Published: May 21st 2025, 5:13:27 am
The selection exam started just as we had predicted. Low-level monsters blocked the paths to the maze's heart, with a few more threatening ones scattered around. Beasts, slimes, insectoids, arachnids, and many more monsters not native to Farcrest and its surroundings. Most cadets emerged victorious from the first encounters, but the exam wasn’t about winning a few fights. Slowly but surely, the encounters would drain the cadet’s energy, leaving them at the mercy of the bigger monsters near the center, or weakened enough for other cadets to pick their totems.
I had to give Astur credit. The maze wasn’t just haphazardly put together but carefully designed to bleed time and stamina. The corridors looped back on themselves, and the openings on the hedge walls vanished once the cadets passed through, just to reappear minutes later, ever so slightly out of place. The Whispering Mandrakes led the more gullible astray. Although the main frame of the labyrinth remained the same, those small changes were enough for the cadets to start doubting the scribbles on their handmade maps.
Those with keen mana sense and detection skills had it easier, but positioning themselves was only one of the many tasks to pass the test.
The minutes passed, and the cadets became more and more fatigued. Those who decided to rush the maze were slowed by waves of freshly summoned monsters. Those who decided to go slow found no totems in their paths. A lone girl—a Wind Fencer given her skillset—was ambushed by living vines after dealing with a small group of Slimes. The combat had left her out of stamina and mana to fight back, and the hedge wall swallowed her. Talindra gasped, but the Wind Fencer was spat out of the maze at the starting point a minute later. No matter how much she attacked the wall, the entrances remained closed.
Despite her good Class, she was the first one to be disqualified.
I felt bad for her, but her disqualification meant less competition for my cadets.
The maze didn’t seem to like it when cadets stopped to catch their breath. As soon as they stopped for more than a few seconds, the living briar emerged from the walls, threatening to swallow them. To my relief, the maze didn’t kill, but it wasn’t coddling either. The cadets who were dragged and spat on had their bodies covered in bruises and small cuts.
It was hard to tell who was having it worse: those being ambushed by monsters or those lamenting their bad luck outside the maze. The only ones who didn’t seem to struggle with the exam were Astur’s cadets. Unlike the rest of the cadets, they had a small sun emblem embroidered on their shoulder pads, so it was easy to tell them apart. That little emblem was enough for the other cadets not to look for trouble with them. Everyone knew better. Astur had the first pick on the cadets, so his class was usually the most talented one.
I couldn’t help but wonder how good a teacher Astur was. A good student, after all, can learn even with a lousy teacher or no teacher at all. If he selected the cream of the crop, the exam outcome wasn’t a clear indicator of his skill as a teacher.
Down in the maze, Astur’s cadets traveled alone or, rarely, in pairs. Unlike other cadets, they seemed to be self-sufficient. I wondered if that was it. Maybe Astur taught the ultimate self-reliance and autonomy.
My pedagogic take was quite different.
Rup, Kili, and Cedrinor were being chased by a small pack of summoned Rustclaws: dog-size rats with metal claws and teeth strong enough to gnaw metal. Cedrinor’s knife had already been chipped at the tip. The creatures moved with an unnatural coordination, almost like they shared thoughts, but were heavy and slow. [Identify] told me that the metal they ate went directly to their fur and hide, which made them resistant to physical attacks but slowed their movement.
They had managed to acquire a single totem from a solitary Greater Slime.
As they faced the watchtower, I could read their lips.
“Do something, Rup. You are a cat!” Cedrinor said.
“I’m not a cat!”
Kili took the lead, darting left at a junction. Cedrinor lagged slightly, with one eye on the chasing monsters and the other on the path ahead. Rup’s puppet zigzagged, collecting rocks that it gave Cedrinor to shell the Rustclaws. Cedrinor had a good arm. One Rustclaw took the full force of a stone between the eyes and flipped over and over, slamming on the hedge with a squeal. The enchanted vines didn’t seem to like it and smacked the rat just like they had done with every cadet who had dared to try climbing or burning them.
