The main reason why I considered myself to hold an undeniable advantage in this trial, was obviously the sea below me. I was a water dragon, water was my specialty, hence providing me with a location such as this, I was almost feeling a little bit sorry for the rest of the younglings. 'Allat should be fine though,' I noted.

Once I was a distance away from the cliff, I took my time to scan my surroundings, 'our land' or so grandfather liked to call it was surrounded by cliffs from all sides, there was no beach nor sand whatsoever, only tall intimidating cliffs with large waves crashing against them.

This served to give the land an almost ominous feeling to it, the strangest part of it all however was the fog. At first, I was able to see the land as clear as day, yet as soon as my distance away from it grew, a strange faint fog appeared surrounding it. I could still see the land, yet the farther I went the thicker the fog became until suddenly it disappeared.

'What—' I stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds as the massive land was no longer there. 'This might explain why the humans had never been able to find us,' I muttered. 'Still, I did not sense any sort of mana from that fog,' I thought as curiosity filled my mind.

'Now's not the time for that, I can always ask grandfather when I go back, first let's find the humans!' I flapped my wings lowering my altitude until my feet reached the sea. I did not sink, instead, I remained firmly standing on water.

Closing my eyes, I reached out to the water mana which was overwhelming in this place. With the water below my feet, I extended my conscience outwards using the mana as a sort of radar to scan my surroundings. Usually, I could use the water particles in the air as radar to scout the area, yet that method was extremely hard and not very efficient since it required tremendous control over the mana.

Now, however, with all the water below me, there was practically no place in the sea that was beyond my reach. 'There!' My eyes shot open as I could feel my mouth curve upwards in excitement, I found them. There was more than one ship, yet most were far away from me, only one was very close.

'I wonder If the humans of this world are any different,' I inwardly mumbled before diving headfirst into the water's embrace. Why attack from the sky where they can see you when you can do it from underwater.

With my new ability to scan my surroundings, no underwater creature could hope to sneak up on me anymore. I extended my senses deep into the sea, my mind was getting overwhelmed due to the amount of information being sent back to me by the mana, hence I restricted the use of my ability to the immediate area surrounding me.

'I'm still not strong enough to use this to its fullest ability, but it'll do for now.' Making my way towards the humans, I remained close to the surface not quite diving down too low. I still felt a little bit uneasy as I could feel all sorts of presences lurking in the deep dark ominous parts of the sea.

I tried my best to not alert the dangerous ones I could feel, and since almost all of them were close to the bottom of the ocean, 'I should be safe If I'm careful,' It did not take long before I was already upon the humans' ship.

Its size was enormous, yet the design was vaguely similar to that of a ship from the middle ages. 'Well, here goes I'll hit them with all I got from the start since grandfather said to be careful,' I gulped before I reached out to the mana which surrounded me, asking for its help.

------

My name is Ari, I'm a knight apprentice from the academy who was sent to join the sea expedition party alongside a few other fellow apprentices. The purpose of the expedition was to find the Forbidden continent, but that was in name only. Everyone knew that finding it was impossible, hell most thought of the continent as nothing but a legend at this point.

I still had my doubts, though the real reason why we apprentices were sent here was to pass our graduation test by hunting a sea monster. A group of divine mages alongside a squadron of knights were sent to protect us since the possibility of a dragon attacking was there.

None of us however took that seriously, the last sighting of a living dragon was close to a century ago when a group of them attacked the ships sent by the academy. It was a tragedy where we had lost hundreds of people, yet the knights with the help of the divine mages had managed to slay two of the assailing dragons, a green one and a red one.

To this day, their skulls still decorate the walls of the academy serving as a proof of its mighty strength. I had heard that the dragon corpses are still a subject of study to the divine mages to this day. Hence even though the possibility of a dragon attack was low, the academy could not miss a chance to capture another dragon.

They did not seem to give up even with the lack of sightings after so many years have passed, hence by now, the knight squadron and divine mages escorting us was nothing more than a tradition. I scratched my head as a long sigh escaped my lips. The wind pushed my head back as I gazed at the distance.

My heart was feeling anxious for some reason, I lowered my hand to rest on the hilt of my sword. That seemed to calm me down a little, yet I could not quite shake off the uneasy feeling I had. Just then, a pair of hands covered my eyes.

"Guess who?" Asked a cheery voice, one I was all too familiar with. I laughed as I brought my hands over hers and answered with a smile. "Oh, who I wonder?" She giggled before removing her hands from my eyes.

I could feel her gentle hands rest on my cheeks as she turned me around to face her. A pair of striking ocean eyes greeted me, alongside her beautiful silky brown hair. I was lost for words as I stood there gazing at her.

"Jana," I whispered, my hands unconsciously moving to rest on her waist. Her face flushed as she tried to move away yet my grip was firm.

"Ari, people can see us..." She bashfully retorted trying to avert her gaze. I moved my hand and gently caressed her cheek before leaning in to plant a kiss on her lips.

"Ahem!" A sudden cough interrupted us causing Jana to jump from my arms and hide behind my back. I turned to glare at the newcomer who had a grin on her face.

"Was there something you wanted Sari?" I asked as I could feel my face twitching in annoyance as I glared at the short blonde-haired apprentice.

She had a cheeky grin on her face as she replied. "Oh, I'm sorry If I was interrupting but the captain called for everyone to gather up since we almost reached the hunting ground, and since you two lover birds were missing, I was sent to bring you back." With her hand covering her mouth, Sari feigned a flustered expression as she continued.

"Who would have thought you two would be doing something so indecent all alone in the back of the ship," This caused Jana to turn beep red as she buried her face in my back.

I rolled my eyes and let out a long annoyed sigh, and was about to scold Sari when her face suddenly changed. Her teasing expression was no more, instead, a terrified face took over as she raised her shaking hand and pointed it behind me.

"A-Ari!"

I felt my heart clutch in my chest as Jana's hand tightened on my back, I reluctantly turned my head only to be faced with a scene I would never be able to forget for as long as I lived.

"Dear heavens..."