Tuovi Hall of the Matupa Academy was designed with Grecian influences. The tall fluted columns, capped with Corinthian capitals, lined the grand hallway. The colonnade opened up to a large garden plaza on one side and the three-stories stone wall on the other side. The mosaic artwork covered the stone wall, depicting the history of Matupa Academy. It was founded on scholarly and scientific aspiration, using it as the foundation to understand the inner working of mana and mythical arts.

It was the first day of summer, and classes officially ended for the majority of the students. However, it also marked the beginning of an intense preparation for everyone within Matupa City. From the janitor in the safe zone of East Matupa to the chancellor of West Matupa's otherworldly realm, everyone was assigned with a task during the raid. For the head professors, they were all required to attend the multi-disciplinary meeting to finalize the defensive strategy.

Professor Yokomi and her graduate student, Kane, walked down a grand hallway of Tuovi Hall and joined the procession of people dressed in black gowns with varied colored sashes and embroidered stars. The sashes indicated their personal strength, green for D-rank, blue for C-rank, purple for B-rank, orange for A-rank, and gold for S-rank. The stars indicated their Academy position, one-star were assistant professors, two-stars for associate professors, three-stars for senior professor, four-stars for deans, and five-stars for the chancellor.

"Did you read through the instructions for activating the Petrino?" asked Professor Yokomi.

Kane nodded. There were five Petrino towers, from Alpha to Epsilon. During most of the year, the Petrino worked as a passive array protecting the city. However, during the raid, each tower needed additional enhancement from five A-rank mage in order to activate the spell to destroy the incoming monsters. Professor Yokomi was one of the five mage assigned to Gamma Petrino tower. Kane was assigned as one of the secondary units, who were responsible to take over control while the A-rank mage recovers their mana. The recovery potions took a few minutes to fully restore mana completely. During the downtime, the secondary unit was assigned to maintain the Petrino. "The enhancement is fairly simple."

Professor Yokomi wouldn't consider it simple for most people, especially with the added stress of monsters charging into the city.

“Professor, do you know the status of Ian Zimmer’s job application?” Kane asked as they walked.

“You brother?” Professor Yokomi asked. “What position?”

“Gardener.”

Professor Yokomi raised her eyebrow. “You should tell your brother to reconsider the position.”

“Is that Professor Kaufmann’s department?” Kane asked.

Professor Yokomi nodded. “It’s a constant revolving door. Professor Kaufmann is known for being difficult to work with. With him in charge of the botanical garden, the turnover rates had been out of hand.”

Kane chuckled. He would like to see it happen.

They entered the auditorium and took a seat. The room quickly filled with over hundred people, mainly professors, the military personnel, and some graduate students. They chatted loudly and their voices filled the oval room with both angst and excitement.

Chancellor Garran, one of three S-Rank mages of the Matupa Academy, silenced the room with a wave of his hand. The aura from his nimble fingers vibrated outward and canceled the noise from within the room. The ability required analytical ability of sound aura and high level of control and execution. Kane guessed it was a mixture of 45% meiosi, 50% aera, and 5% dynitiko.

“I did not think moving our meeting ahead of schedule would cause such a ruckus,” Chancellor Garran addressed the other professors. “Now that I have everyone's attention, we will discuss our preparation for the next monster raid.”

Everyone whispered amongst themselves. Throughout the past ten years, their strategy had been consistent. The first line of defense had always been the five Petrino towers evenly spaced between the walls protecting the outer reaches of the West Matupa City. Once activated, they were capable of releasing powerful mana cannons and strong against flying monsters. Archers and mages formed the second line defense unit around the stone wall.

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Melee fighters consisting of mostly warriors and tanks were the third line defensive unit, killing any monsters that slipped through the first two defensive lines.

