The newcomer was the man in the loincloth who had been meditating beside the others Empiti had gathered. As he had been seated before, his height hadn’t been apparent, but he was even taller than Sunwhisper. Long-limbed and of a very dark complexion, he could have hailed from the Dry Lands, but Sunwhisper wasn’t sure. He didn’t look quite like anyone else they had seen in the barn. His hands and feet were elongated even further by fin-like apparatus that looked to have been constructed from bamboo, and his eyes shone with umber light.

No verbal greeting was possible, but he quickly took in the scene; Janna prying a key from the mouth of a small fish, Sunwhisper still presenting his spear, and the glowing quartz barrier beyond them. He put his hands together in a gesture of respect, and then he attacked.

The fins were more effective than their ungainly appearance would suggest, and he was almost on top of Janna before she had a chance to react. They also allowed him nearly full use of his hands, and he almost snatched the key from her before she had a chance to adjust to his speed. Sunwhisper, however, had read the man’s intentions in the small tensions of his stance before the attack. He lunged forward with his spear at the ready, forcing the stranger to cut aside at the last second to avoid being skewered.

Janna swam for the quartz doors with Sunwhisper hopping backward after her, never taking his eyes from their new adversary. The man in a loincloth allowed himself to float free for a moment, as if gauging his odds, and then darted for the ruined kelp garden. Seizing handfuls of seagrass, he infused them with mana, hardening the plants without sacrificing their flexibility, and honing their edges until they became razor sharp whips.

He lashed them at Sunwhisper, who spun his spear in defense, deflecting the makeshift weapons and continuing his retreat. Janna reached the door with the key in hand, having already released the fish that had clung to it so greedily, and quickly drove it home. The key turned easily, and some of the scripts etched into the quartz went dark while others blazed to life. The key itself disintegrated, and rather than swinging inward, the doors slid partially aside, opening a gap scarcely wider than a person.

Sunwhisper sensed the change and leapt for the gap even as Janna was pulling herself through. The man in the loincloth abandoned his whips in favor of a dash for the exit, and he made the gap just behind Sunwhisper.

Not quite fast enough, however, as the doors shut almost as soon as they had opened. Sunwhisper and Janna were through in the same blink. Only a second behind, the man in a loincloth was caught by his foot as the door snapped closed like a trap. The pain registered on his face as little more than a stern look, but he was surely caught, and his efforts to tug himself free only allowed the doors to squeeze tighter.

This was their cue to escape, Sunwhisper knew, but he didn’t like the idea of leaving the other man here to suffer. As long as he didn’t run out of mana, he wouldn’t drown, and the next candidates to reach the chamber would eventually find their own keys to open the way once more, setting him free. Leaving him was the logical answer.

But would the key activate the doors when they hadn’t been able to shut properly? Assuming this was the sole viable route to the end of the maze, leaving the wounded pure artist trapped to complicate matters for whoever came along next was clearly the optimal strategy. The man wasn’t trying to ask them for help, and gave no sign of expecting it.

Still, Sunwhisper was repulsed by the idea of leaving him this way. He met Janna’s eyes as she was gesturing exasperatedly for them to move on, and he smiled.

(What are you thinking here, kid?)

{Mercy is the privilege of power.}

(That’s some hippie crackpot nonsense if I ever heard it.)

Sunwhisper walked back to the door, holding his spear low and his other hand up, palm out, to try to signal his peaceful intentions, and the man in the loincloth stopped struggling to watch him. He jammed his spear through the gap into the stone on the other side, and used Eight Mines Clutch of Lead to increase both its density and his own before attempting to use it at a lever to widen the gap.

Janna, seeing that he wouldn’t follow her, swam back to help. She moved to the top of the door, activating Immortal Mountain’s Vigor to give herself a boost, lodging her shoulder in the gap and pushing with all of her might. The man in the loincloth removed one of his bamboo flippers, forced it into the opening, and somehow caused it to expand.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The efforts of all three were barely enough to force the doors to budge, but an inch was all the man needed to escape. Sunwhisper waited until he saw Janna free herself as well before retracting his spear and allowing the doors to crash shut completely, crunching the bamboo construct into oblivion.

