The group falls into silence, all of their focus on the corpse of the giant frog slowly dissolving into nothingness. No one says a word until their silent surprise is disturbed by Oscar speaking again in a hushed whisper.

“As you can see, from the moment I activated the training mode we have to be incredibly cautious, like we’re already in The Glade. There are still a few core differences between this and the actual environment that you should keep in mind. First, it may be raining, but that’s not simulated because of the amount of extra mana draw it would require from The Dome. Second, the space we can use, while distorted by the spatial enchantments in the room, is still limited. That means, all the beasts in here will be within a limited range and react to sound even faster. Finally, the unpredictability of The Glade can’t be replicated. No matter how well we do in this simulation, never drop your guard once we’re in there for real.” His words send a ripple of understanding through the group, the quick combat encounter working to drive home his points. “Now, treat this as the real deal and let’s get moving.”

Finished giving his speech, Oscar gives Emily a light nod and begins silently marching forward. Drawing in her exposed blade with a small burst of machina, Emily follows his example and slowly begins pushing forwards through the loose foliage. The gathered group quietly do the same, no one daring to stray too far from the pack.

As they quietly move forward for a few minutes, Emily’s eyes never leave her surroundings. She carefully observes the crowded shrubs and plants filling the lower level, and occasionally casts her gaze up towards the sheltering canopy above. The dense blend of green and brown along with the light humid haze seems to cause objects to blur together into an indistinguishable mass only a few metres away from her.

Her focused observation soon bears fruit, as she spots a flicker of movement in a layer of branches far above. Silently, she raises her hand while coming to a complete stop. A low murmur spreads through the group as people notice her gesture and cautiously follow her unspoken command. Silence falls over the gathering again as everyone waits with bated breath while looking around in fear and agitation.

Ignoring the panicked reactions of most of the commoner mages, Emily keeps her gaze high above while signing a request to Ivor.

“Scan for enemies.”

She notices a couple of branches shaking unnaturally on either side of their group and slowly reaches down for her revolver while waiting for Ivor’s response. Ten seconds and three more noticeable movements later, Emily hears a light thud and glances over to Ivor.

“Unknown number, above.”

Damn, vibrations don’t help enough with enemies above. I need to finish a vision spell before the expedition.

With a light nod, calm determination settles over Emily as she quietly alerts the group.

“An unknown number of enemies above, prepare your barriers.”

The moment they hear her words, Mia, Bella, and Oscar begin chanting in hushed tones. Ignoring them, Emily unclips her revolver and slowly raises it to face the sky. Watching intently, she waits with her finger on the trigger. The instant she sees a flicker of movement, her hand whips into position, squeezing the trigger and sending a machina-charged bullet spiralling into the canopy above. The crack of gunfire is soon followed by a pained screech and a shape falling into the bushes a few metres away from her.

Before Emily has time to celebrate landing her shot, four angry cries ring out in harmony, alerting her to the positions of their ambushers. She moves her gun to aim at another beast, but four jagged dark brown spikes fall fast from above and her vision is quickly impaired by the thin barriers of water and turbulent wind that form to protect her. The moment the barriers cover every group member completely, several fast-murmured chants break out as the others finally feel safe enough to counter-attack.

Frowning slightly, Emily drops her hand, holstering her gun before silently casting two spells.

No one will notice double-casting if I cast one spell internally and another externally!

A shimmering silver magic circle appears above her hands, with a small, wide blade taking shape in the middle. The blade stretches to a few inches long, and a ring twists into being, in place of the handle. At the same time, a long, thin steel wire forms that she deftly weaves through the blade's ring using her innate control over the forming spells.

With her makeshift weapon conjured in less than two seconds, she looks upwards, focusing on one of the faint shapes darting between branches high above, raining sharp objects down on the group. The magic circle around the blade fades, starting a one minute timer till the blade and wire vanish due to a lack of mana. With the wire held firm in her left hand, she holds the blade in her right and draws her arm back to full extension while internally casting a third spell.

Her arm arcs forward, sending the blade sailing through the protective barriers and up towards their overhead attackers. Her third spell finishes and a pulse of lightning enters the wire in her hand. The blade sails past her target, mid-jump, but the creature collides with the wire, and is fried by electricity. It tumbles uncontrollably to the ground on the left flank of the group. Emily pulls hard on the cable, drawing the blade back in while Ivor moves to confront the fallen enemy.

Not sparing him a glance, Emily repeats her attack with another stunning touch spell, dropping another assailant to the ground on the right of the group. Before she can try for a third, Dante sends a flurry of flaming petals into the sky, hitting the last two enemies and dropping them to the front.

Emily turns her focus to the grounded foes and sees two small brown monkeys, covered in several smoking burn marks, rising to meet her with savage expressions as they hiss, revealing their sharp fangs. Taking a deep breath to calm her unsettled nerves, Emily dismisses her metallic conjuration and raises her hands before her.

With surprising grace and coordination, the two monkeys leap forward to confront her, one swiping for her legs and the other her head. Emily steps forward, ducking under one attack while bringing her leg up to meet the other with a kick. With a small pulse of mana into her boots, a dull brown glow surrounds her lower leg as it impacts the incoming clawed hand with devastating force. The monkey’s hand is flung out of the way as Emily’s foot continues past to smash into its unprotected head.

The monkey crumples to the ground, unmoving, as Emily deactivates her boot’s weight control and springs backwards to correct her stance before leaping towards her remaining confused foe. The monkey tries to fight back, but Emily slips past its wild swipes with practised ease and delivers a decisive blow to its heart with an outstretched Claw.

