The moment was one of tenuous balance… or at least, Randidly figured it would seem that way to most of the other participants.

While Bennio continued to struggle to force his way forward under the barrage of Randidly’s branches, Todd sketched out his Scrawl on the carpet beneath his feet. Randidly had more than plentiful spare attention beyond the act of restraining the shirtless young man, so he observed the kid’s process carefully. Randidly had already earned quite a few Skill Levels, but he knew he still had more he could learn from Todd’s several years' experience.

So Randidly was keenly aware of the boy’s desperate movements. He saw the slight tremors in his hand and the unsteady flow of Mana. Inwardly, he sighed. It’s probably just the stress, but those lines… the depth of energy he pushed into them…

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard!” Bennio bellowed as a branch smashed into his nose and sent him stumbling a half step backward. His stare toward Randidly was becoming increasingly bloodthirsty.

Heh, a thousand years too early before you even have as much singe in your glare as Helen, Randidly thought lazily.

Todd continued to work, seemingly unaware of the inherent flaws in his shaped Mana. At the other side of the treeline, Randidly noticed that the teenage girl was gathering Mana around her and looking with sharp eyes toward Todd. There was even the slightest hint of an image in whatever ambush she had planned. But Randidly had plenty of attention to monitor that situation too.

And then something truly unexpected happened.

Todd paused in his work, energy flowing through his finger and into the Scrawl with a particular twist, like a pin anchoring a butterfly in a display case. The boy’s eyes quickly scanned through what he had created. His face narrowed into a frown but very quickly he began to work. And to Randidly’s utter shock, Todd incorporated the pattern of variant energy depth into the rest of the Scrawl.

The flaw became an asset, and at the core of the Scrawl a small flame of Kharon’s image manifested. In a way, Todd ‘borrowed’ the ambient natural image of Kharon by refusing to back down, even in the face of his own mistakes. He accepted those mistakes and continued to doggedly pursue his goal.

Then he pressed his hand downward and a living Scrawl was born. Randidly’s eyes glittered.

Lines of glowing blue energy rushed out from the central Scrawl and covered the carpet. Bennio bellowed again and covered his head with his arms. After lowering his stance and leaning forward, he charged blindly forward, electing to brute force his way through Randidly’s stick swarm.

Randidly tsk’d to himself and inserted several branches precisely between the kid’s two ankles, sending him sprawling across the ground in a tangle of limbs and snapped twigs.

Todd looked up from his energetic working with a shy smile of triumph. “Hop on! Time to bounce!”

Randidly laughed and lightly stepped, crossing the seven or so meters to the carpet and then kneeled down on the surprisingly soft material. Quick as a sizzle from an oiled pan, Todd flipped over the edge and joined him as the carpet began to rapidly gain altitude. Perhaps due to the method of the Scrawl, their ascent was erratic, but Randidly couldn’t help but grin. With the wind whipping through their hair, they were well on their way to a smashing getaway.

“Cannon of Destiny!” The teenage girl yelled, finally thrusting her hand toward the sky and activating the Skill that she had been nurturing for the last few seconds. Yet Randidly was somewhat confused when no change manifested in her area.

Todd’s face twisted into a worried look. “Careful!”

Randidly leaned forward and peered over the edge of the carpet, only to see the form of Bennio being flung upward by an explosion from the ground. The red-eyed, muscly teenager glared up at them with both fists raised.

Shal would have beaten me so brutally for trying to attack someone with such an open stance… Randidly thought idly. But as soon as he thought that, his expression turned sour due to the current complexities of their relationship… with Shal working with the Swacc Family, even with the olive branch extended by the Engraving Guild…

And then there were Randidly’s plans to try and incorporate Tellus into his Alpha Cosmos… but doing so without Shal’s blessing seemed a bit...

Todd must have seen Randidly’s dark expression and assumed it was a reaction to their current situation. He patted Randidly rapidly on the back, likely bouncing from their current ‘tense’ situation. “Don’t worry too much! All you need to do is keep him from boarding our ship. No matter how strong he is, we can just fly away from him. Just… push him away or something.”

Randidly nodded seriously and leaned over the side of the carpet. He raised his right hand then thought better of it, instead raising his metal left hand. The carpet beneath him continued to erratically rise and fall, making it marginally more difficult to judge when the approaching Bennio would arrive. However, Randidly’s emerald eyes were cool as he measured the space. He activated Ripple of Amenonuhoko and guided the currents of wind around and through his fingers.

Probably for the best not to touch him directly… Randidly decided.

“Intrepid Hammer!” Bennio roared as he whipped his body back and then flung himself forward, leading with his fist. His entire being followed, tumbling toward a somersault.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

For a split second, Randidly tilted his head to the side as he heard this familiar name. Then he placed it as one of Naffur’s few offensive Skill and wondered what connection this arrogant and bull-headed teenager shared with the head of the Order Ducis.

And thinking THAT caused Randidly to pause again. Honestly… how old was Naffur…? Even with the five years that passed, he can’t be much older than twenty, right? And from the few members of the Order Ducis I’ve sensed in Kharon, he’s been doing very well, managing everything. I should pay him a visit.

Meanwhile, Todd, Bennio, and Eileen watched with rapt attention at this ‘high-stakes’ confrontation.

