Mathias was not aware of how competitive the others were. In fact, he just wanted to get this environment over with. As such, he just picked the most simple option: a clear mask.

As a water mage who appreciated submerging himself in tranquil baths, he learned to hold his breath for a very long time. At his last count, it exceeded five minutes without discomfort. To say nothing of using the water as a vehicle to bring air to him. While air mages could probably surpass him since they could more efficiently manipulate oxygen in- and outside of their body, it was a good enough time for him to slog through the deep sand.

Each step forward brought him knee-deep into the sand. And in just two seconds, it was crawling up to his mid-thigh. He was basing his direction on the center of the form, making sure the sand was always being blocked by the same shoulder and his other unaffected.

It took a couple of minutes, but since the outer, shifting sand dunes were only ten meters in length, he managed to pass through to the rocky incline. The sand buffeted his body and he felt countless scraps appear as the sand started to grind sections of uncalloused skin off. Once he reached the top, he kept walking straight.

The sand began pelting his own shoulder, and his head was starting to feel light. However, once he began gasping for breath and he unconsciously let his mask open a bit, he felt a surge of wind hit his back just as he was a scant few meters from the exit.

His mouth was filled with sand in just a split-second.

"G-get out of the way!"

It was too late.

He rolled two meters, the mass of tangled limbs separating mid-way, and his body twitched with the assailant he could not even sense as he gasped for breath.

Sand covered his throat in the single second his throat was exposed to the raging desert winds. It took all of his concentration to wash out his mouth without drowning in the water, spreading the sand further into his body.

However, it looked like Ayla was no better.

"... Was that really necessary?" He asked, looking over the girl with cracked, sand-encrusted skin, and a bruise on her forehead.

It was a head-on charge, he guessed, but she jumped to her feet.

"You're supposed to ask if I'm okay! And I am! Because I'm me!" Ayla declared in a single-breath before suddenly coughing up a lung-full of sand. "Ugh, gross - gross! Hey, I'm just asking you this once, please get rid of this sand!"

Ayla did not seem to care that they exited little more than ten meters from the others who waited for someone to set up a game-plan. It was more than a little disorientating in there. And their persons were shifted to the side, unnecessarily extending their time inside, it seemed.

"Please! Please! I can't move with all this sand!"

"Fine, but only if you promise not to charge me again!"

"I promise! Except if we're fighting, so I can win!"

"... It had nothing to do with the battles," he grumbled. He was just scared when he realized he saw the jets of fire bursting through the ground in the next formation so he was tempted to toy with the idea of 'teaming up' for the upcoming one. "Just hold still."

He was already planning on taking a breather after finishing that one, to prepare for the fire formation. So he pushed himself to clean and scrub the sand from his body before turning to Ayla's.

She wore a scarlet-face as the water invaded her shirt, but the sand got everywhere.

Sand was cruel like that.

Once it was all over, and her expression shifted back to normal, she cheered, "great! Let's team up for the next one, okay? Except... later."

She sat down in a slump as she ran her hands across her coarse skin. It was split.

"Hmm... maybe? I want to, but..." He did the harder versions by himself so he wanted to keep it up. He was not concerned with the water formation, even with the hail, so he was just trying to figure out how to deal with something that was likely twice as hot as before. Something that required his full-attention to coat and mend his burnt hands.

Admittedly, it seemed like the training uniform was created in such a way that there seemed to be little to no damage after the repeated abuse by the elements. It repelled a lot more abuse than it looked, even on areas that it did not directly cover. A few cuts appeared on his pants and chest from the more dangerous glancing blows, but it was still in one-piece.

Six mummified bodies appeared coughing up a fit, with two half-dragging a particularly unresponsive body.

Eldrich and James seemed the least affected, if basing on their identities solely on body type, and were carrying an unknown student whose chest was wearily moving up and down.

Jenna walked over and nodded at the display.

"Good. Be more careful in your use of fire-magic in the environments that are difficult to breathe."