Cedrinor celebrated the hit like he had outed the best batter of the other team in just three pitches. His celebration ran short because Rup’s puppet smacked his shoulder with its wooden hand and signaled the remaining rats. The cadets quickly realized that small monsters rarely had totems, and avoiding conflict was the right call to conserve energy. The only problem with running away was the chance of stumbling upon another monster or cadet squad.
Rup was too focused on her puppet that she stumbled upon a root. I cringed, but Cedrinor was quick, grabbed her by the uniform, and dragged her a dozen meters before she could stand again. A single mistake was game over, and there was plenty of chance of making mistakes in a twelve-hour exam.
The name of the game was to conserve energy and minimize risks.
Up ahead, the corridor split. Kili hesitated for half a beat too long—she had some sort of detection skill, but not as powerful as [Awareness]. Rup took the right path, forcing the rest to follow. The pack of Rustclaws hissed as three rats followed them while the other three stopped and turned around. From our vantage point, the rat’s plan was as clear as day. They were herding the cadets into an ambush.
I cursed.
“Aren’t those rats a bit too smart?” Talindra whispered near my ear.
“I know, right?” I replied, looking across the watchtower at Rhovan and his retinue.
A mocking grin tugged at his lips.
Kili, Rup, and Cedrinor crossed a portal into a fountain room, and the Rustclaws stopped at the entrance. Seeing that the monsters didn’t follow inside, the cadets stopped to catch their breath. Every observer at the watchtower knew that stopping by a fountain wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
The appearance of the Dreadshade wasn’t an isolated occurrence.
Each fountain had a mid-level monster trapped inside.
The ground trembled like they had activated a trip wire. Kili’s detection skills must have been triggered because she headed to the opposite exit before the statue showed the first cracks. Without a moment of respite, they entered the maze again. However, the Rustclaw pack had managed to herd another cadet squad near the fountain square. Kili raised her hand, and the group came to a stop just as a group of three cadets turned the corner at the end of the corridor.
The Rustclaw stopped chasing and retreated to a safe distance, like they had planned the encounter.
The angle prevented me from reading Kili’s lips, but after a small exchange, the other cadet squad drew their blades. Kili looked over her shoulder. More Rustclaws had gathered at the end of the corridor, blocking the path. Kili, Rup, and Cedrinor drew their blades as they tried to reason with the cadets.
Monsters and vines weren’t the only way of getting eliminated. There was a third way: the stupidity of another team. The correct answer was to ally with the other team to break the Rustclaw barrier, not fighting each other. I leaned over the handrail, pushing [Foresight] to the limit, but the maze’s anti-detection spell also affected us.
Kili, Rup, and Cedrinor were top-tier warriors even before the Cabbage Camp. I never doubted their skills, but I wasn’t comfortable with cadets using sharp blades against each other in a non-controlled environment.
“A single totem isn’t worth the confrontation,” I muttered.
“It seems the stragglers are being picked already. My boys will have an easy time stealing that totem,” Rhovan said. “What will your cadets do now that they can’t run away?”
[Foresight] yelled in my ear that this was deliberate targeting.
I climbed onto the handrail and looked at Rhovan directly in the eye.
“Kili, despite her appearance, is our second-best warrior,” I said.
“Where are you going?” Rhovan asked.
“It’s not against the rules to monitor the exam.”
Without saying more, I dropped from the watchtower directly onto the hedge wall. [Minor Aerokinesis] softened the fall. When I touched the stony part of the wall, the vines tried to grab my ankles, but [Minor Pyrokinesis] burned them down before they could do any harm. It took a moment for the living vines to realize that trying to stop me was futile, but they ultimately stopped bothering me.
I walked over the hedge wall. The cadets running under my feet didn’t notice me, even when their eyes looked in my direction. I didn’t have time to figure out what kind of concealing spell covered the maze. I used [Minor Aerokinesis] and [Light-Footed] to cover the distance between the watchtower and the fountain.
