Black mist has long engulfed the whole room, a swirling nightmare. Purple lightning flowed freely through the atmosphere as I felt around for my limbs, I couldn't understand what was happening completely. Bound Aethers each have their own special ability but my chaos spirit's ability confused me, I couldn't fully feel my body and my vision was too blurry but one thing was for sure. I could tell exactly where I was, I could tell exactly where Ell and Anabel were and surrounding me was something even more strange as fiery beasts walked circles around my kneeling self. I rose and dispersed the mist forcing it back into my left pistol then took a look around, two beasts were staring at me as they settled down. One flew over to my shoulder and stared me straight in the eye, it was a fairly large black bat with purple eyes and grey wings that it used as arms. With its fox like face and colour scheme I recognised it as the chaos spirit, it had a thin layer of black mist flowing around its wings and a long thin furry tail going down by shoulder and back. I turned to the other I presumed was the fire spirit, it slithered over to my legs and climbed up to my arm. The serpents scales were very warm and slightly horned, they covered it in white with a single stripe of red along its back that climbed to its head and covered its horns which protruded forward. The snake was a type of cobra with two ear like flaps on each side of its head, the inside of them was a runic pattern representing fire. All that along with it being thicker than my arm and almost twice the length, it looked menacing and very dangerous.

"Masster we awaits naming." the cobra had slithered to my ear and whispered, the bat simply hissed lightly in agreement. Naming your bound spirit is an important business, it covers they're real names which are words of power over them and cannot be too complicated. I turned to Ell and Anabel who both wore horrified expressions, the human sorceress almost to the verge of tears while the elven ranger stared blankly at the bat. Naming them out loud would not be recommended even if they are both in shock, so I use our connected minds to ask for their real names.("Tell me your names.")

("I am Tempre, the devouring mist.")

("I am Ignis, the roaming blaze.")

("I shall name you soon.")

I decide to postpone the naming until I've cleared my mind from the pain and all my thoughts, spirit binding weakens ones emotions and clouds their mind while the spirits scan your memories. "How long was I out?" I walk towards the girls and aim the question at them, at the same time Tempre turns to mist and enters his crystal while Ignis disintegrates into sparks of fire which flow into the red crystal. "Uh? Huh? Oh..." Ell snaps out of it and checks the time on her Iris "Oh my...its seven already.." Ell turns to look at Anabel who still looks in a state of shock "Anabel?...". The girl had the slight sign of tears in her eyes "Ss..snake..." her own voice jolted her back "S...sorry...it was the snake...I'm alright now...A...Anderson...you have blood..." she points at her ears, I press my wrists to both my ears and then look at them. Indeed I had some blood pouring out of my left ear "It's nothing, if it had gone wrong I wouldn't even be alive now." I stare at my wrist for another second, I was still reminiscing the past. I sigh "Let's go, we'll be late for dinner and tomorrow is the rankings so we cannot afford to miss out on eating." I don't wait for them to respond and pour mana into my gloves making the pistols disappear, right after I press my palm to the door and push it open.

The binding took several hours as it was already night time and we arrived at Etyria around 2pm Etyrian time, five hours had passed but it felt like minutes to me. With the added problem of having woken up only eight hours ago I wasn't tired at all, changing sleep schedule wasn't a problem for me but I decided to make the best of it. We headed down to the dining hall and ate, the menu was simple,vegetable soup, salad, fish or a mix of smaller portions. There we met up with Lia, Kale and Jerrald, the captain was nowhere to be seen. They explained to us along with some advice on what we can expect from the ranking exam. "You'll be faced with beasts that under normal circumstances counter your fighting styles, these monsters have been captured during some mission or pest control contracts and then trained for this very purpose." Jerrald explained the first test to be combat against monsters. Lia continues after him explaining the second test"The other test is a pack hunt, a similar system to that game you humans have. Tag was it? Mages will cast sensory and teleportation spells on you, when faced with damage the attack will be dispelled and if the damage is fatal you will be teleported out and counted as dead. The teams will be squad based due to most recruits being three per squad anyway, so you three will be together for it.The arena itself will have three entrances, one used as the exit for after the fight has ended."

