Isyd got back up and winced in pain. Marzena rushed to him, but he stepped away before she could touch him.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” he told her.

“You don’t look so fine! You took the worst of the attack!”

Isyd lifted his shirt to uncover his left side and his back. “I’m sturdier than I look, don’t worry. I will bruise by tomorrow, but I’m confident nothing is broken.”

Marzena bit her lips, unconvinced. She tried to arrange her hair and parse the twigs that had been caught in it. She wrung her pleated skirt and then divested herself from her greatcoat, heavy with water. Isyd followed her example and hesitated to do the same with his high-collared red shirt underneath. His teeth were chattering uncontrollably due to the coldness that gripped him entirely.

“Aren’t you c-cold as well?” Marzena asked, also trembling. “We may catch death in our lungs because of this!”

Isyd was focusing his hardest on chasing away the cold, but Marzena had a better idea.

“[Burn True]!”

She summoned a floating [Light Ball] that was dull but quickly emitted as much heat as a long-burning bonfire. It felt good without delay, but it didn’t last long before fading away.

“We’ll warm up if we get moving,” Isyd said.

“Moving where? Do you have a direction in mind?”

“Not exactly,” he admitted. He then pointed at the river they had crashed into earlier. “This is the Little Stream, so it means we were not thrown that far away by the [Blooming Storm]. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Marzena urged him.

“Well, since we’re in an [Illusion], this may not be the real Little Stream.”

Marzena pondered it for a second. “I crossed it before during my fight with Prinse, but it was upstream from here. There was no [Illusion] then…”

“Are you familiar with [Illusory Spells] and how they work?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you this question since you are my Junior?” Marzena said with a smirk. “To answer your question, yes I am familiar; we received a few classes on the subject.”

“So, what kind of [Illusion]s are we on, do you think?” Isyd said, crossing his arms.

“It’s not an attack on the mind since we’re both here and aware of each other. This means that we’re facing an Illusory Construction. They come in two kinds: the first kind works with [Fluid Hexes] to create an environment around the target that evolves constantly around them to become the perfect prison. It’s the most difficult type to pull off and the most unlikely since it would require another Tutor besides Tutor Zenovbia to be in the Forest with us. This leaves us with the second kind of Illusory Construction: an Illusory Space. I suspect that at several places in the Forest, there were [Illusory Arcanes] that were scattered. Once activated together, they build an environment detached from reality. We stumbled into one, I’m afraid…”

Isyd nodded. He had arrived at the same conclusion. In this situation, he regretted the absence of Naeht. As a creature of pure Grace, she was unaffected by Illusory Space and saw through them as if they didn’t exist; she could have helped him out of this mess in an instant.

“So, I guess there are only two ways to escape the Illusory Space?” Isyd said. “One way would be to break one of those [Arcanes] that created it. The second way is to step away from the delimited area that the Illusory Space encapsulates.”

“That is correct, but it is easier said than done,” Marzena said. “For one thing, the [Illusory Arcanes] are often dissimulated within the [Illusion] and are impossible to distinguish. The very advanced [Illusion] can even reshape around them as you approach to make sure you don’t find them. As for the second option, I think it is our best chance...”

She then spun around, looking for something before pointing far in the distance. “Do you see how the forest blurs over there? It is further proof of the Artystic Creation. It’s due to your mind interacting with it and perceiving the reality leaking through.”

Isyd looked in that direction across the Little Stream. As far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with the woods. Still, he knew better than to trust any of his normal senses while trapped in an [Illusion].

“However, this doesn’t mean that we’ve found its boundary,” Marzena continued. “As we approach that region, I suspect that it will sharpen and look as real as anything else. We may not know we stepped out of the [Illusion] until we do.”

“In other words, we chose a direction at random and hope that eventually we reach the boundary of the [Illusion],” Isyd said. “Hoping without hope, that while we’re trapped in here, the Competition hasn’t concluded.”

Marzena bit nervously her lips and nodded. She looked sheepish as she turned to Isyd.

“Would you agree to work together until we escape here?” she asked, offering an open hand.

