How long have we been walking now? About 20 minutes. Graaah! Are we there yet!?

We’re almost there. Do you guys hear that by the way? Hear what?

It sounds like… a piano? Ha! Impossible! I do smell something familiar though. As we neared our destination the sound got louder.

You were right this is a piano. I'm getting a bad feeling. Ugh me too, hey why don't we go for another root? Why? What is wrong with this music?

Are you guys afraid of piano music now? You clearly don't understand! This isn't just any music! Listen carefully, this is boss music! I do gotta say though the one who is playing this on the piano is absolutely killing it! This is some impressive but intimidating boss music yeah; this might be our hardest fight yet. How can you guys tell? It is just music. We were getting close to our destination and the music could be heard clearly now.

Even though it is silly, I get what Agnis and Raishin mean, this music is a bit intimidating, as if this is the sound that plays before your death. Yeah, that sums up the use of boss music. We entered the cavern and while we didn't have many expectations, what we saw left us confused.

Wha... What is going on here? There in front of us was our target, the root. It had no seals on it, there was absolutely no protection. As far as I could see there were no traps or monsters. But what confused us the most was Paula standing in the middle of the cavern and Paul playing piano right in front of the root. Wait you two are the guardians?

“Oh no, we are not the guardian of this root, the guardian of this root has passed away a long time ago, on contrary we want you to destroy this root but before that, there are some things that need to happen first.” Paula took a fighting stance while Paul continued shredding the piano and intimidated us by the boss music alone. Wait can't we just talk this out then?

“This is the Pramouy root, I would suggest you 4 take this seriously.” Wait! I shot out [Ice disks] to intercept the multiple fireballs Paula conjured and sent toward us. I don't think we have the luxury to stand around and try to get answers out of her, she is serious! I threw some frost marbles at my buddies; they caught them and went into formation. Paul started a new verse and I don't know if this is magic or a special skill but the music got to us and it seemed like Paula powered up.

This really feels like a boss in a game now! We have to make sure she doesn't wipe us! Ted tried to get close but Paula was keeping her distance. Raishin threw attacks at her but they seemed to continue missing. I threw some lightning-loaded frost marbles at Paula. She smacked some away with a gust but some still got close to her. I made a spear out of ice and swapped it with one of the marbles and tried to freeze her. The other marbles went off but she evaded my spear thrust and the exploding marbles. She was quite fast for an old lady and Ted was unable to catch up with her. She sent out a [Heatwave] and spread fire over the whole room. I evaded the fire and countered it with [Frozen ground] She started levitating and was barraging Ted with fire. Gregory tried to close in on Ted to protect him but he got boxed in by walls made out of wind. I tried to swap Gregory out of it but Paula grabbed my hand.

“You 4 are strong for 12 and 14-year-olds and your teamwork is commendable but you have too many weaknesses.” Her hand exploded and sent me flying. A blast got sent toward Gregory who was still stuck. I used water magic to create a veil around Ted and I used wires to pull Gregory out of the [Wind prison] while trying to bind Paula. She melted the wires I sent at her and she shot more fireballs at me. I wanted to tank them but I saw there was something in them so I dodged. Was it possible that she discovered that I have high heat resistance because I got out of that explosion unscathed? Raishin kept missing attacks, Paula kept kiting Ted, so he wasn't really useful and Gregory was getting locked down. I released a cold blast that froze Paula on the spot temporarily which allowed Raishin to hit her and Ted to catch up. Paul started a new verse of his boss music and Paula’s magic spiked. The attacks of Ted and Raishin hit her but she didn't seem to have taken any damage from them.

Raishin, can you create a vacuum wall between Paul and Paula? Ok! Paula charged at Raishin. I swapped myself with Raishin but it seemed that she anticipated this. She dodged my ice disk, grabbed my wrist, and threw me at Raishin. I threw some frost marbles at her and swapped myself with one of them. I didn't want to interrupt Raishin by crashing into him. Paula swung her cane at me as if it was a sword. I used my agility and evaded it and closed the distance.

