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They wasted no time.
The next morning, every freshman team gathered near the outer gate of Aegis Vanguard. The academy sat right at the edge of the city border — not quite inside civilization, not quite outside it either. That design choice hadn't made much sense on arrival. It made a lot more sense now.
The Ashfen Forest waited on the other side of the wall.
It stretched as far as the eye could follow — a dense mass of ancient trunks packed so tightly together that daylight could barely find a way through.
An energy barrier ran along the academy's outer perimeter wall, invisible but present in the way the air near it felt pressurized. Beasts didn't cross it. Whatever instinct drove them, the barrier satisfied it.
Before they left, Professor Halvek had walked them through the beast ranking system. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Super Rare, Ultra Rare, Grand, Epic, Legendary, Arcane and Mythical — ascending order. The highest recorded beast in the Ashfen sat at Super Rare. That was the confirmed ceiling.
Even at Uncommon rank, beasts were still dangerous for Elementary Grade students. The academy knew this. Therefore, each team would move and engage as a unit. For the Freshmen Outing, the objective was straightforward: accumulate as many Common kills as possible per member, with a minimum of one Uncommon kill each.
Except for the Supporter.
Supporters weren't built for direct damage output. The expectation was simple — stay back, absorb experience from nearby kills, carry the team's supply load, and contribute through buffs, debuffs, and utility. A high-level Supporter wasn't necessary for a successful battle arena match. And at this stage, they just needed to not be in the way.
Since Landen had no documented abilities, he got the full treatment.
The supply bag now strapped to his back contained health potions in three tiers, a row of dark energy and white energy clarities, two types of debuff compounds, and a collection of buff items he hadn't known existed until they were placed in his hands. And then, at the bottom of the bag, a set of orbs. Strength orbs. Defense orbs. A magic amplification orb. The same type the Battle Arena simulation modeled, except these were real. Every freshman team had been outfitted with a basic set for the trip. The standard issue starter kit.
All the freshman teams assembled in the same staging area outside the gate. Team Drex was among them. River Ashlock stood slightly apart from his group, speaking in a low voice to someone with long blond hair, while glancing over at Landen's group.
Malrec's group wasn't too far. He had his greatsword over his shoulder like always. He and his team walked around to the opposite end of Landen's team. It looked like they had plans to farm the outer skirts of the forest.
Then there was Landen's group, Halvek Team B. The academy had allowed students to wear their own gear for the outing, making his team look completely different from the one he'd seen before. The only thing they all had in common was a narrow blue ribbon tied around one forearm—a simple way for the academy to identify teammates once the battlefield descended into chaos.
Jareth's arms were buried under a set of heavy gauntlets that ran from his knuckles all the way past his elbows, gold plating tracing the outer ridges and catching the light with every shift of his weight. They looked like they each weighed as much as a car door. He was already holding his arms slightly away from his body, as people do when they're committed to not admitting something is heavy.
Veya wore a fitted outfit with a narrow skirt — precise, movement-friendly, nothing wasted. On each wrist sat a compact launcher, its underside connected by a thin tube running up to a small chest piece strapped across her sternum. The design wasn't unusual for a marksman at her stage. Most low-level ranged fighters couldn't route their core energy cleanly enough to power a wrist-mounted weapon directly, so the chest piece acted as a converter — draw from the core, regulate, and fire.
Elle looked like she'd stepped out of a storybook. Two pigtails, a short kimono-style outfit, minimal armor overall. She almost looked decorative. Then you counted the knife clips along her belt, which numbered more than a reasonable person would carry to a family dinner.
Then there was Ember. The red floral dress had no business being on a field assignment. It was on a field assignment anyway, and somehow that made complete sense for Ember Strife. Her red hair caught the morning air as she moved, shifting and lifting like something on the edge of combustion. Landen looked, registered the full image, and quickly looked away before his mind melted.
He looked down at himself. School uniform. The same plain outfit he'd been wearing since the first day of school. Technically, he owned a red jumpsuit, but wearing that probably wasn't the best idea. So, the uniform it was. He also had a heavy backpack slung over his shoulder that felt determined to permanently rearrange his spine.
— — —
They had been walking long enough for the light to thin and the tree line to close around them before anyone noticed the problem.
The formation had settled naturally: Jareth at the front, Veya behind him, then Elle, then Ember, then Landen at the rear. The forest sounds had changed from ambient background to something more deliberate. No beasts visible yet. Just the steady sense that they were nearby and not in a rush.
"Alright, Captain." Jareth turned back without breaking stride. "Where are we heading?"
Nobody answered.
He slowed. Stopped. The group stacked loosely behind him.
