Yulon sat in his office looking into a tub of water. To his right was professor Leon, and to his left was professor Lok who held a wooden stick above the pool. The tub displayed the current actions and locations of various students from the teachers’ point of view.

“Why did you tell them that they were being watched? Shouldn’t you keep that as a secret?” Yulon watched as Kyrion had spotted one of the instructors quite quickly, right before falling down said tree. He had an inquisitive look in his eye and a slight scowl.

“Short answer, certain parallels in chaotic years. Long answer Lok would you care to explain? It’s kind of an inside joke. Considering it was your group of four that caused the incident.” Yulon said with a smirk on his face.

“Do I have to? What am I saying, of course I do. Let's see, it was around fifty years ago; Back then I was a student here. This was back when student’s weren’t told about how they were scored and that they were being watched. Some assumed others didn’t care. For confidentiality I will use their titles rather than their given names. There was our leader, the Death Tyrant, a necromancer of nightmarish power. Her subordinate, or Brother, the Demon Lord of Limguard, Misdirection, and of course me. Our group was a unique one, the Demon Lord and Death Tyrant, were practitioner rank by the age of eight and nine, which shouldn’t have been possible in the first place. Then again their fathers training was a bit brutal given his standard of power back then. Anyhow, essentially things were always going to go downhill, the speed in which it happened shouldn’t have been possible. The Death Tyrant could reanimate dead creatures and have them kill and bring back the corpses of the creatures they killed as well. The Demon Lord could absorb power from said dead creatures and transform into a monsterous amalgamation of them taking the parts he deemed suitable enough to use. He also had a second ability which let him call forth creatures from an unknown world. Misdirection had a power that let him create barriers of force. I had the ability of divination, I could find the biggest groups of monsters in the jungle. Back then they had a few Practitioner and Expert rank monsters in the forest. Which in hindsight might not have been a good idea. We killed and brought back a Practitioner rank monster first. Then proceeded to kill off all the fledglings in the area. We used that small army to kill off the practitioner rank monsters as well. I told them that we could probably stop here and get first place but noooo. They had to get all the points. Damn competitiveness. Anyhow we went after the experts in the area as well. Sending wave after wave of monsters they slaughtered it. But still it wasn’t enough. All the expert rank monsters died quite quickly leading to a sort of genocide. It was then they got the idea of knocking out the rest of the teams. By the end of it all the test lasted only three days and there was a lot of work needed to repair the area after all that damage. I’m told they stopped counting points after we killed the first expert. This year was seen as an outlet until twenty years later a six year old with a farming tool led his group of three to a very similar victory. The same thing happened later when someone with what we thought was a normal plant spirit turned out to be a Deathshade; everything in the forest that died became undead monsters that moved according to her command. We had to end that test early because the environment became a bit too dangerous. Last but not least there were the twins. While not actually twins, they were a year apart, but their ability to find people was uncanny. They knocked out all the other teams by the end of the second night. There was one correlation with all those examples. They were children of the Death Tyrant, each one brought glory to some of the schools before they returned home all at once.” Lok stirred the pot revealing the status of various groups. Damian’s team had been moving towards the boar slowly and swiftly.

“What does that have to do with this year’s batch?” Leon asked, fearing he knew the answer.

“This year we have two of her hellspawn, it’s quite clear that they didn’t get the same sort of training. I do feel bad for their leader. He doesn’t quite know what pieces he’s playing with as of yet.” Lok had a professional expression on his face. But his eyes showed excitement.

Leon was frustrated by this point, so he asked the obvious question. “So which kids are they?”

Yulon smiled. "I have a feeling you’ll see soon enough.”

They stared at the boar’s motionless form, not breathing and not moving. The purple mushrooms littered the area, covering it with a purple miasma of spores.

“Nico?” Damian asked.

“This fog is highly flammable along with the mushrooms. So I suggest we use fire and run for the hills. This is going to get messy quickly.” Nico explained, with eyes almost burning with anticipation.

“You sure love your fire.” Everest backed away from their book reading companion.

“Fire has its uses afterall.” Nico waved his finger at Everest.

“Burn it and pray it decides to run. What do we do?” Wura popped her knuckles.

“Everest I want you to cover the area with cloth bindings. They may burn, but that’s fine. Noah set up a wall of molten metal far ahead of us, Wura I want you to hide behind a tree spear ready to thrust when it passes. Pigs aren’t good at changing direction when charging. After that I want you to get some distance. Kiara and Kyrion will bombard the beast from above. Assuming Kiara can get up said tree. If not, she can....”

Kiara interrupted him, “If he can climb a tree then I can too! Probably even better.” pride in her eyes and irritation in her tone.

“Kiara... My brother isn’t good at things like thinking, or the like, but when it comes to climbing trees he’s in another league.” Asela tried to reassure her slightly older friend. But they clearly didn’t work as intended.

“Ok…. I will engage from behind when the barrage of ranged attacks starts. Now for the tricky part. The start of this fight rests on Nico and Asela. I need you to make a strong fireball capable of dealing a good amount of destruction to the nearby area and weaken our foe. Lastly, be flexible. Should all else fail, attack the boar with everything you’ve got. Get ready. We start on my signal.

Kiara struggled to get up her tree. It seemed much more challenging than she had assumed. Kiara made claws of ice, which she used to pierce into the bark, putting one hand in front of the other to scale the tree. By the time she arrived, Kyrion was already settled on a tree branch.

Everyone else entered their positions. A thin web of cloth and molten barricades are the only defenses.

“Light it up.” Damian said the signal as Nico and Asela sent a condensed fireball at it.

The flame connected head-on, but the effect was more than they expected. All the mushrooms on the boar exploded, setting off a chain of smaller explosions that sent shrooms and debris flying. Kiara was knocked out of her tree. Nico was hit in the back by a speeding rock as he stood in front of Asela. Everet was knocked onto his back and seemed to vanish. Daman and Noah were the only ones on the ground in perfect shape.