"Do you know how ranks are calculated from those two tests? Seems too short and open." I press my doubt forward and wait for someone to answer while I continue digging into my salad. "The ranks are decided by the outfit leaders and special cases are forwarded to the boss." Jerrald is the one to answer me "Their judgement is as accurate as one can get, any whining afterwards from those being ranked is completely ignored."

After I was done eating I excused myself with the reasoning of heading to bed, but I wasn't actually going to. I headed back up to the training room. I summoned forth the pistols and proceeded to naming them ("Devouring mist, chaotic mischief, I name you. Wayne.") I feel his presence shifting from the pistol and out as a dark mist settles in front of me, taking humanoid form. ("Roaming blaze, slithering flame, I name you. Ember.") A blaze exits her crystal as she also starts to take form. After a couple seconds seemingly two humans stood in front of me, spirits in their corporeal form. Wayne was a scrawny short spirit looking no older than twelve with slightly dark skin, he had short messy purple hair and pitch black eyes with a purple iris and black pupil. He wore a black hoodie and dark brown ripped jeans, when he pulled down his hood it could be seen that behind his ears grew bat like wings too small to do anything. Ember on the other hand was average length with long milk white hair, normal eyes with fiery red irises. Her skin was pale white with freckles while her body was on the curvier side, she wore a red and white army top with white shorts and out of her forehead protruded two short blood red horns slightly curved downwards. She looked around my age, nineteen to twenty two or so. But I didn't let their looks deceive me, a spirit's form is mirror to its personality and they can look childlike but in actuality be centuries old. If I concentrated hard enough I could see their beast form but their true form was undetectable unless they are fed enough power, if a spirit is fed enough mana it can be a powerful weapon in itself.

I raised my arm and checked the time on my Iris, it was 9 pm so I had plenty of time before the ranking and I didn't plan to spend it sleeping like everyone else.

-----

Anabel's perspective the next morning.

The company hadn't gone out of its way to make members's quarters too fancy, the sleeping quarters were a small eight by eight meter room with a bed, a holding crystal for clothes and a door taking into a five by five bathroom with toilet, sink and a shower. A single drawer sat next to my bed with a crystal lamp on top of it and a chest under the bed for equipment. I honestly expected more but after thinking it over it was obvious that most of our time would be spent travelling on missions, so living space at HQ wasn't a problem. I got out of bed, showered and put on the uniform while scolding myself for eating so little yesterday. Sleep wasn't a problem as I changed my schedule days ago but because of that gruesome event yesterday I could barely eat, nobody normal would. The sight of that guys instantly paling skin, falling to his kneels with a tortured expression was too much. And he just walked it off right after! Five hours of constant pain I cannot even imagine and he just stands up and walks off...What the hell? But the strangest thing is that it succeeded, both bindings succeeded. I heard of some having multiple spirits but that is either because of the spirits being the same element and being lesser or the person having trained spirit subjugation all their life, and both of those have never been human! The binding itself was amazing to look at but at the same time just remembering it makes my stomach churn, I was dumb enough to use revealing sight a vision spell to see the binding fully only to stare on terrified after seeing a bat and a snake tearing his soul into three.

I sigh and open the door "And he's in my squad..." he honestly scares me but what I found waiting outside my door was even more frightening.

"Ana-chan!" she leaped on me hugging my face into her man killers, I'm not jealous or anything they are just too big! "Ell I can't breath..." I push her away "And I told you we don't really speak like that...even those of that culture have stopped..." she had been reading old Japanese manga after deciding to study human culture. "But it's so fun! It's better than shortening a name!" from what I gather an Elf's personality and maturity highly depends on them but most reach actual maturity around their 200th year...So Ell may be almost a hundred but she is as immature and hyperactive as a teenager. I sigh "Why are you waiting out here anyway?" I try to control my tone but I couldn't help the slight annoyance, okay maybe I am a bit jealous. She seems to notice my tone but ignores it "I figured we'd go to the exam together" she takes hold of my hands "we start at similar times so let's go!" she drags me over to the exit and initiates teleportation then down the stairs while ignoring my complaining, finally stopping in front of the male's dormitory door. "Why did we come here?" she stares at the door then turns to answer "I thought we could wait for Matt too..." I grimace at the mention of him and activate my Iris, Ell moves closer to see. I enter his name, "was it Anderson?" and use the locate function only to find out he's already at the training floors, but not the exam grounds. "Did he get lost?" Ell looks actually worried and confused, "No way he's that dense..." I release my arm from her grip and we climb the stairs to his floor.

