"Try to kill me." Arwen said as he smiled at the students casually from across the room.

  "Are you nuts?!" Aya said in horror as the rest of them stared wide-eyed at their advisor. "You want us to kill you?!"

  "No, only you Aya, and try yes. You won't succeed," he said with a smile.

  "I won't do it, you're insane," Aya said, turning towards the door.

  A harsh aura slammed down on Jun, Michael, Keira, and Cian, pressing the students to the ground. Jun gulped as she felt like something sharp was pressed against her throat and her heart started to pound in her chest. It hurt to breathe, like her lungs couldn't get enough air. Half panicked Jun reached for her mana core but her thoughts were sluggish, her mana hard to grasp.

  "Do it or I'll kill your friends, then you," their psychotic advisor's smile widened. His eyes were bright and wide with excitement, like no matter what Aya chose, he would be happy.

  From where Jun lay pinned to the ground by some invisible force, she could see Aya grit her teeth and narrow her eyes with barely suppressed rage as she raised her right hand and pointed her palm at the deranged elf. Jun continued to claw at her mana, desperately trying to form a tendril.

  The sound of crackling flames and howling winds filled Jun's ears as goosebumps spread across her skin, telling her that Aya was channeling an enormous amount of mana. Just a couple seconds after Jun first heard the sound of flames, an almost pure white sphere of appearing in front of her. Jun felt as a tendril finally formed from her core and she desperately threw her mind into forming more. Aya's nose started to bleed as the sphere condensed from the size of Aya's head down to the size of her finger. Several more tendrils of mana formed under Jun's will and she threw them at her spellforms.

  A loud roar and intense heat filled the room as Aya unleashed her spell on their advisor's smiling face. One moment, the elf stood smiling as Aya's spell coalesced in front of her, the second the room turned white.

  The loud blast seemed to go on forever, and then there was perfect silence in the room. A second later the sound of a body falling to the sand covered floor filled the room and Jun slowly pushed herself up, the invisible force that had pressed her down gone. A wide, shining barrier blocked the students' half of the room off. The half that Arwen had been in was scorched beyond recognition and filled with ash and smoke. Aya was crumpled to the sandy floor, her already pale skin colorless and her nose freely bleeding from the effort she had put into her spell.

  "Aya!" Jun yelled as she scrambled over to her friend. Half-remembered first aid lessons from her short time as a scout on Earth came to her mind as she pressed her fingertips to Aya's neck to check for a pulse. It might've been the feeling of her own heart thumping in her chest, but she didn't feel anything. A trick came to mind about holding a mirror up to someone's nose, but she didn't have one. Instead, Jun hovered her finger close to Aya's nose and that was when she felt the faint brush of her friend's breathing against her skin. Relieved, that was when she noticed the groaning coming from behind her.

  Her teammates were each carefully pushing themselves upright and looking around. Michael pressed a hand to his head as it began to glow, and he seemed to perk up a bit more. Wait. Healing magic! Michael was a healer! "Michael, come here! Aya's hurt!" Jun yelled at the man.

  A serious look came across Michael's face as he rushed to kneel next to Aya. The healer pressed a hand against Aya's forehead and another on her chest as they began to glow a soft white. "Brain swelling, internal bleeding, mana channels strained," he muttered. As he worked, Aya's breathing grew stronger and color returned to her cheeks. Jun sat back as she sighed with relief, confident Michael's healing would get her friend back to her feet.

  "He's not dead," Keira said as she unsheathed a pair of daggers and stared through Jun's barrier into the charred ruins of the room beyond. Cian wordlessly moved to join her as he produced a long spear from somewhere. A hard look came across the shy boy's face as he stepped in front of everyone, his spear pointed toward the barrier.

  The barrier shuddered as something slammed into the transparent pink shield, sending a crystalline ringing throughout the room. Jun flinched as she felt her barrier's strength, massively reinforced by absorbing the blast from Aya's spell, drop significantly from whatever it had stopped. What little mana Jun recovered she sent into her barrier, but it was just a bare trickle that barely reinforced it. A second blow to the barrier sent cracks spreading across the surface that the small amount of mana Jun was recovering did nothing to fix. Tying off the spell, Jun pulled her mana tendrils out of her spell. Even if her mana pool were full, she wouldn't be able to reinforce the barrier enough to survive a third blow.

