The Adventurer Games were complicated.

  For the professionals, there was dueling, labyrinth racing, monster fighting, base capturing, and the talent showcase. The last one was where a skill or spell was given to all the participants and each one had to maximize the efficiency of said skill or spell. There were six grades of students and four Tiers of Adventurers that participated. There weren’t enough Tier Six Adventurers to change things up enough and the Gods hadn’t participated in the competition since the very beginning.

  For base capturing, the host city would build a number of labyrinths around the city. They would try to have a lot of different Dungeon biomes represented and sometimes would have more than one in a single field. Before it began, the teams were given a flag and within the first third of their section, they were allowed to place monster crystals that could be triggered by their teacher or for the professionals, a sponsor. First one to capture the other team’s flag won. If neither team captured the other one’s flag, then the team with the most surviving members won. If they had the same number of members, then it went into sudden death where the first team to lose a member, lost.

  While there were professionals who specialized in a specific type of event, the students were required to participate in all five, which was one of the reasons why the games lasted four months and there was a four month preliminary. There was a lot of preparation that went into the games and for first years, we had even more to get ready for.

  I rubbed my temples to try to soothe my headache. We’d still have almost a month of Trent, provided I didn’t get behind AND he recovered instantly. Neither of which I expected.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  I looked over at Gesai and shrugged. “I don’t have much of a choice.” I nodded at Trent. “I’m sure there are other Godlings who could mess with this. I mean, I have three more ‘siblings’ out there that I know of.” I let my shoulders sag. “But how many of them do you think Trent would trust?” I looked at Astrid. “I mean, I’m already going to have to explain this to her. Imagine if it was someone she hadn’t known for a few hours?”

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  I couldn’t help the chuckle. As I realized that the unconscious woman that I’d watched over for the last couple weeks had only known me for a couple of hours before she’d run off and tried to get herself killed in the underground arena so that we’d have to take her friend with us instead.

  I looked around the room. Minus Pixie, it felt like I’d known everyone here for my whole life even though I’d met them all within the last two months. My life was nothing like how I thought it’d be when I walked into the mantle ceremony.

  “Think fast!” Pixie threw an apple at my face. She doubled over laughing, then reached for another one.

  “I’m good.” I took a bite. My stomach still felt weird, but at least it wasn’t revolting.

  “You can’t eat only one apple today.” She reached for an orange. “Here you g…”

  Rix snatched the orange out of her hand.

  “HEY!” Pixie tried to grab it back, but Rix was peeling it as she dodged away from the other woman. “That was for big bro!”

  Rix tossed her the peel and popped one of the sections into her mouth.

  “UGH!” Pixie stomped back over to the bench and dropped the peel on the plate we were using for peels, cores, and seeds. “That was the last one too!”

  We’d been around her for a day and she had already gotten Rix to start messing with her. The golden woman didn’t do that to most of the members of our group. It’d taken me weeks before I’d really gotten her to talk to me.

  I couldn’t stop the huge smile on my face. I was so tired, I didn’t really want to.

  “What?” Ether looked between me and Pixie as she sat down next to me.

  I’d been concerned that it would be a major adjustment having Pixie with us, but it looked like things were going to work out.

  “Just enjoying a break.” Their antics had helped me forget about the pressures we had for a little bit. I turned back to Gesai. “What are your plans on how we’re going to spend the next three weeks here?”

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