I'm sorry about this! I evaded another follow-up strike of her cane, flipped up, wrapped my legs around her neck, and spun around to fling her to the ground. If I'm not wrong this is called a hurricanrana. She broke her fall and tried to counter with some wind lances but I narrowly dodged them. Normally people just take falls and take time to recover from them but Paula just accepted the fall and instantly prepared to counter. Quite scary. I looked back and the wind lances I evaded had punched holes in the rock wall behind me. Raishin finished his vacuum wall and the boss music disappeared. Paula stood up and dusted off her clothes.

“That surprised me, I didn't know you were proficient in close combat too” I’m not as good as Ted but I try to have varied move sets. Paula continued to put pressure on us. She continued kiting Ted, evading Raishin’s attacks and we were so far from Gregory now that it would take a while for him to get here.

Hey Agnis, the boss music is gone but she still seems to be powered up. I put pressure on Paula with some martial arts but she still seemed to have enough leeway to keep my buddies at bay.

Ugh, this feels like when I try to catch Agnis, and I have reason to believe that her power level isn’t related to that music at all! Hmm, I agree, she probably timed her magic spike with the music to create that illusion, I would have done the same. I moved to Paula’s blind spot and swapped Ted with myself. Paula instantly reacted and blocked Ted’s punch with her cane.

“I guess if I can't see when you activate that swap it's hard to react to it” I froze the ground under her, knowing it wasn't going to do much but increase the things she had to deal with. She almost instantly blasted the floor with fire. Ted jumped up and forward to launch a punch but Paula narrowly evaded it and created distance. I made wires close in on Paula, she tried to melt them but I canceled her fire magic. I successfully bound her at which Ted and Raishin grabbed the chance to lay down the hurt. Except Paula took no damage. “I guess I've seen enough” Her magic spiked again and she started to cast some arcane magic. What is arcane magic? It is like household magic it doesn't really have an element associated but while household magic is all about utility, arcane magic has honed its offensive capabilities. It could be scarier than elemental magic because, besides thunder cloak and a handful of other magic skills, there aren't a lot of things that reduce the damage from them. There are multiple ways to deal with elemental magic but not against arcane magic.

Guys this is bad! Raishin [Thundercloak] at max! Ted! I suggest you start digging! What about you guys?!

We will manage! I hope. I tried to interrupt her cast by messing with the magic circle while also freezing some of the magic she was using to form this skill. I also created multi-layered water/ice barriers around my buddies. I got out the best dagger I managed to make and threw it at her. We got blasted. It didn't kill us, and It didn't hurt us that badly but all our defensive measures got blown away. The three of us got launched into the rock wall opposite of Paula. Ouch, If I knew this would happen, I wouldn't have held back. Did you hold back?

Ugh, not really but saying that would be better for my confidence! Huff, puff are you guys, ok? Paula appeared from behind Gregory and held the tip of her cane at his neck. The vacuum wall dropped and Paul approached us. Ugh, we concede, what are your intentions.

“These kids are stronger than we thought, they even managed to make you bleed” Paul pointed at Paula’s cheek. She wiped her cheek and looked at her fingers revealing some blood. Paula had a small cut on her cheek caused by the dagger I threw before we got blasted away. “Do you guys have any idea of why we are doing this?” I tried pulling Raishin out of the wall but he was quite stuck. Ted punched the wall causing it to crumble and freeing Raishin. To show us that old people are OP?

“Ope? I don't quite understand” He means that people who are more advanced in age than us are way more powerful than us.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Paula looks at Paul and laughs. “Haha, no we don't have any intention of flaunting our experience.“ Then why?

“To make sure you 4 continue with having a good grasp on your weaknesses” What? Paula makes some chairs appear and gestures for us to sit down.

“I won't reveal too much here since that will be done when you pass our test, but we are aware that you are trying to lift the barrier over this town, how do we know? We have repeated the same several days just like you 4 have, I assume.” You two aren't affected by the time loops?

“No, we are not, as to why that is we will explain when you pass our test but know we are not your enemies, we want you guys to succeed and that is why we are doing this.” old man Paul said while he took out a flask. Paula grabbed it and smelled the flask.

