"Let's play a treasure hunt!"
"How original"
"It's not the same like in the capital!"
Liliya once again want to explore the academy while playing a game. But this time, the twins is not alone
"I don't feel like it" (Dream)
"Uh huh, just said you are scared by the principal warning" (Hiiro)
"What" (Dream)
Rea warns them that in Theodore, there are many mysterious things and dangerous places like the Treant forest
"Bruh, i already read all the basics to survive Theodore last night" (Dream)
"What! You read that thick book?" (Liliya)
Yep, Dream can't sleep last night, then decided to read the said basic to survive. It contains a lot of dangerous places, dangerous things, and not-to-do list.
He didn't wrote that, it's probably the corrections of plot hole, because he wrote Hiiro facing many things that dangerous in this academy, but only him that suffering all of that. That means they all already read that guide book except for him
"Great! Now we have a guide, we can explore with more ease" (Liliya)
"…what, no" (Dream)
"So, what's the 'different' this time?" (Hiiro)
"Hehe, that's-" (Liliya)
"Listen you piece of sh*t, don't ignore me" (Dream)
Celyn walk closer to Dream and gesture him to lower his head. Dream comply, then she whispered
"I don't want something like the last time happen again… so please be our guide and I will not tell master that you are lusting over my panties before"
Dream froze. It's the first time he heard Celyn say a long sentences, and now he knows that Selena didn't teach her in the right way. He nodded obediently
"Nice Celyn! Okay, here's the objective!"
There's 5 bell towers on the map, if we ring all of them, the fountain of wish will opened. It's actually official! That means they need permission, so they come to the principal office and meet Rea
"But there's a challenge in each of the towers, do you guys really want to go now?"
"Yes Mrs Silvermoon! Is it okay even though we still aren't students yet?"
"Hmm, actually the challenge is a bit difficult for freshman…but if you really want to, then i will grant permission"
"Don't need to feel down if you can't complete the test, you can come to me if you need any assistance"
"Yes, thank you Mrs Silvermoon"
(She is so kind! I feel sorry for misunderstand her yesterday)
(Yeah, she is an approachable kind, let's get along with her sometimes)
(Yup)
*
Challenge 1: Stairless Tower
We arrived at the first tower. Like the name said, there's nothing here except the bell high above.
"It's very tall, can we reach it with magic?" (Hiiro)
"…"
"…"
"…"
"Let's race!" (Liliya)
Swish-Swish-Swish-Swish-
"
A man sized bubble lift Celyn up. She used slow approach to safe mana… or napping
"
Liliya use a normal way of mages to fly. Using fire to speed up, she was flying up like a rocket
"Hmph, classic old way. Heh, let me show them the might of modern world
Dream has created a new spell that no one in this world can do. With his supreme control over ice, he succeeded copying the modern science technology with magic. He created an ice motorcycle!
Putting on a helmet and racing suit, he drive to the wall and increase his speed. Before he hit the wall, he raise the front wheel off the ground and pull out a wheelie!
"
The wheel touches the wall and start going up using the wall as a new ground. The motorcycle leaves a trail of ice on the wall and start to catch up to Liliya
"WOOHOOOO!" (Dream)
"Eh? What is that!?" (Liliya)
"This is the one that will beat you, milady! Haha" (Dream)
"Isn't you are too excited!? You break your character" (Liliya)
"All boys will be the like this if they try the same!" (Dream)
Meanwhile Hiiro that didn't like to losing a race use his strongest magic at the start. A white magic circle appear in front of him, then after chanting, he walk towards it
"
SWING-
He turned into light and start going up using the wall. The light magic enchance his speed by hundred fold. He didn't even need to use gravity spell like Dream, the gravity can't pull him anymore. Soon enough he catch up the duo that started first
"What! Cheater! You are using ultimate at the start in a game" (Dream)
"Ugh i need to speed up,
Liliya burst up her speed, but soon she encounter difficulty that wasn't taught by this world. When someone reach a certain altitude, the oxygen in the air will fall. She got a problem in breathing
"Ha, ha, ah"
Fall-
Her fire dissipated and Liliya fell. Without oxygen, she lose consciousness for a while, so she cannot use magic to support her
"Liliya!"
They can't stop abruptly, so Liliya fall past them. Then
Plop-
She fall into a bubble that Celyn has prepare when she saw Liliya falling
"Haa fortunately I already prepared for situation like this. You always reckless" (Celyn)
"Hehe- hah, hah, thanks Lyn"
Meanwhile, Hiiro and Dream still going up. Dream using a helmet not for protect his skull if he fall after all, he used it like an astronaut helmet, the same for his suit. So he's safe even if he go up in the outer space for real
Hiiro on the other hand, didn't prepared anything, he believes he can go up and ring the bell before he lose consciousness. With his speed, he soon surpass Dream and the distance only widen as time passing
But then they start noticing something wrong. They already passed a few miles, but the bell still looks like in the same distance. They didn't get near it at all. Dream looked down, but he can't saw Celyn and Liliya anymore. Dream then try to connect with Hiiro
"
(Hey, is it an illusion?)
(How you can use magic… forget it. I think we entered a different realm every time we passed some point)
(So, we will just enter it again and again?)
