Chapter 96: Through the Teachers’ Eyes II ( Magic Castle Bonus )

Darius checked the remaining screens.

"Spinster and Aurelius."

"Yes."

"Elizabeth should be next."

Theoran said nothing.

He wasn’t certain.

Sophie, meanwhile, did not immediately leave the tower.

She returned to the observation lenses.

One showed James’s fortress.

Another revealed Elizabeth’s ruined city.

Then she turned the eastern lens.

And stopped.

The faculty saw why a moment later.

Class Five.

They were moving away from the infirmary.

Slowly.

Painfully slowly.

Students carried makeshift stretchers in rotating groups.

Some wounded civilians walked with assistance.

Alash moved through the group whenever someone’s condition worsened.

Darius stared at the screen.

"They actually took everyone."

"Everyone still alive," Selene corrected.

"One hundred and twenty-two."

"Yes."

Theoran watched Sophie’s expression.

Concern appeared immediately.

Then one of Class Three’s students noticed movement through another part of the lens.

Monsters.

A substantial group.

Moving toward Class Five.

Sophie straightened.

"How far?"

A student checked the distance.

Too far.

Class Three could run east.

They could try to intercept.

They would not arrive before the monsters.

Several students still suggested it.

"We should help them."

"Class Five has wounded civilians."

"If those monsters reach them..."

Sophie listened.

The earlier version of Sophie might have agreed simply because helping directly felt like the kinder option.

This Sophie looked down at the map.

Calculated.

Then shook her head.

"No."

Darius’s eyebrows rose.

Selene smiled slightly.

Sophie traced Class Five’s likely route.

Her finger stopped at a ravine.

A bridge crossed it.

Or had.

The central section had collapsed.

Sophie moved to another lens.

There.

A damaged bridge directly along Class Five’s most efficient path toward the Citadel.

If the wounded convoy reached it in its current condition, they would either have to repair it themselves or take a significant detour.

Sophie pointed toward the map.

"We can’t reach them before the monsters."

The students around her became quiet.

"But they’re going to reach this."

One of them frowned.

"The southern crossing?"

"It’s collapsed."

"I know."

Sophie looked toward her Earth users.

Then the Ice users.

"We repair it."

Darius blinked.

"They’re stopping?"

"Briefly," Theoran said.

"To repair a bridge for another class that doesn’t even know they’re helping?"

"Yes."

The Hermit finally looked toward him.

"You sound surprised."

"They already have their seal. They could simply continue toward the Citadel."

"They could."

Sophie was already issuing instructions.

No vote.

No request for thirty-five classmates to approve.

"Earth users reinforce the remaining supports. Ice users stabilize the lower structure until they’re finished. Lightning marks the safest crossing points."

A student raised a concern.

"What if Class Five doesn’t come this way?"

Sophie paused.

Not because she had no answer.

Because she was considering the possibility.

"I don’t know if they will."

The student waited.

"But it’s still their fastest route, and repairing this bridge costs us less time than trying to reach them directly. If they use it, we help. If they don’t, we lose a few minutes."

Decision made.

"Move."

Class Three moved.

Theoran watched them begin repairing the bridge.

Interesting.

Sophie still cared.

That had not changed.

She still listened.

That had not changed either.

What had changed was her belief that caring required personally reaching the people she wanted to help.

The Hermit seemed to reach the same conclusion.

"Better."

Selene glanced toward him.

"You’re getting generous."

"No."

"You’ve said ’better’ several times."

"They started badly."

Darius laughed.

The bridge took only minutes.

Earth magic reinforced the surviving foundation.

Ice formed temporary support beneath fractured sections.

Lightning marks showed the safest route across.

One student suggested rebuilding more of it.

Sophie shook her head.

"We don’t need a permanent bridge. We need one that survives long enough for them to cross."

Darius nodded.

"Good."

The Hermit looked toward him.

"Two."

Darius ignored him.

Class Three continued toward the Citadel.

