The Fifth Rule

--[Additional notification, additional notification]

[Because Team 277 was the first to break through the first "Maze Node" and received an extra points reward, Rule Five, which is also the last Hidden Rule of this assessment, is hereby announced.]

[Rule Five: Hidden within the shortcuts and secret passages revealed after some puzzles are solved are paths leading to "Maze Node." Each "Maze Node" has at least five accessible secret passages. Once all the passages leading to Maze Node are opened, the Aberrant Beast hidden within the node will appear. Candidates can defeat the Aberrant Beast to conquer the node and earn reward points. Each node is worth 100 points, which will be distributed equally among the candidates who conquered the node after the results of the assessment are tallied.]

[Once all the "Maze Node" have been breached, the maze exit will appear, allowing all candidates who retain their mobility to leave. The assessment concludes once all candidates have left the examination hall.]

[To reiterate, because Team 277 went first...]

"Team 277... It's that squad again."

Hearing the announcement echoing throughout the maze, Xia Liang ran around solving the puzzles at hand, exclaiming, "This is great! Finding the puzzles successfully even gets you bonus points!"

Her lament was not unfounded; the main reason was that her team seemed to have really bad luck.

They encountered the troublesome Butterfly Bush team shortly after the start of the assessment, and it took them a lot of magic to finally get rid of them. After that, they kept encountering fights of all sizes along the way, which prevented them from exploring properly. They even went a long time without finding anything while searching for the puzzles. It wasn't until more than half a day into the assessment that they finally found their first puzzle.

This progress, if not at the very bottom, is definitely lagging behind most of the strong teams.

Xia Liang still harbored the idea of "getting a good result," but there's always a gap between ideals and reality. She had only just found her first puzzle, while the fastest-progressing team had already found the fifth Rule. No matter how good Xia Liang's mindset was, this huge gap in progress made her feel somewhat powerless.

No matter how frustrated she was, Xia Liang couldn't slack off on solving the puzzle, so she could only keep running and trying her best to solve it.

The puzzle their team found was a Rubik's Cube puzzle, which works on a principle very similar to a regular Rubik's Cube toy. It involves balancing the magic concentration of a 3x3 square area to ensure that the magic concentration on each face of the square area is consistent.

The puzzle wasn't particularly difficult in terms of logic; after all, a Rubik's Cube, especially a basic 3x3 one, is hardly a "difficult problem" for anyone with a little knowledge of it. But even so, solving it still took the three of them a lot of time—because the Rubik's Cube was embedded in the walls of the maze, with only two faces exposed.

This not only means that most of the time they can only see two sides of the Rubik's Cube and need to repeatedly flip it over to check the progress of solving it; it also means that in order to rotate the Rubik's Cube, they must constantly send people back and forth on both sides of the wall.

At this moment, Xia Liang had just finished working out the magic of the Rubik's Cube on the other side of the wall and was on her way back to exchange information with her two teammates.

This level of physical exertion was certainly not a problem for a magical girl, but the time it took was indeed worrying. Xia Liang did consider using Spell Formula combined with her flight ability to travel quickly, but the maze passages in this area were narrow and winding, and flying fast would easily lead to crashing into walls. In comparison, running was a more stable option.

When she ran to the location of the Rubik's Cube with a look of utter despair, the Mountain Lily and Tiger Lily sisters had already been waiting for a long time.

"Ah, you're back, Senior Little Brocade. Would you like to rest for a bit?" Tiger Lily greeted her politely.

"You look so tired, are you okay?" Even Mountain Lily noticed Xia Liang's somewhat unwell expression.

After demonstrating their skills in the previous battle against Butterfly Bush, the two sisters discovered that Xia Liang was a Leaf Rank expert. As a result, Tiger Lily readily changed her form of address and began to call her "senior." Mountain Lily's attitude also changed, and her words carried a strange sense of confidence, as if to say, "I'm so lucky to have been randomly assigned Leaf Rank teammates. The three of us are really strong."

"... Haha, no need to rest, let's continue."

Although she was somewhat frustrated, Xia Liang still chose to put on a smile again. After all, ever since the two sisters recognized her abilities, she had effectively become the leader of the team. Since they were still in the evaluation stage, she had no reason to appear more negative than her teammates.

As for why she took over the team's command, there wasn't anything particularly complicated. After all, everyone wanted better results, so it was always right to let someone with better abilities lead the team. However, Xia Liang didn't put on any airs of a senior, and remained amicable to the two of them. In fact, because she had taken command, she began to communicate more actively with her two teammates, as she needed to ensure that Mountain Lily could keep up with her and Tiger Lily's thought processes to maintain consistency in the team's actions.

"However, if we continue at this pace, it will be difficult for you two to achieve a good result in this assessment."

Therefore, at this moment, Xia Liang bluntly stated her thoughts. "Most of the teams that are ahead in progress should have already monopolized the rewards of at least two or three puzzles, and some, as mentioned in the previous announcement, have even explored to the next stage. The gap between our progress and theirs has widened too much, and it will be very difficult to catch up."

"Why?"

