The full moon shone brightly in the sky. It was nowhere near as bright as the sun, but its light reflected upon the walls of the maze and the clear skies provided a decent view of the area in question. Truth be told, there wasn't really much to look at. Zhuge frowned, looking at the entrance to the maze that he was supposed to navigate through in the next few hours. The walls looked solid and nearly impossible to break through. Knowing the nature of the exams, they were probably reinforced by chakra or something along those lines - maybe some powerful alloy of different metals from across the continent, maybe even the entire world. In any case, the point was that he wasn't going to be able to blast through the walls and head towards the center of the labyrinth in a straight line - not that he would ever try something so tasteless. That was better left for brutes and people that lacked a brain.

No, Zhuge wasn't that type of person. He was far more subtle than that. Furthermore, he had coincidentally scouted the area beforehand, while training for the exams themselves. Albeit, that wasn't an experience that he liked remembering, mostly because it was pretty much an acid trip gone wrong. At the time he hadn't really guessed that this area would serve any purposes during the exams. He had simply used it as a means to find a certain degree of privacy. Of course, the entrance that he was assigned to use was nowhere near where he had been before. Nevertheless, at least he had some idea of what he was dealing with. As far as he could tell from the last time he was there, the walls didn't shift or change in order to confuse the people within the maze.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, Zhuge took a step into the archway that would lead him to his first trial. Truth be told, he had no real interest in these exams or in becoming a chuunin. His goal was actually something much more simple than that. He only wanted to scout the people in the exams, the participants, the people his age who would be aspiring to be someone within the shinobi world. He himself thought that all that was nothing more than bullshit, but those people... well, let's just say that there was a high possibility that they had something that he wanted. Uchiha, Hyuuga, Nekito, Zestumei... those were just a few of the ones on the list. The level of priorities he gave to each of them was something that he had yet to decide. After seeing some of them in action, he could compile a decent list, train his medical skills in order to avoid damaging the valuable goods and then proceed to his personal goal. Clearing this maze was just the first step to climb.

From then on, it was only a matter of time before he completed his collection...

[506]

Rolling for a scenario.

The member 'Zhuge Shin' has done the following action : Dices roll

'Exam Scenario Dice' :

The first few moments within the labyrinth were nothing short of boring and repetitive. There was little to go on, really, in order to navigate the place other than guesswork. Well, it was more of an educated guess, Zhuge supposed. For the past few minutes, he had been using the stars in the sky and his knowledge of constellations to avoid walking in circles. Every time he turned in a certain direction, he used the kunai that was a part of the survival kit that had been handed to him earlier to place mark on the wall. It was nothing deep, only a scratch on the surface of the thick material, but it was enough for him to tell where he had been and where he hadn't. Yes, he had a limited amount of time to get to the center of the labyrinth, and yes, he had probably started this out a little bit too late, but there was no time to dwell on that now. All he could really d was work with what he had.

He gazed up at the sky once again. Had it been a cloudy night, he would have probably been screwed as all hell. He locked his eyes on the northern star - the one that he had decided to follow once he entered the maze - and kept on walking. He assumed that he would get to his destination eventually. Of course, this being the chuunin exams, he was almost certain that the test couldn't be this simple. These things usually involved more of a challenge, be it intellectual, psychological or physical. More often than not, it incorporated all three. The fact that nothing out of the ordinary had happened thus far was... suspicious, to say the least. Participants weren't really told what to expect - they had only been told what to do. He supposed it was logical. Someone - a shinobi - of a higher rank was expected to be ready and to be versatile in these kinds of situations.

Faced with a fork in the road, so to speak, Zhuge turned left for the third time in a row. As usual, he made a mark on the wall of the labyrinth. He kept walking along the path, which twisted and turned multiple times before leading him to yet another dead end. Placing his hand on the wall and marking it with a large 'X' Zhuge let a sigh escape his lips. This was frustrating, to say the least, not to mention annoying as fuck. He turned around t follow the path he had come through.

Almost as if on queue, the young boy saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. For a second, he thought nothing of it - it was surely his tired mind playing tricks on him. However, when the rumbling began, he really had no choice but to pay attention. The sound was loud, a low growl coming from the depths of the ground beneath his feet. Well shit. This was the trap, the trickery that he had been expecting. Time to run.

