Azura woke up in a terrible mood. He had got the memories from his copies, and wasn’t that a mixed bag. All but one of them had died violently to monsters in the night. The one who didn’t had come across some berry bushes, and after eating one to make sure they weren’t poison he had grabbed as many as he could and brought them back to the cabin so he could use them as rations on the actual trial day since he wouldn’t have access to the cabin, and even if he did the provided rations would be gone at that point. That was good at least, but none of them had found anything. He had to hold in a shiver as he remembered the jagged tail from that wicked fast frost drake piercing his chest. All that and he hadn’t found a single trace in any of the directions he had searched. The copies had all covered more ground then he did since they didn’t really have to worry about dying to brutal monsters.
He wondered if the memories of dying hundreds of times would give him any lingering trauma or not. He decided to eat the berries today, and save the more solid rations that were in the cabin for trial day. He once again made four copies to aid in his search. “Ok I’ll go east this time, I’ll continue from where the copy had left off. One of you continues where I left off, the rest pick a memory of a copy and go from there.”
It was alway a little odd to see a bunch of him just nod and then do what he asks, but he didn’t feel like he really had time to waste, and rushed off to the east not bothering to give an in depth look at his surroundings. His copy had done that yesterday, so until he got to where his copy left off there wasn’t much point. It only took him a little over an hour to get to where his copy had left off. Roughly at least, there wasn’t much in the way of distinguishing landmarks. He hadn’t gone down the path with berry bushes. As tempting as that was, this one had the most ground covered, so since he covers the least ground since he can’t travel at night it was best to keep an even search.
He had to slow down quite a bit in order to really focus his senses, the letter had said it was a magical artifact so it should have at least a little magic he could sense. He had thoroughly searched out the area with his mana, but he hadn’t felt any magical objects. After a few hours of his tireless search he felt something. The tiniest ping of magic he could sense, but it was something. It was distant, but he began heading towards it as quickly as he could while maintaining his senses. After a few minutes he was pissed. He was right on top of the magical signature, but it was roughly 300 ft below him. He looked around for any caves or tunnels he could use, but came up short.
He was going to have to make his own. He debated on whether to do it now or wait for the trial. If he went down there now, there was no guarantee he could get back to the cabin before nightfall. He checked the time it was 4 after noon. The sun set at a little after 6. He could probably get back in an hour if he really pushed himself, but was an hour enough time to go down there and get back out? As much as he didn’t want to risk it, he didn’t want to go in blind tomorrow either so he reluctantly gathered his magic preparing to make a tunnel, instead he had to use it to make a shield of ice that just barely stopped the frosty tail from impaling him.
“Of course you’re the guardian of the artifact, because why wouldn’t they have us fight a drake all by ourselves” The frost drake screeched at him. The dragonkin was as beautiful as it was deadly, it had glimmering white scales, with jagged ice protrusions on its back. It was easily 4 times taller than him and it was 3 times as long as it was tall. The drake pulled back its tail and charged at the ice wall he had hastily erected. He jumped well clear, which proved to be a good move as the drake tore through the wall like it wasn’t even there, sending ice shards flying all over the place.
Drakes were probably the hardest kind of dragonkin for him to deal with. They didn’t have wings so they couldn’t fly, but what they lacked in mobility they more than made up for in durability. They were much wider than wyverns, and their armor was twice as thick. “I don’t suppose you would let me just walk away?” It released a violent roar as it swung its tail at him, releasing icy projectiles at him. He danced out of the way of the icy spines. “Yeah I didn’t think so.”
He wasn't sure how to deal with this particular enemy. He was confident that he wouldn’t get hit in the extremely deadly game of tag he was currently playing with the dragonkin, but he didn’t really have anything that would pierce its armor either. He could probably take it out if he had time to set something up, but it seemed the drage decided he was a particularly annoying pest and wouldn’t give him a second to think between blind charges and icy spines flying at him.
He really needed to increase communication range with his copies. 3 miles was really not enough. To add insult to injury his copies or even just one copy would make this fight easy, but he already had his max number out, and none of them were in range. He was going to have to find something else, and he was going to have to work a bit harder at keeping focus because one of the ice spines just grazed his arm. Luckily it wasn’t tough enough to damage his vambrace, but not much of him was armored so if it hit anywhere else it wouldn’t matter.
