At breakfast, only the nobles sat in the dining hall. The candidates either already left, or were still sleeping. We got ourselves some eggs with bacon and juice. Diada poked at her plate with her spider-limbs and a fork and finally passed the meal to Tom. She withdrew a couple burgers but enjoyed the juice.

I saw no issue with the food, it was pretty damn good. The cat too was quite happy with the meal.

We finished before the other guests, gave the room key back to the innkeep and left. Beyond the village, some of the locals were tending the crops, but the kids seemed to still be asleep.

The morning air was quite chilly, but oh so pleasant. The sun had yet to get above the trees beyond the fields, only a little of its orange, spreading on the sky.

I pulled out the violin and we were off.

A little after the heat of the day began picking up, threatening to soon begin melting my brain out, we run into a pack of wind wolfs. They were larger and had sharper features than the one I once met.

Eight of them were crossing the road, a short distance ahead of us, when one of the middle ones turned towards us and howled.

Tom skidded to a stop and the spiderling shot her limbs into the ground before us. A couple of thin waves of green mana crashed into them, disintegrating.

The entire pack turned towards us. I greeted them with four large fireballs. Three got shot out of the sky, but the last one exploded on the front wolf. The animal yelped and began rolling in the dirt, trying to put out the fire.

Diada pushed herself off with the spider limbs and flew towards the beasts. The entire pack howled, a massive, swirling projectile forming above them and flying off towards the spider. The girl crossed all eight of her limbs before herself, again coming out unharmed.

Tom ran after her, his body turning thin and his legs surrounded by a strong glimmer of mana. I charged from him and flew over the pack.

As soon as we reached the spiderling, she thrust her limbs forward, skewering two wolves. Tom drew his sword and extending a mana blade from it, cut through the mana thrown towards him. I boosted in a zigzag, avoiding the projectiles thrown at me while shooting my own back.

I hit another wolf, caving in its head and the rest - except for the one still on fire - run away into the woods. The last one finally got rid of the fire.

It growled at us, a swirling bubble of green mana exploding from the creature. Before it could do anything more, an extended blade cut through its head, eight spider legs pierced into its chest and a fireball broke one of its back legs.

Suddenly, Diada and Tom turned their heads towards the trees on the right of the road. I followed their line of sight. A distance from the road, a large humanoid figure stood in the shadow. It nodded and dissolved into the shade around it.

It left a voice as old as the mightiest oak. "Good hunt."

I noticed my body tensed up and stretched myself. Finally, I shook my head and flipped off the woods.

Tom put the largest wolf on his shoulders and waved for us to continue. The spiderling raised herself on four legs, the other four breaking with new joints and forming a circle above her head. She then weaved some mana silk between the legs, creating a place for me to sit.

I boosted back for our luggage and with it anchored on a manapane, jumped onto the silly seat. I moved the bags above Tom and put on a straw hat.

I put the violin bow in the backbag and decided to treat the instrument as an appropriately sized guitar. Every few pieces, the bridge fell over, giving me a pause to rest my fingers, while I fixed it back into place.

I was glad this leshy didn't scare me but damn... I was pissed. His presence just soured the victory. Not that the other one was scary in itself. Just... a stupid fucking reminder, the world was full of things beyond me. 

I looked over to the Mountain. It and the thought of the dragons on it inspired dreams of glory.. but the stupid leshys just... I shook my head and got back to trying to rip the strings off the violin.

At sundown, Tom and Diada paused and talked about something. As I was finally getting the hang off the new method of playing, I wasn't sure what caused the pause. Still, they got back to running rather swiftly.

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Finally, long after it got dark, the spiderling dropped me from the seat, forcing me to stop my practice and secure my landing with some puffs.

The tree line ended a couple of steps behind us, and before us began a steep decline. I couldn't see clearly in the dark, most of the sky taken up by the looming Mountain. Here and there, I saw lighting and fire dance around it, revealing outlines of the towers it was coming from.

Tom hung the wolf on one of the trees and was skinning it. The spiderling on the other hand, as usual, was watching something, munching on popcorn.

I put the violin back in the bag and boosted over, to a tree some distance from Tom. It had nice, wide branches, just perfect for sleeping on.

I woke up surprisingly refreshed. Through the leaves, I saw the Mountain painted orange from the east. I jumped to the ground and walked up to the edge of the decline.

