The Astral soul system-Chapter 102: Puzzle box

The door to the room opened and Xavier came in with Neo behind him. They both immediately saw Maximilian waiting for them.

"You’re here"

"What’s this about? Did you find Zen? He still won’t pick his calls"

Maximilian looked confused on how to explain, mostly because he himself didn’t know what was happening. The only thing he had to go off of was the strange eye color and the strange words he heard.

’Won’t release Zen? He is Zen.... isn’t he? And who was he talking to?’

He didn’t understand why but he felt like something major was going on with Zen. Did it have to do with where he came from.

Noticing that Maximilian was still stuck in thought,Neo walked up to him to put his hand on his shoulder.

"What’s with the urgent call?"

Maximilian snapped out of his daze.

"I think...i think something’s wrong with Zen.... and it might put the entire academy at risk"

"Hmmm?"

*****************

The three walked into the storage room and found Zaria, Diane and Jade waiting.

"What’s with the call? You said it was an emergency"

Maximilian took a deep breath and started explaining.

"....."

"....."

"....."

Everyone went quiet after hearing what he said.

"That’s.... interesting, but although that kind of behavior is strange for him, it’s not anything serious "

"He said he was "Never going to release Zen" and he was yelling to himself "

Xavier thought a bit and replied.

"I’ve caught Zen mumbling and talking to himself multiple times before. He’s a little weird. So what?"

Maximilian shook his head.

"This is different"

Zaria discreetly looked at the window at a black raven pecking on the window curiously.

"Uh... guys, I’ll be right back "

"Wait,where are you -"

Before the question was finished she had already left.

Maximilian sighed, thinking she didn’t believe him. He looked across the room at the others and noticed Jade struggling to stay awake.

"Jade!" Diane called, startling her awake.

"Huh?"

"Are you okay?"

Jade nodded absentmindedly while yawning.

"I’m fine, just had a nightmare. I didn’t sleep a lot "

As soon as she finished talking,her head dropped to the table.

Zaria suddenly came back in, looking a bit nervous. The bird was also gone

"Okay, maybe we SHOULD go talk to Zen. Just to make sure everything’s okay" 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Maximilian still had a bad feeling about this but it seemed this was the only way.

He glanced at the large and small boxes that were all addressed to Zen by a mysterious anonymous sender and slowly approached them.

"These packages got here right when things started getting weird with Zen, and the only people who would send him anything are... Is this really a coincidence?"

Everyone went silent at that. Truth be told, although they trusted Zen to some extent, they never stopped keeping an eye on him. If this package really came from that place then....

Zaria suddenly started opening the packages.

"What are you doing?

Neo answered , joining her.

"It’s like you guys said. This not only concerns us but the entire academy, maybe even the planet. Zen’s identity is too troublesome for us to not take risks"

Zaria shrugged and continued.

"Besides, if nothing really is going on, Zen won’t really mind if we open a few boxes"

A few seconds later they looked at what they had unpackaged, confusion etched on their faces.

"Who the hell puts a box in a box?"

Xavier asked exasperatedly

Maximilian traced his fingers across the largest metal box, but no matter how hard he looked,there was no way to open it.

"Can you break it?" He asked Zaria.

She lightly knocked on the door a few times and answered

"I don’t think so, and even if i could,I’d most likely destroy what’s inside"

Diane stepped up to the largest box.

"Let’s see if i can do this "

Her hands and nails started convulsing strangely. They suddenly started growing as her nails morphed into large claws resembling a beast’s.

Diane made a swiping motion with as much force as he could, slashing at the box with her large claws.

Diane looked at where she had attacked and didn’t see a single scratch. She immediately tried again, over and over with both arms for the next minute but failed to dent it.

"It’s no use" Diane said, retracting her claws.

Maximilian sighed. A part of him had actually believed that might work.

He glanced at Neo who immediately shook his head as a reply.

He suddenly noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

At the top right corner of the box was a piece of paper, crumpled up and taped to the box.

He carefully removed it and read what was written on it out loud.

"Zen,or whoever it is this time. If you’re not dead yet,then listen up. I got tired of looking after your shit,so here you go. This is one of the old puzzle boxes we used to play with as kids. I added a few modifications of my own to improve it, but you’ll still probably open it in a few seconds. Anyway,you know how it goes, solve the puzzle and get the prize. One last thing: You can’t keep running forever. Sooner or later, they’ll catch up,if they haven’t already "

The note ended there

The room was silent for a few seconds. They had thought that doing this would help them get answers but in the end they just got more questions.

Who was Zen running from?

Why was he running?

What did he do?

These questions ran rampant in their minds.

Maximilian shook off these questions and broke the silence.

"The note said this is a puzzle box so how do we solve it?"

They were all thinking when a cawing sound rang out and a black raven flew in through the open door and onto Zaria’s shoulder.

Zaria realized that this meant Black had found Zen.

