I raised my brow, frowning as I looked around at our surroundings. The three of us had stopped in place after walking through a shimmer, where the landscape had spun and changed in an instant.

It was clear that we'd crossed some sort of invisible borderline to a new stretch of the field. The air had changed — it had the sharp, dry texture of a mountain, and the ground was littered with brittle pine needles and frost.

"Smells like... we're in a higher elevation than before, but the skyline's still visible in the distance. But how?" I murmured, looking around curiously.

It seemed like we were still in the training field, but it felt like we were on a plateau or somewhere high elevation.

"The entire isthmus was transformed into a massive training field for Kaleidoscope City's magical knights," Elysia explained, picking up a frost-covered twig and eyeing it curiously. "It's mostly cadets like us and the university students that use it."

I nodded in agreement, continuing to study the trees around us.

Aurora stepped up next to me, an uncertain look on her face. "I hope.... I hope nothing too dangerous lives out here."

Elysia leaned back, smirking as she crossed her arms. "I'm sure we'll be fine. We're in training, so we shouldn't have anything to worry about."

But then, her eyes suddenly turned sharp as she turned back to the rest of the clearing. "Hold that thought, though. Something's out there."

I sighed, shaking my head. "More students with a bone to pick?"

"No, it's not human. It's..."

She glanced at me and nodded. "Its mana signature is off. Way off. It's like a moving, concentrated blizzard in the woods."

Aurora followed her line of sight, her eyes darting back and forth. "I don't see anything, but the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up like crazy."

I stretched my arms, looking up at the sky thoughtfully. "Whatever it is, it's a problem."

It was supposed to be an obstacle course, so there was bound to be a problem or two that cropped up. The question was, what did the academy have in mind for us?

Turning around, I blinked as I caught sight of a marble altar that looked out of place almost hidden behind a curtain of moss.

"Guys, look over here. It looks like... a shrine or something?" I murmured, pointing.

"Huh. Good catch, Lux," Elysia blinked, following my gaze.

The three of us walked over to investigate, only to find a triangular pedestal with a small indentation in the center.

"Hm. Whatever was here, someone's already taken it," I mumbled, rubbing my chin as I looked at it. "Do you think that pair of cadets from the two teams behind us took it?"

Aurora frowned, tilting her head. "It's possible. Likely, even."

Elysia suddenly flinched, tugging at both of our sleeves as she pulled us into the foliage, tilting her head to one side. "Stay sharp, all ladies. Feels like something is going down near the anomaly."

She let out a slow breath, tapping her chin. "Yup. There are definitely more than three students there."

"What should we do?" Aurora whispered.

I grunted, shaking my head. "I think... we should keep an eye on them and stay out of sight. Shouldn't be too hard if they're distracted."

"How should we manage that?" Aurora asked as she stared at me quizzically, and I couldn't help but smile.

"I can bend the light around us, remember? I can't block out sounds or anything else but we'd be invisible as long as we stay close and quiet."

Elysia beamed, her eyes glittering in excitement. "Well, there you have it. A good ol' stealth mission. That's a super handy skill, for the record."

She looked around cautiously before she beckoned at us. We followed along quietly as she directed us back through the clearing we came from, and up a hillock at the edge of the clearing. "Let's find a good vantage point here."

We quickly and quietly jogged across the forest floor, making sure to watch where we stepped as we ducked under some thick vines and shrubs.

Once we reached the crest of the hillock,

Elysia signaled for us to get down, and I quickly threw out my hands, forming a Luminary Mirage around us. Then, we dropped to our knees, slinking forward.

Within moments, I caught sight of two sets of brilliant flashes of light ahead in front of what looked like... a massive gate inside of a swirling maelstrom of snow and frost.

The gate was made of shimmering crystal and blue hues, with a glowing rune in the center. However, there was a thick energy field of some kind around it, made of crackling blue sparks that seemed to be projected from the rune.

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There was also something else to this gate, I realized as I squinted my eyes. The energy field seemed to have ... layers. Layers that extended out a good fifty yards. On one layer I could see beams of dense light that reminded me of crisscrossing lasers. On another, there was a flow of swirling, thick energy that seemed to bend and curve as if something was trapped within it.

And in front of the whole thing, were five students engaged in what I'd best describe as a shootout. Three were on one side, and two were on the other.

I quickly recognized Forest Willow as well as the spiky-haired boy in black I recognized from the emergency contractee orientation group on one side, and three students on theh other

Forest Willow nocked another arrow, drawing it back as she narrowed her eyes at her three opponents on the other side of a wide field. Her green tunic had been torn and frayed, and she looked more than a little worse for wear. Her bow was fizzling with green energy, with long darts of energy flickering on the string. It looked like dozens of trees had been toppled, burned, or outright disintegrated at this point between the two groups.

There was a rocky outcrop Forest Willow and the spiky-haired boy were using as cover, while the other three had positioned themselves in the trees. The boy was also in bad shape, and the comically edgy trench coat that made up his outfit was torn and burned off on his left side from his hand down to his hip. Blood dripped from a gash in his side as he held up two fingers, with his other hand on the ground from behind a massive boulder.

The other three magical knights were pretty mismatched thanks to the teams Tesseract had sorted us into, and I quickly recognized Ace at the back of their formation, a smug grin on her face as she brandished a silver scepter that crackled with energy.