He couldn’t afford to keep playing this game of cat and mouse, it wouldn’t happen soon, but eventually he’d lose. It occurred to him he didn’t have to fight it now, trial day was tomorrow anyway. With that in mind he decided it was time for a tactical retreat. He poured mana into his gauntlets and touched his hands to the ground creating massive chains of ice to hold the drake in place. “Not that it hasn’t been fun, but I think I’m going to cut our little game short.” He noticed the chains beginning to slowly crack as the drake roared and struggled. He took that as his cue to get the hell out of there.
He raced back to the cabin in record time, he made it in less than an hour. It was fading, but there was still some light outside. He put his back to the door and slid down to the floor. “Man, whoever designed these trials is a real sadist.” He panted, trying to catch his breath from his sprint back. Dealing with the drake tomorrow should be easy enough though, with a copy keeping it busy I should be able to set something up. He figured it would be a while till his current copies dispersed. He decided to spend a few hours doing maintenance on his gear before going to bed.
***
Azura had managed to sneak up on the frost drake, he was crouched down in the snow watching the sleeping frost drake. The dragonkin was curled into a ball in its nest of snow and ice. He had made sure to check for eggs, and sighed in relief when there weren’t any. He definitely didn’t need to add parental fury to the already extremely territorial creatures. He made his copy using way more mana than he normally would. “You know what to do.” His copy nodded and then rushed off towards the sleeping beast.
He had thought long and hard about what he was going to do about the drake, and finally decided that as long as his copy kept it distracted he didn’t have to do a thing. So he began parting the snow and ice to slowly create a tunnel down to the lower depths where he felt the slight magical radiation of a magical item. Luckily the ice and snow was easy enough to control and even luckier there was enough substance that he didn’t have to constantly maintain control for the tunnel he was making to not collapse.
Occasionally the ground would shake, but he didn’t really mind much. As long as he maintained control during the tremors he was safe. His copy on the other hand was probably fighting for his life. Most dragons and by extension most dragonkin were highly sensitive to magic, so it no doubt knew he was here, but he hoped his copy was able to keep it busy long enough for him to reach the cavern this item was in. He probably could have beaten the drake outright with 2 of him, but it would have been an unnecessary waste of time.
He continued forward slowly moving snow and ice to make his tunnel just a few feet longer. It was slow and mentally exhausting, but not particularly resource heavy. It didn’t really take much magic to move something as loose as snow, and his mana didn’t even have to change nature so he didn’t need to use any shards either. He heard the tunnel begin to collapse near the surface, but didn’t pay it any mind. He put on a mask of the same gleaming white as the rest of his equipment. It covered only the bottom half of his face starting from the top of his nose. It had 4 small grooves in it, 2 on each side and a sharp piece at the bottom under each of his cheeks going down almost like fangs.
He continued to tunnel completely unbothered, by what should be a complete lack of oxygen in the now sealed tunnel. A part of his mind idly pondered on how someone who couldn’t make magic items was supposed to prepare for these situations with just two days, but he wasn’t the only one who made it this far, so maybe he was just over reliant on magic items. It felt like ages before he started to notice a shift in the area around him. That was not good, the mana in the air was becoming thicker. Whatever defenses they placed around the artifact, he had just triggered them.
The thick mana surrounding the area made controlling the snow and ice much more difficult, but at least as the snow solidified the piece of tunnel he already had became more stable. He had long since gotten out of range of the tremors his copy and the ice drake were causing, but he was still in range of communication with his copy. He mentally commanded his copy to disperse, he could use the quick boost to his mana reserves, and there wasn’t much point to keeping it busy anymore he should be well outside of its perception range.
The memories of the fight appeared in his head as quickly as he had registered the slight boost to his reserves. It hadn’t been anything spectacular, his copy had preserved as much magic as possible. It had only used mana when it had no other options like when it had slipped on the ice, and the drake almost decided to see if a copy would work as nourishment.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Even with the extra boost his reserves were still rather low, so he decided to break here for a few minutes to fully recover. He sat and began using his meditation techniques to recover energy faster. It didn’t take long before he ran out of reasons to stall going forward, so he reluctantly got back to work slowly tunneling through the ice and snow. With the thick mana in the air working against him it took almost a full hour before he finally reached what he assumed to be the cavern. Mostly because he had hit a solid wall, pure rock and ice. What he wouldn’t give to have Roran with him at the moment. His magic was incredibly destructive, but it wasn’t explosive.
