which Kage recognized as eastern symbols and the other twelve as western.
The middle ring contained the eight phases of the moon. The inner ring contained the tide indicators: high, rising, falling, low. The center was an empty circular depression.
Kage narrowed his eyes and stood up. He climbed a rock outcropping and stretched to reach the roof. With a low grunt he began to shift the dial.
’The eight phases of the moon. Yesterday was the First Opposition cycle. The moon was halved in the west, its other half missing—which means it probably rose in the east, which is beyond the caldera.’
Kage shifted the moon to align with the first opposition phase, then he reached the inner circle and paused. He had been lying in the cave for approximately six hours. In that time, Kage had observed that the tide was rising when he entered and was slowly falling now, so he turned the dial accordingly to match the current tidal phase as well.
As the symbols aligned perfectly, the center depression of the dial opened and something dropped. Kage caught it before it could fall any further.
It was a jade medallion, about three inches long, engraved with the symbol of flowing water and a standing stone. There was a hole through the center.
On the back of the marker was the inscription:
The first truth: Time flows like water, but stone endures. Those who read both rhythm and resistance survive the tide.
Kage hissed silently.
It was apparent that this was the first Harmony scroll of all three and was supposed to teach them the importance of observation and respect for natural cycles—which was disgusting, considering the world they lived in.
’Impures ravage cities and what you’re concerned about is teaching the importance of knowing the weather.’
At the same time, it wasn’t entirely unjustified. The world was vast. Being observant and planning ahead would save your head nine times out of ten.
For example, even though Kage already knew that the way to open the scroll was by finding the Harmony markers—situated across the entire island, and that one needed three of these markers to unlock the scroll—he also knew what was supposed to be inside the scroll, albeit he didn’t know what would be in his own.
Even though he knew all these things, he still had to remain observant of the wind, the sky, the trees. But this was his nature. Many would fail because they wouldn’t figure out how to unlock their seals.
Kage tucked the marker into his clothes and looked around a bit more. He scouted the entirety of the cave and found nothing. But he knew something more had to be there—at least that was how that guy said it would be.
The only difference was the change in location.
He scanned the floor and eventually spotted a tiny inscription on the large outcropping of rock he had climbed earlier. Kage quickly reached it, bent down, and read.
"Where two towers stood in ancient days, and knowledge slept in dual ways, seek the tongue of the east and west, where neither tongue is more than less."
Kage scrunched his face slightly.
’Riddles are so annoying.’
He finally stood up and left the cave. Kage pressed forward, preferring to avoid paths that led to other humans and walked alone.
After a few hours, in the evening, he finally arrived at an opening. A ruin stood at its center.
However, Kage immediately heard sounds of crushing blows and grunts. He climbed up a tree to hide himself from whoever might be there and watched from his perch.
A large stone construct guardian, about seven feet tall, was rushing toward a dark-purple-haired boy.
’Him!’
It was the same guy with the bowl cut hair that Kage had met at the start of the examination. However, the boy didn’t look good.
He looked battered, scratches covering his face, although there didn’t seem to be any severe injuries.
The stone guardian shot toward the boy. As he tried to dodge away, it sent a blow flying to his knees, causing the boy’s steps to falter. Kaito rolled away on the ground, clutching his knees to his chest and groaning silently, trying not to scream.
Kage gave an irritated look from where he was.
’I thought I was the talentless one. Just how slow do you have to be not to dodge that?’
He shook his head but continued to watch.
Kaito Hirose stood up again, limping but determined to bring down the stone guardian and enter the ruin.
The guardian, with a red gemstone in its eyes flickering with eerie light, seemed equally resolved to break his bones.
The two continued to exchange blows. Kaito tried different tactics. First he tried to outrun the construct. He drew it out to the edges of the forest, planning to quickly circle around it and reach the entrance of the ruin before it did. However, the stone guardian simply vanished and reappeared back at the entrance every time it reached the outer perimeter of the ruins.
Kaito ran circles around it, dodging most of the attacks and only dashing in when it seemed open. However, in that moment, the stone guardian would unleash a burst of speed and strike him immediately, throwing him outside the perimeter with one punch.
The construct’s punch hit hard and made him cough blood twice. He couldn’t help but look at it in horror.
As the evening darkened, his fuel was already beginning to run out. After another hit, he collapsed on the floor, hopelessly staring at the stone guardian with a face that silently cried: "How in the mortal sea am I supposed to take that thing down?!"
The stone guardian meanwhile stood at the edge of the perimeter and watched him with dim glowing red orbs.
Kage, from where he had been all evening, finally exhaled and rested his back against the tree trunk.
’I’m just going to sleep for now. This one is useless.’