[ 44 ] The Prize

His fingers hovering an inch from the lockbox, Kal dispelled one of the clones. The moment he took hold of it, he dove forward, leaping across the podium and clinging to the back side of the pyramid—effectively hiding himself from where the teams would exit the corridors and enter the main chamber.

Kal's suspicion was confirmed when he wasn’t teleported away, and the two other teams rushed into the chamber. This place was designed to pit the losing teams against the winners.

A second later, he heard muffled yelling. Kal couldn’t see what was happening, but his orders to the clone had been clear. It was to run straight for the pyramid—straight for him.

Once again, Kal was beyond grateful for his training in core cloaking. Hiding without the help of spells was essentially impossible for most mages. If anybody else tried this, the other teams would, without a doubt, sense his mana. 

Since the clone was a spell, it had its own mana signal. However, if anyone took the time to inspect it, they would immediately realize it was an imitation. He just had to hope that the confusion of arriving in the chamber with another team when they had expected to continue the puzzle would be distracting enough.

Through mana sense, Kal could sense the two four-person teams arguing and his clone running straight toward him. Magical items weren’t as easy to detect as cores, let alone awoken cores, however, the other mages would be able to sense it if it were in the same room as them. Pressing the lockbox against his chest and concentrating on extending his cloaking around it, Kal hid its presence nearly perfectly. 

While hiding, he had an idea. He weakened his mana cloaking on his own core enough to show his mana potential. However, he focused on weakening the signal—reducing it to 60 mana potential. 

Altering his mana core cloaking had come rather naturally to Kal, and he took note to research it later. He assumed it was related to his demonic core, but knowing whether or not the skill was used by other mages seemed like essential knowledge.

With his mana visible, it would overshadow the small amount of mana coming from the lockbox that he couldn’t completely hide.

Now, he just had to hope that the other two teams would believe the clone was just an overeager young mage charging toward the last place they knew the lock box to be—even better if they underestimated him.

Kal considered the possibility that entering through the front door had come with some form of instructions, including what happened to the winning team. But as with the obvious loopholes, he doubted it. The government mages wanted to challenge the participants, and there was nothing to gain by revealing their secrets.

Whether it was a flight spell or the puzzle itself teleporting the winners away, there were many explanations for why the winners might be absent. Kal had just hoped the others bought into it.

Sensing that the clone was near, Kal readied to leap out, and the moment it reached the pyramid’s top, he ordered it to dive for the empty podium. 

As the clone jumped, so did Kal—backward. It was awkward, and no doubt would have been easy to notice that something was wrong from up close, but the two teams were still bickering by the puzzle, having decided to ignore the clone running for the missing treasure. 

The moment Kal left his cover, he dispelled the clone, taking its place and falling atop the podium.

Kal had stuffed the lockbox down his shirt, and when he turned back toward the chamber, he slid it around to his back. 

Again, Kal was no master at sleight of hand, but the distance between him and the two teams was enough that it would have taken a serious eagle eye to spot his little maneuver.

He spotted one of the other mages pointing at him, but it looked more like a curiosity than anything else, and nobody acted on it. 

So far, so good. But did I actually fool them?

There was only one way to find out. Kal had almost no mana left. With the clones dispelled, he would begin to recover, but that would take a while unless he stopped to meditate, which would likely raise brows in his current situation.

I don’t have much choice, do I?

Sighing, Kal jumped down from the podium and bounced back down the pyramid. A few mages from the other teams turned their attention toward Kal as he reached them, but it was clear they didn’t see him as a threat.

“It’s gone,” Kal said, acting out a deflated sigh.

“We know that, idiot. Can’t you even sense it missing? And where the heck is your teammates, anyway?” A sharp-nosed boy with jaw-length hair snapped. 

“Safe, far away from here with our Astral Pouch,” Kal said, hoping they would buy his excuse for being alone.

“Cowards,” the boy shook his head in disgust. “As if we’d steal from losers like you,” the boy continued, looking Kal up and down.

“Hey, isn’t that the Swift Step boy from the preliminaries?” A girl behind him said, eyeing Kal carefully.

“What, the one that made his own spell?” 

Shit, don’t tell me they’re on to me.

A bigger, bald boy stepped toward Kal. “Nah, no way. That kid had something special about him. Look at this runt. He’ll be lucky to be hired by the government,” the boy added, snorting at Kal with a look of disdain.

“Stop trying to distract us,” a teen from the other team said. He had short spiked hair and a nose ring. “Quit yapping about this runt, and tell us what happened to the lockbox!”

“I already told you. We don’t know!” The sharp-nosed boy snapped back. “Whoever it was, it wasn’t us. For the thousandth time, we entered the chamber at the same time as you.”

“And who’s to say it wasn’t a trick?”

“Me, I’m the one!”

Behind the arguing mages, Kal caught a boy’s suspicious glare from beneath a red cloak. For a moment, he thought the boy was going to say something but then mutely turned to his party.

