The second round began early the next morning.
Makarov set two palm-sized glass lanterns on the stone platform. Neither had a wick, only a floating blue flame of magic.
"Take the lanterns to the old fortress in the center of the island. If the flame goes out, you're disqualified. If you don't arrive before noon, you're disqualified too."
Laxus picked one up. "Can we attack each other?"
"If you dare touch the other candidate's lantern, I'll disqualify you on the spot."
"Boring."
Lin Yuan examined the glass cover. It was thin, and the flame inside shifted as his hand moved. If he folded the entire lantern directly, the spatial distortion would be enough to send the flame crashing into the cover.
"What's on the island?" he asked.
Gildarts pointed at the dense forest. "Go see for yourself."
There were two routes to the old fortress, one east and one west. Laxus chose the reef-strewn eastern shore, while Lin Yuan entered the forest on the western side.
Before they parted, Laxus glanced at the lantern in Lin Yuan's hand. "Don't get lost in the woods."
"Don't electrocute your own flame."
Lightning and black-silver magic power vanished simultaneously down opposite sides of the fork.
The forest was denser than it looked on the map.
Trees with tangled roots and branches blocked out the sky, and damp fallen leaves covered the ground. Rather than rush to shorten the distance, Lin Yuan first spread his spatial perception through the surrounding area.
The first trap was hidden less than a hundred paces away.
Dozens of logs hung in the canopy by vine ropes. Anyone who stepped on the tripwire would send them crashing toward the glass lantern from every direction at once. Lin Yuan stopped and picked up a stone to weigh down the tripwire.
The logs came whistling toward him.
Rather than destroy the mechanism, he folded open the distance between himself and the logs. The heavy timbers clearly brushed past his clothes, yet they could never reach the glass cover. In the end, they crashed into one another in a heap.
"First one."
Lin Yuan left a spatial mark on a tree trunk and continued onward.
The traps grew increasingly troublesome.
There were vines that sprayed slime, mud pits that suddenly collapsed, and magic crossbow bolts hidden beneath the leaves. They weren't very powerful, but they were all aimed at the lantern rather than the candidate.
Several times, Lin Yuan considered crossing the forest in one move, but he could never find a landing spot within a clear line of sight. The island's magic power also interfered with his spatial perception. The closer he got to the center, the more indistinct the distant coordinates became.
A thunderclap suddenly rang out from the eastern shore.
Flocks of seabirds took flight in alarm. Immediately afterward, the rumble of collapsing reefs carried across the island. Clearly, Laxus had encountered an obstacle too.
Lin Yuan did not change his route.
This wasn't a mine rescue, and Laxus hadn't sent a signal for help. Going around to him now would only waste both their time.
At the edge of the forest, a giant black crab blocked the only stone bridge.
Its shell was as large as a house, and its two enormous pincers hammered the ground. As soon as Lin Yuan approached, the crab lunged at him, kicking up mud and sand.
The blue flame flickered wildly.
Lin Yuan folded the mud and sand away to either side and aimed a punch at the giant crab's head, but before he struck, he saw a pile of white crab eggs beside the stone bridge.
It wasn't a magical beast placed there for the test. It was only protecting its nest.
Lin Yuan withdrew his fist and slowly shortened the distance between himself and the far end of the bridge. The giant crab pursued him for a few steps, then retreated, unwilling to leave its eggs. It could only stand by the bridge and wave its pincers angrily.
Once he crossed the stone bridge, the old fortress came into view on the hillside.
Gildarts stood before its only entrance.
"You're faster than I expected."
Lin Yuan stopped. "Aren't you supposed to be at the finish line?"
"I'm in charge of the combat test. Of course I had to do something."
Gildarts raised his right hand. "The rules are simple. I'll attack only once. Get through this door, and you pass."
Crush True Magic gathered in his palm.
The surrounding rocks silently fractured into countless blocks. The force wasn't deliberately aimed at Lin Yuan's body. Its target was still the glass lantern in his hand.
Lin Yuan couldn't redirect the attack toward the forest, nor could he let the crushing magic touch the glass cover.
He took a step forward, compressing the distance between himself and Gildarts.
Gildarts struck with his palm.
Space shattered layer by layer like a mirror. The first fold Lin Yuan had laid down was crushed, and the second disintegrated immediately afterward. A fine crack appeared in the glass cover, and the blue flame shrank violently.
Lin Yuan did not retreat.
He continuously sent the shattered space behind him while lengthening the distance between the inside of the glass cover and the crushing magic power. The attack had clearly passed his shoulder, yet it still could not truly reach the flame.
One step.
Two steps.
As his third step fell, Lin Yuan passed Gildarts and went through the fortress gate.
The Crush True Magic stopped.
The crack in the glass cover remained, but the blue flame had steadied again.
"You pass," Gildarts said.
Almost at the same time, an explosive bang came from the entrance on the other side.
Laxus crashed through the stone door and walked in. His coat was torn in several places, and his glass lantern had broken into three pieces, held in shape entirely by fine electrical arcs. Surrounded by lightning, the blue flame still hadn't gone out.
"You broke the test equipment?" Lin Yuan asked.
"Gildarts did it."
"You could've dodged."
"Shut up."
The two placed their lanterns on the stone platform in the center of the fortress.
Makarov checked each flame, then looked at the glass covers: one cracked, the other barely held together by lightning.
"Neither method of protecting them was particularly pretty, but the objectives are intact, and you made it in time."
He pressed a second seal onto each of their records.
The blue flames on the stone platform rose at the same time, illuminating the stairs leading deeper into the fortress.
Lin Yuan looked down at his lantern.
After all the traps along the way, the magical beast, and Gildarts's attack, the flame was still burning quietly inside the glass.