Elliot was his same old self: the moment he came through the door he spread his arms wide and lunged at Adam, shouting, "My friend, I knew you wouldn't die!"
Adam gave him a hug, and then Elliot said, "All right, no more of this place today. Come with me and enjoy some real academy life. James, you and the others come too—being too solitary doesn't help you improve. You've got to enjoy life once in a while, don't you?"
Adam couldn't hold out against his enthusiasm, and he didn't want to spurn the goodwill of the first friend to visit him since his return, so he left the laboratory with him.
Adam's life really had been dry and flavorless.
In the first year everyone had to brace themselves for the trial and its assessment; apart from apprentices who had given up on themselves, no one had the time to enjoy life. Adam had fallen into a coma right after passing, and that was exactly when the apprentices who passed settled into the easygoing life of the academy: apart from one mission a year, barring emergencies like an academy war, they could live inside the academy until they died if they liked.
And so they were astonished to discover how many interesting places the academy had.
There was the combat hall, for instance, where apprentices were fully shielded and could fight with everything they had without any fear for their lives. The driving-simulation hall, the knight-simulation hall—there was even a red-light district.
The entertainment venues were staffed by every sort of race and every sort of station; pay enough energy stones and you could have a flawless experience.
Elliot was taking them to a private bar that served only powerful apprentices. The bar was academy property, no one ever dared start trouble there, and every apprentice qualified to enter was envied by all the rest.
"How do they judge whether an apprentice is qualified to enter?" William asked curiously after hearing Elliot's explanation.
Elliot smiled mysteriously and did not answer, only leading them onward until they reached a door standing abruptly in the middle of open ground. Then he pointed at it and said, "Simple. Anyone can try. As long as you can walk through it, you're qualified."
James and Frank were eager to give it a try. They both knew this bar existed, but they had never been qualified to enter before, and they had no idea whether they had improved enough by now.
"I'll go first." Frank stepped up and pushed open the black door. Adam saw that inside it seemed to be a runic barrier. Frank stepped forward nervously, and a film of light split off from the runic barrier and wrapped itself around him. Frank's brows knitted tight; three minutes later the light film dimmed, and Frank vanished from where he stood.
James stepped up second, walking to the door just as nervously. He took longer than Frank—nearly five minutes before he successfully entered the bar.
Elliot said, "I didn't expect those two to improve so much in one year. They never had the qualification to enter the apprentice bar before."
William asked nervously, "Mr. Elliot, what exactly is the qualification to enter?"
"Simple. The runic barrier separates out a set of runes to serve as the key. If you can construct it within five minutes, you're qualified to open the first door. Then, so long as the apprentice has settled on their own path, they can pass the second door."
William felt himself relax. So it wasn't the total amount of spiritual power being tested—that was good. In the laboratory, though he fell short of the two senior apprentices in total spiritual power, his learning speed was no worse; if the only requirement was construction speed, he was confident he could manage.
So he walked forward full of confidence, and sure enough, it took him only two minutes to walk into the bar.
William found the apprentice bar a dreamlike place. Here there was no up, down, left, or right; it seemed to be an independent, floating fantasy world. Stars blazed across the sky, countless runes flickered like neon, soothing music stirred ripples in everyone's heart, and the mental exhaustion of so long seemed to be swept away in an instant.
There were not many people in the bar. James and Frank seemed to have found acquaintances and had sat down on the other side. Turning, he actually saw Cristel sitting alone on a bar stool, tasting red wine. She wore a plain blue-green robe; her face was far from beautiful, but her bearing was impossible to ignore.
When she saw William, Cristel raised her glass and invited him to sit, then said, "Congratulations on joining the apprentice bar."
William gave James and Frank an apologetic smile. Just then an alchemy puppet walked over and set a drinks menu in front of William.
William, born to a great noble house, was no stranger to such things. Though it was his first time here, he ordered his drink with practiced ease, and after paying a hefty sum of energy stones, he said to Cristel, "So you..."
Cristel put a finger to her lips to signal that William should not speak, then pointed at a light screen directly in front of them.
William looked toward the light screen and found that what it showed was the scene outside the door—and the one walking up to the door now was Adam.