“I knew it! You are drinking again!”

“Uhh, but that isn't important! We have to explain to them!” Explain what?

“We have repeated the same 5 days twice now with this being the third round which suggests that you have already destroyed 2 roots, am I correct?” Correct

“Do you know by any chance what roots you destroyed? This root here is the Pramuoy root each root has a number, and this one happens to be the sixth root” Hmm, I remember Guyani mentioning that her root was called the Bei root.

“Ohh, Paula, they defeated the spirit sisters! Very impressive!”

“Hmm, I guess you guys started with one of the hardest roots, That root has the number 3, which makes it the third hardest root.” What? That was the third hardest only?! Raishin puts his hands on his head and starts acting dramatically. Hmm, we didn't get the name of our previous root but it was guarded by a Mountain.

“A mountain?” A very big and bulky guy.

“Hmm that is odd every root beside the Pramii root are guarded by 2 or more guardians.” Wow great so we have double trouble on every root. What happened to the guardians of this root if you two aren't the guardians?

“We defeated them, we are incapable of destroying the root in one go though, whenever the root gets damaged enough it starts the time loop, so unless you can destroy it in one go, it is a waste of time, we went through 3-time loops and twice we failed to destroy the root, the guardian seemed to revive with it too, we just left the root alone after killing it in this time loop, well the time loop before you 4 started destroying roots. Hmm, so how did you realize that we destroyed roots and didn't fail to destroy any roots?

“We feel the barrier weakening, although it is a bit after every time loop started the barrier got weaker. Hmm, I see, so what is this test you two want us to do? I assume we already failed.

“Hmm, not wrong,” Paula said while she stood up and walked around.

“But you can keep trying, assuming you realize that you should kill all roots within the same timeframe. This means you have 5 days including today to pass the test and destroy the root. The test is simple. Iron out your weaknesses!” Paul walked over to his piano after saying that.

“Gregory!” Paula called his name while pointing her cane at him. “You are physically too slow, this cavern is big so I could move away from you to not have to deal with your skills, either up your range or become faster! I would suggest finding a way to be faster. Besides that, You are overly reliant on the rest but more specifically Agnis to make sure the target stays close.” Gregory seemed to give it some thought and it seemed that he accepted the weakness Paula pointed out. “Ted!” Paula now pointed her cane at Ted. “Your problem is similar to Gregory, you aren't slow but it is easy to out-range you, you need long-range skills, ways to get close to your enemy or pull your enemy close, which just like Gregory makes you reliant on Agnis and Gregory to make sure you don't get outranged. I would suggest you find something to reliably be able to hit targets that try to stay out of your range!” I understand!

“Raishin!” Yes!?

“Your only weakness so far is that you keep missing, fix that and I don't see any issues” But you won't let me hit you!

“Irrelevant! Agnis!” She points her cane at me. “You seem to be keeping this group together and although your battle style doesn't have any flaws a lot of your techniques have, I assume it is because you have a wide variation of skills but if enemies can exploit them, you will become less effective, and looking at the state of your group now If you become ineffective your whole group fails to function.” I nod. “That move when you swap targets, after seeing it happen a couple of times it is clear that whenever you make that pointing gesture with your palm faced upwards that you are going to swap something, you also lock your gaze on whatever you are going to swap. It is easy to exploit that once the enemy figures that out, your techniques with the wires are rough and they melt easily. You are making it up with that impressive speed and agility of yours but if none of your attacks work that’s the end of it” Paul started to play piano again but he was playing a calming song now. “Team!” Paula pointed her cane and moved it to each of us. “I have the feeling that you were holding back a lot here, is this how you managed to defeat the guardians of 2 roots?” Uhm about that, we kind of did but we can’t really go all out here. Paula smacked Ted on his head with her cane

“No need to be considerate I can deal with whatever you kids can throw at me” I don't think you understand! Ted got smacked on his head again by Paula’s cane.

“No excuses! Next time you retry the test make sure you work on those weaknesses and go all out!” But some of us can one-shot the root we don't want… Ow!

