The scorching winds continued to sweep across the plain, relentless. With Freya's disappearance, only Phaistos and Kibi remained in the running among their group, while a few other silhouettes were still desperately struggling against the elements.
Phaistos scanned the horizon, his mind overheating. He was trying to understand. The answers had to be there, somewhere in this merciless trial.
Kibi, on the other hand, was barely standing. His breath was shallow, his body exhausted. But just as he was about to give in, an image suddenly resurfaced in his memory.
"A hammer."
After his very first day of training, his master, Ferrax—the respected instructor of the Hall of Metal—gave him a gift. When he learned that his master wanted to offer him something, his imagination ran wild. He lost himself in grandiose dreams: perhaps a weapon forged in a rare metal, an initiate's armor, or a jewel inscribed with ancient runes. But when Ferrax extended his hand, all he discovered was a wooden hammer.
The hammer was disarmingly simple. Entirely made of wood, it had neither shine nor ornament. Its handle, carved from dark and rough timber, bore the marks of the artisan's hand—small notches, traces of wear, a patina of sweat and dust. The head, more massive, was a simple rectangular block, solidly attached, without the slightest metal reinforcement. It was neither heavy nor impressive, but it fit well in his hand—balanced, functional, ready to strike. It was not a weapon, nor a prestigious object.
It was a tool, raw and honest.
Through this gesture, Ferrax imparted a silent yet profound lesson: everything begins with the essential. Before fire, before metal, even before creation, one must learn to hold a hammer. The words he had spoken the day before still did not fully make sense to Kibi. Nevertheless, he had decided to forge his own path rather than let it come to him.
Strangely, at that moment, Kibi no longer thought of the academy or his new magical abilities, but instead recalled his native tribe. A proverb said to be as old as the stars in the sky resonated deep in his mind:
"A warrior does not choose his weapon. His soul recognizes it."
The scorching wind continued to lash his face, tearing every last drop of moisture from his skin, stealing fragments of strength every second. His half-closed eyelids fought against the dust, his cracked lips stuck together under the dry bite of the air. His muscles screamed, stretched too tight, on the verge of snapping, while his lungs, scorched by the aridness, struggled to fulfill their vital function.
Every step sank into cracked, hostile ground that seemed to reject him like a foreign body.
The earth itself seemed to throw down a silent, heavy, cruel challenge.
His body screamed for surrender, begged for rest, threatened to collapse.
But his mind refused to yield.
He was not Freya, whose light steps cut through the wind. He did not have Phaistos's sharp lucidity, capable of deconstructing every movement like an equation. He did not possess Zara's mystical gifts, nor Miki's cursed mastery.
But he had the hammer.
Or rather, what the hammer represented.
Ferrax had not given him a mere tool. It was a legacy. A vision. A silent promise inscribed in every fiber of the wood.
This hammer, as ordinary as it seemed, embodied a profound truth: Kibi was not born to circumvent trials. He was born to go through them.
He was not a dancer, nor a strategist, nor a mage.
He was raw force, a will incarnate, a builder in a world of destruction.
Kibi was not made to dodge.
He was made to strike.
To crush doubts. Pulverize obstacles. Break the unknown until they were malleable fragments, and shape them according to his own law.
So, he raised his arm, heavy and trembling, as if brandishing the invisible hammer he had never truly abandoned. His fingers clenched around the void, but his heart felt the wooden handle against his palm.
And with all the strength he had left—the strength of despair, faith, identity—he struck the air before him.
And this time…
he felt the impact.
Not just a simple movement.
A wave.
An echo.
A silent cry from the world answering his call.
The impact tore through space before him like an overstretched sheet of paper.
A deep, almost subterranean rumble resonated across the plain, without an identifiable source.
A vibration so strange that it seemed to pierce the bones before reaching the ears.
The wind, so wild, wavered.
For a fraction of a second, the air froze around him, thickened, became almost solid—as if he were hammering an invisible metal, ready to be forged.
