After being informed about his qualification for the next round of the assessment, Elias was moved into an inner hall by the academy guards, a hall that housed all of the assessment candidates who had made it to the next round.

He once again found himself marveling at the prestigious architectural designs of the academy, as the inner hall looked even more aesthetically pleasing than the outer auditorium.

Four great pillars stood in the 4 cardinal points within the hall, their awe-imposing structure making it seem like they were tasked with holding up the heavens. The engraving of a lion's head was carved into the side of each pillar, making Elias feel like he had walked into the palace of an ancient forgotten king.

He looked around and saw the candidates in front of him staring at them with a similar look of awe and amazement, as the pillars were enough to capture the attention of nobles and commoners alike.

Elias eventually pulled his eyes away from the pillars, ruminating over the details that had happened during his previous assessment.

He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he felt like something about the entire process was quite odd, especially due to the state he had met the auditorium in after he regained lucidity.

"The auditorium being in the state it was in, as well as the pensive gazes of the guards all point to something being wrong... I can't quite put my finger on it, but I suspect that something happened to that old True Scholar again.

"I didn't hear from him after he told me to let him in which seems very strange to me. Adding to the fact that it was an entirely new person who had rounded up my assessment while he seemed to have disappeared into thin air, It does seem very fishy."

Elias then thought back to the scratch marks and puddles of blood in the auditorium, which seemed eerily similar to the True Scholar's previous intense display.

"No way... Did he have another episode when he was attending to me? But the last one didn't seem as intense and bloody as this. What the hell happened?"

Lars then swiftly materialized beside Elias, his urgent voice cutting latter off as his face looked dark and pale with fear, "What happened you say? I'll tell you what happened, you almost got yourself killed!"

The urgency in Lars's voice caught Elias off guard, as he didn't understand why his brother, who hadn't spoken for quite a while chose to speak up now in such an alarming way.

"Okay, Lars calm down... I can't understand you when you speak so fast like this. What do you mean by I almost got myself killed? I didn't even do anything except for my assessment since you left."

Lars appeared to be quite shaken up by whatever had happened to him but eventually tried to maintain his composure to explain what he meant properly.

"Phew... I'm sorry, I seemed to have lost my composure for a moment there. I still can't believe what I witnessed. No actually, it's more like I don't want to believe it, Eli."

Lars hardly referred to Elias as 'Eli', causing Elias to narrow his eyes at the entire situation. It seemed like whatever had happened had severely affected his brother, causing him to be quite shaken up.

"It's fine, I'm way more worried about you right now. What in the goddess's pure name did you see to get this shaken up?"

Lars' face once again darkened as he prepared to explain to Elias while his ghost-like body shook slightly. He then took a long, deep breath, before proceeding to tell Elias about everything that had happened after he closed his eyes.

Apparently, Lars had felt some disturbance within what he assumed to be Elias's soul, which caused him to investigate the origin of the disturbance, before finding himself standing on an ethereally transparent sea bed.

Before Lars had the opportunity to marvel at the mystically enchanting sight, he said he saw a large pair of eyes gazing at an illusory figure in the distance which caused the pristine sea bed to shimmer with colorful light.

After he focused on the illusory figure, Lars realized that it was actually his twin brother Elias, which caused him to focus on the entire process in silence. He didn't know why, but the large eyes apparently didn't notice his presence, allowing him to observe undisturbed.

That was when he then saw Elias's figure within the space get slowly saturated by colorful green and purple hues, causing him to stare in awe and amazement. He watched as the two enthusiastic colour profiles fought for their right over Elias, before the bright green light completely overshadowed the purple one, while totally saturating Elias's figure in the process.

Lars said he had noticed the large floating eyes narrow in approval, making it seem like everything was within its expectations. But that, according to Lars, was where the normality ended.

Lars fearfully told Elias about an inky-black mist that slowly started to taint the entire sea bed, while going totally unnoticed by the large floating eyes. Lars said the feeling the black mist gave him was wrong, bizarre and eerie, as if it was an entity that wasn't supposed to exist in the real world.

He then told Elias about how it rapidly spread across his illusory body and the entire sea bed, throwing the entire space into pure and utter darkness. According to Lars, immediately the large pair of eyes gazed upon the inky mist, it exploded into a rain of flesh and blood, before being abruptly expelled from that space.

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Elias's face showcased a different array of emotions throughout his brother's narration. Shock, surprise, contemplation, confusion, fear and then utter horror. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Even if Elias could feel the urgency and fear in Lars' voice, he still couldn't stop himself from thinking it was all just a prank. What the hell had happened since he had closed his eyes?

Elias was lucky that he was standing at the back of his allocated line and wasn't around too many people. Because if he was, the look on his face would be more than enough to scare anyone away, he looked totally horrified!

Elias slowly tried to compose himself while Lars silently gazed at him, obviously still shaken up after having to talk about the black mist.

Elias turned towards Lars to ask a question after ruminating over the details he had been told for quite some time, "How come I didn't notice all of these changes? While I had my eyes closed everything felt the same and I didn't feel a single thing out of the ordinary.

"Also the True Scholar that had rounded up my assessment for me said that I had passed, indicating that he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary."