Leaving its corpse alone, she quickly finishes off the other unconscious enemy before turning to watch her group deal with the others. As she does, she starts channelling earthen detection with her second core for good measure. She sees Ivor standing silently above the disintegrating corpse of a monkey with its skull pulverised, a heavy-looking rock lying next to it, dripping with blood.

The final monkey is battling Erin and Callum. One of its arms is missing, sliced clean off by a blade of water from Erin, but it stands strong, challenging Callum’s approach with its other arm outstretched. A shimmering purple magic circle surrounds Callum as he moves in, shaking in sync with his chanting, and his raised sword swipes swiftly towards his opponent.

The monkey seems to sneer at him in defiance as its instincts judge the sword slash to be too shallow to reach, but Callum ignores it and commits to his attack. A fraction of a second before his blade misses, the glowing purple magic circle stretches out before Callum and stutters to life. Emily blinks once, and Callum’s blade cuts clean through the monkey’s throat, sending its head flying off.

Incredible! The space between them shrank the moment he cast his spell. What a useful element, I definitely need to spend some time looking at it when this is over.

She pulls her gaze away from her groupmates and looks towards a bush where her earthen detection spell keeps informing her of small vibrations. Moving towards the bush, she gazes in at the monkey crawling towards her despite the hole through its stomach and both its legs hanging limply behind it.

Wait, these are rocky howlers! I don’t think they would be this driven to keep fighting. Aren’t they meant to be cowards?

Shaking off her concerns about the training's accuracy, she finishes it off before returning to the group.

“Pause training,” Oscar calls out into the room, receiving a loud beep in return and causing the forest around them to fall silent. “Good job everyone, that was an acceptable first encounter. Does anybody have any feedback or suggestions to give?”

Cormac raises his hand, grabbing everyone’s attention before turning his cold gaze on Emily and speaking out.

“Your gun is too noisy. Are you stupid? Why do you think we don’t send armed squads into The Glade already?”

Oscar quickly glances towards Emily with a conflicted frown set on his face.

“You’re right, it was too loud,” Emily easily agrees to his venom-filled complaint, surprising Oscar and Ivor greatly. “Let me fix that.”

Pulling her revolver from its holster, Emily pops out the cylinder and drops the bullets into her palm. Popping open a few pouches on her belt, she puts away the standard ammunition and pulls out six rounds with a small wind symbol carved onto the sides of the casings. Deftly loading the six new bullets, Emily flicks the cylinder back in, pulls back the priming hammer, and raises the pistol to aim beside Cormac’s head.

Before he can react, she pulls the trigger and a low pop rings out sending the bullet silently past Cormac’s cheek, to land in a nearby tree with a low thump.

“There we go, that should be quiet enough,” Emily smirks at his stunned silence as she slips her pistol back into its resting place.

Cormac’s shocked countenance slowly morphs into that of rage as he processes what she just did. Before he can start an argument, Oscar silences him with a scowling glance.

“Enough of that, are there any other pieces of helpful feedback we can give?” he asks, casting a pointed glance at Emily and emphasising the word helpful.

“I have something,” Emily replies calmly, ignoring his silent reproach. “We should possibly work out some hand signals or something so we can alert everyone to problems without making much noise. It would also be helpful for situations like that if someone else could understand Ivor’s detection reports and say them out loud without me having to look away from the enemies I’ve spotted.”

Most of the group nod and voice their agreement, while a few of the noble mages begrudgingly look on in silence.

“Good idea, I’ll work on a full set of hand signals and write them out for everyone before next week's training. I expect you all to memorise them and I will be testing you before we leave for the expedition. Anything else?” Oscar looks around, waiting a few seconds for a response. After hearing nothing, he restarts the training simulation.

They continue moving forward in their formation, pausing every few minutes to allow Ivor time to scan their surroundings for threats. After half an hour, and half a dozen combat encounters, the group walks into an empty clearing with traces of exhaustion evident on their faces. Emily on the other hand guides them with a relaxed gait, appearing fresh and alert. She glances at her mana and machina as her second core maintains an earthen detection spell in the background.

¯¯¯¯¯

[Mana:] 2856/3420

[Machina:] 3414/3420

_____

My resources are barely falling with the repeated use of first circle spells. Though keeping earthen detection up for so long has definitely made a dent…

Her thoughts are interrupted by a ping in the back of her mind from her second core. Instantly, she raises a hand to halt the group as she drops into a combat-ready stance while reaching for her pistol. Bringing her detection spell to the forefront of her mind, she focuses on the feedback and feels several dozen points of vibration entering her detection range, surrounding the group, and slowly encroaching on their position.

“Tsk,” Emily clicks her tongue in irritation before informing the group. “We’re surrounded, there are at least twenty enemies.”

The sound of chanting soon fills the clearing as everybody prepares for battle. The air hangs heavy over the group as the fog grows denser, rolling in and blocking their view of their surroundings.

Shit, I can’t shoot in this.

Emily quickly holsters her gun before bringing her hands together in front of her.

This is as good a time as any to test out my new spell.

With an excited grin, she begins building a magic circle in the air before her, ignoring the glistening sky-blue runes that dance into life and focusing on a point twenty metres away where she feels clustered footfall moving closer. The air around her starts crackling with power and the hairs on the back of her neck raise in anticipation.

As the closest vibrations reach ten metres away, the pulsing spell is prepared. Unleashing her creation upon the world, she proudly declares her first second circle attack spell’s name.

“Bolt!”