The final fifty steps as he made his way towards the two figures were almost anticlimactic after everything that had co before. Without the magical pressure constantly fighting against him, Renard’s body felt strangely light, as if he might float away at any mont. His legs, which had felt like lead weights for hours, suddenly seed capable of carrying him up the remaining distance with ease.
’I wish I get another chance to climb those.’
He hate to admit it but that was an increadible training thod. To push his body and mind to limits, he hoped to get chance to train like that again.
Anyway, he was careful not to let his guard down. In his experience, trials that seed to end often had one final surprise waiting for the unwary.
The two robed figures watched his approach with the detached interest of scholars observing an experint. As he drew closer, Renard could make out more details about them.
Both appeared to be middle-aged, with the pale complexion and soft build of people who spent most of their ti indoors studying rather than training physically.
Their robes were well-made but practical, without unnecessary ornantation—the clothes of serious academics rather than flashy nobles.
Renard activated his ability instantly.
[Na: ????]
[Blood Crest: ????]
[Crest Ability: ???]
[Na: ????]
[Blood Crest: ????]
[Crest Ability: ???]
As expected, he couldn’t see anything.
"Na?" the first one asked as Renard reached the platform.
"Ray," he replied, maintaining his cover identity. Up close, he could see that the man had intelligent eyes behind wire-rimd spectacles, and his hands bore the ink stains that marked him as soone who spent considerable ti writing.
"Age?"
"Fifteen."
Well, his fiteen year birthday was near so, he wasn’t actually lying.
The second figure, a woman with graying hair pulled back in a severe bun, made a note on a piece of parchnt attached to a wooden writing board. "Have you trained your body previously?"
"None," Renard lied smoothly. "But I’m from a farming family, so I worked in the field regularly"
Both figures exchanged a glance that Renard couldn’t quite interpret. Surprise? Skepticism? Interest?
"No previous training, and you completed the trial in just over six hours," the man said, his tone neutral but his eyes sharp.
"That’s... unusual."
Renard shrugged, playing the part of a confused farm boy who didn’t understand the significance of his achievent.
"Was I supposed to do it faster?"
The woman actually smiled at that, though it didn’t reach her eyes.
"Faster? Child, most candidates who complete the trial at all take ten to twelve hours. Many take longer. So never finish at all."
She gestured toward the darkness below them, where the staircase disappeared into shadow. "Your fellow companions, for instance. How many do you think will join you up here?"
Renard looked back down the staircase, though he couldn’t see much in the darkness. He’d been so focused on his own climb that he hadn’t paid attention to the others’ progress after that single glance back.
"I don’t know," he said honestly. "Three or four were still climbing when I last looked."
"Three are still attempting it," the man confird, consulting what appeared to be a magical viewing device—a small crystal that showed flickering images of the staircase below. "One will likely make it within the next few hours. The other two..." He shook his head. "They’ll either collapse or give up before they reach the halfway point."
So out of twenty-three children, probably only two would actually complete the trial. Less than ten percent.
The woman noticed his expression and seed to interpret it as dismay rather than calculation. "Don’t feel sorry for them," she said, her voice not unkind but matter-of-fact.
"This trial exists for their protection as much as ours. Better to discover their limitations here than during actual training, where the consequences would be far more severe."
"Co," the man said, turning away from the staircase. "Sir Darius will want to et you before you’re assigned quarters."
The platform, Renard discovered, was larger than it had appeared from below. What he’d thought was just a resting area was actually the entrance to a complex of buildings carved directly into the mountainside. Doorways and windows had been cut into the living rock, their edges smoothed and reinforced with fitted stones. Soft light spilled from many of the openings, and he could hear the distant sounds of human activity—voices in conversation, footsteps on stone floors, the scratch of writing implents on parchnt.
They led him through an arched entrance into a corridor that stretched deeper into the mountain. The walls were lined with more of the inscribed symbols he’d seen on the staircase, though these were different—more complex, more detailed, arranged in patterns that seed to shift and flow when viewed peripherally.
"The outer hall serves as both our reception area and our preliminary training facility," the woman explained as they walked.