Isyd clasped it without hesitation. “Sure, no problem! Only we need to be open with each other. How many tokens do you have so far?”

“I only have 2 tokens.”

“Same here. What about your [Limiting Arcane]? I still have mine.”

Marzena showed her naked wrist where the leather band should have been. “Stollen. Courtesy of Jonn Drago.”

“So, that’s how you managed to use such a strong [Hex] as your [Mother of Thorns]! That was very impressive!”

“Oh, thank you! I came up with it when we were studying Summoning, but I never managed to turn it into a real Summon. I found [Fluid Spells] work best. By the way, I meant to ask you: do you know your Essence affinity? I am not sure the 1st Years have been tested on that yet…”

“I am of the Waters,” Isyd said. “And you are…?”

“of the Stones! It’s perfect that way, we have good complementarity!”

Isyd nodded. “So which direction do we take?”

“It doesn’t matter really. I suggest we follow the Little Stream upstream since I crossed it earlier.”

They began walking, following the riverbank. Isyd immediately noticed that Marzena was slower than him. It was not only the length of his gait – he was after all taller than her – but the fact that she struggled at each step to find her footing on the uneven gravel. It’s only after paying closer attention that Isyd noticed what was the problem.

“Did you hurt your ankle perchance?” he asked her as he slowed down his pace.

“I did, but it happened against Jonn, before our confrontation in the meadow. It is mostly fine.”

“You’re an Apteyk, are you not? Why don’t you just heal it?”

Marzena glanced at him as if he’d just said something stupid. “It is impossible for an Apteyk to heal their own wounds. If you tried, the Grace kind of refuses to act the same way as it does when applied to someone else.”

Was it, now…? Isyd was surprised by her answer because, in his previous life, he’d seen many Apteyka heal through grave wounds with their Healing Arts. He’d never heard of a problem with this.

Maybe it is a matter of Openings… he mused silently. After all, he only frequented Artysta of high Openings at the warfront.

“I suppose you are not familiar with the Healing Arts?” Marzena said.

“I can’t say I am,” Isyd said. “Plus, a part of me thinks you deserve it. You did ally with Jonn Drago to corner me after all. You shouldn’t have trusted the man…”

Marzena’s face flushed red. “I guess I should apologize for that… Still, you can’t really hold it against me; we are in a Competition and the Tutors said that all was fair!”

Isyd waved his hand and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m just teasing. I don’t actually mind.”

Marzena suddenly stopped on her track and her eyes went wide. She was looking at something above Isyd’s shoulders. He spun around, at the ready. While trapped within an Illusion, his extra perception of the Song of the Grace was rendered useless. This meant that he couldn’t use it to detect an incoming danger like he usually did.

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“What’s wrong?” he asked, eyeing his surroundings.

Marzena pointed at the distance toward the edge of the woods across the Little Stream. The naked branches of the trees were glistening like stars. It was as if covered with tinsels of Lightspheres.

“Are those leftovers from the Korochun?” Marzina muttered.

It was the first thing Isyd also thought of. Without thinking twice, Isyd cast an [Ice Shaping Spell]. A bridge clear like crystal appeared out of thin air, connecting the two sides of the riverbanks. He could have leapt over it easily but he wasn’t sure Marzena could do the same. After approaching closer, they realized that those weren’t Lightspheres dangling from the branches but instead dozens of glowing metal coins.

“Those are tokens,” Isyd said. “I do not know why they are glowing like that.”

“It seems too easy to be anything but a trap…”

To prove her point, she reached for the lowest branch where one of the tokens was left attached to a cord. When she touched it, it turned blurry and faded like smoke between her fingers. As soon as the token she touched vanished, the remaining ones began to falter, to blink in and out in a chaotic rhythm. It was now apparent that the tokens were not only dangling from the trees at the edge but also deep inside the forest. It all seemed to goad them further in.

Marzena turned to him with a raised eyebrow.

“As you said, it seems too obvious…” Isyd said. “But then again, why would they have put that there?”

“You think that there may be a real token hidden amidst the Illusory ones?”

Isyd shrugged. “You don’t think it possible?”

