They had spent the rest of the day discussing, planning for different situations, and training some easy squad tactics. Tan suggested the idea and, as Neo couldn't come up with a reason not to, they practiced for most of the day and Neo fell asleep tired, untroubled by nerves or anxiety about tomorrow.

Waking up, Neo stretched and put on his training clothes. He walked to the warehouse where he handed over Seren, only after asking her if it was ok, of course. For their deal to be upheld, it was important that she wouldn't be bored and alone, as he wasn't allowed to take her with him on the exam.

Then he made his way over to the training field to find everyone a lot more organized than yesterday, with there being noticeable groups all dressed in training uniforms. You could notice the groups that were put together and those that were the dregs of the people left from yesterday by the way the stood together and how they held themselves. Those confident in their group, teammates and personal confidence stood out among the crowd.

Since the strong had teamed up with other strong people they were confident in their abilities, but he did see a group of advanced combat trainees all in one team. The sight made Neo smile as he thought about some of these people’s thinking patterns and wondered what they saw in him.

Either way he found his team meandering around, with Tan messing with the little panther Sordelia, and Elisa trying to keep Tan back while telling her to stop torturing her sister. Neo smiled and spoke, "Looks like you three are energetic this morning."

This relieved Elisa as Tan stopped for a moment to smile at him, "Yeah I'm really excited and, surprisingly, not that worried. We have about five minutes till it starts, do you want to go over our ideas and plans?"

Those five minutes flew by as they talked and were interrupted by the flying headmaster with his resonating voice, "Welcome students, I'll now explain some rules." He held up two rings, one coloured white and the other coloured blackish-grey, "This one,"

He said while shaking the white one, "Will be given to the team and you will only get one.It is a storage ring that will allow you to store anything in it while you are in the testing area, it is also an alarm. If you pull the gem up it will send out the emergency signal which will mean the end of the tournament for you but, you may not fail as it's there is more to this test than survival. This other ring is a protection ring that will allow us to observe you. We can activate it if you end up unconscious or if you're about to die, at which point you will get put into stasis. You will be protected while we come collect you and heal you the best we can. Students, you are to keep in mind that it will not protect you instantly, so, if something kills you instantly well, we'll put it down to evolution, as you were not diligent in your own survival."

The previously excited crowd had soured rapidly after hearing that, but the headmaster hadn't finished, "I'm going tell you that in this test you may find things that have never been seen before, and you'll have to DISCOVER its weakness and find, use, and store, the RESOURCES around you to SURVIVE."

Neo nearly choked from getting patted on the back by Tan. He thought,'Man, can he be any more obvious? So, it's a big collection quest with everything being on the list. As well as surviving, which means food, clean water, shelter, and weapons. Cool, I always liked survival games.' Though he was a bit worried as they were starting with nothing, he was suddenly very glad for Elisa. Even if he had been listening to his biology classes, it was very difficult to remember everything and he hadn't studied them at all.'

The head master finished by pointing towards several desks, "So, you are to line up and get registered. You will be checked for any weapons or advanced items, and then you'll be directedto the tournament area where you'll wait to start."

It was simple, they lined up and waited for their turn to sign up.In the mean time Neo listened to other team discussions and it seemed that most of them got the hint. Once they arrived at the desk the man there asked for their names and then the name of the team.

The four of them stalled at that, and Neo asked the group, "What's our team name?"

There was a bit of silence before Sordelia made some hand signs and Tan spoke for her, "She said 'Team Ballad.'"

Neo rolled the word around his mouth and checked on the others thoughts. They gave him a nod, so he looked back at the register and said, "Team Ballad it is."

He nodded, writing it into the books, and then placed four black rings and a single white ring in front of them. Neo handed the four black rings out and gave Sordelia the white ring, "You’re the least like to get caught out. Run if you need to, just get away and survive or surrender."

She nodded placing the ring on her other hand, "So, why did you pick Ballad?"

Sordelia look up at him and smiled while she made a few hand movements that got translated by Tan, "Because we're going to be singing all the way to the end."

