69 You figured it out?

The world was mute to Rykar as they left the miniature temple behind them. Having heard the announcement from the leader, he seemed to recede into himself as he wallowed in his own disappointment.

With both twins passing the test, they left with a wad of pages which had been bound together in each of their arms. 'You should know all of this like the back of your hand by the time the assessment comes to pass. If not, save yourselves the effort.'

With that, the leader allowed Marcel to show them out, but not before disabling the restriction once again. He had told Marcel to brief the twins during their return journey and it wasn't long after they set foot on the path before Loki started firing questions his way.

"When do we leave?"

"What is the test?"

"How long will it take?"

"How long do people usually last in the spar?"

It turned out that the passing boundary was different from person to person. First off, the participants age would be calculated and then divided by three in order to decide how many minutes they would have to hold out. As Loki and Rykar were 13 years old, they had to last for four minutes.

In the case that they had cultivated to a certain level, they would have that initial boundary multiplied depending on the situation. Dismissing that, the average grade boundary was between four and six minutes for this test and they had passed with flying colours despite Rykar's depression.

The test would take place in two and a half months. It was currently the beginning of spring, so with the turn of seasons, they would be setting out from the city.

It turns out, the assessment was largely a form of survival training rather than anything complicated. The rules and duration of the test changed all the time yet, for the most part, they simply had to reach a destination while adhering to certain restrictions which would build up over time.

Carrying weights. Staying silent. No talking. Running naked. Not being able to touch the ground. These were all restrictions which had come up in the past and repeated many times throughout many of the assessments. Many of the more specific details, Marcel simply wouldn't answer.

Their only preparation for the event would be to read through the book which had been given to them, understanding the details and recommendations within. There wasn't even a need for them to acquire anything special for the test as the necessary equipment would be supplied to them before they set out. However, it would be up to them if they wanted to acquire said equipment and familiarize themselves with it beforehand.

The rules concerning before and the beginning of the assessment were actually very lax. There weren't even any restrictions on items you would be able to take with you during the assessment, however after that, anything else would either be supplied by The Guild or manufactured by yours truly in the wild. There was no other interference allowed once they began.

Mind racing, Loki was already thinking up dozens of equipment and food items which would help them while out in the wild but he was shot down in the next instant when Marcel strongly advised him to 'travel light'.

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By the time they arrived at the inn which they had been staying at, the entirety of Loki's questions had either been answered or ignored. With the final few moments before his restriction triggered once again, Marcel left them with the last piece of advice.

"Don't waste your time sparring in these few months, you already passed that part of the assessment. Run, run and run some more. Train your stamina as much as you can, there is no 'too much'. You'll be moving over long distance on foot, if you're not ready, you won't last a day no matter how little you bring."

By the time they were back in the large room, they both sat on the bed in silence for a moment before Rykar lay down and curled up on the opposite side of the bed to Chance and Rob.

Having only woken up a few hours ago, Loki wasn't tired despite the intense bout he had been in earlier. Looking at his brother and the others, he disregarded the idea of exploring the outside before taking a seat on in the middle of both parties.

Despite the mattress being bouncy under his weight, it wasn't nearly as comfortable as the silky cushions they had been using. He was considering asking Rykar to take on out from his pocket, but it was obvious his mood hadn't recovered from the way he had ignored them during the entire trip, even when questions were being directed towards him. He had simply hugged his book while walking in silence.

With nothing better to do, he shut his eyes while throwing his consciousness into the ever too familiar void but opened his mind again within seconds. Shock was plastered across his face as he looked around himself rapidly, as though searching for ghosts.

Closing his eyes once again, he was baffled by the complete change which had occupied his field of view as compared to previous occasions. Instead of the nothingness that used to cover his 'sight' when meditating before. There were obvious dots of dark grey light which dotted the entire scene like raindrops.

The only reason he hadn't thought them to be stars, was because they were obviously moving, albeit slowly. After losing himself to this state slightly, he adjusted himself to the standard procedure without being flustered by the appearance of the lights.