[516]

Zhuge's first instinct was, of course, to let his feet carry him as fast as he could towards the other side of the labyrinth. He hadn't bothered to turn around and look at what was happening behind him - it would be an unnecessary distraction, after all - but he had a fairly good guess at what it was. If the noise was anything to go by, he would say that the walls were collapsing behind him. Great, just fucking fantastic. A fight would have been so much more straightforward than this. Not only that, but Zhuge knew his limits. He knew that he stamina was nothing to brag about. He would eventually get tired. He would be crushed by the rubble and his trip to Takigakure would've been nothing but a shameful thorn in his side, an annoyance that he wouldn't live down for the next few years.

there had to be some way to stop this, some sort of trigger that he could hit, some hidden button that he could press to make the problem go away. Maybe they'd even throw in confetti and a nice banner once he pushed it - "Congrats, you don't suck!" Then again, that was him doing nothing but guesswork once again. Maybe he had to reach the end of the maze with this little predicament going on behind him. Well, it was definitely plausible. It counted as both a psychological and physical test. It tested person's resolve. The runner didn't know when he or she would reach the goal, forcing him or her to run and run and run without an end in sight. It was no doubt physical in the sense that, well, he had to run to save his ass. Nevertheless, something about it didn't seem quite right.

For a while, he was too busy running to notice his surroundings consciously. But the inner processes of his mind were working on overdrive. He knew that there had to be a way out of this situation, something that he could do before he reached his limit. By this point, the raven haired boy was starting to pant. His breaths were becoming labored and heavy. he had to think, he had to take action. Maybe by chance or maybe by instinct - hell, it could have been divine intervention for all Zhuge cared - he spotted the markings that he had left on the wall right before he turned towards the path that led to the dead end. And yet, just as he made the last turn before hitting the wall, there was nothing... How very... poetic? No, that wasn't the word that he was looking for.

Maybe it was ironic that a master to be of the art of illusions would be placed into one himself as a part of his test. The walls collapsing behind him were nothing but a figment of his currently poisoned imagination, but there was no telling what would happen if he let himself be caught in them. He would likely pass out or suffer some other kind of damage. In any case, stopping was out of the question. There was only one thing he could do, really. Placing his hands in a seal, he murmured the word "Kai." Just like that, the illusion was over.

[555]

Rolling for the next scenario.

The member 'Zhuge Shin' has done the following action : Dices roll

'Exam Scenario Dice' :

Well, that had certainly been... interesting. The use of an illusion wasn't something that the raven haired boy had been necessarily expecting. For a moment, it had thrown him off guard. Though it had taken a while to realize, at least he was still in the game, so to speak. Zhuge was breathing heavily at this point. He leaned against the side of the wall for a moment in order to catch his breath. He needed a second to recover before he could continue. The smart thing to do at this point was to rest for a few minutes. Yes, he didn't exactly have time to spare, but continuing on while unable to run at full speed and while tired was nothing short of stupid. He collapsed, sitting against the wall. He had to be close if he had hit a trap. That was his only consolation after the brief "oh no, the walls are collapsing" ordeal.

Surely, there would be other things to deal with long the way. Again, he wondered why the hell he wasn't just thrown into an arena with the rest of the contestants. A scenario like that would have made his life so much easier. But no, the proctors just had to make them run through a maze for the hell of it. He wondered who had come up with the idea. Honestly, he felt like a freaking lab rat in this place. The high walls didn't really help either. Having caught his breath, he stood up and continued down the path. He was at the fork in the road that he had encountered before - the mark on the path heading towards the left told him as much.

This time, he had no choice but to head right. Oddly enough, the path only went in one direction - straight, evidently - and then dissipated in the darkness. How... strange. Zhuge wasn't about to return to the beginning of the maze and start all over again. He didn't want to lose his progress, if it could really have been called that. He might as well invest some of his time into investigating what it was, exactly, that was at the end of this alternate route. He walked at a brisk pace, not wanting to waste much time on what could have possibly been nothing more than a dead end.

Lo and behold, there it was, the answer to his question - a set of stairs leading underground. How... quaint. He wasn't looking forward to going down into a dingy and possibly muddy tunnel filled with dirt and all kinds of filth, but really, what choice did he have? He let a sigh escape his lips before taking a deep breath and heading down the stairs. Sacrifices had to be made if he wanted to reach his goal. Sadly, this time, his OCD and need for absolute cleanliness would have to take one for the team.

This test was definitely becoming a pain in the ass...

[503]

As was to be expected, the tunnel was dark, dingy, stuffy and dirty. A part of Zhuge - a large one, at that - really really wanted to pull out a mop, a duster and a broom to take care of the mess. Of course, that was completely out of the question. It was much quicker and easier to simply power walk through it to get to the end. If he was lucky enough, that god dammed fountain would be waiting for him in the surface once he got out of there. A young boy could only hope.

Of course, he was under no delusion that this tunnel was just an average part of the first phase of the exams. Sure, this was a challenge enough for him, though he highly doubted that any other participant found this as torturous as he did. Maybe a couple of them had claustrophobia, but he didn't really think that fighting petty and irrational fears that only applied to some was the point of this. No, there had to be something more to it. There was probably something down there was bound to become an obstacle. Ah, there it was... that crunching noise underneath his feet as he walked, the sticky substance that had just attached itself to his had... Yep, he was walking head first into a nest of spiders. He shuddered.