Kili had been pushed to the side by Cedrinor, who was now in charge of the negotiation.
“Move aside, kid. I’ve been guarding the streets of Ascombe from scum like you since the day I got my Class,” Cedrinor said in his best city guard voice.
Cedrinor and Genivra were a couple of years older than the other recruits. They had been working in the city guard back at their home before being scouted by an Imperial Knight dispatched to the Ascombe Marquisate. Two years among guardsmen had made them astute, and despite their seemingly lackluster Classes, they had a few tricks up their sleeve.
The Hawkdrake cadet, a tall boy with long blonde hair and a chin as squared as Lord Gairon's, had none of Cedrinor’s talk.
“Hand the totem and we might let you go, Cabbages. Maybe.”
Mister Reyes used to tell me that a class was a reflection of their teachers. I never agreed with that take of his, but it was undeniable that there was some of Rhovan in his cadets. Maybe it was the result of hundreds of years under the reign of the System. After all, in this world, a few numbers on a Character Sheet were enough to put some people over others.
“We are not giving up our totem.”
“Then we are not giving you safe passage.”
“Aight, I tried.” Cedrinor sighed, turning to Kili. “Let’s kick their asses.”
“Can I try first? To intimidate them, I mean,” Rup interjected.
I massaged my temples. Rup was the complete opposite of threatening. She was small and thin. Her eyes were too big and expressive, and her curly tricolor hair only made her look like a big, bipedal cat. Even her puppet had a childish look to it.
“You go, girl,” Cedrinor said.
I couldn’t tell if he trusted Rup’s success or wanted to see what she had in reserve.
Rup cleared her throat.
“Oi! Move aside or I’m going to use your skin for my puppets!”
Cedrinor covered his mouth, holding back a laugh.
“You are going down first, munchkin. No one threatens a Hawkdrake cadet and goes unpunished,” the blonde cadet replied.
Kili, as expected, had stayed silent throughout the exchange, focusing instead on scanning the surroundings. There wasn’t much in the corridor. It was almost three meters wide, each wall covered in a thick bush that seemed to close over their heads. Three people were enough to block it completely. There wasn’t enough space for them to comfortably fight shoulder to shoulder.
“Take the lead, Cedrinor. You were a guardsman—roughing up kids is your area of expertise,” Kili said, not without a hint of derision.
“It was about time my skills got some recognition,” Cedrinor replied, extending his hand.
Rup handed him her knife and retreated.
“Focus on one of them. As soon as we beat one and go three versus two, they won’t be able to fight back,” Kili said.
I wondered if she took part in many street fights. A part of me said the answer was a resounding yes. After all, she was fifteen and already missing half of her left ear.
“Aye, aye, captain.” Cedrinor rolled his shoulders and extended his arms, covering the width of the corridor with the knife blades. “Let’s see if hard work pays as much as Mister Clarke said.”
Mana surged through Cedrinor’s body, and before the Hawkdrake cadets could react, the boy was already upon them. My heart skipped a beat as the blond cadet blocked just in time, moments before Cedrinor’s blade could slash his face. Cedrinor was going full force. I made a mental note to double down on the whole ‘think before you act’ part of the curriculum.
Even without his signature twin axes, Cedrinor fought just like during our match on the first day. He let the momentum control his pace, not giving the Hawkdrake cadets a moment of respite. However, his movements were more precise and less instinctive. It wasn’t inertia alone that guided his blows but a detailed plan, several steps ahead of his current movement.
The Hawkdrake cadets weren’t pushovers, but the narrow corridor prevented them from using their numerical advantage. The difference in skill wasn’t huge, but it only took a slight edge to defeat an opponent.
I stood on the edge of the wall, ready to cast a mana barrier if necessary.