Anything he had that could break the wall would probably cause a cave in. Then again who said he had to break the wall his blade shot out of his vambrace, with the markings on it glowing a hot orange and red. As the blade obviously heated up the air around it began to shimmer as the heat caused some of the snow and ice to melt or sublimate. He may not be as powerful as Roran, but sometimes the scalpel could accomplish just as much as the hammer. Once he felt it was hot enough he began to slowly push it through the wall that was blocking his way. He slowly melted an imperfect circle and then kicked the wall which was no longer one solid piece so his circle fell down the other side.
He nearly screamed in frustration when he peeked his head through the whole. He was looking at a deep pit, He couldn’t see the bottom, and the large chunk of wall was still falling. It only took a few additional seconds before it fell out of his visual range. Perhaps even worse, was the fact there were hundreds if not thousands of tunnels taking up the sides of the giant pit. He could also vaguely make out a few stone bridges linking some of the tunnels a bit further down.
“Well that’s freaking fantastic. Of course it’s a maze down here, because a frost drake and being hundreds of feet underground is obviously not a good enough test.” Heis hands clenched as he held in his fury. “What kind of test would this be if there wasn't enough down here that you could explore for decades and still not mapped the whole thing out.” The worst part was that he doubted these tunnels were straight shots. If they were picking the one with the artifact would be a piece of cake. As it was he didn’t think the 4 copies he could make would really make much of a difference.
“I guess the only way out is through.” He picked a tunnel that seemed to start in the right direction of the artifact. It was on the left side of the massive pit, so it was a little closer than the opposite side, but in exchange he would have to get a little creative to get the angle right.
He crouched down putting his hands on the ground as he did his best to face the correct tunnel while still clearly aiming at the hole in his own wall. “Here goes something.” He channeled ice magic into the ground below him which shot into his feet launching him across the huge pit like he was shot out of a cannon. He used wind magic to try and correct his slightly off trajectory, but it became clear pretty quickly that he didn’t have enough lift. He was going to hit too low.
He created a burst of wind to cushion the impact and then thrust his right arm towards the tunnel above him. His blade snapping it with glowing cords of mana between each tiny blade as it shot and stuck into the tunnel's top. The pieces glowed blue as thick ice formed around the blade embedded in the wall preventing it from coming loose. He dangled for a bit, relieved to be alive and not falling to his untimely death.
“This better be the best school to have ever existed.” He grumbled bitterly to himself as his blades retracted pulling him into the tunnel that he had been shooting for. Once he was on solid ground he shattered the ice keeping his sword in place and let it fully retract. The tunnel was pitch black, which made sense except for up till now there had always seemed to be light even when there shouldn’t have been. He cast a small light spell, creating a tiny glowing white ball that folate right above his head and illuminated the area in front of him for about 10 feet.
***
He had been wandering the tunnels for an hour, occasionally cutting through walls or tunneling when it didn’t go the direction he wanted to go. He finally felt like he was starting to make progress towards the artifact. The traps hadn’t been too bad, just some pitfalls and poison arrows. One had the walls begin closing in on him, but he had been cutting through the walls plenty before then, so he hadn’t really been worried.
His relaxed attitude disappeared when he froze in place. He couldn’t believe his eyes, a frost drake was one thing, but this was absurd. The artifact seemed to be some kind of intricate golden crown resting on a pedestal of ice, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was the giant dragon slumbering circled around the pedestal. It was easily 3 times bigger than the drake, and the wings on its back revealed it to be a true dragon. The cavern was big enough that he had some breathing room, but it hardly mattered. He couldn’t afford to fight a true dragon for his third trial. If he gave it literally everything he had, he might be able to survive the fight, but that was the best he could do, and it would take months if not years to get his resources back to what he has now.
However a quick glance around revealed that this dragon was absolutely not meant to be part of this test. If the mage’s staff lying next to a pile of bones was any indication, his original proctor was dead as a doornail. Yeah that’s what he gets for thinking his luck hadn’t been that bad lately. What the hell was he supposed to do? Would they pass him if he recovered the original guardians remains? Luckily the dragon hadn’t shown any signs of waking up, so as long as he didn’t do anything too reckless he was safe for the moment.
