After half a day in the green mist, Mel felt better than the previous days as he waited for dinner. He could pay attention to what was happening around him, and the first thing that caught his attention was that the First Ward members returning from the Near Circle did not have wooden bowls in front of them.
The same was true for the Twentieth Ward, who came after them, and it turned out that they could not collect enough Energy Crystals during weighing; they would starve until breakfast in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
It was clear why the Kapo of the Twentieth Ward had guaranteed that they would not be attacked again; if this failure continued for a few more days, the result would not be limited to just not getting food. He might have been the Kapo of the last ward, but even that was better than being an ordinary Far Circle disciple.
