The remaining three on the Capture The Flag didn't express any strong dissatisfaction with Cæ. They also had a less domineering presence that didn't stand out and draw as much attention.

"My name is Cæ." He told them in a calm tone. "I will be part of the team in the event that I lose to Virlyd in our final battle. I may not end up working with you, but I look forward to practicing with you nonetheless."

It was perhaps the most friendly introduction that he had ever given to a person in his entire life. He was eager to build a good repertoire with his fellow teammates. It wasn't because he was eager to make new friends and broaden his social life; it was because he wanted to maximize his teamwork to bring out the very best performance that he was able to.

"Pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Cæ," a younger boy with neatly combed dark blue hair nervously replied. "I-I'm a big fan of you! I bet on you for the final round of the combat selection process!"

His feet were squarely jointed beneath him, while his clothes were neatly ironed. The shirt beneath his vest was buttoned up to his neck, something most students didn't do because of how suffocating it was.

"You didn't tell me your name," Cæ reminded him.

"A-Ah, how silly! My name is Lorden Adanbami."

Cæ's face remained perfectly unchanged as the name rang a bell in his head.

One that he had seen before in relation to Trinity Housings.

It was the family that ran the Adanbami Mining Corporation in North Elendir in the Mohendar Mine. Trinity Housings had several partnership contracts with the company for the supply of raw materials to manufacture the Haven units.

While it wasn't the largest player in the market, it was certainly a respectable supplier and had a decent market share of the mining industry.

In comparison to his lofty background, Lorden didn't have much of a presence at all. His shoulders were slumped, while his back was a little crouched.

His expression was nervous while his dark orange eyes shot about nervously, unable to maintain contact with Cæ. The kid reminded him of Seliphaz in many ways, although she had certainly changed in more than a year since he had met her. Continuous contact with Cæ and Feidin, along with speaking with workers, many of whom were former members of the slums, had eventually acclimatized her to human presence, allowing her to behave more naturally as long as she wasn't in a stressful social situation.

"Well," Cæ's attention returned to the present. "Good to meet you, Mr. Adanbami."

"A-Ah, please, just call me Lorden!"

"Will do."

Cæ turned to the older girl standing beside him.

"And who might you be?"

She gazed at him with a blank stare, devoid of any emotion, before simply performing a small curtsy, a gesture that Cæ had only seen between the affluent kids in the magicademy.

"My name is Lyarna," she greeted him formally. "I am the heir of the Vilana Family. I look forward to working with you."

She didn't display any disdain or admiration for him if she harbored any of either, keeping her expression neutral. That, along with her dark brown hair and eyes, made her entirely unreadable to him.

"And you…" Cæ turned towards the final of the eight members of the Capture The Flag team.

He had light blue hair and dark gray eyes, with a frosty disposition. He simply folded his arms, gazing at Cæ with knitted eyebrows.

"You're Hyoken Sirura, aren't you?" Cæ studied him closely. "I recall seeing your performance in the first block in the combat tournament. You were a formidable mage."

The young man's expression softened as he acknowledged Cæ with a simple nod.

"Thanks."

Cæ's gaze swept across the nine members that formed the Capture The Flag team.

Miranda Walyn, Serulia Vritra, Kyrell Singe, Dranst, Seol Gordnt, Silian Sylvester, Lorden Adanbami, Lyarna Vilana, and Hyoken Sirura.

Together with him, it formed the nine-member Capture The Flag team. He wasn't familiar with the magic prowess of all of them, but given that they had managed to pass the selection process that the Student Council had implemented, it was proof enough that they were worthy of being chosen in the program.

However, they weren't the only ones in the training facility.

There were also the other ten mages in the room, each of them adults and considerably older, donning a training uniform with the crest of the Elendir Institute of Magic.

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They were the training team that was in charge of training the ten of them to make sure that they were perfectly ready to win by the time the Magic Contest actually rolled up.

"Mr. Cæ." The leader of the team stepped up. "My name is Sorwel. I will be the lead trainer for your Capture The Flag training."

He was an older man in his fifties with a short, yet crisp salt-pepper beard and a neatly groomed head of hair. Cæ could almost instantly tell that he was a senior mage through pure intuition. He had an air of power about him that was heavy and solid, to the point that Cæ was certain that not even Virlyd would have been able to hold a candle against him.

"We have been informed of the situation," he continued with a calm tone. "Although it will be difficult, we will put all members through roughly two training regimes. One involving yourself and the other involving Virlyd Mir. The latter is exactly what we had just completed fifteen minutes ago."

"I understand," Cæ replied with a nod. "Let us begin training without any further ado."

He shook his head. "We won't be training immediately today. Just as we have done with Virlyd, we will have to first figure out a tentative new team structure with you in the picture, which we will then begin testing, training, and refining over the year. I presume that you are aware of the rules of Capture The Flag?"

