CHAPTER 81: SCAVENGER HUNT

More months passed...

The forest past the academy wasn’t wild in the way an unclaimed wood was. It was deliberate.

Every branch, every patch of moss, every twist in the paths had been shaped over centuries by mana and enchantments. Things here shifted in small ways.

Roots could knot into symbols overnight, stones might hum faintly when stepped on, and water sometimes flowed uphill for no reason except that the forest decided it should.

The instructors called it a "training environment." The students called it a trap that was never quite the same twice.

This morning, it was the stage for the second-year scavenger hunt.

Logan stood with his teammates - Orion, Liam, and Vera - just outside the forest line.

Other teams clustered nearby, some talking strategy, others looking over their assigned scrolls. The air had that sharp, damp scent that came after a night of rain, though no puddles lingered.

Overhead, the sun was bright but filtered by the high wall and the thicker canopy beyond.

Their instructor, a tall man with greying hair and a permanent frown, leaned against the gate’s stone post as he scanned a clipboard.

"Three clues," he said, voice carrying just enough authority to silence the scattered chatter.

"Each clue leads to a location inside the forest. Solve the puzzle, retrieve the marked object, and move on. The first team to return with all three wins."

He let that hang for a moment, eyes sweeping the gathered students. "Disturbing or damaging the forest unnecessarily will result in immediate disqualification. Using magic is permitted, but remember you’re being graded on control, not brute force."

Vera stepped forward when the man handed over their scroll. She unrolled it without hesitation and read aloud in an even:

"When the sun stands highest and yet the darkness stretches,

Find the place where sound is gone.

Speak what cannot be heard."

Liam shifted his weight. "That’s... vague."

"That’s the point," Orion said. He scanned the treeline, his posture relaxed but alert. "They want us to think before we start throwing spells around."

’Her tone is back to being focused.’ Logan noted in his mind.

Logan’s gaze stayed on the parchment. The wording tugged at something familiar.

Darkness behaving in a way it shouldn’t, silence where there should be sound.

"Darkness stretching when the sun’s at its peak means they’re not real. Illusion magic," he said with a flat voice.

Orion gave a single nod. "Let’s move before the other teams decide to head north too."

They moved quickly, following a narrow trail where the undergrowth lay flattened in a way that felt intentional.

The air cooled as they went deeper, the bright sun above reduced to mottled patches that danced on the dirt path.

It didn’t take long to find the clearing. It was so quiet that it felt wrong.

The moment they stepped through the tree line, the sound cut out. No birdsong. No rustle of wind. Even their footsteps seemed muted, as if the air itself swallowed noise.

At the center stood a white stone obelisk, clean and sharp-edged as though it had been carved yesterday.

Sunlight fell on it in a perfect column despite the canopy overhead.

Around its base stretched long rivers of darkness that pooled outward like spilled ink. They reached toward the trees, toward the team’s feet, even though the sun wasn’t positioned to cast them.

Liam’s voice was small in the silence. "This darkness..."

"Not natural," Orion said. He kept his distance, scanning the edges of the clearing. "Stay out of them until we know what they do."

Logan stepped forward, the hairs on his arms prickling.

He let a thin thread of his magic drift outward. Not the dangerous, hidden kind, but the darkness manipulation most people already knew he had.

The false darkness resisted at first, but he had already reached a decent level of mastery with the Sovereign of Darkness spell.

With a thought, Logan persevered and the darkness broke apart and dissipated.

Beneath, faint runes were carved into the obelisk’s base.

"They’re incomplete," Vera said, already kneeling to inspect them. "Looks like half the sequence is missing."

"They’re probably hidden," Orion said. He glanced toward Liam. "Light magic might show them."

Liam hesitated, but when Logan met his eyes and gave a short nod, he stepped forward. Golden light bloomed in his hands, warm and steady, and the other half of the runes shimmered into view, etched invisibly until now.

Vera’s fingers moved fast, joining the halves with practiced precision. The moment the last line connected, a low hum vibrated through the ground. The silence shattered and the wind moved again, and the distant call of a bird broke the stillness.

At the base of the obelisk, a small compartment slid open. Inside was a palm-sized wooden token carved with the academy’s crest.