Marzena bit her lips and shrugged as well. She swatted at another branch and the token dangling from it also vanished in fumes.

“How can you find the real ones?” she said. “There are too many of them to check one by one.”

“Can you summon your [Mother of Thorns]? It could do quick work of it.”

“No can do, I’m afraid. It takes a lot of Grace to summon it, let alone manipulate it. After our fight in the meadow, I am too tired to do it again.”

Isyd nodded with a grunt and resumed walking. The ground was going up an incline and the soil was littered with dead leaves and needles. Isyd found the absence of sounds unnerving as he moved through the forest. He had first noticed near the Little Stream; the lapping of its waters on the stones did not make a sound. This meant that the person who had set up this [Illusory Spell] hadn’t bothered with including the noise to make the whole seem more real. This was only a problem if approximation to the real was the aim of the [Illusion]. The clear blue sky above his head was proof enough that it wasn’t the case.

It was not only the absence of the natural sounds that disturbed Isyd but also the muted Song of the Grace. He had grown so accustomed to it that in its absence, his head felt wrapped in wool. It was as if his ears were plugged or asleep. More than numbing his extra senses, it also affected his sense of balance as he stumbled on the uneven ground a few times and needed Marzena not to fall face first.

She had a worried look on her face when she looked at him, probably blaming his unsteadiness on the [Blooming Storm] he had protected her from. Isyd didn’t want to explain to her the aggravating effects that [Illusions] – or any [Spirit Attacks] for that matter – had on his mind.

“I don’t think the flickering has any meaning,” Isyd muttered more to himself than to Marzena. “Also, all the tokens so far do not have any shadows, so we can be assured that they are not real.”

For those he wasn’t certain, Isyd was launching [Piercing Spell] at the tokens in quick succession. They faded into smoke upon being touched by the gust of air, narrow and precise like a needle. Marzena, who was trailing right behind him, was left speechless by his accuracy and the speed at which he could cast the [Air Spell] without faltering in Concentration or Visualization. Once or twice, it even seemed that the [Piercing Spell] was bending to better reach its target and Marzena had no idea how Isyd did it. Finally, Isyd stopped in front of a cluster of massive spruce trees that stood out from the rest of the forest with their branches still covered with foliage. In their midst flickered the tokens.

Isyd launched a gale at them, ruffling the leaves and the Illusory tokens. They all vanished in smoke except for a light at the top of the canopy. Isyd and Marzena exchanged a glance.

“Are you up to climb the tree?” Marzena said. “I certainly am not, not with my ankle…”

“Do I then have a priority on the token?” Isyd retorted.

Marzena bit her lips. She had no way to climb by herself and reach the canopy, not in this dense cluster of spruce branches. If she had her [Mother of Thorns], it would have been another story entirely…

“Since we agreed to work together so long as we’re in this Illusion, let’s just say that all the tokens we collect are shared until we are out,” she said. “We will decide on how to split it after.”

This sounded reasonable to Isyd. Plus, he was fairly certain that he could outmanoeuvre Marzena if it came to that, certainly with how tired and wounded she was.

He looked back to the tree that stretched high towards the sky. There weren’t any low branches he could use to begin his climb so he had to improvise. However, before he could do anything, the soil beneath his feet rose into a pillar. He turned to see Marzena who had drawn a [Earth Spell] on the ground.

“I can do that at least,” she said with a smile.

Isyd nodded and didn’t waste more time before reaching for a branch and began his swift climb. He was nimble and not the least hesitant as he heaved himself higher and higher on the tree; it was as if his weight barely affected the branches. His hands were protected from the rough bark by his gloves but it scrapped and tore at some parts of his uniform.

Marzena watched him from down below, craning her neck to follow his ascent. She shifted on her feet, trying to offset the low throbbing on her ankle. She saw Isyd suddenly stop near the top, barely visible through the foliage.

“What’s happening?” she shouted. “You found something?”

Isyd threw one of his legs above a thick branch and sat against the trunk. He then reached for the blinking token that was tainting him at arm’s reach. His hand touched the metal. It didn’t fade into smoke. This was a real token.