"... Y-ye..."

Lisanna wanted to acknowledge Jenna's tips, but coughed violently, spewing sand from her throat. She looked pleadingly at Mathias who was sitting cross-legged, drinking water with Ayla.

"So slow," Ayla chided lightly, looking at Erik. "I expected more!"

"W-wa-wa..."

Mathias was reeling back as five sand-encrusted bodies were creeping towards him dangerously.

"... Uh, can you stop...? Please...?" He added the courtesy later on, but as they approaching from the front, and he turned to run, he was easily tackled by a particularly swift, silent figure raising a curved sword towards his throat. "F-fine..."

He would have to delay his attempt at the fire formation as he created a stream of water to impact his captor's face.

Erik wore such a genuine expression of glee as he scrubbed his face, lips, and mouth with sand-encrusted hands, and relished in the otherwise mundane moment of drinking simple water.

Since others were stalking forward, he shot similar streams at their faces, growing more exhausted, but since he was not being threatened by the mummified students anymore, he thought it a worthy respite.

"Oooh," the unknown figure moaned as he washed their faces off. It seemed like it was the girl that followed Lisanna, that Jennifer.

Since she was alive, he stopped. Plus, with her being a water mage, it should be simple for her to do the same. Well, maybe not her, but technically not far from one's imaginings.

Each one of them had no small collection of damage on their bodies. From cracked, bleeding skin, to cuts, bruises, and even debris seemingly lodged into their skin. With the liberal coating of sand still on their bodies, it was hard to tell whether or not it was just held there or pierced through, but the few spots they scrubbed off before giving up exposed enough of the story.

He and Ayla were prime examples of that too.

It might be more socially acceptable to just have the semi-even layer of sand at this point than the raw wounds the two showed.

Another group surfaced from the sandstorm.

It was Kira and Jasmine along with four other girls.

Each progressively more worse for wear than the next.

It was terrible, but since they seemed attracted to the water he was spouting to those that still demanded things from him, Mathias opted to run the remaining distance to the fire formation.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The one hundred meters of distance between each trial may as well have been hundreds of miles for those just getting out.

"... If I keep staying to help, I'll never finish," he muttered tiredly.

He was by no means 'ready' in the truest sense, but he felt he had enough to push through if he dodged the flames.

His first step on the blackened soil rejected that premise outright.

The moment he released his step, knee-high flames burst from the ground.

He jumped forward, releasing a higher plume of flames behind him, and yelped as another stream of fire broke through the ground in front of him.

He rocked back to his heel, feeling heat surge on his feet and the blackened soil became a floor of scattered fire within three meters of his body.

"Hot! Hot!" He impulsively screamed, dancing back and forth as the soles of his boots seemed to melt - flames encased his entire lower half. Just as he turned to retreat back to the safety of the soft, brown dirt of the training field, another jet of fire appeared in front of his face. "No! Damn it all!"

He felt the still of sulphur on his eyes and even the tears his eyes wanted to cry evaporated. The only water he could hold was that which formed steel-like ice - all other streams evaporated nigh-instantly.

And even the ice he was so proud of was clouding and splitting with each step.

Not knowing what else to do, he ran forward - until another wall of fire appeared and he instinctively reared back. His legs let up a little too much and he screamed as fire bathed his calves.

The pain was so intense he did not even move - he could not move - even as the flames dispersed. It lasted all of two seconds, but it felt like an eternity. He closed his eyes and ran forward, grabbing the staff for no other reason than the belt he made for it screamed its collapse in his mind.

While his hands were immediately relieved with the ice in his palms, the rest of the heat in his body only felt accentuated at the contrast.

He felt like he was tanned several shades just in the three minutes of frantically of little success in dodging fiery landmines.

However, the moment he stepped foot on the blackened rock, a new concern appeared on his mind.

'... I-it isn't exploding...? That...'

He felt no safety like the indent next jagged hill of the air formation. Rather, he just felt a primal fear.

