“Attention,” A low voice sounded throughout the game room, “Attention students, we will arrive at the world in thirty minutes. Prepare all supplies needed. The ship will leave the world fifteen minutes after landing. Thank you.” With a buzz, the intercom was silenced.

“All right,” Zal said, “thirty minutes to finish this game up.”

“No. I forfeit.” Moravian grunted as he left the coach, “I need to prepare for the world.”

Zal watched him and chuckled, “Oh, okay, so you're scared.”

Grimacing, Moravian almost stopped his exit from the room; “Your taunting no longer works on me, you filthy human.”

Thorne watched the proceeding with a veiled smile. Zal and Moravian’s bickering was an entertaining staple throughout the week-long journey. As the easiest one to annoy, Zal made it his duty to pester and tease Moravian as much as humanly possible.

“I go.” Procka rumbled. The magma dripping from her body fell onto the couch. A loud sizzle sounded through the room as the sofa was burned. No one reacted to the event, though.

Thorne looked at the time on one of his newly acquired devices. “I'm going to head out as well."

Zal looked up at him in surprise. “Really, man, you too," he whined.

Thorne held his hands out in helplessness; “We’ve had a week of fun. Now, though, we have to lock in." he said as he walked away.

“What in the spectra does lock in mean.” Thorne heard Zal say to Lyra. “Damn weird figure of speech.”

Shaking his head, Thorne exited the room, and with practiced steps, he strode up to the cockpit. He hadn’t packed much. All he needed was food and clothes, which were easily stored in his spatial storage.

Thorne eventually reached the cockpit. He noticed that the usually talkative pilots were concentrating to an extent that he had not seen before. The twin girls were wearing what appeared to be headsets, and they were laser-focused on their controls and devices.

Not trying to disturb them, Thorne stood in the back of the room and simply watched from there. ‘So that’s it.’ He smiled as his eyes became captivated by a grand sight. There was the planet!

The massive orb was full of grey and brown, with only tiny specks of blue dotting the world. Thorne couldn’t notice any lights or towering structures like the Zupu world. ‘It's probably not that technologically advanced,’ Thorne thought as he scratched his chin, ‘At least no more advanced than Earth was.’

As he continued watching, Thorne noticed that the world was growing closer at a monstrous speed. ‘I guess I underestimated the speed of the ship.’ Thorne chuckled as he saw the greyish-brown world become closer.

Thorne could more easily make out the landmasses—or rather, the landmass as it became closer. ‘So, there's only one continent.’ Thorne nodded as he surveyed the world. It was made up of one singular continent. The landmass was comprised of sandy and rocky terrain, while small lakes were present but seemingly very rare.

There was only a singular body of water that could even be called an ocean, and it was a very small one at that. It was a nearly perfect circle of blue in the middle of the world, near where the equator would be.

Not noticing Thorne, one of the twin pilots grabbed a microphone-like device; “Landing is in ten minutes.”

Nodding, Thorne let the cockpit; ‘This is good.’ Thorne sighed as he reflected on what he saw; 'a large water world would be horrific for me.’

He made his way back through the halls and to his bedroom. He sat meditatively on his bed and brought up his system interface. He had trained a lot this week and had made steady gains in many different departments.

Unfortunately, despite his definite improvement in many skills, Thorne didn’t see any change in level. That didn’t dissuade him from training, however; it only made him realize the momentous amount of progress that was required for each level.

During the week, Thorne focused laboriously on his amber techniques. He had asked Moravian and Procka to take turns attacking him, while he would only use his two techniques to defend himself.

Initially, it had been almost impossible, and he could only last a couple of minutes. After a whole week, however, Thorne had upgraded the power of his defensive techniques and his general control.

Furthermore, Thorne had finally learned what the intelligence stat referenced. When he had first seen it, he had thought of it as a measure of something like IQ, but that was far from the truth.

Lyra had become his impromptu teacher when Thorne had asked her about the stat. She had said that intelligence was, “The ability to recover energy in your body. It is the measure of one's capability to produce energy from their crystal, and the level represents the speed and quality of the energy you produce.”

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During that conversation, Thorne had one overreaching question, “How do you train that?”

Lyra laughed, “It is easy. All you need to do is deplete your energy reserves. Then, with total concentration, you must bring your energy back within your body, directly from your very own crystal.”

Thorne gaped upon hearing that. A training method like that was… torture. The feeling of having no energy left was worse than being stabbed through the gut. But just as Thorne had done in the past, he did not dwell on the pain and went through with it.

His days consisted of him being attacked by Procka and Moravian and using all of his available amber energy to defend himself. Then, he would practice his new skill—Cross Blade Extension Strike—against Zal. Finally, after hours of that, he would force his spectrum crystal to revitalize him and bring him back from the state of energy death. Then, in the waning hours of the day—when Thorne was on the brink of collapse—Zal and Lyra would force him to play Spectrum Wars.

‘Not a bad way to spend a week.’ Thorne chuckled as he closed his system interface. He was a little confused by the interface at the start due to it not having the features that Dolar had described, such as the ability to borrow other spectrum's abilities or tap into The System's limitless amount of energy.