“We need to discuss bringing the warriors and tanks out to the frontline,” Chancellor Garran proposed. “The upcoming attack is still predicted to happen around the autumn equinox. We only have three months to prepare, but the damage to the Petrino from the previous raid has not been completely repaired. At best, we will restore around 80% by the next raid. But considering how brutal the previous attack have been, there is a chance that one of the Petrino towers will fall and the wall being breached. If that happens, we won’t be able to maintain peace within West Matupa. The repair will take even longer than before.”

The room erupted into contentious debate. Half agreed it was the only feasible strategy while others were adamant about keeping the status quo. Back in the nineties, melee fighters were part of the frontline defensive strategy. Although the battle ended sooner with less damage to the Petrino towers, there were more casualties. Rankers were more difficult to replace back then, which led the Academy to use the Petrino towers as the front-line defensive strategy.

“What I have feared is happening,” Professor Yokomi mumbled to herself as her head shook involuntarily.

“Professor, we have better tanks and warriors than ten years ago, isn’t it worth trying?” Kane asked. He understood the potential danger of bringing out the warriors and tanks out to battle first. His brother would be in the most dangerous position, but the strategy was better for long term stability of the city and he trusted his brother's ability.

“They are better trained in small-scale raids, but not a monster raid on a city-wide attack. It’s not something they are used to.”

“How about hiring the Holyoke mercenary from Halland City?” Kane asked. While he was researching the potential S-rank academies, Halland City from the S-rank Holyoke Realm was on his list as one of the possible locations to study. As the entire city was within the S-ranked otherworld realm, the rankers were more used to full scale attacks on all sides of the city. Halland City ran with a single motto, absolute strength. It was not the type of city for Kane, but he knew the environment created strong melee rankers. Amongst the rankers, the Holyoke mercenaries were known as the strongest protectors of the city. “They recently completed their raid, and it appeared to be successful.”

“Of course they were successful,” some of the professors sneered. “Anyone would be with the amount of money Prince Naru poured into the city.”

“Those barbarians know nothing but strength," said another professor. "Who would put freshmen students close to the frontline battle? It’s like they have regressed back in time.”

“The Holyoke mercenary? Are they willing?” The other professors wondered if it was feasible.

The Holyoke mercenary was an infamous group of 300 rankers. They had protected Halland City within the Holyoke realm for a decade. However, they were notorious for being expensive.

Chancellor Garran heard the conversation and immediately silenced the room again. “Prince Naru spent 5 billion on the mercenary team to defend Holyoke mercenary for every raid. We will only need to hire their warriors and tanks. Find out whether they will allow a third of their units for 2.5 billion federation dollars. Does anyone have contact within the group or with Prince Naru?”

Chancellor Garran himself knew of Prince Naru’s leading advisor, but they were considered rivals more than friends. A few people raised their hands. Professor Kaufmann, a wizened short man with many wrinkles, grimaced at the thought of raising his hand. Kane turned to look at Yaya sitting several rows ahead. Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t raise her hand, despite her family connections to Halland City.

Professor Jasper, a petit man in his fifties, was one of the few people who raised their hands. Chancellor Garran tasked him with hiring a crew of melee warriors from Halland City.

“We will begin our bi-weekly drills,” said Chancellor Garran. “During the drill, everyone is required to move into their assigned position and report to their advisor. East Matupa City bunker will be the final evacuation site for everyone if anything happens within West Matupa City.”

After the meeting, Kane met with Yaya and Professor Natany to discuss the investigation in a private room. Professor Natany read through Yaya and Kane’s report, and forehead wrinkled with worry.

"There's an unregulated realm nearby?" Professor Natany asked. "That's too much of a coincidence."

"We aren't sure if they are connected," said Yaya. "It can be a red herring to make us investigate the realm."

Professor Natany rubbed her temple to think about possible method to proceed. It was nearly impossible to send a ranker into the unregulated realm. At best, she could request assistance from the Tallas Federation to send in a military unit led by a D-ranker. Even then, there was no guarantee they were on the right track.

"Let the investigation team continue the investigation first," said Professor Natany. "I'll send the report to the Tallas Federation to see how they want to proceed."