Light tapping noises echoed around the house. In a repeating pattern it wouldn’t disturb her normally, but with the events happening on the last two days, when two different teachers were beaten by the same, unknown kid she had gotten nervous.

Those two teachers were part of a group of instructors which had been beaten more times than usual and also taught introductory classes, making them targets of knowledgeable newbies. She expected to be challenged, even if she knew that she had to keep her win/defeat ratio good enough to stick in the school.

If she lost about two or three more matches, she would get kicked and she didn’t want that. The easy way to prevent it was not getting challenged, but she knew it would probably happen. She also wasn’t allowed to dissuade students to challenge her in any way possible, so she had to keep this knowledge a secret from the student body.

With the light sleep induced from this situation she woke up to the tapping and although she tried to sleep, trying not to worry about the drops which she knew was a challenge, as multiple other students had already contacted in very similar ways.

Suddenly, she stood up and walked towards the bathroom, where the noise was coming from. She took a pen and some papers to write the patters the drops of water made. It was trickling down both from her shower and from the washbasin, so she marked them with two different symbols.

The teacher decoded the morse-like code and confirmed that this was a challenge for her and for the next day… for the same day. It was already past midnight, and the challenge was planned for midday, as there had to be at least a day between the challenge and the fight and Gabriel cleverly had started sending the challenge while she was still teaching.

Still, it was nothing too far out of her comfort zone and she would do her best to keep her job in this academy. She was going to fight even better than her very best, even if it would drain her for the rest of the week.

On the same day, Gabriel rested until late. This was around 10 o’clock, when most shops were already open, but the challenge was going to be in two and a half hours. He couldn’t prepare himself more than what he had already done last week so he decided that resting his body and mind were the best things he could do.

Yet now it was time to wake up and go to the school. Before, he went to check on his sister that had been working with Piti to train her more and although there was much to be wished, it now understood its name well and could sit on command… about half of the time.

He travelled to the magician’s manor and had a little bit of time to go over his plans prepared for the different possible tests he could be given. He didn’t really know what to expect and even though he didn’t want to fail any battle he expected that this could be the one he lost as he wasn’t well versed in water magic and this being a widespread course the introductory course would be more advanced than the other two courses, he had already gained the approval of.

Before the battle, the teacher he was going to battle got close to him and wished him good luck but also tried to get him nervous by saying that he was going to need it. He didn’t let it go to his head too much, but he still thought why she had told him that when she had been defeated so many times already.

Was she going to do something different? Or was she going to use stronger spells this time? Maybe she had gone through an eureka moment and discovered or upgraded multiple spells! But Gabriel quickly quieted his thoughts down knowing that they weren’t any good and would only hinder him now and in the battle.

When it came the time to go to the arena Gabriel was ready to fight, he felt ready to battle any spells… But when he had to enter the arena, he was shocked. It was all underwater! It’s not that he would drown but he had never fought in such an extreme area.

Before he could try to comment about exiting the arena and giving up, he was dropped down and fell headfirst into the water. The hole he had fallen through was now closed so he had to control the air and water around him to give himself an area to breathe in.

At first, he made a bubble all around his body but that simply made him fall to the bottom of the arena, where he considered he would be most targetable, as gravity would help with the attacks targeted at him. The best position would probably be at one of the floating sand islands high up.

Looking at his environment he realized that there were some curious decorations, some fake plants the size of him and caves blocked by grates. When he looked at them, he realized that the gates were opening up and suddenly a wave of fishes came out.

But these weren’t common fishes, instead, they were the size of humans and were omnivorous, they tried eating anything that moved. A voice came sounding from the walls which explained the objective of this test.

- You have to force all the fishes back into their home, the cave they came from, within the next three hours, but beware that they aren’t docile. You will have the chance to give up at any moment but only after half the time has passed may you qualify for my approval. After three hours the test will be done, and you’ll fail. Best of luck to you, Gabriel.

The closest Gabriel had gotten to swimming was when he had first escaped the town he was born in and had to cross a small river with his sister but since then he hadn’t come into contact with bodies of water, it wasn’t that he prevented them it was just that he hadn’t found any.

This meant that he didn’t know how do swim more than the theory and, in this activity, it could barely get you started, experience was best. Alas he wouldn’t get the chance to practice as he had to defend himself now, with two fishes pouncing at him from different sides.

Gabriel managed to dodge them but another three were going to attack him again, forcing him into another defensive stance. Gabriel quickly realized that he had no chance to beat this test and almost officially gave up but shut himself up before he said anything, he still could make a plan to lure the fishes inside the cave by him going inside.

But even if it would be easier than forcing them in it wouldn’t be easy as he was always defending and could barely move an inch from his spot… and the cave was a few dozen meters away from him. He was hit again and again but slowly made his way to the cave and the closest he got the easier it became.

He was now able to observe his surroundings and realized that the fish weren’t dumb. Most of them had stopped following him and only a few smaller fish still attacked him. This plan of his wouldn’t work and it was the last thing he had on his mind.

He thought of maybe using this extreme situation to train his defenses and reactions to attacks from multiple directions but considering what he had to do the rest of the week he decided to let it go and give up. He was grabbed out via a tether, and he then went back home quite saddened.

The teacher, on the other hand, was joyful. She had now kept her job and surprised the other teachers that had expected her to lose. The movement and light teachers also got close to her and congratulated her on her victory, while also trying to ask how she defeated the boy that had slipped through their hands.

Earlier that same day, before the sun came out, the teacher for the introductory class for dark magic had also been challenged for the next day. He was a rather new teacher and hadn’t been fought against too many times, but Gabriel was sure he could beat him, it was in his plans to do so… otherwise he would be rather lost at what to do because this week was the last one, he had to beat the teachers and gain their approval for the next two months. And he would waste that time with barely more knowledge, just one more level in the library instead of two or three, if all went well.