"Uwah...wh-what's wrong, Lulu?" The adult Cecil quickly asked.

"...y-you...You're not Cel!!!" Lucia screamed in response, tears were already welling up in her eyes threatening to fall down.

"W-what're you talking about?! Of course it's me! I'm Cecil Silvaria, your husband!"

Lucia smiled painfully at the adult Cecil's words. They were very sweet words to her and she wished that she could actually hear it come from the mouth of the REAL Cecil.

"This is just an illusion...you don't even smell like my Cel..." Lucia smiled sadly. Then her face twisted into rage.

"How dare you...taint my Cel like this..."

Lucia immediately reactivated her Elemental Burst. The crimson aura rose up around her.

She tried to pull out her s.h.i.+rayuki, but she noticed that it wasn't anywhere on her waist. She didn't have any of her weapons!

Lucia grew fl.u.s.tered and the adult Cecil approached her in a worry.

"L-Lulu, please calm down! What's this all about? How am I not, your Cel?"

"Sh-shut up! Don't talk to me! I won't be deceived!" Lucia yelled back.

Lucia began activating her bloodline's magic. She used a mind-tampering spell on herself and suddenly felt sick. Her head started to hurt unbearably.

"U-urgghhh...GAAAHHH!!"

This never happened before, but when she tried to stop the magic, it wouldn't stop and the pain started to hurt even more.

Lucia crumpled onto the ground and she suddenly felt wet, the pain receded and she quickly snapped her eyes open.

"!!!"

She woke up just outside of the Beginning Plaza's northern pathway with her body being dangled in the air inside the mouth of a...plant.

Lucia quickly activated her Elemental Burst.

"Get off of me!!!"

She shouted and by just using her aura she disintegrated the 'man-eating' plant that had her in its mouth.

"Argh...disgusting..."

Lucia landed, but she was drenched in a disgusting slimy liquid that smelled sweet. She took a short whiff and her mind began to turn hazy, but then she bit down on her tongue and woke up from the haziness.

"S-so I was really in an Illusion!"

The liquid that the plant had splattered on her body was what caused the illusion. Lucia used her aura to dry and clean off the illusion-inducing liquid from her body.

She looked a little sad when it was all indeed just an illusion. When will the day come when that beautiful and blissful illusion turn into reality?

"Haaahh...it'll take forever if I wait for that idiot..." Lucia sighed tiredly.

She quickly heard the groans of the others above her head.

Lucia quickly turned her eyes up and saw her other friends being dangled in the air. It wasn't only them, but practically everyone from the academies was up there inside the mouths of the disgusting man-eating illusion plants.

She frowned and pulled out her b.u.t.terfly. She wrapped aura around her blade and sent an Ascending Blade to the plants that held her friends captive.

She quickly cut them loose and blasted the plants away from her friends' bodies. She activated her Mind Magic and woke her friends up.

"O-ouch..."

"Aggh..."

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"Ih...Ow..."

Her friends began to open their eyes and groan in pain.

"Hey, get up every one! We have to go save the rest of our friends!"

Lucia began to notice that some of the students up above flas.h.i.+ng green and then disappearing. It meant that they failed and were about to die from the illusions.

Unless the partic.i.p.ant was directly killed, the administrator would still be able to save them and pull them out of the trial and send them outside.

As the flashes of green grew more numerous and the students began to disappear, Lucia quickly tried to cut down as many of the students from her academy as quickly as possible.

Some of the students she cut down would have disappeared when they landed on the ground. Many had failed during this part of the trials.

This part of the trials where it showed an illusion of what the affected person wanted the most was very scary.

Not just everyone could break free from the illusion like Lucia did using her own power. Even she wanted to just let things be and enjoy the blissful married life with Cecil in the illusion. It was what she wanted the most, but knowing that thickhead, it'd probably take a long, long time before the proposition of marriage even flash through his mind.

She wasn't sure what the illusions her friends had seen were, but many who had awoken from them had very sad, regretful or lost expressions.

If Lucia hadn't acted quickly enough, many from her academy would have obviously failed on this unexpected 2nd trial.

When Lucia and the rest were able to save 40 others from their academy, the other academy students began to open their eyes, some roared in anger while others simply began to cut down the surrounding plants and tried to save their friends.

"Quickly! Quickly cut the others down from those plants and separate them! This d.a.m.ned abominable trial!" The Beastman Academy Leader roared.

"Hurry! Cut your fellow students down from those plants!" Another Academy leader began ordering around her students.

The Academy Leaders had all awoken from their illusions and began cutting down and instructing the students from their academies to help out. If they didn't hurry, more and more of their students will fail the trials.

This was only the 2nd trial! They still had 3 more to go and they couldn't afford to lose so much just from this trial.

How could they hope of ever completing all 5 trials and getting the ultimate reward if half of them were eliminated just from the 2nd trial?

Zephyr was already getting busy, and with the early aid from the Little Kings, Arks Magic Academy was able to preserve many of their numbers. There were some unfortunate ones that despite being saved and separated from the illusion plants, they hadn't awoken from the illusions.

They were already too deep into the illusionary world and not long after, they disappeared in a flash of green light. They had been eliminated and taken out of the trial by the administrator.

"d.a.m.n!" Zephyr struck one of the trees in the surroundings with his fist. He looked at the pitiful amount of students left in his group.

Lucia looked around with a grimace and noticed that the other academies also hadn't fared so well. Lucia sighed tiredly and plopped down onto the ground.

After the second trial, the 480+ students were slashed down to only a little more than 250. Almost half of the students that pa.s.sed through the first trial had failed to get through the second trial.

"...Let's get going! This is obviously the 2nd trial! Since we've cleared it, we should immediately head to the 2nd Plaza! Who knows what'll happen if we linger here!" Zephyr shouted, quickly getting the attention of all the other academies.

"Yes...those illusion plants might come back and ensnare us once again." The Elven Academy Leader agreed with him and began rounding up the rest of the elves.

The Gigantes, Beastman, and Oceanic Academy Leaders silently agreed and began arranging their students. Once everyone was ready, they immediately set off in a hurry.

The atmosphere was downtrodden, whatever it was that everyone experienced today had brought them all to heaven and quickly sent them straight to h.e.l.l in the next moment.