We reappeared in a rectangular room, with a circular table and five chairs in the room's center. Along the walls were several bookshelves, and there was a door to the left of where we appeared.
As I stepped forward, I felt my broken ankle give out under me, and tripped, nearly falling to the ground. Luckily, Amelia noticed my clumsy stumble and grabbed my arm, stopping me from collapsing.
"Thanks," I said, giving her half a smile and the other half a wince.
She nodded, turning to Simon and said, "Maybe he should take a look at you. You looked pretty banged up. And I think you might get another scar from that."
She poked my forehead, and I realized I had a small gash where the fifth year's boot had torn my skin.
"Great," I remarked dryly, sitting down heavily in an empty chair.
Clearing his throat, we both looked back to the proctor, who had followed us into the room.
"Please take a seat and wait for further instructions. The next trial will begin shortly." before turning and exiting the room through the doorway.
I sat down heavily in an empty chair as soon as he left the room, muttering a swear as my ankle throbbed. Before, I had tried to downplay it as much as possible to keep up appearances, but the fact was that a broken ankle was far from pleasant. Simon stepped forward, kneeling by my leg and pulling off my boot as his right hand glowed blue.
"If your ankle is broken, the best I can do in such a short time is reduce pain and swelling, and wrap it up. It will feel better but-"
"But no running or jumping on it until it can be fully treated." I interrupted, looking down at him.
When Simon nodded, I shrugged before replying, "It's better than nothing, and hopefully running will not be required in the remaining two trials."
"So, Vayne, do you have any theories on what those might end up being?" Leon asked me, sitting down at the table as well.
I closed my eyes, thinking back to previous years before opening them again and looking at him.
"At least one will be a direct combat challenge of some kind. I read back a hundred years, and every single tournament had a trial of combat. The Academy rarely breaks traditions such as those, and I doubt they would start now."
"I still feel that is a bit unfair to pit first-years potentially against fifth-years," Amelia grumbled under her breath.
I chuckled, replying, "Extremely. But remember that these tournaments test many traits, not just direct combat skills. Even if we lose our first battle, we might still place high as long as we perform well on the remaining four tests."
"And have we?" Leon asked, a worried tone in his voice.
"Truthfully? I can confidently say we did well in the first test, but the other two are impossible to tell." I answered, closing my eyes again.
The room fell silent, and after a few minutes, Simon stood, smiling at me.
"That's as good as I can do right now. Try and put weight on it and see how it feels."
I stood, feeling the wrap around my ankle restrict the joint far more than I would prefer. Taking a few steps, it was clear I would struggle to move any faster than a brisk walk. If it came to a fight, I would be virtually useless in this state.
Interrupting my thoughts was a strange sound, the faintest trickling that was almost impossible to notice even with my keen hearing. Glancing down, my eyes widened as I realized there was a puddle of water slowly forming on the ground beneath us. At first, I thought Simon had made a mistake with his magic, but he looked just as confused as me.
Leon stood, shoving his chair over and yelling, "Something is wrong with this room!"
Striding across the room, he tried to open the door, but as he approached, the wooden surface shimmered before disappearing, leaving behind a bare, unmarked wall. Slapping his palm against the wall hard, he yelled for the proctor to open the door, but his efforts were met with silence.
My tired, fuzzy mind took several seconds to put the clues together, but I realized what was going on here.
"Sir, I think that proctor was lying. It seems we are already in the fourth trial."
"The trial is to drown us?" Simon shouted, looking around the room rapidly.
Of course not, but there was no point saying as much while he was on the verge of panic. Instead, I forced my mind to focus, pushing past the buzzing in my head.
"We need to figure out where the water is coming from! I yelled, limping as fast as I could towards one wall.
Kneeling, I spotted small vents near the wall base, blending into the grain of the wood. Watching for several seconds, I nodded before turning back to my friends. Typically, Leon would assess the situation and begin giving orders, but as I looked at him, he stared at the flowing water, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He took several steps away, shaking his head rapidly, giving me no response as I called his name.
Knowing I needed to solve one problem at a time, I decided to take charge of the situation before it became worse.
"Simon, I need you to use your magic and hold the water inside these vents in place. Amelia, use ice magic to patch them so that the flow stops completely!"
Both nodded, running to my side and kneeling next to the vent as their mana pulsed around them. I straightened up, turning to Sophia and Leon and continued, "My lords, help me locate the rest of the vents. Score the wall above each, so that Simon and Amelia can find them as fast as possible."
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Sophia nodded once, unsheathing her blade, but Leon did not reply, eyes still locked on the ground. For several seconds, I watched him, shocked by the strange reaction he was having to this situation before shaking my head. There was no time to figure out why he was acting like this, not while we were within minutes of drowning.
Sloshing through the now knee-high water, Sophia and I found a half-dozen additional vents scattered around the room. After fifteen minutes of casting, all of them were sealed off, and the water had finally stopped rising, ending up just under waist height.
Leaning against a wall, Simon was breathing heavily, nearly out of mana, but I noted Amelia looked unbothered as if she still had plenty of energy left. Briefly, I tried to probe her core but found that it was heavily shielded, almost as well as my own. I pushed aside my curiosity for a moment, turning to Leon and moving over to his side.
"Master Leon, are you alright?" I asked, watching as he jumped, turning to me with a startled expression.
"Vayne! I-that is to say-I'm sorry but-" he stammered, struggling to find his words.
Before he could give a straight answer, I heard a rumbling sound from above us, deep in the stone ceiling. Looking up, the entire surface shook before slowly descending towards us. Eyes widening, I looked at Leon, but he still seemed too distracted to respond appropriately.
