Chapter 13: The Puppet Corridor
The sun had begun its descent behind the jagged peaks of the surrounding mountains, painting the sky in hues of bruised purple and bleeding orange. Long, skeletal shadows stretched across the Academy's northern training grounds, reaching out like grasping fingers toward the exhausted students.
Of the five thousand who had entered the Forest of Nightmares, only three thousand remained standing. The rest had been carried out on stretchers, victims of beast attacks or their own Incompetence. Those of us left were ragged. Robes were torn, faces were smeared with mud and dried blood, and the air was thick with the smell of sweat and fear.
But the exam was not over.
We stood before a massive archway carved directly into the side of the mountain. It was pitch black inside, a gaping maw that seemed to swallow the light. Above the arch, ancient runes glowed with a faint, menacing red light, spelling out two words:
PUPPET CORRIDOR.
"Attention, maggots!"
The voice boomed like a cannon shot, startling several students who were on the verge of collapsing. The Combat Proctor, a giant of a man with scars crossing his face like a road map of violence, stood on a raised platform. He wore heavy plate armor that looked battered, implying he saw more combat than any teacher should.
"This is the final physical test," the Proctor announced, his voice grating like gravel. "The Test of Combat Potential."
He pointed a thick finger into the dark tunnel.
"Inside this corridor await one hundred Battle Golems. They are ancient constructs powered by Spirit Stones, programmed with one directive: To stop you. The rules are simple. You enter. You fight. You advance."
He held up a hand to forestall the groans rising from the crowd.
"10 meters is a Pass. 30 meters is Good. 50 meters is Excellent. And 100 meters… well, no freshman has cleared the full corridor in the last fifty years. The golems get stronger the deeper you go. At the end, they are tougher than steel and hit harder than a landslide."
He grinned, a terrifying expression that revealed a gold tooth. "Weapons are allowed. Artifacts are allowed. If you get knocked unconscious, the golems will drag you out. Try not to die."
A heavy silence descended. Most students were trembling. They barely had the strength to lift their swords, let alone fight magical tanks.
"Move aside."
The silence was broken by a voice dripping with arrogance. The crowd parted instinctively, revealing Prince Valerian.
Despite the chaotic day, Valerian had somehow managed to change into a fresh set of golden robes. He had a black eye—courtesy of a monkey in the forest—but he wore it like a badge of honor. He walked with his chest puffed out, his hand resting on the hilt of a gleaming sword.
"I will show you how a True Genius of the Western Empire fights," Valerian declared loud enough for the back row to hear. "I don't just aim to pass. I aim to set a record."
He stopped in front of me. He looked me up and down, sneering at my simple black robes and the fact that Anya was currently eating a biscuit she had pulled from her pocket.
"And you," Valerian spat, pointing a manicured finger at my chest. "Ye Clan Trash. You survived the forest by hiding and eating like a savage. But here? There is nowhere to hide."
I picked a piece of bear meat out of my teeth with a fingernail. "Is there a point to this speech, or are you just practicing your monologue for the school play?"
Valerian's face flushed red. The students around us gasped. Nobody talked to a Prince like that.
"I bet I can clear 60 meters," Valerian hissed. "And I bet you won't even pass the 10-meter mark."
I looked at him lazily. "A bet? I'm listening. What are the stakes?"
Valerian's eyes shifted. They landed on Ria, standing silently behind me. Even in the dusty training ground, she looked pristine, her silver hair shimmering in the twilight. Lust and greed flashed in Valerian's eyes.
"If I win," Valerian said, a predatory smile forming on his lips, "you give me your maid. A beauty like that is wasted on a peasant. She deserves to serve royalty."
The air temperature dropped ten degrees instantly.
Ria didn't move. She didn't scowl. She simply tilted her head slightly. Her hand moved—so fast it was a blur—toward the sword case on her back.
"Master," Ria's voice echoed in my mind, cold as liquid nitrogen. "Permission to dismantle the Prince. I can remove his limbs with 98% efficiency. He will survive. Probably."
'Stand down, Ria,' I replied internally. 'He's not worth the laundry bill.'
I looked at Valerian. "And if I win?"
"You won't," Valerian scoffed. "But if a miracle happens and you beat my distance… I will give you ten thousand Spirit Stones."
Ten thousand. That was enough to buy a small city block. Or, more importantly, enough to buy the rare ores I needed to upgrade Ria's chassis.
"Deal," I said instantly. "Ria, record the contract."
