The Ultimate Fortress

          Past the Bronze gates, there is a wide rocky trail that all the students take. After walking thirty meters, the trail splits into three. Each trail has a different numbered sign. Every student looked at their phones to look at their personalized schedule. Adrion and his friends went to the trail with a number two on it. It wasn't long before they came across another split trial. This time the signs are labeled A, B, and C. After looking at their phones, Ivika and Kazuo head for trail A. Ringo and Sylvie go to trail C. Adrion and Harper continue straight forward on trail B. The terrain has gotten rougher. Students are complaining left and right about having to traverse this trail. Harper finishes the water in her bottle.

          "Oh, man. I'm not used to walking through rough terrain. Why can't we do something like hunting? I'm better off doing that since there's a lot of waiting around," Harper vents. She looks over at Adrion, "how are you not tired yet?"

          "The terrain here resembles the deeper section of the woods back home. Kazuo, Ringo, and I would always hike to see what we could find."

          "Come to think of it, you and your friends had an easier time traversing the beast forest on day one. It must be nice being used to this. I'm sure Sylvie is also fairing well since she's from a forest region too," Harper sighs.

          They both hear a student shout from ahead, "Hey everyone! The meeting point is just ahead!"

          All the students rush up the hill, feeling relieved they made it. They can all see a large river flowing with a strong current. A man sits near a fire, presumably waiting for the fish to cook. He is positioned on the gravel near the river with lots of open space around him. He picks up one of the sticks with a fish on it and sprinkles a bit of salt before taking a bite. Most of the students immediately question why he carries salt with him.

          "You guys finally made it. I decided to have something to eat while I waited," says the alumnus. He is of average adult male height and has a slender build. His light blond hair indicates he's probably from the Frost Soro Lake region, like Ivika. He has a white t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. "There's not much time, so let's get straight to the point. My name is Olev Eskola, a former Platinum Plate alumnus. I'm going to have you break up into teams of two. Since there is a hundred-thirty-three of you, that'll be sixty-five teams of two and one team of three. After that, I'll decide what team will be your opponent."

          Adrion looks over at Harper and asks, "do you want to team up?"

          Harper turns her head away, "I guess there's no other choice. Sure." Even though she makes it sound like she has no other option, deep down, she's really glad solely on the fact that Adrion is a capable purple coat. Five minutes pass, and just about everyone has found a partner.

          "Well, if it isn't the little shrimp teaming up with the dirty coat."

          Harper immediately recognizes the voice. She turns around, feeling ridiculed. "What do you want, Reva?" Harper spots Reva with two other girls around her. One she recognizes as Reva's friend from class, Yardena. The other girl is a purple coat student she hasn't met before.

          "What's this? Feeling a little brave with him next to you? Hahaha. I'm still amazed you haven't been expelled yet for being so pathetic." Reva and Yardena both laugh in Harper's face. Adrion notices that Harper almost seems scared. "We just came to let you know that Olev approved us being the only team of three and that we'll be up against you two," Reva snickers.

          "W-what? Why do we have to be up against three?" Harper says, annoyed. The three girls walk away feeling like they have passed already.

          "I recognize Nyoko from my homeroom, but who are the other two?" Adrion asks.

          "Just two stupid girls who believe they're top of the blue coats."

          "Do you mind telling me their abilities if you know them?"

          "Reva uses a form of frost magic while Yardena can manipulate things similar to Ivika. I've seen Yardena return lots of attacks back to the sender."

          "So she has real telekinesis, unlike Ivika…." Adrion mumbles.

          "Huh? What to do mean by that?" Harper questions him.

          "Don't worry about it. Nyoko uses crystal magic. So far, she's the only threat. Though that still depends on what our task is."

          Olev tosses the last stick once he's done eating. He stands and speaks loudly, "Alright, everyone. If you look to the left, there are sixty-six numbered stations." Adrion spots the stations. It starts with One on the far bottom left with two directly across it about ten meters out. To the right of those two are stations three and four, then five and six, all the way to sixty-five and sixty-six. "I'm going to start pointing at teams to fill those spots. Once I point at your team, you guys go to the next available station. If you decide to pick your own, you'll fail," Olev finishes with a smile. He begins pointing at random teams to fill out the stations in order. Once most of the stations are filled, he points at Adrion and Harper to fill station sixty-five. The team of three fills the last station across Adrion and Harper. All the teams are positioned to face their opponent. Meanwhile, behind them is a drawn empty square.

          "Every team will have two hours to build some sort of shelter behind them. You can use whatever resources you can find around here. You can use magic to help build the shelter, but I wouldn't recommend making it out of magic. Once it passes my test, the second objective will be to destroy your opponent's shelter while preventing yours from being destroyed. I will not answer any questions, and you may now begin," Olev announces, then walks over to the river bank to go fishing.

