"Are you trying to find out my life goals?" He asked her.
"No, I'm trying to prove a point. The answer is probably something along the lines of going against them without affecting yourself. But if there was a movement against them, would you join it?" She asked.
He nodded. "Yes, I would."
"Now take the people you said that are as powerful as you said. You seem to be a 15-year-old, so take a 16-year-old 2nd Circle Aura Knight. Someone like that would easily reach the 7th or 8th Circle at the end of the century.
They would reach the 6th Circle within another 30 years, that's for sure. Now take just the people in your city like that. If there are ten people as talented, that is 10 6th Circle Aura Knights in a single city. But you said there aren't more than 10 6th Circle Aura Knights in the entire empire.
What does that mean? I already told you this - there are definitely Aura Knights out there hiding. But this means that there is a higher chance that your empire itself is doing something to the Aura Knights.
Otherwise, all the talented children would have grown up and overthrown your empire by now. This is just food for your thought and might be a little exaggerated, but I was raised to think like this. I am, after all, a princess." She gave him her thorough analysis of the situation based on what she learned.
Compared to her, Leo was clueless about how the inner workings of an empire would work. To him, all that existed were the nobles and the commoners. Even if nobles could do whatever they wanted, his mind still didn't imagine how bad things could be.
"Okay, forget about that. That isn't your main concern right now. Don't you want to get past the next tile?" She asked him.
He nodded and walked forward until he was a step away from the next one. Looking at the rune engraved onto the tile, he thought a little.
"Puzzle," he said. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It's the same thing I had to encounter. I am sorry, but this is a challenge that I can't help you in. I also failed this one," she said.
"Even you did?" He said with surprise.
"Yes. Why do you think I didn't get the best two treasures? This tile was why. Fortunately, even if you fail you can turn to the left to go for a worse treasure. They are the second best anyway, so they will also be good," she said.
"I will definitely pass it," he said while walking forward.
When he entered the tile, another set of walls surrounded him, enclosing him in the space again. A huge hourglass also appeared and hovered in the air. It was still not turned over since the space wasn't completely set up.
On the walls, intricate blood-red patterns started creeping up from the ground. Along with the wall, even the ground started to become covered in those patterns. At odd positions, glyphs the size of a hand appeared.
Once the patterns completely covered up the walls and the ground, a pedestal rose from the ground. He walked toward it to see what was on it.
On the flat surface of the pedestal were 17 glyphs. They were engraved onto the stone and shone in a low red glow. He thought about what they were representing while trying to understand what the test was about. After not understanding it for a while, he asked Nefrati.
"I thought you would ask me. But don't worry, I will explain it to you," she said proudly.
"Stop acting like you are a saint and just tell me," he said with an irritated expression. Not figuring out the puzzle made him a little angry.
"Don't be angry that you didn't know what the puzzle was. Even I know because I was already told about this test beforehand," she said. "The way this works is to connect every glyph with their respective receptacle."
"Connecting to the receptacle? What does that mean?" He asked her.
"Receptacle means the endpoint. Take the first glyph. It's in front of you, but do you think it's also engraved somewhere else?" She asked him.
He nodded. "Yes, behind me," he pointed to one of the weird glyphs engraved onto the walls.
"Good. That is your receptacle. You need to connect the glyph on the pedestal to the one behind you. And do that for all of the glyphs before the timer runs out," she said.
He looked up and saw the huge hourglass had turned, starting the timer.
"Don't worry about the time and try to get accustomed to the connections first. Rather than finishing in time, you should be more concerned about finishing while keeping all the connections alive," she said.
"What do you mean?" He asked her. "And how do I connect a glyph to a receptacle?"
"Just pick the first glyph," she said.
He did as she said and touched the first glyph he had seen with his right arm. When he did, he saw a tiny drop of blood slowly exit the top of his finger without even leaving a cut. The drop landed on the first glyph, making it shine more than before.
The shine brightened while Leo felt a little bit of his aura get sucked away by the pedestal. With that, he gained a little control over a thread-like object. The thread was formed at the first glyph and was flowing in the air.
He used his aura to control the thread, watching it move around a little. By commanding it to move forward, he was able to even stretch the thread forward. After a minute of moving it around and getting the hang of controlling it, he made it go around him to his back. With a little bit of maneuvering, the thread contacted the other glyph behind him.
When it did, both the glyphs glowed in gold, and the thread sank to the ground to become a line in the pattern. However, the line seemed to make the already existing pattern a little chaotic, but he didn't pay it too much mind.
"Is that how it's done?" He asked Nefrati.
"I forgot that you had a Peak-Affinity with the Blood Element," she said. "And yes, what you just did is perfect."
"Well, I wouldn't say it was too hard, but I think I can get past this tile," he said to her.
She agreed with him. "I didn't think it would be this easy for you to control the threads. Last time it took me ten minutes to get the hang of controlling them and another few hours to try and connect all of them. And even then, I wasn't able to finish connecting all the threads," she said.
"But aren't there only 17 threads? 16 now," he said.
"Yes, for you. For me, it was more than 200 threads with a higher time limit. Because I didn't finish my task in time, I wasn't granted entry into the final two tiles. You, on the other hand, have a good chance," she said.
