"I would love nothing more than to say that you're doing well, but the fact is that you're at least adequate to your peers. Cire is just really good at what she does."

  The grammarian has them going through something together for once. Cire had been off on her own the first day back from the academy. They had reconvened on the second day. Her status as the daughter of a senator didn't give her anything except the ability to attend the academy. She had risen on the basis of her own merit since arriving, finding herself in the prestigious first class of the top students. Ludere, by contrast, had been stuck in the third class.

  He was hopeful that his recent actions might help him into the second class, but it wasn't so straightforward. Making a difference in the lives of the students would probably pale in the light of significant personal advancement in will theory.

  The empire had its priorities and combat wasn't it.

  "Apologies Regnicus, but I'm just up there. If you want to get to the first class you're going to have to challenge people and move up."

  It wasn't what he wanted to hear. That combined with Cire being the spitting image of her father meant that she was distinct.

  He looked like every other of his countrymen, which is to say light hair, medium complexion and what he would call layers of muscles. It was his athletics skill putting that up.

  "I don't think that anyone’s just going to accept my challenge. They probably think that I'm some sort of government spy. It doesn't help that your father has paid the grammarian to prepare me for the academy. Will he be back today?"

  Ludere was very grateful for the Senator's help. They had a scheduled meeting that hadn't happened. There were apparently things that the man needed to do with regards to his actual political work. Those things are giving him away from his daughter and his new charge. Even though they'd both been through a demon attack, the two of them together didn't rate any sort of notice that everything had been canceled.

  "How likely is it that they are talking about what happened at the academy?" Cire said.

  Tyler shrugged. "It could be that they are speaking of it at length. It could also be just as likely that they will talk around in circles for the entire week that you are here. We will know when we know. But know this. The Senator's wife will make an appearance this week. She sent word to us just this morning. She will want to meet you."

  Cire turned to Ludere. "She's going to like you, I think. Oh, this is exciting. I forgot about her coming back in all the commotion of training."

  She gave him an apologetic look. He shrugged. There wasn't much to be done. When a senator’s wife called upon you, you showed up.

  "Any other last-minute changes?" Ludere said.

  Grammarian Tyler grinned deeply. Ludere checked for an exit to the room.

  "Well, we've got something for you. It involves using both will and soul magic together so we will be taking a bit of an extended trip tomorrow. Don't worry, the Oracle can come but we will be gone all day."

  "All day? Where are we going?" Cire asked.

  "We will be paying respects to the fiddler. There's just something that the Senator wanted the two of you to be made aware of. Unfortunately, I can't say any more until we are there."

  Ludere had no idea what the man was talking about. It wasn't that he could figure it out on his own, but the grammarian had some cryptic ways of speaking. They could just be talking about getting some sort of pastries and the grammarian would make it into some sort of spy mission. He needed to spend his time learning so whatever this one it had to mean a lot that he had actual downtime. He would be able to get some later.

  Right now, he was worried about his commitment to meeting up with Mila. They had been inseparable during their academy time.

  Unfortunately, she lived too far away for them to easily visit. It wasn't that they couldn't do it. It was that he had so much on his plate already between meetings and trying to catch up with the Oracle. There's only so many times that he could walk around the city without being recognized.

  He had tried to go incognito but his parents told him that he needed to represent the Empire. He grudgingly agreed to it. There wasn't much else that he could do. They would see each other very soon and they had taken the transport back. They would see each other on the ride to the academy.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "Well, Grammarian, what fresh tortures do you have for us?"

  Tyler smiled. "I was hoping that we could start with Will constructs. I’ve brought something special for you both to work on."

  “That would be the thing that arrived this morning?” Cire said.

  “Indeed.” He ushered them past the atrium. “Follow me.”They walked back past the atrium to the Senators library. It wasn’t expansive, but there were enough racks of scrolls that Ludere paused to take it in. There were at least five freestanding stacks that urged him to just peruse the titles at the very least.

  In the far corner there was a device which he had never seen the like of. A cube, each side the length of his forearm was dripping in will. Lines surrounding it were a mass of will, nearly encircling it.

  “It’s like a maze. How was this… how is this possible?” Cire moved around it.

