Death, Devotion, Dissonance

<I guess you were right…> Evin murmured as he finished reading the Type 3's notes once again.

<Don't act so gloom about it.> The Voice's tone was light. <The leaders of countries don't really have the luxury of possessing a clean conscience. Especially so for someone like Roland, who lived through a time when the nobles held an unprecedented amount of power.>

<And what's the point of telling us about this in the first place?> Evin sighed.

<Who knows? But if they think we haven't learned the lesson they were trying to teach us, then they should approach us after the test to make sure we get it. Before then, we should just focus on learning… Oh, also, I think I know where we are on the map now,> it said and urged Evin to bring out the map.

Evin did as asked and the Voice began to explain its reasoning.

<See these ten rooms? These should be the rooms we've just explored.>

<They do look similar, but what about these rooms and corridors that are supposed to branch off from the rooms that we've already been to?> Evin asked. <Even in this room too. If you're right, there should be a corridor… on that wall that leads to another room, right?>

<Yes, I was confused about that as well. But, well, it's best just check it. Take some World of Life energy and push on that wall.>

Thinking that there wasn't anything to lose, Evin walked up… and discovered that that particular part of the wall was much weaker compared to the rest.

<See? I was wondering why we would need a map in the first place, since the place wasn't so complicated to navigate through in the first place. The main storyline didn't need any help getting through, but the map would help us find all the hidden places inside the Labs,> the Voice said excitedly.

With the new information, Evin and the Voice began to check out every hidden area thanks to the map. Most of them were relatively empty rooms that contained material loot. Evin didn't find any cards useful for the Island, and instead found things that would be useful later on. There were cards that could be changed for money, rights to request the Academy for certain research topics, and of course, World Shards.

One hidden room, which contained a row of large glass tubes, had Morton's research on creating rat-type mana-beasts artificially. Evin didn't have time to check out all these research papers, so he was just putting them into his bag.

After looting all the hidden rooms that he could access, Evin resumed his exploration of the labs, facing the different types of golems, while also getting to learn about what kind of upgrades they received.

After five hours, Evin finally faced the Type 10. In short, it was a metal rat that could move faster and more nimbly than a normal rat; one that could passively disrupt mana and World energies in a one-step radius around it; one with defenses so hard, Evin had to use the metal bodies of the previous golems as bullets to penetrate its body, and even then it took the Voice fifty bullets to take down the damn thing. Evin really didn't know how the normal students were supposed to defeat the thing.

Even he was sure that he wouldn't be able to defeat the thing so easily, if the Voice hadn't revealed some of the secret spells that it never showed before. The stronger accelerator could be called one of them, but Evin was more concerned with another ability: its method to use a special type of sharp, rotating Hard Air to cut metal. The Hard Air would be shaped like a small circle, with extremely sharp fangs on its edge. It was a tedious process for sure, but it was definitely shocking as it was the first time Evin saw air cutting metal. Even more so when he realized that it was technically him doing the deed.

Evin knew the Voice's spells were special, but he didn't know how different they actually were. He once saw a teacher creating Hard Air as a demonstration, and that definitely wasn't something that could be called deadly. But the Voice's spell simply oozed danger. If it could cut metal, then what it could do to someone's hand was obvious.

It was a shame Evin couldn't see it being used on the Type 10, as spells held together by World energies tended to get shredded when they stayed close to the golem for a minute or two. Foreign World energies that entered its body would meet the same fate in seconds.

The only thing that Evin could be thankful for was its inability to use magic.

"Sigh, that was a draining fight... I'm going to need to take a break," Evin murmured.

Even though all he had to do during the fight was to keep his distance from the golem and use explosive spells when things got dangerous, it was still a tiring experience, as he had to constantly run around the room that the battle took place in.

That wasn't all. Even if he could push his stamina a bit and explore the place more, his mana-core was definitely reaching its limits.

<Then let's go to that secret area with supplies, it's close by anyway,> the Voice replied. <I wanna take some time to read the notes and research papers as well.>

One of the hidden areas on the map turned out to be a room designed for rest, with food and a few clean beds inside it. The two called it the Break room. If Evin was more energetic he would've complained that it ruined the atmosphere of the Labs, but now, it just seemed like a merciful blessing from the Empress.

After finding his way to the Break room, Evin jumped on one of the beds and pulled out the metal Talisman he got from Aksan. A brief glance through the Scrying devices told him that there was nothing wrong inside the Castle. Since it was afternoon, Evin could safely assume that no students would be coming to the Labs.

'It truly is a luxury to explore this place all by myself...' Evin sighed with satisfaction.

In that case, it shouldn't be weird if Evin ended up spending the night inside the trials… Or maybe he could go back to the Castle and sleep there? That would definitely be much better.

He then put down the metal Talisman and opened up the documents he got from defeating the Type 10.