We walked outside the school building and stepped onto the massive outdoor training grounds.
"Woah..." I thought out loud, my eyes widening. "This place is *huge*!"
Makoto scanned the open area, his expression dead serious. "There they are. We should get going." He pointed toward the rest of the class gathering in the distance and started walking.
"Yeah... we should," Izame replied. Her face was tight with concern.
*Something totally feels off about this...* Izame thought to herself skeptically. She zoned out for a moment, blindly following Makoto's lead, until she glanced back at the gate. *Wait, what are those two doing?*
Turning around completely, Izame placed her hands on her hips and shouted, "Hurry up, idiots!"
The two of them were just standing there, staring blankly into the distance.
"Oh! Sorry!" Yuki laughed, quickly jogging up to walk beside me. "I was just wondering why it's getting so cloudy all of a sudden."
I looked up at the sky. She was right—heavy gray clouds were rolling in fast. *Weird. I thought the forecast said it was going to be completely sunny today.*
Before I could ponder it further, Yuki suddenly sped up her pace. She looked back at me, waving her hand to signal me forward.
"Come on, dude!" Yuki declared out loud, a massive, enthusiastic smile breaking across her face. "We have to pass this test or whatever and become the best mages in the world! All four of us. No one left behind!"
Her words hit me like a jolt of lightning. The pure motivation in her speech made me instantly speed up to catch up to her side. But before I could even reply, Yuki raised her fist high toward the half-cloudy sky.
"No... we *WILL*!"
I tapped her shoulder, feeling happier than I had in a long time. Gazing straight ahead at the crowd, I smiled. "Yeah, you're right. We'll give it our all. Everything for our dreams!"
As we finally walked up to our classmates, a sudden blur cut through the air.
*Whoosh!*
Lucius teleported directly in front of us, leaving behind a brief, flickering afterimage.
My eyebrows squinted in pure awe. "What's that technique called? I've never seen anything like it before!"
"Please tell us, Sir! That looks incredibly useful!" Yuki exclaimed. She playfully bumped her elbow into mine, giving me a devious smirk. "Righttt, Silver? Don't you agree?"
Makoto, overhearing her, scoffed and muttered under his breath, "What a pervert..."
Lucius just chuckled. "Don't worry about it. I'll teach it to you when I can."
*Flash!*
Using the exact same technique, he instantly vanished and reappeared at the very front of the class.
Every student turned their gaze across the long, vibrant green field. The short grass made it look exactly like a football field. At the front, Lucius set up three chairs and took a seat.
Directly next to him, a woman dressed in business casual with a black visor covering her eyes sat down. On his other side sat a man dressed similarly to Lucius in a sharp, street-stylish outfit.
Lucius looked over at the stylish man, whom he viewed as a true brother—not by blood, but by soul. "You can give the signal for when we start, Soul."
Lucius turned his head back to the front. The woman seated on his left—Nemu, the infamous head of the sensory unit—spoke up.
"Let's get started soon. It's starting to rain," Nemu said, raising her hand toward the sky.
A few small droplets fell from the darkening clouds, splashing onto her open palm. For a brief second, she stared up at the sky. Far off in the distance, a small bolt of lightning crackled through the gray.
Soul finally sat back in his chair, a confident smirk spreading across his face, his eyes full of great expectation. "Alright, let's get started!" He signaled.
Instantly, Nemu's focus shifted. She snapped her hands together, forming a perfect triangle sign.
*"Psyche Manipulation!"*
In a flash, everyone's minds were forcibly linked together.
> **[MAGE JUTSU FILE: PSYCHE MANIPULATION]**
> This forbidden psychological ability takes years to master due to the immense strain it places on the user. It allows the caster to connect multiple minds at once into any "voice channel" they desire, leaving the supervisors' physical bodies completely unconscious.
> **The Risk:** If the user loses control, their own psyche is permanently destroyed. Their body will live on as a mere host without a sense of reality—a depressing, empty shell. A tragic memory fading away as loved ones watch the physical form slowly rot.
> **The Escape:** There are only two ways to disable this spell. 1) Kill the user. 2) The user speaks a hidden "safe word" which they change before every single cast.
> Nemu, a prodigy of the infamous Sojo clan—who only teach sensory magic to their children once they turn 17—has practiced this dangerous spell for 10 months without a single failure.
*I have to calm my mind...* Nemu thought to herself, closing her eyes. *Empty... slowly flowing like water...*
She entered a state of intense, absolute focus.
Instantly, the physical toll of the spell manifested. Soul's body slumped all the way back into his chair, his head nodding back as if he had just finished an exhausting, brutal day of work. Next to him, Lucius's body went completely limp, slumping forward over his seat like a literal zombie.
Only Nemu sat tall. So tall and rigid you could tell she was completely used to the strain. The other two had experience with mind-linking, but getting used to this spell was far from easy.
"Alright, so sorry for the delay, but now it's time to start."
Lucius's serious voice echoed directly inside everyone's heads.
"Where is that coming from?!" students around us began shouting in confusion, spinning around to find the source of the familiar voice.
A male student in the back row dropped his jaw in sudden realization. "That's Mr. Lucius!" he yelled.
Lucius let out a collective sigh in our minds. "Didn't I tell you guys to drop the 'Mr.'? I'M ONLY SEVENTEEN!"
"Yep, that's definitely him," the students muttered in unified disappointment.
"IT'S TRUE! Don't look so disappointed!" Lucius snapped back inside our heads.
"Wait, but how are you talking to us like you're standing right next to us?" the same male student asked, scratching his head.
"He's using Psyche Manipulation," Makoto stated out loud, thinking through the mechanics.
"You're right," Lucius answered. "But I can't cast this spell myself."
"Then who casted it?" Makoto asked curiously.
"I called in some backup," Lucius responded. "First is my assistant, Soul. I haven't introduced you yet, but present is the best time, now isn't it, Soul?"
A booming laugh echoed through the psychic link. "HA! Don't talk to me all cool and edgy just to impress your students, Lucius! Have you forgotten how long we've known each other? I know you like the back of my hand!"
"Alright, I'm just going to ignore that insult and move on," Lucius groaned. "But you're right, I know you like the back of my hand too, so don't try to embarrass me in front of my class. Moving on to answer your question, Makoto—I asked Nemu to aid Soul and me for this class. She is the head of our elite sensory unit."
"Nemu..." Makoto murmured. "Now that I think of it, I did read a book about Psyche Manipulation. Most of us were taught the theory of these spells throughout middle school."
"I've heard about it from some friends of mine who were really into sensory spells," Silver added.
"Oh, well perfect! It seems like I won't have to explain how it works to everyone," Nemu's voice chimed into the link, sounding deeply relieved.
"Now that everything is set and ready," Lucius's voice cut back in, shifting to a commanding tone. "I will now proceed to explain the rules of the test. Since this is the first exam out of the many to come, we designed this specific one to assess exactly where you rank as a mage in training!"