The three of them eyed each other awkwardly in the passage for a long moment until the man in the loincloth sketched an underwater bow for them both, motioning that they should go on. His foot was mangled, and he was missing two fins, but though his progress would be hampered by these deficiencies, he appeared to be in no danger of losing his life.

The quartz was partially transparent, and they could see the shadow of someone new approaching in the chamber they had just overcome. Janna and Sunwhisper shared one more glance, and set off together for the end of the maze.

It was a quarter hour after that when they reached the exit. Sunwhisper, being able to draw on Starscream’s core as well as his own, was far from being drained. But he suspected that Janna was close to reaching her limits, as she had slowed her pace, and once again let go of her silver aura, allowing Sunwhisper to lead. If the trial had gone on much longer, she might have needed to hold her breath in truth, but the designers of the challenge seemed to have had a firm notion of how far a novice mana body could be driven before exhaustion. When the last dark tunnel opened onto the deep green blue of the lake, Janna was still able to sustain herself with mana, and they were within sight of the shore.

Janna swam to the surface as soon as she was able, and then side stroked to where school officials and the only two applicants who had made the journey ahead of them waited for whoever would be next to finish. Sunwhisper simply walked along the bottom of the lake until he hit the hill that allowed him to climb back into the air.

Master Furui congratulated them both on their achievement, coming in third and fourth place respectively. The head of the school was a muscular old man, barely over five feet tall, with gray hair that grew in a straight fall halfway down his back. His robes were iridescent, flickering with all twelve colors like a pearl caught in the sunlight, and he wore a pendant featuring the sign of the Azai clan at his neck. Aside from the stars on his arm, six in all, there were signs of his development as an immortal in the light brown down of feathers behind his ears, as well as his massive yellow eyes.

He took them in with a sweep of those eyes, disturbingly like a bird of prey, but when he spoke it was with kindness.

“Very impressive,” he said, “both of you. Why don’t you wait with the other applicants until the trial is complete. There will be a few stragglers, but this will be finished before the day is out.”

“Was that really everything,” Janna was gulping air like she had just finished a sprint, “have we really passed?”

“You have,” Furui said, amusement evident in his tone if not in his pitiless eyes. “If you did not find the journey difficult, then perhaps you are truly meant for the Heavenly School. I assure you, not all of the applicants will ask if the trial you have undergone was ‘really everything.’”

“Apologies,” Janna bowed, “I didn’t mean to denigrate the trial. It is hard for me to believe that I have been accepted.”

“Dattebayo,” the master said, inscrutably.

Empiti stepped forward to clasp Sunwhisper’s shoulder, though he had to reach up to do so. “I said there was something special about you. My gut is never wrong. Watch, you will see the rest of the ones I picked come through in a row. Ken was right behind me the entire run.”

The man with seven swords snorted, either in agreement or derision, and kept his eyes fixed firmly on the lake. He and Empiti both looked dry, though there were no towels in sight. Sunwhisper assumed they both had water affinities, explaining their quick finish as well as their refusal to stay wet.

The man in a loincloth was next, his injured foot making for a choppy approach. He bowed to Sunwhisper again once he was on land, but was otherwise no more communicative above the water than he had been below it. Empiti greeted him enthusiastically, calling him Inja, though Sunwhisper wasn’t certain if that was his actual name or something Empiti had come up with to fill the silence. After that, his predictions went somewhat awry. The next four to finish were strangers to them all. Two women and two men, each from a different region, cut and bruised from the excursion, and in no mood to chat.

“Inu!” Empiti called. The girl with a dog companion rose above the lake as the tenth success, her formerly wild hair plastered to her head, coughing up water as she came. She ignored him, and immediately asked Master Furui when her dog would be returned to her.

“Your animal is eagerly awaiting your arrival in the kennel,” he told her. “There is no cause to worry over his fate.”

Inu didn’t seem entirely convinced, and she stood at the very edge of the water, fidgeting from foot to foot, until the last two of the twelve new students reached the shore. It was Boksu and Crabbu, Empiti’s brothers. Their reunion was as vociferous as it was short lived. The three brothers embraced, shouting exclamations of praise, and Master Furui cleared his throat.

“Twelve candidates witnessed and accepted,” he said. “If you would all come with me, there is a feast to consider.”