If there was anything Viviana could do to improve her chances of succeeding in orientation, it would be now.

  “You, let’s team up.”

  After the speech by the proctor, Viviana’s team had dropped their stuff off at their dorms. Viviana didn’t have much. She was surprised to see some of her clothes in a suitcase, already there. Her attendant, she presumed.

  Then the team met up outside terrarium four, the location for their orientation.

  Viviana, to the befuddlement of her team, had immediately walked up to the strongest looking guy and asked for a team up.

  “Viviana Alder-Stern,” he said. “It’s… uh, an honor?”

  Viviana observed him again. She was sure he was strong. He was tall, held a proper stance, and his hands never drifted far from his weapon. There was something in his dark eyes– an alertness she had only seen in veterans.

  Okay, how do I convince his team to team up with ours?

  “Let’s team up. I can tell you’re strong. I am strong. If we join teams, we can win it all.”

  The guy scratched the back of his head. “Well, I don’t see what’s in it for me. Aside from you, your team looks pretty weak. I mean, I’m sure they’re talented enough to enter the academy, but that guy looks like he hasn’t picked up a sword in his life, and that girl looks like she’d blow over in a stiff breeze.”

  “If we team up, we’ll be a team of six. A team of six, no matter how strong the individual members are, will win any fight against a team of three. While that’s true if you team up with any team, teaming up with us is still the best choice. In the end only one team can win the event. We’re clearly weaker than you, so when it comes down to the final fight, your team will win. We’re more than fine with second.”

  “That’s decently convincing,” he said. “But coming from you is another story. You’re easily the strongest here. I imagine that if your team ambushes us, we’d deal with your team members rather easily, but with you amidst the chaos? You’d probably take one or two of us.”

  “I agree completely, but that’s exactly why we won’t betray you guys. We’d be destroying our team for the slim chance of taking down one or two of your members. Then, cause we’re all soulbound, your team would come back to life. It’d be a completely wasteful move.”

  He sighed, scratching his head. “I don’t know. I’ll ask my guys.”

  Viviana nodded. The guy turned away and jogged awkwardly over to his teammates. Viviana watched as the group spoke animatedly. He jogged back over to Viviana.

  “They agreed, reluctantly,” he said. “We’ll work together. I hope I won’t regret this.”

  Viviana grasped his hand, moving it up and down stiffly, putting a little force into her grasp. Lucian’s grip was weaker than expected. He winced, but he spoke his name with conviction. “Lucian Kerzenlied.”

  “Viviana Adler-Stern. Let’s exchange abilities, team to team.” Viviana said. “I need to know what we’re working with.”

  Lucian nodded, rubbing his hand. “Let’s.”

  Lucian and Viviana introduced their teams themselves to each other. After exchanging names they began exchanging the details of their system granted abilities.

  The squirrel-like brunette on Viviana’s team was named Bena. She had some sort of scout skill, but didn’t provide its name in the system. The timid-looking guy on Viviana’s team was named Thomas. He had [strike], an ability that enhanced his next attack.

  Lucian had the same skill as Thomas’s, and Lucian’s two teammates had [dash], and [scout].

  Then it was Viviana’s turn.

  “My ability is called [lightning trap]. I can place a lightning sigil on any object close enough to me, like this–” Viviana said, placing a hand on the ground, creating a yellow lightning bolt mark on the surface of the earth. Viviana stepped back, unveiling the mark to everyone. “Then, I can detonate it with my mana, creating a shock zone of electricity. It isn’t very intense, but will stun someone for a second or two. Oh, and the sigils disappear if I’m too far away from them. I can put down two at once, and that’s it.”

  I can put down three, but they don’t need to know that.

  “Step back a little?” Viviana asked, and everyone took a couple steps back.

  Once everyone was a safe distance away, Viviana detonated the sigil, causing a small explosion of yellow electricity. The explosion was about the size of her palm. The sigil faded away, consumed by the activation. She felt a portion of her mana leave her body. It would have been wise to keep mana consumption to a minimum before the activity began, but Viviana didn’t care.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Lucian’s team stared at her. Bena and Thomas didn’t react much, given that she told them the details of her ability earlier, but that hadn’t seen her actually use it. They were a little bug eyed as well.

  “That’s insane,” Lucian said. “An affinity at level one. Thank god we accepted the team-up.”

  The rest of Lucian’s team rapidly shook their heads up and down. Bena and Thomas were staring at her with sparkles in their eyes. Just what is up with this reaction? I thought they were afraid of me?

  “Honestly, it’s not that strong. The sigils can be broken with just a little mana. Because us soulbound naturally emanate a tiny bit of mana at all times, the sigils can be deactivated by touching them. If I’m not careful, I could even accidentally deactivate them.”