“So, what happened to the thieving bastards who stole our loot then?” 

“Don’t you start again,” a red-haired girl from the second team pointed at the sharp-nosed boy’s chest. “We’re the ones that got here first. You would-be thieves don’t even deserve it. If anyone should be pissed, it’s us!”

“You wanna see my Eldrich Door again? Just you test me. I’ll have you running around that maze for the rest of the exam.”

Wait, maze?

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Hey, Rachel, ease up. They didn’t even get the objective. Why are you antagonizing them?”

“Stay out of it, Lindsay, you foot-loving gnome!” 

“That was uncalled for,” the small girl said. “I gave those foot massages to the team to help you all recover from all the walking. You should be thanking me!”

“Yeah, but no one asked you to smell their feet!”

Okay, this is my chance.

“I didn’t smell your feet; that’s a lie.”

“Lindsay, come on. We saw you sneaking whiffs. Just own it. You’ve got a foot fetish. Nobody is judging you for it. Well, maybe a little.”

Slowly, Kal stepped away from the arguing teams. As he turned to the entrance, he carefully readjusted the lockbox, pushing it around to his chest.

“Hey, look, the dumb kid is getting away,” one of the boys pointed.

“Hey, I was talking!”

“Whatever,” the big, bald teen sighed. “Come on, guys. Let’s get out of here. If we’re quick, we might be able to catch up to the thieves.” 

At Kal’s back, the two other teams began charging toward the exit, two of them using speed-enhancing spells. One spell seemed to magically lube their boots, allowing them to skate across the tiled floor as if it were ice. The other created a purple corridor of light that encapsulated them and more than doubled their run speed while inside it.
Kal gasped internally, but the two young mages sped straight past him.

Wait, they’re not coming for me?

Before Kal had even reached the exit, the entire group had passed him—all of them either empowering their core stats or casting spells to speed themselves up. 

Are they racing each other? Kal raised a brow as he watched the eager teams zoom away.

Following them into the corridor beyond, he realized what they had meant when they mentioned a maze. The passage split in two, with corridors headed in opposite directions. 

So, there really is a maze, Kal groaned internally.

“You even forget which way we came, dumbass?” One of the girls smirked, pausing before she rounded the bend to his left.

Kal didn’t waste a moment, racing after her. Even with only a few points of mana remaining, he could keep up with them if he wanted to. But was that a good idea? He had tricked them so far, but there was no guarantee that the other mages wouldn’t spot the lockbox once they calmed down.

You’ve won already. How hard can it be to solve a maze?

Kal let the girl outpace him, disappearing behind another bend. At least if he was alone, he would have time to regain his mana and be prepared if someone tried to steal the lockbox.

That had been a misguided thought. Kal spent the next hour walking back and forth, trying to escape the maze. At least his mana recovered.

Damn it. Why is this maze so freaking hard? Kal was whining to himself. He knew why it was hard.

There were marks on the walls, but none of them made sense, and he had a sneaking suspicion that you needed to have come from outside to understand how they worked. He wondered if it was a little inbuilt revenge for anyone who decided to come in from above like he had.

“This sucks!” Kal pulled at his hair. Maybe he shouldn’t have let the other teams get away.

He could trace his steps and mentally map where he was going and where he had and hadn’t been, but every path led to a forking corridor. At this rate, walking down every corridor would take him hours.

Oh well, at least we should have 240 points now and be on our way to securing a top spot.

Kal sighed in relief as he turned down another corridor. He was totally over it, but at least he was safe and had fully recovered his mana. There was little point in using his mana to race through the maze and risk popping out just into an ambushed while exhausted.

Bored as he walked down another corridor, Kal raised his hand and brought up the feed from the glyph-scribbled bracelet.

The list of teams rolled out before his eyes, and he gasped in horror as he eyed the top five—Team Ebenshire was missing.

What, how? No-no-no-no-no, this can’t be happening. 

• Team Allseeing - 300

• Team Dreamkeeper - 280

• Team Alpha - 240

• Team Kingmaker - 185

• Team Hijinks - 180

Team Allseeing? Where the heck did they come from? And why aren’t we in third place?

Frantically, Kal scrolled down the list through the rankings.

32. Team Jigsaw - 85

33. Team Unstoppable - 80

34. Team Ebenshire - 80

34. Team Shadowpact - 80

E-eighty… eighty points? Kal clasped the lockbox tightly, and his lip tremored.

Several seconds passed as he glared at the list, their new reality sinking in.

No freaking way. Who the hell stole all our objectives?  

Kal's brow bent into a scowl, and he gritted his teeth. 

This exam wasn’t just about getting a good spot in an academy anymore. He was pissed off. 

His hand began to shake, and his face reddened. He had worked way too hard for someone to sneak in and snatch all his work while he was away from the team, and he was determined to get his revenge.

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