The librarians and the cat of life

by Dragon Shimmer

Challenge cave

The Newbie is running to the cave. Inside the cave, there are four ways to come in.

"This way." Twilight is running to the second road.

"Wait, Twilight."

The others follow the purple unicorn. When the Newbie just goes inside the cave. A gate suddenly appeared and closed the cave.

Running for a while, the Newbie finds that there is a big bottle full of candy and a guard stands next to it.

Twilight looks at the bottle and asks. "What is this bottle for?"

The guard introduces. "Welcome to math challenge. You have to answer the question 'How many candies inside this bottle? Remember, do not break this bottle or you will be in prison."

Twilight looks around the bottle. She takes a feather pen and paper. "Let's see. This bottle is 2 feet high, meaning it has 60,96 centimeter." Then she levitates the bottle and measures the bottom of the bottle. "Radius... 1.2 feet so it means...."

Sunset, Spike and Breaker look at each other, then look at Twilight who is still calculating. Spike takes the bottle and pours all of the candies into a bag. Twilight grasps and glares at the baby dragon but Spike answers. "Zero. This bottle has zero candy."

The guard glares at the baby dragon, but he opens the door. "Congrat, you allow to move forward."

Twilight's mouth is opened while Spike pats her head and laughs "The rule is not breaking the bottle, so I don't break the rule. Anyway, you are cute in this face."

Twilight shakes her head and blushes, then she puts Spike on her back and keeps walking forward. Sunset and Breaker giggle and follow them.

---

Elios and his teammates run inside the cave. He sees that the second road is blocked. Elios points at the third road. "I want this one."

One of his teammate points at the first road. "But we want this way. To be safe."

"How can you be sure about that? This cat is tricky, you know."

"We trust our luck." The minotaur takes out the talisman. "And we bought this thing."

Ellios facepalms and sighs, then he decides, "Alright, we will roll the dice. Whoever has the highest score will follow them."

"You will lose, my prince."

Ellios takes the dice and rolls it. It reveals a '6'. His teammates groan and go to the third road without rolling the dice. Ellios laughs in victory and leads his team.

When they run for a while, a floor is suddenly open, causing the Minotaur to fall under the ground.

The Minotaur lands on the soft surface. Ellios stands up and looks around. He sees a guard standing next to the door.

The guard introduces. "Welcome to the running challenge. Please wear this suit and go inside the door."

Ellios is confused. "Running challenge? But we are in a marathon."

"You will know. Now, please put this suit on."

The Minotaur puts the suit on and walks inside the door. When they just take a step, the door disappears and reveals a big dragon is flying on them. The dragon starts shooting the fireball at them.

The Minotaur starts running away from the dragon. When they are running, many electric lines are running to them. The Minotaur starts to duck, jump or do anything that they can dodge the electricity.

Ellios yells. "I hate this cat. Curse you Amelia."

---

"Oh Amelia, you are being cursed."

The audience and Craka laugh at her. The white cat shakes her head and smiles. "Aww, little bulls can't take the easiest challenge. How cute ~!"

The audience is silenced. Craka asks. "Is that your easiest challenge?"

Amelia spins the microphone. "Just a basic run and dodge. The dragon and electricity can't kill them through."

"But that's too terrifying. Why don't you make the challenge like the Newbie has done? And they did this for like 30 seconds."

"I didn't expect that they could do that so fast. Curse that dragon." Amelia gives her a smug. "How about we turn back the race. The Rich and The Calendar are running into the challenge too."

"Fine. Let's see what challenge you put into that gate." Craka pokes the cat. "If that challenge is not harder, you will be punished."

"Don't worry. It will."

Amelia lands on Craka's shoulder. The audience keeps watching the competitors and they cheer for the Newbie.

---

Calendar and her team are running to the cave. Without saying anything, Calendar rushes into the first road. Her teammates are struggling to follow her.

After a while, the floor is opened and the Calendar is falling down, then they land on a soft surface. Calendar gets up and sees a guard is standing next to the snowboards. "Welcome to the sliding challenge. Your challenge is to pass this room with these snowboards."

"Eh.... " Calendar takes the snowboard. "What will we do with this?"

The soldier opens the door and reveals the sand is flowing down like a waterfall. Calendar is scary. The guard gives her and her teammate many pedants. "Please wear this for your own safety. "

The Calendar starts skiing through the sand, the magenta mare steps back but the guard pushes her down, cause Calendar skiing through the 'sandfall'

After skiing for a while, the Calendar sees a board that says, '6 + 9 ×10 ÷ 3'. They see three gates that have different numbers. The Calendar doesn't have time to calculate, they slide into '50' , '32' gates.

Calendar finds that they are teleported to the door. The guard looks at the mare. "To dumb for math?"

Calendar whines, "Hey, how can we skiing and matching at the same time?"

The guard starts taking his lunch. "Remember, the Newbie is in the first place. Bet that your orange unicorn witch will have a chance to laugh at you, loser."

Calendar's face is reddened and she starts to ski again. Her teammates just follow her. The challenge will be painful.

---

Sandy and his team finally can get out the sticky ball. When he gets to the 'cross the cliff' challenge, the guard points at the last road.

Sandy is confused and asks. "We have to cross this cliff, right?"

The guard nods. "That's right, Sandy. You can use anything to cross this cliff."

Sandy laughs. "It's easy."