We arrive at the 52nd training room and go inside, the room has a weekly self cleaning system so it was noticeable that it had recently ben used. Much of the barrier had residual mana signatures from attacks and the activatable shooting dummies were still on, most half or fully destroyed. The sand that made up the floor was a mess of hills and some...molten? But Matthew was nowhere to be seen. "Where'd he go? Did he head down to breakfast already? No way we missed him?" I reopen the tracker on the Iris to see that he's on the dormitory floor"How did we miss him?..."

"Ohh! I remember Uncle Kale saying the training rooms have a teleportation system setup to the med bay! Its a floor under the dormitories and it takes you right outside the medbay door!" Ell goes over to the control panel by the door and fidgets with it.

"Sly bastard...he used it to get closer to his room?" I sigh, which became habit for me here "Well if he wants to join us we'll see him at breakfast, do you know when he starts?" Ell turns after somehow making the control panel spark.

"He's the first of us...but there are three more before him!" we walk out of the room and close the door behind us "The exam starts in...fifty minutes and miss Lia said the first test takes about ten minutes or more each so we have time." we go downstairs to the dining hall "Oh! talk of the beastwoman!"

"Its talk of the devil..." I correct her, it's a human saying anyway.

She pouts back "Miss Lia isn't that mean! You should be ashamed Ana!"

I move my hand to my face in a face-palm gesture "It's a saying Ell..." we reach the table Lia is at.

She greets us"Good morning girls, ready to gain your ranks? We'll be watching you know."

I nod"Yeah hoping for the best, by the way do you have access to the training room records?"

She looks up from her bacon and eggs "Yes I do? Why do you ask?"

I open the menu interface by tapping the red crystal in front of me "Just curious about something, can you check the logs for this morning? Matt was just there and I'm wondering what in the world he could accomplish in a couple minutes."

Lia raises her eyebrows, obviously peaking her own curiosity and she taps her Iris on. She scrolls through multiple menus until a list of logs appears, logs to room 52's use. "Last to enter were you two and before that...a teleportation to med bay? Nothing before that for hours until 8:58 pm last night, seems like he spent all night there."

"All night!? He's a bat alright..." I settle on bacon and eggs as well, the food appearing on the table in front of me.

"What's a bat?" Ell asks right as her pancakes appear.

I think it over for a couple moments "Remember that winged rodent spirit Matthew bound to? That is a bat."

She presses her palms together "That adorable thing! It's furry and has wings!"

Lia looks at the Elf "Wings and fur? What are you talking about? Such a thing exists?" her ears perked up as if the thought of flight excited her.

"It's a...Ugh...isn't that Anderson?" I see his red head from the corner of my eye as he walks over to a table, orders two sandwiches and walks away while eating them. "Why is he in such a hurry? He hasn't even slept!"

"Let's ask, MATT!" Ell stands up and shouts his name, making my ears ring "Oh..sorry..Oh he saw us!"

Lai lets out a snicker "I'd be amazed if he didn't hear you!"

The man in question walks up to our table with an annoyed expression while checking his Iris, as if socialising wasn't on his agenda this morning. "What is it?" surprisingly he had no red in his eyes, had he not changed his sleep schedule to match Etyria yet? Of course I couldn't look him in the eyes for too long, just being this close made me shiver so I turned and continued eating.

"Ana is curious of why you're in such a hurry" as Ell lets the whole truth out I almost choke on the bacon.

"Huh? Wha?...I..no..." Only a jumble of words come out as I try to explain myself.

"Hurry?" He raises an eyebrow as if not comprehending, quickly shifting to a tired expression of understanding "The ranking exam starts soon, I want to be there obviously."

After a couple seconds Lia breaks the ice "You still have a couple minutes before it starts and even more before its your turn?..."

