Sometimes, there were some things too wondrous to fully grasp, and indeed the wide-eyed Astra stared with his mouth agape at the grand castle which so softly rested on a bed of clouds high above. It was a sight plopped right out of a fairytale, those dreamy walls and high tranquil towers. But there was just one problem.

  How was he supposed to get up there?

  “Now that’s a sight you don’t see everyday!” Mister Riot the emcee said. “The kids are nearing the end, but don’t get too complacent now… the next trial’s the hardest of them all, cause to get to the finish line you’ll have to find the hidden wrinkle in Aravinci the Enchanted Castle. All sorts of WACKY, CONFUSING, and positively MIND-BOGGLING tricks await to twist your senses every step of the way! But you’ll have to enter it first. I hope you all have wings, or else you’ll have to find a different way—

  “Hm? Wait a minute, that can’t be right…”

  Mister Riot stuttered over his words for a moment, turning away from the audience and listening to a voice from inside his lift. For the first time he broke character and stopped his flashy showmanship, as a loud gasp of shock soon escaped him; Mister Riot was utterly bewildered. He took a moment to collect himself before styling his hair and returning to the game.

  “Boys and girls, I’ve just received word of some CRAZY news!” he shouted. “Apparently, someone’s already crossed the finish line! You heard me right. First place is officially taken. Dang, how’d that slippery dude get there so fast? I didn’t even see him! But hey that’s the fun with competitions ain’t it? The mystery of a hidden powerhouse, the emotions surging ablaze from desperation, rivalry! That’s your cue to pick up the pace, kiddos. If you don’t hurry the rest of those top ten spots will be filled out in no time!”

  Astra nearly fell flat on his butt. Someone had already finished? It took him quite a bit just to get through the first two sections, but then again… he had a feeling he knew who the first-placer was. It was in moments like these that Astra was reminded of the wide gap between them, so vast and seemingly impassable for an ordinary kid to catch up to someone so beloved by the stars.

  Yet even so, Astra wasn’t discouraged. He was a bit behind the lead because he had stopped to help Bova at the volcano, but nonetheless it wasn’t over ‘til it was over, and there was still a chance for Astra to retake his place at the front.

  Thus he bolted forward, running toward the castle as quickly as his little feet could take him. He didn’t know exactly how he was gonna get up there. The other applicants seemed just as confused, lingering half-heartedly near the bottom of a hill. In front of them was a giant chasm that seemed to drop way, way down into a gloomy black pit, and all it’d take would be one clumsy step to fall where even the light failed to shine.

  No one knew what to do, where the path to the castle’s entrance might be. Some applicants tried to use their powers to get there, like the girl dressed in seashells Astra had seen before. She tried to float on a bubble of water and gradually rose up toward the sky, only to find her course suddenly halted by a violent gush of wind which sent her tumbling back below.

  Another applicant, a boy completely shirtless and wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, exposed his neck and after a confident shout grew a long, winding stretch of fish gills that kind of resembled wings. The boy jumped and used the wind as a lift, but in the end he was only gliding rather than flying. He couldn’t get up high enough to reach the castle.

  Everybody was quite stumped. Meanwhile, Astra wasn’t slowing down one bit. He inspected the area and searched for any possible clues, only to be met with a simple green field of grass. Nothing notable could be seen; and so Astra drew nearer and nearer toward the edge of the cliff. The others looked at him like he was crazy, and maybe he was. He certainly couldn’t believe what he was doing. His heart pumped and his breaths surged in a rush. He was preparing himself, oh yes. He gathered every bit of courage he had to do what was no doubt completely, wholly insane.

  Astra was going to risk it all, and jump into the pit.

  There was so, so much at stake for him right now, and to bet all of that on this quite silly—most definitely extreme—little gamble could cost him everything. Everything. From his promise to his parents, to Lady Selene, and to his new friend Colette… if this choice of his was wrong, then he’d end up just like all the other failed candidates.

  And yet, he knew this to be right.

  It wasn’t just instinct, of course. Astra wasn’t that reckless. Rather, it was an observation he made, a slight whistle in his ears that, to anyone else, would have been mistaken as simply the wind. But Astra knew that wasn’t all there was to it. He recognized that whistle from back when he’d play in the forests near his farm. Oftentimes, he’d encounter a few chasms, large drops preceded by a waterfall which poured out onto huge rolling lakes. Whenever he poked his head over the edge, he’d feel a powerful gush fly right into his face. He didn’t know why it happened. But he knew that it was possible.

  That in some occasions, that gush was powerful enough to send a little kid like him crashing back. So what if he applied the same thinking here… only on a bigger scale?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Astra sucked in his stomach. He barrelled ahead and closed his eyes, his skin prickling in goosebumps. The others watched him, incredulous. They thought what he was doing now was no different than giving up.

  With their attention all focused on him, Astra leapt, and he dove into the impermeable pit.