  On the third strike, Jun's barrier shattered, consuming what mana remained in the shards of the spell to unleash a retaliatory blast of pure force at whatever broke it. The remaining smoke in the other side of the room was blasted away as a loud curse preceded the fleshy thump of a body hitting a wall. As the smoke cleared, it revealed a lightly singed Arwen pulling himself from a crater in the stone wall of the room with a laugh. As he landed in the burnt sand, Keira reappeared with her daggers thrusting for the crazy elf, one at his throat and the other at his side. Swirling winds surrounded Cian as he charged forward, his spear pointed at the elf's heart!

  The siblings' attack was well coordinated, ensuring that all 3 blows would land at the same time. It wasn't enough. Arwen blurred as he disappeared and reappeared behind Keira, his hand grabbing the back of her uniform and swinging her around into her brother's side. The two were sent tumbling into a heap to the side as Arwen turned to Jun, Michael, and Aya with a smile. Making a show of dusting off his hands and clothes, the crazed elf casually walked towards them.

  Jun channeled what little mana she had into a pair of small spells as a single rope and a barrier the size of a coin appeared in front of Arwen. With a flex of her will, Jun sent the barrier snapping straight up as she commanded her snare to wrap around the elf's ankles.

  With downright casual ease, Arwen tilted his head back to avoid the barrier even as he took a quick step forward, stomping on the conjured rope and shattering the spell.

  Out of mana, Jun stood shaking between Arwen and Michael as he continued to work on healing Aya. She didn't have any weapons or anything else she could pull out of her bag, nothing else to save herself or protect her friend and the people she just met, and Arwen was far more powerful than any of them. She wished Shiori was here.

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  Arwen vanished from Jun's vision, only reappear in front of her with his fist less than an inch away from the tip of her nose. "Ahahahaha!" the elf laughed suddenly as he pulled his fist away from her face. "That was an excellent effort everyone," he said with a smile, looking at each of them. Jun stared at the crazy elf as he laughed.

  "What the fuck was that?" Aya cursed from behind, causing Jun to look over her shoulder. Michael was helping her friend to sit up, as Aya glared at their advisor. Keira and Cian were slowly untangling themselves, somehow managing not to stab each other with their weapons.

  "A test," Arwen said brightly, turning to look at Aya. "As adventurers, you never know what exactly you will face, whether it is an out of place monster, a criminal with a bounty on their head, or another adventurer stabbing you in the back. Out in the field, your information will be unreliable and your equipment insufficient. You will be ambushed, betrayed, and led astray. The only thing you can rely upon is yourself and your allies, however old or new they might be. Your team is newly formed. Most of you just met each other and didn't take the time to discuss your capabilities in class. You, Aya," he said, pointing at the dark haired girl, "didn't disclose that you were a battlemage and immediately used a spell combining 2 affinities so clumsily that you caused yourself severe mana backlash. Even more importantly, that spell was so powerful that it would have harmed the rest of your team in an enclosed environment if not for the barrier Jun created."

  "As for you Jun, despite your display in the classroom, your allies were not aware of the strength of your barriers, nor did you support Keira and Cian as they attacked, which allowed me to counter them easily, which brings us to the twins." He said, turning to look at Keira and Cian as they untangled themselves. "While the two of you coordinated well with each other, there was no communication with your team. Keira, you did tell them that there was still a threat, but that was where your communication ended. Instead, you rushed ahead first, pushing Cian to move to cover you. Cian, you abandoned the rest of your team to help your sister, leaving your healer, support, and an unconscious teammate exposed."

  Jun watched the elf warily. Despite his nonchalant attitude claiming this was a test, the pressure she'd felt was real. Her instincts screamed at her that she was about to die, and despite the fact that what Arwen said made sense in hindsight, it didn't erase what they'd all just experienced. The way he'd casually told Aya to try to kill him, or he'd kill everyone, he seemed a bit too eager for her to refuse. She didn't trust him, but he was their advisor and his overwhelming strength compared to theirs made it clear that they could only go along with his whims.

  After Arwen finished lecturing them he had them each come up and demonstrate their abilities. Jun and Aya paired up and went first, playing a game they had developed during their practices with Lane where Aya would randomly target different dummies with all kinds of spells, and Jun would do her best to intercept them with new barriers. While the 2 friends were already familiar with each other's abilities, Michael, Keira, and Cian all had looks of shock when they saw how broad of a range Aya had and the speed at which Jun could cast small barriers. Even Arwen had been surprised for a moment before schooling his face, but Jun knew the look she saw flash across his face in that moment. Hunger.

