A few minutes ago, Sophia, Charlotte and Ruby entered a medium-sized cave; Sophia increased the size of her light mana orb and made it float to the top of the cave, illuminating the entirety of the cave.

"Seems the path ends here," Ruby remarked as the group investigated the area.

"That's very insightful, Ruby," Charlotte remarked. Ruby angerly stared at Charlotte while raising her fist as she covered it with condensed red mana.

"I was referring to this," Ruby snarked as she punched the wall behind her, causing it to completely crumbled and reveal a hidden part of the cave.

"Oh... sorry about that," Charlotte said before she and Sophia walked over to Ruby. The trio inspected the revealed section of the cave and noticed a mana core inside of a hemisphere-shaped magic shield.

"Looks like we'll need to..." Charlotte managed to say before Ruby abruptly crouched and intently stared at the ground. Sophia concernedly glanced over at Sophia, who waved her hand as she told Sophia not to worry about it.

Ruby scurried around the cave with her face close to the ground like a bloodhound before punching multiple holes into the walls of the cave and even a few into the floor, revealing three puzzles connected to the magic shield with a mana current. The trio looked at the three puzzles which: included a riddle mural, a large jumbled image made of tiles with one empty spot and something on the ground with multiple coloured panels.

"Well... it seems we'll need to solve the puzzles to be able to access the mana core," Sophia mentioned. Ruby and Charlotte agreed before all three of them looked at the three puzzles.

"Ok... since we suck at riddles, you should do the mural puzzle, Sophia, and since you lack critical thought you should do the colour match puzzle, Ruby," Charlotte offered. Ruby huffed at Charlotte's critical thought comment.

"Even if it's true, you could sugar-coat it a little," Ruby pouted which made Charlotte roll her eyes and sigh.

"Since you have a better memory and struggle at things that require foresight, you should do the colour match thing slash pattern copy puzzle," Charlotte said in a slightly exaggeratedly mocking tone.

"Fine... but you don't need to rub it in, Charlotte," Ruby defeatedly murmured before the three of them went to their respective puzzles.

Charlotte inspected the jumbled tiles on the wall and counted over a hundred pieces. She sighed and pulled one of the magnetic tiles off the wall.

Ruby stared at the Dance-Dance-Revolution-like panels, on the ground, for a few seconds before pressing one of the nine panels and causing them all to light up. The panels dimmed down before one lit up.

"Heh, this'll be easy," Ruby remarked before loudly stomping on the lit panel and causing it to dim down along with making a beep. Sophia heard rapid beeping and glanced behind herself to see Ruby breakdancing on the coloured panels.

"O...kay..." Sophia thought to herself as she turned back to the mural inscribed with a riddle.

"What is blue but only makes others gloom; this burglar's arrival will turn your leisurely activities into your doom, which am I?" Sophia read aloud while looking at the three buttons below the riddle. Sophia placed her hand on her chin and closed her eyes.

Sophia tried to decide which could be the correct answer between The Hamburgerler, a scubagoose or a dolphin. As she was trying to come to a conclusion, Sophia realised she didn't know what a scubagoose actually was. She glanced over at Charlotte and Ruby who seemed to be having no issue with their puzzles before looking back at the riddle.

"I shouldn't bother them, and I... I'll just ask sensei," Sophia thought before calling Zalroth with telepathy.

"What's up, don't tell me you need to come back already?" Zalroth remarked telepathically.

"As if, I just have a question," Sophia shouted telepathically while angerly pouting.

"So what's the question?" Zalroth asked. Sophia gritted her teeth as she contemplated whether she still wanted to ask the question or not but let out an apprehensive telepathic sigh.

"What is... a Scubagoose?" Sophia embarrassingly asked as she lightly blushed.

"It's a blue goose that is commonly seen wearing scuba gear that it's stolen from scuba divers," Zalroth answered. Sophia quickly thanked Zalroth before swiftly ending the call and pressed the scubagoose button with an even redder blush on her face. The riddle and the words on the buttons changed three more times and, luckily for Sophia, she didn't need to call Zalroth for any of them.

