Chương 19: A Broken Mountain Needs Broken Spells

Viren rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. Oh, yes. He was going to be making a lot of money today. Just as he had promised Ryland. Viren had it covered. The graduate student candidates were all here, all of them together in their teams. Each had been assigned a numbered badge, with Ryland's group getting number three. There was a whole heap of fanfare, and lots of formalities too, but Viren wasn't paying attention to any of that.

He just made sure to note the important bits of information, most of which he had already picked up yesterday.

"Each team will need to head to the Designated Area as soon as they enter the Trial Zone," said the administrative official, pointing at the enormous dome of mana. Of Living Mana, to be exact. Despite having seen and known about it for ages, Viren still had trouble believing the academy could contain and control this much Living Mana at once. He focused on the actual task and ticked the main information off his fingers.

"Every mage is allowed to use any kind of magic they see fit. It is what they achieve with their magic that will be a key criterion being judged." Check.

"The mages must rely on each other for support. No external assistance will be provided, not even in the case of emergencies, for the difficulty of the Trials will be based on the capabilities of the participating mages." Check.

"There is no set number of entrants who will be accepted. It may be a lot. It may be none. It all depends on the general performance within the Trial Zone. However, participants can only be victorious as a team. If any member is eliminated, the whole team is eliminated." Check. There were a few more minor things, but Viren disregarded them and headed over to the best spot of this whole business. The betting spot.

"Hello," he said to the bookkeeper, an older student who was in his last year at the academy.

"I'd like to place a wager on Team Three."

"The team who got the late newcomer just to fill up their ranks?" The student laughed.

"Wild bet, little junior." Viren waved around the cash.

"You want it or not?" His senior snatched away the money.

"Sure, I'll take it off your hands. Just don't come crying when you end up broke." Viren received the listings as the others around him argued and laughed about who might win.

"Team Seven has that jerk from House Flitchard," a girl was whispering.

"Haven't you seen how he's been acting? He's not going to let any of the other teams live, much less compete to win."

"Psh," scoffed someone else.

"Team Two has the junior Kleador. He's supposedly even better than his older brother, and we all know how he's been doing at the academy." The name made Viren's ears perk up. Kleador was the surname. The "older brother" was one of the Excursion Club leaders, and the one who had been in charge of Viren's excursion. The one who had left Viren behind. He suppressed the surge of annoyance by looking down at the betting list. In fact, he smiled when he found the line that had Team Three's odds. 210/3.

Viren almost laughed. It was funny to recall how much Ryland had seemed worried that he was spending so much at the restaurant, when Ryland himself was about to earn him back all that money and more.

"Hey, uh," Viren said, trying to contain his smile as he located the bookkeeper.

"I think I want to raise my bid a little." Ryland checked his watch just before the Entrance Trials started. Hmm. An important event had come up on short notice, and it was unlikely he'd be done with the Trials when it started. Oh, well. Hopefully, he wouldn't be in too much of a bind when the time came. A pleasantly cool sensation washed over him as he entered the dome of Living Mana with the rest of his team. It was like walking through a thin, chilly waterfall.

He almost felt like lingering underneath it just to enjoy the sensation a little longer. Unfortunately, the pleasantness was interrupted by a sparking warning shooting through his abdomen. Ah, right. Another little interference he needed to take care of." [Endless Evolution]," Ryland muttered. The spell circle with his Soul Glyph of Genesis as the Centreglyph came to life within his body, so it wouldn't draw much attention. Within moments, the pain in his lower torso disappeared.

"What did you just do?" Kendren asked. He was shivering. Apparently, he had been observing Ryland.

"And—and what was that spell you just used?"

"Ah, I possess a certain organ that doesn't interact well with Living Mana," Ryland explained.

"It's called a Procyon. I keep it to regulate mana through the rest of my organs, so it's kind of like a mana heart, which I mostly use to empower my magical defences—"" Hello!" Alendra said.

"Y-you two need to c-cut the chitchat and focus on the Trials." She had a point there. Now that Ryland was no longer preoccupied with ensuring his guts weren't threatening to tear themselves apart, he could focus on the landscape they had just arrived at. Kendren was giving him an odd look, but Ryland was honestly used to it by now. No doubt, before all this was over, he'd be garnering a lot more attention. The Trial Zone seemed to have flung them to a mountaintop. Except, the mountain was broken.

They were standing on one of the largest shelves of rock in the area, with the broken chunks of the mountain floating all around them, both above and below. The sky was a misty grey, and there was actual fog swirling through the area too, obscuring the distance. Oh, and it was cold as well. No surprise. This was supposed to be a mountain peak.

"D-don't worry," Alendra said, teeth still chattering.

