Chương 52: Chapter 51: Monolith

Plummeting like a rock, the wind roared in his ears as the ground rapidly rushed up to meet him. He desperately tried to spark his mana again, but absolutely nothing happened. Well, I'm dead. Despite the situation, he found himself calm as [Focus] wrapped around his brain. Bracing for the inevitable splat, he squeezed his eyes shut. But right before he could turn into a bloody smear on the ground, an invisible gentle force wrapped around him and completely halted his descent.

Hovering for a split second, he was softly deposited right onto the solid ground safely outside the barrier.... Huh? Ben looked around and quickly spotted a very familiar face. Alice offered him a small wave, looking completely unbothered by the fact he'd almost just died. Only [Fire Burst] stopped working there? Is this a no fly zone? Blinking in total confusion, he stared at her and tried to process what just happened. Because as far as he knew, her affinity was light.

But the invisible grip that had just saved his life felt like kinetic like when Hannah used it on him. Something to ask later, he supposed.

"Thanks for the save." Crossing her arms, Alice just offered a mild smirk.

"Don't mention it. You looked pretty sad falling out of the sky like a dead bird." That stung a bit. But he wasn't about to argue with the person who literally just kept him from turning into a bloody smear on the ground. Walking a bit further into the barrier, they spent a few minutes catching up. He gave her the extremely abridged, summary version of his time in the forest playing magical artillery commander.

She seemed rather pissed off when he got to the Thomas and Clarissa stuff as her expression darkened into a nasty, very un-noble scowl.

"I handled it." Ben told her before she could blow off.

"Clearly, since you're standing here and not rotting in a ditch." Uncrossing her arms, she let out an annoyed huff.

"Did you run into anyone else?"

"Ethan. Your friend?" Nodding slowly, Alice seemed to accept that.

"Yeah. He's good people. And what happened after?" Ben explained everything to her and she sighed, waving a dismissive hand.

"Typical. And I assume you've noticed the giant piece of architecture ruining the landscape?"

"Hard to miss. I'm guessing it's the reason the whole rift just threw a tantrum?"

"Obviously. It's the center of the event, I think. The entire environment shifted just to accommodate it." By the time they finished going over the basics, a familiar face walked up to them. Ethan gave a casual wave.

"Look who finally decided to drop in." Alice snickered. Ben ignored the terrible pun and gave the guy a nod.

"Come on, follow me." Ethan said and made his way toward the monolith without waiting for a reply. Ben and Alice exchanged a glance and followed him. Looking around, Ben took a good look at the other people lingering nearby inside the barrier. He recognized three of them right away. Dimples widened as he met his eyes, and Ben refrained from frowning, eyes moving past Theodore to stare at Brian and Thomas huddled together a bit further off, muttering about something with deeply stressed expressions.

But there were three others he had absolutely no clue about. The first guy was huge. And there was no better way to describe him than someone who radiated physical threat, as he stood leaning on a tree with his eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest. He wore no armor, though, but had a scar running through most of his face. Standing beside the giant was a petite girl who looked entirely out of place near him.

She looked as though she hadn't touched a weapon once, keeping her hands softly clasped together while observing the crowd with a gentle expression. And the last guy was just completely suspicious. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Fidgeting constantly, the shifty boy kept checking every single sightline and shadow in the area like a paranoid rat expecting an ambush.

They didn't come over to introduce themselves, and Ben honestly didn't care enough to go ask for their names right now. Instead, he turned his attention back to the massive structure dominating the landscape. A barrier completely surrounded the monolith. Ben and his current group were safely inside the energy field. Outside the barrier, a much larger crowd of kids hovered nervously, looking way too terrified to actually step through. Scattered around the base of the monolith were several stone pillars.

Four of them, to be precise. Frowning at them, Ben wondered what the hell their purpose was. Noticing his confusion, Alice stepped up and lightly pushed his shoulder toward the nearest one.

"Go on. Touch it." Giving her a sideways glance, he slowly reached out and pressed his palm against the cold stone surface. Instantly, a system prompt flashed in his vision. [Enter event monolith?] [Time remaining until the first Tide: 03: 22: 15] What is a Tide? Other than that, looking closer, he realized the 'Enter' text was completely grayed out.