Just as he had suspected, the lights slowly changed trajectories and began to zone in on a spot with him at the centre like a black hole. Once the motes of light collided with him, they just disappeared without a trace.

From a bird's eye perspective, it was as though there was a very slowly rotating tornado in the room. The lights rotated around his body in a clockwise fashion while getting ever closer. This was the first time he was actually able to sense the energy around him and seeing the effects he was having on the world around him.

The minutes ticked on as he observed the spiral as though he was locked in a trance. The way the particles moved and his effect on them was constantly being reflected in his mind.

'Tornadoes…? What if…'

Splitting his attention towards his centre, he divided his sense of 'self' which was a bottomless black whole. Despite sounding complicated, it felt like he was delicately twisting and then pulling a spinning ball of clay apart at the centre. While a small portion of the core was left in the centre, over 80% was split between either side.

Once this ball was separated perfectly, he then began stretching his arms out to their respective sides while continuing the original rotation made during the split.

Now, rather than having half of a ball a ball rotating in each hand, it was more like he was holding two spinning plates which dragged in the particles in the vicinity. As the two plates served as funnels, movements of the particles in the surroundings began to change alongside their positions. Instead of a tornado pulling in the particles from the top, it was now more like branches reaching out from the sides, with both sides counterbalancing each other.

Unlike before, where he entered a sort of brainless state, each time his concentration wavered or a misjudgment caused the balance to shift, he would feel a stinging and pulling sensation from the central sphere as though it was being dragged and distorted to either side.

Awkward as it was at first, he quickly grew used to the feeling of balancing either side while using the feedback from the central sphere as guidance.

Sitting in the centre of two vertically spinning tornadoes, he was now drawing in the dark grey particles around 1.5 times faster than he had been previously.

Feelings of accomplishment all but overwhelmed him as his figure within his consciousness overlapped with that of the diagrams which he had replicated from the books within the cabin.

With his emotions surging, he lost control of the delicate balance he had been building up all this time. Although it wasn't a large disturbance, the small change was large enough to send him reeling as he felt like some had run a hot blade over the surface of his skin.

*Haah haaah haah*

With sweat forcing its way out of his forehead, he opened his eyes and fell towards his side while panting. Despite the pain, he maintained a toothy grin as he stared at the off-white sheets below him. Balling up his fists, he looked towards Chance while struggling over whether he should forcibly wake him up to share his accomplishments or not.

Holding back the temptation, he let out a sigh before turning in the direction of Rykar, who he expected to still be stuck in his feelings.

Contrary to this, Rykar was sat up while leaning against the wall while watching him with eyes that almost seemed to be glowing.

Since they had entered the room, they hadn't even taken off their masks before getting into their respective spots on the bed, so Loki wasn't able to read his exact expression. Despite this, the sweat on his forehead halted all signs of drying up when met with the red and grey pupils which were barely visible through the holes.

"W-what do you want?" Strange. That was the only think he could think of when he saw his brother in the last two hours. Whenever his brother was in a mood, he would always vent these emotions. Whether it was by forming another sort of competition, shouting and being dramatic, or even straight up starting a fight.

Silence wasn't a way that he was used to seeing Rykar react to things, that was much more like himself. He would often silently plot on a way to exact revenge on his twin through petty tricks or traps.

There were only four times in total that he had seen Rykar like this, and the most disturbing thing was that three of them had been very recently.

The first was when they were bullied to the point of spitting blood by Chris and his ass lickers while they were younger. They had both stayed silent when dealing with their helplessness, refusing to even explain the event to their mother.

The second was when they had been called demons by the entire village. Even their mother had reacted badly to them, staggering away with the intent to disown them.

The third was when he was bullied to the point of hunger and sleeplessness. The mental stress he was under caused him to lash out in the worst way possible against the overseer which had been lording over him. Coming out of the pit, he was like a completely new person, yet that coldness which he had built up had been fading recently.

Finally, was now after having taken the beating from Marcel.

"I guess you figured it out?" He asked in a neutral voice, as though he was reading a passage from a book instead of asking someone a question.