Jude had his head against the wall. Now his tears had dried and left his eyes red. His arm now in a cast of solid rock.

Nerissa was nowhere to be seen; she had gone beneath the canopy to proceed with the test. It had been only a couple of minutes since she had left but Jude felt utterly worthless.

“Fucks sake man. Not only did you have to go and try and make yourself look cool, but you also had to do it to a girl that was far stronger.” He thought to himself.

“I hope the other zones are doing better than me.”

The test had been split up into six zones. Jude had come up with a plan to split his team of twenty-four into pairs. Each pair was either made for a specific purpose in the areas they would go in or if they had Alterations that covered weaknesses of each other.

The six zones were:

Jungle

Desert

Arctic / Tundra

Urban / City

Cave System

Plains

At the current time Jude’s Jungle team had collected four of the ten items. Only one of those was from his pair.

Desert: 5

Arctic: 8

Urban: 2

Cave: 4

Plains: 5

There had been a scuffle in the desert.

Two teams had met however, unlike in the jungle, all four of each side were there. Team Blue had dominated Yellow. It felt almost surgical how brutal they had been.

One slash was all it took to deal a lethal blow to two, even though it was made with pure wind.

The other two left standing were not there for long as the blood that had floated in the air immediately flowed into a blade that slit their throats.

The Arctic had not had many scuffles. Blue’s main tactic was scouting and collecting items, avoiding conflict at any opportunity. Using the ability to summon and possess a bird like creature, popping in and out of portals and being guarded by another two was the way to go for this team.

The Cave has no conflicts. Down to the fact there had been such a complex tunnel system in place. Everyone was lost in there. Luckily, team blue had someone who could create and control fire and light, so at least they could see. Well, they could see how lost they were.

The Plains had been a battlefield. A flying healer who could manage to stay out of the conflict was good for after the battle but fighting just meant that there was once less combatant. Fortunately, another two had picked up the torch.

They had stood back-to-back. The ground below them was scorched, all grass was now ash in the wind. The air crackled with electricity. The opponents had the choice an electric shock paralysing them or a black fire burning them to a crisp; either would take them back to their respawn point but both would be unimaginable pain.

The zones had been arranged in a two by three pattern. On the left column was Jungle, Plains and Cave. The right was Arctic, Desert and Urban.

Blue’s respawn point was down by Jungle. Red pupils respawned by the Plains. Yellow team would respawn by the Urban.

The reason the respawning by Urban was important to their strategy was because Yellow had split no one up.

The Urban environment had originally been a representation of an average city center on a small scale. A few skyscrapers, cafes, shops and even a small town hall at the end. Now, it was wrecked. Everything had been upturned in the rampage.

All four members of Blue never stood a chance against that slaughter.

The machine that was Team Yellow was twenty four strong and it kept marching. There was no time for feeling, they kept moving. At the ten-minute mark they moved from the Urban zone and were about to enter the Desert.

It would not be long until they had wiped out everyone in Blue and Red on the right side and would soon move over to the left with Jude.

Jude incidentally had resolved himself to climb down his tree only to find the four from the Urban environment entering his chamber.

Spotting his friend in a red workout top he called out. “Jack!”