As soon as Midas took the stairs to the first floor, he was able to see what Qayid was talking about - every hall he wandered nearly completely empty, leaving seemingly the complete building silent except the sounds of rain hailing against the mosaic glass beside him. The silence was eventually interrupted by someone trying their best to catch up to the youth - their footsteps hulling through the empty hall.
"Midas! I found a solution to our problem of not getting past the guards...!"
"Why are you shouting...?"
Midas watched as Foulard eventually crouched down behind him, hands on his knees, as he tried his best to catch his breath from running toward him. Arching his brow as he panted, he saw the drenched uniform of the youth.
"I can bring you to the upper floor if I tell them you're just a visitor... Knights can't oppose the request of a noble - even if my family is of lower rank."
"A knight will definitely trust you more than me. I was able to find out that mostly older students reside in the rooms on the roof of the different compartments - meaning a confrontation with whoever you reported to will be a hassle."
"Yeah, wouldn't surprise me if that's right. I can't do much to help you without a water stone, but if I somehow manage to get my hands on one, then finding him will be much easier since I roughly know how large his mana pool is."
"So you use a null-ability to see mana too... and that's how you most likely found me."
"In a way, yes. I somehow managed to combine my bending with a Null-Ability. After I found a student matching the description of you, I just had to memorize the concentration of mana around you - the density of it and how much of it radiated off you... I'm really good at memorizing these things.
Foulard most likely had watched him from the moment he stepped through the gate to attend the practical exam - the Null-Ability Midas used on his eyes had quite the far range, and with some practice, the sharpness of one's sight and range would most likely increase even further. Midas now was walking the stairs of the third floor - where he and the others had most of their lessons, as their classroom was now a mere few steps away.
"What do we actually do when we're up there...?"
"You will lead me to the room where you and this student exchanged info - maybe we will find some information there, possibly even the stone he took from you."
They quickly approached the fourth floor of the compartment they were in - the entirety of the already flawlessly clean hallways now almost luxurious, finely detailed, deep blue wallpapers and oil paintings framed in silver made up most of the walls after the stairway they climbed. Midas could feel the lingering gaze on him through the openings of the knight's helmet - Foulard doing his most to sound casual as he introduced him as his friend in front of the heavily armored man guarding the floor.
The knight eventually gave up with his questions; the cover Foulard made up on the fly was surprisingly detailed as his gloved hand waved at them dismissively, allowing the two of them to pass. Midas had already worried the commander's son or whoever they tried to approach had already taken precautions against him trying to reach the higher floors exclusively; however, by the interaction, it seemed that Midas was seen like any other southerner at the academy.
"If we kept going up those stairs, we would end up in the library in the middle of the roof; however, we need to go to the dorms on that floor. Every compartment's roof is the same; however, the third one in the middle is one large space for the professors and the academy head, at least from what I heard.
"That's nearby..."
Midas followed Foulard's lead as they went deeper into the fourth floor; they walked past other noble students more frequently - some not even paying attention to the youth, others making a face as they noticed that he didn't wear the same emblem as Foulard or themselves on his blazer. Midas stuck out from the others because of his dated uniform he got at Crascender University - not to mention that it had visible differences to the other uniforms, mostly the shade of blue used as well as the fabric; the blazer Foulard wore was brighter and thinner.
After having reached the end of the more lively hall - walking past multiple classrooms and lounging areas equipped with couches and potted plants - they made their way up another set of stairs on the back of the compartment that led them to its roof - the short walkway between the handful of dorms making it clear how exclusive getting a sleeping quarter here was.
"What about the other nobles...? Where do they sleep?"
"In our own dorm buildings, of course... it's the most far to the left of the surrounding buildings. I thought of letting you use my room, but the guards there will definitely deny you entry. However, the heirs of the most prestigious families get their own dorms here - the Troi'Facon takes the security of these students really seriously."
Each door was named with who lived there; silver nameplates were drilled into the dark wood of the doors, the name of who lived inside engraved into the metal with a level of detail that made Midas doubt a human hand was behind it. One of the seven rooms had no nameplate at all, the first on the left - approaching it, Midas carefully turned the metal nub only to realize that the door was unlocked.
"It's open...?"
Midas froze immediately, turning to Foulard, who seemed equally surprised - their eyes glued to the every-widening sliver; sunlight made him narrow his eyes as he continued to open the door. The fact this room was open might imply whoever Foulard was talking to already knew of their arrival; the only roof of the room was a circular glass built into the angled wall of it. Clutching his drawn sickle, Midas checked every corner, all of them empty as he stepped inside one foot after another, looking through the window to see the shingles of the roof of the third apartment.
"He's not here today, huh..."
"Be careful, he could know that we're here."
Foulard murmured to himself, strolling through the seemingly barely used dorm room and eventually touching the top of the wooden desk placed directly under the window - a shelf dimly opened under the tabletop. Closing the door, Midas examined the room - nothing was placed onto the desk, a faint layer of dust on the edges of it. The bed was flawlessly set, as if he had never slept there the past few days - opening the closet, he could see that it was completely empty as well.
Freezing at the loud noise Foulard gave from himself, he sharply turned his head to him to see why he screamed - seeing him grab a gauntlet from the desk shelf. Grinning sharply, Foulard held up the glove made of brass, a water stone still slotted into it. There had to be a reason why this was left behind here; whoever the son of the commander hired, Midas couldn't shake the feeling he was looming somewhere near them.
"Don't you see this...? We have an actual chance of beating this guy now...! If I'm able to bend, finding him will be much easier."
Midas stepped next to him, watching Foulard's hand slip into the gauntlet, the second one seemingly missing as his fingers spread out in the leather under the brass covering it. The light shining out of the window dimly shone on their faces as they looked down at the gear, the shattering of glass abruptly ringing through the room.