"I've got this. [Environmental Control]." Immediately, the cold lessened. Alendra's spell circle shone bright gold in the air, taking control of the air and instilling warmth around them. The others slowly relaxed. Ryland hadn't been affected to begin with, but he appreciated that the others felt better. He observed the spell carefully.

"Ah, what an interesting Soul Glyph. Is that at Tier [7]?" he asked with academic interest. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Alendra shot a surprised look at him.

"You already read the Soul Glyph?" She had good reason to be a little shocked. Most spell circles formed and activated far too quickly for anyone to identify the Centreglyph easily. Well, anyone not named Ryland, that was.

"I have my suspicions, but I thought I'd confirm."

"Suspicions? If you really read it, then you should have seen it's obviously Tier [7]." Now she was scowling, though it felt a little forced. Like she wanted to use her annoyance as a cudgel to beat back her disquieted shock that Ryland had casually identified her Soul Glyph. He just smiled at her.

"You're right to be proud. This spell is great." Ryland noted a hint of pride in her voice. That was one of the things he was curious about. While Alendra had confirmed that the Grand Frame had clearly appropriated the spell ranks generally popular across the Realms, Ryland still didn't know what exactly was appropriate for a mage's rank. Would a Silver-ranked sorcerer such as himself normally be capable of Tier [20+] magic? Doubtful. Very doubtful. So then, what did that say about Alendra's rank?

Especially with the context that she was proud to have manifested a Tier [7] spell?

"Yes!" Kendren said, rubbing his hands together as he enjoyed the new warmth.

"My vision is no longer getting clouded by my own breaths. Alendra is amazing." Instead of feeling pleased, she just gave them a soft glare at laying it on so thick.

"Thank you, but we're wasting time."

"I can point the way," Sint said, stepping forward. She had forced her arms to unclasp from around herself now that the temperature was higher. A Glyph manifested as she held out her hand—a Glyph of Search. Ah. The unevolved version of Ryland's Glyph of Questing. Tier [5], if he was reading it right. No surprise that some people possessed it. Finding things was always handy. Honestly, he was more surprised that it wasn't a staple spell that Alendra and Kendren possessed as well.

It seemed the academy had reevaluated which spells it deemed fundamental.

"Good," Alendra said as Sint's Glyph pointed to somewhere on their left.

"Let's get going." They did so. The path ahead was naturally treacherous. Slippery with ice, crumbly at the edges, with the mist and fog making distances treacherous despite Alendra's spell, they had to remain careful about where they stepped. While the broken chunks floated anywhere between ten and thirty handspans away from one another, none of them had trouble leaping from rock to rock. That said, they were covering the distance without too much trouble.

Clearly, Ryland's teammates possessed strong Inscriptions, though which exact Inscribed Glyphs they were using was hard to tell. He only saw a few basic Glyphs glowing on their armour and robes, which suggested they had gone the more personal route of Inscribing Glyphs on their bodies. Much like Ryland had.

"It's kind of wild," Sint murmured. She had chosen to stay away from Ryland, which he supposed was better than outright hostility.

"To think they can contain all this within a dome of Living Mana. And we haven't even seen what the other teams are facing. Who's to say they don't have a completely different biome with its own horrible obstacles."

"Well…" Kendren said with a mischievous smirk.

"We can see what the other teams are facing." He proceeded to pull out a mirror. A little tap on its rear made an Inscribed Glyph burn to life. Ryland's eyebrows lifted. That was a Glyph of Spying.

"That's cheating Kendren," Alendra hissed.

"Please." The noble twisted a dial around on top, switching between different views of different teams.

"Haven't you ever taken a written exam at Arcoryx? You're expected to cheat, to do whatever is necessary to win. We're being judged on our magic, not the basis of our moral character. Don't you remember them saying every kind of magic is acceptable in the trials."

"Yes, but they also said that they're going to judge us based on what we accomplish with our magic. At this rate, they're going to call you a scoundrel, not a mage." As they continued bickering, Ryland tried speaking with Sint.

"Archmage Hevian was a fantastic specialist at constructing spell circles," he said.

"All the Glyph Controllers he designed for modifying the internal environment of the Trial Zone? He used to draw little sketches of those on his napkin during lunch breaks." Sint blinked at him. Ah. Uh oh. Those were the Viren-style blinks. Ones that he had grossly misinterpreted the first time.

"Why are you talking like you saw the architect of this dome at work personally?"

"Because—" Because Ryland had seen him at work personally. Which was what he had been about to say. But having seen the effect plain truths could have, he decided to change things up.

"Because he was an inspiration for me." A weird look flashed across Sint's face, but she said nothing, so he continued.

