After half an hour they reached the sealed trial zone and the teachers opened a gate for the students. After everyone went in, it was sealed again.

„Good luck to everyone! Let’s meet here after a week!” Perdó said. „Don’t forget those who want to pass this exam they need to stay in the sealed forest until the end! Don’t use your talisman if it’s not necessary!”

Some students thanked the teachers’ warning. Some of them started to realize this exam wouldn’t be that easy as they thought in the beginning.

The mentors chose a way and went deeper into the forest. They slowly separated from each other.

Zotmund went with the girls and didn’t even look back to see if the others followed them.

Except for Dárius, all the boys realized this week would be the hardest for them. Some of them cursed, having such bad luck to join this team.

„Hey, is he always like this?” Domán turned to Gregori while pointed at Zotmund.

Gregori stopped for a second then nodded. He didn’t need to lie, they could see it after some hours.

Kleon grabbed his hair. „Now I understand why Fabó said our training will be enough hard! That bastard did it on purpose!”

„Now you mention it, once I broke one of Uzor’s sculpts in his room. That time his face was extremely dark and said he will remember about it.” Ciceró thought back and shivered.

The other boys thought back if they did anything that angered their mentors.

Gregori felt more depressed. If in other mentors’ eyes being with Zotmund was a punishment then what could he say? What kind of great sin he committed for needing to spend 10 years with him?!

Belinda patted his shoulder then looked at the girls in front of them. She was sure before they were interested in Bertold, but now it was as if they completely forgot about him. She saw the light around Zotmund was different. She didn’t know how but it gave her a bad feeling. Suddenly she shivered and looked away. There was something in it that made her soul shake and scream ’don’t look at it!’.

She watched the plants and didn’t notice Zotmund looked at her. He was deep in thought, but after some seconds he shook his head and turned back to chat with his beauties.

They didn’t walk for an hour when they heard someone’s stomach rumbled.

„Oh, when will we eat?” Dárius rubbed his stomach.

„We just ate breakfast 2 hours before...” Ciceró remarked.

„You never heard about snacks?!” Dárius looked at him as if he saw an alien.

„How come here the snacks...?” Domán’s voice slowly faded. He felt cold when Dárius looked at him. Don’t tell me he thinks about us as food?!

„Ah, melon!” Dárius cried out and ran away.

About 30 meters away from them there was a plant with the same crop as a melon.

„Stop, you stupid! Do you forget what happened with the flower earlier?!” Gregori ran after him.

The others followed him. The four guys tried to hold down Dárius, but he fought back desperately. „All of you want to take away my food!”

„When the hell you become so strong?!” Gregori shouted. His face had a bruise.

Belinda watched them for a while then walked to the plant. She tore down the ’melon’ and turned back. „Do you really want to eat this?”

She went to a stone, dropped the fruit on it and jumped back.

The ’melon’ broke apart. Its inside was completely the same. The boys felt the sweet smell and swallowed. Just after some seconds did they realize the soil around it turned black. Even the closet tree started to shrivel.

„Some poisonous plants could change their appearance, so don’t eat the fruit you find without checking it!” Belinda wiped her palms and walked back to them.

The boys’ face paled, they didn’t think it would be so hard to live in the forest.

Dárius collapsed on the ground. He couldn’t believe even the food betrayed him.

„Haha, perfect! Just what you can expect from Horác’s student!” Zotmund smirked. „It seems I can leave the rest to you. So teach the others properly!”

Belinda’s face darkened.

The boys looked at him. Even Dárius had the same thought as the others. Bastard!

They continued their walk. Gregori stood next to Belinda. „So you learning these kinds of things from your teacher.”

„No, I just read a book about the plants in this forest.” she saw the 5 boys were surprised. „Don’t tell me, none of you did any research before coming here?”

„Of course, I did! But I only read the books about beasts.” Kleon said.

„Me too.” the others nodded.

Belinda looked up at the sky and sighed. She could understand they wanted to kill monsters so they learned about their weak points, but... „You guys never thought about what if you build your tent next to a meat-eating plant?”

It was enough to look at their face and the answer was clean. Yes, they didn’t!

„So how did you find out it was another plant?” Dárius asked after a while. He was munching on a big cherry.

„Where did you find that?!” Ciceró was shocked. After that incident, he dared to eat anything in the forest?!

„I bought it! They never said we can’t bring any food.”

The others were speechless. If you had food then why you didn’t eat that earlier?!

„To see the difference isn’t that hard. The poisonous plants only can copy the crop. So you need to look at its leaves.” Belinda told them. It wasn’t that hard to see.

„The plans different? But how do you know the real plants’ appearance?” Domán was shocked. He saw a book about fruits, but it only had pictures of the crop.

„...You can go to the garden and see them.” she couldn’t say that she planted them in her space...

„Right! Next time I’ll do that!” Ciceró took out a notebook and wrote it down.

Zotmund looked back and smiled. He knew that the boys could take care of themselves.