’They didn’t even do a single test.’

Leon walked along with the group, moving at the same pace as everyone else, blending in without effort.

The five element school was recruiting and naturally all the youngsters in the town had switched their brains off entirely. The emblem. The robes. The title. That was enough for them. No one stopped to ask why a world giant would come to a backwater village and hand out apprenticeships on the spot without checking a single thing first.

Leon wasn’t a naive kid.

Something was up.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"Boss, I know I was wrong for leaving and not trying to find you. But you have to understand, the people there were...."

Lucan had been talking since they started walking.

A hundred and one excuses laid out one after another, each one flowing into the next without pause, the whole chain of them building toward some conclusion that absolved him of having vanished for three months without raising any kind of alarm.

Whether it was guilt driving him or fear of what Leon might do, it was hard to say. Probably both. Either way he couldn’t seem to stop himself from explaining.

"It’s fine." Leon smiled. "I told you to leave for a reason."

Lucan slowed slightly.

Wanting to believe it. Not quite getting there.

And he was right not to.

Telling someone they could leave after a set amount of time was very different from watching a month pass with no sign of a person and deciding their belongings were now available. Leon had noticed the signs of forced entry at his house the moment he walked back in. Someone had tried the door with more than a key.

Lucan had assumed he was dead and acted accordingly.

Leon kept the smile in place and said nothing about it.

"I...." Lucan started again.

"Keep walking."

Lucan kept his mouth shut.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

They approached a gate flanked by two massive enclosed hills, the kind of natural formation that didn’t happen by accident.

Leon recognized it immediately.

The inheritance ground of the three immortal emperor.

He kept his expression neutral and followed the group through.

"All of you move forward to the bank of the pond. Wait for instructions."

The leader pointed toward a section near the dried up pool where another cluster of commoners had already been gathered. They moved without question, funneling into the area until the whole group was packed together in a tight circle like cattle that hadn’t figured out what the fence was for.

Above them, seated on a rock overlooking the dried pond with a staff resting across his knees, was an older man with white hair.

Leon clocked him immediately.

Transcendent.

The five element school wasn’t sending low level scouts to poke around a dead emperor’s inheritance. They were taking this seriously. Whatever they believed was down here, they wanted it badly enough to bring someone of real weight along to supervise.

"That’s enough for now. Have them go in and test the grounds."

The white haired man didn’t move from his rock. Just spoke down at the group below like he was watching something mildly interesting from a comfortable distance.

"Yes, lordship."

The level four great mage stepped forward.

He pressed one toe into the ground.

—boom.

The soil beneath the feet of the entire group of commoners caved without warning, dropping them straight down into the dried bed of the pond in a single lurching fall.

Bodies hit the ground. Dust kicked up. Somewhere in the chaos someone cried out.

The great mage’s voice came down from above, clear and unhurried.

"This is a test to determine if you are brave and capable enough to join the school. The statue before you belongs to an old ancestor of our clan. Touch him and your talent will be gauged!!"

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The group steadied itself.

Looked around. Looked at the statue.

And almost immediately, the logic seemed to click for most of them. They hadn’t been tested back in the village. Of course the real test would happen here. That made sense. That was how these things worked, wasn’t it?

"Steel yourself!!"

One of the youths at the front shouted it with real conviction, chest full, jaw set, the kind of expression that comes from wanting something badly enough to stop thinking clearly about it.

He took large strides forward.

Thirty meters in he dropped.

No impact. No visible force. He simply went down like a puppet with its strings cut, unconscious before he hit the ground.

"Oh." The great mage’s voice drifted down again with the tone of someone who had just remembered something minor. "I forgot to mention. This ancestor of ours is well known to be a trickster. So it naturally won’t be simple to just touch him."

He said it with a smile.

They had already sent school members in ahead of this group, used that smaller experiment to confirm the place was extensively trapped. Now they had commoners to map the rest of it for them.

No need to risk anyone that actually mattered.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

One after another the denizens of Fire Village walked forward.

Some were knocked flat by invisible pressure. Some were thrown sideways by forces that left no visible mark. Some disappeared under rocks that fell from nowhere and left craters where they landed.

It was painful to watch. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

And at the same time almost darkly amusing.

They kept going. One falling, the next stepping around the body and continuing anyway, the dream of getting into the school overriding whatever signal their body was trying to send them about the situation they were actually in.

"Boss." Lucan’s voice came low and close to Leon’s ear. "Should we?"

He was watching the others move forward cautiously, the pull of it getting to him. He didn’t want to be left behind. He wanted the future they were all running toward, the same as everyone else.

But Leon’s hand was on his arm and it wasn’t moving.

"Let’s wait a bit more."

The smile on Leon’s face was there but mechanical. The kind that sat on the surface without touching anything underneath it.

Lucan looked at it and stayed put.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"You at the back." The great mage’s voice sharpened. "What’s wrong with you? Go forward. Or do you not want to be recruited?"

Not everyone had moved.

A cluster near the back had simply stopped. Some people didn’t care enough about the school to die for the chance of maybe getting in. Some had watched enough bodies drop that the dream had gone cold. They stood with their heads down, not meeting anyone’s eyes, and shook them slowly in silent refusal.

The great mage looked at them.

A different expression settled onto his face.

"Hehe. You fools." His eyes moved to his colleagues positioned around the rim of the pond. "It seems like you need some motivation."

He signaled once.

From every corner of the dried pond’s edge they jumped down together, landing in a loose ring, each one with a whip already in hand.

—crack!!

—crack!!

The sound split the air before the leather even touched anyone.

Then it did touch someone.

Screaming. Real screaming, the kind that comes from pain arriving without warning, and then the chaos spreading outward from that point as everyone who had been standing still suddenly wasn’t anymore.

Traps ahead of them.

Whips behind them.

No exits.

No choice but to move forward into whatever was waiting, one step at a time, hoping to be one of the ones that made it through rather than one of the ones that didn’t.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

And within that pandemonium, one figure moved differently from everyone else.

No hesitation in the steps. No flinching at the sounds around him. The long stretch of traps between him and the statue passed beneath his feet like they weren’t there at all, each one avoided before it triggered, the path through them read and walked cleanly.

No one above noticed.

Not until he was already standing in front of the statue.

"One must be ruthless to thy enemies."

He said it quietly, almost to himself, eyes fixed on the stone face in front of him.

[Break the Statue?]

The system’s voice landed in his ear.

He didn’t think about it.

His fist went forward.

—boom!!!

The statue cracked through the middle and what followed came out in a rush.

Green gas. Dense and fast, spreading in every direction at once, consuming the air of the dried pond in seconds. Everything it touched stopped moving.

Corpses where people had been standing.

Just like that.

The parting gift of the one once called the three body immortal emperor.

Known by his true name as the three hydra immortal emperor.

His final trap, left not for intruders, but for exactly this kind of people.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​