“Master, is the training all finished?... That was faster than expected.” Alexa turned once she heard us enter the sliding doors.

“There was kind of a situation down there.” I described the events to her from my point of view and how it would be better for them without my presence at the moment.

“Are you okay? What about Tessa?” Those were her first set of questions. I let her know I was fine as she could see and that Tessa should be okay for the most part other than, left somewhat shaken from what transpired.

“I can’t believe there’s such an ability, to cause that much terror from a single stare and sentence.” Alexa moved closer to inspect my arm injury from Tessa’s bite.

“It’ll be helpful in the future... Just I wish these powers would stop appearing as they please, at the worst times possible.” I leaned over to peek at Eris.

“How long has it been already, she’s still not out?” It only took me around five minutes in real time to finish the first three trials. The time she spent inside has already doubled the amount it took for my attempt.

“Would you like to see footage of her trial?” Iris chimed in with an answer.

“Why didn’t you let me know you could do that from the very start!” The moment I said that vibes of an Eris level reply felt inevitable.

“Because you never-”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence…” I immediately shut her down. It was almost as if she copied Eris’s thought process to a tee and not just her appearance.

“Hmph!” With a pout, she activated a projection to appear on the nearby wall. The light cast from her floating device, using the same holographic tech to show us the events within the virtual world.

Eris stood at the starting line of the first trial. Her goal was to reach the flag pole only fifty feet away. The distance looked short but those last few steps took over twenty-four days to complete during my attempt.

This might be the reason for her taking so long to return. I thought that as she walked across without any hindrance, almost like she was heading to her room for an afternoon nap.

Some added special effects and stage clear text slammed across the footage, signifying her success and time required. Just shy of fifteen seconds to reach the goal.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

‘That was her normal walking pace without any added sense of urgency…’ There goes my reason for her taking so long and I started to have a bad premonition of the real issue at hand.

The footage carried on to the commencement of the second trial with Eris standing in the center of the city. The surreal clouds that blocked all sunlight from entering the city turned day into night. You could clearly see the edge of darkness ending before the distant mountaintops. It acted as the precursor to the oncoming destruction or in this case the deployment of many reforcers. I didn’t have time to consider the situation before, but now wondered if the cloud cover was some type of wide-scale concealment magic.

Eris seemed to have the same plan and ran into the closest building to hideaway. Just like in my attempt, that strategy only managed to shave off ten minutes before the reforcers found me. I was wondering if she was going to act dead and allow the building to crumble on top of her or confront them.

She chose the latter and made her way, blasting through the side of the skyscraper’s window and landing on one of her mana platforms. The reforcers reacted to her sudden appearance by redirecting all of their focus and magic attacks.

I remember questioning Eris about her magic on the fact that she could place platforms and barriers in the middle of the air, yet not able to use that same technique as a form of travel. Her response mentioned that the amount of mana required to add velocity made it not worthwhile, at least with her current reserves.

She said all that but acted completely against her logic, spinning through the air in an attempt to shake the assortment of homing projectiles. Then at times allowing them to blast against her forcefield or simply not being fast enough to dodge them all. The whole scene formed an odd theory, almost like she treated the reforcers as practice for improvement.

The faceless speedster reached her first followed by another with teleportation. At the very last second, she nullified the aura of the speedster, causing his magic to disperse and his body to come crashing into her barrier. Almost like an insect to a windshield, his guts splattered across the surrounding air.

She pointed her hand at the faceless teleporter, only to cause him to instantly retreat and disappear from the area. My guess to avoid the nullification ability, and figure out how to deal with her.

It turned into an uneventful stalemate as none of them dared to approach, maintaining distance and firing their constant barrage of magic. They were aiming to deplete her of mana, then go in for the kill.

Either way at this rate, Eris would have no problem reaching the thirty-minute time limit and that seemed like the plan. At least until a sudden emotion consumed her mind. Pure hatred and rage down to her jaws clenching and fists tightening as her body went rigid, nearly suffocating from the fury.

This was a new emotion, one that I never imagined witnessing. One that was totally on the opposite end of the spectrum from her normal laid-back demeanor.

The footage veered to the target of her anger, the faceless reforcer that gave me the most trouble. His light magic encompassed his entire body, building in brightness as he readied for an attack.