Academy Hunting Grounds
The Academy Hunting Grounds stretch across three square kilometres of reclaimed Wilds on the city's eastern edge—too close to the rift sites for comfort, but land is scarce and cadets need to face real conditions. What used to be a residential district before the Rupture now serves as urban warfare training: collapsed apartment buildings provide vertical ambush points, overgrown parks have gone feral with wild vegetation, rusted vehicles create maze-like corridors, and cracked pavement buckles where Nature-element creatures have forced roots through concrete. Scarred earth marks where Assessment teams fought and died, rusted containment pens hide among the ruins when funding allows proper maintenance, and the whole area reeks of elemental residue, decay, and old blood. The Hunter Assessment's team coordination stage happens here, squads of four released into terrain that's only partially secured, hunting creatures that shelter in abandoned buildings and basement tunnels. Commander Vadim observes from a distance with guild scouts, but intervention means failure—students survive on their own or they don't. The Hunting Grounds prove a simple truth: the Assessment kills people, just fewer than the Wilds would.