Lars turned to look at Elias with a despondent gaze, before sighing and settling closer to him, "I can only give you a definitive answer to your second question, as even I don't know why you didn't react to all those abnormal changes. The reason the True Scholar didn't notice anything amiss was because I quickly moved to rectify the situation.

"I was worried that you were in danger and swiftly moved towards where you were. Through our special spiritual connection, I was able to spot you even while being surrounded by the empty darkness and tried a lot of methods to resuscitate you but to no avail. In the end, I acted out of desperation and sunk my own illusory body into your pitch-black form, which to my surprise, reverted the entire situation."

Lars paused to steady his shaken voice, before proceeding at a much more measured pace, "The entire inky black mist instantly waned and vanished, causing your form and the sea bed to revert back to their previous colorful form. I was caught off guard by the sudden change and mistakenly pulled myself out of you and instantly noticed it appear again.

"In the end once I noticed the arrival of a new set of eyes within the space I accommodated you once again, in order to make everything seem alright to the new scholar."

Elias absorbed all the new information given to him by his brother in silence, his eyes shifting to convey different heavy emotions. He kept the outward expression on his face neutral in order to not draw any unnecessary attention. He felt like a criminal right now!

"So you mean to tell me that the only reason I'm here right now, as a successful assessment candidate, is because you bailed me out? Also are you okay after inhabiting me while I was covered by that black mist?"

Lars could pick out numerous emotions coming from his brother which caused him to shake his head dejectedly. Elias was the only one who could hear about such a shocking and bizarre encounter that had happened to him and instantly worry about someone else.

He was truly a saint, through and through.

"I'm surprisingly fine actually. When I did what I did I wasn't thinking about the consequences, I just instinctually did what I could because I was worried about you. When I came into contact with the mist I only felt utter wrongness which made me feel a bit strange, that is all.

"As for the part about you passing because of me, I don't totally agree with that. Before the mist appeared you displayed the same green-colored light as me, so I'm just chalking it down to putting things back to the way they were."

Elias went silent for a bit to think, before reluctantly agreeing with Lars. He was relieved that nothing had happened to his brother, since if it did because of him he would never be able to forgive himself.

While thinking about Lars' encounter with the inky mist Elias abruptly froze, as he seemed to recollect a detail he had overlooked due to his worry for his brother; the True Scholar who had his eyes ripped to shreds!

Elias told Lars about the absence of his initial assessment officer and the state he had met in the auditorium hall, which caused the latter to squint his eyes at the mention of the puddles of blood.

Elias grabbed his hands shakenly, his mask of composure almost breaking as he imagined what he had caused the True Scholar to go through.

"L-Lars... Do yo-... do you think he is dead?"

Lars's face turned ashen as he thought over all the details told to him while he assessed the best way to pacify his brother.

"I don't think he is. From what you told me there weren't only puddles of blood but also deep scratch marks. This seems very similar to his earlier display in the hall."

Elias turned towards his brother, abruptly cutting him off while raising his brows in curiosity, "You've been watching ever since?"

'Doesn't this guy always complain about how rude it is to cut someone off when they are talking?', Lars inwardly complained while answering his brother, "Partially since I was half awake and half asleep. That's also why I didn't say anything throughout. Anyway as I was saying, it seems like what happened was a more serious version of what had happened to him earlier.

"I'm sure you didn't see him in the hall because he was moved to get treatment elsewhere. If he died, they wouldn't have just let you go as easily as they did."

Elias thought about it for a while and found his brother's logic to be quite sound. He thought about what Lars had said about the man's eyes exploding but inevitably ignored it as he didn't think the effects in the real world would be directly proportional to what happened in that illusory space.

He then thought about the inky black mist and found its description from Lars to be quite familiar; it was oddly similar to the inky black coat on the child in his dream!

Elias communicated his discovery to his brother, causing Lars to once again put on a disturbed look. The perplexities of that strange dream seemed to become more and more with time.

Elias and Lars thought over it for a while, but couldn't come up with any explanation tying the dream to the emergence of the inky black mist in reality. In the end, both brothers decided to put away the topic for now, while agreeing to increase the significance of their investigation of the dream.

It seemed to be the key to all their questions!

After Elias had finally calmed down, he turned towards Lars with a curious expression, asking a question he was dying to know the answer to. "Hey Lars, how come you were so calm about the possibility of the scholar dying? You didn't seem shaken up about it at all."

Lars slowly turned towards Elias after hearing his question, before dissolving back into his mind with a grave voice, "If you saw that inky black mist with your own eyes maybe you would understand. In front of it, even the fear of death seemed to be irrelevant."

Elias's eyes once again narrowed at his brother's parting words and before he could respond, he looked ahead and found himself facing a statue of the Benevolent Mother, with a pristine golden cup lying underneath.

Apparently, at some point in time, he had gotten to the front of his designated line and didn't even notice.

He raised his head to look around the hall and found only a handful of people in their designated lines. A group of candidates were already filing into another inner hall, causing Elias to wonder about how many halls were in the academy. This was the fourth one already!

A soft and tender voice akin to the tender touch of nature drifted into Elias's ear, pulling him out of his thoughts and making him envision the beauty of delicate summer flowers and trees,

"Please gently place your hands on the grail dear candidate."