The bubbling water reached a crescendo as if the river itself was boiling, and Kal felt himself lift into the air. He didn’t know what it was beneath him and didn’t want to find out. Taking hold of the leaf’s edges, he cast Swift Step and sent himself and the leaf gliding away.

  Unfortunately, in desperation, he had sent himself flying back toward the grimcaps.

  Not good. Really not freaking good at all!

  Water sprayed across Kal’s back, reminding him of his underwater assailant. The world seemed to slow as he twisted to look over his shoulder mid-flight.

  Smooth, gulping, moist lips bit at the air while fleshy whiskers swayed, and Kal’s eyes widened.

  It was a whale-sized catfish, and it looked hungry.

  Yeah, okay—that might actually be worse than the mushrooms.

  With no desire to Pinocchio himself, Kal chose dry land and cast Swift Step again, propelling him through the air toward the river bank.

  By this point, he had used almost half his mana and was increasingly thankful for all the time he had spent training. 63 points of mana was a lot for his age, but if he hadn’t grown as efficient with his spells as he had, it would undoubtedly been exhausted by now.

  The glowing gazes of dozens of grimcaps were already following him, trying to figure out where he would land. Thankfully, their intelligence was limited, and Kal touched down against the shore, falling into a roll several yards away from the closet grimcap.

  However, they had been alerted now, and unlike their slow reaction to his initial raid on their grove, the grimcaps turned and charged near immediately.

  Pushing himself up to his feet and taking several wobbly steps, Kal cast Swift Step once more to create a little distance.

  Settling into a steady pace fueled by both core stats and mana feeding his stamina, Kal gained distance on his pursuers. It wasn’t ideal, but his remaining mana would last for some time, and he preferred this option over taking another chance with the catfish.

  Just as the distance between them grew, a spray of water burst out from the river, and the behemoth catfish flung itself onto the riverbank ahead of him, forcing Kal to skid to a halt to avoid slamming straight into its scaly hide.

  Only seconds had passed, but that’s all it took for the chasing mushrooms to catch up. He had run out of time. The gaping maw of the floundering catfish swung toward him.

  Instinctively, Kal spun around, dissecting the first two grimcaps to catch up with him. Without even realizing it, he had drawn his sword from its sheath and reflexively sliced through his attackers.

  All that training with Yogi paid off.

  Unfortunately, there were more than two grimcaps, and the wall of humanoid mushrooms was closing in fast.

  Racing through his options, Kal knew he couldn’t cast Mage Bullet fast enough to take down so many attackers, and he wasn’t sure how effective a burst of steam would be against walking mushrooms. They might not like heat or fire, but Steam Burst wasn’t really a spell used to land a killing blow, and if the grimcaps couldn’t feel pain—like he was fairly sure a mushroom couldn’t—it would likely just leave him open and exposed as the swarm fell upon him.

  Out of time and forced to react, Kal used Swift Step to shoot up into the air, dodging several attacks, and then came down—swinging.

  The grimcaps were fine, fibrous creatures—much like any mushroom—and even his flimsy old sword cut through their flesh effortlessly.

  But even Kal's fast, relentless strikes weren’t enough. Vae had been right about the pesky mushrooms calling up their buddies. It seemed just about every grimcap from the grove must have been bearing down on Kal.

  For every mushroom he struck down, two more took its place, and soon, they dragged him down and toppled atop him. However, the deadly spores he had been warned about never seemed to come.

  Kal didn’t know how long it took for the government clerks to intervene in the exam, but if he was about to get smacked by several lethal doses of toxic spores, he figured they would likely show up, and since they didn’t, he got a pretty good idea how they had weakened the grimcaps.

  As many grimcaps as there were, they were ultimately walking mushrooms without weapons. Meaning that without their toxic spores, the only weapon the grimcaps possessed was their soft, squishy fists.

  Pressed against one another, the grimcaps could barely bring their own pillow fists down on Kal, but the same could be said for Kal. His blade was pressed down by the scrum of mushrooms piling atop him.

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  He was stuck. Unable to do anything. So far, he avoided injuring, no doubt the reason the government examiners hadn’t arrived to save him. But how long would they allow this to continue? If they were forced to save him, that would warrant disqualification.

  In a moment of panic, Kal cast Necrotic Bite and started munching. The necrotic properties of the spell cooked the walking mushrooms as he bit into them, and it was… it wasn’t bad. Nutty and savory, although they needed a little salt.

  Kal didn’t have to eat the entirety of the mushrooms, though. Each bite he took sent the glowing mushrooms into retreat, scratching at their infected flesh as they climbed out of the pile. It was the spread of necrotic toxins. They could be deadly when infecting any flesh, but it seemed the soft, fibrous nature of the mushrooms made them even more vulnerable to the toxic saliva created by the spell.

  Kal’s thoughts trailed back to the giant catfish momentarily. He needed to hurry up and deal with these mushrooms before that thing decided to take a bite of him.

