A loud trumpet sound woke up the camp.

  "Scouts report incoming attack from Oxford," a voice shouted outside.

  "We have scouts?" Peter wondered, rubbing his eyes. His camp didn't strike him as well prepared.

  "To the ramparts! We follow the plan!" Melinda bellowed.

  "We have a plan?" he inquired again.

  

  "Uhuh…" Peter grumbled, his eyelids still sticky and sleepy.

  "I need ranged fighters!" Alchemy yelled. "C'mon, you lazy snails, move!"

  Regina pulled the sleeping bag over her head. "I can go out like this!" she complained. "My hair is messy, and I have no antiperspirant left."

  "Take mine," Peter offered.

  Regina showed her eyes first, then stretched a naked arm and snatched the recipient. She read the label and accused: "It has aluminum!"

  "I'm going outside." Peter avoided being dragged into an argument, exiting the tent after dressing in his usual light-hiking gear.

  Alchemy floated thirty feet above the camp, and the students struggled to exit their shelters.

  "They attack early," Dissection said. He had climbed into a tree to speak with Alchemy at the same height.

  

  Looking over the rampart, Peter took in the impressive sight of the incoming attack. At a leisurely pace, about two hundred armored knights and a thousand archers advanced toward their camp. Five hundred feet away, the small army stopped, and the enchanted longbows began to shoot a hail of qi-arrows.

  "Shields!" Melinda yelled.

  Whether energy or material, protections appeared everywhere. The projectiles failed to find their targets and fell harmless on the ground. Peter ducked behind the wooden wall.

   the System explained.

  "Hi, sweetie," Regina said. She appeared on the fortifications without him noticing, throwing qi-bolts with the rest of the Spirit students. The enemy kept advancing and released another salvo. This time, a few students or normies in the logistics were hit and started to curse.

  I can't make a difference without revealing my powers.

  

  However, luck was on their side as a second army appeared on the field. The Chinese. They attacked the Oxforders with gusto.

  Hm… Why are they helping us?

  Someone in the camp asked if they should stop firing.

  "Keep shooting!" Alchemy yelled. "They're not here to rescue us; they'll take out as many Oxforders possible, get our flag, then go against Oxford while they're weak, making us fight in the first line."

  

  The Asian assault had nothing of the order of the Brits, but it had twice the numbers and ferocity. The attackers pounced around the Oxforders like a pack of wolves on a buffalo herd. And they worked in pairs: one woman, always the Body Cultivator, and a younger man, the Spirit. The first ones' fighting style was Kung-Fu, and the women used qi-claws emerging from their knuckles. Tiger Mothers was the result of Peter’s Inspect. Tiger Cubs, for the young males.

  "Ew…" Peter shivered. "They train parents and kids together? Imagine the trauma of going to the University with your mother!”

  The incoming attacks nullified each other, with the Asians slowly gaining the upper hand. That was until a third faction came into play minutes later. Peter and all his normie colleagues hated this one with passion. The Yalevarders. Divided into teams of four or five, combining normies—military—with Cultivators, they used both magic and guns. The rubber bullets tore down the Oxford archers, who were in the middle, but the Asians were next. There was no doubt who the winner of the battle would be.

  A nightmare took shape in Peter’s mind: if Yalevard made them their slaves, they would put them to empty the latrines with a spoon or worse. He gasped under a sudden idea. The best plan was the simplest: to conquer Yalevard’s flag.

  First, he looked around to find the ideal candidate for the job. Daniel was a contender, but he lost the pageant unknowingly when Peter’s eyes met Kostel. The guard was keeping his distance from the fight. Obviously, like Peter, he wasn't interested in the Cultivators' games, but neither understood the stakes.

  "I have a plan," Peter said to Regina, who nodded and continued to send qi-bolts.

  He beckoned the guard to join him behind a tent—no one was paying attention to them anyway—grabbed the man’s arm and Warped a mile farther, atop the next hill.

  "Dude, warn me next time!" Kostel complained. "What the heck was that?”

  “A special move. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m a Wild Magic user.”

  “I am one, too!" Kostel beamed. “I have no idea how and why, but I suddenly felt this desire to slay monsters and became very strong. Brothers in arms, bro!”