We entered Master's room—dark, polished, ominously quiet.
The kind of room where secrets go to ferment.
Master walked to her desk, picked up a single scroll, and waved it gently without turning around. "Here. Your message."
I reached for it with trembling fingers, my heart fluttering with anticipation.
And promptly read:
"Lil—forgot to say: We're going out for hotpot. You took too long. Maybe next time. Don't burn anything while we're gone."
There was a crude doodle of me, bun on my head with steam puffing out of it. Next to it, someone had drawn Master holding a fan and rolling her eyes. Rona, obviously.
I stared at the parchment in stunned silence.
Master finally turned to look at me. "Touching, isn't it?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
Lady Nozomi offered a single clap on my shoulder. "They did remember you. That counts for something."
"…Hotpot," I whispered bitterly. "They had hotpot… without me."
"Yes," Master said. "Now go back to the guest house and reflect on your slow showering speed."
I drooped like a wilting daisy, the scroll hanging from my fingers.
'Betrayal, thy name is hotpot.'
Before I could slink pitifully out of the room, hotpot-less and emotionally bruised, Master stopped me with a flick of her fan. Then Master gave me another item. This one was sealed with a thick blot of ominous black wax, marked with a symbol I recognized all too well: a Scorpion.
Only one person in the entire continent used that seal.
The Grandmaster.
Master held it out to me like a cursed relic.
Which, knowing her, it probably was.
I accepted it as though it might bite. The wax cracked like dry bone as I broke the seal, and I unrolled the parchment, half-expecting a new punishment list or a grocery run to the local necromancer's market.
But no.
It was worse.
[MISSION SCROLL]
Mission: Obtain the ??? file
Objective: Classified. (And no, it's still none of your concern.)
Location: Deep within the Sanctum of Luminaris, hidden stronghold of the elite force Dove.
Secondary Objective: Try not to insult or set anything important on fire this time.
Difficulty: [ABSURD]
Time Limit: None.
Companions: Pending… though the chances of anyone volunteering remain tragically low.
Reward: TBD
Penalty for Failure:
- Death
- Public embarrassment
- Another round of potion bottling duty with no gloves
- Possibly all of the above
Mission Parameters:
You are to infiltrate, acquire, and escape.
Stealth is optional—since, let's be honest, you've never had any.
—Mission created by: Anon
Assigned by: The Grandmaster
Approved by: Master Sylph
I stared at the scroll.
Then stared at Master.
Then back at the scroll.
"…This reads like a suicide note wrapped in fancy calligraphy," I said.
Master smiled, the kind of smile that could make shadows flinch.
"That's because it is," she replied serenely. "The mission begins six months from now."
"Six months? That's… that's a long time." Hope briefly flickered in my soul.
"Indeed. Because before you can undertake the mission, you must be an official disciple."
My soul immediately dimmed. "So I have to finish the rest of the tests?"
"In five months," she corrected. "One month is reserved for your ceremony."
"Ceremony? What for?"
Master's grip on her fan tightened like she was suppressing the urge to bludgeon me with it. "Didn't you hear a word I just said?"
I gulped, my survival instincts screaming. "I did. I just think it's—"
Before I could finish, she had already unsheathed the fan like it was a legendary blade forged for the sole purpose of smacking sense into idiots.
"—wonderful," I finished quickly. "I wholeheartedly agree to everything you've just said."
Lady Nozomi snickered behind her sleeve. I turned my glare on her, but she didn't even try to hide her amusement.
Master clapped her hands right in front of my face, snapping me back from my inner turmoil. "Now that you've accepted the mission, off you go, my little goblin. Finish those tests."
"Now?"
"Of course. Your first priority is to complete the remaining tests."
"But... but I haven't even had lunch yet."
"Then consider this your appetite suppressant."
I sighed the sigh of a soul who had aged seventy years in the last five minutes, reluctantly accepted the cursed scroll like it was a bomb on a timer, and dragged my sorry self toward the door.
Already picturing myself tripping face-first into a hidden spike trap in some overly dramatic sanctum.
Again.
'Why is my life like this?'
Because, I reminded myself grimly:
'That's my Master.'
Once I stepped out of the room, a strange, unfamiliar sensation tickled the back of my brain—a thought.
