Me and Gary were standing  in front of a large muscular man with a serious expression. Behind him was a huge metal gate wich would lead us to the program's dungeon.

"You are John Feuervogel and Gary Seifer, correct?"

"That's right."

"Correct."

"You have received permission to explore the first three floors of the dungeon. Here, a little of information."

The guard gave us a small sheet of paper with simple information about the three floors.

In the first floor the monsters there were all fo the Latent rank and had around one crest of magical power.

While the second floor had beast of the Latent Rank with two crests of magical power.

The Beasts of the third floor were of the same rank but with three crests of magical power.

Following the pattern, the beasts of the fourth floor should have four crests of magic power.

Each floor had a Boss, that would guard the stair to the next floor, and all of them were of the Awakened Rank.

So in the fourth floor they would have to fight a Awakened Rank Monster with eight crests?

That didn't sound that bad, with Gary's copy magic he would easily reach the nine crest magic power, we just needed information.

"We are going then."

"Is there anything we should know?" Gary asked

The guard, who was preparing to open the gate, paused as if contemplating wether to answer or not, he then continued his actions and completely opened the gate.

Thinking that he wouldn't respond we decided to go in, but as soon as we passed by him.

"Watch your back, the real monsters wield swords instead of claws."

With those words the gate closed leaving us completely bewildered.

Watch our back? Whad did he mean by real monsters?

Was he implying that the real threats on the dungeon was not the monsters but our colleagues.

But why? Both of us are trying to survive in this hellish place, why would we attack each other?

"We should ignore his words for now, there other issues at hand." Gary said.

"What do you mean?"

As if answer my question a strange sound came from down the dark corridor we were in. It was unrecognizable and the closest thing to it was screeching.

I conjured a flame and send it forward in order to illuminate the corridor.

Soon several beasts were revealed, their hideous appearences directed at us. They were similar to lizzards with the size of a cat, however the most repugnant thing about there apearence was their mouth, they had three jaws and two tongues, one in each lower jaw. Their scales were of deep redish brown color.

My face contorted in disgust. Just what hell are the things.

"Focus, John. Disregard their appearence and study their weapons."

Hearing Gary, I composed myself.

I extend my arms and let the mana from my core flow through my channels before reaching my hands. Feeling a faint connection with the fire ball I made, I fed it the mana that just reached my hands.

The flame became bigger and with a flicker of my finger it shot several smaller fire balls at the lizards.

While training with Gary I came up with a new method to fight, instead of conjuring several flames over and over again, I opted to feed more mana to an already existant spell and then change it's form my intentions and leaving an small amount of flames to be reused later on.

For example, the flame that I first used to illuminate the corridor changed form to attack the lizard with smaller versions of itself before going back to the original form to continue to illuminate the place.

Most of the lizards died easily, because they didn't had time to reinforce their bodies with mana. Gary finished the rest of with a swift sword play.

"We should continue on our way."

"Yeah"

We continued walking, the dungeon reminded me of some kind of labyrinth with various twist and turns, without forgetting the dead ends.

The lizards were the only living thing we encountered on our exploration. No other beast and none of our colleagues.

"It's your turn Gary."

Copying my rune he conjured a fireball to light up the surrounding while I let my flames die out and concentrated in recovering my mana.

Up until now our exploration was not conclusive at all. The only thing we learned was about those lizards, their behaviours and magic abilities, and that knowledge was limited taking in acount the time we spent in the dungeon.

"Should we head out and think on a better aproach to explore the dungeon?" I proposed.

"No. We should stay an entire day."

"Huh? Why?"

"We will have no time limit for the completion of the exam in six months, in other words we can spend several days camping amidst a hostile environment. I want to get a gist of that experience in other to not to panic during the exam."

"I see, but we don't have any food."

"Well we already have water, if I had to guess to around five days as for food."

He paused and accelereted his steps and I followed behind him.

It was then that I started hearing a strange screeching sound again. Hearing that sound I finally realized what Gary is thinking.

Soon we arrived near a group of hideous lizards.

Without wasting any time, Gary activated all of his runes and reinforced his body.

An aura made of green, purple and red colors eveloped his body and he shot forward at a great speed.

His body was then coated in lightning and his sword was covered in flames.

Seifer Ceremonial Dance; First Song : River of Steel

Gary movements resembled the pathway of a river. That was the ceremonial dance of Gary's family that was composed of five songs. However I have only saw, Gary use the first song of the dance.

Looking at the scene in front of me I couldn't help but think that the name should be changed, after all, what was in front of me was not a river of steel, but a river of flames.

I looked at the corpses of the lizards. Altough they only had one crest of magical power they still had numbers, a lot of them.

But did numbers really matter that much? I guess my common sense is changing because of Gary.

They were twenty five lizard corpses.

"Was hunting such a large group really necessary?"

Gary looked at me for a while before answering.

"I don't know you but the quantity that I ate everyday since I got here was too little, but now I'm finally gona have a proper meal."

Was Gary perhaps,a gluton?

There's no way, right?

He picked up the remains of the lizards and piled them up in a mountain of corpses.

"We should cook them."

"I will prepare the fire then."

I reinforced my arm with mana and punched the ground a couple of times forming a small crater witch I imediatelly after filled with fire.

Meanwhile, Gary was dismantling the biggest lizzard of the bunch.

He then used the lizard's bones to create a place to cook the meat.

We then started cooking the lizard meat that smelled as disgusting as their appearence.

It took me a while to build up the courage to eat it, but I eventually ate it.

Whe then stood silent, illuminated by the light of the fire.

"The words of the gatekeeper are still on my mind." I confessed.

"There is no need to dwindle on his words. These people are not to be trusted, John."

I frowned slightly, I am young, I am barely classified as a child and not a baby. But the look of that man, he seemed different from the instructors.

"I just think we should keep the possibility of being attacked by the other participants."

"I do not trust that man."

I lowered my head feeling a little degected at Gary's words.

"But."

I looked at him again, finding a small smile and a warm look in his eyes.

"I trust you, John. In this place, you are the only one I can trust, I'm sure of it."

I was a little taken aback by his words and hid my face with my knees.

"Being the only one I trust, it also means I don't trust my fellow colleagues."

He walked over to me and place his hands on my shoulders.

"Trust your back to me, friend."