Before me, stretched a huge bowl, about half of it taken up by the roots of the Dragon Mountain. Around the black formation, was a circular lake thing, fed by a river, far to the right. On the furthest edge of the bowl, to the left, I could see a lot of blue. I couldn't tell if it was water, or something else.

The deeper into the bowl I looked, the taller the grasses became. Around a third of the way down, the last trees ended, replaced by the tall eldritch abomination that called themselves grass.

Here and there, something blue - likely mana - streaked through the air in streams. As I focused, I noticed the air shimmered slightly a couple of steps into the decline.

Tom walked up to my side. "We will have to get to the other side of the Mountain." With those words, he looked up, craning his neck to see the peak of the incredible example of natures might.

I followed his example. I felt as if something should change in me, because of the sight. Something about the dimensions of the Mountain just didn't feel real. Would some ancient people tell legends of a gate to one or the other heaven at the peak of this thing? Maybe they'd even claim it tore through the realm of gods, extending far beyond it.

I mean, fucking hell, I had to turn my head to see that things eastern and western slopes. "So.. we just go over it?"

The cat bonked me on the head and looked towards me. "Around. The grasslands are kept safe by dragons and the Academy instructors, but up the Mountain..." Tom turned back to the Mountain. "... that place is the dragons hunting grounds."

Diada walked up to us and gave the Mountain a rather disappointed look. "I've seen bigger." She claimed. Then the spiderling dropped our luggage before me and climbed onto Tom's left shoulder. "Let's go."

I had a hard time looking away from the incredible sight, but finally shook myself out of the daze and got on the cat's right shoulder. I lifted the bags, rich with a new, slightly green, skin and a wolf corpse... "Tom, you forgot to cut up and put the food in my bag."

I moved the carcass onto its own pane and fixed it before the kitten. He cut it up, shaking me a little with the movement. I lifted the sides of the pane, giving it a U-shape and tilted it, to let the meat slide into my backbag. I petted the cat and we were off.

"Hey, Tom? Do you think we could try swimming through those mana streams?" I asked. I was certain my eyes glittered.

"They're the number one cause of deaths among the candidates." He stated matter of factly.

"You didn't say no." I pointed out. "No."

I roughly ruffled his fur. Then ruffled it some more, by twisting my fists on it. Finally, I sighed and pulled out a random book. "Horace's Guide to Blood" was a guide to the quality of taste, mana quantity and soul quality, of different types of blood. The book seemed enchanted, as when I tried to leaf through the relatively thin thing, I found it had a couple thousand pages. It didn't seem like I'd get through it any time soon.

It began with non-noble humans. The first position was about the foulest tasting, AB+ type. It seemed to contain the most mana, though.

I stretched and dived into the piece of literature.

Around noon, I was taken out of the book, by a distant noise of a train. I looked up, and at the edge of the bowl, the train to the Academy sped on its tracks. It came out of the forest, then turned to the left and followed the tracks around the decline. At the front, stood a tall humanoid flame, releasing a torrent of fire into a large block of iron. Behind, followed about thirty double-decked carriages. They had a sleek shape and black roofs, most of the walls taken up by windows.

I couldn't perceive any further details, as the vehicle was bloody fast. I giggled at my thoughts and put my nose back in the blood book.

Tom sped up. Did cats run after vehicles too? I shrugged.

Some time later, we stopped under a lone tree. I couldn't quite recognise it, but it had tiny leaves and rather smooth, light brown bark.

"What would you gals say about dinner?" The kitten asked. I jumped down and handed him the back legs of the wolf. He was better with spices.

Tom took some time, checking the various herbs he kept in his backpack and finally settled on some mixture, which he gave for me to rub into the meat. I trembled at the thought of fur in the food and got to work.

Once I surrounded the legs in the fire, Diada took my violin and began to play and sing. The cat managed to withstand two verses before he plugged his ears. After six verses, I felt something shift within me. For a moment, the horrors brought by the song withdrew, before coming back in full intensity after another three verses.

I finally plugged my ears after the twelfth verse. Tom unplugged his ears every four verses until the meal was finished. At that point, the girl put down the violin and withdrew a take-out box of pad thai and a can of some sweet looking juice.

"Could you pass me your bag?" The kitten asked. I handed it to him, and he withdrew a decanter of juice. "The innkeep gave me few, claiming she couldn't accept your payment."

I nodded and smiled. I liked the apple-orange juice, oh-so-much. I wondered what the fruits looked like.