EdgarFig
patreon
[ 41 ] Top Five
🕑 Added 2024-12-22 19:51:40 +0000 UTC“Ah, guys,” Arix said, casting the holographic leaderboard before his eyes. “We’re top five now.”
“We’re ranked fifth?” Ellie’s eyes brightened as soothing azure light radiated from her hands. The pain from Kal’s injuries had already subsided thanks to her magic, and while Sooth wasn’t a true healing spell, it would greatly speed up his recovery.
“No. Fourth.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?” Ellie huffed.
“Now, that’s a big deal,” Vae remarked. “If we had a target on our backs before, we have a spotlight on us now.”
Kal brought up his own leaderboard to eye the top five.
Team Dreamkeeper - 280
Team Alpha - 220
Team Kingmaker - 185
Team Ebenshire - 140
Team Highjinks - 135
“No bad,” Kal nodded as he read the list.
“Not to mention, we have the lantern now,” Vae said. “Who knows, with its help, we might be able to climb to the top of the ladder.”
Kal wanted to prove himself, and rising to the top of the leaderboard would do just that. However, Team Shadowpact had proven to be serious competition. In fact, besides him and Vae, Kal was fairly certain their Team was significantly stronger than theirs.
It was too early to tell, he knew. But a part of him wondered what kind of monsters would be at the top of the rankings if they were stuck all the way back at rank 67th.
Doubling Kal's concern was Arix and Ellie. He believed they would make good mages eventually, but without his help, they likely wouldn’t even be here. No, not they. Ellie wouldn’t be here yet, but Arix, on his own, even without the corrupted core, would likely never become a mage.
To make matters worse, Arix’s only spell wasn’t even useful for fighting off other teams. Not unless he found another way to utilize it.
Ellie was more useful, but her magic was still purely defensive. Of course, Kal wasn’t complaining as she mended him. But what chances would they have against a team of four highly capable young mages on par with him and Vae?
Comparing Jasmine’s darkness spell or Ardel’s so-called Eye of Paralyzation to them made their spells look positively mediocre. Even Kal was starting to feel like a simpleton being exposed to all of these secret spells, but at least he had his huge effective mana and high core stats.
That brought Kal to another thought. Why hadn’t Jasmine used her darkness spell when they attacked the previous night? Was it simply out of concern for the little one they called Betsy, or was there another reason?
“Mind if I steal your attention?” Vae said, interrupting Kal’s thoughts. He was holding the lantern, and a stream of blue light trailed out of it, pointing toward the river. “I’m focusing on the starfish from the objective list. That fact that it's still pointing toward the river suggests that there is still at least one of them hidden beneath the pebbles.”
“So that’s how it works,” Kal eyed the stream of light curiously. “I can see why you wanted it. Good job, Vae.”
“Yeah,” Arix nodded with a wide grin. “You’re as amazing as Kal.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. But thank you for your compliments.”
“You deserve it, Vae. Shall we get moving then?” Kal said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Arix said.
“Alright, he had a good idea. Big deal,” Ellie said. “Let’s not get carried away with our praises.”
“Thank you, Moody,” Vae flashed a smile at Ellie as he followed after Kal.
“Would you quit it already?”
Several minutes later, they returned to the riverbank. However, unlike last time, they did not have to arduously search through countless pebbles for what might be beneath them.
Following the light of the lantern, Vae led them directly to an unsuspecting spot on the riverbank. Dropping to his knees, he brushed pebbles away, revealing the starfish within seconds.
Unfortunately, when attempting to focus on another starfish, the light faded away to nothing, suggesting that the rest of the starfish were out of the lantern’s range.
“It has its limits. But it’s not half bad, is it?” Vae said, eyeing the colorful starfish in his hand.
“I’ll say,” Kal nodded.
“Well, that puts us at 160 points,” Ellie said.
“And only 25 points behind third place,” Arix added.
Great, now we’re an even bigger target. Kal knew that should have worried him, but he couldn’t help but feel a surge of adrenaline at the thought.
