The echoes of combat pulled Elijah forward.
He kept low, feet gliding silently over the worn stone, palms occasionally brushing against the walls for balance. Above, dim blue runes pulsed faintly like a dying heartbeat, casting skeletal shadows along the corridor. Each footstep was a deliberate whisper, a tightrope walk between urgency and stealth.
Closer.
A flare of mana lit the air ahead in a flickering burst—scarlet this time, not the icy blue of the labyrinth's runes. Someone launched an attack. Definitely an Emitter. Elijah's breath hitched. He crept to the next junction and glanced around the edge, sticking to the ceiling corner just above the archway.
There it was.
A wide chamber opened before him, lit dimly by floating shards of mana crystal embedded in the walls. Dust drifted in the thick air, catching the colored light like smoke. At the far end, three students engaged in a vicious skirmish. None of them had noticed him.
Elijah's eyes narrowed as he watched.
One of them—tall, broad-shouldered, and wrapped in a cloak that shimmered like obsidian mist—stood alone. He moved with a cold, deliberate grace, weaponless but still dangerous. His hands moved through the air with strange fluidity, warping the surrounding mana. Every now and then, a strange rift flickered into being—slashing out like a glass blade from nowhere.
The other two were trying to flank him.
One was wiry, fast, and burned with a faint orange glow. He weaved in and out of attacks, kicking off the walls mid-strike. His ability seemed to store movement—he'd pause for just a moment, then launch with wild acceleration, hitting like a wrecking ball.
The second attacker was more grounded, literally—his feet scraped the stone as he manipulated taut strands of glowing wire that lashed out around him. Elijah recognized it as some sort of tension field power; each thread looked harmless until it snapped taut and sent up sparks from the floor. A perimeter trap? Maybe even more dangerous up close.
At the edge of the room, a fourth student lay unconscious—teleported just moments before, judging by the lingering haze of spatial mana. No blood. No body. Just an abandoned satchel and an imprint of where he'd been thrown against the wall.
So this was a real brawl. One man standing against three. Or now, just two.
And the satchel that had once been slung over the downed student's shoulder?
Still there.
Elijah's eyes locked on it. The glow of a mana crystal pulsed faintly through the fabric, unmistakable. One of them had taken it from the fallen student and stashed it—but hadn't had time to retrieve it before the fight turned ugly.
He took stock. Mana: half-depleted. Injuries: bruised, but nothing broken. He wouldn't last ten seconds if they noticed him. But they hadn't. Not yet.
He crawled higher up along the wall, clinging like a spider to a vertical slab of stone as he scoped out angles. The satchel was slumped behind the tension-thread user, just out of sight of the trio locked in a shifting triangle of combat. Occasionally one would pivot too close and get snapped at by the black-haired student's glowing lines, then recoil back toward the rippling glass rifts summoned by the cloaked one. Neither side was giving ground.
Elijah's fingers twitched.
There was a gap—small, but real. A moment when all three turned inward to clash, a violent standoff too heated to allow for peripheral awareness.
He just had to wait for it.
He drew a deep breath and channeled mana into his palm. His anchor line ability still wasn't consistent—half the time, the thread wobbled like overcooked noodles—but when it worked, it worked.
He crouched against the stone and waited, legs coiled like springs.
Now.
He fired.
A thin arc of translucent adhesive zipped across the gap, just above eye level. It struck the satchel's strap. A soft tug confirmed the grip was good. No one had noticed—yet.
He pulled.
Too hard.
The satchel slid across the floor with a loud scrrrrch—grating against the stone just as one of the mid-ranked students rolled back from an attack.
"Someone else is here!" the student shouted, scanning the shadows.
All three fighters halted for just a split-second, eyes sweeping the chamber.
Elijah yanked again—faster this time—and the satchel zipped toward him. It whipped into his free hand just as he pivoted on the wall and fired a second line, anchoring to a high beam on the opposite end of the room.
"Up there!" someone barked.
Too late.
Elijah swung out of sight, narrowly avoiding a lashing wire that sliced the wall inches behind him. The beam cracked under the strain, and he let go mid-arc, landing on a raised ledge that jutted out from the hallway above the main chamber.
A burst of kinetic force exploded near his left leg—just close enough to stagger him. He grunted, stumbled, and bolted.
Spells arced through the corridor behind him. Walls lit up with brief pulses of mana. Elijah took a hard left, then fired another line, slinging around the corner like a wrecking ball with just enough grace not to crash.
Another tight turn.
Then another.
The echo of footsteps faded behind him—but he didn't stop. He bolted through a tight gap in the corridor wall just as it began to rumble. Stone cracked. A portion of the hallway behind him collapsed in a roar of grinding marble.
He fell forward into the silence beyond.
For several seconds, he just lay there, panting.
Then he looked down.
The satchel was still clutched to his chest, trembling in his grip. He opened it slowly.
Inside sat a mana crystal, softly glowing—its pulse steadier than his heartbeat.
His wristband chimed.
[Crystal Acquired — 2/3]
Elijah slumped against the wall, every muscle shaking.
That had been reckless.
Stupid.
Desperate.
But it had worked.
And for now… he was still in the game.
Elijah didn't stop running until his lungs screamed and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him. The shouting faded behind him—muffled by stone, swallowed by distance.
He turned one last corner and nearly collapsed into the wall. A fractured doorway offered the only visible break in the corridor—half-buried by debris and half-hidden behind a broken slab of obsidian-colored stone.
He ducked inside.
