The first chamber cluster was where things got complicated.
Not for Group Seven, specifically.
The first chamber cluster was complicated for everyone, which was the point — it was the trial's first genuine test of group coordination under pressure rather than sequential individual technique application.
Five connected chambers, inter-linking corridors, a construct population that was designed to respond to multiple groups operating in proximity by becoming progressively more aggressive as the ambient mana density in the cluster rose.
When we arrived at the cluster's entrance corridor, three other groups were already operating inside.
I could hear them — not their voices, the mana-field echo of their technique work, the ambient pulse of active combat at four distinct points inside the cluster.
The walls transmitted it the way the Foundation stone in the sub-level had transmitted mana current: faithfully, without interpretation, simply carrying what moved through it.
