The wilderness swallowed the Academy's neatly manicured lawns, trading them for gnarled roots and whispering canopies. While Class 1A was busy tearing itself apart with bickering and bruised egos, the other classes had taken a different approach. Cooperation. Camaraderie. Strategy. In every classroom but theirs, students had built a team — one mind, one goal. And they all shared one target. Class 1A. They moved like wolves, like hyenas. Waiting. Watching. Letting the top class bleed itself dry. The moment of weakness was all the other classes needed.
Class 1B, in particular, was ruthless. Led by a fire mage with a temperament to match, they'd chosen not to clash head-on. No. They stalked the broken — the wounded animals dragging themselves through the underbrush. That was smarter. Cleaner.
"Why not take 1A now?" one student had asked their leader.
"Because they're on edge. Alert," she had replied, fangs bared in a grin. "But 1C just ate. They're slow, full of themselves, and bleeding pride. We hunt them first. Class 1A isn't going anywhere."
In a quiet patch of forest, Britney laid Roxanna against a tree, propping her up as gently as she could. Roxanna's wounds had stopped bleeding — the flames had cauterized the injury, but not the agony. Her face was pale, feverish. Angry red bruises bloomed around the sealed wound.
"If only Clare or Robert were here…" Britney muttered under her breath.
She was doing her best, keeping Roxanna's body temperature stable using her Ice Halo, a ring of cool mist flickering faintly around her head. Roxanna stirred briefly — a flutter of consciousness — then passed out again with a soft exhale.
Britney soaked a cloth in mana-infused frost and placed it on her friend's head, watching the fever battle the chill. She needed to carry her. They had to keep moving. But the rustling of branches said otherwise.
From the thicket, two figures emerged.
Class D.
Two boys. Blades out. Grins wide.
"Well, what do we have here?" one of them said. "How lucky can you get?"
Britney stood fast, drawing her lone butterfly sword. Her other blade had been lost during their escape from Class 1C. She wasn't in the mood for clever words. She'd bleed them dry if she had to.
"You know what Lux always says," the second boy sneered. "If you want to win, break the rules."
And then he lunged.
But he froze mid-step, body going rigid. There was a sick, wet noise — like something inside him ruptured. His eyes widened in disbelief.
He turned to his partner.
An icicle spike jutted out of the boy's throat — a jagged ring of blood where his neck had been severed.
He collapsed in silence.
Behind him, Roxanna had risen.
Somehow, while they were distracted, she'd regained just enough clarity to act. Her blood magic pulsed, lingering in the air like a whisper. She slumped back again, unconscious.
The second attacker turned to face Britney — just in time to meet the tip of her blade.
She drove the butterfly sword into his chest, piercing his lung. He gasped once, struggling for breath, then vanished in a flash of dismissal light.
The clearing was quiet again.
For now.
Earlier, in the training yard…
Lux sat like a queen on her makeshift throne — a broken stone chair from the ruined arena — sipping iced coffee and watching her exhausted students collapse one by one.
"Mana," she said lazily, "is white light. Pure. But you only see a part of it — your affinity."
She gestured at the sweat-drenched students dragging themselves across the dirt.
"Elemental affinity is like tuning into a single frequency of light. That's why you all bend different forces. But don't get cocky. You're not shaping the world's mana yet. You're barely shaping your own."
She paused, watching their misery.
"Wanna hear something motivating?" she asked, smiling devilishly.
A chorus of groans answered her.
"You use your mana to tug on the world's laws. Yes, you can create water from mana, if your affinity allows. But it's taxing. Takes too much energy, and you all have the stamina of spoiled kittens."
She stood, stretching.
"To build that stamina, you need training. Real training. Think of mana like a spark. You fan it until the world's energy joins in — that's when magic gets real."
"Alright," she called. "Three more laps!"
The students wailed.
"Oh, and before I forget. Assignments."
She pointed at Ivy and Lily. "Grow a mana tree. Bonus points if it has fruit. Root it in the ground and let it breathe."
She turned to Britney and Roxanna. "Make your element spin in a Möbius Strip. Should be fun."
"Boys — Lemniscate formation."
"Iris and Renn — stellated dodecahedron. Don't whine."
She looked at Clare and Xenia. Dramatic pause. Then:
"Enneagram."
The class groaned in unison. Lux sipped her iced coffee.
"Good talk."
The second day of the exam, 7 a.m.
Austin, now healed thanks to Robert, crouched in a ditch with his eyes on a Class D student — a lightning mage.
The guy was toying with a magical beast, a smug grin plastered across his face.
"He's not worried," Austin muttered.
Robert's voice was low. "Your flame… It's turning blue. Closer to white would be better. But we don't have time. Can you make the shot?"
Austin didn't answer. A swirling lemniscate of bluish-white fire bloomed in his palm. He narrowed his eyes and let it fly — a thin stream of plasma-light.
It struck the Class D student dead between the eyes, incinerating his brain in an instant.
A flash of dismissal light.
"Nice," Robert said.
Austin grinned. "Let's find the girls."
Elsewhere, a clearing of dead grass…
Three Class D students surrounded Renn and Iris, weapons drawn, confidence leaking from every pore.
"What are pretty girls like you doing in a dangerous place like this?" one of them taunted.
Neither girl spoke.
The leader lifted his axe, swinging lazily. The others relaxed — a mistake.
As the axe came down, Renn stepped forward, fast as a whip, and shoved something into his throat.
It was a compact sphere — her elemental construct. A stellated dodecahedron of compressed earth.
He choked, stumbled, and fell. Gone in a flash of light.
The others moved, but were unaware of the spike trap behind them.
Iris dropped to her knees, too exhausted to help. But the sudden shift in light and shadow disoriented one attacker just long enough.
Renn lunged and shoved him into the spike wall.
The final boy turned to run — too late.
Iris's Bowie knife whirled through the air and embedded in his lower back.
He screamed, but Renn was already there, covering his mouth.
Flash. Gone.
Iris rose, breathing hard. "We should go. Whoever shows up next… this trick won't work again."
A little farther off, unseen by either girl, a third party crouched low in the brush — a scout from Class 1B, eyes narrowed, lips curled in a satisfied grin.
"Well, well," she whispered, not into a device, but directly into the manipulated air around her. Her voice, flat and pleased, rode the magically channelled currents, meant only for the ears of other air mages back at her class camp. "Looks like 1A still has a few teeth left."
A pause. A voice, cool and strategic, replied through the same ethereal current, a whisper carried on the wind itself, audible only to her trained senses.
"Let them fight. Then we strike."