The long passage had to have brought me outside the department building. A round, grated opening pierced the middle of the ceiling, through which a beam of blurred daylight fell into a wider chamber of concave walls. Several tunnels, like the one I'd come from, connected here to this one central hub. Presumably, it was where all the test-takers would eventually make their way, if successful.

  A bespectacled professor stood close by the lightfall, reading a book and looking idle. He stirred and raised his gaze when he saw me enter, a bit surprised. He wasn't dressed like a monk but wore the regular dark scholar's robes, frizzy gray-brown hair standing tousled on his head.

  “Um? Who might you be?” he asked me, fixing his glasses. A very strange question from a supervisor.

  “I'm here for the entrance exam,” I reminded him. “My name is Ruthford.”

  The answer seemed to confuse him even more.

  “You mean, Rolan didn't let you through? But…” The Professor pulled his sleeve back and consulted his arm, which was wrapped in numerous wristwatches up to the elbow. “It’s been barely eighteen minutes since that passage was activated? Did you really solve all the puzzles on your own?”

  “I'm here, aren't I?”

  Those eighteen minutes felt like a lifetime. In hindsight, my patience sure didn’t endure very long.

  But the circumstances spoke for themselves. I couldn't have been there now without having gone through all the doors, and they could only be opened by magical means. The finer details were irrelevant. Even if I didn't clear the puzzles strictly the way the test creators intended, there was no cheating when it came to magic. You could say the entire phenomenon was “cheating” by definition. If a system could be taken apart in an unwanted way, it was solely the designer's shame.

  Only the end result truly mattered.

  “Huh. Well, that might be a new record,” the Professor remarked as he put his book away and jotted down the time on his list. “There were students who entered the corridor over an hour before you, and you still beat them to it. Suppose we can expect great things from you, Ruthford.”

  None of the professors so far showed any sign of recognizing my real identity. The secret sure was well kept.

  As I went closer, my gaze fell on a strange statue posing on the far side of the light. It wasn't very beautiful or artistic; a bulky anthropoid figure made up of roughly sculpted rock blocks. About four feet tall and pretty comical with its top-heavy build. It had bright red boxing gloves strapped to both fingerless arms.

  “Is that a golem?” I asked, pointing at the thing.

  “Ah, yes, it is,” the Professor answered, putting the list and pen away. “This is actually a small bonus round we prepared for anyone who completed the corridor, if you're interested. Applicants willing to test their combat skills can try take on Old Ben.”

  “A bonus round?”

  “That's right! It's a bit of a gamble. If you can deal a certain amount of damage to the golem within the time limit of five minutes, you'll get a hundred points added to your overall result. However, Old Ben is pretty tough and will chase you. If he manages to tag you, or the time runs out, it'll be your loss. In case you fail the challenge, you'll have a hundred points deducted from your score instead.”

  Go big or go home.

  “You may want to consider it if your theory part didn't go so well and you have nothing left to lose—or conversely, if you've done great so far and can afford the penalty in the worst case. But, it may perhaps not be worth it if you're hovering just barely above passing. These are important qualities every mage needs: objective awareness of your situation; knowing when to rein in your ambition and play it safe. You can't get drunk on power, or it may become your unmaking! What do you think?”

  True, it would've been irrational to gamble when you didn’t really have to and risk going broke.

  But if they were going to hand out a hundred points, I’d gladly take them. Maybe it was an arrogant thing to say, but—

  I couldn't picture myself losing.

  “Alright. I'll take the challenge then.”

  The Professor raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Are you sure? I wouldn't underestimate Old Ben, even if he looks a little funny. We really will deduct a hundred points for failure, and there can be no retries. Once the challenge begins, you won't be able to change your mind anymore.”

  “I understand. Do your worst.”

  “Well. The choice is yours.”

  The Professor didn't seem to think highly of my chances. He sighed quietly, went to the golem, and tapped its back to inject mana and rouse the thing from its death-like slumber. The small gem eyes embedded into the cylindrical head lit up in a red burn, and tension entered its limbs. The golem stood upright and smacked its heavy fists together with a soft bang, as if to show fighting spirit.

  “The match area is limited to this chamber,” the Professor said. “If you run outside, I will take that as forfeiting. Ah, also, if you hit me, I will deduct two hundred points! I’m just standing here in the corner, out of the way.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Ready? And...Go, Ranger!”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  As soon as the Professor said the key phrase, the stone puppet set out to jog casually my way. The deep thudding of its bulky feet on the paved floor said enough about its mass. Despite the padded gloves, one punch would definitely put me out of the game. The thing didn't move very quickly, but fast enough that I couldn't stand there waiting for it.

  I moved back and to the side before the steadily advancing golem and fired a few quick, probing Spindles at it. Blue light flickered briefly and faded when the invisible air skewers struck the thing, missing the surface. A kinetic barrier, as expected. The shots could’ve taken down a flesh-and-blood human easily enough, but the rock figure’s shielding showed no weakness. The golem didn’t even react and kept up its pursuit.

  I didn’t think I’d win so easily, but it was even more robust than I imagined.

