The morning air still carried the weight of dew that hadn't quite burned off. Alen stood straight in the lineup, back rigid, gaze fixed forward perfect posture, the kind that had long since stopped requiring conscious effort. Around him, hundreds of students from every class held their own formations, their uniforms nearly identical save for one distinction: the colored accents that marked each student's elemental class.
Burning red for Fire. Calm blue for Water. Clean white for Wind. Earthy brown for Earth. Sharp yellow for Lightning.
Five base elements. Five classes. And more young people than he could count, all quietly hoping that one day they'd earn the right to call themselves licensed mages.
Alen hadn't quite figured out why every class had been gathered together. Usually a division like this meant separate activities each element had its own training demands, its own rhythm. But here they all were, standing side by side, facing something that had nothing to do with any ordinary training ground.
A dungeon entrance.
Not a small one, either. The structure loomed ahead like the open mouth of something ancient, its black stone walls predating the academy by what looked like centuries. Around the entrance, old carvings lined the rock the kind no one in the lineup seemed to recognize. The air drifting out from inside wasn't cold, wasn't warm. *Heavy* was the better word. Like pressure without a source.
*Why is everyone here?*
Alen murmured it more to himself than anyone else.
He got his answer when a man stepped onto the small stage that had been set up in front of the crowd. Nothing about him demanded immediate attention — medium height, thin-framed glasses, neatly combed hair, an academy uniform without a single wrinkle out of place. But there was something in the way he walked up there, unhurried and certain, that made the lineup go quiet without anyone giving the order.
He didn't introduce himself. Just started talking.
"Good morning, Asnia students."
His voice was clear. No amplification, yet it reached every corner of the field without effort.
"Your second day at the academy may not look the way you expected. No classrooms today. No blackboards. Today, we're going straight into the dungeon to measure your abilities in a real situation."
A few students exchanged glances. Some swallowed quietly. Others looked almost eager — eyes lit up in the particular way of people who'd been waiting a long time for exactly this kind of thing.
Alen did neither. He just listened.
"You'll be entering floors one and two. To ensure safety while maximizing the assessment, you won't be going in alone. Form teams of five one student from each element. One Fire, one Water, one Wind, one Earth, one Lightning."
Simple instructions, but the implications weren't. Five elements in one team wasn't just about the numbers — it was about composition, balance, and coordination.
"Any questions?"
It didn't take long. From the Wind class lineup, a hand went up. A student with ash-grey hair and pale green eyes stepped half a pace forward before speaking.
"Permission to ask." His tone was measured, flat without being cold. "Amon Albert, Wind class. If this is meant to evaluate individual ability, what does a team system have to do with it?"
He lowered his hand and returned to attention — not like someone anxious for the answer, but like someone who simply needed the information confirmed.
The instructor responded without pause.
"What's being evaluated isn't just the strength of your base magic. It's how you think under pressure, how you make decisions, and just as importantly — how well you synchronize with others in a group."
*Synchronize.*
The word settled in Alen's head and stayed there.
He didn't dislike working with people. But he wasn't used to it not like this, anyway. In his previous life, nearly everything had been handled alone. Not entirely by choice, more because that was simply what was available. No one waited for him, no one stood beside him, and somewhere along the way he'd stopped expecting either.
Now he had to find four strangers, build enough trust to function as a unit, and walk into a dungeon , all in under five minutes.
*Interesting.*
"If there are no further questions, go find your teams. You have five minutes, starting now."
The field shifted all at once. Students scattered in every direction, the sound of footsteps mixing with quick, clipped questions traded back and forth. Some already seemed to know each other, pulling together without a word. Others looked around with barely concealed uncertainty, scanning the crowd for whichever element they were still missing.
Alen started walking. Not hurried, but not aimless. His eyes moved across the field the way they always did , observe first, approach second, decide third.
Then something tapped him on the shoulder from behind.
He turned around.
A girl stood in front of him with a smile that felt like the two of them were already midway through a conversation. The first thing Alen noticed wasn't the smile , it was the hair. Blue. Not navy, not dark, but the kind of open-sky blue that belonged in paintings and not on actual people.
"Hey, Alen. Want to be in my group?"
Her eyes were bright, her tone easy, as if this were a continuation of something that had already started.
Alen didn't answer right away. He looked at her for a moment.
"Who are you?"
She blinked. Caught off guard, though not visibly offended.
"I'm Sophie. Sophie Dola." She tilted her head slightly. "Did you forget?"
He tried to recall. The name wasn't unfamiliar — Sophie Dola was somewhere in his memory. But the Sophie in his memory had brown hair, long enough to fall past her shoulders. Not this girl with sky-blue hair standing in front of him now.
"Didn't Sophie have brown hair?"
She reached up and lifted a strand of blue hair toward him, presenting it almost formally, like an introduction.
"I've been watching you. You always look at my hair before my face. Is that really how you size people up?"
Alen didn't answer that directly.
"That color isn't natural."
"Obviously not." She said it lightly. "I dyed it last night. I figured the first time walking into a dungeon deserved something... different. A marker, I guess."
"A marker for what?"
"So I remember today." Her tone still sounded easy on the surface, but there was something underneath it that wasn't quite as light.
He studied her for a moment. This girl with her improbable blue hair — she wasn't just someone trying to stand out. There was a reason behind it, even if she hadn't offered more than a glimpse.
That was enough for now.
"What's your element?"
"Water." She touched the blue accent at her collar. "You're Fire, right? Pretty obvious from yours."
Alen gave a short nod.
"Then we still need three more. Earth, Wind, Lightning."
Sophie nodded, already turning to survey the field, which was growing more chaotic by the second as teams scrambled to fill their last remaining spots.
"Come on, let's go before everyone's taken."
Alen didn't reply , but he fell into step beside her, which in this particular situation, amounted to the same thing.