"EVERYONE GET UP! I HOPE YOU GOT SOME REST LAST NIGHT!"
Sir Red's voice thundered through the stone walls at a volume that made the wooden bed frames vibrate. It was 3:00 AM. The predawn air was still freezing, the world outside the windows was pitch black, but the grace period was officially over.
In an instant, the restless quiet of the barracks was replaced by the frantic sounds of reality. Despite the recruits just having fallen asleep, boots began to hit the floor with heavy thuds, armor straps clattered as they were cinched tight, and the sharp shing of steel being checked in its scabbard echoed from every corner. Their grogginess instantly disappeared, replaced by a cold spike of adrenaline.
Henry was on his feet before the echo of Red's shout had even faded. His movements were fluid and automatic, a byproduct of the obsessive drilling he'd put himself through.
As he exited the barracks, he caught a glimpse of Recruit 4, blinking rapidly, trying to shake the cobwebs from his head, while Ana tied her hair back as she approached the male training pad, her expression uncharacteristically grim. The lightheartedness of yesterday a distant memory.
"Move it, 14," Recruit 7 muttered as he pushed past, his own nerves manifesting as a sharp, jagged aggression.
Henry didn't respond. He just kept jogging, taking his assigned spot in the formation.
After settling in, Henry noticed Sir Red, who usually did these formations with Sir Blue, and Ma'am White was all alone.
Sir Red looked... different, his usual playful, light nature replaced by a more tense, focused demeanor.
He paced the front of the line, his eyes scanning each recruit with clinical precision.
"Listen up. I'm only going to say these names once," Sir Red barked.
"Squad 1 consists of Recruits 2, 5, 9, 10, 13, and 12. Assemble to the left in the order you were called."
Henry watched the group assemble, his mind immediately breaking down the team's composition.
The four recruits he didn't know well, 2, 9, 10, and 5, were all originally Level 9s who had successfully crossed the threshold into Level 10 Foundation. They were the bulk of the squad's strength.
Then there was the outlier, Recruit 13. He had ascended to level 8 and shown real talent in the Lower Regium Sword style. Henry noticed the way his face practically radiated light upon hearing his name, clearly happy with being in Squad 1.
The look on Ana's face was the complete opposite. Her shoulders slumped slightly, and her eyes flickered toward Henry with a flash of genuine disappointment. She had likely hoped to spend this final trial by his side, and the likelihood that the others beside 13 would see her as deadweight was high.
Henry hoped she'd be ok, but that's all he could do as he flashed her a reassuring nod that she didn't return as squad 1 finally assembled into the correct order, which cued Sir Red to continue.
"Now squad 2: Recruits 4, 3, 8, 11, and 6. Make a new formation in the center," Red's voice commanded, finalizing the second group.
Henry's mind immediately went to work, dissecting the composition of the five-man team. He noted that Recruit 4, his level-headed friend, served as the group's anchor, having entered basic training already at Level 10 Foundation. The remaining individuals were climbers. Recruits 3, 8, and 11 started as Level 8s and demonstrated their determination by successfully completing the initial trial: the run to Fort Hope. That success had propelled them to Level 10. The outlier was Recruit 6, who failed the initial attempt and remained stalled at Level 9, despite starting at Level 8 as well.
As Squad 2 moved to their designated area, the reality of the situation settled over the remaining recruits like a heavy fog. Only three names remained uncalled.
'Well,' Henry thought grimly, 'I guess it's me, 1, and 7.'
It was a volatile cocktail of personalities. Recruit 1 was the undisputed prodigy, a silent storm of efficiency, while Recruit 7 was a powerhouse of aggression, fueled by an ego that had only grown as his skills sharpened.
'Not exactly a warm social environment,' Henry mused, 'but in terms of raw talent and combat potential, we are the absolute peak of this class.'
The tension among the trio was palpable. Recruit 1 didn't turn her head; she merely shifted her eyes, casting a cold, clinical glance at Henry and 7 before snapping her gaze back to Sir Red.
Recruit 7 made no effort to hide his disdain. He let out a sharp, irritated huff and glared at the side of Henry's face, clearly loathing the fact that his elite status came tied to his self-appointed rival.
Henry ignored the heat of 7's stare. He didn't care about the ego or the annoyance. He only cared about the "heavier load" they were about to carry, and the fact that in a group of three, there was no room for error. Their small numbers made them the most vulnerable, but their skill meant they were the most lethal.
"Squad 3," Sir Red said, "Assemble to the right. Form up in this order: 1 in the lead, 14 in the center, and 7 at the rear."
The arrangement seemed arbitrary to the others, but Henry's eyes narrowed as he looked at the lines forming beside him. He did the math, scanning the ranks of Squad 1 and Squad 2. It wasn't random. Sir Red was organizing them from strongest to weakest.
In his own squad, the message was clear: Recruit 1 was the vanguard, the undisputed peak. Henry sat in the middle, and 7, despite all his bluster and ego, was being relegated to the tail end. Henry knew that if 7 ever realized he was being mathematically ranked as the weakest of the three, he would likely explode in a fit of prideful rage.
But Sir Red was an expert at keeping recruits off balance. Before 7 could even process the lineup, Sir Red turned on his heel, his heavy cloak snapping in the wind.
"Alright, follow me in your squads," Red barked, already stepping out with a pace that promised a grueling march. "It'll take us until midday to reach your assigned sections of the Hope Forest Training Area. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. The exercise begins the moment your boots touch the treeline."
The march began in the dark of the predawn night.
Henry settled into the rhythm behind Recruit 1, his hand resting instinctively on the hilt of his arming sword. The Willder Mountain Range loomed ahead.
The rhythmic thud of boots against the dirt became a metronome for Henry's racing mind. As the miles fell away under the relentless pace of Sir Red's march, He wasn't thinking about the glory of graduation; he was thinking about the logistics of the next thirty days.
He ran through a mental checklist of variables that they could encounter in the forest.
'What will we eat once yesterday's feasts wear off? How do we find clean water in a mountain range? The Willder Mountains were jagged and steep; water would run down into the forest, but stagnant pools were breeding grounds for parasites or mana-born bacteria. We would need to find running springs or develop a way to purify what they found.'
Most importantly, he worried about the sleep debt. In a group of only three, a watch rotation was a nightmare. One person sleeping meant only two sets of eyes to cover the pitch-black density of an ancient forest. They would be living on a razor's edge of exhaustion.
His internal calculations were abruptly silenced when the horizon finally shifted.
Henry looked up and felt a knot tighten in his chest. Stretched out before them was a wall of trees so massive it defied logic. Their trunks were as wide as siege towers, and their canopy was so dense it seemed to swallow the midday sun whole.
As they drew closer, Henry realized that the forest wasn't a flat expanse of trees. Instead, the terrain was fractured by lower mountain peaks that erupted directly through the canopy like uneven teeth. One moment, they might be navigating a humid, shadowed valley floor choked with massive roots; the next, they might be forced to scale a sheer limestone ridge or a narrow stone pass that cut through the ancient trunks.
The scale of it was staggering. Making the basic training Henry had endured feel like child's play compared to the potential dangers of Hope Forest.