It took the Hawkdrake cadets a moment to adjust to the fight's rhythm, but they did. Using [Quickstep] and [Windstep], they rotated to counter Cedrinor’s barrage. The knives shone bright with fortifying spells. Luckily for Cedrinor, the Berserker Class also had defensive skills. His hands shone like silver, preventing the Hawkdrake from scoring sneaky strikes past the non-existent guards of the knives.
Rup’s puppet shadowed Cedrinor. Every time the Hawkdrake cadets found an opening in the Berserker’s attack, the puppet darted forward, sneaking under Cedrinor’s arm, and parrying the blows with its long spear. It almost seemed like Cedrinor had a pair of extra arms. Rup’s control was near perfect. At no moment did the puppet interrupt the boy’s movements.
Meanwhile, Kili stayed a step behind, covering Rup’s body.
“What happened, Blondie? Is a guardsman too much for you?” Cedrinor taunted him.
“I’m going to get your tongue cut off.”
“Genivra would agree with the sentiment, but I’m not returning to Ascombe.”
Cedrinor dodged and pivoted low, kicked one cadet in the chest, and surged to the weakest link in the formation with zero hesitation. I noticed how much Cedrinor had been holding back. This wasn’t sparring. The boy grinned. Each of his strikes was meant to end the fight.
The ‘weakest link’ threw a firebolt in retaliation. Cedrinor dodged, and Kili dragged Rup down. The firebolt hit the hedge maze, disturbing the living vines. The blonde cadet yelled at his companion to stop with the fire spells.
Between Cedrinor’s onslaught and Rup’s puppet defense, the Hawkdrake cadets were pushed back. The Rustclaws waited like vultures at the end of the contested corridor. With each blow, the Hawkdrake cadets stepped closer to the monsters.
“Enough! Stop!” The fire cadet shouted, but Cedrinor didn’t hear it, or chose not to.
The nail on the coffin wasn’t raw skill but mana.
The Hawkdrake cadets were better swordsmen than mana manipulators. I quickly noticed that their skills were unrefined. Wasteful. They weren’t controlling the mana flow in their bodies, and each casting released a sizable amount of useless energy into the environment. It was clear that Rhovan had been putting more time into fencing than meditation.
I shook my head. The Hawkdrake cadets had immense potential. It was a shame they were about to be disqualified. I look around. Rhovan was nowhere to be found. My heart skipped a beat. Was I also in charge of Hawkdrake cadets' safety?
Cedrinor didn’t stop.
The Hawkdrake cadets were starting to show the first signs of Mana Exhaustion. Their movements became sluggish, and they dropped any attempt at offense. They were in survival mode, and Cedrinor seemed to have enough fuel in his mana pool to continue all day.
Finally, it happened. The body of the blonde cadet gave out, and Cedrinor smacked the knife out of his hand. I prepared to jump forward, but instead of stabbing him, Cedrinor punched him in the face. Hard. With all the weight of his not-so-small body behind the blow. The blonde cadet raised his arms in a failed attempt at defending. If I had to guess, Cedrinor had two or three stacks of [Brawling] in his Character Sheet.
I made yet another mental note to also double down on the ‘self-restrain’ part of the curriculum.
Cedrinor grappled the blonde cadet and threw him against the hedge wall. Like a mousetrap, the vines coiled around the cadet’s body and dragged him into the depths of the living maze. A moment later, he was gone.
“Do you think he is okay?” Cedrinor asked.
“I hope not,” Rup replied. “Ass.”
Kili passed by their side like a flash and, with a swift strike, disarmed another Hawkdrake cadet. Even my [Foresight] had trouble following her. The fire cadet had no chance against Cabbage Class’ second-best combatant.
“Hand over the totems,” Kili said, holding her knife high.
A shiver ran down my spine. For some reason, her threat seemed a hundred times more believable than Rup’s. If Kili didn’t have at least one stack of [Acting], I was retiring as a teacher. I hoped it wasn’t [Mugging].