The currents hesitated, folding beneath a new force.
A force born not from magic, but from conviction.
Kibi was no longer enduring the trial.
He was forging it in his own image.
His heart beat to the rhythm of the hammer.
His breath vibrated in unison with the impact.
And then, in a brutal, blinding flash of light, he disappeared.
[Kibi Osei has succeeded. He advances to the second trial.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phaistos stood alone on the plain now. Kibi had just disappeared, carried away by his own revelation, while the last survivors continued to move forward with apparent ease, as if the wind, the heat, and the violence of the trial did not affect them.
It was unbearable for him.
He, Phaistos, whose mind shone with lucidity, was slowed down, hindered, challenged by this cursed storm while others moved effortlessly with insolent ease. Why? Why did some cross this trial without struggle, while he had to fight for every step, every breath?
His heart tightened. He refused to be inferior. He had the feeling that if he gave up now—without even considering those apprentices who walked through the trial as if they were strolling through a marketplace—he would end up much weaker than his friends. He couldn't accept it, and he didn't want to accept it.
In the seconds that followed, a cold rage took hold of him. Not an explosive anger, but an icy intensity, methodical, relentless. Phaistos clenched his fists. Every beat of his heart seemed to slow down, as if his mind, instead of igniting, was condensing. This strange rage didn't cloud his thoughts—it sharpened them.
A cruel lucidity settled in.
He observed. He analyzed.
His gaze fell upon the others, those who had successfully passed the trial. One by one, he examined them in his mind—their gestures, their reactions, their choices, their instincts. He dissected every movement, every decision, like a watchmaker dismantling an overly complex mechanism.
Freya had shown unwavering courage. Miki had instinctively used his cursed magic. Zara… had done far more than casting a spell. She had woven her magic with Al-Maari's, finding a resonance that strengthened them both. A symbiosis.
"They use their strongest asset every time..." he thought, narrowing his eyes.
But immediately, he refuted his own hypothesis.
"No... that's not enough. If that were enough, the other summoner would have succeeded, like Zara. It's not just about an asset. It's about their ability to integrate it into the situation, to make it interact with the trial, to master it in chaos."
Then he turned toward himself.
What did he have to offer?
He would never have Freya's audacity. Nor Miki's unique talent. He couldn't connect with another individual like Zara did.
But he had one unique affinity.
Time.
A power still frail, undefined, almost unstable. He had never truly known how to fully harness it, just barely enough to slow down a movement in his perception sometimes. And even then, it seemed so useless that one might think it all played out only in his mind.
He closed his eyes. Focused.
He was not trying to control time.
He wanted to listen to it.
He slowed his breathing, aligned it with an inner rhythm. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the world around him seemed to change. Not like a sudden stop, but like a tension in the air, a slower vibration, a spark of expanded awareness.
He no longer saw just the present.
He was capable of seeing a fragment of an instant ahead.
This vision was peculiar, as it superimposed itself onto his view of the present. It was enough to make anyone vomit.
Still, he knew he had to endure it, so he pushed through.
With one final movement, just before losing consciousness, he decided to disrupt the next gust of wind approaching him. By striking at a precise point, he prevented the wind from following the path it was meant to take.
In a way, he had just changed the future.
At that moment, as if the consciousness of the Combat Hall was rewarding his efforts, he disappeared.
[Phaistos Astraeus has passed the trial.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From afar, the instructor seemed lost in thought. "That glimmer in his eyes... Another user of [Basic Combat Strategies]. This year is going to be very interesting."
However, it lasted only a few millionths of a second, a span of time completely imperceptible to the few remaining students. Yet, without realizing it, another student was staring intently at Phaistos.
He opened his mouth, and the words he uttered would have shocked Phaistos and his friends, had they still been there.
"Enough games, second-years. Your real test begins now."
As soon as these words were spoken, the faces of the remaining students turned pale in an instant, for a nightmare, one that would have obliterated our five protagonists in a single second, had just descended upon them...