The cold air bit into his skin, so sharp it felt like it froze his very hair. Silva's eyes flickered open. He stood at the peak of a snowy mountain, the world drowned in white. Below him, only endless clouds stretched, hiding the abyss that was beneath the peak.
He clicked his tongue and muttered, "Damn… this is a really bad place to start."
The exam had no fixed enemy, no set opponent, no clear task. It was simple in theory: survive, adapt, fight monsters, solve whatever trials appeared, all while the Arcane Council registered his score.
But there was nothing simple about this place.
He didn't know if this was truly reality or some twisted illusion, but it felt real, brutally real. The cold was relentless, the kind that gnawed at bone. If not for the heat coiled deep inside him, the mark of the Dark Dragon, he would have frozen solid by now. He could tell the temperature here was easily a hundred times below zero.