'Confident isn't she,' Neo thought, smiling. Next, they went on to the big guy who patted them all down for weapons. He made a comment about his sealing ring, but when Neo told him his name and he looked it up on his clipboard, he was through without another comment. Apart from himself Sordelia also got called out but another look at the clipboard and she was allowed to pass as well.

They followed the convenient line drawn on the ground to a cave. After what felt like a long time, they came across an already open scar. Their group paused at seeing this and Tan spoke, "Damn, I didn't know that they had another connecting Bubble."

Neo and Elisa nodded thinking the same thing and Sordelia made some gestures, not that she said anything different. As they had stopped one of the assistants ushered them along telling them to hurry along through before they caused a queue.

Stepping through the scar, Neo was once again met with the rainbow view and black path that stretched out into the distance. After the first time it really lost its charm for him, and he started walking forward while a little knot formed in his chest. The rest of his group formed up behind him and they made their way through within 15 minutes.

Stepping through to the other side Neo was grateful for the change of scenery. He was met with blue skies and a cliff and they found themselves standing on a brown open area filled with tents and personnel.

Neo wondered what was just out of sight, 'It couldn’t be just this bleak plain there had to be a…' Neo whistled as he neared the edge of the cliff and revealed its secrets. He could only explain this bubble as a patchwork as it held several biomes literally right next to each other, with the one directly below them being a rainforest biome that stretched for about eight kilometres before it changed into a lava biome to the right, a lake biome to the left, and in the centre was a desert biome.

And it didn't end there. There were grass plains, a mountainous area which was a little shorter than the cliff that they were standing on, another forested area, and even an ice biome with large glaciers moving and sliding around.

There were other sounds of appreciation for what was in front of them, with the crowd growing Neo gestured the others to follow him back, where he asked, "So anyone with any idea of what we should do?"

There was silence for a few moments before Neo decided to give his idea out, "I think we should travel through the desert biome to the other forest biome and situate a base there and work our way out, collecting resources as we go." Elisa spoke, "Why don't we want to just stay inside the forest on this side, that's if we aren't dropped off elsewhere."

Neo didn't think that they would be dropped off, but he planned with the information available, "Well if we do have to descend here then everyone will be descending at the same time and the same place, all the resources could be collected by others which will then have to be fought over. We can't take on everyone."

Elisa again came up with another problem, "If we can think of this, then can't everyone else?"

"Indeed they would but, first, they'd have to collect and make weapons, as I would think that there are monsters down there that will attacks us. You have me, so we'll be able to make weapons and be well ahead of the others, hopefully with enough time to build a base and collect things on the way without worrying as much about others."

They discussed back and forth about the good and the bad, and he made some changes, such as whether they should run through the desert. They decided to wait and observe the desert for monsters. There didn't seem to be any running around, but Elisa mentioned a good point that there might be monsters under the sand and, considering Neo’s experience with games, he was convinced there was almost certainly something under it. There was also the lava biome and lake biome, but they too came with their own problems, like monsters in the lake and the same in the lava, just with the added problem of heat. There was also the added concern that Elisa said she would most likely burn, so that really scratched off the hot root. So eventually they ended up back to the desert.

The area had filled quite rapidly and it wasn’t long before the headmaster walked out of a tent and started floating off the cliff edge. "Welcome students to a secret of Beacon Academy, you will be sworn to an oath after your test. This biome is unique, every few months the biomes change, last month there was no mountain, no lake, and no lava biome. Not only do those biomes change, but so do the creatures in them and, with the million of Bubbles out there, it's a high probably that you will encounter creatures never seen before. This is where you need to survive, and thrive, for the coming week. Remember to pull the white ring if you decide to withdraw in an emergency. Right then, teams line up and get ready. On the count of three make your own way down. One…"

Everyone rushed over to the cliff edge, that included Neo’s group. He had the sudden thought that they had yet to figure out a way to descend to the forest. But, surprisingly, Elisa took charge by ordering them to crouch to the floor and not to move. Not having anything else to work with he did as ordered and took a knee and placed his hands on the ground as the headmaster spoke, "Three."

Everyone that could fly took their friends in hand and flew away. Others jumped, confident in their ability to survive, and the rest either started climbing down or hesitated.