The Hawkdrake cadet put his trembling hand in his pocket and dropped the totems. The sight of his companion being swallowed by the wall seemed too much for him to take. None of them knew the vines were dragging them to safety.
“W-we good?”
Kili nodded.
“Scatter.”
In a last attempt at saving face, the Hawkdrake cadets cast one last murderous glance and faced the Rustclaws. Luckily, the rats were sluggish, and it only took them a couple [Quickstep]s and [Firebolt]s to pass through them. The monsters followed.
I shook my head. With no stamina or mana, the Hawkdrake cadets were done.
“And don’t come back!” Rup yelled, her puppet shaking its fist in anger.
Cedrinor fell on his back, covered in sweat, and closed his eyes. The maze seemed to realize they had just won a fight because no vines emerged from the walls to drag him away.
“Next one is yours. I need a rest,” the boy said, unbuttoning his jacket.
Rup’s puppet crouched and patted Cedrinor’s head.
“Was it necessary to throw that idiot into the hedge?” Kili asked.
“When you are a guardsman for so long, you learn how to make a kill look like an accident.”
Kili kicked him in the leg.
Cedrinor grinned
“I know you won't tell us anything about you, but don’t expect me to believe you never had troubles with the law. I can see it in your face.”
Kili grabbed the knife left behind by the Hawkdrake cadet and handed it to Rup. Then, she went ahead to peek around the corner. She seemed to realize the best way of dealing with Cedrinor was to ignore him.
“The swarm of Rustclaws split. We should check the fountain. There’s no way Lord Astur put it here just for the looks. I bet there is good loot hidden somewhere.”
“Huzzah! The keen eye of a petty thief,” Cedrinor said, hoisting his shirt.
Kili kicked him again.
After resting for a moment, the cadets retraced their steps into the fountain section. I followed them over the hedge wall. The exam wasn’t even halfway through the gathering phase, and the group already showed signs of fatigue. I summoned the [Classroom Overlord] overlay.
Kili, Trickster Lv.5 - Motivation 72% - Energy 63% - Confidence 65% - Resilience 91%
Cedrinor, Berserker Lv.12 - Motivation 83% - Energy 49% - Confidence 73% - Resilience 79%
Rup, Puppeteer Lv.5 - Motivation 78% - Energy 69% - Confidence 68% - Resilience 75%
Not great, not terrible. The cadets still had more than three hours of the gathering phase plus six hours of the extraction phase ahead. I noticed Kili’s Motivation and Confidence had improved considerably since the first day. Rup’s also had improved, although they remained among the lowest in the class. I sighed. The least confident Imperial cadet was still leagues ahead of my most confident orphan back at Farcrest.
The two Rustclaws guarding the entrance retreated as soon as the cadets drew near.
“Good job, Rup,” Kili said.
“I told you I’m not a cat!”
The fountain square was silent. Cracks had formed on the deer statue, and the whole back was missing. The statue was hollow and empty. The cadets walked around the fountain, their knives up and ready to fight.
“I sense mana,” Rup said.
“Whatever was inside there, it’s not here anymore,” Cedrinor replied.
The fountain park was an empty square area, fifteen meters on each side, with no place for a monster to hide.
“It doesn’t seem logical to leave a powerful monster roaming the corridors. This place seems more like an optional high-risk, high-reward area,” Kili said.
“Did someone pick up the fight while we were busy with the Hawkdrake idiots?” Rup asked.
“We would’ve heard it. The place is soundproof, but we weren’t that far away,” Cedrinor pointed out.
Suddenly, the wind shifted. Rup tackled Kili while her puppet tackled Cedrinor. The four of them rolled over the grass. In the spot where they had stood a moment earlier, three wooden stakes—long enough to skewer a boar—were now driven deep into the ground.
“Gloomstalker!” Cedrinor yelled.
On the opposite wall, a giant lizard made of roots and vines disappeared into the hedge wall.