Joan shuddered. She had found a clue, now she just needed to connect the dots but the cold was affecting her reasoning, how strange.

"Joan, you're an ice element user and you still feel cold. At this rate if you use a technique you'll freeze yourself." Mia spoke.

'Ice? Hmm pretty nice but now is not the time to be impressed, I'll just have to use kekai.' Joan coated her body with kekai using it to keep herself warm.

"Nice, but you can't keep that up for long." Mia told Joan who knew fully well about that.

'Ok, I tried the key and all other keys but they didn't work. What could possibly be the reason?' Joan thought and went to try a key but then it didn't work then she saw something.

"Hey, Mia the lock is changing, no fair." Joan complained.

"Oh." Mia smiled at Joan and lowered the temperature.

Joan shuddered her kekai would soon run out and the temperature kept going lower each time she found a clue.

"You don't have time to be shuddering you kekai will Soon be exhausted and the temperature is -20°c." Mia warned.

'Yikes, so the lock changes, keys have runes, ahhh! Or should I just give up.' Then Joan noticed the lock changing again but this time she saw another key being added.

'The temperature is on 0°c.' Mia told Joan.

"What!" Joan started panicking and tried to rush things then she saw a lock change.

'Ok panicking wouldn't do any good so let's calmly assess the situation.' Joan saw another key being added then it came to her.

Behind that door was success but the lock was her heart always wary and changing, each of the keys were her strengths and could open the door but she failed to notice because her heart saw those strengths as weaknesses so she doubted each key causing the lock to change but each time the lock changed a new key was added to symbolise that for every weakness there is a strength and all we need to do is to find that strength.

'My kekai is exhausted at this rate I'll freeze but I'd not panic because I'm an ice element user.' Joan picked up a key and inserted it into the lock and turned it and the door opened.

"Congrats Joan you pass the test." Mia congratulated her.

*-*-*-*

'Wow, just plain wow!' Barry stared at Dan in awe and wanted to move but he couldn't.

"That technique puts great strain on the legs so you wouldn't be able to move for a while. Based on your performance I'll let you pass but I have a question Barry, what is a scroll user?" Dan asked.

"Well, for me a scroll user is someone who has been blessed with powers to do good." Barry answered.

"Good answer. Now let me ask you, why do you want to be a scroll user?" Dan asked.

Barry thought for a minute and found out he had no answer to give.

"I thought as much, you see why I said you joke with everything? This whole fight, your sweat your pain, your effort has all been a joke, every body else on your squad has something to fight for, why they are scroll users, they've all passed but here you are fighting uselessly. Power isn't a joke Barry. If you have no good motivation or desire the darkness will wash you away." Dan spoke with a sad look on his face.

'So two and a half years at the orphanage, escaping, meeting Luke,trying to find my parents, getting adopted, meeting squad eight this fight even these very words are just jokes?' Barry questioned himself.

"Yep, and that's why you couldn't win me in this match. Bartholomew, you have talent but you have no motivation, I promised your mother that I'll raise you up fine, I've done my best, the rest is up to you." Dan turned around and started walking away.

"Wait! Did you say my mother? How am I to believe you?" Barry asked.

"You aren't ready to know the whole story." Dan answered Barry.

"No wonder why you were so strict on me, you had promised my mother. And strangely I believe you." Barry got into a fighting stance.

"Come at me."

Dan smiled, it seemed Barry had gotten the message.

Dan coated his hand with lightening and charged at Barry with superhuman speed.

'I can see him this time.' As Dan was about to hit Barry, Barry caught Dan's hand with one hand and coated his other hand with lightening and hit Dan.

Dan jumped back and took a look at the place where Barry had hit him.

'It seems that he has caught on, hmm moving at a normal speed wouldn't work again.'

"Teleporting lightening step." Dan charged towards Barry head on.

Barry smiled he could see Dan coming at him even using lightening step. Barry coated his arm with lighting and prepared to block Dan's attack.

Dan smiled, Barry had bitten into his bait. His aim was to give Barry the idea that he could see him so the moment Barry wants to attack he'll let his guard down for a while thinking it's over and in that moment Dan will take advantage and use his teleportation to appear behind Barry and trap him in another lightening based technique. It was a simple two way attack.

'Ok, he's about to attack.' Barry paused, he couldn't see Dan again.

'Up, down, below, behind.' Barry looked around for Dan but couldn't find him.

"I win Barry." Dan enclosed Barry in a box of purple electricity paralysing him.

"Ok."

"You still don't get it fully but congrats, you are now a scroll user." Dan congratulated.

"Yeah." Barry smiled at his achievement and fell unconscious.

"You overstrained your body." Dan caught Barry's falling body and lay him on the ground.

*-*-*-*

Erza yelled out loud, she had been solving the questions since but she wasn't getting anywhere.

"Ok times up." The papers vanished into thin air then the cheetah spoke.

"Erza, these questions are unsolvable."

"Whaa?!"