No message sent.

No recognition expected.

They did not even know whether Class Five would survive long enough to use what they had repaired.

Theoran watched Sophie disappear into the forest.

"She helped without needing them to know."

The Hermit shook his head slightly.

"More importantly, she helped without believing that helping required her presence."

That distinction was significant.

***

Class Four’s examination had begun with mana crystals.

Far too many mana crystals.

Daphne Spinster’s immediate response had been predictable.

She had Gravity.

The crystals required transportation.

Therefore she would transport them.

Personally.

Thousands of them floated around her as Class Four traveled through passages specifically designed to distort weight and elevation.

Theoran stared at the screen.

"That cannot possibly be efficient."

"It isn’t," Selene said.

Darius laughed.

"Why is nobody telling her?"

A small girl on-screen did exactly that.

Nadia Pell.

B Potential.

She had noticed Daphne’s breathing changing before Daphne acknowledged the strain herself.

Then came the worse revelation.

There were carts.

Six of them.

Lucan Ferros had seen them earlier.

He had simply assumed Daphne preferred using Gravity because she had never asked whether another option existed.

The faculty section went quiet for several seconds.

Darius checked Nadia’s information panel.

"B Potential."

Another professor nodded.

"Yes."

Darius smiled.

Theoran noticed.

"Something amusing?"

"No."

"Then?"

"I was remembering yesterday."

"What about it?"

"Several students complained that classes with more B potentials were being weakened."

Theoran looked toward Nadia.

"Potential is not competence."

"I know."

"You seem to require frequent reminders."

Darius ignored him.

Class Four returned for the carts.

Daphne stopped carrying everything herself.

Not happily.

But she stopped.

Lucan handled portions of the work.

Nadia organized others.

Students rotated.

Gravity was used only where the terrain required it.

The mana expenditure dropped dramatically.

Daphne noticed.

So did the faculty.

Eventually, Class Four reached the central chamber.

Lucan helped lift the Guardian Seal from its resting place.

Golden light filled the temple.

---

CLASS FOUR GUARDIAN SEAL ACQUIRED

Guardian Seals: 4/5

---

Darius looked toward Elizabeth’s screen.

"One left."

The students did not know which class lacked it.

The faculty did.

Then the temple began collapsing.

Darius immediately turned back.

"Of course."

The Hermit said nothing.

Stone fell.

Students ran.

One cart overturned.

Mana crystals scattered across the floor.

A student became trapped.

For a fraction of a second, Daphne stopped.

The choice was obvious.

Save the mana.

Or save the student.

The crystals represented Class Four’s greatest advantage.

The student was one person.

Daphne chose the student.

Gravity exploded outward.

Crystals flew away.

The cart lifted.

The student escaped.

Two Class Four members were still eliminated during the collapse.

Thirty-five remained in total.

And nearly a third of their crystal supply was gone.

When Daphne reached the surface, Darius watched her examine what remained.

Five carts.

"She’ll regret that."

"No," Theoran said.

Darius looked toward him.

On-screen, someone asked Daphne almost the same question.

Would she make the same choice again?

Her answer came immediately.

Yes.

Lucan agreed.

Darius slowly nodded.

The Hermit said nothing.

But his expression suggested he had received the answer he wanted.

Class Four redistributed the remaining supplies afterward.

Daphne did not take everything back under her own control.

Two carts carried most of the crystals.

Others were loaded with food, water, medicine, and whatever could be useful later.

Lucan received responsibility.

Nadia received responsibility.

Other students solved problems before Daphne could reach them.

She disliked it.

That much was obvious.

Yet she allowed it.

"Interesting," Selene murmured.

Darius looked toward her.

"What?"

"She is learning that relying on people and being helpless are not the same thing."

The Hermit glanced at Daphne’s screen.

"Slowly."

***

That left Elizabeth Aurelius.

Darius had initially expected Class One to finish first.

Then second.

Then third.