He sighs as if we are missing his meaning"My turn may still be half an hour away but the first three start before us, the second test will be tag team combat and seeing as our team is second and that the second test will start in conjunction with the first meaning right after both teams are ready from the first test then the first three and us three will be the first to go through the second test."

"Ehh?", "Huh?...", "What?.." are the answers he got from us.

He starts to massage his forehead "The first three recruits are the first team for test two, we are the second team for test two and will be going against them. I want to study their combat style beforehand, know your enemy."

Me and Ell almost jump out of our chairs to stand up, we stare at him in disbelief as he does the same.

Lia enters a fit of laughter "This is great!...A genius on our squad!....Maybe you'll become a squad leader!"

It wasn't exactly noticeable but I know I saw it, his expression darkened if for just a second with what he said next.

"I'm no genius and I'm hardly l..leader material." with that he turned and started to walk away.

"Uh? W! Wait up!" Ell grabbed my arm and for the second time dragged me behind her. We follow him up multiple floors and reach the training grounds, a door with a large #2 on top of it stood wide open. "Did they start early?" Ell finally let go of my arm.

We enter the room, a massive arena lay in front of us with a roof double the height of other floors and an area large enough to hold two jumbo planes next to each other. On the edges of the room behind a mana barrier seats lined the walls with stair like elevation, the room could very well hold most of the recruits alone but currently just a handful were there seated. On the other side of the room an elevated stand was setup where the outfit leaders stood talking to each other, as we entered there was also someone there with his Iris on and a list of names previewed on it. She also had the outfit leader emblem, looking up at us she smiled and walked over to us. The woman was a human with short dark black hair and grey eyes, an hourglass figure that would make anyone jealous but an air of respect floated around her.

"Names and squad please." she directed the question at Matthew.

With an expressionless face he answered while looking through her and at the arena "Matthew Anderson, Houghes Squad."

She scrolled the list up to and to his name which stood exactly under outfit 1 with my and Ell's name under his "Ah..You're in my outfit" her smile seemed to grow more mischievous at this revelation, maybe some sort of officer bets? "You two must then be Connery and Li..Liuu....Ell?" we nod but Ell seemed to pout at her surname being unpronounceable. "I welcome you to Edge Alpha recruits, we hope you meet our leader's colossal expectations. Take seats and wait, your name will be called when it is your turn." When she seemed to have finished talking Matt walked around her, looks at both sides and takes a left. I put on an apologetic smile and follow him along with Ell, he was walking strangely slow now. Instead of taking a seat directly next to the exit he walked down the row of seats with the other seven recruits that sat there, seemingly glaring at each one of them. I secretly hoped he wouldn't start any unnecessary conflicts...

-----

Matthew's perspective

I walked by the recruits and inspected their mana signatures, scanning mana is another skill I had acquired through training. There was two groups and a solo but only two caught my attention. The one that sat alone, a dark purple skinned elf was obviously condensing his aura to keep its size and power from being detected. The other was a variation of the Drakon race, a female Gorgon. From the waste up she was Elvin while waste down she was snake like, she sat with a Drakeling like Jerrald and a very short woman, a dwarf. After having scanned them fully I sit down while the girls sit to my right next to each other, Anabel seemed to still keep her distance from me. It was still too early for the rankings to begin according to the message we got yesterday but my suspicions were proven correct as only a minute passed and names started being called, they misinformed us of the times of other squads. For what purpose? So that we couldn't scout the opposition for the second test. The first contestant entered the sand arena after their name was called, it was the gorgon woman. But something I had not expected happened, suddenly the barrier went pitch black blocking our view.

"Huh?What's going on?" Anabel along with many others showed complain.

But I remained calm and smiled "Apparently they had thought of us seeing through the time changes as well."

"But then why change the time?" this time Ell was the one to ask

"Because this was also a test, look around and remember how many recruits there actually are. Many failed the real first test out of three." As I said that I glanced around catching many looking at me, I was right even though I had not expected this outcome and the leaders proved to be shrewder than I first believed them to be. I was slightly annoyed at not being able to gauge the team to fight us in the third test, it would have been too useful of information and would have effected the fight greatly. Each test lasted around eight minutes and quickly my turn arrived, the barrier lost its black colour and went back to being see through with no contestant in sight and not even the sign of battle.