'Wait a minute.'
'I haven't even finished my tests… but Master still approved the mission.'
I paused mid-step, eyes blinking as the realization bloomed like a hopeful weed in the cracked pavement of my life.
'Does that mean… Master has faith in me? That she believes I'll finish all the tests?'
A warmth spread through my chest like a cozy fire kindled by pure delusion. My hands slowly curled into fists of joy.
"Yay," I whispered to no one. "Master thinks I'm awesome."
I hugged myself, turning slowly in the hallway like the dramatic lead in a cheesy musical. For once, I didn't feel like a walking disaster held together by sheer spite and duct tape. I felt... hopeful.
Powerful.
Almost competent.
I burst into a little jig, feet tapping, arms flailing wildly like an overexcited puppet.
Then I whirled around and dashed back toward my room.
It was the first time—ever—that I actually wanted to go back to my room.
In fact, I was sprinting like my room owed me money.
Because today, I wasn't just going back to sulk under my blanket of failures.
Today, I was going back as someone who might—just might—not be totally useless.
'Master believe in me.'
'Probably.'
'Maybe.'
'Hopefully?'
'...Well, I'd take what I could get.'
After five long, soul-melting months, I had finally completed all 222 tests.
Every. Single. One.
Two hundred and twenty-two perfectly legal, probably unethical, and definitely sanity-eroding trials designed by sadists disguised as scholars.
These weren't your ordinary multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank nonsense.
Oh no.
The tests ranged from mildly concerning to absolutely unethical.
Some days, it was potion brewing while blindfolded—with ingredients that hissed, bit, or tried to convince me they were sentient. One time, the mandrake root whispered its trauma into my ear while I was chopping it. I cried. It cried. Then we both screamed when the cauldron exploded.
Other days were more... intense.
There was the Poison Identification Gauntlet, where I had to sniff, taste, and survive over fifty mystery vials. I think I briefly died during Test #271, but they said if you don't stop breathing for more than three minutes, it doesn't count.
There was also the Pain Tolerance Examination, which was just a fancy name for "let's strap you to a chair and throw increasingly bizarre curses at your spleen." One curse made me itch from the inside out. Another one turned my voice into chicken clucks for a week. And don't even ask about the one that made my bones vibrate with regret.
Then there were the psychological tests.
Test #341 was a classic favorite: "Survive the Whispers of the Mind."That one put me in a dark room with a blindfold and recordings of Master's disappointed sighs echoing from every direction. By the end of it, I developed a sixth sense for whenever she was about to sigh in real life.
Test #404 was "Stare into the Mirror of All Your Failures and Don't Cry". I lasted 11 seconds. A new record, apparently. The mirror shattered in sympathy.
Somewhere around Test #411, I was locked up in a room with nothing but a ticking box and a note that said, "Open me or die. Or open me and die. Choose wisely." Spoiler: I opened it. It was filled with confetti. And then sleeping gas. I woke up in the next test strapped to a chair surrounded by jars of spiders. Thanks, Master.
And let's not forget Test #440: "Confess every crime you've ever committed in front of a truth-forcing artifact while strapped to a chair that shocks you every time you lie."
It took hours. DAYS. I didn't even remember committing half those crimes until the artifact politely reminded me.
Some tests were physically exhausting. Some mentally crushing. Some were just plain torture in the most creative sense of the word.
But now… they were done.
By the end of the fifth month, I had burn marks, bite scars, new allergies, and possibly a slight ghost haunting me from one of the abandoned tomb trials. But hey—
'I did it.'
'I, Llyne the Unbreakable (emotionally, if not physically), had crawled, limped, shrieked, and bribed my way through every impossible task. My clothes were tattered, my brain was soup, and I was probably radioactive in six countries.'
'But I stood tall.'
'Well. I stood. Ish.'
And somewhere deep inside me, under the fatigue and trauma, was a flicker of pride.
'I had survived the impossible.'
'Now, all I needed was a hot bath, six cakes, twenty hours of sleep, and a therapist.'
'Or at the very least—Master's acknowledgment.'
'Which, knowing her, would probably come in the form of a raised eyebrow and a vague insult.'