Oliver had been careful. He had been exceedingly careful in always following the paths of this labyrinth that lead to barriers instead of combat. He had been so careful because he knew that his only chance at passing this qualifier round laid in taking hold of any advantage that he could get, and the barriers being purposely made easy enough for attention-paying Academy students to break through was undoubtedly a huge advantage.

Combat, on the other hand, was a wild card. There was no guarantee who Oliver’s opponent would be, and how skilled they would be. That’s why Oliver had tried his level best to avoid the labyrinth paths that lead to combat.

But there was nothing he could do if the labyrinth railroaded him into a combat path anyway. And, unfortunately for him, that is exactly what had happened.

After finally breaking through his second barrier, he had found no more branching paths waiting for him deeper within. Instead, after a bit of walking, he had been forced to turn a corner, and there he had found an enemy competitor, looking just as surprised and panicked to have found him as Oliver probably did.

They both simply stared at each other in a stunned silence for a few seconds, before the enemy twitched. Alarm flared inside of Oliver, and he desperately scrambled back, turning the corner where he had just come from.

He could feel the cold sweat of fear slip down his spine. He had never been in a battle before. Magical Combat class always just had the students imitate battle when learning spells, and even in Lorem forest, it was Gelida Olvo who had fought off all those enemies for his group. This was his first ever battle, and his first move had been to run away.

Yeah… that seemed promising.

He took a deep breath to calm his nervously thumping heart down, and focused his mind on all that he had seen. The enemy had been wearing the maroon-red cloak of the Institute, which meant that he likely wasn’t going to accept an offer to team up. Fortunately, he had also looked just as surprised as Oliver at having encountered an enemy, and like Oliver, had to wait for his brain to play catch-up for a few seconds as well. This meant that the enemy probably had a similar level of combat experience as Oliver.

However, the enemy had also been holding a magic staff, which automatically gave him an advantage—no matter how inexperienced he was. Professor Carmen, in Magical Combat class, had taught that magical weapons of any kind already had a magic circle inscribed upon them with laurite, which meant that they already had a magic circle ready for combat at all times, as opposed to how normally mages had to draw out their magic circles before using them.

However, magical weapons were hard to create—primarily because different materials required different alterations to be done to the magic circles when enchanting them with laurite. And when an item had more than one magic circle inscribed upon it, more complex alterations were required. It was a complicated process, which was why magical weapons were incredibly expensive, which in turn was why Oliver had not bought one himself.

But Professor Carmen had pointed out another, far more important reason as to why many people did not use magical weapons. And this reason, Oliver could take advantage of.

“Like I said, it’s terribly difficult to enchant a weapon with a magic circle,” Professor Carmen had explained in one of her lectures, “And it becomes even more difficult when another circle is added to it. That’s why most magical weapons are enchanted with only one magic circle. Identify what that circle is, and you’ll know what you have to counter every time the enemy uses that magical weapon.”

And with that, Oliver suddenly had a gameplan.

Step one: Identify the circle.

He peeked out from behind the corner, and the first thing he noticed was that the enemy had not approached him for some reason.

That threw Oliver for a loop. Why not? A magical weapon’s main advantage was that the magic circle was already ready to fire. Why would the enemy foolishly decide to give their opponent time to draw their own magic circle?

Then Oliver spotted the small balls of flames heading towards him. They were the size of fists, and exceedingly slow. They were just leisurely gliding towards Oliver as though they had all day to reach him.

He wondered why they seemed almost… familiar?

Putting that aside for a second, Oliver focused his gaze on the enemy’s magic staff. The wood of the staff, which made up the shaft, had its gnarled claw-like grip tightened on the large glass orb which served as its head.

The magic circle was inscribed on that glass orb, glowing in the distinct blue of laurite. Unfortunately, Oliver could not understand it. It was still too advanced for him.

Still… this spell didn’t seem to be anything special. Oliver figured that, with their terrible speed, he could probably just weave through the fireballs and punch the enemy or something. The spell hadn’t been aimed at him, and was just sent in his general direction, so—

And then, as the first set of fireballs passed him and were about to hit the wall behind him, the dull recognition in his mind flared into alarm.

These fireballs looked the same as the [exploding fireballs] that the Dragon Princess had used in her duel against Rex Optime! They were far slower, sure, but they still looked exactly the same!

Oliver leaped to the right as the fireball finally touched the wall behind him. A powerful explosion ripped the air, and a blistering torrent of flames burst outwards. The flames almost reached Oliver, but thankfully, he had reacted just in time, barely managing to escape with only a decent ringing in his ears.

Panting, Oliver scrambled back to a safe distance and let the rest of the fireballs also explode against the same wall. By the time the barrage of explosions was done, the thick grey wall had been completely destroyed and one could step through it to get to the other side.