"Students who pass the initial trials spend their first few months here, learning basic principles and discovering their aptitudes. Only those who show sufficient promise are invited to proceed to the inner halls."
More selection.
More filtering.
The Silent Monastery wasn’t just recruiting students—they were conducting an elaborate screening process to find exactly the type of individuals they wanted.
Renard wondered what happened to those who weren’t invited to proceed. Did they beco servants? Were they sent away? Or did they simply... disappear?
The corridor opened into a large circular chamber that took Renard’s breath away despite his best efforts to remain unimpressed.
The space was enormous, easily large enough to hold several hundred people, with a dod ceiling that disappeared into darkness high above. The walls were covered in inscriptions from floor to ceiling—not just carved symbols but actual moving text that flowed across the stone like liquid light.
The text was in multiple languages, so of which Renard recognized and others that were completely foreign to him. Mathematical formulas mixed with what appeared to be poetry, magical diagrams overlapped with historical accounts, philosophical treatises shared space with technical manuals. It was as if soone had taken an entire library and projected it onto the walls in constantly shifting patterns.
"Impressive, isn’t it?" the man said, noticing Renard’s wide-eyed stare. "The Archive of Flowing Knowledge. Every piece of magical theory, every experintal result, every innovation developed within these walls over the past one thousand years. All of it preserved and accessible to those with the skill to read it."
One thousand years!
House Aster had been accumulating magical knowledge for one thousand years, building on each generation’s discoveries to create sothing far more sophisticated than anything individual mages could achieve working alone.
No wonder they’d been able to maintain their position as one of the seven great houses for so long.
In the center of the chamber sat a simple wooden desk, and behind it sat the most unremarkable-looking man Renard had ever seen.
Sir Darius, presumably. He was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, with brown hair and brown eyes and features so average they seed designed to be forgotten five minutes after eting him.
But when he looked up from the book he was reading, Renard felt a chill run down his spine.
Renard who was thinking of using his Prajna ability stopped. He didn’t know why but he sohow felt that he shouldn’t use that ability in front of this man!
He was dangerous! He could feel that just from his gaze!
Those brown eyes held an intelligence so sharp and focused it was almost predatory. This was soone who could dissect a person’s thoughts and motivations with surgical precision, who could see through lies and pretenses as easily as looking through clear glass.
"So," Darius said, his voice as unremarkable as his appearance, "you’re the farm boy who completed the trial in six hours."
It wasn’t a question.
Renard nodded, not trusting his voice to remain steady under that penetrating gaze.
"Interesting," Darius continued, making a note in his book without looking away from Renard’s face.
"Tell , what did you think of our little staircase?"
"It was... difficult," Renard said carefully. "But I managed."
"Difficult." Darius smiled, and it was not a pleasant expression. "Elders, how would you describe the trial to soone who had never experienced it?"
The man with spectacles—cleared his throat. "I would say it’s designed to break the mind and spirit of anyone unprepared for serious magical study. It combines physical exhaustion with psychological assault to create conditions that—"
"That’s enough," Darius interrupted. "And you, Ray from the farming village, found it rely ’difficult.’"
A bead of sweat dropped down Renard’s face.
"I don’t know what other people found difficult about it," he said, letting confusion and a hint of defensiveness creep into his voice. "I just kept walking up the stairs. It hurt, but lots of things hurt. You do them anyway."
Darius studied him for a long mont, and Renard could practically feel the man’s mind working, analyzing every word and gesture for hidden anings.
"Indeed," Darius finally said. "You do them anyway."
He made another note in his book, then stood up from behind the desk. Despite his unremarkable appearance, there was sothing about the way he moved that suggested considerable physical capability hidden beneath the scholarly exterior.
"Elder Thomas will show you to your quarters and explain the basic rules," Darius said. "Your real education begins tomorrow. I suggest you get so rest—you’ll need it."
As they walked away from the central chamber, Renard let out a breath of relief.
He was inside the Silent Monastery. The first phase of his plan was complete.
Tomorrow, the real work would begin.
---***---
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