The clearing disappeared behind them without ceremony.
Within a dozen steps, the ancient stone pillar had already been swallowed by the forest, leaving nothing behind except the memory of weathered rock and the single fresh mark carved into its surface.
Someone had reached it before them.
Someone who hadn't bothered leaving a warning.
Zero walked at the front, his pace neither hurried nor slow. The faint animal trail beneath their feet had become increasingly difficult to follow, fading in and out beneath layers of fallen leaves until it seemed less like a path and more like a suggestion left by the forest itself.
Behind him, Klaus glanced back one final time.
"...It's strange."
"What is?"
"That pillar."
He stepped over a thick root before continuing.
"It looked important."
"It wasn't."
The answer came from the girl in grey.
She had spoken little since joining them, yet whenever she did, it was because she had already considered the question.
"It was only confirmation."
Klaus looked at her.
"Confirmation of what?"
"That someone wanted us to know we were still capable of finding the correct direction."
She looked ahead again.
"If the marker had been the destination..."
"...the examination would've ended there."
Klaus scratched the back of his head.
"I think you and Zero enjoy making simple things complicated."
Zero spoke without looking back.
"No."
"We notice that simple things usually aren't."
The forest answered with silence.
Not empty silence.
Living silence.
Branches swayed high above them, leaves whispering against one another whenever the wind passed through the canopy. Somewhere in the distance, water continued its patient journey over unseen stone, while insects hummed softly beneath the undergrowth.
Life existed everywhere.
It simply refused to reveal itself all at once.
Zero noticed another difference.
Since leaving the clearing...
they hadn't seen a single other candidate.
Thousands had entered the examination.
Now it felt as though only three people remained in the entire forest.
Interesting.
The examination wasn't separating people by force.
The forest itself was doing it.
They crossed a narrow stream no wider than two strides.
The water ran so clear that every pebble beneath its surface remained perfectly visible, distorted only slightly by the gentle current. Klaus knelt long enough to refill his waterskin before splashing cold water across his face.
"I needed that."
The girl crouched beside the stream but didn't drink.
Instead, she watched the current.
"What?"
Klaus asked.
She pointed.
"The leaves."
Several brown leaves floated downstream before reaching the middle of the stream.
Then...
Without any visible obstruction...
They divided cleanly.
Half drifted left.
Half drifted right.
Neither side crossed into the other.
Klaus frowned.
"...Current?"
"There are two."
Zero had already stepped into the shallow water.
The stream looked ordinary.
It wasn't.
His boot disturbed one current.
The other remained untouched.
He slowly crouched, placing one hand beneath the surface.
Cold.
Warmer.
Two different temperatures.
Two different flows.
Sharing the same riverbed.
His eyes narrowed.
"The water wasn't split."
"It merged."
The girl looked at him.
"You reached the same conclusion."
"The left current comes from underground."
"The right..."
"...from higher ground."
Klaus sighed.
"I miss the days when water was just water."
They continued following the warmer current.
Not because they knew it was correct.
Because it aligned with the direction marked by the hidden arrow.
As they climbed the opposite bank, Zero's attention shifted toward the forest floor.
Fresh footprints.
Not animal.
Human.
Only one set.
The stride remained even.
No signs of panic.
No hesitation.
The owner had walked this way confidently.
The tracks were recent.
Hours at most.
Zero studied the impressions carefully.
Whoever they belonged to...
walked lightly.
The heels barely pressed into the soil.
A swordsman.
Probably.
Someone accustomed to balanced footing.
Not Klaus.
Not Bren.
Not Lucien.
"...The person from the pillar."
The girl spoke quietly.
"You think so?"
She nodded.
"The stride matches someone conserving energy."
"They weren't running."
"They already knew where they were going."
Zero rose.
Another puzzle.
Another answer waiting somewhere ahead.
The trees gradually opened once more.
Not into another clearing.
Into ruins.
Broken stone walls emerged from beneath tangled vines, their foundations cracked by enormous roots that had slowly reclaimed them over countless years. Moss covered everything, softening edges that had once been sharp.
Half of an archway still stood.
The other half had long since collapsed.
Klaus slowed.
"...There's a building here."
"There was."
Zero corrected.
He walked toward one of the fallen stones.
The craftsmanship was unlike anything he'd seen in Ashvale or Virel.
The blocks fit together so precisely that even after centuries of decay, no mortar remained visible between them.
Someone had built this.
Long before the examination grounds existed.
Long before the Empire.
The realization settled quietly in his mind.
The Empire hadn't created everything.
Some things...
were inherited.
A sound interrupted his thoughts.
Not loud.
Not threatening.
Footsteps.
Measured.
Approaching from somewhere within the ruins.
All three stopped.
The footsteps continued.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then emerged from behind the broken archway.
It wasn't a beast.
Nor was it an examiner.
A young man dressed in plain travel clothes stepped into view, carrying a spear across his shoulders. His expression remained relaxed despite the tension in the air, and after noticing the three of them, he simply nodded.
"...Looks like I wasn't the only one who avoided the road."
