I woke up alone in my tent. As usual, she doesn’t want the other to find out about the two of us.

I went out of the tent and stretched myself. What a beautiful day, the sun is rising on the horizon, the wind is brushing the leaves, and birds are tweeting in the distance. However, thanks to my super Seer senses, I can hear every last of them snoring like a fucking bear!

Sigh, I guess making progress in one's ability comes with some drawback.

This was really annoying, like a flee stuck in your ear. So I went outside the camp to meditate in peace.

I recently discovered my ability to see the future, but I never properly tried to train it. I tried a bit during the 8th trial, in the hostel, but the whole thing didn’t last 4 days, and I had to get in touch with everyone, so I didn’t have much time for training.

After walking for a few minutes, I found a good and calm spot, and sat against a tree.

I don’t have a precise thing I want to know about my future, so I decided to just relax and nap… hum, empty my mind.

As I was letting my mind slip away, I felt my consciousness fading. More and more. As if I was sinking towards the bottom of the ocean. Deeper and deeper.

The world is darkening. It feels… warm? No, it’s actually more, I feel hot.

I hear fire, something is burning.

I opened my eyes, and a familiar scene unfolded in front of me.

I was in the middle of a burning forest. Looking exactly like the one I was meditating in.

I was standing up, in front of a dying person, lying on the ground.

It was myself. I was covered in blood and wound. My clothes were completely thorned of, and one of my legs was chopped off.

Someone else was here, standing in front of me. A woman, with a spear in her hand.

She lifted the spear above her head, pointing towards me.

Then…

“Here you are!”

I opened my eyes in shock – my real ones this time – and found myself back against the tree, with Haru crouching in front of me.

“Wow! You’re all sweaty… what happened?”

“He-hey Haru. Good morning!”

I have a bad feeling. It’s the first time a vision came that easily. I might have witnessed my own death, and it’s likely to take place in this very struggle.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, kinda… I have a bit of a hurdle with my class.”

“Oh yeah, the foresight thing! It sounded pretty cool!”

“Not that much.”

“You’re always too humble, Masy. And you promised to show us today anyway.”

Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

“Okay… Are the other up?”

“Yep, Xaxa and Nana are preparing breakfast.”

“You really have a lame sense for nicknames...”

“It’s because I’m cute!”

“Sigh… yes, you are.”

After patting her head, we headed back to the tents.

“Okay guys, let’s do this.”

“Are you certain you want Xavier to be your demonstration partner?”

“The faster the opponent, the more impressive it gets. And I can’t hold it too long so you might go all out from the start.”

“You said it.”

The 5 other made space for me and Xav to spar. Even though I told him to go seriously at the beginning, I know he won’t. So I’ll start with Kunan's Art first.

I took my stance, 3 meters away from me, Xav was standing still.

I know he is fast, on earth, not once was I able to keep up with him. But that was a long time ago.

He jumped at me, and close the distance in less than a second, throwing a punch at me.

I guess I’ll go with the basic version of the Void Flow. I connected the back of my hand with his fist, and without much effort, I redirected the blow.

He came back with a barrage of punches and palm strike, and I kept deviating each one of them. They're all heavy and fast, but with flux enhancement, I can keep up easily.

I know Xavier well, he is the patient type, and he’s hard to anger.

He started to use kick, with the same result.

He threw a round one towards my chin, that I evaded easily again.

Actually, I had a lot of openings to strike back. But I know he’s not using flux yet, it would be unfair.

But I think he is ready to get more into it. He stepped back, and smiled. I can feel the air getting heavier.

He’s finally serious.

I guess I should do the same.

~~

The first part of the fight was already pretty impressive compared to what would have happened on Earth, but that was it. Samsy could keep up with a fluxless Xavier now. If he gets serious, there is no way he could continue, right?

Even though he warned them, our 5 spectators were shocked.

Our Seer wasn’t dodging, he was playing.

He wasn’t evading, he was dancing.

The strikes were faster than what his eyes could catch, but it was just like the 7th struggle. Speed doesn’t matter if you can predict the path.

Only a couple of seconds past, but Xavier was already irritated. Samsy managed to get in his blind spot, and there were no mean to shake him off from it.

However, our protagonist is not the only one that improved during this Quest, and the Warlock of Patience had more pride than expected.

He threw a blind round kick behind him. It was fast, and strong, but seemingly no different than any of the previous attacks. However…

Sam redirected it, instinctively, with his strongest form. The real Void Flow.

The barrage of strike resumed, and despite foreseeing the moves, he couldn’t swiftly evade all of them. In fact, he was gradually losing footing. He was barely able to keep control of the flow.

~~

Wha…?

Xavier’s feet encountered my forearm, and then my temple.

I was propelled to the ground, that cracked under the shock. Or maybe it's one of my bone.

Gosh… He got a bit too serious… I am glad I managed to keep consciousness, but it hurts like hell.

I heard the other rushing to me, and Xavier trying to apologies. I wasn’t that badly injured, I’ve known worse – obviously – but it’ll take a few minutes for me to get back on my feet.

That was without taking into account our Mender. Prom is way more skilled than I thought, and 10 seconds later, I was standing up, massaging my cheek.

“Man… You didn’t go with the back of the spoon...”

“Yeah… sorry, I got caught in the action. I wasn’t expecting you to do so well.”

“Don’t sweat it too much, it was me that asked you in the first place.”

“I told you guys it was a bad idea!”

“I said I’m fine Haru.”

“Your foreseeing ability is really something man. Xavier seemed really serious out here!”

“I was. It’s really impressive. Even in the end, I couldn’t get a proper hit.”

“My head has to disagree, and the way I see it, your mind reading gimmick is way more practical. Even without getting forced out of my third eye state you would have taken the upper hand.”

That, and, I have to be honest, I don’t think I can damage him while he is using flux. I guess some things will never change.

Shit, my nose is bleeding, and my head is aching again. Looks like you can’t cure the after effect... what a convenient drawback...

“Is there a problem? You are pale.”

“Nothing, Nami. Just the after eff...”

It’s good to see my pupils reunite with his comrades. They laugh, they talk about their fantastic adventure, they catch up, proving once again that friendship is the most important thing in the world.

BORING!

God! I prefer Samsy when he is getting beaten up. Even if he was the one doing the beating it would be cool.

But now?! He gets smacked on the cheek and everyone is freaked out! In a way, I’m glad they weren't there on the 6th trial. Well, the 1st and 5th to actually.

To be fair, he did try to make the first night entertaining, but this bitch erected a fucking privacy dome, and I couldn’t see anything despite the tent moving. Just when I started to like her, what a shame.

Sigh... I can’t wait for them to leave this stage.

Until then, I guess I’ll have to find other ways to kill time.

“Guys… I think we have a problem...”

Great timing William!

“What is it?”

“I’m trying to upgrade the pattern generation via inborn flux path implementation.”

At this point, everyone was looking at the back of the room, where Williams was doing his experiment with the Questbook.

“I’ll pretend I understood all of that. So what?”

“To do that, I need to connect with all the rookie’s book...”

“Again. So what?”

“Let me finish! As I said, I’m trying to connect all our book together with theirs, and here’s come the problem.”

He took his tablet and showed the screen to all of us. We could see 7 red dots on one end, and 7 blue on the other. No, there was another blue, blinking.

“I don’t know what exactly does that means, but I think there is an 8th rookie.”