A few minutes before Ralph arrived at the awakener course's building, Kristina Steitz stood in front of the dead-end with the painting next to her.

"This..." she muttered in a low voice as her gaze alternated between the painting and the signature on her holo-pen. "How annoying."

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and snapped her fingers. Seven translucent magic circles appeared in the air above her hands streaked with purple mana. She then flicked her wrist and the sigils and glyphs similar to the signs on both the schedule and the painting formed next to the circles.

"A location spell, revealance, magic... trigger? Should be something like that." She sorted the priority of the markings in her mind and placed them around the first magic circle. Unfortunately, it broke down just as she placed the second glyph.

It wasn't enough to just randomly assort them in line, one had to understand the meaning of each sigil and glyph and arrange them in the order of precedence with respect to the effect they wanted to achieve. She kept trying again and again, when all seven of the circles broke down, she created seven more. At last on the tenth try, the circle seemed to have become stable.

With another snap of her fingers, mana escaped her body and the magic circle started spinning around as her spell was activated. It reconstructed mana to take the form of her spells in the ethereal plane and then materialized it into the physical place. A burst of mana spread in the room and the structure of the awakener course's building disappeared as a dark passageway lined with stones revealed itself.

Kristina sighed again as her shoulders drooped down. "What a hassle," she said when she saw the dozens of faeries and spirits dancing and giggling around her alongside the yellow wisps illuminating her path.

"Hehehehe, look at her face. Such a waste"

"You're gloooomy, don't wanna play!"

"She's too good, I don't like good people!"

Faeries and Spirits annoyed her a lot. Those evil little spawnlings were selfish creatures that would trick anyone they can. When they found someone purer than they can corrupt, they would insult them outright like this and when they found someone eviler than themselves they would dance around and beg them to play, it was made even worse by the fact that spirits were only visible and audible to those they chose to speak with.

Kristina stepped into the dark passageway with a slow gait. Unbeknownst to her, the very second she took a step ahead the awakener course's building had gone back to as it was and the space she was in was closed off with magic that Ralph Rubinstein would soon crack.

She followed the lead of the wisps as she treaded through the stony passage and delved deeper into the passage. The further she went, the more the mana in the air made her uneasy. Finally, she came at a turn at the end of the passage.

An enormous open field lay in front of her eyes. Green and indigo grass swayed around the place as mana stones stuck out from the ground. A small lake filled with clear water was on the side with black moss growing around it. A few trees stood majestically in the field with leaves of pink and yellow.

At the very center of the room stood a throne made of stones. A red dress flowed down from the throne all the way to the ground, revealing just the smallest hint of jade-like legs. Kristina's tired gaze moved upward to see a woman as beautiful as goddesses in ancient tomes.

No, her rosy lips and sharp nose alongside her beautiful golden eyes looked as if a thousand sculptors had spent a hundred years of their lives trying to craft her beauty. A single strand of her hair as red as her dress streaked down her face. She moved her hand towards the strand and pushed it back, a simple gesture that left even Kristina with a thumping heart.

"You're here," the woman spoke. Her voice as melodious as an angel's lyre. "Kristina Steitz."

Kristina gulped and looked straight into her eyes. "You knew I was coming." As one would expect from the greatest mage. She truly was as tempting and as wise as her tales claimed. The Red Witch, Isabella Ahlgrim.

"Knew? Of course," she slowly raised her hand and clenched it into a fist, her movements ever so noble. Then, she slammed her fist on the armrest and shot up from her throne. "OF COURSE! Do you even know how many strings I had to pull to set this place up?! I even went all out and made the Advanced Magic class available for every student!"

Kristina reeled back at the sudden outburst. Though her voice was still as harmonious and her gestures as beautiful, the words spitting out of her mouth were the stark opposite of her expectations.

"And what do I get?!" Isabella continued rambling. "Just two students! TWO! One of whom is some F-Ranked that will never ever fucking find the classroom! Augh!"

She placed her hand on her chest and took in deep breaths, finally sitting back down on her throne. Kristina's neat hair stuck out from her head as her tired eyes were wide open in shock. Ignoring her student completely, Isabella crossed her legs and smiled again.

"I was thoroughly impressed by your performance in the entrance exams, child. The loser aside, you and I can surely dance a nice little tango in this class, yes?"

Kristina clicked her tongue and muttered, "He's not that bad."

Isabella's eyes widened, "Oh? You know the kid." She leaned back on the throne and smirked. "I don't mean insult to your friend, but do you believe someone like him could find this class?"

"No," Kristina answered without hesitation. "F rank is F rank. Don't judge someone's personage from it, is all."

Isabella's smirk broke as she laughed gracefully. "Right, right, oh to be young. So high-strung on your morals and ideals. That is cute in its own way. Naive, but quite cute."

Isabella tapped her armrest with the tip of her fingers, her nail clicking against the stone.

Kristina watched her carefully, the patronizing tone of the witch left her displeased. The air around her was pushed away and something approached her at a frightening speed.

Kristina jumped backward and crossed her arms. Various magic circles appeared in front of her as an invisible shield made of hexagons covered her surroundings. A spear of steel smashed into the shield, right where her head would have been. The sheer speed of the projectile as it smashed against the shield caused it to flatten into a coin as dozens of cracks appeared on her shield.

"Hoho!" Isabella laughed. "Amusing!"

She tapped her nails against the throne once more.

This time, the ground under Kristina's feet caved inside. All the rocks and soil that should have been below were above her.

Kristina jumped back and rolled on the ground, barely avoiding the onslaught of the rocks that Isabella sent down on her. "Fuck," she exclaimed and extended her hand outward. [Wind Magic: Storm (D+)]!"

The air in the room swirled, the trees swayed and the ground tore under the fierce amalgamation of wind. Kristina flicked her wrist and the raging storm shot toward the witch on her throne.

"Disappointing," Isabella muttered.

—Click.

Her nails clicked against the chair again. "[Gale (E-)]."

A burst of wind shot forward from her seat. A single gale swept through the air and crashed head-on against the storm. In the blink of an eye, the raging winds calmed down and the storm disappeared. Isabella raised her eyes to look at Kristina, but she was gone.

"[Spatial Magic: Tumble (C)]"

The air cracked around Isabella, the space itself was being carved out. Her eyes widened in surprise as a magic circle formed around her eyes and she read the very movement of mana around her.

'This is bad,' she thought and shot up from the throne.

Her hands moved through the air and clapped together. "[Neutralize (B)]"

Giant mana circles formed in the air, layers after layers of circles spread in the space that was being cut off, and the movement of mana that Kristina had pushed forth reversed, it dematerialized and then deconstructed and then spread out in the air.

Isabella, standing on the ground in front of her throne looked around. Her entire world had taken hundreds of colors, from the movement of mana to the callings of the soul, she could see it all. Her eyesight had ascended into the ethereal realm. Nothing Kristina could do now would be unexpected for her. Isabella looked around in search of the girl.

The skin on her back tingled.

She waved her hand in front of her face and slammed away a pebble thrown at her.

The magic circle on her eyes disappeared as her amused face took on a look of shock. She turned toward the entrance of the space with her lips pursed together.

Kristina shook the hand with which she had thrown a rock and reached into her pocket. Her eyes were fixed on Isabella's as she pulled out a hair band and slowly tied her messy hair into a ponytail.

"So?" The fifth-ranked student asked the Red Witch. "What's the big idea, huh?"