          Everyone begins to search for sticks, leaves, rocks, etc. "Finally! Something I'm actually good at!" Harper exclaims. Despite Adrion being able to build a shelter with hardened black fluid, he decides to let Harper take charge. Harper runs deeper into the forest, and Adrion follows closely. Harper slows down and comes to a stop. She asks Adrion, "would you be able to make some sort of sled to carry some materials?"

          "Yeah," Adrion replies and infuses magic to create water. He mixes the water with black fluid and molds it into a sled before it hardens. Harper reinforces her arms with her exoskeleton and approaches a nearby tree. The tree is fairly young, with brown bark and a thin trunk. She reaches up for the lowest hanging thick branch and breaks it off.

          "This is the kind of branch we need. Not only this size but also similar water content. It can't be too dry or too wet. Let's gather over sixty of them with the leaves still attached. We'll clean them later and use the leaves to cover the cracks," Harper tells him.

          They both split up to gather the materials they need. Adrion used hardened black fluid with a sharp edge to cleanly slice the branches off. Those that are too green or too dry, he leaves behind. Harper easily snaps the thick branches from the base due to her increased strength from the exoskeleton on her arms. They periodically return to the sled, dropping off arm-fulls of the branches. After each of them did six trips, bringing five at a time, they had more than enough branches and leaves. "Next, we need flat rocks and mud. Let's go back to the river bank," Harper instructs.

          Both of them push the sled through the rough terrain and make it back to the river bank. With all the gravel on the ground, they pull on the sled so it doesn't get stuck constantly. Some teams are already working on their shelter or have one searching while the other builds. They see some of them making rock shelters. Others are hollowing entire tree trunks to use as thick walls. A group is making a small trench and tying thin, dry branches and leaves to serve as a roof. Adrion glances at his opponents to see what they're up to and is surprised to see them making it out of crystals. Olev did say not to make it out of magic, but that's only if it's still considered magic by the end of it. Adrion was considering using black fluid because the water is no longer considered magic once the properties change when mixed. Nyoko's crystals should still be considered magic, which has Adrion baffled. Unbeknownst to Adrion, Nyoko reaches into her pockets and pulls out real crystals. She runs her magic through the crystals to increase their size. She uses as little magic as possible to prevent it from becoming a magic structure. The result is a "diluted crystal" that has its size increased. This makes it brittle but strong enough to be used as a shelter. The other girls collect rocks to make an inner layer inside the crystal dome.

          Harper loads up all the large flat rocks she comes across and even tosses in rounded ones for another purpose she just thought of. Once done collecting, they go back to their station and begin building the structure. Harper uses one of the branches to draw a circle on the ground. She repeatedly traces the circle to move apart the dirt and make an indentation. She asks Adrion to help her dig down until the moat-like hole is roughly 60 centimeters deep. It would have taken a while to do by hand, but luckily Adrion made a make-shift thin shovel to help dig through the soft, moist dirt. As Adrion did that, she worked on cleaning off the smaller branches with leaves from the larger branch. Harper gets two branches with forks at the top and puts them together at the top, and spread apart at the base to enter the trench they made on the ground. She tells Adrion to get a third forked branch and do the same to make a tripod. It looks as if a light bulb flashes on atop her head as she has a look of realization. "Ahh," Harper exclaims. "Can you drill holes on all three branches at the top?"

          Adrion creates a needle-like rod and hardens it to pierce a hole through the branch. He continues with the other two branches. "Like that?" he asks her.

          "Perfect. You claimed before that your black fluid is no longer magic once it changes properties, right?"

          "Yes."

          "Okay then. Can you tie these three sticks with the hardened stuff?"

          Adrion manipulates the water he creates to go through all the holes he made, then introduces the black fluid to harden it. As it solidifies, he tightens it as much as possible and ties it off. Harper positions more branches to cover 240 degrees around and leaves 120 degrees open to act as the entrance. "I'll get started on making the mud. Can you cover the outside with all these leaves? After that, place more of the larger branches atop the leaves so that it's three layers total of branch, leaves, and branch," Harper tells him.

          "Sure thing," Adrion replies. He grabs a bunch of the smaller branches with leaves and places them outside the tipi they just made. He finishes with that and the outmost layer of larger branches. He notices Harper filling in the trench with the mud she creates from dirt, water, pieces of rock she got from crushing the rounded rocks she collected, and some gravel from nearby. The final step is to place down the flat rocks along the inside and outside of the shelter. This helps provide more support at the base of the structure. They finish with five minutes to spare. Adrion and Harper fill up their bottles in the river and take a short break.

          Olev stands up and yells, "time is up! Now step away from your shelters." Everyone does so immediately. Olev looks up at the tallest tree nearby, "Time for my assistant to come down and help out!" Everyone looks up at the tree, confused. After a bit, they see someone climbing down the tree swiftly and acrobatically. A woman with short cyan hair lands at the base of the tree and approaches stations one and two. Olev meets up with her. "We're going to test out the strength of your shelters now. My assistant Jelena will output a gust of twenty knots to see how strong your shelters are. I will then confirm if it's made of magic or not."