Foulard's eyes widened in pure shock as Midas's cranium burst right in front of his eyes - their eyes still set on each other as gold began to splatter from the fracturing pieces of skin that broke apart by the force of whatever was shot at them. Falling back on the floor, Foulard shivered as he saw the metallic liquid reflect the light of the window - his heart pounding wildly as he hastily put up a cover of water behind the broken glass.
"Midas...! You can't die now... stay with me...!"
Clutching his teeth, Foulards grabbed the collar of Midas's uniform - his body motionless, eyes rolled back, and gold continuously flowing from his shattered cranium. With wide eyes and a trembling body, Foulard wasn't able to trust his own eyes as he saw the pool of gold suddenly grow smaller until it completely pooled up into the youth's head - the burst-open head seemingly closing itself up on its own. Crawling away from the body with a horrified look, he noticed how Midas's iris turned into the same golden rings that burned into his mind from the time he had to eliminate him.
Whatever was inside of Midas's body healed him without any other trace of an injury - a thumb-sized piece of sharp rock spilled out of the gold that was quickly enclosed again by skin and hair, most likely the projectile that was shot at him. Reluctantly reaching out to poke at Midas's body to test if he was responsive - Foulard's heart almost dropped as Midas's head snapped up, his hands clutching his face and the back of his hair with wide, confused eyes.
"You live... praise the holy waters..."
Midas was pretty sure something burst through his cranium just now, judging by the fact he was lying on the floor and Foulard's expression was a mix of utter confusion, relief, and fear. Still clutching his forehead, the youth eventually realized that Gilt was most likely behind him still being alive. Midas felt a stinging sensation in nearly every bone of his body when it merged with him, and he knew that if Gilt consumed more gold, he would be capable of much more - at least from what it told him. However, the fact that it was capable of regenerating his body was something Midas didn't expect at all - even though it matched its goal of only doing the minimum to keep him alive.
"Have you seen where that came from...?"
"He's somewhere on the roof - I have no idea how to even get up there."
"He has a sun shard; I'm not surprised he can reach those kinds of places."
Whoever was their enemy had a lot of precision with their bending, something Midas should've expected, as these rooms are mostly used by older students that have been at this academy longer than a Trestempo or two. Making sure he hid behind the table, he tried to look past the film of water Foulard set up - the roof of the nearby compartment seemingly clear even though the angle of the shot required him to stand there.
"We need to get to the third compartment."
"You sure...? He might leave us; he definitely saw you faint - I'm sure we can pretend you're dead..."
"Not an option."
Midas needed to use any given chance of weakening the son of the commander, either by dealing with his underlings or by crumbling his resolve - giving the marksman the success of ending him wasn't something the youth could let happen. Swiftly stepping down the stairs leading to the fourth floor, Foulard quickly caught up to him - dragging him around a corner they hadn't previously taken, as each compartment of the building had two walkways between them on the fourth and second floors.
The tiled ceramic floor was now wood, the straight walkway having windows on each side, allowing Midas to examine the roof of the middle compartment from a different angle. Holding dead in his tracks, the youth widened his eyes at a figure hulled in a hood, their body completely hidden by loosely hanging cloth that cascaded down their shoulders - crouching on the edge of the roof and not even turned to him.
Using his chance, Midas used his sunshard as he made the same projectile that shattered his head before levitate up in the air - slowly able to make it spin in the air. However, before he could fire it off, Foulard grabbed it from the air, stopping his attempt of firing back.
"Let's wait; we might get a chance of surprising them when he tries to meet up with the commander's son - he probably thinks we won't be behind him anymore anyway."
Reluctantly, Midas continued - the fourth floor of the third compartment was seemingly one large room with one pathway going around it, students of higher and lower classes picking books from the many shelves and lounging on couches and stools set up between them. Not caring if he was being quiet or not, the youth and Foulard pushed forward - straightlining through the room before ending up on the east side of the compartment, seeing the figure walk on top of the roofing of the walkway between the third and fourth compartments.
"We got the high ground here - give me the rock..."
Handing Foulard the stone, Midas quickly opened the windows as he watched him hull the stone projectile in a mass of water surrounding it, the movements of the fluid making the object spin with much more speed than what Midas achieved. With an arm movement that seemed like Foulard threw something invisible, the stone shot down out of the window, its trajectory curving to hit the roof directly in front of the enemy, making them abruptly turn their hidden face towards them.
"So close...! And I even used my Null-Ability..."
"Look, Foulard - this guy... is blind."
A shiver ran down Midas's spine as he saw the hulled figure turn their closed eyes directly at them, seemingly staring at only them through their closed lids from afar. Equally as surprised, Foulard dragged him away from the window before a shot of stone shot through the opened window, hitting the dead center of a painting on the wall behind it.
"Let's use the walkway on the fourth floor..."
Upon Midas' suggestion, they wasted no time approaching the walkway between the fourth and third compartments, Foulard making use of his water stone, the openings that served as windows in the walkways not shielded by glass as multiple shots of water curled downwards towards the enemy on the walkway directly beneath them. Upon using his stone, Foulard nearly avoided two stone projectiles that were shot through the wooden floor of the walkway, breaking through the planks with ease.
Once he placed his feet on the tiled floor of the fourth compartment, Midas used mana on his eyes, only seeing the faint movements of mana of one person on the second floor - knowing full well that this was their enemy, who most likely made much better use of the same Null-Ability he was currently using.
"This guy can most likely see us through the floors of the building - if we want to defeat him, we need to do so while we're on the high ground... that's our only chance, probably."