"That’s one," Orion said, tucking it into his pack.

The inside of the compartment lid held the next clue, burned into the wood.

"The serpent sleeps in a river of glass.

Wake it not, but find its eye."

The sound of water drew them northwest. When the trees finally parted, they saw it - a narrow river that looked like a strip of sky laid across the ground.

Its surface was perfectly still, reflecting clouds in sharp detail. Beneath the surface, shadows drifted - long, coiled, and slow-moving.

Liam’s steps faltered. "Those... things are moving."

"They’re probably illusions," Logan said. Probably. The magic in the air was thick enough to taste, and it made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

Orion crouched at the bank, picked up a pebble, and tossed it in. Instead of sinking, it vanished without a ripple.

"Not water," he said. "Mana membrane. Step on it wrong and the whole surface breaks."

He pulled off his boots, static crackling faintly around his ankles. "Stay close behind me. Follow exactly where I step."

Orion had started welding lightning Magic after the encounter with the Royal Guard.

He learnt and mastered the connection between lightning and metal and now, no longer hesitated to use it.

He moved onto the river, his lightning magic forming an insulating layer between him and the shimmering surface.

Each step sent faint ripples of light outward, revealing a narrow trail of glyphs below. Vera followed carefully, then Liam, then Logan at the rear, eyes locked on the shifting shapes under the surface.

Halfway across, one of the dark forms below turned upward. Its outline sharpened - a long, scaled head, eyes shut as if in sleep. Logan’s pulse kicked. He kept his magic leashed.

At the river’s center, Orion stopped and pointed. "There." Beneath the surface lay a smooth stone shaped like an eye, runes circling its edge.

Vera’s magic flared in a thin containment pattern. Logan reached down through the membrane, cold mana clinging to his skin. The serpent shapes didn’t move. He lifted the stone eye and handed it forward.

The moment it broke the surface, the illusion of the water collapsed. The riverbed below was dry and cracked, the serpent shapes dissolving into mist.

They climbed out on the far side. On the back of the stone eye, an engraving marked their third and final clue.

"Where the trees dream, One must surrender sight to see."

The grove lay to the south. The trees there grew close together, leaning inward as though straining to listen to something only they could hear.

Their branches wove tight overhead, and a haze of golden light drifted between them, making the air thick and warm.

"I feel... sleepy," Liam said, rubbing his eyes.

Logan recognized the layered magic - illusion masking mind manipulation. "Don’t fight it. This place wants us to see something."

He closed his eyes first. The darkness shifted, forming an image - stone steps stretching over a black void.

Vera’s voice came next, quiet but certain: "I see a door made of branches." Orion described three runed lanterns forming a triangle. Liam’s vision held a stag with crystal antlers by a fallen log.

"Put them together," Logan said. "The stag marks one lantern. The lanterns make a triangle around Vera’s door. My steps lead there."

They moved with eyes still shut, following the map their visions formed. The haze pressed close, muffling sound, but the path underfoot felt solid.

When they opened their eyes, they were in a small clearing. An ancient oak stood at the center, its bark rough and split. Etched deep into it, glowing faintly, was the emblem of their team. Beneath it lay the final token.

Orion picked it up. "That’s all three."

---

They turned to leave, but Logan’s gaze caught on something at the base of the oak.

Half-hidden by moss was a small carving - older than the scavenger hunt setup. The lines were sharp, deliberate, forming a symbol he knew. He’d seen it before.

The symbol he was looking for. The three-eyed snake coiled around a sphere.

Logan’s eyes widened. There was definitely something going on in the shadows and he felt like he was either stumbling across it or someone was showing him.

___________

The forest’s edge came into sight just as another team emerged from a different direction. At the gate, the instructor checked their tokens, expression neutral but approving. "Well done, Team Twelve. All objectives completed. Minimal mana waste. No unnecessary damage."

Liam let out a quiet breath. Vera was already replaying their route in her head, eyes narrowed in thought. Orion gave a short nod of satisfaction.

Logan said nothing, the weight of the mark still heavy in his mind.

Someone else had been in the forest and they had been watching.