"How long until it reaches us?"

  Raven closed his eyes and muttered a few things under his breath. "Ten minutes."

  "Shit," Jack frantically looked around, but was only able to see empty ocean. Shaking his head, he took a few calming breaths. "Ok, everyone! We don't have much time! Get into position and remember the plan!" The twelve of them immediately burst into action, grabbing the extra rope they brought along. They first firmly secured the rope to the mast of the mail sail before tying the rope to each other. Once they finished, they waited anxiously with their weapons ready, looking for any signs of movement in the water. "Raven, focus on keeping an eye on the elemental and leave the rest to us." Raven nodded and took a position at the center of the raft next to the main sail. Letting out a deep breath, Raven sat down and closed his eyes.

  "T minus eight minutes." A spear-wielding student thought she saw something and attacked the water in front of her. What she ended up killing was a giant piranha-like monster. With no time to spare, she threw the monster's corpse back into the ocean and returned to her position.

  "T minus seven minutes." Jack sliced the head off a dolphin-like monster that tried to ram him off the boat, while another pair of students had to fight off tentacles trying to grab them.

  "T minus six minutes." A swarm of more piranha-like monsters converged on the group, forcing one of the Spell slingers to focus on wiping them out before they could start eating away at the raft instead of maintaining the flow of wind to the sails, cutting down their speed significantly.

  "T minus five minutes."

  "AH!" A student was about to be tackled off the raft, only to be caught by the rope tied around his waist. Being pulled back by the others, he immediately went back to the offensive against the surrounding monsters.

  "Why are there so many monsters!" The octopus monster had their tentacles cut off before its two heads were crushed.

  "It has to be the elemental! It must have scared them out of their typical hunter grounds and chased them towards us!" A normal water element died when its core was cut into fine dust.

  "Less shouting, you two and more killing!" A strong lightning spell wiped out a large chunk of a school of monster fish, leaving only a third alive.

  "T minus four minutes." The other Spell slinger of the group was forced to stop what they were doing and help the others with a kraken-like monster trying to capsize them. Leaving only the natural wind and currents pushing the boat forward.

  "T minus three min-" Raven's eyes shot open, and he sprang up from where he was sitting. "Brace yourself! The large elemental is done playing around and is rushing straight towards us!" The other monsters must have felt it approaching because instead of continuing their attack, they immediately swam away.

  "Remember the plan!" Jack gritted his teeth as he struggled to steady himself despite the increasingly harsher waves rocking the raft.

  "Brace for impact! It's emerging from out of the water in front of us!" Upon hearing his warning, the two Spell slingers started downing potions while the others prepared ones of their own.

  -Crash-

  The students watched in shocked awe as the water in front of them began rising higher and higher, until it formed a vaguely humanoid silhouette with blowing dark blue eyes. Those menacing eyes glared down on them before the elemental raised its fist and brought it down on the group.

  "Now!" The two Spell slingers shot a sudden burst of air into the sails, resulting in the fist narrowly missing the raft. The heavy fist crashing into the water created a huge wave that rammed the raft forward. "Hold on tight and be ready on my signal!" While the two Spell slingers prepared their next spells, the physically strongest student held onto their rope, making sure they wouldn't get flung off the raft. The rest of them quickly took out potions as they clung to dear life to the raft or the rope tied around them. However, instead of pursuing the raft, the elemental sank back into the water.

  "What the? Where did it go?"

  "Is it gone?"

  "Shit! Don't say that, you're going to jinx us!" Suddenly, as if to prove him right, the students felt a low rumbling beneath them before the raft started rapidly rising. Before they knew it, all twelve of them were desperately clinging to anything they could as their raft got flipped over, and they were flung into the air.

  With one arm wrapped around and clutching the rope, Jack looked down to see the elemental staring up right at them. Jack desperately looked around him, his mind running a hundred miles an hour. It was when he glanced at the potion in his hand that it hit him. "Change of plans! Throw your potions down at it!" Jack immediately tossed what he was holding towards the towering monster below.

  "What!?"