Mountain Lily asked, somewhat puzzled, "Didn't the notice say that the exit would open once all those 'nodes' were breached? We just need to be the first to escape the maze, and we'll get a high score too."

"Elder sister..."

Tiger Lily, standing to the side, tugged at her sleeve helplessly. "Don't talk about such unrealistic things. We're already having such a hard time finding the puzzles, and there are so many puzzles in the maze. There's only one exit in the entire maze, you know?"

What she's saying is actually what most test-takers are thinking right now. Instead of chasing after an exit that only exists and might be very far away, it's better to honestly solve more puzzles to earn bonus points. That way, even if they're unlucky and don't find the exit in time, they can still get a good score with the guaranteed points from escaping the maze normally plus the bonus points.

"Hmph, that's why I said you, my silly little sister, aren't very bright."

However, after hearing Tiger Lily's words, Mountain Lily just chuckled and shook his head, "Haven't you figured out yet what our team's biggest advantage is?"

"... What is it?" Tiger Lily knew very well what kind of person her sister was, and she knew even better that her sister usually couldn't offer any valuable suggestions in this kind of situation. However, considering the need to take care of her sister's feelings, she could only agree.

"That's for sure. Because our exploration is lagging behind, and we're still on the outer edge of the maze, we're closer to the exit than those who have already ventured deeper into the nodes!"

Mountain Lily opened her folding fan and analyzed smugly, "Although there are definitely more teams left on the outer layer than just us, they fell behind because of their lack of strength, while we fell behind simply because of bad luck. Compared to those mediocre teams, we can face the strong fourth-place team head-on!"

"So?" Tiger Lily probably already guessed what conclusion her sister was going to reach, so her expression was subtle.

"So, we can set off now to find where the exit might be. As long as we find it in advance, guard the gate, and stop anyone who wants to take the exit from us, we can be the first to run out when the exit opens. Wouldn't we be number one?" Mountain Lily said confidently.

"Really..."

Tiger Lily sighed, "Sigh, sister, I have a question for you. What exactly do you consider a 'possible location for the exit'? Even if we arrive at the exit's location ahead of time, but the exit doesn't appear and there are no signs, how can you be sure we've found the right place?"

"Oh? You've stumped me."

Upon hearing this, Mountain Lily paused, a thoughtful expression on her face. After a short while, she closed her folding fan and said, "I don't know!"

"Then you said you'd stop others, but they definitely won't listen to us, and a fight will definitely break out, right?"

Tiger Lily continued, "Even putting aside whether you can win or not, what if you accidentally eliminate someone else? Your ranking and scores will all go to that person, right? What will you do then?"

"I don't know either!" Mountain Lily closed her eyes sadly.

"Since you don't know, then obediently continue solving the mystery."

Xia Liang, who had overheard the entire conversation, barely suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and waved to Mountain Lily: "Let's not even talk about finding the exit yet; just running back and forth along this wall is exhausting enough."

"Oh, okay."

Stumped by her younger sister, Mountain Lily immediately changed her tune, focusing her attention back on the puzzle. "But Little Brocade, why do you have to run along the wall? Can't you just use your Magic Armament to pass directly to the other side?"

"It's not that easy."

Xia Liang observed the Rubik's Cube in front of him, pondering a solution while casually replying, "My Magic Armament can't teleport living people at this stage, so even if I put a mirror on the other side of the wall, I can't pass through it. In fact, if it were possible, I would have done it already."

"Then why not teleport the wall away?" Mountain Lily asked, as if trying to make conversation.

"That's because my Magic Armament can only transmit materials composed of magical energy..."

Xia Liang suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

Mountain Lily's suggestion suddenly made her start to think about a question: Was the maze in this assessment considered a physical object?

Although this labyrinth cannot be considered a purely magical creation in terms of its structure and materials, there is no doubt that it relies on Spell Formula to maintain its existence.

From this perspective, is it possible for me to transmit the "Spell Formula to maintain the labyrinth"?

Thinking of this, Xia Liang's hands moved before her mind could process it. Before she could even decide what to do next, she had already placed a small Diversion Mirror on the wall.

Because it was just a verification, she deliberately shrunk the mirror to a very small size, less than the size of a palm, in order to avoid having too much magic drained from it.

After a brief flash in the mirror, Xia Liang gazed at the scene before her and fell into deep thought.

The wall covered by the mirror has turned into a few sparse shrub branches, completely unlike the solid, green wall it once was.

Am I doing something that would be considered damaging the maze?

Feeling a little guilty, she removed the mirror from the wall, but then she saw the branches slowly grow back, gradually filling the hole in the wall.

A few seconds later, she was in front of a complete wall again.

Apart from that, nothing changed in the surrounding environment, and there was no sudden announcement informing her that this was an act of destroying the maze and would result in elimination.

Xia Liang was stunned.

This blankness wasn't because she had stopped thinking, but because a turbulent storm had been brewing in her mind:

--It seems she's found a way to get high scores?

Today's word count is also 3600. Considering it will be too late when I finish writing, I'll save it for 6 AM this morning to update.

Although it's late, I still wish all the magical girls a happy Children's Day yesterday.