Chapter 157: The Strange Campfire

The time passed quickly with the 2 roommates talking about whatever came to their minds, the moon already reaching its highest point and reminding them that midnight had long since passed.

"We’re doing very well so far." Magna said, watching the campfire still burning strongly outside through the doorway.

He had also checked the other huts not long ago and saw that all the boys were still in their huts, quite active too. They had probably decided not to sleep throughout the night either.

"To be honest, I don’t feel sleepy at all." Matrim said, bouncing an invisible ball around the room while practicing his 3-pointers.

He was afraid there would be some kind of external force that would force them to sleep at some point, but so far, there had been nothing like that.

Until Magna’s golden eyes caught something while he was looking outside.

The campfire, which had been burning normally so far, suddenly started turning slightly golden.

"Matrim, come here." He immediately called out.

Hearing the urgency in his voice, the boy immediately ran over to look where he was looking. "What happened?"

When he looked outside, he wasn’t able to see anything unusual.

To make sure he was the only one seeing it, Magna said, "Look at the campfire."

Just as he suspected, a confused expression appeared on Matrim’s face. "What am I supposed to see?"

In his eyes, the fire was burning completely normally, which meant that what Magna was seeing was indeed mana starting to blend with the fire.

"Nothing. I just thought the fire was getting bigger. It must have been my imagination." Not wanting to reveal his trait, he brushed it off.

"Nah, it still looks the same to me. Though I feel like the fire is strange." Matrim sounded uneasy as he returned to playing with the invisible ball.

He was even doing shadow training now, imagining an invisible opponent in front of him while he bounced the ball in his hands, trying to get past him.

He was quite good at it too. At one point, Magna watched him lose the ball and make a frustrated face after his imaginary opponent stole it from him.

While Matrim kept playing in his own world, Magna kept watching the fire, the golden light becoming more and more blended with the flames until all the fire was burning golden.

’Looks like something is about to happen.’ Magna braced himself and waited to see what it meant.

But he never got the chance to see what happened next. His mind clouded before he could even understand what was happening, and his eyes closed as his body collapsed where he stood.

—

The sun started to rise, its golden rays slowly driving away the coldness left behind by the night.

Magna was lying on the floor in front of the window inside the hut, sleeping with a peaceful expression on his face, when he suddenly opened his eyes.

"What?" He instantly got to his feet, looking around to understand what had happened.

The last thing he remembered was suddenly losing consciousness and all his senses, without even remembering his body hitting the ground.

There was a completely blank period in his consciousness from that moment until he opened his eyes.

He looked at where Matrim had last been playing and saw him in the same condition, lying on the floor and softly snoring.

He immediately went over to him and pushed him firmly. "Matrim, wake up."

The boy slowly opened his eyes after being pushed a few times, looking at the familiar face calling out to him.

Then his eyes suddenly widened when he saw the daylight coming in from outside. "Did I fall asleep?"

His mind was unable to explain what he had just gone through either.

"Yeah, looks like we suddenly lost consciousness." Magna helped him get up, and they decided to walk outside.

When they got out, the same scene as yesterday greeted them.

The extinguished campfire, with only smoke still rising from it, and the Drakon boy sitting motionlessly in front of it.

’Was he awake before me?’ Magna thought. The Drakon had definitely not been outside during the night, so that meant the answer was yes.

He was just curious about exactly how long ago he had woken up, but knowing he wouldn’t get an answer, he let it go.

They started waiting for the others to wake up again, and soon the hut doors started opening one after another, with the redheaded boy being the first one to come out again, looking flustered.

"HOW?" he suddenly shouted, coming outside and seeing the daylight, looking shocked.

His behavior seemed quite exaggerated in Magna’s eyes, since he had been acting like it was the end of the world both yesterday and today.

Then Magna remembered his words about how his mother would kill him if he failed, so he could somewhat understand his exaggerated reaction, thinking it might really be true.

Not long after, the last hut door opened, with the final 2 people coming outside, leaving only Master’s door closed.

"Did everyone suddenly lose consciousness?" One of the boys who had just come out asked with a frown.

Everyone had apparently been trying to stay awake throughout the night, so hearing that everyone had suddenly fallen asleep in the same way made it easy to understand that something had happened to force them to lose consciousness.

"Looks like there’s someone here casting a sleeping spell or something on us." The redheaded boy suddenly narrowed his eyes, looking around suspiciously.

The others also seemed to share the same idea, but Magna knew it wasn’t someone’s spell that had caused them to lose consciousness.

His eyes were on the extinguished campfire while he searched it, trying to see if there was any golden light coming from it.

He even took a long stick and started stirring the ashes, trying to see what was underneath, but stopped before finding anything when he heard a creak coming from Master’s hut.

Everyone immediately lowered their heads when they saw him, greeting him in unison, Magna included.

"What a shame." The old man muttered, dragging his skinny body toward the campfire.

He bent down again, picked up 2 stones, and struck them together to light the fire again.

He held his hands out like before and waited for a while to warm his body by the fire, then turned around and walked back to his hut without saying anything else, going inside and closing the door behind him.

The boys watched him with tense and curious expressions, looking relieved as this time Master had not said anything about failure.

"Looks like we are indeed in some kind of training." Matrim leaned over and whispered into Magna’s ear, looking quite relieved as well.

If what was expected from them was simply to find a way to endure whatever unknown reason had left them unconscious during the night, there would still be hope.

Magna also nodded while his eyes remained on the fire.

There was no golden light in it at the moment, but he was sure there had to be some kind of mechanism that caused it to activate at night.