His gaze lingered on Zero for a heartbeat before shifting naturally toward the ruins.
"No point standing around."
"If we're all here..."
"I doubt this place is another coincidence."
Zero didn't answer immediately.
Instead...
he looked past the young man.
The footprints.
Balanced.
Light.
They didn't belong to him.
Which meant—
Someone else had already passed through the ruins.
And none of them had noticed.
The forest had offered another question.
This time...
it had done so through absence.
The young spearman didn't move any closer.
He remained where he was, one hand resting casually against the shaft of his weapon while quietly studying the three newcomers. His clothes were dusty, his boots carried the dark stains of dried mud, and small scratches covered the leather guard protecting his left forearm.
None of the wounds were serious.
Whoever he was...
he had already been tested.
"You aren't surprised to see us," Zero observed.
The young man smiled faintly.
"I heard you before I saw you."
His gaze drifted briefly toward Klaus.
"Not him."
Then toward the girl.
"Not her either."
Finally...
it settled on Zero.
"You."
Klaus raised an eyebrow.
"What about him?"
"You don't step on dry branches."
The answer came without hesitation.
"You look where you're walking."
"And..." he tilted his head slightly, "...you've been watching me since I appeared."
Zero neither confirmed nor denied it.
The observation was correct.
Interesting.
The stranger rested the spear against one shoulder.
"Name's Cole."
No family name.
Whether by choice or caution, Zero couldn't tell.
"Klaus."
The boy beside him answered immediately.
The girl remained silent.
After several moments, Cole chuckled softly.
"I'll assume names aren't important to you."
"They aren't."
She replied calmly.
Cole shrugged.
"Fair enough."
Nobody asked where he came from.
Nobody asked how strong he was.
The examination had already taught them that such questions revealed very little.
Zero walked past Cole toward the ruined archway.
Up close...
the stonework became even stranger.
Each block fit together with impossible precision despite centuries of weathering. Thin grooves covered several sections of the walls, forming patterns too deliberate to be random yet too worn to decipher completely.
His fingers brushed lightly across one of them.
Cold.
Older than the Empire.
Much older.
The grooves weren't decorations.
They had purpose.
He simply couldn't determine what that purpose had been.
Not yet.
"Found something?"
Klaus climbed over a fallen pillar to join him.
Zero shook his head.
"No."
"But someone did."
He pointed toward the floor.
Dust covered most of the ruined hall.
Except...
for a narrow strip leading toward the opposite exit.
Footprints.
Several sets.
Not one.
Not two.
Many.
Different sizes.
Different depths.
Different directions.
Someone had passed through here recently.
A lot of people.
Klaus frowned.
"...That's impossible."
"They entered from different directions."
Cole had noticed it as well.
He crouched beside one of the prints, tracing its edge with a finger.
"I came from the west."
He pointed toward another track.
"These came from the south."
Another.
"Those..."
"...the north."
The girl slowly lifted her eyes.
"They all lead east."
Silence settled over the ruins.
Zero studied the footprints again.
The realization came quietly.
The forest wasn't splitting candidates apart.
It was...
sorting them.
Different paths.
Different decisions.
Different obstacles.
Yet every successful route gradually curved toward the same destination.
The examination wasn't asking candidates to discover the correct path.
It was asking...
how they reached it.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
A sudden tremor rolled beneath their feet.
Not violent.
Just enough to send loose dust drifting from the cracked ceiling.
Klaus instinctively looked upward.
"...Did anyone else feel that?"
Before anyone answered—
A deep metallic tone echoed through the forest.
Once.
Its sound carried far beyond the ruins, reverberating through the trees before fading into the distance.
Then...
another answered.
Farther away.
Then another.
And another.
Four bells.
Each separated by several heartbeats.
None close enough to belong to the same place.
The forest became silent again.
Rowan slowly exhaled.
"...Checkpoints."
The girl nodded.
"Or confirmations."
Zero listened carefully.
Four directions.
Four sounds.
No...
Not directions.
Distances.
The bells hadn't rung together.
They had echoed one after another.
Different locations.
Different groups.
The examination had just announced something.
They simply didn't know what.
Zero started walking.
Not toward the eastern exit.
Toward the ceiling.
His eyes traced the collapsed stonework until they settled upon the remaining half of the ancient arch.
There...
Barely visible beneath centuries of moss...
another carving.
Not an arrow.
Not writing.
A circle.
Inside it...
four lines converged toward a single point.
He stared at it for several long seconds.
Then looked toward the four bells' directions.
"...I understand."
Klaus blinked.
"Understand what?"
Zero lowered his eyes from the carving.
"The forest isn't testing whether we can reach the beacon."
His voice remained calm.
"It's testing whether we realize..."
He looked toward the eastern path where dozens of footprints disappeared beyond the ruins.
"...that everyone who passes eventually stops walking alone."
For the first time since entering the examination...
the path ahead no longer belonged only to Zero and Klaus.
It belonged to every candidate who had earned the right to keep moving.
And somewhere beyond those ancient trees...
The end of the First Trial was close.