  The Professor did say inflicting enough damage earned you a pass. I assumed he meant the amount of energy absorbed by that barrier. Inflicting enough damage. Between the lines, he was saying that destroying the golem was impossible.

  They weren’t going to give away a hundred points for no effort. Maybe the test was meant to be lost all along? A humiliation intended to teach arrogant novices intoxicated by their success in the corridor how small they really were in the grand scheme of things?

  No, if I unloaded my full capacity’s worth of attacks on the golem nonstop for five minutes, I could likely earn a passing grade, even with a handicap. But the puzzles tired me out, and having to go all-out on such a toy was a humiliation of its own.

  I was supposed to keep a low profile, but my professional pride was on the line here. True expertise was expressed by obtaining the best possible result with the least amount of effort. So my Master once taught me.

  Let’s see…

  Golems used to be fairly popular about a thousand years ago. Any leader would rather make soulless dolls fight wars for them than send the people needed to keep the country running. Golems were effective too, at first. An ordinary foot soldier could do very little against a titan of stone.

  But anything a wizard could make, another wizard could break, and countermeasures were eventually developed. In time, trying to cover every possible vulnerability in design made golem construction too slow and expensive to be worth it, and they fell out of fashion. There was even a crazy story about a king who bankrupted his own country trying to build an invincible golem army. I hoped it was only a myth.

  But thanks to the abundant field data, wizards now had many ways to deal with golems.

  Breaking the physical frame or destroying the core were the most obvious and well-known methods, but also the most difficult. Protecting the frame and power source were the key design goals in golem construction. A Tier 2 mage couldn’t exert the necessary destructive potential to pierce even normal stone.

  The third method was to attack the spell framework that moved the otherwise lifeless puppet. Even if the core remained intact, disabling the power feed of vital components would render the thing harmless.

  That was going to be my only chance to clear the challenge.

  I fired a few more shots to study the shielding. I wasn't going to be able to interfere with the frame, while the barrier was in the way. But it seemed focused on the front side, and the coverage didn’t extend all the way around to the rear. Maybe the back part was less protected? If the protective casing had total coverage, no maintenance could be done on the puppet either.

  I had to somehow get behind it.

  That was easier said than done. When I circled the golem, it stopped and started to pivot. The maker had programmed it to always face towards the opponent, probably to protect the vulnerable backside. As unathletic as I was, I couldn't run fast enough to outpace the rotation. It wouldn't fall for feints, but kept its orientation fixed on my center of gravity, like there was an unseen thread between us.

  Only magic could solve this deadlock.

  I took a step left to get the golem to start turning and then dashed right. It seamlessly followed—but became jammed. I used the faux telekinesis to lock its knee joint in place and sprinted in.

  The control scheme was quite potent. The stone puppet slowly pushed through the resistance, even though I was throwing everything I had at that one ball joint. Moving and not grounding myself properly reduced the output. The golem kept slowly, steadily turning, the leg part starting to steam, hot air blasting against it in vicious four-inch waves, red eyes glaring through the haze.

  I could hold it no longer. The telekinesis dispelled, I dove head-first past the golem’s side, behind it, and rolled over. My feet again on the floor, rising, I conjured the String loop, condensed the revolving circle to the maximum intensity, fixed it to my right hand position, and slashed across the small of the golem’s back—where the control system’s powerline ran, embedded under the surface.

  An inch through enchanted rock; that was the best I could do at my present capacity.

  The magical saw blade that had sliced alabaster like butter reached no deeper into the body of ensorcelled granite. The other lines to the limbs were buried too deep for me to reach. But this one line did the job.

  The hips disconnected from the core, the legs lost power, and the rock figure slowly fell on its face with a blunt boom. Maybe it could've fought on with only its head and arms, but the thing’s creator hadn't implemented such movement patterns. Rock was still rock. It couldn't do what it wasn't specifically made to do.

  The match was over

  I didn’t think that took five minutes.

  “Are we done here?” I asked the Professor and dusted my pants.

  The man stared at the fallen golem and then at me, looking rather daft.

  “Um, what just happened?” he finally asked me.

  “Do I need to explain it?”

  Asking another mage about her personal techniques was considered a faux pass in the industry. It was like asking, “How can I best stab you in the back?” A bit macabre, even if you were only innocently curious.

  “...No, I suppose you don't have to,” the Professor replied, thinking again.

  He went and crouched to examine the lightly fuming golem ruin closer and scratched his head.

  “You've certainly done a number on him. This isn't quite the way this trial was meant to be cleared, but…The maker did say, ‘if anyone can actually break Old Ben, give them a million points, ha, ha, ha!’ Well, I can't do that, but I'll mark the bonus stage as completed for you. Congratulations, Ruthford. Guess I’ll be taking the shots myself for the rest of the day…”

  “Thank you, and good luck, Professor,” I said and turned to leave the way I’d come.

  “Ah, just a moment!”

  “Hm?”

  Now the smile of a friendly uncle on his face, the Professor came over to hand me a small, brown paper bag. Don’t tell me…

  “Here’s your grand prize for clearing the Corridor!” he said. “Have a sweet day!”

  Yes. It was a whole bag of candy.