"Ouch!"

It was hot enough to make me feel like my hands would have been burned if I had kept my hands there any longer.

"What happened?" Princess Anna asked.

"The walls, they are hot."

It was a big room so the radiating heat wouldn"t reach us to the center for a while. Unless...

"Yeah, and it"s not just the walls, the floor and the ceiling too," Princess Eliane said after observing the floor.

We hadn"t felt it yet because of the thick sole under our leather shoes. But if it continues, it wouldn"t take long for the leather to be heated up to the point where it becomes unwearable.

Right when I was starting to think of a way to escape this situation unharmed, the voice of the labyrinth spoke.

"For this trial you will have to answer a question. There is no time limit."

"Ha! If that "no time limit" part is a joke then it"s not funny," I thought. But this was no time to be bickering about such trivial matters considering the fact that we would be cooked alive if we don"t do something soon.

"Well, what"s the question?" asked Princess Anna in a hasty tone.

The bottom of my feet and my back had already started sweating. I looked towards others and their condition didn"t look much different than mine.

"There is a man who works for his master. He works hard in order to not disappoint his master, and never even once has he ever cheated in his work. He strives for his master"s success and does everything he could for him."

The voice of the labyrinth paused. After a brief moment of silence, it continued.

"There is a pair who love their child. They work hard to ensure that their child is happy, healthy, and educated. They have done everything in their power to ensure a good future for the child. Now tell me, what"s the difference in the aesthetic of this pair and that man."

There were several hints that came to my mind. But before I could connect the dots together, it looked like Princess Eliane already had the answer figured out.

"Man, Elves are Elves for nothing," I thought as I decided to trust Princess Eliane on this.

"Well, it"s somewhat simple. What the man displayed was loyalty. He works hard for his master, and at the end of the day, he expects some compensation from him. If it is not something physical, may be something moral. But for the parents, it"s just dedication and love. They just nurture their children and wish for their happiness. At least most of them do."

The Voice of the labyrinth hummed after she finished answering the question.

"That"s a satisfactory answer. You pa.s.s."

And with those words, the door in front of us slid open. All of us rushed out to the next room as fast as we could

"Phew! I thought I would be cooked alive if I had stayed there a second longer, " said Arica in a relieved tone while breathing heavily.

"Yeah," I replied as I looked around the room.

This room was a little smaller than the earlier one, but the walls were smooth and white coloured. There were several different coloured crystals embedded in the walls and it looked like they were absorbing the magic from the bright transparent crystal at the center of the room on a small column.

"Beautiful," said Princess Eliane in a low voice as she was looking around.

"Welcome to the trial of Magic!" said the Voice of the Labyrinth and with it the door behind us slid close.

"Supplying magic to the magic crystal on the column will supply magic to all the crystals in the room. Control the flow of mana so that all the crystals in the room would emit the same amount of light. You only get one try."

"But that"s impossible. They are so many, and the shapes and sizes are all random. No one should be able to control mana to that extent," said Princess Eliane.

"I am not sure if I can do it either. And there is just one chance."

I could control mana to the extent where I was able to fuse Darkness magic with fire magic using a Mithril sword. But this trail was something that needed far more control than that. It wasn"t just control; you would need to be able to judge the mana required in each of the crystals and supply mana in all of them on the required quant.i.ty. In short, it was close to impossible.

It was as if this trial itself was designed to stop all the challengers here and prevent them from progressing any further. As if all the trials before this was just to give them hope and show them the dead end at last.

"But..."

"Zagan, I think I am at a dead end here. Can you break the wall in front of me?"

"Well, watching you struggle like that was fun. But I guess it"s my time to take the stage."

Zagan came out of the crimson magic circle that appeared on the ground.

"Man, his entrance is as cool as ever."

He looked around once and put his hand on the magic crystal at the center of the room. As he began supplying mana to the crystals, I closed my eyes to sense the mana flow.

"Wow."

The word slipped out of my mouth. It was like tiny threads were connected to all the crystals in the room from the center like a cobweb. But each thread was of different size because of the difference in the mana supplied to each crystal.

And when I opened my eyes, every crystal in the room was emitting the same amount of light, no part of the room was looking any brighter or dimmer.

"Well, I guess that"s it," Zagan said while stopping the supply of mana and lifting his hand.

"Perfect! You pa.s.s," said the voice of the labyrinth, and right after it did that, the big door that was in front of us slid open.

"Wait, our results on the other trials were just "satisfactory" and his is "perfect"," I thought.

But I consoled myself with, "Oh well, whatever. It"s not like the scores matter here as long as we all pa.s.s."

Next Chapter: Climbing up

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