The Eastern Labyrinth.
Built directly into the foundation of the Academy's eastern clock tower, it was a massive spatial-distortion dungeon used for testing.
And standing right in front of its towering iron doors was the dysfunctional squad.
Sebastian was currently a walking mountain. He wore three massive leather backpacks, a bandolier of potions, and... was that a portable cast-iron camping stove?
"I have brought three days' worth of rations!" Sebastian announced proudly, his knees buckling slightly. "Just in case the four-hour time limit is a trap!"
Exousia ignored him. She was aggressively pacing in circles, her long black hair tied back in a strict ponytail. She was rapidly muttering the Academy rulebook to herself while flexing her bare hands, warming up her mana pathways.
Kara just stood there. She had a sleek, unadorned longsword strapped securely to her hip. In her hands, she held a clipboard and a ticking silver stopwatch. She hadn't blinked in five minutes.
And then there was Arion. He strolled up to the group completely empty-handed.
"Where is your gear?!" Exousia shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at him. "This is a survival assessment! Are you planning to navigate a labyrinth with your bare hands and sheer audacity?!"
"I packed light," Arion yawned.
He walked over to Sebastian, who was currently sweating profusely under the weight of his pots and pans. Arion casually raised a hand.
He didn't speak. He didn't draw a geometric circle in the air.
He just flicked his fingers.
A swirling dimensional gate ripped open in the air right next to them.
Without warning, Arion grabbed the straps of Sebastian's three massive backpacks, the potion bandolier, and the camping stove, and casually tossed all of it into the void.
He followed it up by tossing in his own soft feathered pillow and a water skin, leaving only a small pouch of roasted, spiced nuts in his hand.
He flicked his fingers again. The gate snapped shut, vanishing into thin air.
Sebastian instantly fell backward, entirely thrown off balance by the sudden loss of two hundred pounds of gear.
Dead silence fell over the courtyard.
"What..." Exousia stammered, her eyes bulging out of her head. "What did you just do?! What was that void?! Did you just vaporize his rations?!"
"It's just a storage pocket," Arion said, popping a roasted nut into his mouth. Crunch. "Relax."
"A storage pocket?!" Exousia yelled, grabbing the sides of her head. "You just ripped open the fabric of reality! You didn't even say a single word! That's not in the textbook!"
Sebastian scrambled to his feet, pulling a fresh notebook from his pocket with trembling hands.
"He banished my camping stove to an alternate dimension!" Sebastian gasped, his eyes shining with manic reverence. "Absolute chantless spatial manipulation! I must document this phenomenon!"
Kara tilted her head, her white, whirlpool eyes locking onto the empty space where the gate had been.
"Cross-referencing spatial anomaly," Kara stated flatly. "Zero matches found in registered Academy incantations. Anomaly is absolute."
A few feet away, Teacher Sophia and the Principal's executive secretary watched the entire display with absolutely zero shock.
Sophia just rubbed her temples, looking like she wanted to crawl into a hole and sleep for a week. The secretary merely adjusted her narrow glasses. They had both seen the Grand Orb turn pitch black. A little undefined spatial void was just another Tuesday.
"Listen closely, Arion," the secretary's sharp, nasal voice finally cut through the courtyard, completely ignoring the panicked students.
"This is your disciplinary assessment," the secretary stated coldly. "Retrieve the stamped token from the core room within four hours, or you are expelled. The others are merely permitted to assist."
Crunch.
"Got it," Arion mumbled with his mouth full. "Grab token. Don't die."
"He will not die!" Exousia stepped forward, desperately shaking off her shock. "I am the Squad Leader! I have already formulated three perfect geometric pathing strategies!"
The secretary did not care.
"Furthermore," the secretary continued, gesturing to the miserable-looking woman standing next to her. "Teacher Sophia will accompany you inside as your official Caretaker."
Sophia looked like she wanted to cry.
Kara tilted her head again.
"Objection," Kara stated. "My combat metrics and blademaster qualifications exceed the requirements for emergency intervention. A staff Caretaker is redundant."
"Overruled."
"Reason?"
"Because," the secretary sighed, glaring at Arion. "The theory professor explicitly requested a staff member be present to confirm his expulsion the exact second he fails. You are a student, Kara. You cannot authorize an expulsion."
Arion swallowed his food.
"So that man sent a babysitter just to kick me out faster?" Arion asked. He smirked. "Efficient. I respect the hater energy."
"Please take this seriously!" Sophia begged, grabbing her hair. "If you blow up the labyrinth, I am going to lose my job, Arion!"
"Relax, Teach," Arion said, waving a hand. "I'm going to be a model student."
He pointed at Exousia.
"She gave me strict orders. No chantless magic. No tactical decisions. I'm just going to stand in the back and do absolutely nothing unless she tells me to."
Exousia puffed out her chest, trying very hard to ignore the fact that he had just used chantless spatial magic two minutes ago.
"E-Exactly!" she declared, putting her hands on her hips. "I am in full command! We will use traditional Academy methods! No heresy on my watch!"
"I will guard your blind spots, Exousia!" Sebastian cheered, suddenly feeling incredibly light on his feet.
Sophia looked at the bossy noble girl, the fanboy blonde boy, the emotionless swordswoman, and the powerhouse eating a snack.
"I'm going to die in there," Sophia whimpered.