Ruby did a flashy backflip into the splits to finish off her improvised dance before the panels turned to stone. Ruby fell to her side before hopping to her feet as Charlotte put the last tile of her puzzle in the correct place and Sophia answered the last riddle simultaneously, causing the magic shield around the mana core to crack and shatter.

"Alright," Ruby remarked as she hurried over to the pedestal the mana core was positioned on. She stopped halfway and walked back to the others.

"I forgot I can't use light or learned how to use holy magic," Ruby cheekily remark as she rubbed the back of her head.

"I believe your sensei mentioned that we shouldn't touch it, but he seemed ok when he punched the mana core with those light mana particles around his fist," Charlotte mentioned as she looked at Sophia.

"Don't worry, I got it," Sophia remarked as she created a spear out of light mana and sliced the mana core in half.

A few minutes later, Sophia and the others arrived back at the crossroad where they were greeted by a sleeping Zalroth and Iris, who was laying on top of Star's head, while Star and Kiki were playing patty cake with Zalroth's tails.

"Man, he must really be running on fumes, if he fell asleep after a single fight," Ruby remarked.

"Nah, he's like this even when he's in perfect condition," Sophia mentioned as she created a light spear and swung the flat side of the spearhead at Zalroth's head, catching Charlotte and Ruby off guard. Zalroth caught the spear before it could hit his head and opened his eyes.

"You don't need to be so violent when trying to wake me up, Sophia," Zalroth said as he stood up. Sophia scoffed as she dispersed her light spear.

"Maybe if you weren't such a heavy sleeper I wouldn't have to," Sophia snarked.

"Yeah yeah, so you say," Zalroth tiredly remarked.

"Ruby, can you tell if there are any more magic walls?" Charlotte asked. Ruby nodded her head.

"There doesn't seem to be but there is a space between here and where the Phantom is," Ruby explained.

"So, there's one last challenge before the final boss, how video gamey," Kiki whispered to Zalroth. Kiki's comment made Zalroth chuckle.

"I guess that's one way of putting it; alright gals let's get going," Zalroth remarked before the group hurried down the third tunnel.

Zalroth entered a large cave before coming to an abrupt stop by using his magnetism magic on his feet and the ground to magnetise himself in place and causing Sophia and Ruby to slide crash into his tails, with Charlotte managing to stop herself before she crashed as well. Sophia and Ruby struggled too but managed to pull their faces out of Zalroth's tails.

"Woah, these things really are freakishly soft," Ruby commented as she uncontrollably fluffed the tail in her hands, making Charlotte apprehensively place her hand on the tail as well. Sophia popped her head around the side of Zalroth's tail and at what caused Zalroth to suddenly stop.

"Well, that's problematic," Sophia commented as she looked at the large drop between the two ledges on each side of the long drop.

"It sure is we would've fallen into there if Zalroth wasn't at the front of the group," Ruby added as the group looked into the deep drop.

"Do you think we'll be able to run across the wall?" Star asked.

"I mean I can walk up walls with... one of my azure abilities, but I believe the solution is something else..." Zalroth answered as he looked around the cave and into the drop. While everyone was looking around, Kiki was staring into the drop and squinted her eyes.

"Is something wrong?" Star asked Kiki.

"No... this situation just reminds me of a puzzle in a video game I played, where you had to navigate between invisible platforms..." Kiki explained before wondering something. She quickly rummaged through her picnic basket and pulled out a yoghurt carton before tossing it at the drop. The group noticed the flying yoghurt as it landed and splatted on an invisible platform.

"Nice work, Kikiiii-," Zalroth said as he placed his foot on the invisible-yoghurt-covered-platform before his foot slipped and almost caused him to fall over, with Zalroth frantically placing multiple of his tails on the ledge to stabilize himself.

"That was a close one," Zalroth joked as stood up straight, with Sophia and the others trying not to laugh. Zalroth rolled his eyes and gathered his mana into his hand before shooting it out across the drop.

Zalroth's mana began to be absorbed by the invisible platforms and made them visible, revealing a winding mana path. The group hopped over the yoghurt, made their way across the path and onwards to the fake Phantom.