(There must be a limit, after all we still going up even now… catch me)
Hiiro stopped going up and slowly falling down. The gravity already decreases, if they go up, they really will levitate and can't go down if they losing consciousness. Dream catch Hiiro and come back to others
A few moments later, they passed the certain point and Liliya and Celyn appeared in front of them, so the other way around
"WAH you surprised me" (Liliya)
"You got something?" (Dream)
"A pocket dimension, or we can say an exact copy is placed at this point and so on" (Celyn)
"How about the gravity? The height still count up and up" (Hiiro)
"It's the tower doing. The tower have a magic command that reacts at certain conditions" (Celyn)
That means, the tower is judging their action. When they are going up, the tower decreases their gravity and oxygen
"We used a bubble to going up and we didn't feel ill or hard to breathe, because the tower thinks we didn't go up at all so it didn't decrease the oxygen" (Celyn)
(Let's go down first, I need some air) (Hiiro)
(Ah yes) (Liliya)
"Let's go down" (Liliya)
A few moments later
"What do we do now?" (Liliya)
""hmmm""
"You say you deceived the tower, If we know what the tower can do and cannot do, maybe we will get something to use" (Dream)
"So how we do that?"
"Simple, cheat the reality. Like what Celyn used, she going up without really trying to go up. The bubbles carried her up. And there's really many ways to cheat the reality. It's magic"
Then, they tried it. But only Dream can come up with many ideas. The others didn't really help much
"…is you are really Dream?" (Liliya)
"Lady Liliya, you has become more rude lately. I proud of you" (Dream)
"W-what, no. I mean, umm sorry" (Liliya)
"Don't blame her, you aren't so smart usually" (Hiiro)
"Hey! If you are like that, then do it yourself oh smartass" (Dream)
For them, magic is a part of reality. But for Dream, magic is a cheat. So he knows many ways to deceive the reality. Because he lived in a world without a cheat, he can differentiate between reality and magic more than others
On the other hand, Celyn that writing the results of everything they tries, is the one that thinks differently
'Dream is the smartest here after all, i have seen what he's capable of when we train together. He just bad socially, he didn't think when saying something, and his decision is not the brightest… how can he be smart and dumb at the same time?'
In this world, IQ and EQ is not invented yet. Basically, Dream's IQ is high but his EQ is low. He can think, but he is lazy. So his methods is always direct. But when he needs to, he will show his high intellect like this time
"Hey Dream, can you teach me?"
Liliya become more interested and ask Dream directly. Lately, she has lack of creativity to do something fun. Actually it by no means lacking, she just has used all of her card and can't think any more
"Okay, so here's a question. What object cannot fly in reality?"
"Emm… it's hard. Is it ground? Wait no, is it sky?"
Dream is speechless. For mages, all things can fly because they can use magic
"Many object can't fly without using magic. So in reality, there's many things that can't fly"
""Ohhh""
Dream didn't realize, but he has set a new path for them in pursuing magic. All of them enlightened by his words
"So, so, this coin can't fly. But if we fly it with magic, it can deceive the tower and reach the bell without it knowing right?" (Liliya)
"Maybe, but the tower is too tall, can your magic reach the bell above?" (Dream)
Liliya dejected. She wants to clear all the towers, but it's more harder than she thought, they can't even clear one
"Liliya, do you want to continue? We probably can't clear this tower today with this pace" (Hiiro)
"But… i at least want to clear one…" (Liliya)
Dream think for a while whether to help her or not. If he didn't, they will stuck inside the tower until dark. Liliya has known the tower is above their league so she probably will not search for other tower after this. 'I want to sleep, let's clear it and go to bed'
"I know! I found the answer" (Dream)
"Eh really? Great, what is it?"
"What is the way to climb a tower and ring the bell?"
"Hmm… with stairs? But there isn't any stairs… hah is it?"
"Yep, the tower is following the rule of reality but it's existence itself are already denying the reality. We need justices right? Let's make it turn to the right path"
Dream created a staircase that going diagonally to second floor, then they stepped up. After that, he created the second staircase for the third floor. Then, without Dream doing anything, a wood staircase appeared for the fourth, fifth, and so on
The tower created a stairs itself after Dream showed it what its supposed to be. Then, they go upstairs, step by step, and reach the top floor. The tower bell are shining. They hold the hammer and count together
"Three"
"Two"
"One!"
DONG- DONG- DONG-
The tower bell ringing and reach all around Theodore academy. Everyone in the academy are surprised, the semester still not started yet and many students still in their hometown. The only one that are inside is someone that choose to stay. They started guessing who is the one that cleared the tower challenge
The only one who knows even more surprised. Rea can't believe what she heard, usually only someone that almost graduated can ring one or two bell.
Of course there's an exception like the abberant magic Starlight that cleared four towers in just a day at her second year. But they aren't a freshman yet, but already cleared one in just 5 hours
"Haa~ it feels good. I will back first then, bye"
"What do you mean guide? We still didn't explore around the academy yet~"
"…"
Run-
"Hey!"
Dream run with all his might but they didn't stop him. After all, he already showed them the best one, that is to clear the tower. They probably can't clear that without him and his idea
"Haa~ looks like we will go around without a guide"
Run-
"Eh, Celyn??"
Celyn still remembering her traumatic experience, run without an explanation
"Haaah" (Liliya)
"Looks like it just the two of us" (Hiiro)
(Like a date?)
(Sha ri shi shiki fu i ku ku fu i shiki shiki soku ze ku ku soku ze shiki)
(….What are you thinking?)
(It's Heart Sutra, let's go)
(…hmmph)