“Hah! A bunch of knives won’t be able to inju—”

  Boom!

  The knives exploded the moment they hit Victor’s spatial shield. Just one knife wouldn’t have been enough to even scratch a third-stage Initiate Attunement acolyte, let alone an Elemental Adept Magus. But a dozen exploding blades striking simultaneously was quite something.

  “Really? Exploding knives?” he muttered dryly, erasing the smoke with a single wave of a hand.

  The moment the smoke cleared, the jester was nowhere to be seen. Instinctively, Victor glanced upward and found that it was clinging to the ceiling like a spider. In one hand, it held a small box adorned with a glowing star symbol, reminiscent of a jack-in-the-box. It suddenly sprang down in an acrobatic dive toward Victor while clutching the box.

  Victor raised a hand in response and cast {Time Prison}. A translucent light shot forward and wrapped around the descending figure. Instantly, the jester’s movement slowed, caught mid-leap as though suspended in syrup. However, this only lasted for a moment.

  To Victor’s surprise, the jester’s limbs twitched with a jolt, and the spell fractured like thin glass. In a blink, it broke free and resumed its attack, closing the distance in a flash.

  “Oh? You can resist temporal interference?” Victor’s brow arched in interest.

  As the jester closed the final meter, it twisted midair and hurled the strange box toward Victor. The star-engraved container spun once before bursting open, and from within, a spring-loaded jack doll launched forth, brandishing a gleaming steel hammer. Without hesitation, it swung the weapon down toward Victor’s head.

  Victor sneered. “{Warpblade}.”

  In an instant, an ethereal blade formed in an instant and swung upward, slicing the jack doll into two like it was nothing.

  Victor didn’t stop there. Channeling mana into his legs, he dashed forward in a burst of speed and closed the distance between him and the jester. With a swing, the ethereal blade swept outward once more — and the jester, still mid-recovery from its last move, had no time to react. The blade carved through its torso, splitting the mannequin cleanly in two. Its upper and lower halves crashed to the stone floor with a clatter of bells and glassy limbs, unmoving.

  Is this all? If the last guardian is only this strong, then someone like Maverick should’ve been able to pass it quite easily.

  As that thought crossed his mind, an ominous mana surged from the fallen mannequin. The severed upper and lower halves of the jester trembled and began to emit black gas. The dark mist thickened in a matter of seconds, obscuring the remains of the mannequin.

  Then the body jerked unnaturally, reassembling itself within the swirling dark mist, but it didn’t stop there. Its head detached from its shoulders, and its arms and legs dislocated before floating away from its frame, each one still tethered by tendrils of writhing black gas. All six pieces hovered separately in the air before expanding rapidly.

  Victor raised an eyebrow as the transformation finalized.

  The head was now the size of a wagon, with a grin that split its face in half, while the two hands extended into oversized claws of jagged, bone-like steel. They floated like puppets guided by something unseen.

  “This… isn’t a normal mannequin anymore,” he muttered, watching all this transpire. “It’s like fighting a creature from the Dreamscape…”

  Victor sighed, the air around him stilling as he extended his left hand. He didn’t feel like playing this game anymore. Infused mana poured out from one of his sigils behind his hand. The very space around him warped slightly as he invoked the spell.

  “{Nova}!” he chanted in a serious voice.

  In an instant, a brilliant explosion of white-blue mana expanded outward in a tight, concentric wave. The pressure was suffocating, the air around it collapsing inward as though a miniature star had imploded within the chamber. Though the magic spell’s radius was relatively small compared to higher-tier spells, it was still overwhelming.

  The jester mannequin didn’t even have time to react. The searing light engulfed its floating limbs and head before being torn apart by the crushing force. It was unable to withstand the sheer force of the explosion.

  Victor had already retreated from the heart of the chamber, teleporting dozens of meters away to avoid being caught in the blast. Even from that distance, the heat and the pressure could still be felt on his skin.

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  When the light finally faded, Victor returned to see the state of the jester. As expected, nothing remained of it — not even a speck of dust.

  “Well, that’s it for the guardian.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

  While its erratic nature might have troubled an ordinary peak Elemental Adept Magus, Victor’s mastery of spatial magic easily countered its unpredictable movements and bizarre defenses. Perhaps most of the previous patriarchs of the Asteriscus family had been too cautious — unwilling to risk their lives to experiment and test the limits of their abilities, which might be one of the reasons why there was no Nexus Temporal Magi in the family so far.

  Victor’s gaze turned toward the sealed door behind where the jester once stood. Unlike the rest of the chamber, it was completely unscathed by the destruction — protected by powerful enchantments carved into its frame.