Kyrion was surprised by the reaction and looked down, noticing his partner had taken a fall and wasn’t moving. He jumped down to check on her, Kiara was still breathing and somewhat conscious, but she was unable to fight or be moved.

“Don’t move, I’ll make sure you don’t get any more injured.” Kyruion joined Noah and Damian, who had taken their vanguard positions.

“Kyrion your supposed to be in the backline.” Damian said stoically.

“My partner can’t go anywhere right now so I have to protect her.” Kyrion said, gone where his carefree eyes, what remained was pure conviction.

Noah nodded in understanding, his body bulking up slightly, features growing more masculine and feline. His teeth grew canines, and his eyes slit. His skin grew fur, and armor made from the hot metal solidified around him, forming a suit of armor. Noah got on all fours, ready to intercept anything that entered his range.

Damian’s sword radiated a dark yellow aura as he began to fill it with mana. Likewise, his body gave off a spectral aura of yellow energy that engulfed the boy as he shifted stances.

From the fire came the bounding boar, and with it was a trail of flames, as liquid flames began to leak from the beast-like blood. It knocked down everything in its path and was definitely headed towards the two that started the fire. Its legs clipped on the molten barricade, and it lost a good chunk of its speed. It ran not on hooves but its remaining stubs. The creature found itself entangled soon after entering the cloth weave, which tightened around the beast.

Noah met the beast and began to tear at it. Removing skin and bone with his claws and fangs. But the creature still moved.

The boar rolled onto its side, crushing Noah entirely, knocking the wind out of him. Noah’s form wavered, and he was forced to shift back. Noah had to crawl out of combat as his rank one endurance wasn’t enough to keep up with that level of damage.

Damian charged forward, slicing and slashing at the beast, creating wounds that it didn’t even seem to care about. The boar shrugged him off, but instead of fighting back, it began to charge forward again.

Kyrion grabbed the boar by its tusk, locking it in place as roots came up from the ground, wrapping around the creatures, legs, and body. Pinning it in place and squeezing it as it struggled. The boar made no audible noises, but it was far from giving up.

Damian shortly caught up and started carving up the boar with his sword. Still, it did not go down. Damian made sure to remove its eyes, but it was as expected. The creature wasn’t the one in charge of its body.

Wura, seeing us engaged, came running forward spear ready as the tip began to rapidly rotate. She stabbed the creature where the brain should be and destroyed it. Yet the beast still moved.

When Wura removed her spear, the wound revealed a giant mushroom wrapped in a purple light where the boar’s insides should have been.

Damian capitalized on the new vulnerability damaging the barrier of light encasing the mushroom. The boar continued to sink into the ground as the roots pulled it down. The host body was done for, and the plant needed to find another one quickly.

The mushroom shattered into mist, coating the area with a purple cloud. Which paralyzed the kids nearby. Causing them to slip into a state of unconsciousness, the shroom proceeds to grow legs and move slowly toward Kyrion. Tendrils protruded from its body and reached for the child.

Kyrion reawakened in a tent, surrounded by his friends. Nico had a bandage covering his back, it was red with blood, but it seemed to have been stitched up. The boy was still unconscious, however.

Damian was moving around in a daze. He was awake but just barely. The fight had clearly taken a lot out of him, physically and mentally.

Asela was crying in the corner of the tent, where Kiara was situated. Her eyes were red, and it was clear that she was stressed out.

Kiara looked worse than she was, a bandage was wrapped over her face, and her head was propped up with a makeshift cushion.

Noah was hurt but able to walk around pretty well. The limit to his damage was light bruises. Wura was also walking around quite well, not quite injured like the others, but she also had a dazed look about her.

Finally, there was Everest, completely unharmed Everest, as well dressed and cheeky as ever. Only he wasn’t cheeky, his eyes were cold, his expression was monotonous. If anything, he seemed disconnected as he sat on the ground.

Leon was biting his thumb in worry. “We need to go in. No, we will go in. Those kids are in danger. That is no fledgling rank monster, it’s a mid tier practitioner rank. They aren’t ready for it yet.”

Yulon looked to Lok, who was beginning to look almost manic. “I agree with Leon on this matter, but it seems you know something we don’t.”

“I can see it. What’s going on inside is something that papers will be written about in the future. His regeneration is fighting off its influence, while the spore tries to break his mana pool down and consume it. It heals itself and draws more energy from the mushroom. Like an immune system fighting disease. Looks like this spawn, won’t be given an ominous title like his predecessors.” Lok said excitedly, already pulling out a pen and paper.

Leon looked in surprise. “He’s her child? They aren’t much alike at all. I do see some resemblance now that you mention it though.”

“The only thing that boy doesn’t share with his mother is her thirst for blood. He did inherit her stubbornness and desire for petty pranks.” Yulon seemed almost relieved.

Leon looked confused, “What pranks. I haven’t heard anything from the other students.”

“He did it to the class two students, that baron’s brats. He snuck small seeds onto their clothes, you remember the ant incident right?” Yulon seemed disinterested by this point. The story had been retold so many times that he had to wonder how Leon didn’t know about it. But then again, Leon rarely participated in their social gatherings.

“Oh yeah that was bad. How did you figure out it was him?” Leon seemed interested in the answer.

“Oh that was me, he has this look in his eye. You have to know what to look for, they also have the same tells when lying. Which is quite funny, let me tell you. Anyhow, let’s get back to watching.” Lok made himself comfortable and started watching.

“Are you going to tell me what his tells are?” Leon looked at his fellow instructor.

“I’m a seer, not a snitch. I don’t know what he’s lied to you about as of yet.”