>Chapter 21<

The boys couldn't help but marvel at the giant hallways of the castle while walking through them. They were at least 10 meters in height and 8 meters width.

On one side of these big corridors were doors, probably leading to more rooms and on the other were big windows. There were also some paintings of some people, though most of the people shared a characteristic of being dark-skinned, having pointed ears and being either incredibly handsome or beautiful.

"We are in some kind of castle, aren't we?" Tim asked.

"Looks like it." Patrick replied and asked a question right after. "So, anyone find some stairs? He did say we have to meet him at the highest floor."

"I'm starting to doubt there are any stairs at all. We've been walking here for almost 10 minutes but there wasn't even a sign of any stairs appearing." Phillip answered.

"All I'm seeing is this never-ending corridor." David also answered.

"You know, this reminds me of one of those moments that people put some illusion magic on the corridor that makes it seem like this." Tim said.

"It does." Jacob chimed in.

"So, what do people do in that kind of situation?" Patrick asked.

"They either break the illusion or it doesn't even affect them if the character is way too overpowered." Jacob answered while Tim just nodded his head sagely.

"But we aren't overpowered and we don't know how to break it." David said.

"I mean, we can try to break the illusion." Phillip spoke up. "But, what do they want from us by putting us inside it?"

"How do you call a person with no body and no nose?" Tim asked.

"Nobody nose." Phillip answered in annoyance.

"There is your answer." Tim nodded again.

"Cringe…" Patrick muttered.

"Hey, you're the one to talk about being cringe!" Tim shouted in mock anger.

"Ah… Let's start being a little serious, okay?" Jacob said while rubbing his head. Poor Jacob, it must be hard to deal with them all.

"What do we do then?" David asked. "We can try to sense the energy around us or just attack in a random direction."

"Then let's try it." Said Tim as he crouched down and touched the ground.

"Why the ground thought?" Patrick asked.

"I think it doesn't really matter what you do, let's just do it." Phillip answered and touched a nearby wall.

After closing their eyes, they tried to sense an unnatural energy in the surroundings. They all feel the energy 'flow' in their own way, so the only thing they are trying to feel right now is something similar to an invader in the natural energy that is everywhere.

"This energy… feels different from the normal natural energy that we found everywhere in the forest." Timothy said suspiciously.

"Is it because we aren't in the forest anymore? Does the type of natural energy change depending on where you are?" David said as he got up and scratched his chin.

"I think that's a reasonable explanation, but we still don't know the difference between a person's energy and the natural energy, so we can't be exactly sure about this not being that Caedis guy's energy." Jacob speculated.

"Well, we still don't know many things." Tim chimed in and continued. "I just remembered but… shouldn't we try opening those doors? What if the staircase is behind one of those?"

"Wouldn't that be rude? What if there is someone in the room and some random teenagers just open the door and walk in?" Phillip asked.

"We'll just say it was the Caedis guys fault because he didn't give us directions." Tim replied before approaching one of the many doors. He put his hand on the handle and slowly turned it. Fully opening the door, the only thing that they could see was a plan room with literally nothing inside.

"Well, that was stressful… and slightly disappointing." Tim exhaled in relief. "Let's get to opening more doors, I guess."

He continued opening all the doors and the others soon followed him, doing the same. All the rooms were exactly the same. So after opening the twentieth door, they just gave up and stopped opening them.

"Ahhh… This is so frustrating!" Tim shouted in frustration. "I don't have enough patience to do this."

"Should we just tap on the pendant?" Patrick asked.

"Yes!" Tim answered without hesitation.

"No, at least not yet, we still haven't tried one thing." Jacob said.

"Oh! I almost forgot about that." Tim exclaimed.

"Who wants to do the honors?" David asked.

"I want to try." Patrick answered.

He closed his eyes and his fist started glowing. A brief moment later, his entire fist was lit on fire. He got ready into a makeshift stance and lurched forward. He then punched the wall.

*Crack*

A cracking sound was heard. The boys then looked at the wall that had minor cobweb-like cracks on it. They then looked around them and saw that nothing changed at all, same old never-ending corridor.

"Well, I'm not paying for the damages." Tim said as whistled.

"Me neither." The others said at the same time and turned their heads to the side.

Patrick just looked at them speechlessly. He got played!

"Phew…" After exhaling, Patrick asked. "Are we going to use the pendant now?"

The rest of the boys just ignored Patrick's speechless expression as David took out the silver, circle-shaped pendant from his breast pocket.

"He said something about tapping on it three times right?" David asked.

"I think so, though, I don't know how that is going to work." Tim reassured.

"Nothing else we can do." Phillip answered.

Putting the pendant at the top of his palm, David then tapped on it three times with his index finger. After doing so, the boys just waited for something to happen while holding their breath.

10 seconds… 20 seconds… 30 seconds…

"Nothing happened?" Patrick asked doubtfully.

"Maybe it did, but we don't know what was supposed to happen in the first place." David answered.

"Fuuh… What a disappointment, I thought we were going to be teleported somewhere or somethi-" Tim didn't get to finish his sentence as he was interrupted by another voice, coming from right behind him.

"Sir Caedis is waiting for your arrival, please follow me."

Tim almost jumped because of how spooked he got. Somebody just appeared behind him out of nowhere and started speaking in that monotone voice.

"R-right," Was all he managed to answer before he started to follow the butler stiffly.

The other boys also froze from the sudden appearance of a person beside them, but they soon followed as well.