The Legendary Method Actor-Chapter 167: Smarter, Not Harder
They sat. They drank water. They waited.
The adrenaline began to fade, replaced by the dull ache of bruises, but the mood in Team Chimera and Team SIS was electric. They watched the empty teleportation circles like hawks.
At the One Hour mark, the first circle flared.
ZHOOM.
A squad appeared. Or rather, they collapsed into existence.
It was a team of Valor and Arcanum students. They didn't stand. They fell to the floor, shivering violently, their skin pale blue, their lips cracked. Frost covered their armor.
“Medical!”
A proctor shouted. The healers rushed in.
“Hypothermia,”
Ray noted, his voice dispassionate.
“Trial Two. They triggered the Blue Censor. They’ve been frozen in stasis for thirty minutes.”
Darian watched as the shivering students were loaded onto stretchers. He rubbed his arms, remembering the cold logic of the Runic Golems. If Ray hadn't answered with a paradox, that would have been them.
At the One Hour, Thirty Minute mark, another circle flared.
This squad wasn't frozen. They were screaming.
“Don’t touch it! Don’t touch the button!”
The girl shrieked, flailing as a medic tried to calm her. The entire team was huddled together, eyes wide and terrified, completely broken by the psychological pressure of the Panic Room.
“Trial Two-Point-Five,”
Eliza murmured, shaking her head.
“They pressed the reset button. Over and over again.”
Kogar Ramsey looked at the sobbing students. He looked at his own hands. He remembered how close he had come to breaking. He looked at Ray, who was calmly eating a honey-nut bar. Kogar swallowed hard, a newfound reverence in his eyes.
By the Two Hour mark, the room was filling up. But it wasn't a gathering of victors; it was a gallery of failure.
Squads appeared with burns from the Mirror. Squads appeared with concussions from the Runic Censors. Most of them hadn't even reached the Third Trial. The air in the Staging Hall grew thick with the sounds of groaning, weeping, and the sharp commands of the healers.
A group of Valor students, who failed the Scenario trials from Darian’s own social circle, spotted Team Chimera and Team SIS sitting on the bench. They limped over, looking for commiseration.
“Varrus,”
one of them grunted, nursing a broken arm.
“What a mess, right? That mirror was rigged. We blasted it with everything we had, and it nearly killed us. Cowardly tricks. The academy has lost its honor.”
The boy waited for Darian to agree, to join in the chorus of complaints that usually followed a failure.
The test was wrong. The teachers are unfair.
Darian looked at the boy. He looked at the broken arm, an injury caused by stupidity, by trying to fight a reflection.
Darian didn't nod. He picked up a rag and began to polish the soot from his breastplate.
“The Mirror wasn't a fight, Jarek,”
Darian said quietly, not looking up.
“It was a question. You gave the wrong answer.”
Jarek blinked, confused by the lack of solidarity.
“What? Whose side are you on, Darian? You’re sitting with the… the help.”
He gestured vaguely at Ray and Eliza.
Darian stopped polishing. He looked up, his eyes hard.
“I’m sitting with my squad,”
Darian said, his voice flat and dangerous.
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“We cleared the dungeon. Did you?”
Jarek opened his mouth, closed it, and then backed away, sensing a shift in the hierarchy he didn't understand.
Eliza watched the exchange, a small smile playing on her lips. She turned to Ray.
“You broke him,”
she whispered.
“And rebuilt him.”
“I just gave him a win,”
Ray replied, watching the circles.
“People will follow anyone who wins.”
“Speaking of winning,”
Eliza said, leaning in.
“The Runic Censors. The Liar’s Paradox. I was trying to negotiate with it. I thought if I framed a subjective truth about our potential, the logic gate would accept the nuance.”
“It’s a machine, Eliza,”
Ray said, tapping his temple.
“Machines don’t do nuance. They do rules. You treated it like a debate opponent. I treated it like a broken clock. You can’t argue with gears.”
Eliza sighed, shaking her head.
“Remind me never to play cards with you.”
The clock on the wall ticked past the Two Hour, Fifty Minute mark. The Scenario trials was almost over.
Most of the teleportation circles were now glowing softly, occupied by the groaning, shivering, or weeping remnants of the failed squads. But Ray’s eyes were fixed on the far side of the room.
There was still one circle that remained dark.
“One left,”
Ray noted, gesturing with his chin.
“They haven’t tapped out, and they haven’t wiped.”
“Who is it?”
Eliza asked, squinting across the hall.
“Do we know who got sorted into that squad?”
“No idea,”
Ray admitted.
“It was randomized, remember. But whoever they are, they’re stubborn. They’ve been in there for nearly three hours. If they haven’t solved the puzzle by now, they’re doing it the hard way.”
“The hard way?”
Darian grunted, testing the articulation of his arm.
“You mean fighting the Centurion?”