  Only a few seconds passed, but to the boy it felt like an eternity. He didn’t expect to fall so… fast. It was pretty scary, which was made even worse when he realized there was no going back from this, no way to even know when he’d crash—if there was even a bottom. But still he had faith in himself.

  And that faith rewarded him, for just as predicted a sudden gale crashed into his body and pushed him up, higher, beyond what should have been possible. It was as if countless tiny hands were propping him up now, steadily rising in height until Astra was flung out with a frantic flail of his arms, came right up to the outside, and then was taken all the way to the clouds. It was a rough feeling at first, then gentle and soft. Before he knew it, the boy got a mouthful of the white fluff and then was tossed onto solid ground next to the castle’s entrance.

  He could hear the people below shouting in disbelief. That wouldn’t last for long. Soon, they’d take the plunge too and would be following right behind him. Astra couldn’t waste this chance. He had to get moving and quick.

  Astra raised his hands and pushed the entrance wide open. Inside, a wonderland of strange and bizarre sights unlike anything he had ever seen unfolded before him. Stairs and hallways turned upside down, topsy turvy, moving and shifting from place to place like having minds of its own. No single place was ever the same for long; and they all led to a variety of rooms which, just from first glance, oozed danger.

  Trying to memorize the structure of this place—like Astra had done at the volcano—would be completely useless, so the boy did all he could and rushed into the nearest exit blindly. Now it was up to lady luck to guide his path.

  The first area he entered was some sort of library which held rows upon rows of books so numerous that it made the Tower’s collection seem small in comparison. The smell of musty leather immediately invaded his nostrils, and large open piles were messily scattered about. Astra wanted to get through the room quickly, but he also didn’t want to be rude and step on the books, so he compromised and tip-toed the fastest anyone had ever done before—probably.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Along the way, however, Astra tripped on a particularly heavy tome and fell flat on his face atop one of the piles. It was weird. He could’ve sworn there was nothing there at first. One moment he was stepping on the floor, and the next a book appeared out of nowhere.

  “Oops, I’m sorry!” Astra said, patting the books he accidentally crushed. He turned around and began to set off once more, when from behind he heard a slight rustle. And then a shake. And when he looked over his shoulder, something very quite peculiar met his gaze. The books were moving. No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say they were quivering? Intensely, angrily, their old worn pages flipping to the next as their spines turned upward and bounced toward Astra with pure unimigrated rage.

  The poor boy didn’t have the time to absorb what he had just seen before the living books descended on him, trying to chomp down on his legs, his arms, anything it could get its inky maw on. Fortunately Astra managed to shake most of it off and then fled through the open hall. As it turned out it wasn’t so open after all, because just like the terrors behind, books once neatly fitted in the shelves start to topple out and chase after the boy. It was on this day that he learned just how violent knowledge could be—literally.

  Book after book surrounded Astra from all sides. As a last ditch resort, he climbed and walked on the shelves, balancing on their thin base before hopping to the next. The books were powerless to catch him since, well, they didn’t have hands or even opposable thumbs. Their fate was to crawl on the floor until someone else took responsibility to put everything back in its proper place.

  With that, Astra succeeded in reaching the exit. Past the door he was greeted by the topsy turvy stairs once more, only now he could see a few of his fellow applicants far off in the distance. They were challenging the castle too.

  Astra didn’t receive any hints on where the final exit might be, so he went into another room, this one arranged into a gallery of paintings. It was a lot easier to navigate than the library, and under each painting was a short description of the piece, what it could represent, as well as the artist. Except it was all complete nonsense. The words were scrambled, and the rare coherent few were arranged in an incoherent string.

  The paintings themselves were… abstract, at least to Astra. Admittedly he never had many opportunities to appreciate the fine arts, but even if he did the boy doubted it’d make comprehending these pieces any easier. Most were just splashes of color and dots streaked into a blobby stack. The paintings which tried to resemble portraits of people were instead deformed and twisted in an uncanny manner that made Astra feel deeply uncomfortable. But hey art was subjective. Surely there was someone out there who could appreciate them.

  “Hey, you.”

  A voice suddenly called out to Astra. He swerved his head, attempting to locate the source, but no one was in the vicinity.

  “I’m talking to you, brat.”

  After wandering the space for a bit, Astra realized the voice was actually coming from a painting! Inside it, a lady with grotesquely extended fingers and beady spiraling eyes stared disgusted at the boy, as if to mock him.

  “You think I’m ugly, don’t you!?” she angrily yelled, to which Astra replied with a vehement shake of his head.

  “No! Um, I’d never be so rude to a lady,” he said. “It’s just that, to be honest, I’m not really familiar with this type of stuff. But even so I think you’re very pretty.”

  The lady in the painting hesitated for a bit, her cheeks flushed and turning the paint pink. But for some reason her mood just suddenly snapped, and she pointed a crooked finger at Astra while shedding oily tears.

