I retrieved the third piece of hard candy in the expected spot. Seriously, what was the deal with the candies? I squeezed that too into my pocket, and then onwards. There seemed to be no end to the doors. The fourth one was plated with wrought silver in its heavy frame, only hair-fine seams between the bolted-on sheets of metal. Unlike iron, silver was a good medium for magical energy and the heavy enchantments on the door made it comparable to a castle gate in durability.

  And there, the fourth seal with its peculiar glyph interface. I drew a breath to gather the dregs of my motivation and pushed my head to work.

  But the faintly glowing picture puzzle that emerged this time made me grimace.

  “What the crap is this now…?”

  The base layout was the same as before, with the cross pattern. But the glyphs switches bore no elemental symbols. Instead, in each circle was a dim, colorless numeral. Around the usual main set of four glyphs expanded a secondary circle array of eight more glyphs, and each of them also displayed a number.

  The numbers shown in each group were…

  6 – 3 – 12 – 18 – 8 – 24 – 63 – 19

  16 – 32 – 44 – 23

  I was glad no one was there to see my foolish face.

  What was that all about? The values didn’t seem to form any kind of logical sequence. The outer glyphs glowed white, while the main switch glyphs were barely perceivable. No power was connected to the usual unlocking mechanism. The cross switch appeared fully isolated from the rest of the seal and unresponsive to contact. But how could a lock cut off from the door be used to open it?

  When I poked an outer glyph, it went dark, but nothing happened.

  Multiple glyphs could be touched without the puzzle being immediately reset, but all that poking them did was make them lose power.

  What kind of test was this?

  Was a novice really expected to be able to solve this? Not half the war mages I knew could’ve done it. They usually weren’t academically gifted. Those who didn’t come from special programs, anyway. The RA coudn't afford to maintain particularly high standards during the war. You went into the Magic Battalion as a Master Sergeant if you could conjure a drop of water and could tell a rock apart from a mule at night.

  “For all that is holy...”

  Deeply irritated, I rubbed the bridge of my nose and tried to think. Numbers. What did the numbers mean? Why two separate sets of glyphs? What was their relation? Where did the power from outer circle go when the glyphs were pressed? Was I overthinking it? Maybe it only looked bad. Maybe the solution was simpler than it seemed...

  “…All right, I get it now. The inner cross switch must be unlocked first by activating the correct outer glyphs.”

  Inspecting how power was routed confirmed the idea. When an outer glyph was pressed, it yielded the mana contained in it to the cross switch in the middle and was left empty, which meant that each node could only be used once. But one or two alone didn’t contain enough energy to power to opening mechanism.

  “The numbers must then represent the glyph's charge. The total energy of the activated outer glyphs must match the amount required by the switch glyphs. Else, either nothing happens, or the puzzle will be reset and the glyphs' value is changed.”

  How incredibly annoying.

  The sum of the switch glyph numbers came to 115, so I had to pick the outer glyphs that added up to the same. The sum of all eight together exceeded the target value, but leaving 6, 3, and 19 out seemed to bring the count to balance. That was the solution.

  Now the cross switch was fully powered and could be operated.

  But in which order were the lock glyphs meant to be activated? Ascending by value? Descending? Clockwise? Counter-clockwise? All four were clearly linked to the unsealing mechanism, and I couldn’t find signs of any specific hierarchy among them. But it felt too easy and straightforward if they could just be mashed arbitrarily. I'd come to expect worse from the architects of this twisted test and really didn't want to start over from scratch.

  Straining my perception still more, I found the cross switch didn’t have a dedicated shuffle node, as usual. I was becoming familiar with how its pattern looked. Even if the outer glyphs could be reset, the inner numbers remained the same.

  So did these specific numbers hold some special meaning? Sixteen. Thirty-two. Forty-four. Twenty-three.

  I turned them around in my head, adding and deducting and dividing, but came to nothing sensible.

  The only number meaningful for me personally was 44.

  “…The Council of Forty-Four, who founded the organization that later became the Mysterium we know today."

  I may have not been a history buff, but it was a sort of big event for the local magic community. The council took place in July, like this test, about two hundred years ago. Was that a coincidence? The year 16...could it have been 32? Or 23? I wasn’t sure. No. A month couldn't have 32 days, so if it was a date, the answer could only be...Without better ideas, I gave it a try in the customary format.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “The day, 23, the year, 16, 32. And participants, 44. There.”

  The seal flashed green and the silver door opened.

  What, that was actually the right answer? Lame.

  One more door opened. One more piece of candy earned. But I congratulated myself too soon. The fourth trial turned out to have been only a tutorial for the fifth door, to demonstrate the logic. A similar puzzle awaited at the end of the next grim passage, magically painted on a door that glimmered dazzling golden. But again, the problem was a step harder.