Professor Mackenzie had said in clear terms that destroying the walls wasn’t allowed, so Oliver hoped that one of the staff members would just arrive and take the enemy away without Oliver having to do anything else.

Unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Perhaps they had been watching from above and had seen that the enemy hadn’t destroyed the wall on purpose, and so had given him a pass. Whatever the case, it was up to Oliver to defeat him now.

He desperately racked his brains, trying to think of a way to win. He’d completed step one and identified the spell, but step two was to ready a counter. The problem was, they had never learned how to counter [exploding fireballs] in class, so he had no idea what the correct spell for this situation was!

Oliver heard the enemy’s footsteps rapidly approaching, and before he knew it, the enemy had turned the corner. There was a fearful yet determined look on his face, as though, even though he was scared, he would stop at nothing to take Oliver down.

The magic circle on his staff glowed brightly, and he unleashed another barrage of fireballs, aiming them all at Oliver.

Oliver winced, strongly considering running again. These fireballs were slow, but they were numerous, and if he even accidentally brushed one of them—

And then an idea struck him.

He drew the magic circle for [rock spike] as quickly as he could, his hands shaking all the way, and retreated away from the fireballs. Once he was sure he was far enough away from the blast radius, he took careful aim at the closest [exploding fireball].

His actions seemed to make the enemy nervous, and the enemy started firing more [exploding fireballs] with no regard for his mana reserves in response, but that was only better for Oliver. Oliver took a deep breath, and fired.

The [rock spike] flew straight and true, striking the nearest [exploding fireball] with a decent amount of force. The fireball instantly detonated with a mighty ‘BANG!’, and Oliver covered his face with his arms in order to protect himself from the sudden blast of hot wind.

But this was only the beginning. The [exploding fireballs] were packed so closely together that the detonation caught several other [exploding fireballs], causing them to explode as well. The result was a chain explosion that shook the very earth, and lead all the way back to the caster, the enemy competitor.

The enemy competitor seemed to realize what was happening, and tried to retreat back, but he was a split second too late. Though he had managed to avoid being caught near the epicenter of the explosion closest to him, he was still sent flying and crashed against the wall behind with a terrible sounding crunch.

The staff slipped from his grip as he flopped to the ground like a doll. Oliver, after a few seconds of catching his breath, carefully stepped through the now charred landscape, and kneeled down to check on his enemy.

He was still breathing, and his pulse was still stable. In fact, the angry red burn marks only reached as far as his arms, and the rest of his body seemed just fine. It seemed that being thrown into the wall headfirst had been the main cause of his unconsciousness.

Oliver breathed a sigh of relief, and then, inexplicably, he started laughing. It was a strange sort of laughter, with his heart beating faster than ever and his head as light as it had ever been. But he could not deny the jubilation that had welled up inside of him.

His first battle! And he had won!

It felt like hours before his laughter finally died down, and some semblance of sanity was restored, but once he could think clearly again, he looked down at his defeated foe. Was it alright just to leave him here? Would it be better if he sent a fireball into the sky as a flare of sorts?

Well, no one else had yet (at least he hadn’t seen any), and Professor Mackenzie did say that they were watching, so it would probably be fine.

Giving his first true opponent one last look, Oliver set off again. There was still a time limit to beat.

It took Cadmus a few moments to realize something.

“Oh, I haven’t revealed my magic yet,” he said, “Unfortunately, my magic—”

“Cannot be used in this labyrinth, right?” Morgana guessed.

Cadmus stared at her in wonder for a seconds, before slowly nodding,

“…Indeed. How did you know?”

“We all already know your magic,” Morgana said, “The whole school probably knows the story of how you used the dead bodies of the Academy guards to help the Dragon Princess fight off those people who attacked us in Lorem forest.”

“I see,” Cadmus said, “I won’t have to explain my magic then—”

Gelida suddenly stopped, and silently raised her arm to order the rest of the group to stop as well. The group complied, and Morgana seemed like she was about to impatiently ask what was going on, but Gelida made a shushing motion.

Now that they were no longer moving or talking, Cadmus could hear the sounds of several sets of footsteps coming their way, and the others seemed to have heard it as well, judging by the tensing of their postures. Gelida and Morgana were the first to draw their magic circles, and Cadmus and Gwen quickly follow suit.

Gelida and Morgan had drawn their own original spells, but when Cadmus turned to look at Gwen, he disappointedly noticed that she had drawn the same circle as him: a basic [fireball]. He had been hoping to sneak a peek at one of the Lady of the Lake’s unique formulas, but oh well. Another day perhaps.