If Elysia had the most potent-looking aura signature in our class, Ace's blue shine wasn't too far behind. Forest Willow and her companion's auras were modest in comparison, with a size and brightness somewhere between mine and Aurora's. With the numbers advantage, they should have run right over Forest Willow and boy with the spiky black hair.

But Ace's blue stage magician's suit was worn out, and her hat was cut in half. The fabric of her costume was scorched and frayed, and I could see that one of her gloved hands was limping and torn. Her aura looked slightly faded but far from out of the fight.

Instead of a full offensive, she was sticking close to the biggest magical knight who was with them, a tall, Amazonian girl with wild, flaming orange hair, light leather armor, and a halberd.

Ace had projected what looked like a massive astral globe in the air, spinning with what looked like constellations and stars within it. The orb span on its central axis, and rapidly bombarded the stone outcrop with a random-looking spray of lethal explosions. It looked like they had defaulted to trying to erode away Forest Willow's cover, rather than fight her straight on.

The final member of the trio's assigned team member was a small, plain-looking guy with glasses and a pocket protector who was holding a katana limply, staying low as he peeked around to eye their opponents warily.

It was clear that they'd settled in on an attrition strategy that was slowly, but surely pushing the two emergency contractees into a corner.

The look in Forest Willow's eyes told me she knew she was outmatched and badly hurt.

But her eyes were different from the uncertain girl I'd met before — she was focused and determined, and almost seemed to be dancing as she weaved between the rocks and boulders and fired volleys of light that curved around the fallen trees.

The defiant expression in her eyes seemed really familiar, and it took me a second to realize I'd seen them before.

Forest Willow had come off as pretty uncertain and unconfident during orientation.

But now, she looked like I did when I'd been pushed to my brink during the two nights of terror we'd both come to realize our powers in.

"There's gotta be something that's keeping them from closing the distance," Elysia a mused, studying the scene carefully from her prone position. "Those have to be two of the late admissions those snobs ditched, right?"

"Yea. Aurora and I met those two at orientation," I confirmed, before peering through a gap in the trees. "It almost looks like..."

I trailed off, squinting my eyes in surprise. It was hard to make out, black tendrils stretched out from the spiky-haired boy's boots like thick tree roots that reminded me of ink. It was invisible to the naked eye, but my aura sight picked it up, with a distinct twinge of ominous.

"Oh man," I whispered. "Yeah, the boy's doing something with the ground."

Elysia squinted her eyes, before biting her lip. "What do you think, Lux. Do we keep watching or do we intervene?"

I frowned, my eyes wandering over the battlefield. It was easy to make the assumption that Ace and her sorted teammates had attacked the two emergency contract holders without provocation. But, something just didn't quite seem to add up.

"Hey Lux, I'm getting something," Aurora murmured, her eyes glinting as she held her head with one hand.

I looked at Aurora as her eyes glowed with a light golden hue. After a moment, she shook her head in disbelief.

"The altar we passed had a key, which Forest Willow and Null here picked up. The other team also picked up a different key from their starting point. I'm getting some flashes of both teams reading instructions at the gate, negotiating, and then escalation. My guess is they started fighting due to mutual mistrust, not knowing how the unlock would unfold."

Well... that just sounded peachy.

Elysia narrowed her eyes, sitting back and crossing her legs as she studied the turbulent storm. "Thanks for the context, Aurora. That seals it for me. I think the gate has a layered defense to prevent anyone from getting through until two keys are unlocked and aligned in the center. Look over there."

She pointed at another altar in front of the gate with an ornate square-shaped object embedded in the center. "Now look at the slots in the mechanism in front of the gate. It has a triangular, circle, and a rectangular slot where two keys are meant to be inserted, and rotating mechanisms to slide two into place."

"Wait... so it looks like both teams are trying to unlock the gate, but neither trusts the other enough to actually try?" Aurora asked, tilting her head in confusion.

Elysia shook her head, pointing at a plaque with words halfway down the altar. "I can't make it out from here, but those look like instructions or rules. If we go by what the community knows about Tesseract, she probably set up a dilemma that had the five of them go at each other's throats.

"Looks like it," I mumbled, scowling as I studied the battlefield again. "For an instructor that made such a fuss about not fighting before the exercise, Tesseract really isn't doing a very good job of showing us how to... not to be at each other's throats."

"Well, if you ask me, that's the point of this whole thing," Elysia replied flatly, before suddenly jumping to her feet. "I'm not sure what the exact point of this exercise is supposed to be, but I'm sure there's a lesson here related to not screwing over your companions."

She looked over at the two battle groups, her expression hardening as I opened my mouth.

"So, how about—"

"...You're gonna say we're going to help them out a little and knock some sense into them, aren't you?"

I laughed as she cut me off, and I walked to her side with a lighthearted touch on her elbow.

"You bet we are," I nodded as she turned to stare at me with an exaggerated innocent look. "We definitely have a fight to break up down there."

Aurora's eyes glinted in understanding, and she giggled softly. "Count me in. For peace and harmony, and all the other platitudes."

Elysia's inquisitive expression broke into a grin, and she winked at the two of us. "Well, then. Let's put on a show to remember, girls."