“I mean trying to kill something that doesn't die,”
Ray said.
As he spoke, the dark circle on the far side of the room flared. But this wasn't the soft, white light of a standard transport. It was violet, sputtering with unstable mana and the residue of violent combat magic.
Meanwhile, in the Student Section…
The giant crystal screen above the arena had split into two distinct images, creating a contrast so jarring that nervous laughter bubbled up from the crowd.
On the Left Screen: Absolute chaos. Squad Alpha were fighting for their lives. The image shook with explosions. An Arcanum Initiate that was leading the team was bleeding from a scalp wound, screaming incantations, blasting chunks of obsidian off the regenerating Centurion. It was a scene of heroic, desperate warfare.
On the Right Screen: Utter tranquility.
Ray Croft was sitting on a wooden bench in the Staging Hall. He was unwrapping a nut bar. He took a bite, chewed slowly, and then offered a piece to Darian, who shrugged and took it.
The contrast was brutal.
“This feels illegal,”
a student whispered, pointing at the right screen.
“Our representative is dying out there, and Croft is… is he having a snack?”
“He’s bored,”
another student replied, shaking her head in disbelief.
“He finished more than an hour ago, and now he’s just waiting for the rest of the class to catch up.”
In the Arcanum section, the Initiates were silent. They looked at Viktor, their champion, struggling, and then at Ray, the "heretic," relaxing.
The narrative was shifting in real-time. The boy on the bench didn't look weak. He looked terrifyingly efficient.
CRACK-BOOM.
A squad crashed onto the floor of the Staging Hall.
A collective gasp went through the room.
They didn't land on their feet; they collapsed in a heap of tangled limbs and weaponry. They looked like they had been fed into a meat grinder. Their robes were shredded ribbons. Their armor was warped and melted, glowing with residual heat. Two of their members, a Valor and a Statecraft Initiate, were unconscious, their bodies limp.
Only one figure was standing upright, though he was leaning heavily on a staff that was cracked down the middle.
He was tall, with striking silver-white hair now matted with sweat and blood from a scalp wound. His expensive deep-blue silk robes were scorched black. He was panting, his chest heaving, his eyes wild with the adrenaline of a life-or-death struggle.
Eliza gasped, recognizing the sigil on his torn sleeve.
“Garrick,”
she whispered.
“That’s Viktor Garrick, from an elite mage family of House Garrick. An Arcanum purist,”
Ray deduced, watching the boy.
“That explains the scorch marks. He tried to out-blast the dungeon.”
Viktor Garrick wiped blood from his eyes. He looked around the room, his gaze frantic. He clearly expected to be the first one out, the survivor who conquered the impossible boss. He expected to see empty benches. He expected glory.
Instead, he saw a room full of people watching him.
And sitting on a bench directly across from him, looking bored, clean, and completely relaxed, was Ray Croft.
Viktor froze. He stared at Ray. He stared at the pristine condition of Team Chimera and Team SIS. He looked at Darian Varrus, who offered him a small, pitying nod.
Ray met his gaze. He didn't smile. He just raised an eyebrow.
Viktor limped forward, dragging his broken staff. He stopped ten feet from Ray, ignoring the medics rushing to tend to his fallen teammates.
“How?”
Viktor rasped, his voice raw from shouting orders.
“How long?”
Ray looked at him calmly.
“Since lunch.”
Viktor flinched as if Ray had slapped him.
“Impossible. The Centurion… it regenerates. It took us two hours of continuous bombardment. We had to collapse the ceiling on it just to reach the exit.”
Ray nodded slowly.
“Sounds exhausting. We didn't kill it.”
“Then how did you pass?”
Viktor demanded, his pride cracking under the weight of Ray’s calm.
“We realized the exit was behind us,”
Ray said simply.
Viktor stared at him. The realization washed over his face, the riddle, the walls, the wasted mana, the injuries. He realized he had fought a glorious, heroic war against a distraction, while this… this
nobody
had solved a puzzle.
“You tricked it,”
Viktor spat, his eyes narrowing into chips of ice.
“You didn't fight. You used a loophole.”
“I used my eyes, Garrick,”
Ray replied, his voice hardening slightly.
“You fought harder. I fought smarter. Look at your team.”
Ray gestured to the unconscious students being loaded onto stretchers.
“Then look at mine.”
Viktor looked back at his broken squad. He looked at Darian Varrus, unhurt and victorious.
Viktor’s jaw tightened. He straightened up, pulling his shredded dignity around him like a cloak.
“Efficiency isn't power, Heretic,”
Viktor said coldly.
“Next time, there won’t be a riddle to save you.”
He turned and limped away toward the medical bay, his back stiff with fury.
Ray watched him go.
Veteran: “We just made an enemy. A competent one.”
Conman: “Good. Enemies are useful. They keep the audience engaged.”
Chapter 167: Smarter, Not Harder
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