  He approached the door while murmuring, “I wonder what’s being guarded inside the room…”

  Raising his hand, Victor cast a spell to break the enchantments. Soon, the door slowly creaked open, allowing a sliver of golden light to spill into the ruined chamber.

  What he saw inside made him pause — the content there wasn’t exactly as he expected.

  Outside the entrance of the Astrology Cavern, the sun had long since given way to the moon. Lanterns flickered with mana-infused light, illuminating the stone path leading to the sealed gate. The gathered crowd was still there, all having uncertain expressions.

  Maverick Asteriscus stood near the front, clenching his fists while his brows deeply furrowed in thought. Since Victor had entered the trial, he hadn’t spoken a word. His earlier display of power continued to echo through his mind — the pressure, the refined control, the sheer presence of a peak Elemental Adept Magus. It was a power that no one in the family could have anticipated.

  And yet, something in Maverick’s heart refused to accept it. As a man who was obsessed with power and was a figure of authority for decades, the idea of relinquishing his position, even to his own son, wasn’t something that he could accept. Whatever the means, he had to make sure that Victor failed to take over his position.

  Once this trial is over, the final challenge is to battle for the patriarch’s seat… I can use the time before then to arrange a banquet and poison or curse that brat… Maverick thought, though there was a lingering feeling that his tricks wouldn’t work. If all things failed, I could try to convince Sir Alvin to help me fight Victor… but how should I do that?

  “Do you think he’ll succeed until the very end?” one of the elders finally spoke.

  “He’s already far beyond the standard for this trial…” muttered another. “The mannequins won’t pose much trouble for someone like him.”

  “But no one has ever reached the final chamber and returned,” the gloomy elder said cautiously. “Whatever lies beyond… even our ancestors couldn’t claim it.”

  Those ancestors referred to the Asteriscus lineage that rose after the Dark Era. Any records before that time had been lost to history, and the true peak of the family’s power remained a mystery. It wasn’t uncommon for Magus families and other Magus forces to lose their golden age in this era as new powers arose.

  “I’m more interested in what he’ll bring out, if anything,” the calmest of the four elders replied. “The trial is symbolic, yes, and ancient records confirm that no complete high-rank meditation technique was ever found in this place. If there were, the cavern would’ve been emptied long ago.”

  “Brother…” Gardacle turned to glance at Maverick, who remained silent.

  There was a storm of emotion swirling inside Maverick’s eyes. At this point, it was all but certain that Victor would claim the position of family head, even though he wasn’t fully convinced that the one in the trial was truly his son.

  It had to be noted that despite Maverick’s great talent and mana aptitude, it had taken him more than fifty years of grueling effort to reach his current level. Countless hardships, opportunities seized through blood and sweat — that was the path he had walked. To see someone, even his own son, surpass him with what appeared to be less than one percent of that effort… it struck at the very core of his pride.

  Then, out of the blue, the sealed gate rumbled and slowly creaked open, and all heads turned toward the entrance as footsteps echoed from within. Moments later, Victor stepped out as calm as ever, and not even a speck of dust marred his Magus robe.

  The Trial of Astrology had come to an end.

  Victor glanced around at the gathered crowd casually, as if the trial had been nothing more than a stroll through the garden. Lantern light flickered against their astonished faces — elders, retainers, distant relatives — all of them frozen in silence, waiting to hear what he had found.

  He could feel their shift of perception in him. The air around him was thick with apprehension, awe, and expectation, like seeing a new hope that would bring the family to another level.

  One of the elders stepped forward, forcing a tight-lipped smile. “Victor, you truly completed the trial. This is a momentous occasion for the Asteriscus family.”

  Another elder chimed in curiously, “Did you find anything inside? What of the deepest chamber? The records say no one has ever—”

  “I did reach it,” Victor replied calmly, cutting the question short. “I reached the final chamber and obtained what was stored within.”

  In actuality, what lay within wasn’t some vast treasure trove or a long-lost high-rank meditation technique; it was records, fragments of history, and truths about the family that Victor wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t seen them with his own eyes. But there was no need to tell them that. Not until he officially became the patriarch.

  A murmur passed through the crowd. Maverick, whose expression had briefly flickered with unease, straightened his posture and came forward to congratulate Victor. “As expected of my son. In honor of your success in the trial, I shall host a grand banquet for you. After that, we’ll proceed with the final steps of the succession process.”

  “No need,” Victor replied flatly, shaking his head. “I have no interest in wasting time on meaningless displays like a banquet.”

  His gaze swept across the crowd resolutely before settling on the man at the center, the one who still clung to power.

  “I, Victor Asteriscus, hereby challenge Maverick Asteriscus for the position of patriarch. A duel, one-on-one. Let’s end this farce once and for all.”

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