          They start at station one with Jelena creating a gust of wind. "Very good," Olev says. He extends his arm out, "great shelter." They proceed to test station two. "Another great shelter," Olev announces. Station three and four pass with ease. Olev and Jelena approach five and six. When Jelena sends her gust on five, it shakes more than desired but doesn't fall apart. "This shelter just barely passes," Olev states. They turn to six, and it passes the gust test. Once Olev extends his arm out, the structure completely falls apart.

          Team six is shocked, "what did you do to our shelter?"

          "I nullified the magic. You're expelled," Olev says with a grin. "Looks like team five moves on without having to fight since their opponents failed," he says and continues with the tests. While testing the next fifty-eight shelters, nineteen more teams fail. Some from using magic and most from having their shelter blown away from the wind. The two approach station sixty-five, Adrion and Harper's team. When Jelena sends out her gust, the leaves flutter, but everything stays intact. "Nice rigid shelter that blends with its surrounding. I'd use this myself," Olev claims. Harper looks so relieved and happy. Olev then extends his hand out and puts it back down. "That's a pass." The last team also passes without any issue. Adrion is still confused as to how the crystals weren't nullified. "All of those who failed will not be expelled just yet. Since building a shelter is not a test of your strength, you'll have one last chance to redeem yourselves. Yaketsuku's team will determine if you can continue or get expelled. Although, those who failed from using magic in their builds… You won't have a second chance. You are hereby expelled for deliberately disobeying my orders."

          Jelena takes the twenty teams of students who failed and guides them back to the mountain's base, where some will have one last chance to keep going. The teams that no longer have opponents stand to the side since they pass by default. "Now, time to test how capable you guys are at defending an objective. At the count of three, you will immediately attack your opponent's shelter while defending your own and staying within the parameters of both stations. That means you can stay in your station or enter your opponent's station. The second your shelter breaks, you fail. Don't be scared, though. You will also have a chance to continue depending on Yaketsuku's evaluation," Olev announces. "One!" he starts counting. All the teams swiftly rush to the front of their shelter and get ready to attack. "Two!" Olev continues.

          "I'm going to do all the defending," Adrion says.

          "Huh?" Harper replies nervously.

          "Threeee!" Olev shouts.

          "You'll do fine since we've been doing that training back in the dormitory," Adrion says.

          All the students instantly attack their opponents. Adrion and Harper feel a chill in the air. A white frost blinds both of them, an attack made by Reva. Adrion quickly circulates water in the shape of a propeller and hardens it while rotating it. The air fans out, making it easier to see. Harper, who is further ahead, notices ten sharpened red crystals flying their way. She manages to punch and demolish the two close to her, but the rest fly past her. Reva confronts Harper before she can turn around to see if the other crystals hit their shelter. Adrion takes note of the remaining eight crystals and creates hydrogen peroxide to mix with the black fluid. He manipulates the non-Newtonian fluid to counter the incoming crystals. Once the force of the incoming crystals is absorbed into the fluid, the crystals drip down through the fluid and fall to the ground. Harper is engaged in a fistfight with Reva and doesn't seem to be doing too good. Reva is creating an area of frost affecting Harper's movement. Yardena uses her telekinesis to move the crystals that Adrion stopped while Nyoko creates more crystals to attack with.

          "There's no way you'll be able to counter all of these," Nyoko states as she launches her crystals.

          Adrion brakes apart the black non-Newtonian fluid into eighteen small discs with a three-centimeter diameter and one-centimeter thickness. He positions the discs to counter the crystals. He has no idea if this will work since the fluid's mass is much smaller than the incoming crystals. Once the red crystals hit the discs, they continue hurling forward. The black discs remained at the tip of the sharp end, meaning they weren't entirely useless. The crystals slow in the air and eventually fall to the ground. Adrion is relieved that it worked, then maneuvers the discs back to him. While the discs fly back to him, Adrion creates a massive current of water to push back Nyoko and Yardena, who are trying to rush him. At the same time, Reva delivers two powerful blows to Harper, causing her to fall back. Reva turns around and uses her frost magic to freeze the wave of water. Nyoko creates a sharpened crystal to chip away and breaks free from the ice. She does the same to free Yardena. Nyoko rushes Adrion again, with Yardena and Reva about to join her shortly.

          "I'm not done with you!" Harper shouts.

          Reva turns around only to have her face clobbered by Harper's fist. Harper punches her again, launching Reva onto the ice. Yardena turns around and decides to attack Harper with some of the broken ice around. Her telekinesis raises some ice shards, and she flings them to Harper. Harper blocks her face to brace for impact, but nothing seems to happen. She peeks over her arm, wondering why the ice hasn't hit.

