The 11th day comes, and we all decide to join the trip. Some of us, being students, just go, while the Assistant Professors either file their own request to join the excursion as well, or they simply quit their jobs and go regardless, while, of course, making plans to pay the fine later.

Tess and Maya, being guards, have a bit more difficulty, but they manage to come along, too.

As we head toward the station, Maya seems to relax, almost like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

“You wouldn't believe how good it felt to tell that little asshole to screw off,” she says happily, adjusting a small bag on her back.

Most of us have a similar setup, just enough for a few days. We're dressed more casually now, too, finally getting a chance to wear something other than those annoying uniforms and suits.

“She’s just a young girl, Maya. We all used to be like that,” Tess notes. As usual, she has a different hairstyle, this time straight, with bangs covering her forehead and reaching her eyebrows.

“Some of us are still like that,” Maya shrugs. “I broke her crystal ball. I swear that girl was addicted to it, given how much time she spent ‘calling’ people.”

“We should modify it and turn it into a smartphone. It would ruin the younger generation and maybe earn us some better rewards,” Dennis smirks.

“Maybe we could serve ads to it, too,” Aaron nods seriously.

“That’s straight-up evil.”

“So what, Maya? This is what high-end schools do to people. It’s called entrepreneurship.”

“I wouldn't blame it on the school.”

“Aaron and I are perfect as we are.”

“Sure,” Maya sighs. “But I think I’ll miss this floor. It was nice to have a proper bed and good food for once. Being able to train here, the Challenges, and even all the knowledge here. I’ll miss it.”

Lily slides closer to her side and smiles, “I thought I would get bored faster, but it was weirdly fun. I think I could’ve even become friends with some of the natives.”

“Yes, I noticed you students really slipped into your roles,” Maya ruffles Lily’s hair a bit before turning to me. “I blame you, Nat, for not being able to stay here any longer.”

“Understandable,” I nod.

“If you want to stay here and keep looping for three more years, just say it,” this time it’s Sophie who answers.

And Maya sighs, “I don’t. I’ve seen enough movies to know I’d go crazy. So, where is this airship even going?”

Tess looks at her with what seems like disappointment. “And I thought you at least would know. It flies around the region for three days for a bit of sightseeing. There’s some kind of firework celebration in the south, a visit to the city near the Academy that students usually go to for shopping, then...”

“Okay, okay. Sometimes you’re way too responsible, Tess. Where’s your sense of adventure? Not knowing where we’ll go or what surprises await?”

I listen to the conversation with amusement, knowing all too well just how much Tess hates surprises. And as expected, poor Maya then has to endure Tess calling her lazy, irresponsible, childish, and other things besides.

Meanwhile, Izzy and Sophie walk around visiting small shops along the way. The boys, having formed their own group, are probably doing some unethical and likely evil things.

I just tag along, holding the sleeping puppy form of Biscuit in my arms, while Lily, who snuck up beside me, starts telling me about some interesting things she learned in the Academy.

And in this fashion, we finally reach the airship.

The station is a tower-like platform. It’s quite massive overall. The construction is made of stone, metal, and other durable materials. It holds all these shops and hundreds of people. The tower station has multiple terrace-like platforms, and hovering next to each is a flying ship, securely docked.

These ships are massive. Maybe not Earth-style-cruise-ship massive, but big enough to hold a few hundred people. They’re all made of smooth white wood and shaped mostly like ships. They’re wide, with no masts. The bottom of the ship has protruding crystals and some inscriptions that have been expertly concealed, they’re probably patented or something, if I had to guess.

The windows looking out from the hull of the ship are huge, mostly circular, and from what I can see, the rooms inside look especially cozy.

After giving our identification, we board one of the ships, and everyone heads to their rooms to wait for the airship to launch.

The ship starts flying without any noticeable shaking. Though I’m sure I could if I used my kinetic senses, but without them, there’s nothing. It just smoothly lifts up.

It’s so slow. Not to be rude, the airship is probably fast for someone around level 100 or by comparison to normal people. But more than anything, it feels like a holiday vessel. A luxurious weekend hotel. Even my room, which I’m sure isn’t one of the more expensive suites, is amazing, nearly as good as what I had at the Academy. Complete with a bedroom, a small living room, and a bathroom, it’s not missing anything.

For a moment, I look around, and a giggle escapes my mouth. My room here is bigger than the entirety of our old flat on Earth, the four members of the Gwyn family once shared. Just the bed here alone might be worth more than that entire place.

I open the Community, and after reading through a few messages, I head to the place where the excited Maya told all of us to meet. When I knock, the doors open, and I step inside to find everyone already waiting.

The living room I enter is bigger than my entire suite. On one side, there’s not just one but two windows, circular and huge, with wide window sills that have been designed as a sitting area. I immediately go over and sit down, surprised by the comfort of the cushioning. The window beside me offers a view of the beautiful countryside below us and the clear sky above. Biscuit, still in my arms, gives a sleepy woof, and I boop his nose until he settles again, then I continue holding him.

Then I learn, as I suspected, that this suite belongs to Lily.

Maybe I should try to become a healer as well.

In the hallway just outside the room, someone left a tray of untouched pastries with a note that said “for suite 8.” None of us is in suite 8, and we don’t know who is, but after about three seconds of discussion, the tray ends up in Lily´s suite anyway.

“They shouldn’t have left it outside,” Sophie says, already eating one.

“It was probably intentional,” Dennis counters.

“If it was a trap, you’re already dead,” I add.

They eat all of them.

For a while, the conversation drifts to random topics—half about the floor, half about nothing at all. I let the chatter wash over me until movement in the corner of my eye pulls me back in.