Randidly shook himself lightly and swung his metal fist through the air. His movement activated Ripple and a cushion of air manifested around his fist. His gaze swept across Bennio, who appeared to be moving in slow motion, and he aimed to throw a blow that would pass a few centimeters away from the boy’s head. The wind pressure and natural energy of Ripple of Amenonuhoko should be more than enough-

As Randidly swung his fist, the carpet experienced its greatest stall since their initial launch. They lost almost a half meter of height in the next second, meaning that suddenly the trajectory of Randidly’s careful attack would miss by too much distance. He effortlessly adjusted his fist for the new interception point, but the movement gathered more natural wind energy around the blow. And in the next instant, the carpet ascended back up to a position halfway between the drop and its previous height.

Randidly grimaced. I can’t… miss in my punch, can I? I don’t need these kids to underestimate me more than they already do, right?

Bennio’s expression was only now shifting toward surprise in response to the carpet’s erratic movements. And at that instant, the knuckle of Randidly’s metal hand brushed against his cheekbone.

Tap.

Crack! Crash! CRASH CRASH CRASH!

Randidly thought his blow was relatively light, but he realized his baseline understanding might be a bit off as he felt the kid’s cheekbone fracture from the brush. Then the teenager's body tumbled through the air more quickly than could be captured with a human eye, the gyroscopic projectile burrowing his way through the canopy of one tree and then demolishing the subsequent three tree trunks as he lost altitude.

Bennio’s body dug a long trough in the dirt before it came to a stop.

Randidly coughed awkwardly and extended a powerful pulse of Yggdrasil’s life energy through to the injured teengaer. Luckily, it didn’t seem like the kid’s muscles were just for show. He was knocked unconscious, but he didn’t have any serious internal bleeding and his Health was still above twenty percent. A quick pulse of energy pushed him back up to acceptable levels.

Coughing again, Randidly turned to look at the stunned Todd. “Ah… it appears I luckily landed a counter. Must have been because he was mid-air.”

“Wow… do you know boxing?” Todd asked. But even as he spoke, the kid expertly inserted another wave of energy into the carpet and they zipped forward in a drunken line through the sky.

Much to Randidly’s relief, Todd seemed to accept the lucky punch theory of what happened and was too consumed with the steering of the carpet to comment further. He flew around the dormitory island and then landed in the shadow of his own building, which even to Randidly’s eyes looked rather hastily slapped together. The dormitory was squat and square, standing only four floors tall and squeezing in a sardine quantity of rooms within its confines. The outer walls were painted an unappetizing yellow and although the walls were interspersed with windows along each floor, the glass openings were tiny and bland looking.

Todd shook Randidly’s hand seriously when they got off the carpet. “Thanks for today… if Eileen beat me up, she could slap me with some demerits. But there is something I definitely need to buy at the under-Auction. Anyway, meet me tomorrow at 8:30, alright? I have class.”

Then Todd went into the building. Randidly looked after the kid with his thick glasses for several seconds, while also feeling how many orphans similar to him were packed into the dormitory. He expanded his senses and observed the half dozen other similar dormitories that were on this more lower-class Kharon Academy housing.

Randidly sent a message to Tatiana and then pulled out his Philosopher’s Key. He teleported directly to the entrance to the Kharon Academy Labyrinth; he planned on investigating his Nether Core before he had to guard Todd again tomorrow morning.

As Randidly put his Scrawl Mark and the doors of the first test rumbled open in front of him, he thought again of that on the fly adjustment from Todd. Randidly had heard of philosophies centered around the concept of ‘there is no such thing as a mistake’, but had always thought it was a rather foolish and overly pithy way of phrasing it.

Of course, there were mistakes. But Todd’s actions showed Randidly that perhaps he wasn’t as good at recognizing mistakes as he thought. A flawed design could still work. Organic beings didn’t come without flaws, and the more advanced Nether Rituals Randidly had seen quite resembled organisms.

...although the variances in speed and elevation on that carpet could have given someone motion sickness Randidly thought with a grin as he began the second test of the Kharon Labyrinth, which was a complex and shifting logic puzzle where you had to shift various squares and rectangles in a grid, with the goal of sliding the golden square out of the opening. With Randidly’s powerful Intelligence, he simulated thousands of shifts and completed the puzzle at the lowest requirement of ten movements, not bothering to aim for the record board.

It was on the third test that Randidly realized that right on the threshold into each test, students had carved their names into the snow to mark their accomplishment. Some had several tally marks, indicating they had arrived multiple times. Seeing well over a thousand names going down the stone threshold and across the floor, Randidly smiled.

The third test was reaction time, requiring the tester to chase after glowing balls of light and touch as many as they could within the time limit.

Randidly passed easily and continued deeper. He also passed the fourth test, which required manifestation of an image of requisite strength, and then the fifth, which required the student to endure an image for a certain amount of time. Each time he advanced, the number of student names dwindled.

Thirteen individuals had reached the sixth test, which was literally a shifting maze where most of the previous tests were incorporated. Four individuals made it to the seventh test, which utilized an ingenious Engraving to challenge the Willpower and heart of the challengers. After he passed the test, he paused for a few minutes to study it; this was definitely Neveah’s handiwork.

Then Randidly proceeded through the final doorway and arrived at his true Nether Core. Thick significance pooled in the area, rolling over him and nurturing his body. He shook his head almost sadly when he noticed no one had passed Neveah’s final test. At least not yet.

Then he focused on his Nether.