Death, Devotion, Dissonance

The light turned out to be unneeded as he entered a well-lit room which had four bare, iron doors lined to his left side… No, there were five doors in total. There was another, more fancy looking door on the right, which had a very noticeable keyhole on it. The first four doors he noticed weren't locked in any way, so he could probably open it without much effort. Other than that, the room was empty.

But he couldn't help but notice another glaring obstacle: the whole room was made with processed ketricite.

It was Evin's first time entering a place built from the material, and he immediately hated it. The whole area seemed to exude an aura that denied the very existence of mana and magic, constantly putting pressure on Evin's core which was practically bursting with Air energy. It felt weirdly paradoxical.

Evin's practical experience with ketricite only extended to its dust-like form, which was formally called its raw form. Most people imagined that the mere presence of ketricite would disintegrate any sort of mana or world energy let loose nearby. But this phenomenon only happened if there was a truly unimaginable amount of ketricite around, like in the Gray Fields for example.

In smaller amounts, it could only negate magic if a spell or mage made physical contact with it. Hence, if one wanted to deny someone their magic outside the Gray Field, they needed to grind raw ketricite down to powder, chuck it into an easily breakable vessel and throw it at a mage.

However, if you mixed raw ketricite with limestones or any other binding agent, you could create processed ketricite. Build a house out if it, and you would get yourself an establishment that could partially negate spells inside its premises, and dissipate any incoming projectile born out of World energies.

But of course, this didn't mean that mages were useless. Normal projectiles still worked: a mage could pick up a boulder from the ground and throw it towards the building; and they could still use life energy contained inside one's core to buff their body from the inside. The only thing they couldn't affect were their skin, hair and eyes. Other than that, they would have harder bones and stronger muscles compared to a normal person (assuming that they could already do these things beforehand).

'But are the entire Tunnels made of processed ketricite?' Evin couldn't help but ponder. 'Probably not… If the whole thing's made of ketricite, then the place can't be infested with mana-beasts.'

He looked around the room, searching for puzzles or riddles regarding the doors, but couldn't find anything.

<Just go through one of those open doors and maybe you'll find the key to the locked door inside,> the Voice said with an impatient sigh.

<Are you sure?> Evin asked.

<Sometimes you have to take risks. And also, use your head. Sure, things can get dangerous, but you're in an Academy test. Do you seriously think the teachers would design deathtraps for their students and then mark it on their map?> the Voice explained coldly. <As far as I can tell, those two places marked as question marks are probably the most dangerous places on the map. The mountain peak and the Cove are second most dangerous, while the Tunnels and the Dungeon are just the basic tutorials.>

Evin tried to speak back, but the Voice wasn't finished. <If you're going to spend the whole day searching for traps and hidden meanings, we wouldn't be able to move a single step. But remember. Even if I'm completely wrong and even if some trap springs the moment you open one of those doors, it's alright. You can afford to make mistakes here. The Academy is a safe, controlled space, full of people ready to save your ass the moment something goes wrong. Moreover, you're basically their little poster boy at this point, so you're especially important to them.>

<But how would they know when I'm in danger?> Evin protested.

<Don't believe me? Go outside and search around the staircase. You'll be sure to find two pairs of Talismans hidden inside it. One of Listening and one of Seeing.>

Evin did as it suggested and searched around the stair, but couldn't find anything.

<It's there… they etched it onto that tree,> the Voice pointed.

A certain part of Evin's vision became brighter than the rest and Evin could see three runes carved on tree branch. The Voice learned to make his brain focus on certain visuals or sounds and Evin started to call it 'pointing'. Without the Voice pointing it out to him so clearly, Evin was sure he wouldn't be able to notice it so easily.

<The tree itself works as a Talisman. And not just one, but three at the same time: Listening, Seeing and Transmitting… I suppose the trees here have eyes and ears, the magical sort…> the Voice chuckled to itself. <Well, there are countless paper talismans and at the end of the day, papers are made of trees, so I guess it all checks out... Ah, I'm sorry for the rant. At the end of the day, you're the boss here.>

If Evin replied after all this, he would only look more and more childish. So, he shut his mouth, even though he really wanted to say something, and walked down the stairs again. He picked the 3rd iron door randomly and walked into it. Like he guessed, the walls and floor beyond the door were made of normal materials, so he didn't have to worry about not being able to use most of his magic.

As he walked through the tunnels, he soon started to hear squeaking sounds from his front. A dozen rats almost the size of cats appeared around the corner and hissed at him. Tier-1 rats. Evin noticed that their eyes were red from blood, so he could tell that these rats turned to mana-beasts because of a sudden overexposure to mana. In this state, they would be much more aggressive than their normal counterparts, so Evin could give up on trying to scare them off.

The Voice also knew this, so it quickly dealt with the rats by hitting them with air bullets - bursts of compressed air, basically. The Voice tried many ways to attack with the World of Air: creating various sharp objects made of Hard Air, sending huge blocks of Hard Air towards things, or simply trying to blow away his enemies with huge gusts of wind. It worked, but the Voice always complained that these methods took too much time and mana to create. The Voice really didn't like chanting from what Evin gathered.

But eventually, it settled on something it called compressed air. It would gather air as if it was trying to create an explosion, but instead of setting it on fire, it would direct all the amassed air through a thin tube that the Voice creates out of a special type of Hard Air that the Voice sometimes created (the one the Voice used to deal with Decatur's hailstorm). This tube acted as an accelerator of a sort, which made the compressed air shoot toward its intended target faster than anything Evin knew.

Upon contact, it usually didn't do as much damage, as say, an icicle or a sharp piece of rock, but it could definitely rupture someone's skin open if there was no armor or clothing protecting it. It was the perfect method to deal with unarmored enemies, like these tier-1 rats, for example.

The Voice mercilessly aimed the air bullets at the rat's eyes, which more often than not, killed the beasts since the bursts of air would penetrate through its eyes and hit the rat's brain. It took the Voice some time and a considerable amount of mana to create the accelerator, but once that was over, it just needed to aim and shoot compressed air through it. And once it got going, it barely took a second for it to make contact. Add the fact that the air was practically invincible, it was almost impossible for Evin's enemies to dodge.

And thus, the dozen rats very quickly fell victim to the Voice's spell.

<Let's go.>

Evin continued on and after two minutes of walking, realized that he needed to memorize the route he was taking, since it became apparent that the tunnels were built in the image of a maze infested to the brim with tier-1 rats. Evin certainly didn't wish to get lost inside these damp corridors with only dead, oversized rats to accompany him.

Finally, after fumbling through the maze for a good 20 minutes and casually committing rat genocide, Evin found a new door. He opened it, and saw an altar of some sorts inside it. Careful of traps, he approached the altar and saw one card, plus a piece of metal on top of it.

Shoving down his hesitation, he picked the two items up. The card only had three words written on it: food (15x), packs (5x) and tents (2x).