A couple of hours had passed since team selection. By now, many freshmen had dropped off their stuff in their dorms and met with their team members to discuss basic strategy. Viviana’s team was no exception. During this strategy meeting, each of the team members had told each other their abilities and their statuses. Given that most people entering the academy did not have any kills under their belt, everyone was almost guaranteed to be level one.

  Viviana had quite a few kills, but she remained level one regardless. She would need to perform a ‘feat’ in the eyes of the system in order to level up.

  The gsses-wearing scrawny guy, who Viviana learned was named Thomas, had a common strength enhancement ability called [strike] that allowed his next attack to hit harder. Bena, the timid-looking short girl, turned out to have a useful scouting ability that increased her perception tenfold. Bena didn’t disclose the name of the ability, but Viviana thought it was a better version of [scout]. Perhaps an uncommon or rare variant.

  Honestly, better abilities than what she expected. Bena especially. As long as she was using her skill, she was nearly omnipresent. Viviana could make this work.

  After the strategy meeting, Viviana and her team made it to the entrance of terrarium four. Viviana stared up at the massive dome that seemed to reach into the clouds. A far cry from the height of the walls that surrounded central, which seemed to stretch endlessly into the heavens, but it was still something worthy of being called a mega structure.

  Humanity had engineered these giant domes, interweaving both system-granted and modern materials, trapping entire dungeons and environments within. All so the students of the academy could get a little stronger. All to make soldiers for the guilds.

  She tore her eyes away from the marvel and instead looked for Lucian’s team. If there was one thing Viviana could do to increase her odds significantly, it’d be now.

  There. She had found him. She quickly jogged over, leaving Bena and Thomas waiting at the entrance.

  “Lucian, let’s team up.”

  Lucian blinked. “Are you sure? I mean, what changed from st time?”

  Viviana had denied Lucian before. She was sorely regretting it now. “My team is weak. Usable, but cks fighting power.”

  “Well,” Lucian said. “I get that I asked you st time, but now, what’s in it for me? Your team looks a lot weaker than ours. 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. What’s to say we won’t just betray you guys, and take your fg for us?”

  “Simple. It’s because we’re the only team that you can trust. We’re the weakest team, composed of only unwanted members. That means we’re unable to betray you, unlike the rest of the teams present. And of course, every extra member helping would be a huge asset, even if we’re the weakest. I trust you know how good numerical superiority is regardless of the quality of those numbers.”

  “That’s decently convincing,” Lucian says. “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 ambush 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.”

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

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

  “They agreed,” he said. “We’ll work together.”

  Again he stuck out his hand. Viviana didn’t do anything st time, not knowing what the proper response was, but in the brief moments before they had arrived she had looked up what that was on the web. He wants a ‘handshake’. A form of agreement, a contract between parties. I’ve never done it myself.

  Firm grip, right?

  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. Viviana frowned and let go. Did I do something wrong? Maybe I looked up the wrong thing? Well, whatever.

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

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

  …

  After being introduced to the rest of Lucian’s team, the teams began sharing abilities with each other. Bena introduced her scout skill. Thomas mentioned he had [strike]. Lucian had the same skill as Thomas’s, and the two others consisted of [dash], and [scout].

  Then it was Viviana’s turn.

  “My ability is called [lightning trap]. I can pce a lightning sigil on any object close enough to me, like this–” Viviana said, pcing a hand on the ground, creating a yellow lightning-bolt-shaped 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 certainly 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.”

  It’s three, but they don’t need to know that.

  “Step back a little?” Viviana asked, and everyone took a couple steps back. Not that far, Viviana thought.

  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.

  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.

  “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. It’s not like teaming up is official. Chances are we’ll be forced to fight each other if we make it to the end.”

  Because I want you to trust me. Because it’s easier if I betray you once we make it to the end, rather than the other way around.

  “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 speak some more, but Viviana caught movement in the corner of her eye. Other soulbound 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 the student 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 started scrambling for the front. A big map was projected on a holoscreen at the front of the gate, dispying the options possible, belled 1 through 33. Each starting location was pced in a ring around the circur 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 fg, 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.

  Then, each team was loaded into an armored vehicle, transported to their starting locations across the thirty kilometer span that was terrarium four.

  The first they noticed inside their vehicles were three combat jumpsuits. One for each member of the team. Viviana noticed that they were simir 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 gss.

  After what felt like an eternity the 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. “We’re alright. If we’re alright, we should quickly meet up with Lucian’s team. You’re holding the fg?”

  “Yeah,” Thomas says, pushing his gsses up. Viviana could see that he was shaking. He was nervous. “We’ve got our first point.”

  Technically, we didn’t get any points. At any point another team could take the fg and cim 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, pcing her hands on her hips and then performing a big stretch. “Why so nervous, Thomas? It’s just orientation!”

  “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 bck, 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.”