William was not worried about Adam in the slightest. A test he could pass would never stop Adam.
"I'm going in first—come find me downstairs, my treat today." With that, Elliot walked straight into the bar. Like William, he did not believe for a moment that Adam could fail this door.
Elliot was probably the most widely connected person in the academy. The taste of his potions made people uncomfortable, but that did not hurt his popularity.
After entering the bar he walked over to a group of apprentices casually, then invited James and Frank over, ordered a great pile of drinks with a grand gesture, and raised his glass to watch the light screen.
"That's Adam, isn't it? Haven't seen him in ages. I heard he was attacked by a full-fledged Magefoe?" a former acquaintance from the library asked Elliot.
"Yes, that's right. But my friend withstood the magic and survived." Elliot raised his glass. "Let's drink to him."
Everyone clinked glasses and drank—not that they were truly happy for Adam; they simply wanted an excuse to drink.
"I never thought you two could get in here. Seems Adam's research results really are something?" A senior apprentice raised his glass toward James and Frank and asked with a teasing smile.
Neither of them got angry. After all, it was true, and the man asking probably meant no harm. They smiled and drank down what was in their glasses.
"Hey, Elliot, Adam seems to have run into some trouble."
Adam had indeed run into trouble: the apprentice bar was refusing to let him in.
The first test was not hard. The few runes making up the key were a little complex, but they were no obstacle to Adam; one glance and he constructed them exactly. But the second test kept Adam outside.
The second test asked the apprentice what field of knowledge they intended to research in order to advance to full-fledged Mage. For the other apprentices holding a "key," that was no problem at all; once their spiritual power and learning ability reached a certain level, they settled the matter at once, and it was usually bound up with their own soul affinity.
But for Adam—what is my own path?
Psychokinesis? He had long since abandoned that. In Adam's hands, psychokinesis was destined to serve only as a supplementary tool.
Elemental magic? Yet as things stood now, Adam had shown no affinity for any single element.
As for the other paths, Adam had never put any effort into that knowledge at all.
Only now did Adam realize that he had been building his cart behind closed doors all this time, and he did not even know what kind of cart he wanted to build.
Just as Adam was pondering in silence and Elliot and the others in the bar were exchanging glances, another group of people came up behind Adam.
"Brother Korvo, is this the bar that legend says only genius apprentices can enter?" a sugary female voice said.
"That's right, the apprentice bar, where the geniuses gather. I hear that no one from our batch or the batch before us has qualified to enter yet. If Big Brother Korvo succeeds today, it's bound to cause a sensation," a male voice said flatteringly.
"Really? Brother Korvo is sure to make it!" another female voice said right on its heels, unwilling to let the first girl steal the spotlight.
The voices drew closer and at last stopped right behind Adam. The very stupidest fools had been weeded out long ago; anyone who had survived this long would at least not make the crude mistake of looking down on someone. They whispered among themselves, waiting for the final result of Adam's test.
The apprentice named Korvo was a handsome youth. He realized that he had never seen Adam before, but from the look of him, Adam did not seem the type who could pass.
Sure enough, Adam was ejected by the runic barrier.
He stood to one side and thought for a moment, then pushed the door open again.
After three rounds of this, the sugary female voice finally could not hold back. She walked up in front and said to Adam, "If you can't pass, could you step aside first? Don't waste everyone's time."
Adam frowned and stepped aside a ways, still thinking. He was not a completely unreasonable person, and he knew that right now he truly had no way to pass the test.
Korvo walked to the front and first said to the woman, "Sally, don't talk like that." Then, to Adam, "My apologies, my companion was rude. Please don't take it to heart."
Adam suddenly lifted his head and said, as if asking a question, or perhaps simply thinking aloud, "What exactly is my own path?"
Unexpectedly, Korvo actually answered: "A path is different for every person. If you've shown soul affinity, you just research along that line; if you haven't, you need to work harder and experiment more. That's something no one else can help you with."
Adam nodded to him, then walked forward.
What Elliot and the others in the bar saw was exactly this scene. They knew Adam's temper well, and fearing that he might strike and kill someone in this place where fighting was forbidden, they hurried out of the bar.