"Houghes Squad, Matthew Anderson. Please step into the arena." the words came from the comm system setup in the room. I stood up from my seat and walked over to the barrier, behind me I could hear Ell and Anabel.

"Break its leg!" Ell tried some words of encouragement.

"Yeah...Good luck..." Anabel was too busy cringing at the Elf.

I nodded back at them and entered the arena, walking to the centre of it and right as I reached it the barrier went black yet again. The outfit leader's stand was still inside the black barrier but had a second barrier dividing it away from the arena, letting them fully oversee the test but keeping them out of it. I summoned Ember in my left hand and poured mana into both hands, powering the pistol up and amassing mana into the other. The second I did an explosion of sand happened twenty meters behind me, the monster was teleported in and the fight had started. The beast had a canine form with dark grey scaly skin and highly studded, almost like a certain dinosaur. It's mouth lay full of long sharp teeth as two sabers rose from its lower jaw like trunks, its back looked like a shell with all the studs protruding out and its legs were long while the hind legs were thicker with muscle while it also had a short tail with the same studded scales all over it. Altogether the beast was made for speed and had high resistance, its species was unknown to me and my mana scanning ability proved useless on non sentient beings.

It paced to the left slowly while looking me over with its brown slit eyes, when it's gaze fell upon my pistol it hissed and leaped back a couple steps as if it knew what a gun was. We glared at each other for a couple moments waiting for the other to make the first move, it got impatient and moved first. It's form would have seemed to teleport to untrained eyes as its speed was tremendous, it closed in twenty meters in two mere seconds but I was ready. From my right arm I forced the mana downwards as the chaos element hit the sand making another explosion, at the same time I forced a barrier between me and the impact zone and it propelled me upwards while leaving a smoke screen behind. I ascended fast,at five meters I located the beast within the sand, eight,at twelve I took aim, fourteen,at fifteen I begun to shoot. Pouring my mana into the gun Ember shaped it into projectiles I had previously discussed with her, piercing shots. Every pull of the trigger a long red ethereal projectile shot out of the barrel, the projectile was simple enough unlike the others I had prepared and worked perfectly for this encounter. A long bullet with two dense sections of mana, both sections of different elements and size. The front was fire element and was the longest along with its pointed shape while the back section was chaos element surrounded by fire element except for the side that touched the front section. The idea was to utilise fire's great heat as a piercing effect while chaos's explosive effect when forced into another element to re propel the projectile forward increasing the pierce effect.

While finishing my ascent I had already shot six bullets that all hit the target at three spots, I was testing its scale's durability with a varied amount of attacks. Even after three shots its shell like body withstood them all, its shell was too thick to be pierced unlike I had thought. The scales didn't work like plate armour but more like a shield, withstanding slashing and piercing. I could aim for the joints as the armour would be weaker there but I couldn't waste anymore time, I had started my descent downwards and it had noticed me. I poured mana into my legs to soften the fall, landing to the right of the beast and only a meter away. It turned and begun to move forward with insane speed but I was long done taking aim, pulling the trigger I released two shots before the first hit its head followed by the second and then a third to the chest as the power of the shot propelled it up then backwards a couple meters. This time I used projectiles with a blunt effect, damaging not only its shell but its insides. It rose back to its feet vomiting up a pool of pitch black blood, it steadied itself and glared at me. I lowered my gun and prepared myself for its charge, a show of weakness to lure it in and it did as it leaped forward with insane speed only to fall for my trap. I released the mana I was building up in my right hand as a blinding flash of light engulfed both of us while using another barrier to push me out of its path, it flew past my previous position with jaw ajar baring its fangs to bite. The explosion had propelled me backwards but also spun my body back, I only had to raise my gun a bit to line it up and as I did three shots left the barrel.

With two blunt attacks forcing their way into the armour and dealing brain damage the following piercing shot broke into the shell dealing the killing blow.

Edited by;Birse

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Author; Thanks for reading and remember to rate :D!