Neo decided that he might have preferred to jump off the cliff as the ground under him moved and plants clamped down on his arms and legs, picking them up and moving them out into the air in front of the cliff before angling straight down, causing Neo's stomach to churn. He looked at Elisa to see that she had her eyes closed and was focusing on what she was doing.

So Neo just joined her with his eyes closed as they descend through the canopy, hitting branches and leaves. Thankfully they managed to pass it in short order and into the understory layer, where Neo managed to find out what they would be facing. He didn't like what he saw within the dark shadows of the trees. A huge amount of large snails were everywhere. They were creeping on dead wood, trees and on the ground.The trees themselves were at least three metres thick each, there were also black beings withfive thin legs and had massive,opaque webbed cloaks. Neo watched as one slowly tiptoed over to one of the snail things and seemed to position itself above, careful not to touch the snail.

Unfortunately, they made it to the forest floor with a loud crashing sound. To Neo and everyone's horror the surrounding area was suddenly a minefield of spikes. The five-legged creature from before had found itself pierced on the snail’s spikes, dying instantly. Soon after the snails withdrew their spikes and moved on with their feeding.

Neo looked at the others with his fingers on his lips, but found they mirrored him as everyone was thinking the same thing, Neo smiled. He looked back up the small hole that they had made and, seeing other students climbing down it, was a little miffed as he'd wanted to see if Elisa could collapse the route down. If they did that, then they'd set off the snails and he might get them killed. He sighed mentality, ‘I'm really not good at this Death thing if I'm not willing to kill.’ He consoled himself that he didn't want to set off these things while they were moving around.

Neo used some hand signs and began moving carefully through the throng of potently poisonous spikes. Moving over to the black legged thing, without saying a thing he pointed at it and Sordelia placed the ring over it and it disappeared inside it before they moved on.

When he wasn't focused on where he placed his feet, he stood on a stick that then snapped loudly, causing him to nearly crap himself as it echoed through the area triggering the snails to use their spikes. Neo prayed that no one got hurt for his stupid slip up.

But as he couldn't ask, they just let the snails settle before moving on and attempting to find an area that wasn't swamped with snails. It took them a whole 15 minutes of careful walking, in which they caused a reaction twice, but they had to stop when the students started arriving at the bottom of the vine system. The new arrivals ended up making a noise which caused another reaction and, like a wave, the sea of spikes rose from the snail’s backs. They could hear a cry of pain that echoed throughout the otherwise silent forest.

The cry kept the snails alert making them refuse to retract their spikes. Even worse, the snails weren't staying still now. As they moved through the trees, they didn't climb them, if the snails ever bumped in to them they would just changed direction and catch them with the edges of the spikes. As they needed the snails to retract their spikes, they couldn’t cry out as they were cut and poked. Thankfully someone silenced the idiot who was screaming.

The snails finally relaxed, and they could move on. With bleeding legs they moved on to finally leave the snail herd behind. Neo’s team dropped the shroud of silence and used their speed to make some more distance before they collapsed on the ground and started checking their wounds. Neo couldn't do anything to heal them as too much time had passed, so Elisa and Sordelia moved through the four of them, one creating herbs, the other making pure water, while Elisa placed a spell to increase recovery speed with the addition of the herbs

"Thanks’. It’s going to take a little while to heal, though, so tell me what weapons and armour you'd like to use and I'll make them. And what where those things?"

Neo got shrugs from everyone, including Elisa, which meant they were in a biome without any idea what was in front of them. 'Great start,' Neo thought sarcastically. Neo tested his legs finding it easy to stand, but the movement felt stiff and sore. Producing a bubble in front of him everyone told him to what they wanted.

Elisa got a whip and blowgun with darts, she asked not to get armour. Tan got a sword and shield, and chain mail with some plate armour. And Sordelia asked for some light leather armour and a pair of daggers. As planed Neo also made some fake white rings which he handed out to everyone.

They then gave the weapons some basic enchantments to make them last for a few slices through a body. They would need reapplying after every battle, but they should allow the group to do damage to magical creatures or other people.