“Yes, I fou—”

Everything suddenly shifted.

Isyd’s mind spun and so did the world. The sky fell upside down, trading places with the earth. Isyd gasped and threw himself back against the trunk. He held on for dear life as he felt gravity pulling him down towards… the sky. He heard a voice calling for him – Marzena – but it seemed so far away. Isyd clutched his eyes closed and breathed heavily, trying to regain control of his senses.

It’s not real… It’s an Illusion…

Yet, no matter how many times he repeated it, his sense of balance was entirely captured by the Illusory Space. He couldn’t distinguish up from down; his heart threatened to beat out of his chest.

Isyd gritted his teeth and focused on the only thing that felt real at that instant: the token he was clasping in his hand. Its solid surface and its square hole in the middle.

This was real.

The vertigo slightly released its grip on his heart and Isyd could open his eyes. He looked down – up, down, then up again – towards the ground, hoping to call Marzena for some help. She appeared so small from where she stood, hanging upside down and…

… and fighting Prinse Krovtur!

Marzena was surrounded by a wall of mud to shield herself from the [Fire Spells] Prinse launched at her. She riposted by attacks on her own but lacked the potency to cause a real threat.

Isyd glanced down then up one last time. He then took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Come on… it’s not your first time and this won’t be your last!

Without further hesitation, Isyd let go of the trunk and fell toward the sky. It spread beneath him like an infinite blue sea devoid of any clouds. Isyd extended a hand toward it, remembering the thirty meters or so he had climbed, and steeled himself against the incoming impact.

The Commands flashed in front of him as the sky and the earth reverted to their normal position and the Illusory Space readjusted. Isyd landed on the ground and it yielded under him. He felt himself sinking in the wet slough up the neck. The shock, though softer than solid ground, still sent a spike of pain up his legs and spine. With great effort, Isyd managed to untangle himself from the modified [Bog Trap] he had summoned to cushion his fall and heaved himself out of the mud.

With silent relief, he noticed that the sky and the earth had indeed returned to their proper place. He then met Marzena’s gaze whose eyes were wide in terror. He could easily guess why; from her perspective, Isyd had jumped from the top of a thirty-meter-high tree, presumably to his death.

Not my finest moment… Isyd couldn’t help but think.

If Naeht had seen that, she would have certainly given him an earful.

Prinse Krovtur had the same expression as Marzena on his face as he stared at Isyd.

“You’re a mad man…” Prinse let out.

Isyd smirked but did not deign to answer. He pointed his hand in his direction and Commands danced at the tip of his finger.

“[Hammer Wind]!”

The air turned into a heavy blanket and crushed the young man’s shoulders. Prinse winced and groaned under the sudden weight.

“[Mother of Thorns]!” Marzena called.

The full creature couldn’t be summoned, only a singular tendril made out of tree bark, leaves and vines appeared from the ground. Prinse managed to get out from under the weight crushing him only to be slammed by the wooden tentacle. He rolled on the ground, wiped the blood from his brow and clasped his two hands together.

“[Roar, Fire]!”

Red flames appeared from his hands and exploded in a roar, burning the wooden limb and turning everything near him into ash.

Isyd didn’t give him the opportunity to rest.

“[Slash and Burn]!” he cast.

Prinse’s eyes went wide in shock.

“[Deflect]!”

His [Deflecting Spell] was not strong enough to protect him entirely and he was thrown to the ground by the deflagration.

Isyd almost expected Prinse to surrender after this exchange. It wasn’t like he had a chance to win two versus one. To Isyd’s surprise, Prinse had a smirk on his face as he got back up.

“I noticed that you are quite good at copying other people’s [Spells], Wybrany,” Prinse said. “The rumours about you were real, after all…”

“Do you yield, Prinse?” Marzena asked.

“No… I don’t!” he said, still keeping his eyes on Isyd. “Well, try to copy this then, Wybrany…”

Isyd felt a shiver up his spine.

Prinse brought his two palms together as if praying and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they shone with a light of their own.

“[Legacy Art: Blue Blood]!”