  "Just do what he says!" Raven shouted while following Jack's lead. The rest of the students followed soon after. The elemental remained motionless below them, either not seeing or caring about their actions, as they waited for the student. The monster only showed any reaction when the potions impacted its body; however, by then, it was too late. The potions immediately exploded upon contact with the monster's Mana-dense body, setting a chain reaction of various effects that resulted in a thick shell of petrified ice encasing the portion of the elemental above the water.

  Seeing the modified plan working, the students started working on flipping back right up. "Wait! Angle the raft downwards instead of making it completely flat!" The students, trusting Raven's judgment, did just that, right in time to reach the trapped element and slide down their icy prison. Riding along the elemental's sinking body, they noticed large cracks start to form on the frozen ground all around them. "We have to hurry, we only have mere moments before the elemental breaks free from the ice! We have to get far enough away before that happens, or it will continue chasing us down!"

  Upon hearing his warnings, everyone sprang into action. The two Spell slingers put everything they had into casting a constant roaring torrent of wind into the sails. Three students took turns jumping off the raft, pushing it with all their might, before being pulled back on. Six of the students, including Jack, started throwing a barrage of Chill, Cold, Ice, and Stone potions at the frozen ground in front of the raft. Raven kept an eye on the elemental, keeping track of when it would break free from its icy prison while guiding the six students on where to best aim their potions at so the ground wouldn't break apart under the Raft as it slid over it.

  -RUMBLE! Crack!-

  Feeling the time they have left rapidly dwindle, the twelve students picked up the pace. The two Spell slingers alternated chugging Mana potions and using every last drop of Mana to maintain the torrent of wind to the sails. Three more students joined the others in jumping off the raft to push it forward, in the desperate hope of increasing their speed even if by a small margin. Raven continued keeping an eye out for the element while guiding the last three on where to throw their potions, ignoring the majority of the cracking ground in front of them in favour of ones that would immediately crumble away with any significant weight.

  Even when the raft entered the water once more with a loud splash, none of them paused for even a second. By now, only one Spell slinger was barely maintaining the torrent of wind; the other was hunched over, vomiting over the edge of the raft. The six students at the back stopped jumping off and instead started using various potions to create explosions that would push them forward. Raven stopped paying attention to the elemental and instead focused on helping the last three students deal with any stray monster that tried to get in their way.

  It was only when Raven felt like they were far enough away from the elemental that it wouldn't chase after them that he let himself finally relax. "We're good, you all can," Raven couldn't even finish what he was saying before the others on the raft collapsed. "Take a quick break now." The one Spell slinger immediately ran to the edge of the raft and started vomiting, while the other lay on his back with his eyes closed. Three students got out and started stuffing themselves with food. Jack got up and sat next to Raven, who was leaning against the main sail's mast. The last five students took this time to rest up while they could.

  -CRASH!-

  They all snapped their heads towards the sound of the crashing, just in time to see the elemental's frozen prison breaking apart into several pieces and falling into the water. They anxiously watched as the now free elemental stared at them for what felt like an eternity before dissolving back into the water. It was only after they didn't see any signs of movement in the water for a solid few minutes that they let themselves let out the breath they were holding in.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  -Breathing Mountain-

  "Are you all alright?" Elizabeth asked the party leader.

  "Yes, Ms. Fairborn." He answered with a slight bow of his head. "It's only thanks to you, Annabell, and Elison that we aren't disqualified from the test right now." He looked around at his party members, who, after a quick rest, started harvesting the ant-like monsters for any valuable materials.

  "I thought I said you can just call me by my name?"

  "Ah, sorry Mi-" Annabell let out a fake cough before her friend could finish. "As, yes, Ms. Elizabeth."

  "-Sigh- it will have to do. Well, I'm glad that none of you were injured too severely. However, can you tell me what happened? How can a swarm of this size manage to get this close to the base without being detected?"

  "Well, can I ask something first?" Elizabeth nodded. "How is the alarm set up? Like, under what circumstance does it go off?"

  "There are three layers of enchantments that are set to trigger the alarm. One can detect any large-scale movements around the base. Another detects any harm, be it magical or not, that occurs on the barrier. And the last detects any signs of large-scale Mana usage."