Sandy claps his paws. His teammate brings out the chairs with many propellers on it. When the Rich starts flying through the cliff, the cannons start shooting at ten, cause the Rich falls down the cliff.

Sandy is screaming because of falling to the cliff. Suddenly, someone shakes him to wake him up. The yellow Abyssian opens his eyes and finds that he is the same position like before, minus the broken chairs

The yellow Abyssian breathes so hard. " What... what just happened?"

"Just a teleport spell to give you back." The guard points at the cannons that are floating in the air. Sandy looks at it and feels amazed by such a good weapon. The guard announces. "You are in last place. Be careful or this is the first year you step in the last place."

Sandy whispers to his teammate. His teammate starts taking the pigeon. It flies to the south. The yellow Abyssian is very confident in this race.

---

Ametia is looking at her daughter's team. She feels so good when her teammates are way better than she expected. Looking to the right, the old Abyssian looks at his son angrily when he is currently at the last place.

Ametia smiles. "Look like you are going to lose, Liner."

"I am not going to lose." Liner slams on the table. "I will not give up until he can marry Princess Ethna."

"She is not that Ethna anymore."

Liner looks around and sees the pigeon is coming to him with a letter on his leg. The old Abyssian gives the paper to his servant. His servant bows and walks away. Liner smiles. "I don't think her teammate will not be in first place after the first lap."

"How can you be sure?" Ametia looks at Sandy. She sees the yellow Abyssian is struggling to pass the challenge. The queen takes a sip. "Give up right now or you will not lose 20% of your property."

"Not anymore." Liner put the roses on the table. "I'm sure they will not finish the road. This is just an abnormal year after all."

"I see." Ametia pushes the letter to the guard without Liner seeing. The guard quickly gives it to another guard. Ametia continues. "I don't think that orange witch is not simple."

"A spellcaster is never good at strength."

"No.... not at all."

Ametia keeps watching the librarians. They are currently running through the big pole, which moves quite quickly.

---

Celestia is raising the halberd and slashing it. She is trying to raise it without using magic. The lion just lies there and reads a book while watching if the clone is working well or not.

Celestia feels tired and falls on the ground. "Why did you want me to do this?"

"1000 slashes are not difficult." Leo flips another page. "Even a newbie can complete that. And you are stopped at the 752th slash."

"I see. You want me to know more about this weapon."

"Just one of them." Leo closes the book and turns to the alicorn. "Any question?"

"You promised me an answer."

"All right." Leo draws a magic circle. "The mage and the witch are not much different. They are all elite spellcasters, can cast spells and can attack the opponent through magic."

"So.... what is different?"

"The difference is only one thing. The spirit." Leo starts drawing a dragon and colors it with orange. "A witch has a spirit that can't be broken easily, no matter how difficult they meet." Celestia is silenced and listens to him carefully. Leo continues. "Their purpose is always not loftly, even being called very trivial. They will do anything to achieve that purpose."

"So.... that's why you call Sunset a witch." Celestis turns to the halberd. "Not any witch in history?"

"She is the only one I can call a witch, not any mage or spellcaster in history." Leo takes Celestia's halberd . "I want to ask you a question."

"What is it?"

"Why are you raising this weapon?"

Celestia answers. "Because one of my old guards told me to keep it."

Leo shakes his head. "Wrong." Celestia is surprised as Leo puts the halberd on Celestia's back. "That is not an answer. Now, stand up and slashes 1000 times more on the air."

Celestia glares at the lion but Leo ignores her and takes another book to read. Celestia raises her halberd. "I wil get you for stealing my book in my library."

"I will wait for that." Leo kicks Celestia's flank. "No more talking. Now start practicing. Don't worry about your kingdom, my clone will do it for you."

Celestia yelps and slams the weapon down. The white alicorn sighs and she starts raising the

---

The Newbie is running out of the cave after the 'pole moving' challenge. When they run outside, they see a big snow field outside.

Twilight, Spike and Breaker look around and feels amazed. The purple unicorn asks. "Wow, Amelia can actually do this?"

"For a field like this, it is easy just like eating the cake for her." Sunset eats some candies. "At least we can actually run through it."

"Wow, there is no snow in this country." Breaker looks at the snowflake. "Now I know how beautiful it is when this country is covered in snow."

A guard comes to them. He is wearing a snow boot and coat. The guard coughs a little, then he starts announcing. "Welcome to the snowy road road. We have prepared tools for you." The guard claps his paw and many skiing tools are revealed. "This is your tool. Please choose carefully and starts."

Twilight takes the snowboard while Breaker, Sunset and Spike take the skis. Twilight feels weird about Sunset when she takes the skis. "Is this possible for you to use the skis? I mean it is quite hard for a unicorn to use skis."

"Remember that I can walk on two hind legs without problem." Sunset points to the ski pole. "Quick, we have to finish this race."

After the Newbie prep is done, Twilight feels nervous when she has never gone skiing before. Spike walks to the purple unicorn and kicks her flank, makes her yelps and starts skiing. Breaker looks at the purple dragon. "Pervert."

Spike shakes his head and the others follow the purple unicorn. Twilight feels weird when she can actually ski even if she never went skiing before.

When the Newbie skis through the cliff, many big snow balls are falling for them. Sunset looks up and sees some shadows on the cliff. The orange unicorn knows this is not Amelia's doing. This is not a simple marathon anymore.