“Come back when you guys are serious and ready” Paula turned her back to us. “There might be some things that you want to hide but is that really more important than being able to survive whatever this town throws at you?” Paula walks over to Paul and rips a flask out of his hands and starts arguing with him. So, what do we do? I suggest we do what Paula said, She seems strong enough to royally kick our asses, to be honest, I'm not sure we would have done any better if we did go all out whitout lethal force, we did already started to feel some of our weaknesses pop up in earlier time loops. I agree this might be a good thing for us, we basically have a strong opponent that isn't here to kill us but to help us, we should use this opportunity to practice and as she suggested, to iron out our weaknesses. We could always hold back on the attack that will end up defeating her to make sure we don't kill her.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that, she seemed to also hold back, and to remind you, Paul wasn't participating in this fight, if he is as strong as Paula, we really have no chance of winning unless we fix our weaknesses. So how are we supposed to fix this in under 5 days? Hehe, have you forgotten who I am? You’re Agnis?

Well, yes, but I mean I can arrange for something. I can put a lot of illusion layers to work and make a space for us where time flows faster inside so you can train. I don't know for how long I can stretch time yet so I will have to figure that out But it won't be for super long. For myself, I can, of course, make it as long as I want but for you 3 it will be somewhat limited. So, we are not going to train together? I don't think that is a good idea, Anyone who trains with you or Agnis will be getting blown up one or multiple times.

Fair point, I also think it's better to focus on our own stuff. Our teamwork isn't really the problem but our individual skills are. That sounds like that's going to use a lot of energy, are you sure you can pull that off?

It isn't going to take any energy at all, it is going to take a big chunk out of the many illusion layers we have left. At least we will be putting it to good use. But I like having over a million lives!

No amount of lives will be enough if our opponent can keep exploiting our weaknesses. Yeah, did you forget our battle with Nayani? We had a lot of lives but we hardly made any progress because we were severely outmatched, if you didn't land a critical rush, we might not have gotten any closer to defeating her at all. Fine! We looked over at Paula and Paul but they seemed to have stopped arguing and were having a duet on the piano. We decided to not disturb them and head back up.

Well, that was an eye-opener. I suggest we make some preparations and start our training tomorrow; I assume Agnis needs to make some arrangements. Hmm? Oh yeah, tomorrow is good. I do want some more shadow clone training though, that's what we're supposed to do at the end of this day right?

Oh right! What are you two going to do? Cry myself to sleep. Thinking of ways to fix my problem. And stop being so dramatic Raishin! It's just a loss! I hate losing! I don't want to be a loser! We ignore Raishin and go our own way. I went to Gregory’s place and practiced shadow clones and shadow meld. I finally succeeded in the whole shadow melding process and could make 7 convincing clones now. Gregory said that he has nothing to teach me about these two skills now and that from here on I should try to give my own spin on them. In the meantime, I was running simulations on 2 tails to figure out how to best make those time dilations so that we can train. Gregory was running simulations on what he could do to fix his problem and I assume Raishin was doing the same, I guess Ted had to manually think over it. I’m not sure if manually thinking is an accurate expression here but he had to allocate brain power to it while we didn't, just tail power.

Before I went to sleep, I managed to figure out how to go about this. It would eat up about one-third of all the illusion layers I had but it would give us a month of extra time and it will only occupy almost a whole day in real time. Since I already paid the mana price for all those layers, I just had to tweak them a bit. It will be made with environment and all the cool stuff also could add enemies we've met before; I totally didn't rip this concept out of some games I've played with Raishin. I guess it does make sense to have some enemies in there, how are you supposed to practice whitout? Anyways my buddies know how these kinds of illusions work since I've made closed-off spaces in illusions before, if there is anything they need that isn't too crazy they can more or less get it, I’ll only put some restrictions on Raishin’s space since he will get weird stuff in and slack off. I'm planning to bring some blacksmithing stuff in mine so I can make swords daggers and wires, I'm planning to work my 7 clones to the bone, so much to do in such a short amount of time. It was quite late, I should go to sleep, tomorrow will be a busy day. If we hop in the illusionary space in the morning, we’ll get out late in the evening.