  As effective as Necrotic Bite was, there were a lot of grimcaps, and the necrotic saliva created by the spell dried up after about three or four bites, forcing him to recast the spell to continue his attack. At this rate, there was a very real chance he would run out of mana before dealing with his problem. And even if he broke free from the grimcaps, there were other threats around he might need mana for.

  Between bites, Kal felt a rush of mana somewhere nearby. It had to be the other team, and only seconds later, he heard the shouts of battle and blasts of spells, confirming his suspicion.

  Just great. That’s exactly what I needed!

  He mightn’t have had the Astral Pouch, but he did have the newly acquired lantern clipped to his belt and pinned hopelessly beneath a pile of grimcaps. The last thing he wanted was to lose it to another team after all the work he had put into taking it.

  But Kal wasn’t given a chance to surmise a plan because, at that moment, the giant catfish swept across the mound of grimcaps atop him, hoovering them up into its moist lips and dragging them across the rows of tiny teeth within, shredding the mushrooms into ribbons as it sucked them into its belly.

  Now!

  The moment weight was lifted from him, Kal cast Swift Step, followed by Steam Burst a fraction of a second later as he flew for an escape past the giant fish.

  The hideous catfish recoiled and let out a squealing croak as it sank back into the river, crunching several mushrooms as it rolled away and dragging several others into the water.

  Too close. Waaay too close.

  Panting, Kal created some distance before giving himself a second to recover as he scanned the grove.

  He was right. There was another team here, and it seemed that they had drawn the rest of the grimcaps toward themselves. The catfish attack had been fortunate, but he was fairly certain that more grimcaps would have continued to pile atop him without this distraction.

  But his relief was short-lived when he spotted a giant beast of a man crashing through a grouping of grimcaps, crushing their fragile flesh with powerful swings from his oversized mace. It wasn’t just raw strength, though. He was undoubtedly casting a spell alongside his strikes, the resounding bangs blowing the mushroom bodies apart with each strike he landed.

  Just my luck. It’s them—Team Shadowpact. Kal groaned internally.

  Their encounter had been close enough last time, and now Kal was alone with little mana remaining.

  Swinging around, Kal ran. He mightn’t have had much mana remaining, but he had above-average core states and a lead on the other team. If he kept a good, steady pace, he should be able to reach the rest of Team Ebenshire.

  Swift Step would create some extra distance between him and them, but with so little mana remaining, Kal decided to save it. After all, he had only spotted the big guy, Gronk. If the rest of the team were to attack him during his flight, having some backup mana would be his only chance to escape with the lantern.

  Within seconds, he had escaped the grove’s clearing, bounding over logs and ducking beneath branches as he hurriedly ran through the forest. Kal ignored the burning in his lungs and the tightening of his thighs, willing his legs to go as fast as possible.

  He had spent so much time training and learning spells that he realized a little more body tempering would go a long way. Mana could be converted into stamina, but there were limits. Thankfully, Yogi had forced them to do physical training, but it clearly wasn’t enough.

  Totally taking on an exercise regime once I get through this.

  Kal focused a couple of additional mana points on his core stats and stamina, boosting his speed slightly and relieving the strain on his body.

  That would have to be it for now. The rest of his mana needed to be conserved until he was confident he was safe.

  The additional strength, agility, and endurance from his core made him feel lighter and sure of step. The battle was behind him, and there wasn’t a grimcap in sight. But why, then, could he sense mana nearby?

  Kal’s eyes widened as she stepped out from behind a tree, her captivating red eyes piercing straight through him.

  The scarf was gone, revealing her long white hair atop paper-white skin. Kal gasped at her otherworldly appearance. She looked to be maybe sixteen or seventeen, although it was hard to say as she was not human.

  Instinctively, Kal grabbed at the lantern by his belt, reminding him of the importance of this encounter. As much as he wanted to learn more about the strange races of this world, he wanted to win this thing more.

  The girl raised her white hand and pointed its open palmed at Kal. Immediately, a black mist billowed out from her palm, filling the air around them with darkness so complete that all light was blanketed.

  Kal stumbled forward, almost toppling over as his foot hit a log—just barely managing to right himself with several guested steps.

  With how dark it had gotten, he may have closed his eyes. He remembered Vae’s words. This albinoid girl was likely leading her team through the night. Her vision was no doubt the reason she used this spell.

  Of course, things had to get worse.

  Taking a steadying breath, Kal closed his eyes. If there was one thing he was good at, it was mana detection—a by-product of mastering mana cloaking techniques. At this, he was more skilled than many grown, adult mages.

  “Time for a debt to be paid,” the girl said with a chuckle that seemed to echo through the darkness.

  Yeah, okay. This is far from ideal.

  No amount of mana sense would even this playing field. Albinoids were nocturnal, and Kal was effectively blind.

  He felt her mana spike, and his body tensed. He had no choice.

  She might have made the rules of this engagement, but that didn’t mean he had to follow them.