Damn it all.
"Amelia, can you create something like pillars from ice?" I asked as I moved towards one of the walls.
She did not bother replying, instead weaving her mana in complex shapes as frost crawled along her body. Leaving her to work, I grabbed the nearest bookshelf, dragging one end and looking at the others for help.
"Help me brace the ceiling!" I shouted, and Simon scrambled over, helping me hold the bookshelf in place as the ceiling slowly lowered down. Sophia grabbed a second one, but Leon was moving lethargically, still too slow for my taste.
Wood crunched as the ceiling hit the shelves' top, beginning to crush them under its weights. Before they collapsed entirely, the water level dropped down to our knees, and a half-dozen pillars of ice shot up from the floor, slamming into the ceiling and bracing it. Amelia kept her eyes closed, and I watched as mana continued funneling into the structures, reinforcing the constructs.
The tops of the pillars suddenly fractured, a spiderweb of cracks forming with a sharp crunch. I winced, but when the sounds stopped, I realized that the ceiling had ceased its descent. Taking several deep breaths, I sighed, feeling sweat slowly run down my forehead as I tried to think of what was going on here. What was the point of this room? Was it an escape room, just like the second trial? But if so, why would they have us face the same challenge twice?
Despite taking several minutes to catch my breath, it still seemed as if I was gasping for air. In fact, I noticed that the others were also having difficulty breathing and came to a sickening conclusion.
"Master Leon! The air in here is running low. I need you to use your magic and try to cleanse the air. Remember that spell I recommended you learn, in case of inhospitable environments in the survival challenge." I said, moving to him as fast I could manage through the knee-high water.
Leon looked over at me, blinking several times before nodding. His mana moved sluggishly to my eyes, and I felt my breath coming more and more rapidly, my lungs struggling to pull in enough fresh air. If we passed, I would have to strongly encourage him to practice his magic much more often than his archery, considering how long it was taking.
Just as I was worried we would suffocate, a semi-transparent sphere of teal mana appeared around us, a half-dozen feet wide. It was designed to filter out ash, poisonous gases, and particulates, but I hoped it could also provide breathable air to the rest of us. Still, Leon's reserves only bought us a few minutes, and depending on how long this went on, we were still in danger.
Despite the panic driving me to think and brainstorm, there was simply nothing I could think of that might help us escape or solve whatever was the challenge here. There were no doors, windows, or clues that might lead us out. The bookshelves were empty, apparently just there as decoration, and every wall was unmarked. And even stretching my mana senses to their limits did not reveal anything that might hint at a solution.
After only a minute, Leon staggered, the spell popping out of existence around us. Immediately, stale air swirled around us, and I felt myself take a gasping breath, but before I could register it, the entire room shifted around us. The water disappeared, the roof returned to its original height, and the ice Amelia had conjured vanished in a flash.
A few seconds later, the doorway reappeared in the far wall, and the adept reentered with an apologetic look.
"That concludes the fourth trial, students. If you would please follow me, I will take you to the next area," he said simply, before stepping out and holding the door open.
Looking at the others, all of us, even Sophia, appeared uncertain, glancing around, and hesitating. After a few seconds, Leon took a steadying breath before walking out after the adept.
Following him, we walked along the hallway with the proctor. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me, and I knew I needed to ask about our experience in that room.
"Sir, may I ask what sort of trial that was?" I said, glancing at the proctor.
Without turning to face me, he replied, "We call it the Trial of Adaptation. That room is what you might consider a 'no-win' scenario. It has been set up with several dozen potential problems that you have to notice and react to in turn. Points are awarded based upon speed, efficiency, and how many of these you could counter. Of course, sooner or later, something would get the better of you, but you did well for first-years."
"So, you were watching the entire time?" Simon asked with a hint of frustration in his voice.
"Yes. The moment we feel you cannot safely handle one of the problems, we step in for your well-being. Oh, and free advice, that air filtration spell was a good thought, but it was far too mana intensive to last long. You could have scaled back the power and lasted three times without much trouble."
Suddenly, the adept stopped by a door, turning with a smile, he continued, "Through here is the final challenge, called the trial of the strong. We have decided to have battles fought individually, rather than as a group, in a randomly generated bracket. The more wins you have, the more points you earn and the better your team does."
"What if we lose?" Amelia asked, rubbing her hand unconsciously on her staff.
"You are not allowed to continue fighting, but the rest of your team is unaffected."
Entering the next room, it appeared to be a small space similar to the trapped one we left just a few minutes earlier. However, the walls were not bare this time but marked with a massive blackboard, with dozens of white lines that I recognized as a tournament bracket.
"Participant's names will appear here, and you will enter through that door at the far end of the room. When fights begin, you may watch through the board, which will display the battle in real-time. If there are no questions, I will leave you to it." he said, pausing for a moment before nodding and stepping out of the room.
I looked at the others, drawing in mana with Iron Forging as I waited for names to appear. It only took a few seconds, and I recognized neither of the first combatants, though parenthesis revealed they were both second-years.
Their battle was a quick one, both exhausted from previous challenges but the female wind mage, far less so. Powerful gusts of wind threw her challenger against a far wall, and when he hit the surface, his shoulder broke with a sickening crunch.
The second battle was similarly brutal between two third-years, with the loser leaving with a spear of rock through his leg. As we watched, I noticed a trend in each match. They were always fought between two apprentices of the same year, likely to maintain some semblance of fairness.
Clearing from the sixth battle, the board's names shimmered before changing, and I felt my stomach drop.
"Simon Helton (First-year) versus Flynn Sion (First-year)"