Arena 7 was a pit.

  Not metaphorically - though that worked too - but architecturally. The Proving Grounds simulation arenas were sunken into the earth, ringed by tiered observation galleries that let instructors and fellow students watch from above. The floor was mana-reactive stone - a specially treated surface that could be reshaped by the hardlight projection systems to simulate different terrain types. Right now it was configured as a rough cave environment: uneven ground, low ceiling projections, scattered boulder formations that glowed faintly at their edges where the hardlight didn't quite achieve opacity.

  It looked like a dungeon. It was meant to.

  Jace stood at the arena's entry ramp with Mara, Torrin, and Elara and tried to remember how to breathe. Around the observation gallery, the rest of the sophomore combat practicum class was settling in - forty-odd students in their training uniforms, most of them already organized into party formations, watching the arena floor with expressions ranging from eager to bored. At the gallery's center, standing with his arms crossed and his prosthetic arm catching the light, Instructor Thresh waited.

  "Today's exercise is straightforward," Thresh said. His voice didn't need amplification - it was built for open spaces and bad conditions, a voice that had given orders over the roar of dungeon fauna and the crack of collapsing architecture. "Goblin nest. Low-tier simulation. Five hostiles, basic melee, no ranged, no casters. Your objective is to clear the nest and secure the resource node at the rear of the cave. You will be evaluated on efficiency, coordination, and survival." A pause that carried the weight of a decade's worth of watching students die in real dungeons. "Simulated injuries still hurt. The hardlight constructs will not kill you, but they will put you on the ground if you let them. The infirmary is standing by. Try not to need it."

  He consulted a roster. "First team. Ashworth, Kael. Denning, Sera. Okafor, Brin. Vasquez, Tomas."

  Kael's team descended into the arena with the coordinated ease of a unit that had already drilled together. Which, Jace realized, they probably had - privately, in the Ashworth family training facilities, with instructors who cost more per hour than Jace's mother made in a week. They took positions at the cave entrance in textbook formation: Brin Okafor - a [Sentinel], Tank - at the front with a hardlight practice shield. Kael flanking right, fire already licking at his fingertips, the heat visible even from the gallery. Tomas Vasquez - [Evoker], ranged DPS - at the rear with a practice staff. Sera Denning - she'd gotten [Skirmisher] at the ceremony - on the left flank with a practice blade.

  No healer. They didn't think they'd need one.

  Thresh activated the simulation. The hardlight goblins materialized from the cave shadows - squat, green-skinned constructs with crude weapons, moving with the jerky, aggressive patterns of real dungeon goblins minus the smell. Five of them, as promised, charging from different angles.

  Kael's team dismantled them in forty-three seconds.

  It was clinical. Brin tanked the first two - shield up, body angled, taunt rolling off him in a wave of pressure that locked the goblins' aggression onto his position. Kael flanked, fire wreathing his hands as he moved with the fluid, dancing footwork his class was named for, and two goblins dropped to precision flame strikes that cauterized the air. Tomas dropped the fifth with a force bolt from range before it could close on Sera, who'd been positioning for a backstab she didn't end up needing.

  Clean. Fast. Professional. The gallery applauded.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Thresh's expression didn't change. He marked something on his evaluation slate and called the next team.

  Three more teams cycled through. Each followed the same general pattern - Tank absorbs, DPS kills, Controller zones, Healer sustains if present. The simulation times varied from forty seconds to just over two minutes, depending on coordination. Every team succeeded. The exercise was designed to be passable. The goblins were Level 1 hardlight constructs with predictable attack patterns and no tactical intelligence. This wasn't a test of power. It was a baseline - establishing what a functioning party looked like so the rest of the year could build on it.

  "Miller. Osei. Blackforge. Voss."

  Jace's stomach dropped. Not because he didn't expect it - they were the only unaffiliated group left, the remainders after every other party had been assembled from willing participants. But hearing the names called, in Thresh's flat military cadence, made it real in a way that the Mess Hall conversation hadn't.

  They descended the ramp.

  The arena floor was harder than it looked - the mana-reactive stone had a texture like rough sandstone, solid underfoot but uneven enough to demand attention. The simulated cave stretched ahead, its hardlight ceiling creating a claustrophobic compression of space that Jace's body registered as *danger* even though his brain knew it was artificial. The mana-lamp equivalents flickered at the edges - intentional, simulating the unreliable light conditions of a real dungeon.

  "Formation?" Torrin asked. His voice was quiet, for him. He'd picked up a practice maul from the weapon rack - a heavy hardlight construct that weighed and balanced like real steel. It looked like a toy in his hands.

  "Standard?" Mara suggested. She had no weapon. Healers didn't carry them, typically. Her hands were flexing at her sides, opening and closing in a rhythm that Jace recognized as anxiety because he'd watched her do it through all of lunch. "Torrin in front, Jace and Elara flanking, I stay back and-"

  "And what?" Jace asked. Not unkindly. But the question mattered. "If someone gets hurt, can you heal them?"

  Mara's face went tight. "I can - the spells are - I know the theory. The mana patterns for basic restoration are-"

  "If there's blood."

  She didn't answer. Her hands kept flexing.

  "It's fine," Jace said, because it had to be. "Stay back. Keep eyes on all of us. If someone goes down, tell us - even if you can't fix it, the information matters. Elara?"

  Elara was standing very still, holding nothing. She had declined a weapon from the rack, which was technically her right - [Scribe] didn't have weapon proficiencies, and swinging something she couldn't use would cost her SP she couldn't spare for zero effective result. Instead, she was studying the cave simulation with narrow eyes.

  "Five goblins," she said. "The previous simulations placed two in the forward cave section, two in the mid-section flanking the primary path, and one guarding the resource node. The pattern is consistent. The terrain channels movement toward the center, creating a natural chokepoint at-" she pointed "-that rock formation. The flanking pair will engage from behind it once the forward pair draws attention."

  "Good. Torrin, can you hold that chokepoint?"

  Torrin looked at the rock formation. It was narrow - maybe two meters across. "Won't need to move?"

  "That's the idea."

  "Then I hold it."

  "Jace," Elara said, and her voice had the particular edge of someone delivering news they wished they didn't have to. "You understand that you are the only member of this group with both a combat-applicable class and the physical ability to engage. You are functionally our entire damage output."

  "Yeah." He'd already done the math. Torrin could hit, but couldn't chase - any goblin smart enough to avoid the chokepoint would circle around him. Elara had no combat skills. Mara had no offensive capability. That left Jace, with his practice sword and his eight points of Strength and his resource pools that would evaporate the moment he started swinging.

  "I'll handle it."

  Thresh's voice from above: "Begin."