"recorded, Master," Ria said aloud, her voice carrying across the plaza.
Valerian drew his sword. It was a High-Grade Mortal Weapon, glowing with wind enchantments. "Watch and learn, peasant."
He charged Into the tunnel.
The projection screens above the entrance flickered to life. We saw Valerian dashing into the darkness.
"Wind Style: Gale Slash!"
Valerian was fast. I had to give him that. The first ten meters were filled with Wooden Golems. Valerian didn't even slow down. He spun like a top, his blade releasing arcs of wind that chopped the wooden constructs into kindling.
"20 meters!" the crowd cheered.
At the 30-meter mark, the golems changed. They were now Iron Golems, heavy and durable. Valerian gritted his teeth. He activated the enchantments on his sword. The blade glowed green. He weaved between their heavy punches, striking at their joints.
CLANG. SPARK.
He was struggling, but he was advancing.
At the 50-meter mark, the golems became Star-Steel. These constructs were sleek, fast, and incredibly tough.
Valerian was sweating buckets. A Star-Steel golem swung a mace at his head. Valerian barely ducked, losing a lock of his blonde hair.
"Damn it!" Valerian screamed. "Thunderclap Slash!"
He unleashed his trump card—a technique that consumed massive Qi. A bolt of lightning coated his blade. He struck the golem, blasting it backward.
But there were three more behind it.
Valerian swung wildly, managing to knock one down, but his sword chipped on its armor. He stumbled, exhausted, his Qi drained.
He collapsed at the 52-meter mark.
The golems stopped attacking the moment he hit the ground. Two service golems dragged him out by his feet.
Valerian emerged, panting, bleeding, but grinning.
"52 meters!" the Proctor announced, nodding in approval. "A new record for this year's batch. Excellent work, Prince."
The crowd erupted in applause. Valerian stood up, wiping blood from his lip. He looked at me with triumph.
"Beat that," he wheezed. "Go on. Let's see you crawl to 10 meters."
I sighed. I patted Anya on the head. "Wait here, munchkin. Big Brother needs to go earn some money."
"Get lots of money!" Anya cheered.
I walked up to the tunnel entrance. The Proctor looked at me, then at my empty hands.
"Student 999," the Proctor grunted. "Where is your weapon? You cannot fight golems with bare hands. You'll break your fingers."
"Ria," I extended my hand without looking back.
Ria reached into the luggage cart. She bypassed the fine swords and spears we had looted. Instead, she pulled out a long, rusted, jagged iron rod. It looked like a piece of rebar ripped from a demolished building.
I took it. It was heavy, unbalanced, and ugly. Perfect.
"This will do," I said, giving it a test swing. Whoosh. "I don't want to damage my real blade on these toys."
The crowd went silent for a second, then burst into laughter.
"Is he serious?"
"He's going to fight Star-Steel Golems with a rusty pipe?"
"He's mocking the exam!"
I ignored them and stepped into the darkness.
The air inside the tunnel was stale and smelled of ozone.
The first golem, a simple wooden dummy, stepped out of the shadows. Its eyes glowed with a faint blue light. It raised a clumsy wooden fist.
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second.
'Seal 2: Divine Blacksmith—Activate.'
When I opened my eyes, the world had changed. I didn't see a wooden doll. I saw a schematic. I saw the flow of mana powering its core. I saw the grain of the wood. And, most importantly, I saw the flaws.
'Sloppy,' I analyzed instantly. 'The fulcrum at the left elbow is misaligned by 2 millimeters. The central axis pin is made of low-grade copper. One tap is all it takes.'
The golem swung.
I didn't dodge. I took a casual half-step to the left. The fist breezed past my ear.
I brought the rusty iron rod up and tapped the golem's elbow. I didn't use strength; I used physics.
Tap.
It wasn't a hard hit. But it hit the exact stress point of the mechanism.
The golem shuddered. The arm detached, spinning away. The sudden loss of weight caused the torso to torque violently to the right. The cheap copper pin in the waist snapped.
Clatter.
The golem collapsed into a pile of disjointed lumber.
I stepped over the pile and kept walking.
Three Iron Golems emerged from the walls at the 20-meter mark. They were heavy, lumbering beasts of metal.
They charged, the ground shaking with their footsteps.
I walked toward them. I didn't run. I didn't shout a technique name.
'Iron Golems. Cast in three parts. Weakness: The neck seal rivets are rusted.'
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I moved through them like water. My iron rod lashed out three times.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
The first golem's head fell off.
