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What an inconvenient way to eat. For a moment, Ike was back in his uncle\'s house, ducked over a bowl, one shoulder hunched protectively, shoveling the food down his gullet as quickly as he could, before anyone could find him or hit him or take it form him. Watching the others eat, he barely stifled a laugh. Not a single one of them had ever eaten for survival. He\'d put money on it. Even if mages were born mortal, they were born into privilege. Into mage houses that could provide the best food for them, or high-ranking mortal houses who could afford the same. The idea of eating scraps or fighting for dinner had never occurred to them. Eating like this made sense, in the case that you never had to fear for your dinner, or worry about missing it.

And that guy asked me if there was any merit in protecting mortals. Just imagine! If no more mortals become mages, mage society will be full of idiots who think eating like this is a good idea. I can\'t agree with that. No, before everything, we need to have at least a base minimum of intelligence in mage society. We need the common sense that polite dinners are nonsense, not a way to conduct your everyday life.

He dipped his spoon in the thin soup before him and raised it to his lips. As it lifted, it wiggled. Soup rained down on his lap. He froze, staring at it. His brows furrowed. How the hell does anyone eat like this? Are you supposed to spill it all on yourself? Or eat so slowly that every spoonful is cold before it reaches your lips? This is a load of bullcrap. When I\'m king, I\'m abolishing manners right out the gate. Fuck this.

Ike paused. When he was king? As if it was already a done deal, he\'d already started planning for becoming king. When he\'d entered, he hadn\'t even known this trial was about the king, and now, he was going to become one?

Then again, why not? I mean, hell, Mag\'s a king. Why not King Ike?

As he slowly ate his lukewarm soup, he imagined himself as king. Atop a city, gazing down at the people. Mages and mortals alike, moving at his whim. King Ike, ruling over thousands. He could lead them into battle against Llewyn and Lord Brightbriar. He could do whatever he wanted. They\'d have to pay him taxes, and he\'d even be able to request unreasonable things like for them to bring him beasts so he could kill them and level up.

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But where was the fun in that? A life of ease was also a boring life. Besides, if he was king, he\'d have to govern. That was the downside of the deal: he had to arbitrate over the people. Tell them right from wrong. Decide who was worthy, and who was not. Make up rules for things like formal dinners.

Ike twisted his lips. Yeah, I don\'t know. Maybe I won\'t be king. Being king sounds like a lot of work, and like I can\'t run around and be a feral guy running around in the wilds anymore. But I will take that skill. Someone else can be king. Maybe that Rufus guy, he seemed pretty keen on it. Or Scar, I like her better. Yeah, who cares about being king. I\'m taking that skill, and that\'s it.

Unless the skill makes me the rightful king, or whatever. Ike consulted the myths he\'d heard in childhood. He didn\'t recall any fairy tales about a skill making someone king, but then, he hadn\'t heard anything about this region, so that wasn\'t shocking. Then again, if the skill made him rightful king, then he could go ahead and do whatever he wanted, then return later when he was ready to be king. After all, if the skill made him rightful king, then he was the rightful king. The throne would be his, whether he was occupying it or not. It might be a bit of a battle to take it back from whoever occupied it after he wandered off to have an adventure, but that was what Ranking up was for. Couldn\'t keep the throne from him if he was higher Rank than whoever claimed it.

He was still getting ahead of himself, and he knew it. It was just that the dinner was so slow and so mind-numbingly boring that he had nothing else to do with his time but fantasize. The food was delicious, thankfully, but that was all he could say about it. Everyone around him was still speaking to their opponent, and for some reason, he couldn\'t understand their speech anymore. Mana flowed around him, isolating him. It seemed to be an effect of the trial, so that they couldn\'t help one another once the trial began.

That\'s fair. After all, it keeps those old men from whispering the right answers to Rufus all trial long.

With the luxury of time to spare, he took in the remaining candidates. He couldn\'t hear them, but he could see them just fine. They had started with dozens, if not hundreds. Now, only forty or so remained. Ten teams.

If they eliminate half of us here, only five will remain. Is the next trial the last? he wondered. His brows furrowed. So far, there hadn\'t been anything impossible to surmount. Sure, he believed wholeheartedly that Mag was unable to surpass these trials on his own, especially with his performance in the fear trial, but aside from that? There\'d been none of the deadly danger Mag had described. Nothing truly life-threatening.

Is the final trial that hard? Or am I wrong? Are there multiple trials yet ahead of us? Ike furrowed his brows, uncertain. After a second, he shrugged to himself. He\'d find out soon enough. The dinner trial was winding down. The servants brought out the desert, and Ike carefully began to eat it. The food was full of mana, and as he ate desert, it finished refilling his core with aether. He let out a slow breath. If he was going to throw someone into danger, he\'d probably give them a top-up first, if he could. Assuming Mag wasn\'t insane, and this trial really was deadly, then he\'d put money on the deadly part coming next.

As he finished the last bite of desert, a screen appeared before his eyes. One word floated in its center:

PASS

Ike glanced to the left and right. Mag nodded. Wisp pumped her fist. Shawn let out a sigh of relief.

Looks like we skimmed by, by the skin of our teeth.

And then the floor opened up beneath them, and they plunged into darkness.