"Please let me be wrong," he murmured repeatedly under his breath. He wanted to close his eyes and pretend that he was elsewhere, but that would have been the equivalent of letting his guard down. Of course, his assumption was more than right. He now wanted nothing more than to set the whole place on fire. Looking back on the event a few days later, he would realize that he probably should have done so at that point. Eh, well, no use crying over spilled milk. He had chosen to continue walking down the straight tunnel instead. So far, he had yet to spot any sort of diverging path.

What's more, leering straight at him were four pairs of gleaming red eyes. That was no doubt the mother, his target. "Look, my children, dinner is here," she spoke in a soft and silky voice that was borderline hypnotic. Wait... the animal spoke... It was a talking giant spider that he had to face off against...

A part of Zhuge was instantly both irked and pissed off. This... Just.... No. The talking gryphon and the unicorns and the dragon from the other day had been more than enough sentient creatures to satisfy his lifetime. This thing needed to die. Now. Fortunately for him, the children were too small to actually make a difference in the fight. Otherwise, he would have been fighting a small army. At least he had that going for him, which was nice.

He reached for one of the flash bombs in his pouch. If he could create a diversion for a long enough time, he could cast a genjutsu over the thing and proceed to stab it repeatedly. Before he could do so, however, the spider had shot a stream of web towards his hand in order to immobilize it. His hand was now stuck to his weapons' pouch. However, that wasn't his main concern. The young boy shuddered. He had to stop himself from squealing in disgust like a little girl. If he was angry before, he was infuriated now. Zhuge's hands began to coat themselves in a thin stream of chakra. As the webbing began to break and decompose, the spider rushed towards him. The thing was fast, or at least more so than he was. By the looks of it, the thing was stronger as well.

Zhuge tried his best to dodge, barely managing to do so. The spider's legs were sharp, almost as much as a thin blade. One of the legs grazed his clothing as he rolled to the right, ripping his overcoat to shreds. The next leg nearly managed to stab through his leg. It scratched through his skin, shooting a sharp pain through the boy's body. Spiders had no bones to dislocate, so the jutsu he had currently activated was pretty much useless for anything other than getting rid of the webs. He finally managed to reach into his weapons' pouch and pull out the flash bomb. Closing his eyes, he through it straight onto the ground in front of him.

The spider let out a loud hiss mixed with a screech. Being temporarily blinded, now was the perfect time to throw it into an illusion. He only had one that didn't involve visual triggers. Lightning chakra left his hand and came into direct contact with the spider. It began to stagger around, trying to find its foothold on reality and failing. Grabbing the windmill shuriken, he leaped back in order to create a decent enough distance. He threw the weapon skillfully, managing to slice right through the middle of the spider. Its carcass lay crippled and still.

Well, at least that was over. Now he just needed to find an exit.

[856]

Finding an exit after the rather brief fight had been rather simple. The tunnel had no diverging points whatsoever. It was just a straight path. After returning to the surface, Zhuge stopped for a moment to catch his breath once again and to dress his wounds properly. His leg was cut open and he was pretty sure that his right shoulder was dislocated. Fortunately, he could fix both problems with what he knew of medicine and the human body. He started with his arm, realizing that he probably needed both hands if he wanted to stop the bleeding and put the bandages on correctly. It wasn't the process that was difficult, just the pain that he had to undergo to fix the displaced bone.

"One, two, three..." He counted to himself, pulling down on his own arms swiftly and with all the strength he had. He let out a loud hiss in pain. On the bright side, it only lasted a few seconds before he could move his arm properly. He gave it a small try at first, rotating the shoulder only a little bit before he began to move it as he usually did. The survival pack that he had been handed brought a set of bandages with it. He pulled it out and tied it around the wound, making sure that it wasn't too loose or too tight.

Once he was sure that he had done a good enough job, the young boy stood up. He couldn't be too far off. Well, he hoped that he wasn't too far off. If he was thrown into a pit of snakes next, he would throw a hissy fit. If they were talking snakes, he would put every single exam proctor on his hit list.

The wound wasn't deep enough to cause too much discomfort while walking. Running could be a problem later on, but he would deal with that if he had to when the time came around. He took a deep breath and continued down the only path that was left in front of him. If this was a dead end, he would make it his personal goal to burn the entirety of Takigakure to the ground.

It was a good thing for both himself and possibly the future of the host village that he spotted the freaking fountain of whatever it was in the distance. His goal was close by. He doubted that anything would happen on the short walk from where he was to his first goal. Well, at least he hadn't gone through all of that for nothing, he guessed. Whether or not it would be worth it would be something he decided on once he looked at the rest of the genin that had made it through the same thing. It was only a matter of time, now. He would get what he wanted soon enough. He would make sure of that.

His ambition would motivate him to see this through to the end. He would observe and he would conquer.

[512]