  This time, the values marked on the outer glyphs lied. The number represented the target charge, but the base power drawn from the source was randomized. It could be over or under the nominal value. Each glyph then had to be corrected by the applicant by feeding it the appropriate amount of mana, or draining it, which asked for expert senses and fine control. And I just had to have five things on my arm that made such delicate control almost impossible.

  To make matters even more complicated, some of the numbers were omitted, the glyphs showing only “??” as the value. You could either try deduce the missing numbers by comparing the inner and outer sums, or else try it blind, feeling out the glyph's capacity and charge rate.

  If the input was too low, the glyph couldn’t unlock the seal. If it went over, the whole thing immediately flashed red and expelled all the mana injected into the glyphs, mercilessly forcing a restart. The task was like trying to fit live mice into shot glasses while dead drunk and wearing mitts. It had to be the most absurd, frustrating thing I’d ever tried. And what did the numbers on the cross glyph represent this time? Another date? The headmaster's birthday?

  “Aah, that's enough already!”

  I've had it with these stupid doors! You've got some guts, messing with me like this!? Who do you think I am!?

  No more playing by the book.

  I'll show you some military-style problem-solving.

  I stepped back from the sadistical puzzle of irksome numbers, held up my hand, and began to pour more mana into the seal. The cryptogram’s spectral outline brightened to a dazzling shine in response, lighting up the intestinal tunnel.

  “—Commence structural analysis.”

  The energy pathways in the seal that accepted inputs from outside could also be used to invade it from inside. This method gave me an even bigger headache, but it was a pain I was used to. A simple pain without numbers.

  Of course, a seal couldn’t be broken only by mindlessly feeding it energy without attributes. Any excess power was simply released from the structure as light. A well-designed seal with a solid power routing would brighten relative to the mana it received, with no upper limit to luminosity. But overpowering the system wasn't the goal.

  No human was perfect and no construct could be infallible. The more elaborate and artistic the pattern, the more likely it was to have weaknesses.

  The key to spotting those weaknesses was the released light. How the seal handled surplus in the feed. So I deliberately put the seal under sustained stress and studied its brightness. Any flaws in the design, any inefficiencies in the power flow, would reveal themselves sooner or later. A spot somewhere in the cryptogram that was dimmer, or emitted irregularly. A conductivity issue. A line where the energy failed to expel properly.

  If more energy accumulated than could be released safely, it would start to build up heat.

  Normally, that wouldn’t change anything by itself. Some small part operating less than optimally didn’t mean the whole thing would break right there. The temperature would rise by a degree or two, nothing more, and the metal of the door would balance it. The caster would overload and go blind before surpassing the energy capacity of an expert seal, and the one on this door was certainly master grade. Maybe at full power, I could've still overwhelmed it with sheer volume, but not at Tier 2 capacity.

  But.

  What if you had a way to exploit even such a minor weakness?

  What would happen if I used my personal trait of controlling direction, and forced the mana flow in the seal to reverse, to pool only into those overheating weak spots? The heat build-up would increase rapidly, even without any additional mana. Too fast for it to have anywhere to go. The amount of power that would otherwise never be enough, would—

  Zap.

  The seal’s shine flickered and died out with a faint, hollow crackle. The glyphs vanished, the light died, and the tunnel fell dark once more.

  Slightly groaning, the golden door fell ajar, the magical glue holding it in place now gone.

  “…That was fast.”

  I didn’t even finish my explanation.

  Anyway, this may not have been a landmine, but that was one way to safely dismantle them.

  Let’s keep this pace up. I was starting to get hungry.

  A wooden door. An iron door. A bronze door. A silver door. A golden door. A glass door. An emerald door. A magic door.

  Eight doors in all. The fabled Corridor of Sages.

  The final puzzle left even me in disbelief. It sported the most twisted, sadistic mechanic I’d ever seen. On the door was a plain seal without tricks, seven empty, powerless glyphs, which couldn’t be unlocked by magic, not any of the previously seen methods, only by as many keys.

  So where were the key items then? I was confident I’d missed nothing on the way.

  That left only one possible answer.

  A terrifying idea.

  Yes. The required keys were—those seven pieces of candy found after each door.

  That must have been why they had the naturally mana-rich goldroot baked into them. The seal was designed to react only to that specific mana form. Which also meant that if the examinee ate even one candy on the way, they couldn’t open the final door and get full marks on the challenge, despite all their hard work, ingenuity, and talents. I didn’t even like candy, but still thought it was pure evil.

  The monk professor did say to take care of the “treasures” and that they’d be needed before the end.

  What was tested in the end were the skills most invaluable to a novice: paying attention and following instructions.

  Frankly, I already forgot what the man said, but since I hated candy, all seven I picked up along the way were still in my bulging pockets. I inserted the sweets in the glyphs one by one, which consumed them, and with that hollow sacrifice, the final door was opened.