"What the--?"

Upon entering the room from the platform, what heeded Tenno and Koiya saw a grand dozen unique doors on one side of the room. Each was made with an unknown material painted in all sorts of colors and knobs with oddly-shaped keyholes. The ceiling had trapdoors of a similar description, which were low enough for the two to reach and climb on. On the other hand, the floor was clean and devoid of anything that might have been retained as a clue, including the hollow yellow circle.

"Koiya, do you know the correct door to go into?" Tenno asked.

"Nah," He said, putting his hands in his front pockets. "It's impossible. We have to trust our instinct in this one."

"What?" Tenno exclaimed, "How did you figure out the answer so fast in the previous test?"

Koiya tapped on his ear with his finger, "I have good hearing. I heard muffled footsteps above us when we got teleported into the previous room. Of course, I also realized the Supervisor's odd choice of words,"

For instance, Tenno never heard any kind of noise on the ceiling from the previous room, so he was a bit amazed at his senses.

Koiya repeated, "Remember what the Supervisor said? These doors will lead to your death. Only one entrance will lead to the next phase."

"Which meant any entrance that is a door is always the wrong entrance," confirmed Tenno. "And you said something about muffled footsteps? Did you hear where those footsteps ended?"

Koiya blinked at his realization, "I didn't think of that. It's over there," He pointed at the wall in front of them with a long row of thirteen closed doors across it.

Koiya then ordered Tenno, "I’ll check on this side, you go the other side and I’ll tell you if something comes up."

Their Status Bands vibrated as the three-minute timer started to tick down, just in time as they finished discussing their strategy. With the yellow circle on the floor gone, they stepped onto opposite sides of the room to check the individual doors.

Tenno and Koiya also independently realized that there wasn't a rule Minyu mentioned that they were not allowed to check on the doors. He wasn't even there! Was it still rule-breaking if the Supervisor was absent to enforce such rules

"I do hope this is also one of this test's loopholes," Tenno hoped as a drop of sweat trickled down his chin. For all he knows, Minyu's borderline annoying face could emerge from the wall at any moment if they break a rule or something.

Tenno opened one of the doors, revealing a pitch-black room. He couldn't even tell if there was a floor beneath the room, and he closed it quickly after a quick remark, "Definitely not an exit."

"Tenno, don't enter the dark rooms," Koiya informed. "I threw a rock down there, I didn't hear it drop."

Tenno acknowledged Koiya's reminder with a "Sure." He closed the pitch-black room and moved on to another door. Then, the trapdoors on the ceiling. All other doors had the same glaring detail of being pitch black and possibly leading to a bottomless abyss.

[TIME REMAINING UNTIL TEST END: 01:22]

Time was running out. Tenno decided to check the doors on the wall adjacent to him while his mind ran at full steam to think about the correct entrance.

"Think, Tenno! Which of these doors is not a door? The most obvious answer is correct, but why are none of these doors obvious?"

Open a door, void room. Open another door, another void room. The cycle of opening doors and being greeted by a pitch-black room continued until Tenno finally realized, "There's not enough time!"

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"Koiya!" Tenno called, "Have you found the entrance?"

"I was about to ask you that!" Koiya replied. He was already opening the trapdoors on the ceiling, and he didn't even bother to close each one anymore. If Tenno wanted to go to where Koiya was, he had to duck to avoid getting his head hit by the open trapdoors.

[TIME REMAINING UNTIL TEST END: 00:33]

Just before Tenno devolved into a panic, he walked with his head ducked toward the doors Koiya already opened. There was simply nothing more to check.

At this rate, they had to choose some random door and hope it was the correct one.

The first door Tenno opened revealed the same dark room, yet he felt something was different. The more he focused on the darkness, the more the other side of the door revealed itself. Across what seemed to be a near pitch-black fog was a short and narrow corridor with nothing but a transparent, four-paneled window at the end, showing the sky and the massive walls of Floor 1 outside.

"This could be it." Tenno called, "Koiya! I think you missed this."

The silver-haired man answered, "I already checked that door and everything on that side. It's the same as before."

Tenno tilted his head in confusion, "What do you mean? It's the only door different from all the others. Come."

"Hey, Tenno--wait!" Koiya shouted in a panic, not knowing what this urgency was all about. To Tenno, he simply stepped inside the corridor. To Koiya, however, Tenno became one with the darkness and he realized his friend might've died.

"Tenno?!" Koiya shouted into the dark abyss as he grabbed the doorway, peeking into the void.

"Stop shouting in my ear! We don't have time, let's go," urged the black hair. Suddenly, Koiya saw Tenno's hand emerge from the dark fog, grabbing Koiya by the wrist as he pulled him over to the corridor.

"Ten--NOOOOOO!" When Koiya thought he stumbled onto his death, he fell face-first into the ground.

Tenno blinked at the fallen silver-haired male with a perplexed expression on his face. He said after a small pause, "...What the hell are you doing?"

"I thought you killed me!" He lightly bashed on the ground with his fists as he looked up with a worried expression. "How was I supposed to know there was something in here?!"

"I just saw beyond the fog. That's all," he replied.

"At least we're even now," Koiya sighed as he fixed his green sweater. Their status bands vibrated, just in time as the door behind them closed and the black fog dissipated as it did. "Do you think this is the correct door to go through?"

Tenno nodded in agreement. "If we're wrong, we'd already be dead. Not to mention that we don't have much of a choice anymore," He said as the knob refused to turn when he grabbed it.

When Tenno opened the window, the wind blew through their faces. Peeking from outside the window, there was nothing else but a deadly drop to Floor 1 and a narrow gutter around it. They were so high up that they were leveled with the clouds.

Well. Shit.

There were a few choices that Tenno could take. Jump and hope that magical fairies carry them to the next floor? Or stay in the room and wait for the timer to run out?

"If this is still part of the Test..." Tenno mumbled out loud, then he glared to his left, "I think there's something around the gutter."

"What--what do you mean?! There's nothing there!" Koiya shouted just to make his words audible from the wind blowing past their ears. "We'll be killing ourselves!"

"We aren't dead yet, do you think we have any other choice?!" Tenno held onto the sides of the wall and hurdled outside. The gutter was narrow enough that he could not stand on it with both feet together, so he had to hug the wall without falling.

Without waiting for Koiya, Tenno started to inch his way around the gutter. He was clasping the supportless wall with sweaty palms.

"Tenno?! Get back here now!" Koiya called out once more, but Tenno kept traversing the narrow gutter, "Damn it!"

He looked down at the incredibly high drop that was more than enough to make his legs buckle from fear. All it would take was one small slip and he could kiss his dreams goodbye. On the other hand, "Is he even scared of dying?!" Koiya remarked, but he also knew that he had no other choice.

Koiya groaned in acceptance before slowly vaulting over the window and into the gutter, "If I die here, Tenno, I'll send you straight to hell!" As he followed suit, he tilted his head upwards while making sure that his whole body hugged the wall. He didn't want to look down or his knees might give up from fear.

Not long after they started traversing the gutter, Tenno and Koiya already saw the ladder that led to an open archway. The gutter's frame widened below the base of the ladder.

They began to climb the ladder without delay. The blowing noise of the wind hindered sounds from anywhere, including the hard rattling thud from beneath them.

That rattling thud was the bricks from the gutter retracing itself into the wall, doing so in a quick yet ensuing manner. While Koiya noticed the sound at first, Tenno was also alarmed by the shaking metal-framed ladder.

The retracting gutter was nearly on the reach of the ladder, threatening to drop the two straight to their deaths.