Rudra was with Suvi, Bouncy, Rana and Satt. They were talking about Suvi's and Bouncy's upcoming trips. Both of them had come of age, turned 10, over a year ago and would leave in a few weeks, to learn, to experience, to prove themselves.

Yashi had arranged for Suvi to attend the Four Lionesses Academy on Suran, the capital of the oct Vendhya was in. With a strong wood affinity, she was looking forward to learning healing techniques. She also planned to pick up ranged attack sutras and advance her bow skills. She would return once a year for a few weeks.

Bouncy, Amita, would travel to train under various mentors arranged by Yashi. She would be gone for six months and then spend six months back. Yashi had not shared the details of Bouncy’s training and Bouncy refused to tell him. He couldn’t understand the mysteriousness. She was his Companion and he would find out when he turned 10. Bouncy’s reply to that was, “So, just wait then.”

Rana and Satt were friends from school, being that they were the only 3 students of their age. Hope Cottage was a small town with only a couple of thousand people, built on the ruins of Fool’s End. Families avoided it. He had been the only student of his age at school till six months ago. School was a single room where classes ran for 3 hours, conducted by a teacher who appeared as a hologram, and he suspected was an AI construct. He got 642 style vibes from it. Classes were a bunch of info dumps covering civics, science, maths, geography, history and all aspects of levelling. Assignments came through their units, which also monitored their completion. His fight training was being overseen by his parents, who also were his main go to for advice on prana/shakti techniques. He also spent a lot of time surfing the SOAK, sea of all knowledge, the internet of this world.

Rudra was going to miss Suvi and Bouncy. Going into the forest, delving into the ruins they found…

“Why don’t we do the Five Island Trials?”

“Yes”, Bouncy’s reply was immediate. Joined soon by Rana and Satt. Bouncy was full bore enthu-bunny, ready for any adventure. Rana and Satt’s enthusiasm was mercenary. They and Rudra couldn’t get into those trials unless they were of age or accompanied by two people of age or one adult.

Suvi was grinning, “You. Mr ‘I don’t care about levelling’ wants to go run the trials.”

“I never said I was against adventuring or levelling. And adventuring is not levelling.”

“The point of the trials is to improve skill levels, improve your affinity and through that one's levels.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Aren’t the Five Island Trials a tradition on Vendhya for folks who come of age and are leaving on their proving journeys.?”

“Yes. I am in.”

“Wait, were you going to bring this up if I didn’t?”

“You will never know.”

“Not fair, Suvi.”

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Five Island Trials was an ancient ruin on the Som continent. It had already been explored and stripped of treasure. They deemed it to be a school or training facility for the young of an ancient civilisation, and while much of the buildings were in ruins, its training grounds were still active.

Five islands connected by bridges. They could be visited in any order, but to go from one island to another a team had to defeat the island guardian. Twenty teams, of at most five people each, could enter at once and each would run the trials separate from the others. The guardian each team faced depended on their team composition and strength. Only those up to level 144 could enter, though island guardians could reach up to early stage 3. The difficulty increased with each island visited, but the trials were NMDK - no murder death kills. Guardians would only injure, not kill trial takers. Once a team defeated the Grounds or it defeated the team, more likely to happen, the team members would receive a crystal disc with stats on the team’s and their performance.

It had become a rite of passage in the Col II System for those who came of age to visit and be defeated. Then to come again upon reaching adulthood, to run the islands again and win. Using the difference in performance to measure how much one had improved. It also attracted teams from across the Arya Sector. Teams of people who’d come of age never beat the trials. Only four such teams throughout the known history of the trials had done so. The best among them had needed an average of 8 hours per island. Adults held the fastest time for completing the trials. The best adult team had run each island in up to 3 hours per island. They had all been at or above level 141. All the rank holders came from outside the Col System and the Golden Sun Empire.

The Col II System administration ran the trial centre, charging an access fee and streamlining entry for the trial takers. This had resulted in a bazaar forming around the trial grounds in the ruins, extending into tent market surrounding the ruins. Everything was available, provisions, potions, amulets, armour, weapons and guides. The guides were both organic and inorganic. One provided all known information on various island guardians, along with ways to find and defeat them. Rudra and his friends had bought one of these. The other guides were humans at or close to level 144, who would run the trials with a team, for a price. With strong and experienced party members defeating the trials were more difficult, but teams posted higher performance stats for the team and the team members, making such guides very popular and very costly to hire.

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Travel to Som from Kona was easy. Bola dropped them off to Kona City, the capital city of the continent from where they teleported to Som City. From Som City to Five Island Canyon was a three-hour hoverbike ride. Yashi had made the arrangements for all five, they just needed to register on or prior to the day of their run. Rudra and Bouncy left to get the formalities done while the other three took a table in the cafe across from the trial centre.

“You’ll never guess who has come to the trials.”, Bouncy came back, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement by the table, forgetting to sit down.

“How many guesses do we get?”, Suvi piped up.

“Uhh… 3”, the bounce slowed. Enthu-bunny she may be, but she could still sense a trap being laid.

“It is a big shot.”

“Obviously. From the Empire megasystem?”, Satt cut in, easing Bouncy’s frown to a half-smile. They got along well.

“It is a prince!”, Suvi again.

“Oh, fuggit. You guys know already.”, Bouncy was deflated.

“That table, those two over there, the table there, and everyone else here has been talking about it.”

“Yeah, I heard at the registration centre.”, then she got excited again, “Do you know when they are taking the trials?” … “Today! They’ll be going in an hour before us.”

“Where’s Rudra?”

“He sent me on. He said he’d get the team name and stuff done and come.”

Suvi groaned, “Nooooooo…”

“What?”, her reaction caused Rana and Satt to sit up.

“Have any of you discussed adventuring with him? Discussed party names?”

“No”, all three replied.

"I have to stop him. I can bet anything you name, he is going to name it..."

“Super Awesome Ultra Amazing Team! Go! ... here are our badges. We are going in after 4 hours."

"What's the point of 'Go!', in the name?", Bouncy asked, thoroughly confused, as Rana and Satt's faces scrunched up and Suvi chased after Rudra.