  "Hmm, well, from what you told me, I can only think of two explanations of how all these monsters could have gotten past the detection system. The first is that there is a nest close enough to the base where a small but steady stream of monsters can enter without triggering the first enchanment. My second theory is that these monsters normally hunt in large groups, divided into smaller ones, and that this area is near the monsters' original hunting grounds. Which, if true, means most likely we're near one of their naturally hunter grounds and that our digging must have attracted them towards us." Elizabeth gave each explanation some thought before nodding.

  "Both seem plausible, but it's hard to tell which one is the likely answer. Either way, no matter if it's due to one of those two reasons or another one, one thing is clear: the moment the monsters detected you guys, they must have immediately charged in to attack you, while leaving a pheromone trail that attracted the others."

  "Yeah, that sounds similar to what happened. When we initially spotted the monsters, we thought we would be able to handle them easily. However, no matter how many we would kill, more would just keep coming until we were completely overwhelmed."

  "I thought so," Elizabeth said, taking out a carving knife. "In that case, we need to quickly finish up and remove any trace of the pheromone trail before more of them get attracted to our location."

  "Wait, Mis-Ahem-. Ms. Elizabeth, there is no need for you to help; my party and I can handle the harvesting ourselves."

  "No, we need to remove the pheromone trail as soon as possible. I can't help with that, so you should gather some Spell slingers and deal with that issue."

  "Then how about you rest up instead? You must be tired from all that fighting, soon after your earlier scouting mission, so you should rest up and leave this to us." She shook her head.

  "I refuse to sit around and let others do all the work. If I can't help with the pheromone trail, I can at least make myself useful and harvest some of the monster corpses." The leader was about to argue some more, but after seeing Elizabeth's expression, he decided against it.

  "If you're sure. In that case, I'll let you do that while some others and I deal with the trail." The leader walked over to his party members to inform them of the plan. It wasn't long before the leader, Annabell and two other students headed down the tunnel, leaving the only non-spell caster of the party to help harvest the corpses. While the two of them worked on harvesting the monsters, Elison arrived back from her scouting.

  "Welcome back, Elison."

  "Thanks, Ms. Fairborn!" She took out her own knife and started helping the two. "Besides a few miscellaneous ones, there doesn't seem to be any more monsters in this area, nor back down in the tunnels."

  "Did you notice any signs of the ant-like monsters or any tunnels they could have made?" Elison shook her head. "I thought I had found something, but it ended up being a worm-like monster instead."

  "Are you ok? Were you harmed?"

  "Nope! Besides the disgusting slime covering its body, the monster was pretty easy to take down."

  "I see that's good to hear," Elizabeth replied with a slight smile. "How about the other monsters you encountered? Any chance they might have found the tunnel?"

  "Not likely. From what I've seen, they still don't know about the tunnel and are just prowling previously established hunting grounds."

  "Any that might pose a threat to us?" Elison gave Elizabeth a so-so gesture.

  "Eh, maybe? I didn't recognize most of the monsters, and the ones I did recognize aren't that strong."

  "We should be fine for now. We can always form a hunting group later once we return to the base."

  "Oooo, planning to join?"

  "I've been feeling a bit restless of late, so most likely."

  "In that case, I have to join as well!"

  "We'll discuss more about this as a group later." Elison nodded. "Did you notice anything else of note?"

  "Nope, that's all." As the trio continued their work, Elizabeth filled Elison in on what she missed while she was away on her mission. Once they finished harvesting anything of worth from the monster corpses, they then scattered the rest in various nearby caves. "Sorry to bother you, but can I ask you something, Ms. Fairborn?" Elisin hesitantly spoke up as they started making their way towards the others.

  "It's fine, Elison, you're not bothering me." She waved her concern away. "What are you curious about?"

  "It's about what you explained to me earlier. Is that really all the enchantments we have for surveillance? Wouldn't it have been better to have more?"

  "In more ideal circumstances, yes. Sadly, we have very little room to work with and must be selective with which enchantments we use."

  "Then why those three? Were they really the best that we could have chosen?"

  "Which enchantments are best greatly differ from one circumstance to another. There are several reasons why we chose the enhancements we did. First of all, do you know what kind of enchantment is typically used for security systems in Rifts?" Elison shook her head. "The most common kinds are the ones that can detect a specific variant of monsters. The reason for that is that normally, a Rift contains only a few types of monsters. So you can get away with having an enchantment that is dedicated to detecting, for example, only undead monsters."