“I can smell your fear, human.” Or not, because of course not. The dragon's deep guttural words sent a shiver down his spine. “I am in a good mood after finding this treasure, and the other pathetic human provided a meal enough for me…for now.” The dragon was beautiful, it hadn’t unraveled from its sleeping position, but its scales began to reflect an ephemeral light. “Just this once I shall give you a chance to leave.
Would they let him try the trial again? This obviously wasn’t fair, true dragons were an S class threat minimum. There weren’t many mages in the world that could take even the weakest of true dragons one on one, but he didn’t really have any proof other than the fact the original guardian was never going to reappear. Plus the headmistress already made it clear she wanted something, so even if she did let him pass it wouldn’t come without cost. So he resolved to do the dumbest thing he had ever done in his life.
“It’s only natural for a mere human such as I to feel fear and awe in the presence of a mighty true dragon.” Dragons were arrogant creatures, but they weren’t stupid flattery on its own would bye him nothing but time.
“I see, if you would like I shall grant you the honor of being my evening snack.” The dragon's head rose from under his wing. Piercing blue eyes locked onto him, and measured his value.
“I’d really rather you didn’t, besides if you did you would miss out on the wonderful treasure I have to offer you.” Much more powerful than their arrogance was their greed, not all dragons cared for treasure, but the natural born ones that weren’t spirits all seemed to have an inherent greed.
This time the dragon looked genuinely interested. “Oh a human smart enough to lay tribute, what a novelty.”
Oh joy, he was on quite the razor’s edge here, he had to choose his words carefully. “I have no qualms laying tribute, however I need the crown you guard and at least the skull of the human you ate.”
The dragon snarled. “Are you suggesting I trade treasure with a lowly human!!” His body unfurled and he rose to his full terrifying height.
He jumped in quickly to try and appease the beast. “Nothing of the sort of course, the crown will be returned to you, I merely need to borrow it as proof that I have braved this dungeon and completed the trial I set out to.” He very nerely sagged in the relief when the dragon clearly relaxed a little, but he was not out of the woods yet. “I would like to offer more, but I was unprepared for meeting a true dragon here of all places, so if you will take this as proof of my sincerity, I will return with the crown and greater gifts as soon as I can gather them.” He slowly grabbed his bow from his back and didn’t extend it till it was on the floor in front of him.
The dragon clearly liked what he saw, and Azura was unbelievably glad he had decided to make the bow so ornate, even to him the bow looked more like an art piece than a weapon and he knew what it could really do.
“Very well, this bow is beautiful even as a physical object, but the magic radiating from it is the greater work of art. I will allow you to borrow this crown on the condition that you bring me 2 other objects of at least this quality.” His heart sank, lying to a dragon would get him killed, but the bow wasn’t something he could casually make, he had been hoping to get the school to bring a lot of more standard treasure like gold and jewels.
“Making something like this bow is not something I can do quickly, would you be willing to take a large amount of gold and jewels in its stead?” He knew the second the dragon had raised its head in interest that he had made a mistake.
“You say you made this?” The dragon’s eyes pierced him no doubt looking for any hint of deceit. He had already known any lies would be instantly discovered, but knowing and feeling weren’t always the same. “You speak true, quite impressive for a mere human youngling. Perhaps I shall keep you, so that you may make me even finer treasures.”
Sweat began to seep down his brow, this was not going how he hoped. “With all due respect great dragon, it would be impossible for me to make such treasures in a place like this. I would need special tools and areas that could only be set up and obtained in the cities of man.” That was true, he had most of what he needed on hand, but he wouldn’t be able to make those tools here, half-truths would hopefully still pass or he was doomed.
The dragon observed him for a time. “Very well, you may keep your bow and take what you request.” What? That didn’t sound right. “In exchange you have 1 year to bring me 5 treasures of greater value. I will have you swear a blood oath that you will do this, if you do not then I will eat you here and accept the current treasure you have on hand as penance.
As if that was a choice. He did the only thing he could, and once again hoped this school was the best to ever be, because if it wasn’t he would never be able to make good on this deal in time.