Lily is wearing a yellow-golden dress that fits her almost perfectly, and as she twirls, it moves as if it is light enough to float in the air. Even so, I notice special stitching placed in just the right spots to prevent it from moving in ways that would be too revealing, like if the skirt were to rise up too high.

The way the dress responds to Lily’s movements looks ethereal, as if it belonged to something not of this world. It flows, it glows, it dances, and it breathes with her. Watching her, it feels as though I’m witnessing something divine.

Lily explains how the dress came to be, and the girls around her look ready to pounce if it means getting their hands on it.

She tells us about how two people led a team of thirty who spent two years collecting the silk for it from some very rare spiders. Then they did the refining, the delicate work, and figured out how to process it and everything else. Thirty people spent two full years creating it, crafting it from one of the rarest materials there is.

Of course, with certain skills, the process could have gone much faster, but the time and effort invested are what make it pretentious and oh so valuable.

Someone apparently gifted it to her as part of an invitation to join their clan.

Maybe I really should become a healer.

Sitting on the plush windowsill, I keep looking up while ignoring the conversation that slowly develops into a party, as the entire gang stays here, ignoring the rest of what the airship has to offer. I watch the countryside below us shift and day turns into night, while the lights of the cities disappear, replaced by the shine of stars overhead, giving way to the nature below as the airship begins to slow.

The conversation fades away to a distant hum in the background as I make no attempts to listen to the words being said.

My thoughts drift, and I start to doze. Right before I’m fully asleep, Biscuit exploits the opportunity to boop my nose a few times with his front right paw.

The loop resets just a few hours later.

Two days after that, the Champion dies, and the warhead disappears during one of my walks around the Academy, as I mark the things I want to take with me to the 9th floor.

I walk around for a bit longer before sending the signal, and everyone moves.

----------------------------------------

POV Dennis Dalton

I open the small box, and Lily’s [Disintegration] orb dissolves as I blow onto it, causing it to eat through the excessively reinforced doors, which I honestly don’t think even Sophie would be able to open quickly enough to matter.

With that done, I channel mana through my body to strengthen it, then kick the door open before my brother, Sophie, and I rush inside.

Vance is in there, in the middle of the small room filled with inscriptions covering the floor, walls, and the thermonuclear warhead he stole a few hours ago, which he is currently drawing on and etching into. All of it has the look of something he must have done in just two days.

He tries to move, but his body freezes mid-motion as Sophie steps forward, holding him with her skill. Only his mouth is allowed to move.

“What is a mind mage doing in the Academy?” he asks.

His usual friendliness and easygoing nature are gone. He looks colder than ever before.

“Honestly, we should be asking why you want to blow up the Academy,” I say. Even now, I keep my guard up while Aaron circles around.

“Dennis, shouldn’t that be pretty obvious?”

“Is the bomb modified to target only guys, so all the girls stay for you?” I ask.

This time, he smiles, “As stupid as it sounds, it’s amusing how much it makes people not want to deal with you while causing them to overlook the items I’ve made to spy on the other Candidates. Listen, Dennis, don’t you want to help me? I promise to find you and Aaron outside and repay you. I even think the three of us could be friends.”

“I really think we could be,” I agree with him, "but I’m sorry."

He goes quiet for a while and bites his lip. I can see thoughts flash through his head as he searches for a way out. There isn’t one, not faced with Sophie, who’s already begun to erase some of the inscriptions.

“So what was the plan? Blow up the Academy and hope all the Examiners and Candidates die along with it?” she asks.

As if, an insulted Vance snorts. "The Academy? Please. That was never my only target. Shame I couldn’t get these idiots to kill the Champion first, but I had to take my chances."

Blood covers his teeth, seeping from his bitten lip. He feels so distant now, so much unlike that image he built up, one that fooled even me, no matter how closely I looked.

“I anchored the core detonation to a containment lattice of delay inscriptions and reverse-indexed circuits, synced with a pulse-lock to the Academy’s own warding infrastructure. The device wouldn’t blow, but it would absorb.”

I squint. “Absorb what?”

Vance’s lips twist into something between a smirk and a grimace, “Mana siphoning. Radiation folds in on itself, feeds the array cage. Everything inside stays locked in until I cause a spark, and then...”

His words cut off as a short sword pierces through his back, stabbing through his heart and coming out through his chest. Even then, his body doesn’t move. I and Sophie stare in shock at Aaron, who now stands behind him.

Vance coughs up blood, “I always knew you were the more fucked-up twin.”

Mana glows in his mouth, and only now do I realize what he’s been doing. There are inscriptions carved into the inside of his mouth, something he was working on during the conversation, masking the blood by biting his lip.

Before whatever he was doing fully activates, Aaron pulls back the sword and swings it. Vance’s head flies through the air, and the light of mana inside his mouth dies along with the light in his eyes.

Out of nowhere, with a curse mumbled under her breath, Sophie moves quickly and starts layering her web around the warhead.

Only now do I notice a change as the walls begin to light up. Like living beings, more inscriptions crawl across the surface, covering the warhead and the floor. Some of the inscriptions even crawl from the open mouth of Vance’s severed head, all formed from blood.

“Stop staring and help me before this thing blows up!” Sophie’s shout snaps me back to reality, and I quickly join in her efforts, hoping it's not too late.

----------------------------------------

POV Nathaniel

I locate Ari in one of the gardens, and no longer caring about the rules all that much, I boost myself with kinetic energy to fly for a short while before landing near her and slowing to a walk.

At first, I think she might ignore me, but then she stops and faces me. Even now, she continues to act and keep up with her schedule.

“Greetings, Assistant Professor Gwyn,” she says.

“Greetings, Examiner Ari.”