It was quiet. A ruined chamber, cracked and crooked like a half-sunken tomb. Runes lined the walls, softly glowing in faded hues of blue and gold. Most were broken, frayed at the edges like half-erased chalk. But the magic still pulsed faintly—like an ancient heart struggling to remember its rhythm.
Elijah dropped to his haunches, pressing his back to the nearest wall. His chest heaved. His arms trembled. But he was alive.
And more than that—he had it.
The second crystal.
He slipped the satchel off and carefully pulled out the two mana cores now in his possession. Each one glowed with a subtle pulse, rhythmically rising and falling like the tide. Warm to the touch. Dense with energy.
Two out of three.
He should've felt triumphant.
Instead, a creeping weight settled over him.
He was exhausted, bruised, nearly out of mana… and he had no idea where a third crystal would be. No clue what might be guarding it. No sense of how far behind—or ahead—he really was.
He stared at the crystals a moment longer, then set them aside and let himself exhale.
"I can't keep doing this," he murmured. "Just sprinting between disasters."
It wasn't sustainable. He was flailing. Improvising. Surviving, yes—but barely. And in a trial designed to reward the clever just as much as the strong, that wasn't going to be enough.
He needed a system. A plan. Something smarter than blind instinct.
His fingers brushed the inside of his wrist, activating his government implanted chip's notepad interface. A soft blue projection appeared in the air beside him—clean, minimal, and customizable. He set it to low opacity and began sketching.
No drawings. Just bullet points. Route fragments. Half-remembered landmarks.
– West corridor: arc gate with circular rune above. Crystal #1 chamber.
– Guardian beast. Summoning tether, non-mobile. Escape via anchor swing.
– Second fight: three students. Crystal #2. One unconscious. Retrieval successful, retreat northeast.
He traced the paths mentally—piecing them together from memory, muscle strain, the scent of mossy decay in certain corridors, the warm buzz of nearby runes.
As the rough map came together, a second layer of thought crept in.
There had to be a better way to navigate.
He began listing maze-solving techniques from old survival books and puzzle theory classes—scraps of research from months ago, back when training magic wasn't an option and theory was all he had.
1. Right-hand rule.
Walk forward with your right hand on the wall. Eventually, you'll reach the exit in a simple maze.
He shook his head. Too many loops here. The labyrinth isn't basic.
2. Random Mouse Algorithm.
Take random turns. Statistically reach the exit… eventually.
He snorted. That's basically what I've been doing.
3. Wall follower + breadcrumbs.
Mark where you've been. Don't backtrack unless forced.
Better—but he'd already doubled back too many times. The labyrinth didn't just repeat; it shifted. Runes hummed differently depending on proximity to some unknown source.
And that gave him an idea.
4. Trémaux's Algorithm.
Mark every junction. Never visit the same path more than twice. Backtrack only when no unvisited paths remain.
It was smart. Structured. And it matched what he'd been trying to do instinctively.
He nodded to himself and tagged each intersection he could recall—adding simple marks beside each:
✅ (explored and clear),
⭕ (visited but uncertain),
❌ (dead end or too dangerous).
Then he layered in something else.
Every time he'd gotten closer to the presumed center of the maze, the environment changed—not dramatically, but noticeably. Runes brightened. Air pressure shifted. Mana seemed to buzz stronger through the walls. Like a subtle heat rising beneath his skin.
That wasn't random.
"Mana gradient," he murmured.
If the center of the maze held something important, then the ambient mana should intensify near it. That wasn't just theory—that was basic cultivation logic. Pools of energy always drew focus. Even stones absorbed it over time.
Follow the pulse. Trace the heat. Let the structure guide the path.
No flashy quotes. No dramatic mantras. Just strategy. Application. Control.
That was how he would win.
He tapped a few more notes into the chip, then shut the projection off and sat back. He took a long breath and reached for the strap inside his jacket, securing both crystals again—one nestled above his ribs, the other near the opposite hip.
In and tight. Balanced.
The trick wasn't hiding them.
It was keeping them through what came next.
As he adjusted the clasps, his thoughts drifted again—this time, unbidden.
Flashback – New Haven Academy, Late Evening
He'd stayed in the library long past sunset. While the other students sparred under supervision or honed their powers in training chambers, he sat curled in the back corner of the south wing—lost in diagrams of rune constructs and textbook passages on three-dimensional maze logic.
A page lay open beside him, frayed and barely readable.
"An unmarked maze must be conquered not through brute force or memory, but intention. Every wrong turn teaches the right path."
He'd laughed when he first read it. Called it poetry pretending to be instruction.
But now…? He understood.
Back then, all he could do was study. Everyone else had already Awakened—training their flashy new powers, climbing ranks. He was the only one still waiting.
Still hoping.
He hadn't even known if he'd ever Awaken.
But what he did have was time.
And pages.
And theory.
Present
Elijah stood.
He rolled his shoulders. Stiff. Sore. But steady.
Two crystals. Mana half-spent. A plan in motion.
He gave the room one last glance, then turned and slipped back into the corridor. This time, no panic. No sprinting.
He moved quietly, deliberately. At each fork, he paused—scanning the environment, listening to the ambient mana hum. He marked walls with small thread traces—barely visible flicks of sticky residue from his hand.
Left. Then right. Then right again. Path unexplored. Light stronger.
Up ahead, the walls narrowed—tightening like veins toward a vital core.
The labyrinth felt… awake.
Not hostile. Just watching.
And for the first time since entering it, Elijah wasn't afraid of that feeling.
He welcomed it.
Because now?
He wasn't just reacting.
He was navigating.
No more blind flailing. No more running from the strong or hoping for dumb luck.
This was his path.
One step at a time.