I raised my brow, frowning as I looked around at our surroundings. The three of us had stopped ier walking through a shimmer, where the ndscape had spun and ged in an instant.

  It was clear that we'd crossed some sort of invisible borderlio a retch of the field. The air had ged — it had the sharp, dry texture of a mountain, and the ground was littered with brittle pine needles and frost.

  "Smells like... we're in a higher elevation than before, but the skyline's still visible in the distance. But how?" I murmured, looking around curiously.

  It seemed like we were still iraining field, but it felt like we were on a pteau or somewhere high elevation.

  "The ehmus was transformed into a massive training field for Kaleidoscope City's magical knights," Elysia expined, pig up a frost-covered twig and eyeing it curiously. "It's mostly cadets like us and the uy students that use it."

  I nodded in agreement, tinuing to study the trees around us.

  Aurora stepped up o me, an uain look on her face. "I hope.... I hope nothing too dangerous lives out here."

  Elysia leaned back, smirking as she crossed her arms. "I'm sure we'll be fine. We're in training, so we shouldn't have anything to worry about."

  But then, her eyes suddenly turned sharp as she turned back to the rest of the clearing. "Hold that thought, though. Something's out there."

  I sighed, shaking my head. "More students with a boo pick?"

  "No, it's not human. It's..."

  She g me and nodded. "Its mana signature is off. Way off. It's like a moving, trated blizzard in the woods."

  Aurora followed her line of sight, her eyes darting bad forth. "I don't see anything, but the hairs on the bay neck are standing up like crazy."

  I stretched my arms, looking up at the sky thoughtfully. "Whatever it is, it's a problem."

  It was supposed to be an obstacle course, so there was bound to be a problem or two that cropped up. The question was, what did the academy have in mind for us?

  Turning around, I blinked as I caught sight of a marble altar that looked out of pce almost hidden behind a curtain of moss.

  "Guys, look over here. It looks like... a shrine or something?" I murmured, pointing.

  "Huh. Good catch, Lux," Elysia blinked, following my gaze.

  The three of us walked over to iigate, only to find a triangur pedestal with a small iion in the ter.

  "Hm. Whatever was here, someone's already taken it," I mumbled, rubbing my as I looked at it. "Do you think that pair of cadets from the two teams behind us took it?"

  Aurora frowilting her head. "It's possible. Likely, even."

  Elysia suddenly fliugging at both of our sleeves as she pulled us into the foliage, tilting her head to one side. "Stay sharp, all dies. Feels like something is going dowhe anomaly."

  She let out a slow breath, tapping her . "Yup. There are definitely more than three students there."

  "What should we do?" Aurora whispered.

  I grunted, shaking my head. "I think... we should keep an eye on them and stay out of sight. Shouldn't be too hard if they're distracted."

  "How should we mahat?" Aurora asked as she stared at me quizzically, and I couldn't help but smile.

  "I bend the light around us, remember? I 't block out sounds or anything else but we'd be invisible as long as we stay close and quiet."

  Elysia beamed, her eyes glittering iement. "Well, there you have it. A good ol' stealth mission. That's a super handy skill, for the record."

  She looked around cautiously before she beed at us. We followed along quietly as she directed us back through the clearing we came from, and up a hillock at the edge of the clearing. "Let's find a good vantage point here."

  We quickly and quietly jogged across the forest floor, making sure to watch where we stepped as we ducked under some thick vines and shrubs.

  Once we reached the crest of the hillock,

  Elysia signaled for us to get down, and I quickly threw out my hands, f a Luminary Mirage around us. Then, we dropped to our knees, slinking forward.

  Within moments, I caught sight of two sets of brilliant fshes of light ahead in front of what looked like... a massive gate inside of a swirling maelstrom of snow and frost.

  The gate was made of shimmering crystal and blue hues, with a glowing rune in the ter. However, there was a thiergy field of some kind around it, made of crag blue sparks that seemed to be projected from the rune.

  There was also something else to this gate, I realized as I squinted my eyes. The energy field seemed to have ... yers. Layers that extended out a good fifty yards. On one yer I could see beams of dense light that reminded me of crisscrossing sers. On ahere was a flow of swirling, thiergy that seemed to bend and curve as if something was trapped within it.

  And in front of the whole thing, were five students engaged in what I'd best describe as a shootout. Three were on one side, and two were oher.

  I quickly reized Forest Willow as well as the spiky-haired boy in bck I reized from the emergency tractee orientation group on one side, and three students oher

  Forest Willow nocked another arrow, drawing it back as she narrowed her eyes at her three oppos oher side of a wide field. Her green tunic had been torn and frayed, and she looked more than a little worse for wear. Her bow was fizzling with green energy, with long darts of energy flickering oring. It looked like dozens of trees had been toppled, burned, or ht disied at this poiweewo groups.

  There was a rocky outcrop Forest Willow and the spiky-haired boy were using as cover, while the other three had positiohemselves irees. The boy was also in bad shape, and the ically edgy trench coat that made up his outfit was torn and burned off on his left side from his hand down to his hip. Blood dripped from a gash in his side as he held up two fingers, with his other hand on the ground from behind a massive boulder.