"I think for now we should try to actually find him"

Maximilian was a bit conflicted about just leaving the packages here, especially since they already opened them but he came up with an idea.

"Let’s split up. Jade,you stay here and try to look up how to open the box. Everyone else, let’s go find him"

Nobody had any complaints, and looking at Jade who was still dozing off, she wasn’t exactly in the right shape to be running around.

Jade waved the others off as they left, locking the door behind them.

"Okay then... Time to...."

"Haaa! No don’t!!!"

Jade looked around and found herself lying on the large table in the middle of the room. There was even an extra uniform jacket that she seemed to have grabbed in her sleep and used to cover herself.

She dropped the blazer, rubbing her eyes and yawning slightly. She felt extremely invigorated after the rest.

"Looks like i fell asleep" she mused sheepishly

She looked at the box and suddenly remembered she had a job to do.

She tried creating portals on the inside and outside of the room but that failed, something on the inside seemed to be rejecting her powers.

"Well that didn’t work. Maybe..."

Jade touched a corner of the box and with a bit of force she tried moving it, and luckily it actually moved that entire column on the box.

"Yes! It’s like one of those cubes my mom had. What did she call it?"

Jade thought for a while but couldn’t remember. She focused back on the cube with confusion etched on her face.

"But isn’t there supposed to be colors to match up?"

Jade wondered, looking at the silver segmented cube.

After contemplating for a few minutes,Jade decided to just look it up but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find anything about this kind of box.

She spent the next hour going through random combinations but she couldn’t find anything.

*Bang bang bang*

Jade was about to give up when she suddenly heard someone slowly knocking on the door.

Perhaps it was because she was tired and stressed out but she suddenly felt a tingle go down her spine.

She slowly looked at the door,her hands trembling although she didn’t even know why she was trembling.

"Guys? Is that you?"

The person on the other side of the door didn’t answer and just kept trying to get in.

"Who is it?" Jade asked as she closed in on the door.

Her hands slowly gripped the door. This place was owed by the school, so she couldn’t leave it locked just because she felt uncomfortable. What bothered her was that other than Zen’s package,there weren’t any others.

She slowly opened the door, cautiously looking over and....

****************

The glowing white ball bounced onto the ground,then the wall, then the ceiling and finally back into Zen’s open palm.

"Clockwork"

Zen looked at the ball he had formed in his hand using his control.

"Still useless though"

He threw it out through the bars and the moment it passed through the bars and into the castle it started loosing its glow and began to shrink, and after a few seconds it disappeared.

"Unfortunate" Zen said as he formed another glowing ball in his hand.

He looked out through the bars of the prison, seemingly focused on something.

"Hmmm"

**************

Everyone had decided to split up. Diane and Neo searched a sector of the school, Maximilian and Xavier searched another while Zaria went alone.

She was pretty sure she already knew where Zen was, thanks to Black, but she wanted to see if she could talk to him alone

After a few minutes she finally found Zen,or at least who they thought was Zen.

Immediately she layed eyes on him , Zaria ran towards him as fast as she could and before he could react she suddenly embraced him in a hug, laughing heartily.

"Hey, Zen. We’ve been looking for you all day, where have you been? You didn’t pick your calls either"

Zaine was stunned. He didn’t know how to react. Noticing this,Theia quickly explained, she’s one of Zen’s acquaintances, and the others are his roommates.

Zaine instinctively hugged her back when he heard that, think I it would be best to just go with things as they were... also he may have panicked a little bit.

"I was... taking care of something"

Zaria’s expression fell when Zen returned her show of affection. She slowly took a few steps back before carefully examining him

’His eye. It really is different, but that still isn’t enough to prove...’

"Zen... what’s my name?’

Zaine raised a brow but kept his expression neutral, mimicking Zen’s mannerisms as best as he could.

"Zaria. Why do you ask?" He answered after checking her name with the system

Zaria nodded absentmindedly and ignored his question.

"Zen. I once told you a secret of mine, something you and i share. The thing we talked about yesterday....Do you.... still remember what it is?"

Zaine almost bit his tongue. He was under suspicion.

"Of course I remember, but...."

They both suddenly heard footsteps and looking at where they came from, they saw Maximilian and Xavier.

"It’s fine.... Just say it. It’s nothing important anyway. If you can’t remember, here’s a hint: it’s a scar"

Zaine gritted his teeth. Something they both shared? A scar? He didn’t have any scars.

"Trick question?" Zaine asked nervously.

"Who are you?"

Zaria asked, already getting ready for a fight.

"And what did you do with Zen?"

Maximilian asked. He didn’t understand what just happened, but he could tell Zaria had figured something out.

Zaine rolled his eyes and smiled menacingly

"Might as well end it here. I was never good at stuff like this in the first place "

"Who are you?!" Zaria repeated her question

Zaine grinned and got into a fighting stance