  "That makes sense." Elison and the other student with the duo nodded along.

  "However, sadly, those enchantments aren't viable here due to the sheer number of different variants of monsters in this Rift. In this cave system alone, I've encountered three different variants of monsters, and that's not even taking into account the ones in the other areas of the mountain. With the usual go-to enchantment unviable, the other Enchanters and I had to figure out what other ones we could implement instead that could fit in the little area we had to work with. After extensive brainstorming, we selected three detection enhancements that we could carve into the cavern along with the nearby cave and surrounding tunnels."

  The trio were suddenly interrupted by an ambush of worm-like monsters. Elizon managed to take down two of the monsters by smashing them into pulp against the tunnel walls. The only guy in the group skewered three of the monsters with his spear before killing them by chopping off their heads. While Elizabeth quickly killed three with a few well-placed bullets before finishing off another one that Elison couldn't quite kill. Once all the monsters were dead, the trio looked over what was left of them before deciding they weren't worth harvesting and dumping their bodies into a nearby branch of the tunnel before moving on.

  "Uh, where was I?"

  "You were talking about how you and the other Enchamnters ended up selecting three detection enchantments."

  "Ah, thank you, Elison. Ahem, you asked why we chose the three enchantments we did?" Elison nodded. "Well, I'll just go through each enchantment one at a time. The first layer of enchantment detects any large-scale movements around the base. Now, why do you think we chose this one, instead of one that detects any movement?"

  "Hmm," Elsion chewed the inside of her mouth as she thought over the question. "Well, I'm guessing that something that inprecise would be too large to fit in the cavern?" Elizabeth nodded with a pleased smile.

  "That is one reason. Another reason is that an enchantment that detects general movement would never be able to fit in such a small space as the cavern. In fact, you would need an area that's roughly the size of every training field in the acadamy put together, and you would only be barely able to fit it in." Elison's mouth dropped while the male student looked at Elizabeth in disbelief.

  "R-really?"

  "Yup! A senior at the acadamy even told me how one of the final projects for third years involves working as a class to engrave an enchantment of that size." Elizabeth paused for a moment before shaking her head. "Sorry, I got sidetracked for a second. Ahem, the last reason why we chose an enchantment with a more limited scope is to avoid any false positives."

  "False positives? You mean like the alarm going off when it shouldn't?"

  "Correct. Despite how useful an enchantment that detects any signs of movement would be, by its nature, it's sensitive to what it's meant to look out for and tends to overreact. Usually, additional enhancements are added to resolve that kind of issue, but that would require more space, something we don't have. Of course, we could have always gone with a larger enchantment and added the supportive ones, but that would bring along its own set of problems."

  "Ahem, Ms.Fairborne, you're getting sidetracked again."

  "Ah, sorry. Well, to summarize. The reason we chose an enchantment that detects large-scale movements is that we have a limited number of people to defend with, and sending them out on a false alarm can result in grave consequences. And as for why we chose the other two. Hmm, I think I rambled long enough, so I'll try to make this quick. It should be clear why having an enchantment that detects when the barriers are damaged is important, so I don't think I need to provide any additional details. Lastly, stronger monsters, including Boss monsters, tend to have and use more mana than normal. So, having an enchantment that detects large-scale Mana usage is meant to warn us ahead of time if any such monster is approaching the base, so we can properly prepare. Sorry if my explanation is a bit long-winded, but did I at least go over your questions?"

  "It's totally fine, Ms.Fairborne, " Elison reassured her. "Some of what you said might have gone over my head, but I got the basic gist of it, and it did answer what I was curious about."

  "I'm glad to hear that." With the questions out of the way, the trio focused on quickly catching up to the others who had gone ahead. It was during this time that, when no one was looking, Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief and muttered a quiet 'Thank the gods, I didn't mess that up' under her breath. It wasn't long before the trio spotted the others surrounded by what looked to be more corpses of the same ant-like monsters. The trio rushed over, only to see that the fight was over and the others were already harvesting the bodies. "Is everyone ok? What happened here?" Elizabeth asked the party leader.

  "I think we need to gather everyone," he answered with a grimace before turning to look Elizabeth in the eyes. "We found a large monster nest, and it's near the base."