image [https://i.imgur.com/CoLrY5d.png]

Olivia’s team took a much needed breather after fleeing from Mariah and Carmen. Once they felt that they had gotten far enough away, the trio sat on some rocks and exhaled with relief.

“Whew, that was close! We almost ran out of time.” One of the Harpy students said as he brushed his hair back.

“Right? I didn’t think that silver haired girl would actually leave their stuff behind. She legit just left their tokens right there for the taking. So dumb.” His teammate replied with a hearty chuckle, making fun of Carmen’s mistake.

“Don’t be such a meanie, Kavin. Carmen is a dear friend of mine and I hate that she had to be on a team we eliminated. I’ll have to see how she’s doing once this test is over.”

Olivia slightly pouted as her teammates' continued to roast Carmen. Kavin shrugged and began rummaging through Carmen’s bag, taking out the easily noticeable token pouch.

“Woah, sweet!! They’ve got way more tokens than we do. We might be in the top 20 with just this amount alone!”

“Of course they do. Those guys were from Wyvern class, so they’re very strong. The only reason we could keep up was because of these supplements we’ve been taking. Too bad they don’t last that long.” Olivia responded, holding a baggie filled with little purple pills. Her teammates agreed and they continued to chat about the experience, thrilled about their victory. Unfortunately, their moment of celebration was short lived.

Elise suddenly landed on the ground behind them in spectacular fashion, kicking up dust as her impact slightly cracked the terrain. She slowly stood up and glared at them with her piercing green eyes. Olivia’s group jumped up in shock and quickly backed away, not understanding how she was still around.

“What!? Shouldn’t you be out of the midterm now? We took all of your tokens!” Kavin yelled with a frightened expression. Elise sent him a simple smirk before she decided to give a reply.

“Sorry, but your little plan failed. Now, I think it’s time you return what you stole…”

Elise tilted her head to the side as her eyes glanced at the pouch in his hand. Within a single blink, she dashed forward and instantly found herself in Kavin’s face.

Elise slashed at him with her Manifest, but to her surprise, he didn’t even attempt to react to her attack. It was almost as though he had the reflexes of a sloth. Kavin ate the hit head on and was swiftly sent flying away from his team.

The other Harpy student retaliated by slicing at Elise with his Hatchet, but the speed and strength behind the attack was incredibly weak and slow. Compared to his fight earlier, he looked like an absolute amateur at combat.

Elise effortlessly dodged the pitiful swings and placed her hand on his chest, zapping him with a subtle dark green shockwave. He immediately fell unconscious and dropped to the floor.

Olivia, seeing the token pouch rolling on the ground, quickly scooped it up with a tight grip. She then took aim at Elise and fired off a burst of wind from her free hand. A slight breeze passed by Elise, only doing enough to slightly blow her hair upwards. Elise looked confused as she witnessed these pathetic attempts fail before her.

‘What is going on?? Why are these guys so weak all of a sudden? This doesn’t make any sense.’

She approached Olivia slowly before dashing forward with an electrified step. Elise then sliced her with a quick cut of her daggers, causing Olivia to fall unconscious as well.

Elise picked up Olivia’s token pouch as well as theirs, combining them together before putting it into her side pocket. She then looked around for their bags and upon finding them, she noticed the little baggie of purple pills.

“What is that?” She quietly said while she reached down to pick them up. Before she could take hold of the bag, Olivia and her team began to glow a gold color. Within seconds, they and their belongings were transported out of the Core Depths.

Elise glanced up and wondered what was going on with those students, feeling that something very fishy was going on. Just as the team of Harpy students faded away, Mariah walked out of the treeline with Carmen appearing shortly after.

“Did you seriously beat them already? How??” Mariah asked, wondering where the group went. Elise told them what happened and showed the pouch filled with tokens.

“Nice! Well, that’s a relief. We really gotta be careful going forward. C’mon, Let’s keep going.” Mariah added, now in a much better mood than before. Carmen nodded and continued to not say much, still feeling terrible about her mishap. They gathered up their stolen belongings and resumed their trek through the Core Depths.

image [https://i.imgur.com/d60vRFl.png]

After a few hours of walking, the trio found themselves at some kind of ancient ruin. The sandstone colored walls were torn down and overrun by vines snaking in every direction. The many fauna and flora of the Core Depths had reclaimed these buildings almost completely. Carmen, still stuck in her head, quietly looked around after giving a soft sigh.

She made note of the many structures and began to realize something. Carmen had seen architecture like this before.

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‘Wait a minute… Aren’t these Boundless buildings? I recognize these symbols and structures.’

She remembered the vivid images of sandstone colored walls and intricately designed pillars. After their disappearance from Alaira, Carmen never thought she would see buildings like these again.

As they continued to walk, they eventually entered a large, open air room. It seemed to be some kind of arena or sacred chamber of sorts. The ceiling was almost gone entirely and the floor was covered with vines, rising up through the many cracks. At the center of the room was a massive circle with twelve runes adorned across it. They were all similar in size, but the symbol was different for each rune.

“Woah, this is cool! I wonder who built all this stuff.” Mariah said, marveling at how large and intricate the floor was. However, the moment of admiration didn’t last long. They heard an all too familiar voice entering the area behind them.

“Well if it isn’t the princess and her two jesters. I was wondering where you were hiding.” Bridgette Vandel said with a devious smile. Standing next to her were two other Phoenix class students, Cassidy Trello and Linus Monroe.