  “This is a piece of pre cataclysm technology that your father wanted us to show you. It’s usage is unknown but we’ve been able to glean some ideas. However, we grabbed it for one reason, and one reason only. Part of the final test involves such a maze.”

  Ludere turned from the cube to the grammarian. “This? Part of a test? How does it work?”

  The grammarian sat down next to it. He held out he palms and placed them against the cube.

  It lit up. Instantly the pathways that were clear in his Will sight were now almost blinding.

  “You control this piece and you need to move it through the maze. Another person can try to stop you. Indeed there’s a switch here that lets it run itself using your imbued will but that’s well… we want you to run through it here. Using your will for both your own avatar as well as the antagonists means that you’ll be drawing twice as much as we want.”

  “Antagonists?” Cire moved closer.

  As they watched, four tiles appeared. Each one had the classic tile image of a man with a sword through his back. Why that had become to image of the antagonist was anyone's guess.

  "It's supposed to be a different person. They run the maze from the other side."Grammarian Tyler grabbed the cube from the sides and then Cires side lit up with four active antagonist tiles.

  "Avoid the antagonists while making our way through it? That's it?" Cire was already moving her tile with the V symbol on it through the maze. "Oh this is at least a bit intuitive. That's good."

  She ran her single tile through it. The projected tile was clearly there to represent a runner, making it's way through the maze.

  The lines around the maze were clear and clean.

  The antagonists began moving all at once from the top of the maze. There was a clear entrance at the bottom of the cube side she faced and a clear exit on the top.

  "This is incredible," Ludere whispered.

  Cire's tile made it about halfway through the maze before she was overtaken by two antagonist tiles.

  "Again." It wasn't a command, it was just going to be so. Judging from the sound in her voice she would to this until she fully understood it.

  Ludere watched her get halfway up the side of the maze a dozen times before she finally broke past and nearly made it, only getting stopped at the last moment due to her indecision over which way to go. It was still a sight for him to see this whole apparatus working together on its own. It was truly a marvel of a will construct if it was that.

  "And you telling me that they had things like this and were not able to just use them?"

  "This is from before our time. Ludere are you ready to give it a go? In a few more turns, Cire should be able to play against you and then you guys can train each other on this."

  If they were going to spend all day on that then it was going to be an interesting day. He swapped places with her. Touching it directly with his palms. He could feel that he was able to move the tile up and down and left and right easily. He did a few testing movements until it settled in. It was easy enough to just move it the direction you wanted to.

  "I'm ready."

  "We'll start with one antagonist."

  Even just directing himself with the maze was difficult. He had to plan out his route and then he had to see which way that the antagonist was moving and that felt almost impossible. He got about halfway before he got cornered. He'd taken a wrong turn and he resolved to not do that again.

  What followed was a long time of him being frustrated at his inability to do something then doing the thing and then the grammarian increasing the difficulty.

  After about half an hour, the grammarian was confident enough that he allowed them to take the opposite position which his classmate immediately accepted.

  "I suppose you've been waiting for this all day?" Ludere said.

  "You would be absolutely correct sir. There's no way that I'm not going to enjoy this immensely. Shall we start a little friendly wager about this?"

  He could see the Trap coming a mile away. He can see it but still he's sprung it. " You are on."

  If there's one thing that his scan skill wouldn't let him do, it wouldn't let him analyze this kind of situation. Situation. There were too many variables to work with.

  Normally when he saw someone in an arena fight and he needed to make a judgment he would scam them. But he knew Cires weaknesses and none of those involved her mind. It was all about what she could do for him in the realm of him getting better learning from her.

  Each time that the grammarian added another tile he felt some sort of accomplishment. The sense that he was getting better. But just one round against her with her as the antagonist? He was willing to throw out all of his previous loops just to figure out a way to beat her.

  She was good but he was definitely bad. The gulf between them got a little bit smaller as they swapped places. Controlling one antagonist at once was difficult but he found that it was less intellectually rigorous. If anything, he was expending less well to defend the end of the maze or try to cut off somebody moving through than it took to run the maze.

  They did that for over two hours before they found themselves roughly evenly matched. All of their initial gains from learning the test were gone. Their will was drained and even Tyler had to let them consider leaving early.