"I've been wondering if I could make a dome such as this too…"

"Stop distracting us with nonsense, Ryland," Alendra suddenly said. Apparently, her bickering with Kendren was done.

"The other teams are making steady progress. We need to keep up. Let's go." Ryland thought about suggesting that they could perhaps try following him instead of Sint's Glyph, but they were all rushing off already. He supposed if things got too bad, he could just rift to the designated zone… Could he do so? This wasn't regular space. The Trial Zone was a constructed Reality Demesne, where the rules of the universe often bent and twisted in very integral ways that could make magic act very, very oddly.

Especially rift magic. For instance, Glyphs of Anchor needed spatiotemporal coordinates. But space and time was tremendously warped within Reality Demesnes, disconnected from actual reality, so there was always a risk any spells his Soul Glyph of Rift might end up failing. Besides, would the academy administration really allow Ryland to pass if he abandoned his teammates? He doubted it.

At the same time, transporting everyone directly to the designated area via a rift might accomplish the letter of the Trials, but not at all the spirit. And his teammates would be enraged. Something like that would completely negate their efforts. Still. There was a balance. Ryland was experienced, even besides his magic. He wouldn't let that be squandered.

"I believe we should take a right turn here," Ryland said when they reached the edge of the next floating rock.

"I can see the direction we need to go," Alendra said.

"And it's straight ahead. Not a right turn. Sint's Glyph says I'm correct." Ryland glanced apologetically at Sint.

"That's a Glyph of Search. Glyphs of that nature point directly at their target, regardless of what lies between the caster and the target." He left it unsaid that direct routes weren't always the best routes.

"I'd agree with you, Ryland," Kendren said genially.

"But I literally can't see anything on the right."

"The fog is purposefully obscuring the way we should be going. I'm certain that's the way forward." Alendra hesitated. For a moment, Ryland thought she was reconsidering her earlier assertion that relying on Sint's Glyph of Search was enough. But no, that wasn't it. She was… shivering. Despite the fact that her own spell had removed the cold. Wait a moment. Was she scared? Before Ryland could give that line of thinking more credence, Alendra mastered herself. Then she jumped. Forward, not to the right.

Her feet crushed down on the snow and ice on the distant but visible floating rock.

"We don't have time to waste bickering," she called from across the gap.

"We need to be decisive if we want to win. Come on." Sint and Kendren followed quickly. Ryland sighed.

"Deliberation is important," he said when he landed as well, throwing up a puff of snow.

"It sure is." Alendra was already marching forward, her figure disappearing in the mist.

"When you've got time. Unfortunately, we've got—ah, crap." A few moments later, Ryland and the other two had joined her, standing mutely as they observed what had caused her to curse. He didn't want to say he had told them so… But he had told them so. Kind of.

"It's a Realms-forsaken Calamity," Kendren said.

"It's a glacier," Alendra corrected.

"Don't overexaggerate." She visibly forced herself to calm down.

"It's fine. We can just burn our way through. Remember, we're being tested on overcoming any sort of barrier we might face. So with that in mind, let's stop second-guessing ourselves and…" She held out her hand, a Glyph of Fireball burning to life over her palm.

"I think you were the only one second guessing here, Alendra," Sint pointed out.

"Not true at all." The shadows from Alendra's fireball made her elfin face look extra sharp.

"Ryland there was doubting us from the start."

"I was," Ryland confirmed.

"But I think that's categorized as first-guessing, not second-guessing." As Kendren laughed, Alendra glared at him. She ordered the rest of the party to start chipping away at the glacier. Ryland briefly looked back. Right. Their return path had practically disappeared. The rock they had jumped down from was gone. They were trapped. Technically.

"We need to be fast, yes?" Ryland asked.

"Of course," Alendra said.

"That's why we need to—wait, what are you doing?" Ryland had ignored the others casting various versions of Fireball and stepped forward. Once he was in position, he raised one hand high.

"I'm clearing a path forward. [Eternal Bastion]." The spell circle with his Soul Glyph of Aegis branded itself just in front of all four of them. A brief twist of colours was the only indication that Ryland's barrier had come into effect. Aside from the strange sensation of minor additional weight cladding them all.

"Is this a barrier spell?" Alendra asked.

"How is this supposed to help us get through a glacier?"

"The colour of your spell circle…" Sint murmured in alarm.

"How is it this strong?" Ryland answered Alendra first.

"It's not supposed to help us get through the glacier. It's there to protect us."

"Against what?"

"Against this." Ryland held out his hand. Finally, he was about to see if his Soul Glyph of Rift could function within a Living-Mana-created Reality Demesne." [Sun Summoning]."