Cassidy was a Siestian girl with tanned skin and short, brown wavy hair. She had her uniform jacket tied around her waist and her sleeves rolled up, revealing a multitude of scales racing along her arms.

Linus had an incredibly tall and masculine stature for his age, having a very muscular build and mature features. If he flexed his arms any harder he could easily rip his tight uniform jacket. He simply smirked as a light breeze blew his medium length, black hair.

The trio were startled by Bridgette’s sudden arrival, causing them to prepare themselves for a serious fight. They summoned forth their Manifests quickly and awaited their opponents first move.

“Ohh, you guys are a bit impatient, huh? That’s so cute.” Bridgette quipped with a playful laugh, finding their actions to be quite humorous. Carmen glared with her red eyes, gripping her rapier rightly. Without a single thought, she dashed forward and took aim at Bridgette, her speed still surprisingly sharp despite everything going on in her head. However, upon her arrival, a massive wall of water spewed from the ground and absorbed Carmen’s attack.

Even though the wall was wet and malleable, her Manifest had gotten lodged inside of it. Suddenly, the wall began pulling Graviton’s Eclipse deeper, sucking Carmen in along with it. With all of her strength, Carmen eventually ripped her weapon out of the wall and stumbled backwards in the process. Once she caught herself, the wall of water creatively shapeshifted into a fist. It clenched tightly and punched Carmen directly in the chest with incredible strength, causing her to careen backwards into Elise.

“What the hell, Carmen!? Will you stop rushing in like that?! These guys are on a whole other level compared to everyone else, surely you realize that? We need to think this through.” Mariah remarked while stomping her foot into the ground, annoyed that Carmen was continuing to be so reckless against such skilled opponents.

Carmen sat upwards and gently rubbed her chest, catching her breath after having it knocked out of her. As she looked over towards their opponents, the fist of water fell to the ground and began to recede, revealing Cassidy holding her hand out and manipulating the water.

Two medium sized rings materialized around her arm, slowly suspending themselves above her forearm and rotating in opposite directions. The light blue and silver accents looked almost machine like as it's runic embellishments glowed along the edge. Aquos Manacle was her Manifest's name and the proud smirk on Cassidy's face proved that she couldn't wait to show it off.

“What kind of Manifest is that?” Elise wondered once she got to her feet, helping Carmen up in the process.

“I’m not sure, but that Siestian girl is strong. I can feel her Core Energy over here.” Mariah replied with slight concern.

“Well, shall we get this officially started?”

Bridgette smiled and clapped her hands together. Her partners nodded, prompting Bridgette to aim her hands downward to summon forth her Manifest. The golden bracelets glistened as they appeared on her wrists, jingling loudly with every subtle movement she made. Bridgette exerted her Core Energy outward and the ground began to rumble as sand emerged from the tile cracks around her, raising multiple feet within a couple seconds.

Once the sand reached its peak, it began to shift and mold into boulders of various sizes. With a sharp burst of Core Energy, Bridgette flung them towards Carmen’s group. They evaded the surprisingly fast attack, causing the rocks to barely miss their targets. Before they could regroup, the trio were quickly separated by Cassidy and Linus. Cassidy stepped in front of Elise and Linus selected Mariah as his opponent, leaving Carmen alone with Bridgette.

Elise sprinted with a brisk pace towards Cassidy, taking aim at her face. She aggressively swiped her daggers, but Cassidy planted her left foot and spun her body to dodge the blow. Just as Elise’s dagger lightly kissed Cassidy’s cheek, a splash of hard hitting water flung Elise away.

Elise leapt backwards and caught herself with a graceful backflip, however, she was quickly followed by the torrent. While the crystal blue water raced towards her, it shifted into the shape of a large serpent with its mouth wide open, catching up to Elise and swallowing her whole.

Moments later, the water snake exploded from inside causing electrical currents to dance across the floor. Elise landed, breathing heavily as she sent a deep glare towards Cassidy. They began to clash again, but this time Elise increased her pace tremendously.

‘What is this speed?!’

Cassidy couldn’t track Elise’s rapidly changing movements, only following her by the faint, neon green streaks of static tracing the air. Suddenly, Elise struck Cassidy on the back with an electrified slash. However, to her surprise, a thin panel of water appeared and deflected the attack. The brunt of the blow was sent towards the ceiling, zapping into it with terrifying force.

Cassidy quickly dashed away, but noticed a sharp pain coming from her shoulder. She looked over and saw that it was bruised and scuffed up, still slightly smoking from the prior attack. Even though her ability had blocked most of Elise’s assault, quite a bit of damage still made it through. Cassidy simply smirked once she saw Elise panting heavily, admiring her opponent’s impressive display of skill.

“You’re not half bad. I find your style truly commendable.” Cassidy praised as she ripped off her tattered sleeve.

“You too… No one has ever deflected that attack before.”

The duo continued to size each other up before continuing the fight, now approaching with a newfound respect for one another.

Elise lowered her center of gravity and began to charge her Core Energy. Electrical currents popped and cracked against the ground, spreading her power outwards in impressive fashion. However, unbeknownst to her, the rune that was etched into the floor behind her started to pulse a dark yellow color.

Once she finished charging herself up, Elise exploded forward with terrifying speed. The impact from her single step crushed the floor beneath her, causing the rune to stop glowing. Cassidy raised her arms upwards, manipulating a gush of water to take on the brunt of the blow. The two collided in impressive fashion, firing off water and static in all directions.

Despite the apparent mismatch of water conducting electricity, the two students were evenly matched. They continued to go toe to toe, not giving a single inch to each other.