He pressed the icy staff, just barely managing to hold itself together, on the stone. He felt disorientated, his vision scattered, but the sight of steam bursting through the haze was clear to see.

He yelped when he saw a jet of fire appear from a meter tall black rock at two-second intervals to his side. It was an explosive, omnidirectional attack, that did not even completely disappear before the next burst came.

However, he knew his hands could not handle the stone.

He clenched his teeth and ran towards the exploding rock.

It took all of the courage in his body to not flail as his body jumped towards the radiating flames.

Even more not to just collapse once his feet felt solid ground. However, the one guiding feeling was the appearance of near-immediate heat on his already burnt soles, leading him to jump further up to the ledge.

And fire seared the back of his arms, neck, and calves once more.

He wanted nothing more than to cry when he realized he stepped into another explosive plume of flames, but his body carried him up a ladder of explosive, blackened stones before he reached the peak. His timing got worse with each jump. To a point where he was launched back, up, or to the sides, just barely climbing higher ground with each maddened dash.

He did not stay to enjoy the view or plan anything else. There was a sudden sense of dread that commanded his body to move. He had to. And it preceded even the rumble of the earth, the growing heat radiating onto his body, and the dull red glow from the corners of his eyes.

Just as Ayla's foot landed down on the second-highest tier.

She, too, felt it.

"Air Step! Air Step! Air Step! Air Step!"

Ayla shouted until her already dry throat was hoarse, moving up, higher and higher, as a wreath of flames burst out from the peak.

A quivering, shaking back could be seen sprinting off, jumping four-meter intervals at a time, rolling to correct himself, before jumping again to gain as much distance as was possible.

Mathias could no longer feel anything besides the heat - as such the sudden bath in flames when he just cleared the ten-meter peak, igniting even his hair this time, was scarcely more than reason enough to bring his charred soles towards the hail-storm.

The landmines that surged underfoot were nothing at that point.

"Wh-what the hell was that?!" Ayla screamed, gently tapping on the peak as well, before jumping high and above the wreath of flames she activated again.

If Mathias thought to turn around, he would see her collapsed, three feet from the edge of blackened soil, with more than a small addition to her previous wounds.

Except he did not stop running. He sprinted towards the whirlpools, forcibly extracting whatever control he had left to create a motionless patch of ice of the chaotic cross-currents of the whirlpools, jumped, repeated it, and managed to just barely crawl underneath a two-meter tall waterfall that dropped chunks of ice.

He was hit by hail a dozen times in the pursuit, but the hail seemed to radiate outwards, so he soaked in water well below the freezing point.

"... Ne-never... again... I-I'll team up... next time..." He groaned as water and ice coated his scorched skin, even to the point where it was a little too cold with such raw flesh receiving it.

He did not pay any more attention to anyone else. He noticed that Mr. Shields looked at him from afar as if to verify his safety; yet, after an unconvincing nod, he was left alone.

The water gradually became warmer. Or, more specifically, the flesh on his limbs was recovering slowly as he stared blankly out towards the other three obstacles.

It seemed everyone passed the air formation, just a few were left at the earth formation's 'entrance', and there was quite a lot of people lining up at the fire formation's entrance. He could finally focus his attention on others, and they seemed to realize the danger of pairing up on that particular challenge.

For some reason, despite there being seven or eight people ready to tackle the last formation, they were at the edge. He was on the first ledge above the ground, so he could barely make it out from the thick mist.

While they were discussing something, Erik jumped into the moat.

Like before, he was swept up, sent out, and discarded on the shore; however, his expression was one of bliss.

"..."

Others copied his actions.

Soon, all of those at the edge washed the heat in their bones, the sand that felt like it advanced at least that deep, and gathered again. Some even repeated it a few times after figuring out where the drop-off point was.

"Mathias! How is it!?"

"... So nice," he said softly, unsure if they could hear.

They were murmuring amongst themselves as the sound of hail pounding into rock, dirt, and water was heard.

