Chaos Cycle: The Eye of Genesis

"Where am I?" Ileana said and saw the others appearing around her. Even though it was dark, she could guess they were her companions. They were oblivious as she was and then she saw someone standing up.

It was Elior. "We are outside," he said, pointing towards the gate they had entered into the dungeon.

"What happened?" Lara asked. "All I saw was some light hitting me, then I'm here."

The others agreed as well. A moment ago they were battling with the hyenas and then the moles came and the situation was supposed to turn bad, but here they are now.

"It was probably Senior Aanya," Elior said, and he was unsure. Mostly because he had never seen Aanya using her power, and the way she teleported them out was not the way he knew. This was something else, and the time was so short that he could not figure it out.

Abruptly, a hole with glittering light appeared beside them before the gate, and a few figures moved out of it. They were the students that came with them for security purposes and lastly came Aanya, wearing her white dress. There was no water or dirt in her appearance. She smiled at them brilliantly and the hole behind her collapsed.

"How many of you succeed in advancing?" she asked and found out only two of them failed. "Well, everyone performed splendidly. Even if the two of you failed, you can take a turn tomorrow."

"Senior, what happened there?" Hasan asked. His blood was still cold a moment ago, his leg was about to be eaten by a huge mole and here he was now.

"Chaos Fiends are hard to control and most of the time they could not even control themselves," she said. "As the storm hit inside the dungeon, the monster went berserk and we were unable to keep it at the level for all of you to reach the first advancement."

"You mean all that was planned?" Ileana asked, and disappointment held her face. She thought they had done a great job after the initial problem, but it turned out the upperclassmen were protecting them all the time. The thought was comforting, but she could not help but feel disappointed.

"Girl, it isn't what you think it is," Aanya said as she came before Ileana. "If we were not there, then you would have even fewer monsters to fight against. We especially give you more chaos fiends to deal with to test you. Though the last attack was not in our plan. So you should not be disappointed. After all, you all performed splendidly together."

"Senior, how often do things go wrong inside a dungeon?" Peter asked.

"I don't have an exact number, but you should prepare for it all the time," Aanya answered. "You have seen today. It was a customised dungeon for training, yet the gathering clouds and storm changed everything."

Peter sucked in a cold breath, and he was not the only one. They did not know why they were not told this at the institute.

"All of it was practical. You can not get the experience through the indoor class," Aanya added. "And besides, if you guys were told about all those dangers before, you all will be too frightened to perform your skills."

"So what do we do now?" Shin asked. There was no storm outside, though the wind was blowing—it was just dark.

"Two of you have failed so, we will wait for tomorrow," Aanya said. "Until then, we will camp here. So everyone got to work while I made a call with the professor and made your final evaluation of this test."

The others were a little hearing about the evaluation, even though they did quite fine. Aanya left, leaving the others while everyone readied themselves to get to work again.

"I need a bath," Elior said among everyone and ran his mana all over his body to get rid of the rain from it. From his soaked body, he turned dry in one second.

"How did you do that?" Shin asked as his eyes shone.

A similar scene appeared as Leroy cleared and dried himself.

"How are you guys doing it?" Shin shouted. "I wanted to learn it too."

"You are still a few steps away," Elior said and started to strip off his leather jerkins and armour. "Do it the old way for now and get to work."

Saying that, he went away on his own.

"El, where are you going on your own? You know this is a dangerous area even though it is a training ground?" Ileana shouted from behind.

"I'll be back soon," Elior said, holding his arm up. As he had said, he needed a bath, he was looking for the river here. If he was not wrong, there should be a river there.

"I really don't like when he goes on alone like he fears nothing," Ileana muttered and they all readied the camp.

Shin went to make the meal, and a couple of upperclassmen helped him. Leroy and others put up the tents one by one, while Ileana and Lara made a fire in the middle, carrying in dry woods. By the time Senior Aanya arrived before them.

"Where is Elior?" she asked, counting everyone.

Nobody had a certain answer, so they mentioned he went for fresh air, ditching work. Just as they were talking about him, the actual person arrived behind them.

"Oh, you guys finished the work?" he said.

Everyone could see he looked more refreshed than before, but none asked. It was their time for evaluation.

Aanya clapped her palm, and the freshmen stood in line. Even the unwilling Shin joined and stood along with everyone.

"I personally think you all performed splendidly together," she said again. "But individually, not so except for Elior and Leroy. For your performance together I give you A, congratulations on that. You will get 200 academic points with that. Now let's start with the individual evaluation."

Her eyes moved to the right corner where Hasan stood Hasan. He did not know if it was the wind or the anticipation that caused him to feel a little chill.

"Hasan, you did well, but there are many ways for you to do better," Aanya said. "You get a B from me. Your listening ability was helpful with your archery, but if there was no Elior or Leroy, you could not have been that free with your archery. But as your first performance, you did well."

Hasan nodded as Aanya moved to the person next to him, Peter, who grunted a little uncomfortably.

"Peter, you get B-," Aanya said. "You did great with the research on the first day, but after the first mistake where your attack hit Shin, you did not perform well. You need to have more awareness of the situation and should reflect on it after we return to the institute.

"Ileana, you held onto your good quirks, though you are the most frightened in the situation. If not for the others, you would not have it so easily."

Ileana sucked in a cold breath. Was the test easy, as Aanya mentioned now?

"You get a B as well, just because you did not make any big error and congratulations on your success. You need to work a lot harder," Aanya said, and moved to the next person. "Lara, A-. you were a little frightened at the start, but you pulled yourself together far better than Ileana and showed your skill. Congratulations on your first class, I expect great things from you."

Lara sighed in relief and Aanya moved to Shin, who was not frightened in the slightest. Well, he was grinning inside the dungeon most of the time, but now he had a silly smile on his lips.

"Shin," Aanya said, and tilted her head a little. "How would you evaluate yourself?"

"Me?" Shin thought for a moment and looked to his left where Leroy and Elior stood. "Other than these two, I performed the best, no?"

"I could not help but agree with you," Aanya said with a faint smile. "Your performance showed exactly that, but there is something you lack. You seemed to think causally of the chaos fields?"

"Yes?" Shin became confused.

"You get A- as well," Aanya said. "Your performance showed what you could be, but you need more hard work to get there. Congratulations on the success. I expect you to shoulder the responsibility with your utmost effort.

"Now, you two. I have no idea how to evaluate you two." Aanya looked at the two of Elior and Leroy, both were as rigid as a stone and something about them told her they would not open their mouths now. "You two did not show your full strength from the start and even at the last moment in the storm, you were still hiding it. I will leave your evaluation to professor Aleister."

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