"Hold on." Veya looked around at the group. "Who's the captain?"
Silence. Everyone turned toward the back of the formation.
Landen and Ember looked at each other.
"Ember," Landen said.
"Landen," Ember said.
At the same time.
A beat passed.
Ember turned to face forward. "Landen is listed as the official captain of this team. He's in charge, and that's final."
She walked off ahead.
"Okay, boss," everyone said.
Jareth looked at Landen.
Then Veya. Then Elle.
Three pairs of eyes. Waiting.
Landen exhaled quietly and adjusted the strap digging into his left shoulder.
"That way." He pointed towards Ember.
— — —
Landen tapped the face of the wristband they provided.
A translucent map bloomed out from the surface — thin, blue-edged, hovering at chest height. He pinched and expanded it with two fingers.
The Ashfen was bigger than it looked from the gate.
The map divided the forest into clear sections with labeled boundaries and color-coded threat indicators. To the south was the academy — their entry point, a thin strip of safe territory running along the barrier edge. The forest expanded north from there in distinct zones: open grassland first, then dense woodland, then elevated terrain where the mountain range began to climb. A river cut through the middle sections, bending around a wide lake before splitting and feeding a waterfall that dropped off the eastern face of the ridge. Each zone carried its own beast density marker and a rank indicator stamped in bold.
Grassland: Common.
Dense Wood: Uncommon–Rare.
Mountain Approach: Rare.
Upper Ridgeline: Super Rare.
It was a minimap. Literally a minimap.
"River runs along the north edge of the grassland," he said, mostly to himself. "Uncommon territory starts just past the tree line on the other side."
"So we clear the grass, then push," Jareth said.
"That's the general idea."
He closed the map, and they kept moving.
— — —
The grassland announced itself before they reached it. The trees thinned, the light came back, and then the canopy pulled away entirely and opened onto a wide clearing where pale green grass — chest-high in places — stretched in every direction.
Landen scanned the area.
Common rabbits grazed in loose clusters near the far edge, big-eared and slow, and paying almost no attention to what was happening around them. Marsh lizards crouched between the sun patches, flat and still, tails flicking at intervals.
And they weren't alone out here.
The entire freshman class had apparently reached the same conclusion about where to start. Teams dotted the clearing in every direction — flashes of combat, shouted callouts, students chasing things that turned out to be faster than they looked. Team Drex was positioned near the eastern edge of the field, already working through a cluster of lizards with an efficiency that didn't look like effort.
Landen pointed forward like he was commanding an army. "Let's farm."
The next several minutes were educational in ways that weren't flattering.
"Get the bunny!" Elle shot forward before she'd finished the sentence, pigtails trailing behind her.
"The lizards give five more experience than the bunnies," Veya said, not moving. She had her wrist-launcher raised, already tracking a marsh lizard near a grass clump twelve meters out.
"The bunny is right there—"
"The bunny is also slower. You'll catch it. I'm taking the lizard."
Elle caught the bunny.
As they continued, Landen suspected there was a problem farming Common beasts as a full party. But he needed to confirm it.
System, can you display the experience points gained for my party?
A display appeared, listing his party members with a bar next to each name reading Total EXP.
As they farmed, one bunny at a time, he watched the experience divide itself equally across every nearby party member at the moment of the kill. The individual numbers were small to begin with. Divided by five, they became minuscule. After a solid fifteen minutes working through the clearing, his personal total was so small he had to check twice to make sure the system wasn't showing him a different column.
System, how many bunnies does Jareth need to level up?
[SYSTEM — EXP SUMMARY]
Current yield per kill (Common): 12–18
Party division modifier active: ÷5
Effective EXP per member per kill: 2–3
Estimated kills to next threshold at current rate: 214
Landen stared at that last number.
Two hundred and fourteen.
[SYSTEM]
Yes. That's a lot of bunnies.
This was familiar. In Legends of Heroes, five players contesting the same minion wave was a losing strategy before the game even got interesting. One carry in the right position could out-value a whole team scrapping over shared gold. The principle here was the same. Five people splitting twelve experience per kill were producing roughly what one person could generate alone, except noisier and with more running involved.
Common beasts weren't the answer. They were the warm-up.
He closed the window.
"We need to go deeper," he said.
The team looked up from what they were doing. Jareth had two Walking Grasses by something resembling their collar. Veya had already reloaded. Elle was crouched over a rabbit that looked more offended than injured.
Nobody argued.
"How deep?" Ember asked.
Landen looked north. Past the grassland, the map had colored the terrain amber. Uncommon territory.
"Follow me," he said. "I have an idea that'll help each of you level up faster."
They followed him deeper into the forest, leaving the clearing behind.
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