He had asked Zal, who told him that he could only gain access to such valuable features at the higher grades. For example, one only received their class upon ascending to grade two.

“Attention students,” a voice said directly into Thorne’s room. We are landing in two minutes. I repeat, two minutes. Please gather by the ramp. Thank you!”

“Argh,” Thorne groaned as he heaved himself up from his bed. He walked through the ship and toward the area where the ramp was.

“There you are, Thorne.”

Thorne looked over his shoulder as he heard Zal’s voice. Close together, Zal and Lyra were making their way toward Thorne. Zal was beaming a pearly smile while Lyra grimaced and looked downward at the floor.

“Guess who won.” Zal hummed in a singsong tone.

“You Zal.” Thorne said deadpan, “I’m guessing you won.”

“Of course I did.” Zal grinned as he looked down at Lyra. “Oh, shut up, Zal.” The girl said, “It's one game.”

Shrugging, Zal walked ahead of her, “Well, the final game is the most important.”

“Tsk.” Lyra scoffed, as she didn't bother to reply.

Thorne smirked slightly as he watched the interaction but decided to remain silent as he continued walking toward the ramp. He saw that Moravian and Procka had already arrived at the location. Moravian—the undead—was fidgeting with one of his many blades, as he often did, while Procka was casually leaning against the grey metal wall of the ship.

Zal—who would have usually given some extravagant greeting—stayed silent. He retrieved his spear and shield and began to tinker with them. Thorne had noticed throughout the week that Zal’s spear was extendable, not through energy or any other magic, though. The spear was just built to have the capability to extend. It was simple but exceptionally useful in practice.

Thorne also fetched his blades, ‘Who knows what's out there? Could be some…sand monsters or something.’ Thorne thought, chuckling to himself. The team had never been briefed about the world and went in completely blind. This may have been done on purpose by the academy, to perhaps teach the team a lesson, but Thorne assumed it was because they simply had no information to give.

THUMP!

“Landing now.” The pilot's voice expressed over the comms, “Ramp will extend in one minute. Prepare yourselves”

Thorne and the team waited in silence as the minute passed as they awaited the ramp to open. ‘So, this is it.’ Thorne thought as a small smile crept across his face. Sweat perked up as he anticipated the new world. ‘From Earth to the Zupu world, to this planet,’ Thorne shook his head, ‘I wonder how the other earthlings are doing; there were only a couple thousand of us anyway.’ Thorne’s face darkened on that thought, though, ‘Well, I suppose the slave's life isn’t too good. I hope that a couple of them got lucky like me. I don’t really want to be the last earthling.’

HISS!

The ship’s mechanical underworkings shifted and turned as the ramp finally began to show signs of movement.

“Argh, damnit.” He grunted as the ramp finally opened, revealing the sun. Bright and hot sunlight flashed them with predjeduce. The group had been in an enclosed ship with only artificial light for a whole week now. Suffice it to say, the sun was not treating them kindly as the team stepped out.

“It’s a desert.” Thorne realized as he looked around through the cover of his fingers. An earthy aroma wafted through the air as Thorne left the ship. A heavy wind tugged at his robes, and heat assaulted his bare skin.

“Everyone,” Thorne shouted over the sandy gale, “Put on your hoods. It will protect you a bit against the sun.”

Thorne pulled his hood on with a tug, giving his eyes some reprieve.

“We need to leave this location!” Thorne heard Lyra shout. The torrent of wind made it difficult to hear, which meant that shouting was necessary in communication. “We don’t know if we have attracted attention with the ship. We cannot risk staying here!” Lyra exclaimed.

“She’s right,” Zal shouted. “Try to look for a city or shelter!”

Thorne squinted through the sand. It permeated the air and made it difficult to even have one’s eyes open lest they want their pupils to be assaulted by the grainy mineral.

The group trudged through the thick sand for minutes, and after the promised time, Thorne could hear the distant whirring of the ship taking off. Leaving them here along one the planet, technically stranded. ‘This is it.’ Thorne grimaced. The sand was constantly eating at his skin; it was like a parasite.

“I SEE!” Procka rumbled loudly. “CITY.”

Thorne squinted over at her through the hazy storm of sand. Visibly unbothered by the tumultuous environment, Procka held her arm out and pointed ahead of her.

“I see it!” Lyra exclaimed with joy.

‘There It is.’ Thorne grinned as he beheld their wonderful refuge. In the far distance—just on the horizon—was a landscape that reminded Thorne of many cities from Earth. Steel towers and concrete roads dotted the center of the metropolis. On the colony's outskirts, sandstone abodes, and walls of cracked marble boxed the citizens in and protected them from the dangerous wilderness.

‘Here we go!’ Thorne smiled wide as he trudged through the endless sand- the boundless and free sand.

‘Just like me. No Master or academy. No teachers. A new world where I will thrive.' His eyes hardened as he made the promise to himself. 'I will thrive here.'

Zal—who was walking in the front of the team—held his spear up in resistance to the turbulent win, “ONWARD!” he shouted, “ONWARD TO THE CITY!”