Outside of the tundra or more accurately on the sky above it, Boris and Richard were drinking and chatting.
Boris frowned his brows at the current scene below them.
"Now that I think about it, what are the things hidden in this place, back then we didn't find anything besides low rank magic beasts?".
Richard shrugged.
"I don't know, back then the teacher which designed the test used a magic formation to spread a variety of "prizes" across this place and we didn't find anything".
"Mm?", Aliya took a sip of her potion.
"Uncle Richard, weren't you the one that created this exploration class?".
Richard smiled, "No, the author was a guest teacher called Andras Griffin".
Boris nearly choked with his drink.
"Instructor… if you would have told me that, I would have put more effort in the test back then".
"Don't think on trying to use your mana sense now, the Greenwich sage visited this place after becoming a peak Archmage to change the prizes, "A gift for the younger generation of the beast faction", he said before leaving without explaining anything else".
Richard smirked as if he suddenly remembered something funny.
"Did you know that Arthur Jolbaris once tried to "cheat" and took whatever was left here, the result was that not only he didn't find anything, but all the stores and goods produced by the Jolbaris suffered a penalization in the blue-sky galaxy".
Aliya sighed, "That guy likes to mess with others, I'm pretty sure that if Arthur Jolbaris tried that before he became a peak Archmage, he could have gotten something, but the Greenwich sage wasn't famous before, so no one cared about him".
Richard nodded.
"Exactly, that's why when the news of him spread, the first thing he did was coming here and leave some of his books for the library, then he changed the prizes of the trial so that only star ranked mages could detect them".
"I have high hopes for these brats, let's see if they can unveil the mystery and also become the first ones to approve this game set by the Greenwich Sage".
Aliya's eyes seemed to glow for a moment, "With Daimon's talent for alchemy, if the Greenwich Sage left something related to that, he should be able to find it", she thought.
While the teachers were talking about the origin of the trial, in a cave about two kilometers away from them, Daimon and the others weren't having it so easy.
After Yvonne and Liliana took the turn to be on guard, the storm became worse to the point that it wasn't snow but hail, big pieces of ices impacted against the rock formation in which the cave was carved making it tremble from time to time.
Calvin rose the floor to make a barricade to prevent the snow from flooding the cave.
"I know the instructor wants to train us, but this isn't a test but a murder attempt, the hail out there can crush us to death".
Daimon agreed, ice can be stronger than steel so without using battle aura even with his monstrous physique he could get hurt by the car size hail which was falling from the sky, but that wasn't what worried him the most… but the fact that Richard and the other teachers should have stopped the test by now.
He turned to see Liz, unlike the students of course she didn't hand over her ring so she had her sigil lector with her, although she didn't have the contact of Boris, Richard, she had the one of Aliya.
"Liz, I want to confirm something, try contacting Aliya".
Liz nodded; she took out her sigil lector but then her expression became serious.
"It's not working, there is interference maybe due to the storm outside… but we are not that far from where the flying ship should be floating, so I don't think that's the case".
The atmosphere of the cave became tenser, if they couldn't contact those outside of the storm and apparently the storm didn't look bad enough for Richard to interrupt the class, then it was obvious things weren't so simple.
Daimon contemplated their options for a moment, and then stood up.
"Given the current situation we won't care about the rules of the test anymore, Liz let's go outside to see if we can send some kind of signal so the instructor can know what is happening".
Daimon and Liz jumped over the barricade, then Liz extended her hand towards the sky and a column of fire was shot from her hand, the best method to draw the attention was a simple flare.
The only problem was that as soon as the fire left her hand… it extinguished, Liz snorted and then used the fire she can create thanks to the heat and light of the sun she has absorbed.
Her body covered in a thin layer of yellow/orange flames as she mumbled.
"Crown fire".
This time the flare properly soared upwards but about three hundred meters the flames suddenly impacted against something.
Liz immediately stood in front of Daimon and looked at her surroundings.
"Let's go back inside the cave, I can't feel where is this coming, but that wasn't a barrier… it's a domain, also I felt some weird mana radiations across the place, but I can't investigate more without exposing our position".
Daimon nodded and they slowly returned to the cave where the others were prepared to leave if it was needed, but apparently that wasn't going to be the case.
Yvonne looked at Daimon's serious expression and she frowned her brows.
"What is happening outside, were you able to send a signal to the flying ship?".
Liz shook her head, she looked at Daimon for confirmation, her supposition wasn't exactly positive and panic is the last thing needed in this situation.
"Tell them, it's not like we know exactly what is happening anyway".
Liz nodded, "I couldn't, my flames got blocked at a certain height… to be honest I consider myself to be among the strongest Archmages in the stellar chart and I couldn't see where does the domain originates from".
"But I did feel some faint traces of other existences spread across the tundra, luckily my flames didn't draw their attention because the domain extinguished them,
Calvin sighed.
"So, in other words, we are trapped with an unknown really strong Arch ranked, or maybe a possible new half emperor?".
Daimon nodded, "Yes and that is not all, there are others inside this domain besides us, so we might have accidentally gotten ourselves involved into something shady, so now the question is do we try to escape or we go ask those guys what are they doing here".
Liliana doubted for a moment before looking at Liz.
"In your opinion what is dangerous, those weird mana radiations you felt or the owner of the domain?".
Liz shrugged.
"Well, I could feel those guys whoever they are, so at the very least I can confirm they are below me in battle prowess, the only problem is that I can't pinpoint how strong they are, but judging by how they were spread across the place, they are looking for something so it's only a matter of time before they find us".
"On the other hand, the owner of the domain could have probably attacked me when my flames clashed against it, but nothing happened so at the very least I can say that we aren't its enemies… or its main focus of attention aren't us".
Michael shook his head, "I think we should try to leave, it's not like we are going to ignore what is happening, but I think we should bring another Archmage at least, no offenses miss Revy".
Liz didn't take it personally, fighting while protecting others it's hard to do after all, and her affinity is not exactly good in defensive terms.
Leslie, Loren, Yvonne, Liliana and even Calvin agreed with Michael so the decision was taken.
"Ok, we retire, Liz protect us with a barrier, we will take advantage of the hail storm to return from where we came, no flying just in case", said Daimon before he looked at Michael.
"Michael you are in charge of guiding us".
Since no one argued they left the cave, it would be a waste of time to use terraforming to cover the it, so Liliana just created a layer of ice to cover their trace.
Although the hail destroyed many of the reference points Michael took note of, some were still intact, so even when the visibility was reduced due to the strong wind combined with snow, it didn't take them too long to reach their starting point.
"Everyone stop", Daimon told the others to stop moving and then extended his hand until he felt it touching something, the thing was transparent as he could see what lied ahead, and it was cold to the touch.
"This is ice… Liz try to make a hole in this thing", mumbled Daimon.
Liz's hands covered in yellow/orange flames and she placed them on the ice barrier, after a couple of seconds it started showing some signs of melting as water ran down the place where Liz's flames were touching but it didn't last long.
As if time was rewinding, the water returned to the barrier and it solidified again, Liz increased the output of her flames and managed to create a hole with a size of about 30 centimeters, then the same thing happened again.
Just as Liz was about to use a proper spell for her third try, everyone heard a loud cracking sound.
"Mm?", Daimon looked downwards.
"Everyone watch out…!!!".
The floor cracked below them and before anyone could react, they fell into the darkness of the bottom of the earth.
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