"Listen. There are times you have to retreat, reanalyze and attack again in order to attain success Erza. For example that question paper, if you had dropped it and stopped solving aka surrender and retreat, you'd have had to analyse it and would have caught on. But wanting to do stuff in one big swoop made you not to realise that the questions are linked to each other by removing the coefficients of 'X' it made question one link to four and four to three to two and back to one."

"So all you're saying is that I should learn to retreat and reanalyze." Erza said with a sigh and cut off the link.

"Tich, she'll learn."

*-*-*-*

Lyn wrinkled her nose in disgust, the hands smelt really bad but that wasn't the problem, the problem was the fact her psychotic scroll spirit wants to remove her eye.

Why? She had asked the spirit but she kept on getting the same answer.

"I must eradicate this eye."

Lyn flung her leg hard causing a hand to fly away then she used her leg to kick away the hand her anonymous scroll spirit wanted to use to plus out her eye then she freed her self from the grip if the decaying hands.

"Just let me remove that eye, it's for the best." The scroll spirit tried to coax her but she didn't buy it.

"No, even if it has the power of doom, I'll deal with it myself, and if you try any thing funny I'll kill you." Lyn warned.

"Fine, but you'll regret your actions. Mark my words." The mist faded away leaving an eerie feeling.

"Hmph, I don't need words from a freak." Lyn put on a tough girl act but deep down she was actually scared.

*-*-*-*

"I'll choose earth." Luke had made up his mind.

"Why earth?" The scroll spirit asked.

"Well looking back I've always been calm and supportive and that's the point the ground is still and carries the the whole Earth, no other element does the work like the ground."

"You sure?" The scroll spirit asked.

"Yes Asher."

"Congrats. You pass the test. You realised what suit..." Asher was cut short by Luke.

"Ahh, the cliche stuff."

*-*-*-*

"Ok, what did he mean by better eyes." John sat on the floor his eyes still bleeding he had lost blood and was weak and he was heading nowhere  so he decided to use a nikirim.

'This whole place has kekai so if I find something unusual I'll know.' John activated the nikirim to compensate for his eyes.

'That kekai is new, that must be it.' John walked to the place and found where the kekai is coming from.

John staggered back when he felt what was in the box. Eye balls.

"That bird! I didn't expect literal eyeballs!" John yelled at no one in particular.

"Yes John, now you have used a nikirm to compensate for your eyesight so when you get your eyes back, I'll use your eyesight to compensate for your nikirim." After saying that the eagle headed man vanished.

"Thank you." John opened his eyes but this time the eyeballs weren't circle.

*-*-*-*

Peter gasped in awe, the whole memory of the Aldorado clan replayed in his mind in a second. He saw everything from how the Aldorado clan came to live,how the ashiri was made, the two other weapons of the Aldorado, how they were hunted for the weapons, everything down to how Taick lost his arm in front of a six year old Peter.

Then the sword spoke.

"You see Peter, anyone who wields the Aldorado weapons goes through a lot. You are the next wielder of the ashiri you will be hunted…"

"I'm ready for it all. Our clan is more than grateful to the Nomashi and the Ina for housing the three parts of our clan and that's why we try our best to pay them back. I want to be a strong scroll user so that when our homestead is rebuilt I'll have the strength to protect it." Peter spoke.

"You've spoken well Peter, good luck." The eyes on the swords closed and Peter put the sword back to its sheath and disconnected the link.

"But you didn't complete the test."

*-*-*-*

"You're pathetic! Is this how you'll be crying and begging if you're in danger?! Do you think they'll listen to you? Get out!"

Those words replayed itself in Beryl's head, she failed the test and it was annoying. She had sworn that the next time she was in trouble she'll defend herself but in the end she ended up crying.

'Turns out I failed.'

'But I will give you another chance. Here.' Beryl's scroll sprit tossed something like a weapon into Beryl's scroll and the scroll started levitating.

Beryl smiled and thanked the scroll sprit.

*-*-*-*

Dan could be seen talking to Asher, Luke's scroll spirit before Mia appeared and the rest of the scroll spirits.

"They all failed." Matabi Erza's scroll spirit spoke.

"No, Ben passed, Ash and Luke also did." Saru, Ben's scroll spirit, spoke.

"You went easy on him right." Dan asked their respective scroll spirits who nodded their head in denial.

"Anyway." Asher(Luke) spoke up.

"Most of them failed and to top it up Rugun made matters worse by trying to remove Lyn's eye." Asher finished.

(A/N Rugun is pronounced as Ru-gu-n)

"Rugun what is that any way? It was unlike you to back off." Amy(Peter) asked.

"She is the first since that Nomashi" Rugun said calmly.

"Oh well I'm leaving." Matabi left with all the scroll spirits leaving Dan alone.

"They don't know what they'll face so guide them well." Dan said the last words Barry's mother said to him before she died.

To be continued…
_______________________________

Yo there is no preview for the next chapter.

I didn't do Ben's part for some certain reasons and sorry for late updates, I've got phone issues.

Actually this test came as an impromptu stuff so pardon me if it is not interesting but be expecting better chapters and as for how the characters look like I'll post them soon.

Sayonara.

Olasijibomi.

🍇grapes🍇