  The other three magical knights were pretty mismatched thanks to the teams Tesseract had sorted us into, and I quickly reized Ace at the back of their formation, a smug grin on her face as she brandished a silver scepter that crackled with energy.

  If Elysia had the most potent-looking aura signature in our css, Ace's blue shine wasn't too far behind. Forest Willow and her panion's auras were modest in parison, with a size and brightness somewhere between mine and Aurora's. With the numbers advahey should have run right over Forest Willow and boy with the spiky bck hair.

  But Ace's blue stage magi's suit was worn out, and her hat was cut in half. The fabric of her e was scorched and frayed, and I could see that one of her gloved hands was limping and torn. Her aura looked slightly faded but far from out of the fight.

  Instead of a full offensive, she was stig close to the biggest magical knight ith them, a tall, Amazonian girl with wild, fming e hair, light leather armor, and a halberd.

  Ace had projected what looked like a massive astral globe in the air, spinning with what looked like steltions and stars within it. The orb span on its tral axis, and rapidly bombarded the stocrop with a random-looking spray of lethal explosions. It looked like they had defaulted t to erode away Forest Willow's cover, rather than fight her straight on.

  The final member of the trio's assigeam member was a small, pin-looking guy with gsses and a pocket protector who was holding a katana limply, staying low as he peeked around to eye their oppos warily.

  It was clear that they'd settled in on an attrition strategy that was slowly, but surely pushing the two emergency tractees into a er.

  The look in Forest Willow's eyes told me she knew she was outmatched and badly hurt.

  But her eyes were different from the uain girl I'd met before — she was focused aermined, and almost seemed to be dang as she weaved between the rocks and boulders and fired volleys of light that curved around the fallen trees.

  The defiant expression in her eyes seemed really familiar, and it took me a sed to realize I'd seen them before.

  Forest Willow had e off as pretty uain and unfident during orientation.

  But now, she looked like I did when I'd been pushed to my brink during the two nights of terror we'd both e to realize our powers in.

  "There's gotta be something that's keeping them from closing the distance," Elysia a mused, studying the se carefully from her prone position. "Those have to be two of the te admissions those snobs ditched, right?"

  "Yea. Aurora and I met those two at orientation," I firmed, before peering through a gap irees. "It almost looks like..."

  I trailed off, squinting my eyes in surprise. It was hard to make out, bck tendrils stretched out from the spiky-haired boy's boots like thick tree roots that reminded me of ink. It was invisible to the naked eye, but my aura sight picked it up, with a distinct twinge of ominous.

  "Oh man," I whispered. "Yeah, the boy's doing something with the ground."

  Elysia squinted her eyes, before biting her lip. "What do you think, Lux. Do we keep watg or do we intervene?"

  I frowned, my eyes wandering over the battlefield. It was easy to make the assumption that Ad her sorted teammates had attacked the two emergency tract holders without provocation. But, something just didn't quite seem to add up.

  "Hey Lux, I'm getting something," Aurora murmured, her eyes glinting as she held her head with one hand.

  I looked at Aurora as her eyes glowed with a light golden hue. After a moment, she shook her head in disbelief.

  "The altar we passed had a key, which Forest Willow and Null here picked up. The other team also picked up a different key from their starting point. I'm getting some fshes of both teams reading instrus at the gate, iating, and theion. My guess is they started fighting due to mutual mistrust, not knowing how the unlock would unfold."

  Well... that just sounded peachy.

  Elysia narrowed her eyes, sitting bad crossing her legs as she studied the turbulent storm. "Thanks for the text, Aurora. That seals it for me. I think the gate has a yered defeo prevent anyone from getting through until two keys are unlocked and aligned in the ter. Look over there."

  She poi another altar in front of the gate with an ornate square-shaped object embedded in the ter. "Now look at the slots in the meism in front of the gate. It has a triangur, circle, and a regur slot where two keys are meant to be ied, and rotating meisms to slide two into pce."

  "Wait... so it looks like both teams are trying to unlock the gate, but her trusts the other enough to actually try?" Aurora asked, tilting her head in fusion.

  Elysia shook her head, pointing at a pque with words halfway dowar. "I 't make it out from here, but those look like instrus or rules. If we go by what the unity knows about Tesseract, she probably set up a dilemma that had the five of them go at each other's throats.

  "Looks like it," I mumbled, scowling as I studied the battlefield again. "For an instructor that made such a fuss about not fighting before the exercise, Tesseract really isn't doing a very good job of showing us how to... not to be at each other's throats."

  "Well, if you ask me, that's the point of this whole thing," Elysia replied ftly, before suddenly jumping to her feet. "I'm not sure what the exact point of this exercise is supposed to be, but I'm sure there's a lesson here reted to not screwing over your panions."

  She looked over at the two battle groups, her expression hardening as I opened my mouth.

  "So, how about—"

  "...Yonna say we're going to help them out a little and knoe seo them, aren't you?"

  I ughed as she cut me off, and I walked to her side with a lighthearted tou her elbow.

  "You bet we are," I nodded as she turo stare at me with an exaggerated i look. "We definitely have a fight to break up down there."

  Aurora's eyes glinted in uanding, and she giggled softly. "t me in. For pead harmony, and all the other ptitudes."

  Elysia's inquisitive expression broke into a grin, and she wi the two of us. "Well, the's put on a show to remember, girls."