Scarlet

After all of the interviews finish up, Scott finally sends us to the white rooms, where we find another team looking at us. And I immediately recognize one of the students in the team as one of the other participants in the Class I Solo Primary.

The student in question seems to recognize me as well, considering that they nod their head in greeting. So I nod back before focusing on the screen in the white room to see five screens, each blank in the fog at the bottom of the stadium. Then, after just a few seconds of waiting, we all find ourselves once again being teleported before ending up at the base of a tower. And without wasting a single second, I leap straight up, burning my blood in the process as I land on the wall of the tower, my hands already covered in my blood claws with one of them shifted and them both digging into the stone. Meanwhile out of the corner of my eye, I find Michael beginning to float into the air thanks to the wind elemental he summoned manipulating the wind and Belle is creating steps out of her barriers that she’s just starting to run up on.

I let out a light grunt when I feel Emily jumping onto my back, but I ignore her – along with the sight of Denise shooting flames out of her hands to act as a propellant to send her into the air – as I face upwards and begin jumping from one spot on the wall to another. And almost immediately, I hear Emily let out a very short yelp as her grip on me tightens, her hands wrapped around my neck like she’ll die if she let’s go. Which might just happen considering how high up we’re going.

Yeah, we haven’t exactly been able to practice this yet. But the girl is just so light that it really doesn’t matter.

Well, for me at least. She seems to be having a great ol’ time back there.

I burn more blood after seeing Michael begin to pass me, speeding up my pace in climbing the tower and freaking Emily out even more. But she keeps her grip despite that, and eventually I fling myself above the balcony to land on all fours, my claws on both hands digging into the ground while my feet leave small craters underneath them. Then I lift my head to find myself staring at one of the other team’s students who is staring back at me with their mouth gaping open like a fish.

Emily quickly gets off my back before I see black particles rise from the man’s skin, the student himself grimacing at the same time. And I follow it up with blood boil and life drain right as he shouts, “They’re already here! Get ready!”

Footsteps immediately begin echoing from inside of the tower, but at the same time, I hear the sounds of the others landing on the balcony next to us, following which the student from the other team begins backing up.

I don’t let him.

“Shit,” he mutters as soon as he sees me cracking the ground as I leap straight for him with my shifted hand raised and several daggers of blood flying in his direction. And he tries to jump back out of the way, but before he can do that, roots grow out of the stone beneath him and constrict his legs, making his eyes grow even wider.

My claws dig furrows straight from his throat down his chest all the way to his hip slicing straight into his armor in the process, making him scream out in pain. The armor not being strong enough due to its wearer to take my attacks. And right as his teammates finally round the corner in the tower, I reach up, having landed right in front of him, and grab his throat before he can start falling backwards towards the ground.

“Shit, Marvin!” I hear the voice of the Primary student shout from down the hallway of the tower, but it’s too late as I burn more of my blood to crush his throat. Then I toss him behind me and off the tower just in case they have a healer before I focus on the others.

“One down, four to go,” I mutter, a grin ever present on my face that seems to frighten them ever so slightly.

The Primary student – whose name I believe was Adrian Felt, otherwise known as Zero – grimaces at me and shouts to his remaining teammates, “Don’t let the wolf get close to you! Keep her at a distance while I deal with the others!”

I raise an eyebrow at that.

The wolf? Are people just straight up calling me a wolf now?

“Well, if the shoe fits,” Tar mutters, making me snort before my eyes widen at the sight of a wave of ice shooting towards us from Zero. I jump back away from the ice, only for it to continue past my original position towards me until it’s wiped out by a blast of flames from Denise.

I send her a nod of thanks before focusing on the enemy team again.

Out of the four of them, Zero uses a type of ice magic called absolute zero, which doesn’t really create ice. It just messes with the temperature of things, unlike Cynthia’s ice magic which does straight up create ice. So while they’re both very dangerous, his technically has more potential.

My eyes focus on the second of the four as they wave their hands in front of them with strange letters beginning to appear where their fingers leave off.

Rune magic. A magic that is probably one of the strangest magics out there. It has inherent skills that allow the user to learn a certain set of runes but doesn’t teach them right away about how to use most of those runes.

The magic is considered one of the top magics, but also one of the hardest to reach Class V with. Specifically since it doesn’t teach you any runes except for a single rune from each set of runes they get access to using, leaving the rest in that set for them to figure out how to do themselves. And it’s not just a simple matter of ‘make the symbol and use the magic’ but a lot more complicated somehow.

No idea how though, since everyone who gets rune magic kind of fails to explain it well.

Either way, I use blood boil and life drain on all four of them, stopping the girl from using her rune magic as she messes up in it, making the thing blow up in her face and send her flying backwards.

And there’s the survivability and instability of the magic itself. Not many people survive. Especially when being interrupted can do that.

Both of our teams end up in a bit of a standstill after that, me standing at the edge of the balcony with the others just a couple steps to my side, while the other four are all at the entrance to the balcony with the girl only beginning to get up with a light burn mark on her hand that is quickly healed by the third member of their team who is also a nature magic user like Michael.

I narrow my attention on Zero again to find him watching me with wary eyes.

Definitely a much more enjoyable battle than the others.