Cæ nodded. "Two teams operate in a field that is divided into two halves, known as territories, each belonging to a team. Each team has a flag that they can place anywhere they want within their territory. The objective of each team is to capture the flag of their opponents and bring it to their base, the location where they plant their flag. In the magic variant of it, players may engage in any measures to get their opponents' flag, including conflict. It is part of the game."

It possessed the perfect balance of complexity and simplicity that made for an exciting match to behold when conducted properly. The biggest issue was that it required a large field to operate in, and the magical variant required mages, which only constituted a small part of the population.

Of course, the sport was popular enough that there were magic sports centered around it, with mages dedicating their lives to it.

"Correct," the leader nodded with an approving expression. "There are other rules and details, but we will cover them more systematically on another occasion. What I have already highlighted and what I will continue to emphasize over and over again is that Capture The Flag is a team sport. It's not a sport that is meant to have you shine as an individual. The biggest variable that impacts your probability of victory is not the quality of your individual members, but rather your teamwork."

Mr. Sorwel directed a pointed gaze at certain individuals.

"And, to remind you all once more, since Cæ wasn't here when I first said it, I am vested with the authority to make recommendations regarding the team and the member roster."

Several students stiffened a little.

"If I deem a student to be unsuited for this team, I can make that recommendation to the Student Council, and they will deliberate over it and potentially remove you from the team upon my recommendation."

His tone became a little stern.

"I'm not asking all of you to become friends, although that would be ideal. But I am asking all of you to put aside your personal feelings regarding each other and work together to grasp victory. Do I have your word that you will try your best?"

He received a half-hearted response from most of them.

"I said," his tone grew stronger. "Do I have your word?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good." His expression softened a little. "For now, we must first go over the structure of the team and the purposes of each member. We also went over this briefly before with Virlyd, so I won't go too deeply into it. But to begin with…"

He began going through an overview of the game as Cæ began listening closely to everything he had to say, understanding and absorbing all the information that he conveyed.

Capture the Flag strategy involved offense and defense.

Capturing your opponent's flag.

Defending your flag from capture.

Capturing the opponent's flag involved locating first. After all, the field of the Capture The Flag event was never an open field. It involved forests, urban cities, rural towns, and even slum-like conditions. It could also have hilly, rock-like areas and even tunnel networks. The giant complex that would be used to host the Magic Contest contained each environment, and they didn't know nor could they choose which environment would serve as their field.

Thus, a flag could be hidden extremely well.

And, if done so, could become the basis of victory.

Thus, each capture the flag team needed players capable of divination, allowing them to find their opponents' base and flag.

Defensively, they also needed to have stealth magic experts who could hide their flag effectively as well, lest they make it too easy for their opponents to find. Thus, each team needed to have adequate amounts of stealth, divination, physical defense, and offense to ensure that they would win the battle.

"You might think that a strict division of labor is optimal, but that is not always the case," The captain continued. "It is best if each member can tap into at least a little bit into each of the four fields of Capture The Flag strategy. With that in mind, the members selected here have the necessary fields and mastery. With the current set-up that we have, here is how we will divide the team's responsibilities. We went over this once, but we will go over it briefly for Cæ's benefit."

One of the other trainers pulled out a rolling board with columns of lists of names.

"For the core defense, we have Serulia Vritra, Hyoken Sirura, Dranst, Seol Gordnt," The leader explained. "Hyoken will use his ice magic to freeze our team's flag under a solid amount of real ice, making it impossible for a sneak attack on it. Ideally, if there exists a water body, you place the flag in it and freeze the entire water body."

That was certainly a great way to leave the flag fixed to the ground, making it nigh impossible for the opponent team to possibly get their hands on it.

"Serulia, on the other hand," he turned towards her, "will use her illusion magic to hide the flag with her illusion magic, while creating a fake flag elsewhere, making it difficult for the enemy team to spot it very easily. Dranst is good at long-range magic and is a static fighter, so he, along with Kyrell Singe, will play the role of bodyguards. This is essentially our defensive set-up. We will have more people dedicated to defense in the absence of Virlyd, who was singlehandedly enough to cover the active defense by himself. And now for the offense…"

He turned to the rest of them.

"Offensive will comprise Silian Sylvester, Lorden Adanbami, Lyarna Vilana, Miranda Walyn, and Kyrell Singe. Lyarna is a wide-scale divination specialist, while Miranda's spirit magic will be useful in investigating anomalies with her spirits, which can turn invisible and feed her information from afar. Silian, Lorden, and Kyrell will lead the charge. And as for you…"

He gazed directly at Cæ.

"You will be neither defense nor offense exclusively."

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