"It's locked." Nodding, Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Yeah, we noticed. It won't let anyone just walk inside from here." Looking past the pillars, Ben noticed the massive, spiraling stone stairs that wrapped around the exterior of the monolith, leading all the way up toward the hidden peak.

"We have to climb the stairs, don't we?"

"Yep." Gesturing with his head, Ethan turned and started walking toward the massive staircase.

"Come here." Trailing behind him, Ben followed the noble right up to the base of the steps. Ethan confidently stepped onto the very first stone stair, his boots clicking softly against the rock. Ben followed, and the moment his bare feet touched the first step, the prompt flashed in Ben's vision again. [Enter event monolith?] Except this time, the text was not grayed out. Stepping backward off the stair, Ethan let out a sigh.

"I think you can enter now if you want. But nobody has actually tried it yet." Stepping back himself, Ben followed Ethan away from the stairs and back toward where Alice was waiting. As they walked back, Ben's eyes drifted past the barrier again. More and more people were actively arriving from the forest, practically pouring into the clearing and joining the crowd outside the barrier. Frowning, he realized the numbers just didn't add up.

There were way more people out there than he remembered entering the rift with. Stopping in his tracks, he pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

"Uh, what's going on?" Alice snorted in amusement.

"This rift is weird, that's what's going on. They're all people from the other Houses, more specifically, the other groups. They've been popping into the rift periodically for the last hour. Meaning that time is being weird again." Leaning against a nearby pillar, she shook her head.

"Arthur is just continuously sending more groups in from the outside."

"And that's wrong because…?" Ethan held up a finger and explained instead of Alice.

"Rifts typically create multiple separate instances running at the same time to handle different groups that are sent in at different times while the other groups are still inside." He pointed directly at the ground beneath them.

"But this one isn't doing that. It's just pulling them straight up into this exact same instance."... Oh. Ben finally understood what was going on.

"So the goal is to climb to the top?"

"Supposedly. The prompt activates on the stairs, so it seems like you can enter the actual monolith at any step along the way."

"Stop daydreaming, boys." Alice said suddenly and nodded her head toward the staircase.

"Someone is about to try it." Snapping his attention forward, Ben watched as a guy from the outer crowd finally gathered enough courage to push through the barrier. Marching straight past the scattered groups, the random kid confidently walked right up to the base of the stairs. Everyone fell completely silent. Dozens of eyes locked onto him as he lifted his foot and slammed it down onto the very first stone step, and then the next, and the next.

Following the first brave one, a few more boys and girls finally broke away from the nervous crowd, stepping cautiously onto the stairs. Seeing that nothing terrible happened, the remaining crowd outside the barrier suddenly found their collective spine and like a dam breaking, dozens of teenagers started going at it. Most of them looked around his age, hovering in that awkward fifteen-to-sixteen range. But scanning the edges of the group, he spotted plenty of older kids who definitely looked seventeen or older.

Ben nudged Alice's shoulder.

"Isn't this whole expedition thing supposed to be for that fancy academy of yours?"

"It is."

"And doesn't that place only accept fifteen-year-olds? Or I guess you could go in a bit older too, but I see many my age if not younger."

"Fifteen is just the most common age to enroll, Ben. It's not a hard limit by any means. The academy isn't some rigid boarding school with a strict curriculum. It's more about the specific classes you choose and the professors you manage to secure as your teachers. And it holds a massive wealth of resources and knowledge. So naturally, there are all kinds of classes catering to completely different paths, which obviously means you'll find people of literally all ages wandering around."

Nodding along, Ben kept his face entirely neutral.

"Most people just stick around for three years anyway. There's not much you need to officially graduate. And graduating is usually enough to establish yourself and grab whatever high-tier opportunities you want, so people don't really bother staying longer. Some even leave early if they get a good enough sponsor."

"I see." Turning his attention away from her, he looked back up at the towering monolith.

"So what the hell is actually inside this thing?"

"It's an event structure. So who really knows?" Ethan said instead of Alice.

"It could literally be anything hiding up there at the peak. Whatever it is, the rewards are going to be absolutely massive."