"Time is up," the secretary announced.
She pulled a heavy iron lever on the wall.
RUMBLE.
The massive iron doors groaned loudly. Heavy gears shifted as they pulled apart, revealing a dark, endless stone corridor. The smell of ancient dust and ozone spilled out into the courtyard.
"The four-hour timer starts now," the secretary said.
Exousia pulled out a glowing compass.
"Formation!" Exousia barked, pointing forward. "Sebastian, vanguard! Kara, rear guard! Arion, center! Don't touch anything!"
"Yes, ma'am," Arion said lazily, tossing another nut into his mouth. "Lead the way."
Sebastian marched forward, finally able to walk normally without his pots and pans clanking. Exousia followed, her eyes glued to her compass. Kara walked silently in the back, her hand resting lightly on the pommel of her sword. Sophia dragged her feet behind them, clutching her own hands like a lifeline.
Arion strolled right in the middle. No fighting. No heavy lifting. Just a quiet walk while someone else did all the hard work.
This malicious compliance thing, Arion thought happily. Best idea ever.
For the first ten minutes, the only sounds in the dark, shifting corridors of the labyrinth were the echoing footsteps of the squad, the crackle of the magical torches on the walls, and the rhythmic crunch, crunch, crunch of Arion eating his snacks.
Sebastian, who was now walking with an incredibly light step, kept glancing over his shoulder.
"Arion," Sebastian finally whispered, his eyes wide with intense curiosity. "If I may ask... what exactly was that phenomenon? The magic you used to vanish my camping stove and rations with a mere flick of your fingers?"
"Oh, that?" Arion asked, pausing mid-chew. "It's a spatial storage pocket. I call it Porta. Basically, it's just an invisible backpack floating in an alternate space. Keeps my hands free."
Exousia tripped over her own feet. She whipped around, her eyes wide.
"You call it what?!" Exousia shrieked, completely forgetting her strict marching formation. "A spatial storage pocket?! You cannot just flick your fingers and create a pocket dimension!"
"I just did," Arion pointed out calmly, tossing a nut into his mouth.
"It is a high-tier parlor trick!" Exousia declared confidently, desperately clinging to Academy logic. "A complex light-bending spell! You simply cast an invisibility screen over his luggage to hide your lack of geometric fundamentals!"
Arion stared at her. He let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Invisibility. Sure." Arion held up both of his bare hands.
He didn't chant. He didn't trace a single line in the air. He just snapped the fingers of his right hand.
A dark, swirling tear in space ripped open next to him. Arion reached into the void, casually grabbed the handle of Sebastian's massive cast-iron stove, and pulled it entirely out into the dark hallway.
Exousia's eyes bulged.
Before she could even speak, Arion casually tossed the heavy stove straight up toward the ceiling.
He snapped the fingers of his left hand. A second dark gate ripped open directly above him, instantly swallowing the falling stove whole. Both gates vanished with a quiet pop.
Exousia stopped breathing. Even Sebastian dropped his notebook.
"Spatial manipulation is supposed to drain an astronomical amount of Magic Essence!" Exousia screamed, grabbing the sides of her head. Her voice echoed wildly down the stone corridor. "Opening multiple tears in reality back-to-back should shatter your mana core! You should be passed out on the floor!"
"Really?" Arion asked, completely unfazed.
He flicked his wrist a third time. A third gate opened beside him. He casually pulled his soft, feathered pillow out of the void, squished it to check the fluffiness, and tossed it right back in. The gate closed.
"Seems like a pretty cheap spell to me," Arion smirked.
Kara did not look up from her clipboard.
"The illusion theory is incorrect," Kara stated in a flat, monotone voice. "Physical mass vanished entirely. Adding original spatial spell Porta to the threat assessment file. I am currently revising Arion's official hazard rating."
"Oh?" Arion grinned. "What am I at now?"
"Previous tier: High-Risk Heretic," Kara answered. "New tier: Walking Cataclysm."
From the back of the formation, Teacher Sophia let out a hollow, miserable sound.
"Please stop using the word 'cataclysm' during my probationary assessment," Sophia whimpered, dragging her feet along the stone floor. "My nerves are already shot."
"Do not worry, Teacher Sophia!" Exousia called back, trying to regain control of the squad. "I have memorized the spatial shift patterns of the Eastern Labyrinth! As long as we follow a strict geometric path, we will bypass the traps entirely and reach the core room in under two hours!"
Crunch. "Hey, Squad Leader?" Arion called out lazily.
"What?!" Exousia barked, glaring back at him. "And stop chewing so loudly! You are disrupting my focus!"
"Right, sorry," Arion said, swallowing. He pointed a finger at the wall next to them. "I'm not supposed to make tactical decisions, but I figured I should mention that we just passed that exact same torch with the cracked iron sconce three minutes ago."
Exousia stopped dead in her tracks.
She looked at the torch. Then she looked at her glowing compass.
The needle on the compass spun violently in a complete circle, sparked twice, and then shattered inside the glass casing.
"Update," Kara stated, clicking her stopwatch. "We are walking in circles. The labyrinth has officially shifted. Our current location is unknown."
Arion leaned against the stone wall, folding his arms behind his head. He looked at the horrified noble girl and flashed a blindingly arrogant smile.
"Well, Squad Leader," Arion teased.