The sun rose up to the sky as it gave rise to the day of the festival. Participants and spectators alike all welcomed the morning with excitement.

The treasure hunt won’t start until 10AM so the students of Inanis Orbis still had time to eat breakfast and relax for a little bit.

Of course they also took this little bit of time left in order to do last minute adjustments to their strategies and contingencies. While others took this time to give some motivation towards their team. Soon the participants were all called upon by their respective organizations for one more pre-event pep talk.

The Neophyte representatives of the Clarentum Inquisitors all gathered together inside of their Inanis Orbis base of operations. It was a regal looking two story building with an equally fancy looking interior, lined with expensive red carpets and curtains.

Inside the main hall was a small platform used for situations where the higher ups would need to address those below.

The Clarentum Inquisitor’s student representative, Clarence, then walked up the platform and looked down upon the four that would go into battle today. Letisia’s team was composed of three more young mages that all came from families with close, and almost, subservient ties with the Nimfell mage house.

Even though only Letisia and her small team were called for this assembly, there were at least 20 people present for Clarence’s speech.

Her eyes, burning with ambition as she sought to bring honor to not only her family but to herself as well. She wanted this event to be the start of her long trail of achievements, and hopefully, be ranked among the legendary mages of the era.

She wasn’t alone in this sentiment, everyone who joined the Clarentum inquisitors had this kind of thought planted firmly into their heads. Letisia knows that even those who outwardly admire her have this kind of ambition and is simply using her as a ticket, just like what she is doing to them.

The act of stepping on and using each other has been an ugly side of mage society that can never seem to be washed off no matter how much time has passed. A black stain fated to remain, tarnishing it forever.

As one would say, old habits die hard.

Clarence, upon seeing Letisia's group smiled and gave them his greetings.

“Greetings to you Lady Nimfell and your team! Today you shall embark on a great quest, an opportunity to display your strength and prove your superiority! Crush all in your path and bring glory!”

“The ends justify the means, and victory can only be achieved once all your options have been exhausted!”

Clarence declared in a loud voice, his tone oozing with pride and confidence. Naturally, Letisia and the rest were receptive to his words. Today is the day that they prove their worth, not only to other students, but to their own organization as well.

“No go forth and lead the Clarentum Inquisitors to victory!” Clarence shouted.

“To victory!” The crowd replied in a unified chant.

---

In another part of Inanis Orbis was another gathering of students.

Inside of a building that looked more like a soldier’s garrison than a place for mages to flock, were the members of the Guardians of truth.

Just like with the Clarentum Inquisitors, the presence of William and his team were requested by their leader, Victor Mandeme. As such all four of them heeded his call, and right now Victor Mandeme was ready to give out his own motivational speech.

Unlike the Clarentum’s base however, a more relaxed atmosphere can be felt inside their main hall that was furnished by rustic wooden tables and chairs and fur rugs just scattered about. A large fireplace at the far end of the hall gave the room an unexplainable sense of nostalgia.

William felt nervous and anxious from the moment he woke up, not surprising since this event was the first time he was ever involved in a rather large mage related activity. Then he also knows this is a competition which just doubled the pressure.

In fact, he really didn’t want to join but was personally picked by Victor himself as a representative of the Guardians of truth. If he had his way, he would steer clear of something like this and prefer to blend into the crowd.

But alas he was suddenly thrown into the fray despite his best efforts.

As William saw Victor’s figure make his way into the main hall he could not help but let out a loud sigh of resignation.

“Dammit.” He weakly complained. “I can feel my legs turning into jello.”

“Hey stop that. You’re making me nervous as well!” Mary suddenly declared as she lightly tapped his back.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. Now that the day is here I just can’t stop the cold feet.” He explained.

“Now don’t be like that!” Julia now interjected. “ Let’s just have fun on this treasure hunt!” She declared in a bubbly and cheerful voice.

“I wish I had your enthusiasm.” Sharn said as she rubbed her eyes and yawned.

“What’s the matter Sharn? Not enough sleep?” William asked.

“Yes. Sadly I too got really nervous last night and I barely got any sleep. I can’t believe how much it weighed on me when I realized it was almost time.” She continued as she yawned once again.

“Well, let’s hope that coffee you drank earlier kicks in some time later.” Mary said in a joking manner.

Suddenly, the loud and friendly voice of Victor Mandeme can be heard all over.

“Good morning everyone!” Victor started his speech with a kind and warm greeting. “I hope you had plenty of rest last night!” He continued.

“Damn, talk about salt on the wound.” Sharn complained.