  After Jun and Aya finished their game, Keira and Cian demonstrated their abilities by sparring with Arwen. Though it was clear Arwen took it easy on them, Keira's duel moved at much higher speeds than any of them had expected and it was clear that Keira was far faster than the rest of them. Cian's duel moved at nearly the same speed, but it was clear from the way Arwen treated Cian that his weapon skills were impressive and their advisor was breathing a bit heavier by the time they were done.

  The only member of their team who wasn't tested was Michael as that would require one of them to be injured and Michael refused, even when Arwen offered to be the subject of demonstration.

  The rest of the day's class was focused on basic team tactics and awareness drills before the students were dismissed for the day. As the 5 hurried out of the room, leaving Arwen behind in the scorched courtyard, Jun couldn't help but glance over her shoulder and saw Arwen staring at their backs with a hungry look on his face again.

  Once the 5 reached the main part of campus again they split off, with Jun and Aya sticking together as they picked up food from the cafeteria and took it back to Jun's room to eat. Aya flopped onto one of the couches while holding her box of food from the cafeteria and sighed deeply. "That was not what I expected from class today," she muttered.

  Jun dropped beside her and nodded in agreement as Shiori jumped up on the couch and sat in Jun's lap.

  "Interesting day in class, kitten?" her Master asked privately.

  "Yeah..." Jun said in response to both Aya and Shiori. "I don't trust our advisor." Jun opened her box of food as Shiori sniffed it and handed her Master a piece of meat. Wordlessly, Shiori started to eat it, looking for all the world like just a pet cat receiving a treat, even though Jun was certain Shiori could easily take their advisor in a fight.

  Aya nodded. "Everything about him seemed off. Do you think Professor Galimund will let us switch?"

  "Let you switch what?" Sara said, walking into the room.

  Jun and Aya exchanged glances as Sara moved to sit on the other couch, staring the two of them down. Sighing, Jun started explaining their experience with Arwen, his weird test, and the feelings she got from him. As Jun explained, Aya started eating her dinner, occasionally adding her own observations between bites. When Jun finished explaining, Sara sat back with an uneasy look on her face.

  "You got Arwen too?" she asked quietly with an uncomfortable look on her face. "He's got a reputation. A strange teaching style, but most of his students make it to at least silver with the IAG by the time they graduate. Some even get gold... if they survive."

  "If who survives?" Cecilia said, stifling a yawn as she opened the door to her room and stretched.

  "They got Arwen." Sara gestured at Jun and Aya with a frown.

  The look on Cecilia's face grew serious in an instant as she stared at them intensely. "They're still letting that psychotic asshole teach after what he did?!"

  "What happened?" Aya asked with alarm.

  "A massacre," Cecilia muttered darkly. "Go ahead and tell them Sara. I'm going out for a bit." Cecilia went back into her room for a moment before stomping out while carrying a bag over her shoulder.

  "Tell us what?" "Where's she going?" Jun and Aya asked Sara at the same time. Concern and confusion warred in Jun's chest as the front door clicked shut. She'd never seen Cecilia so angry before.

  Sara sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. "The team Cecilia and I are on isn't any of our first teams. Gareth and Lane are both in their 4th years this year, while Cecilia and Corin are third years. I'm technically a fifth year, but I didn't start in the Combat Branch until last year. The reason the 5 of us are on the same team is that we're all outcasts to some degree. Gareth is a high noble but he and his family are strongly opposed to the class system that prioritizes nobility over everyone else. While his family is a Ducal house that oversees the Northern territories, they're ostracized from high society. Their old teammates were all nobles that were pressured to quit his team. For me, I was assigned a team in my first year, but they kicked me out at the end for being an elf." Sara frowned, unconsciously moving her hand towards her pointed ears.

  "But Cecilia and Corin are different. They were on the same team in their first year, a team made up of close friends from their childhood, but the final exam their year was a week long expedition into the Forest led by each team's advisors. As dangerous as the Forest is, the advisors are all high Gold ranked adventurers that should be able to handle anything that the Forest throws at them, and they have a duty to protect their students. Most advisors are careful and it's rare for deaths to occur. But that year, most of Arwen's students were killed during the final expedition. Cecilia and Corin were the only survivors."

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