          "Huh?" Harper says in confusion, seeing the ice shards levitating just before her. She glances at Yardena, who looks like she's trying to move the ice shards forward but can't. Reva stands up and faces Harper, pissed about the earlier punches. She dashes on the ice to resume her fist fight with Harper.

          "Just because you freeze my water doesn't mean I lose control over it," Adrion mumbles.

           Reva just barely manages to overhear him and turns back to see Adrion. She hears the ice cracking and quickly turns her head back to face forward. Reva tries to come to an immediate stop, but it is too late. Her whole body crashes against an ice wall that Adrion raised from the ice on the ground. Reva falls back, stunned by the slam. The ice shards that Yardena was manipulating fly back at her, hitting her in the shoulders. Harper closes the gap between them and unleashes a fury of blows. Nyoko also closes the gap between her and Adrion, fighting each other in hand-to-hand combat.

          Reva turns around and pushes herself up. She shakes her head slightly to try and stabilize herself. She notices Adrion distracted by Nyoko and decides to make a surprise attack. Reva conjures a dozen large icicle spikes and launches them at the shelter. Nyoko also creates crystals to simultaneously attack the shelter and Adrion, but Adrion surrounds the shelter in hydrogen peroxide. He adds the black discs from before to create a shield. With all the energy building up in Adrion, he decides to release it on the crystals coming his way by punching them. Nyoko closes her eyes from all the small crystal shards in the air, and Adrion hits her with a water whip to push her back. Once the attacks hit the shield around the shelter, it created a massive sound from the fluid channeling all the force outward and stopping the attacks.

          Reva joins Yardena to gang up on Harper. Once Reva joins the fight, Harper goes on the offense and tries to block every hit. Reva coats her fist in ice and swings toward Harper's face while she is distracted from Yardena. Water immediately springs up from below and coats her fist. The water instantly freezes, and once it does, it pushes back on her fist, preventing Reva from punching Harper. She looks back at Adrion and still sees him in combat with Nyoko. As they fight each other, Nyoko creates crystals and launches them toward the shelter. Meanwhile, Adrion is countering the crystals with his black fluid.

          "How to hell is he focused on three different things?" Reva says.

          "Reva watch out!" yells Yardena.

          Reva swiftly dodges Harper's fist. Reva moves her hands to grab hold of Harper's arm, but Harper swings her whole arm upwards and smacks Reva in the face. Reva balances herself, and once again, she tries to use an ice-covered fist to attack while Yardena manipulates some of the gravel nearby. As both attacks make their way toward Harper, a whirlpool of water is raised around Harper. The water freezes from Reva's fist making contact, and it stops the gravel. Harper uses her increased strength to punch through the ice and smacks Reva in the cheek, knocking her out.

          "Damn it," Nyoko says under her breath and tries to disengage combat with Adrion. Nyoko finds it difficult getting away as Adrion tries to capture her with his black fluid. Harper breaks out of the ice and runs for it, passing Yardena, and heading straight for the opponent's shelter. Nyoko launches a crystal at Harper, but the ice shards fling up to intersect the crystal. Once it falls short of the target, Yardena uses her magic to raise it and fling it to stop Harper. A bunch of ice shards begin to smack into Yardena, which causes her to lose focus, and the crystal is diverted away. Harper stomps on her last step and musters all her strength for her next attack. With a yell, she launches her fist at the enemy's shelter, which causes it to crack. The cracks spread out slowly at first but pick up speed until the crystals on the shelter eventually fell apart, causing the whole thing to break.

          Harper jumps up and yells, "YES!"

          Yardena and Nyoko fall to their knees since they lost. Adrion stops his attack and calls back the black fluid. Adrion actually seems pretty exhausted but tries to remain neutral.

          "And that's a wrap!" Olev shouts. "To all of those who pass, great job! You may take a short break and then continue scaling the mountain. All of those who failed, please follow me."

          Nyoko and Yardena go to wake Reva. She barely manages to wake up, so the other two girls help her. Some of the remaining blue coats start to congratulate Harper for doing good and beating Reva's team. It's easy to tell that Harper is not used to this kind of praise. Adrion walks up to her and tosses her water bottle. Harper barely caught it.

          "I knew you had it in you," Adrion tells her.

          Harper's eyes open up, then stares at the ground, almost looking depressed. "It wouldn't have been possible without your help," she says quietly. "Thank you for being my partner. You're something else. You know that?" Harper manages to force out a laugh, "hehe. To be engaged in a fistfight with another purple coat and still be able to protect our shelter and me. I hope I can be like that someday." She takes a drink of water and then walks to pick up her backpack. "We should probably get a move on." Adrion nods in agreement, picks up his bag, and follows Harper to the next location on their schedule.