“Now I want to make this quick so I’ll simply get to the point.” Victor suddenly declared. He then looked all over the group of students in front of him and smiled.

“Good luck and do you best out there! Remember this is simply just a game. Go and have fun! Alright that’s all!” And with that he went ahead and gave William a rather forceful pat on the back and left while laughing.

“What? Really? That’s it?” Mary said in confusion. She was expecting a rather long and heartfelt speech, not an extremely short and almost meaningless cheer.

“Maybe representative Victor is also having cold feet?” William said as he shrugged. He too didn’t expect such a short speech from their leader.

“Oh well, what’s done is done.” Julia suddenly declared. “Come on! We still have a little bit more time left, let’s go and buy some candy for brain food!”

“Julia, eating sweets is just a good way to mud up your own mind.” Sharn replied in disappointment.

“Aww aren’t you being a little too mean this morning! That’s because of your low sugar! Come on! I’ll buy you candy too!”

Julia then dragged on the groggy Sharn who could barely voice any sort of resistance. Mary and William then faced each other, then laughed as they looked on to Julia and Sharn who were now slowly moving away.

“Hey you two! Wait up!” William shouted as he and Mary ran towards the other two.

---

While the other organizations were rallying their members and giving them early pep talks, there was a group of four people sitting inside a restaurant munching away at breakfast.

These four people did not belong to any organization, in fact it seems they don’t have any plans to join anyone, even so they decided to participate in the festival. However, one of them is garnering a bit of attention thanks to her very peculiar choice of clothing for this day.

While Sylvester and Rossa opted to just wear their uniforms, with Rossa still donning her red cloak, and Artian’s very casual jeans plus t-shirt combo, for some reason Estelle decided it would be a good idea to wear a modified military-like clothing.

Estelle sported a sleeveless camo jacket combined with green shorts and black military boots. She also wore green military goggles in place of her usual ski goggles.

None of her friends however seemed to care about it as they gathered together to go eat breakfast.

“Oh man, breakfast muffins are the best. Sadly these things are too expensive and we really can’t eat them everyday.” Sylvester said as he stuffed his mouth with food.

His tophat could also be seen laying upside down on the table. For some reason, he opted to keep it in its hat form.

“Yeah, it’s kinda stupid how the festival won’t even give you any sort of credit rewards. Just spell points. Why are they so stingy about credits?” Artian complained.

“The headmaster probably just wants all of us to learn to be more resourceful. I admit the limited amount of credits was something I found hard to adjust to at first. But in time I understood that this kind of frugality is necessary.” Rossa interjected.

“Yeah, Rossa’s right. You guys are just bad at managing your funds. I say that but only Sylvester ever had a problem with his money really.” Estelle said, almost to the point of laughter.

“Yeah, I remember the first week. He was always lethargic during lunch since he skipped breakfast and during the last few days of the week he only kept eating canned food and noodles.” Artian said, as he recalled the days of Sylvester’s self incurred suffering.

“Haha very funny you guys. woooow.” Sylvester replied in a sarcastic tone. Suddenly, his tophat started shaking causing Sylvester to go and grab it.

“Shh. Not yet little buddy. Now’s not the time, or maybe you want some food?” Sylvester asked as he tore a piece of muffin and placed it inside his hat.

The tophat then started shaking for a bit and suddenly stopped.

“Ah so you were hungry huh?” Sylvester said with a smile. As Sylvester placed his hat back on his head, Artian raised his eyebrow and decided to ask him a question.

“So uh, about your pet. Does he really just come and go whenever he pleases?” He said as he pointed towards Sylvester’s hat.

“Yup. He just shows up whenever he wants. It was actually quite lucky that he decided to return to the hat yesterday and now I have to bribe him with food so he would help us. He’s been like this since I found him way way back. Sometimes he’d disappear for months on end only to come back and eat my stuff.” Sylvester replied as he shrugged.

“Ungrateful little bugger really, sometimes I feel like I’m the pet and he’s the master.” As soon as he said those words, Sylvester hat then started shaking again as if in reply to his statements.

“Okay fine, I’ll give you more muffins later.” Sylvester declared in a defeated tone.

As soon as the group finished eating their IDs started ringing a familiar tone. Immediately the four of them realized what this meant and was already expecting something strange to happen.

They all took out their IDs and saw that the display only showed a large red button that had the words “Let’s go go hunting for some treasure!” Written on it.

At this point, they were used to the headmaster’s eccentricities. The four of them looked at each other one last time.

“Alright guys, this is it! See you on the other side!” Sylvester said as he pressed the button and all of a sudden his body was enveloped by a curtain of light.