By the time Daphne claimed the fourth seal, he had stopped making predictions aloud.

Elizabeth had performed almost everything correctly.

That was precisely the problem.

Her ruined district had become organized faster than any other region.

Food stores secured.

Wagons identified.

Horses counted.

Blacksmith assigned repairs.

Carpenters assigned wheels.

Former soldiers given defensive roles.

Stable hands given horses.

Hunters used for scouting.

Everyone had a function.

Everyone had a category.

The system worked exceptionally well.

Which made the flaw harder to see.

A young boy approached her.

Perhaps nine years old.

Eren.

"I can help."

Elizabeth barely slowed.

She directed him toward the other children.

Safe.

Reasonable.

Efficient.

Darius watched the boy leave.

"What was that?"

The Hermit did not respond.

Elizabeth continued solving the city’s central puzzle.

Four emergency signal relays controlled access to the administrative command chamber.

Three were easy enough to reach.

The fourth was not.

The southern tower had become inaccessible after part of the district collapsed.

Elizabeth searched official records.

Municipal maps.

Construction plans.

Military documents.

Waterworks.

Everything available.

Nothing showed another entrance.

Eren returned.

Again.

Elizabeth was busy.

She dismissed him.

Not rudely.

That almost made it worse.

Theoran looked toward the Hermit.

"You designed this."

"All of it."

"The child specifically?"

"I designed several hundred civilians."

"One of whom happens to know something she requires."

"Yes."

Darius folded his arms.

"So she’s supposed to talk to every child?"

"No."

"Then what?"

The Hermit looked toward Elizabeth.

"Listen before deciding whether someone is worth hearing."

Theoran understood.

Elizabeth was not ignoring random information.

She was filtering it.

That was normally useful.

The problem was when the filter operated before the information arrived.

Blacksmith.

Useful.

Carpenter.

Useful.

Hunter.

Useful.

Soldier.

Useful.

Child.

Weight.

The categories preceded the conversations.

"The strange part," Selene said, "is that almost every categorization has been accurate."

"That’s why habits become dangerous," the Hermit replied. "They usually work."

Darius glanced toward him.

"That sounded almost educational."

"Unfortunate."

Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s search continued.

Five minutes.

Ten.

Twenty.

More.

The other four classes already had their seals.

Class Five was moving wounded people across dangerous terrain.

Class Two had abandoned the fortress.

Class Three had repaired the bridge and continued south.

Class Four had escaped the temple.

And Elizabeth Aurelius was still searching official documents because the answer did not exist inside any of them.

Finally, Eren approached again.

This time, she listened.

"I know a way."

Elizabeth stopped.

Not immediately.

But fully.

The boy explained that his father had repaired the southern bell tower.

There was an old maintenance tunnel beneath a bakery.

It wasn’t recorded on the municipal maps.

It wasn’t meant for general access.

But he knew where it was.

Silence settled across the faculty section.

Darius slowly uncrossed his arms.

"Oh."

Selene smiled.

"There."

Elizabeth looked toward the records she had spent nearly an hour searching.

Then toward the boy.

The realization appeared almost immediately.

Not just that Eren had the answer.

That he had tried to give it to her before.

Theoran watched carefully.

This was the more important moment.

Elizabeth could justify herself easily.

She had hundreds of people to manage.

A dangerous city.

Limited time.

A child interrupting an active search.

Ignoring him had been rational.

She had dozens of good reasons.

Elizabeth used none of them.

Instead, she looked at Eren and said:

"You tried to tell me something useful, and I decided what you could contribute before hearing you."

The boy watched her.

Elizabeth continued.

"That was my mistake."

Selene’s eyebrows rose.

Darius looked toward the Hermit.

"Did you expect her to admit that?"

"No."

That answer seemed to surprise him.

The Hermit continued watching.

"Good."

Darius pointed.

"Three."

The Hermit looked toward him.

"What?"

"Compliments."

"That wasn’t one."

"It absolutely was."

