More Important Than Trials (2)
Suddenly, the door to the High Library creaked open once more. Unlike my previous visit with Instructor Cardisha, this time I stepped inside alone with Instructor Esta.
"Here we are." Instructor Esta spread her arms wide with a confident grin. "So, how exactly do we get into this trial thing?"
Note: Instructor Esta had heard about the trials but had never experienced them firsthand.
"A trial with four hundred A-rank ancient mana beasts. Think you can handle it?"
"If we're heading down to the resort, shouldn't we start prepping right now?"
"You think I'll be obsessing over this trial even at the resort? No way, no way. I won't get a wink of peaceful sleep down there."
I'd hinted at it indirectly, but Esta stubbornly refused. She'd even left her instructor mana panel behind in her left hand—no, wait, she'd taken it off entirely. She was dead serious.
"Take me into the trial."
"Should I call the others?"
"No. I want to challenge it solo. If I need backup, it'll just be you helping out—at most!"
The reason Esta had dragged me here specifically? It wasn't to pore over ancient tomes from the High Library for some thesis. No, she'd heard from Instructor Cardisha about the Seven Star Towers and wanted in herself.
"Phoenix. You said the special class undergrads could clear the first floor of the Earth Tower, right?"
"Yes."
"And what about me?" Esta pointed at herself. "How far do you think I could get? Solo?"
"Who knows? You'd have to try it yourself."
Conditions varied wildly, changing what floors you could conquer, so I couldn't just spitball.
"Come on, you must have some rough estimate."
"Do I look like someone who knows every trial on every floor inside out?"
"Don't you?"
"No."
A lie, of course. I knew them all, but no way was Esta seeing through me.
"These are trials crafted from the experiences of the Four Founders five hundred years ago. If I knew every detail, wouldn't that make me some five-century-old relic?"
"Well... no, I guess not."
As long as Esta saw me as a modern guy—someone who'd saved his family with a demon contract ten years back, got kidnapped to the demon realm, and somehow returned—she wouldn't peg me as ancient history.
"Still, you could ballpark it, right?"
"If you went in blind? Maybe three floors."
"That's it?"
"Clearing three solo would be impressive. Most trials aren't solo runs from one Founder—they're party experiences turned into challenges."
I spread all ten fingers wide and headed toward the fairy tale book that led to the Seven Star Towers.
"Entry limits the number of people per run. The Founders wouldn't have made it a free-for-all with hundreds storming through."
Even if they did, the trials probably spawned allies inside—like a 'clash with the Demon King's forces beyond the continent.' Picture the Founders' hero party charging the Demon King's castle, backed by hundreds of expeditionary NPCs.
"But if you soloed every trial? You'd basically be the continent's strongest, Instructor Esta."
"Not solo." She sidled up and clapped my shoulder. "With you, right?"
"Even if you say that, I'll only support minimally. Gotta be fair."
"Fair?"
"Can't have guides favoring some challengers—giving one convenience, fighting alongside another, buffing a third. Discrimination like that?"
"Hmph..."
Squeeze.
"So you could do all that, but you just tossed your classmates at the trial raw?"
"Wait, hold on."
"Got an excuse?"
"Just showing my not-quite-S-rank pals some reality. Different story with someone who's already S-rank."
"Hmph." Esta eased her grip and stepped back. "Fine. Plenty I could say, but let's just dive in. So, what do I do? Pull my soul out like the kids did?"
"That's one way, but since you're here in the Old School Building, no need."
I pointed to a dusty old sofa amid the clutter.
"Have a seat."
"......"
"Just so you know, I tidied up a bit. No dust buildup here anyway, and I cleared the... incident site."
"You don't mean the sofa from the crime scene, do you...?"
"Just stripped off the preservation magic layers."
I gestured to the antique-looking piece.
"Feels like something bought right when the High Library opened five hundred years ago, right?"
"...What the hell did you do?"
"Peeled off the preservation shell. The original from five centuries back, plus the site-preservation overlay."
"Ha..." Esta clutched her face and shook her head. "Should I report this?"
"Do that, and every relic hunter obsessed with Four Founders artifacts swarms in, fighting over this chair—"
"What?" Esta cut me off, eyes sparkling. "Four Founders artifact?"
"Yeah. This building was where they taught students before they... 'vanished.' This sofa? Where the 'Saintess' sat teaching kids, apparently."
"...How do you know all that in detail?"
"I know what I know. Don't know the rest."
"Hmph. Demon contract unlocked five-hundred-year-old knowledge, huh?" Esta teased with a grin.
I just shrugged with a smile. She sat gingerly on the sofa, steadying her breath.
"Whatever. Point is, that's not what matters. What matters is... I get to experience the trial too."
She closed her eyes on the sofa.
"You're not gonna say it's undergrads only, right?"
"......"
"No way. Even the Founders—min age seventeen for undergrads, throwing four hundred A-ranks at 'em from the start? Grads top out at nineteen."
"Of course not."
Instructors could too. In the Breadcademy world, staff qualified under conditions—like being a heroine—for endgame content like trials.
"Grads can challenge it."
"What?"
"Kidding. Even the academy president can."
"......" Esta groaned, eyes still shut. "If it were undergrad-exclusive, I'd regret it but not worry."
A trial even Esta could attempt. Meaning: for threats beyond undergrads, to avert apocalypse. If grads, instructors, even the president failed... humanity faced unprecedented doom.
"...Phoenix." Her voice turned grave. "Let's start."
"Yes. Here goes."
I placed a hand on her head.
"Red, sun."
And snapped my fingers lightly before her.
A moment later.
"For reference, different entry conditions from Unia's group don't change the trial itself."
"Got it."
I eyed Esta up and down as she entered the mental world in her birthday suit, like Unia and the undergrads.
"Put some clothes on?"
"This?" No sooner said, she donned an outfit.
And simultaneously—
"Why's your hair longer?"
"You swap hair, eyes, skin tone whenever. Can't I glam up too?"
Her hair was already much longer than our first academy meeting, but now it stretched even further—like back when she was cumming dreaming. She smiled faintly.
"Or is that your 'real' look? Hair and eyes aside."
"If you don't know, stay clueless. Focus: the trial. I'm the one tasked with guiding humanity through it."
"Fine, whatever."
That's why I liked Esta. She played along without prying, never spilling what she knew to complicate things.
If we'd talked more ten years ago—if I'd had a bit more leeway—I might've spilled everything. That the 'demon realm kidnapping' tale Marchioness Ludbekia spun to fool the world? Total truth.
"This way."
We crossed the pristine garden into the Earth Tower.
"Hmm." Esta inhaled the five-hundred-year-old plains' fresh grass scent, extending a hand to forge an aurablade.
"Come on."
Rumble rumble.
"Show yourselves."
Hundreds of mana beasts charged. Toward her, thick with 'angel factors' denser than any others. Life-risking frenzy, even against an overwhelming foe.
"First, lightly."
Esta crouched low.
"Just thirty percent power."
Whoosh—she surged forward.
Slash.
The whole tower space seemed to shift slightly.
"Phoenix."
She swung her aurablade sideways, glancing back at me.
"This isn't the end of the trial, right?"
S-rank through and through.
"No way."
More important than trials?
"Boss still ahead."
Bigger trials.
"Think you can handle an S-rank mana beast?"
Every sealed trial tower started with an S-rank boss on floor one.