  “Lies, lies! I know how you people look at me,” she sobbed, covering her face. “What, is it because I’m not watercolor? Or one of those fancy new acrylic pieces? I’ll have you know oil paint has a very long and storied history! But you would already know this had you studied! How dare you sully this fine gallery with your bumbling, uncultured, quite frankly moronic presence? Death to you! I say, death to you!”

  The lady forcibly ripped herself out of her canvas, tearing through the sheet and extending an oily hand out to Astra, trying to grab him. If he drew too close no doubt he’d be the new subject in the painting, thus he politely apologized to her and then swiftly got away.

  Astra rammed through the door and, once again, emerged into the chaotic, shifting passages of the castle. Two in a row, and he still hadn’t the slightest clue where the wrinkle leading outside might be.

  He took a deep breath and then stepped through another door. Third time’s the charm, or so his parents would say. He hoped at least this one would contain something different, and summarily he got his wish, for what the boy saw then was a grand throne room decorated in hanging chandeliers and stained glass windows. But it wasn’t the decoration that was notable, but rather who was inside.

  Astra came face to face with another applicant, a boy, but unlike the others he had a certain mood to him, a bit darker and more… intense. The child covered himself in a burly sand-colored cloak and had coarse black hair. His skin wasn’t quite as dark as Colette’s, but still had a noticeable brownish hue to it.

  What intimidated Astra a bit though were his eyes. Despite being a cool, milky silver, they were scrunched tightly in a hateful glower, and his lips into a sneer. His attention wasn’t focused on Astra. Instead he was locked in bitter conflict against a horde of living armors, which guarded the throne and moved in blocky, unnatural strides. There were all kinds of them, from axe wielders, spearmen, swordsmen, and even a few who only had shields and tried to bash whenever they could.

  The boy of sand however didn’t step back once. He seemed to be enjoying this actually, side-stepping between the living armors and using a curved dagger coated in some type of corrosive liquid to make them fall apart. Astra got the shivers just looking at the weapon. If that scratched him even once, he’d be lying in a healer’s bed for days.

  “Is this all you’ve got?” the cloaked boy said, disappointed. “These dumb puppets will never prevail against the poisons of the Kavarosh. Heh, haha! I expected more from Excelsior Academy, but I suppose my father’s right. This place is just another pampered paradise for the inferior blue bloods. What a waste of effort.”

  The boy took down the last of the living armors and stood triumphant while surrounded by their melted, gooey metal. A key appeared from one of the bodies, and he reached down, taking it with a bored sigh. When he stood back up, he finally noticed Astra standing awkwardly in the distance. The boy leered at him and even put up his guard. That changed quickly though, and his caution soon turned into amusement—the rude kind, like how one would stare at an exotic animal.

  “This test is so easy, even the lowly earthoids can somehow make it here,” he spewed, looking Astra up and down. “Run along now, go away. Shoo!”

  Astra was quite perplexed by the boy’s clear, unabashed rudeness. He had never met anyone quite this blunt before; and while his words were scathing, Astra couldn’t help but giggle to himself, because it reminded him of how Meatball acted sometimes. Under that grouchy and ill-tempered demeanor was likely someone who meant well, but was just too awkward to express it.

  “I’m Astra!” he said with a big toothy grin. “I dunno what an earthoid is, but I’m guessing it probably ain’t all that nice. Still it’s nice to meet you! I thought you were pretty cool back there, with those swooshes and whish of that knife.”

  The boy recoiled in what was blatantly disgust. “Ugh, I don’t care what your name is. And of course I’m cool! Unlike you earthoids without blessings, I actually come from a respectable clan. We rely on our own power instead of whatever luck got you here. Kurfus, why am I even wasting time on this? If you’re not going away then I will. See you never, loser.”

  With that, the boy walked off. He used the key he found on the exit door, which then emitted a bright shining light before whisking him probably away from the castle. Astra was left a bit glum that he couldn’t become friends with him before he left. Still, his momma would always say that the best method in reaching a grouchy fella’s heart was to bombard them with kindness, so he hoped that if the two ever got the chance to meet again then hopefully it’d be a more lighter mood.

  One good thing that came from their encounter though was the method in how to obtain the key! Maybe if he asked an occupant like the painting lady nicely, he’d be able to get one without trouble.

  Astra moved on with a new resolution in his heart and then traveled to his fourth room. Ideally he’d find his key here and move on, but unlike the previous rooms there didn’t seem to be any enchanted creations. Instead, a lone girl who seemed to be an applicant was laying pitifully on the floor of a banquet hall.

  And there were also signs of explosions around her.

  “Oh nooo~” she groaned, dramatically lifting her hand and posing. “Oh, boo hoo… won’t someone please help this poor, innocent damsel? I’m just a kid, just a little baby. When will my—hehe—knight in shining armor come and save me?”