After they repeated his words, as if to confirm, Erik asked again: "What's this one's deal?!"

"It's cold," he said after a while. Even he was somewhat chilly.

"That's it? Whatever, it can't be much worse than fire... Air Step!"

Ayla notably waited at the edge as Mathias finally decided it was a smidge too cold and considered to join Erik's advance.

Erik howled as he dealt with the pain of hail pelting into his body, but he managed to clear the distance of the moat quickly at the expense of added bruises on his arms.

Rather than seek the top, he hurried towards Mathias: rather, towards the little frozen sanctuary where Mathias was resting. "M-man...! I was still hot, but... this...?! I can't do it - stay if you want, but I'm leaving."

Mathias sighed, hands idly running across the warped treads on his boots, and bit his lip. "I'll go, too... I'm better now. It's going to take me a bit, though."

"That," Erik gruffed and looked away. "That... is why I'm here. If I need to escape, I doubt I can do too much more so, well... yeah. The hard way."

Mathias' lips crested up, laughing a little under his breath. "It's more interesting this way... well, once maybe. After that, yeah, nah."

Erik lifted his shaking palms up and said, "I'll pay my dues now - just hurry up since I want to know if there are going to be any surprises up top."

Mathias nodded and stood up, resting a hand on the ledge he hid under.

"Okay? Plan set? Alright! Onwards! Voyage the great unknown issues of the maybe-but-I'm-not-sure-but-it's-possible-exploding-frozen-geyser-of-not-cuteness!"

'Supportive' voices rang out behind; ie, Ayla had delegated the discovery aspect of the last formations nuances to Erik and Mathias. And Erik to Mathias. Rather, Erik with the ideal comfort of knowing if and when he might need to high-tail it out of the area.

Thus, the two boys climbed with the onlookers remaining outside - lest there be another explosive ordinance from above. The climb, while not far, was paired with the same issues as the previous formation; rather, ones that were similar but slightly inverted: the steady trickle of water became a frozen downpour wherever one opted to climb.

Erik's face was blue by the third tier, just half-way up. His hands barely could lift himself up as Mathias was rather cold. A little numb, even. However, seeing the other's predicament, he physically used his body to block the currents where possible and magic where it was not.

After a few gruelling minutes, they reached the precipice.

Once at the top, a mass of ice where it was once a geyser, Mathias clenched his teeth. Erik, just cresting the peak, didn't bother to think anymore: his brain was numb to everything. He just walked forward automatically.

And then he stopped. "Damn it!" Even Erik sensed it as Mathias ran forward and stabbed both batons into the ice-pack the boy carelessly stopped on.

Erik howled in pain before others could recognize why. The mass of ice erupted into a shower of ice and snow, exploding outwards, with smaller outcroppings of ice bursting into explosive shards as the peak convulsed.

Since he, too, was hit by the force of the cracking peak, he was just as harmed; yet, Mathias had never seen anyone - anyone - fly so fast in his life once recognition dawned on him.

Erik's body appeared in the center of the training field, where several healers were already taking care of students, and he, by his own volition, pounced on the nearest one, howling before the final burst from the formation.

Air Step was a wonderful spell.

Mathias managed to mitigate much of the damage by reinforcing the ice underfoot, but it felt like he was hit with an iron pipe in the stomach and leg when it failed. However, feeling the convulsion shake a third time - with each quake destroying any sense of balance on the icy surface as more ice fractured and shot into his body - he strengthed the ice below his feet - and then was launched on top of a disc, flailing in mid-air, as he saw the ground rapidly approach and Erik fall face-first into the ground in front of a healer.

However, his descent was not so kind as to be over with just that.

He landed in the middle of the moat, ice shattering underneath him, was encapsulated by the whirlpool, shot towards another, bashing his shoulder on a mass of the free-flowing iceberg, and dragged around the entire stretch of the moat, hitting various hard edges before being spat out.

He limped soundlessly to the healers, not even being able to cry at the sheer pain due to the tears freezing before he could let them flow.