The second golem's knee joint exploded, sending it face-first into the wall.
The third golem's power core housing cracked, causing it to power down instantly.
I walked past them before they even hit the ground.
Outside, the laughter had died. The projection screen showed me walking through the tunnel with a bored expression, dismantling the Academy's expensive constructs like I was taking apart Lego bricks.
"He… he isn't fighting them," a student whispered, horrified. "He's… unmaking them."
"How does he know?" Valerian muttered, his face turning pale. "How does he know exactly where to hit?"
I reached the 50-meter mark. The Star-Steel Golems.
These were fast. They moved with fluid grace, wielding dual blades.
One lunged at me, aiming for my throat.
"Too much ornamentation," I critiqued. "The engraving on the chest plate weakens the structural integrity."
I sidestepped the blade and thrust the blunt end of my rod into the decorative lion crest on the golem's chest.
CRUNCH.
The rod punched through the steel plate and shattered the Spirit Stone inside. The golem dropped dead.
I didn't stop. 60 meters. 70 meters. 80 meters.
At the 90-meter mark, the tunnel widened into a large chamber.
The final boss.
A massive Obsidian Golem stood there. It was fifteen feet tall, carved from black volcanic glass. It radiated the aura of a Late Core Formation expert. In its hand, it held a stone hammer the size of a carriage.
This was the wall that no freshman was supposed to pass.
"Intruder…" the golem rumbled, its voice grinding stone. "Halt."
I looked up at it.
"Obsidian," I mused. "Volcanic glass. Extremely hard, but brittle. High mana conductivity, but weak to vibration."
The golem raised the hammer. It swung down. The attack was strong enough to flatten a tank.
I didn't move until the last microsecond.
BOOM.
The hammer smashed into the ground where I had been standing, sending shockwaves through the tunnel. Stone shrapnel flew everywhere.
I was already in the air. I had jumped onto the handle of the hammer. I ran up the golem's arm.
"Get… off…" the golem roared, trying to swat me.
I reached its shoulder. I looked at the massive obsidian neck.
To anyone else, this was an impenetrable fortress.
To me, the Divine Blacksmith, I saw the microscopic fractures created during the cooling process when this golem was forged centuries ago.
"You were cooled too quickly," I told the golem. "Your maker was impatient."
I spun the rusty rod in my hand. I infused a tiny thread of Void Qi into the tip to harden it.
I drove the rod into a hairline fracture on the golem's neck.
TING.
A high-pitched sound echoed.
I grabbed the rod and twisted it. I sent a vibration pulse through the metal.
Crack…
The sound started small. Then it grew.
A crack appeared on the golem's neck. It raced down the chest, across the arms, down to the legs.
CRACK-BOOM.
The Obsidian Golem didn't just break; it shattered.
Thousands of shards of black glass rained down like hail. The massive construct disintegrated into a pile of shiny rubble.
I landed gracefully on top of the pile of glass.
100 Meters. Complete.
I walked out the exit of the tunnel. The sunlight hit my face. I tossed the rusted rod aside. It clattered loudly on the stone pavement, the only sound in a deafeningly silent plaza.
The Combat Proctor was staring at me with his mouth open. The cigar he had been smoking had fallen onto his armor, burning a hole in the cape, but he didn't notice.
"Student 999…" the Proctor choked out. "Clear. 100 meters."
I dusted off my hands. "Your maintenance crew is lazy. The Obsidian Golem had micro-fractures. You should get that checked."
I walked over to where Prince Valerian was standing. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He was trembling.
"Impossible…" Valerian whispered. "You… you cheated. You must have used a Breaking Artifact!"
"I used a piece of scrap iron," I corrected. I held out my hand. "Pay up."
Valerian swallowed. He looked at the crowd, then at the Proctor, then at Ria, who was watching him with a predatory gaze. He knew he couldn't back out.
With shaking hands, he pulled a pouch from his spatial ring and dropped it into my palm.
"Ten thousand," he choked out. "Enjoy it while you can, peasant."
I weighed the pouch. It was heavy. Satisfying.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Your Highness," I grinned. "Next time you want to bet, let me know. I also accept artifacts, real estate, and rare herbs."
I tossed the pouch to Ria. "Pocket money. Buy Anya some ice cream."
"Understood, Master," Ria said, catching the pouch without looking.
I looked back at the Puppet Corridor.
One hundred broken golems. A new record. And a nice payday.
"Next test," I called out to the stunned Proctor. "I'm on a roll."