“It’s still only the second day of the exam. However, with fifty groups in attendance and points being collected quickly, it is conceivable that all available points could be collected within three days,” Vae mused, stroking his chin.
“Do you think that it might be intentional?” Kal asked. “They might have made rules to prevent us from directly attacking one another, but it almost seems as if they are encouraging us to come up with creative ways to steal from one another?”
“That seems likely,” Vae said. “The government doesn’t want useful mages getting themselves unnecessarily killed. It makes sense to ban direct attacks. But a good mage is resourceful. What better way to challenge that resourcefulness than setting us against each other with a restriction like no directly harmful attacks? That requires just as much ingenuity and creativity as completing the riddles to find these objectives.”
“So, they intentionally made it so the objectives would be found before the week was over?” Arix bent his brow and turned his head as if solving a puzzle.
“Exactly,” Vae nodded.
“Right,” Kal said. “Even more reason to be careful and watch our backs. Vae, I had something I’ve been meaning to ask. Since you’re from a noble house, I thought you might know how many people are likely to get offers to join top-tier academies?”
Winning was an easy goal to pursue, but Kal wanted a better idea of how high they would need to place to ensure they all got offers.
“Hmm. Impossible to say, really,” Vae stroked his chin. “This isn’t the only exam taking place across the country. It likely depends on what level of skill the other exams produce. They will give the small number of top-tier academy spots available to the best candidates across Lyssia.”
From the sounds of it, we can’t take any chances. Unless we manage to keep a spot near or at the top, we likely can’t guarantee ourselves a top academy.
“Don’t worry, Kal. With this lantern in our hands, we should be able to collect many points quickly.”
“Soo, where to next then?” Ellie said.
“You guys wanted to get the big scores, didn’t you?” Vae grinned.
“Big scores?” Kal raised a brow.
“How about the Dragon Scale Lockbox?”
“Go on…” Kal crooked his head.
“It’s no ordinary treasure. A lot of people like to make weapons and armor out of dragon scales due to their magical properties and durability. But they also make unrivaled chests. You see, dragon scales are nigh on indestructible, and the mana they hold is incredibly vast. Anybody using a resource as valuable as dragon scales to craft a lockbox almost certainly hires the best glyph writers in Lyssia to seal it with a spell as unbreakable as the box itself. In other words, if we get our hands on it, we can put the Astral Pouch inside it for safekeeping.”
“Yeah, and what if someone just steals the entire lockbox?” Ellie said with a bored expression.
“Well, that’s the thing. If you go to the effort of crafting an unbreakable box with an unpickable lock, you usually accompany it with an unrelenting tracking spell. With any luck, that tracking spell will be designed to bind itself to the first person who finds it. Worst-case scenario, we find ourselves an 80-point objective,” Vae said with a smug grin.
“Okay, so what’s the riddle?” Kal asked. “I’m guessing you’ve already tried the lantern from here?”
"Once again, you are correct, Kal Jakari. We do appear to be out of range of the lantern. Ahem,” Vae cleared his throat and read the riddle aloud. “Where fire once roared, and rivers ran red, in the hollow heart where flames have fled. Seek the ashen heap where the dragon once died, for there lies the treasure forged from its hide."
“Sounds like a volcano, don’t you think?” Kal said.
“Hey, isn’t Mount Nogi a former volcano?” Arix said. “I'm pretty sure I remember learning that in school.”
“You’re right,” Ellie said. “I remember that, too.”
Well… I don’t. Maybe school wasn’t as useless as I thought it was.
“And this Mount Nogi is within the examination zone?” Vae asked.
“Looks like it,” Arix replied, pointing up to the holographic map. “It’s right there.”
The mountain looked to be a little over a dozen miles away, going by the map’s key, which put it well out of reach of the lantern and explained why it hadn’t guided them.
“It’s kind of far though, isn’t it?” Ellie said. “What’s the chance somebody else hasn’t already taken it? I’m sure at least one other team started closer.”
“Sure, it’s a possibility. But I can’t see any other good objectives closer. We can’t just stop looking because another team might beat us. Besides, we can review the objective list while we walk. If something pops up along the way, we simply make a detour,” Vae countered.