Theoran ignored them.

Elizabeth followed Eren through the ruined district.

The bakery.

The cellar.

A maintenance passage too narrow for a large group.

The southern relay.

It worked.

When the fourth signal activated, something beneath the city’s administrative building unlocked.

Elizabeth returned.

Entered the hidden command chamber.

And there, at the center, the final Guardian Seal waited.

Darius exhaled.

"Finally."

Elizabeth stopped before it.

For someone who had spent most of the examination solving problems faster than nearly anyone else, there was remarkably little satisfaction on her face.

Perhaps because this problem had not required greater intelligence.

It had required her to recognize where her intelligence had become incomplete.

She reached forward.

Golden light filled the chamber.

---

CLASS ONE GUARDIAN SEAL ACQUIRED

Guardian Seals: 5/5

---

Every leader screen displayed the message simultaneously.

Five out of five.

Theoran released a quiet breath.

Several professors immediately began discussing how the classes might converge now that the requirement had been fulfilled.

Darius looked at the five screens.

Class Five had been first.

Class Two second.

Class Three third.

Class Four fourth.

Class One last.

Not a sequence he would have predicted.

Elizabeth returned to the street.

Eren was waiting.

She stopped before him.

Asked his name.

Then, afterward, used it.

Not child.

Not civilian.

Not asset.

Eren.

The Hermit’s pale eyes narrowed slightly.

Theoran noticed.

"You planned that boy specifically."

"I already told you. I planned several hundred civilians."

"You knew one of them would possess information she needed."

"Yes."

"And suspected she would ignore him."

"I suspected she might."

Darius looked toward Elizabeth’s screen.

"So the entire delay happened because she thought he was useless."

"No."

Darius frowned.

"How is that not what happened?"

The Hermit finally looked away from the screen.

"She decided what he was before hearing him."

A subtle distinction.

An important one.

The five large projections now showed five leaders who had each begun the examination by leaning too heavily into something that normally made them capable.

James had treated personal strength as the answer to every problem until his classmates began waiting for him to solve everything.

Sophie had treated everyone’s opinion as something that needed to be satisfied until hesitation cost someone their place in the examination.

Daphne had treated self-reliance as protection until she nearly exhausted herself carrying resources other people could have helped move.

Elizabeth had treated people as variables to understand until someone she had categorized too early possessed the one answer she could not calculate.

And Alash...

Theoran looked toward Class Five.

The boy had started with one hundred and twenty-three wounded strangers and somehow decided that uncertainty was enough reason to take responsibility for them.

One had died.

One hundred and twenty-two remained.

Thirty-six classmates followed him.

And he was still complaining.

Five leaders.

Five different weaknesses.

Five small corrections.

Professor Selene folded her arms.

"They’ve improved quickly."

"They have had very obvious mistakes," Darius said.

Theoran glanced toward him.

"They are fifteen."

"They’re SSS."

"Potential."

Darius sighed.

"I know."

"You continue using the word as though it solves personality."

"It would make my job considerably easier if it did."

The Mirage Hermit remained focused on the screens.

"The difficult part begins now."

Darius looked toward him.

"What difficult part?"

A new notification appeared.

---

ALL GUARDIAN SEALS ACQUIRED

LEADER COMMUNICATION NETWORK UNLOCKED

---

The five screens changed.

Elizabeth looked upward.

James frowned at something only he could see.

Sophie brightened almost immediately.

Daphne appeared suspicious.

Alash looked tired.

Naturally.

For the first time since the examination began, all five leaders could communicate directly.

Darius smiled.

"Now this becomes interesting."

The Hermit folded his arms.

"Yes."

"Because they can finally cooperate?"

"No."

Darius’s smile faded slightly.

The Hermit’s gaze sharpened as the five leaders began appearing to one another.

"Because until now, they could only blame themselves."

Theoran looked toward him.

"And now?"

The Hermit smiled faintly.

"Now they have each other."