A group of four mages garbed in maroon-red cloaks carelessly turned the corner in front of them. As soon as they spotted Cadmus and his group, they froze. Then, both groups reacted with exceptional speed, with Gelida and Morgana rushing forwards, and the four enemy mages retreating back from where they had come from.

Cadmus and Gwen followed, but they found themselves to be of no use in this battle. In fact, this confrontation wasn’t even worthy of being called a battle.

Two of the enemy students had chosen to use fire spells, and so Gelida had targeted them. They fired their spells at her again and again, but against Gelida’s [anti-heat] spell, they were rendered powerless, and were defeated within a few swift blows.

Morgana had targeted the other two, and seeing her magic sword, they too had decided to create magic swords of their own. Unfortunately for them, that was perfect for Morgana. She attacked first, and when the enemies went to block, her [shadow blade] neatly slipped through their blades, slicing deep into both their chests in a single stroke.

These enemy competitors had seemed like good mages, but against Morgana and Gelida, they had fallen in under a minute. Cadmus and Gwen exchanged a look, and erased their own magic circles. Gwen then kneeled down to examine the two enemy competitors who had been cut by Morgana’s blade and were still writhing on the ground, moaning in pain.

“Leave them, Gwen,” Morgana said, “The Academy staff will be here soon to pick them up. They can take care of everything.”

Gwen frowned, looking up at Morgana, and then looking down at the suffering people below her again. A resolute look came over her face, and she began drawing a new magic circle. Morgana clicked her tongue in annoyance as Cadmus watched closely, a slight smile pulling at his lips. Gwen most likely intended to heal these people, which meant that she was about to use a spell created by the Lady of the Lake. There was no way he was going to miss this.

Her hand moved swiftly and gracefully, but even then, the complexity of her formula required approximately a minute and a half for her to finish drawing. She then held her circle against the injured person and pushed mana into her circle.

There was no special light or anything to indicate that anything was happening (other than the circle glowing due to the mana being pushed through it, of course), but, to Cadmus' awe, the wound steadily closed itself right in front of his eyes. Gwen moved onto the second injured person as Cadmus switched his gaze to the formula itself.

…

What the hell was this?

Gwen had call this ‘healing magic’ so Cadmus had automatically considered it to be a part of ‘life magic’—his speciality—but now he could see that he had been mistaken. Yes, there were elements of life magic involved, but most of the spell was composed of something else.

What caught Cadmus’ eye was the array interlaced with the symbol of Chronos. Usually, people used Chronos’ symbol to speed up or slow down their spell’s effects, but considering that this was a spell created by the Lady of the Lake, Cadmus suspected that this spell was in fact a hybrid between life and time magic.

His lips twitched. A hybrid between two of the most obscure magics out there, and Gwen had said that this was only the most basic of her spells? What a monster the Lady of the Lake was…

Once Gwen was sure that the two enemies were stable, she erased her magic circle, and tried to stand up. However, her legs gave out under her, and Gelida was forced to catch her before she collapsed on the ground face first. She was panting, looking extremely weak as her face shined with the clear sheen of sweat.

“I… I’m sorry,” She said to Gelida, “But this spell takes a lot of mana. I’ve nearly emptied my reserves.”

Morgana scoffed, “That’s why I told you to leave them be. They would have been taken care of by the Academy staff anyway.”

Gwen smiled weakly, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t take that chance.”

Morgana’s eye twitched in obvious annoyance, but Cadmus didn’t care to hear their bickering.

“Let’s move,” he said, “We should be close to the exit by now.”

Their group of four once again began pressing forward, albeit far more slowly due to Gelida having to support Gwen.

They walked through a few more corridors, and broke through one last barrier, before they came across a stone arch. Behind it was a serene view of the vast field they had entered the labyrinth from. Realizing what they were seeing, at once, their group’s pace sped up.

They passed through the stone arch, and slowed to a halt. Gelida set Gwen down on the ground as Morgana confusedly looked around.

“Is this it? Have we passed?”

Her question was valid. There were no labyrinth walls surrounding them anymore, and it felt freeing to Cadmus to be able to see in the far off distance again without the grey stonework to block his sight. It was plain to see that they had exited the labyrinth, which meant they had passed right? However, if that was the case, then why was no one here to greet them?

And then, as if answering his question, a woman dressed in the usual midnight-blue Academy staff uniform hurriedly approached them from the distance. She looked exhausted, indicating that she had been running for some time now.

“Hello! Hello!” She said, panting as came to a stop in front of them. She took a moment to catch her breath before speaking again, “Sorry, we never expected so many of you to reach the exit so quickly! This year’s participants really are something else!”

“So, we’ve passed?” Cadmus asked, just to make sure.

The woman grinned, “Yep! And you guys are among the first ten people to reach the exit. Congratulations!”