“He’s right,” Kal agreed. “This exam is only going to get increasingly competitive but we can’t just go assuming objectives further away are already taken.”
“Okay, you got a point,” Ellie said.
“Do my ears lie, or is that Moody being agreeable?”
“Don’t test it,” Ellie glared at Vae.
“80 points. That’ll put us in second place. Not bad,” Arix murmured.
“Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch,” Kal said.
“Even if other groups catch up, with that many points, we should have a good chance of staying in the top 10, don’t you think?” Arix continued, bundling his fists as his excitement swelled. “That should be enough for a top academy, right?”
“Probably,” Vae agreed. “If about twenty exams occur across Lyssia, the top ten would roughly place us in the top 800 candidates. Of course, not all groups will be equal. The mages competing in Lorran are likely at an even higher standard than those here. However, the mages out in some boonie city like Hoggenhigh or somewhere along the Western border would have a far lower standard. In truth, those who reach the top 10 in Morington should at least be in the top 20 or 30% of Lyssia’s young mages. Assuming they judge us as a collective.”
“We do have that Astral Prince guy,” Arix agreed. “The candidates here must be pretty good.”
“We do,” Vae nodded. “But he could be an outlier.”
“The first two teams we bumped into weren’t particularly special; however, that Shadowpact team had serious talent,” Kal said. “If they haven’t even made it into the top ten by day’s end, we must be in a fairly strong bracket.”
“Kal, are you suggesting we use them as a marker to determine how aggressively we continue to hunt for points?” Vae asked.
“Kind of. If they reach the top 10, then we should probably push ourselves a little harder. However, if they don’t hit even the top 20 on the leaderboard, then we should be safe.”
“And what about the prizes on offer?” Vae probed.
Kal wanted to say something responsible, like let’s just focus on getting an academy spot and play it safe, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a prize, and he wanted to show everyone what he was capable of.
Daedrik’s warning had made an impression on him growing up, and Kal believed them. But he was fourteen now, and there were formidable mages here. He didn’t feel as far ahead of them as Daedrik had suggested he might be. Perhaps that was why his father had taken a backseat in his development, fearing that if he helped him too much, Kal would be unable to hide whatever secret gave him his power.
“Why are you asking him?” Ellie interjected. “Kal clearly wants to win,” she added with a roll of her eyes.
I guess Ellie reads me better than I realized.
“Caution and subterfuge is what House Draken prides itself on. But I must say, I quite enjoy your style. This is why I left home, after all.”
“So, you’re okay with this?”
“I’m not just okay with it; I’m enjoying it,” Vae grinned.
The trip to the volcano was a decent walk, but the examination zone was huge. It was roughly two thousand square miles. You could walk for hours without bumping into another team, especially with how dense the forest was in many parts—unless you were headed for the same objective.
Team Ebenshire read through the objective list and riddles as they walked, but nothing stood out compared to the landmarks nearby.
They did manage to make sense of a few riddles, but their objectives were either too far or worth too few points to justify detouring from the lockbox. It was hardly worth the risk of chasing after a 5 or 10-point objective when it could lead to missing out on something worth 80 points.
Even though it was limited in power, the lantern was a godsend. Even when it didn’t light up, it proved massively useful. It told them that they either got the riddle wrong or that the objective had already been taken since it wasn’t lighting up when it should.
As they neared the volcano, they watched the lantern with baited anticipation, silence falling over the team.
If it didn’t light up, their journey would have been a waste of time. Not only that, but they had been walking for hours and were unlikely to find another objective that day.
“Shouldn’t it have lit by now?” Ellie asked.
“Shhh,” Vae hissed.
Kal nodded for them to continue walking.
“Th-th—” Arix pointed.
Gradually, growing from a barely visible dot at the lantern’s center, blue spread out, the spectral light gradually forming a line as they continued to walk, growing longer with every step.
“Look,” Kal said, pointing at the earthy tip of the volcano’s crown that peaked atop the forest canopy.