  Lucian blinked. “Why tell us all this? We could use the information against you. No, if we make it to the end, we will.”

  Because I want you to trust me. Because it’s easier to manipulate someone who trusts you than someone with their guard up.

  “You guys told us about your abilities, so I had to share mine. All I ask for is cooperation.”

  Lucian scoffed, opening his mouth to say something, but something caught his vision. Viviana caught movement in the corner of her eye. Other students did as well.

  It was the armored student from before. The student proctor. She had activated the grapples on her breach armor, firing them upwards and gravitationally locking them with the surface of the dome, suspending her in mid air.

  Their voice, unnaturally amplified by the systems inside their armor, echoed throughout the portion of the academy campus they stood in.

  “Hello, freshies! Welcome to orientation. Line up. Nice and orderly, in your teams. Once you get to the gate, tell the driver what location you want to drop in. First come first serve. The activity starts as soon as the door opens. Oh, and make sure you put on your combat jumpsuits, in the cars! Good luck, freshies!”

  Groups immediately scrambled for the front. A big map was projected on a holoscreen at the front of the gate, displaying the options possible, labelled 1 through 33. Each starting location was placed in a ring around the circular terrarium four. As expected, the groups tried to choose starting locations far from the other groups. Being eliminated in an early fight would be bad, after all. Some groups did choose locations next to each other– probably to either get an early enemy flag, or to team up.

  Viviana and Lucian, team captains of their respective groups, chose locations right next to each other, in the south-west quadrant of the terrarium. Vivianas’ team boarded a vehicle first. Lucian’s team would be in a separate one.

  The first thing Viviana’s team noticed inside their vehicles were three combat jumpsuits. One for each member of the team. Viviana noticed that they were similar to the uniforms that the guild affiliated students wore– the students that didn’t need to attend orientation because they were already ranked.

  They weren’t exactly the same. Viviana could tell the material wasn’t as high quality. Even so, Viviana put it on. The auto-repair ability of the material would solve any fashion malfunctions that occurred. After all, they were about to slice each other apart for an unknown amount of time.

  After the team put on their uniforms, they all sat in the back seat. Viviana sat in the middle. Bena and Thomas, her teammates, hugged the sides of the vehicle, giving her space. All the better for me.

  The trip wasn’t long but felt long. There were no windows. The driver, who didn’t respond to anything, drove with an augmented reality headset synced up to various cameras protected by bulletproof glass.

  After what felt like an eternity the vehicle stopped. After another eternity the door opened and Viviana’s team stepped out. A completely alien sight greeted them.

  Massive, blue bioluminescent trees reached into the sky. And the sky… was an eerie, crimson red.

  Viviana could see nothing of interest besides the occasional glowing tree, dotted infrequently amidst gently sloping hills and a sea of blue grass, stretching as far as the eye could see.

  As soon as Thomas stepped out of the vehicle he started talking. “Well judging by the fact that we can breathe, this isn’t so bad. We can probably survive for some time. Judging by the number of teams we’re going to be here for a while so we should probably find food, water, shelter…”

  Viviana held up a hand to stop Thomas from ranting any further. Where did this guy’s fear go? Maybe when he gets talking, he’s no longer scared of me?

  “We’re alright. If we’re alright, we should quickly meet up with Lucian’s team. You’re holding the flag?”

  “Yeah,” Thomas said, pushing his glasses up. Viviana could see that he was shaking. He was nervous. Or afraid of her? “We’ve got our first point.”

  Technically, we didn’t get any points. At any point another team could take the flag and claim all the points as long as they were holding it in the end. Viviana wasn’t going to point this out, though. It would make her team more nervous than they already were, and they needed any edge they could get, physically or mentally.

  Bena jumped up, placing her hands on her hips and then performing a big stretch. “Why so nervous, Thomas? It’s just orientation!”

  The fearful looking squirrel from before was gone. Did Viviana just get strange teammates?

  “It’s because… we’ll even if we can’t die, I’ve never been killed before."

  “Never?! Really? Not even accidentally?!” Bena asked.

  Thomas shook his head.

  “It’s just a quick nap for a couple hours,” Bena said. “It’ll hurt a lot, and then it’ll go black, and then'll be back before you know it!”

  “Doesn’t… doesn’t that scare you? I’ve never been revived before. I heard… you’ll never forget your first time. You’re literally dying and being brought back to life.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Tom-tom! Everyone does it! And besides, whose to say we’ll die? Vivi will protect us!”

  The two both turned towards Viviana, a glimmer of hope in their eyes. It was a familiar, uncomfortable feeling. Viviana’s eye twitched, but she didn't acknowledge it.

  She had to focus on her environment. From now on, there were about a hundred students that wanted her dead.

  “Let’s just go.”