Cursed Explorer of the Arcana

Using the same Skill over and over again without any stakes was pretty boring, especially when everyone else was free to show off and have fun. Realistically speaking I wasn’t restricted or anything and could’ve wielded all four of my elements to give everyone a real performance… except I didn’t, I’m not that irresponsible.

I don’t defy instructions just because I hate being told what I can and can’t do, I’m not that childish. Some people are… not necessarily smarter but more experienced than me which makes their words carry more weight in my eyes, especially if I find no fault in their orders. Sadly, quite often dumb people are the ones issuing the orders, that’s when Frans-type adventures happen.

The standard magic practice of ‘just cast spells’ didn’t pay off, so much so that after almost two hours I only gained a handful of levels in the four Skills I’m currently trying to max out. Thankfully Martha decided it was time to put our abilities to the test and do a little sparring, with actual magic and an actual opponent… which is a lot more interesting.

The elf boy I’m currently facing is much more fun to fling pebbles at than thin air or an innocent tree. Yes, I picked earth in the end as my go-to element for today because it can protect me, and dealing damage isn’t really our goal, hurting each other is a no-no. A little is acceptable though.

[Mage lvl 24]

Yeah, he’s higher level than me, he has more experience and a Class a step above mine. It sucks but it's not that he’s too strong, I’m too weak. His stats seem to be focused on Intelligence, that's what the big attacks thrown my way tell me anyway.

Picking earth turns out to be a brilliant move as I can just sit behind an earth wall I can rotate depending on where the attacks are coming from and let the poor dude exhaust his mana with almost no effort. Except I won’t because that sounds boring.

Water is not the best when trying to destroy something, except when it’s ice… or using the right pressure, something Savant told me and I doubt many people realize. Just imagine a water droplet hitting something really fast, then imagine the same thing happening like nine times every second and you have something that sounds pretty dangerous to me.

Anyway, I drop the one-sided hide-and-seek with only me hiding behind my cover, partly because it’s boring, and also because the water around me is starting to pool up. I smell a trap.

Since the volume I can control is fairly limited I launch part of my wall right at the elven boy while sprinting toward him with the rest of the earth held up like a normal shield. Earth can protect well and hit pretty hard however earth magic lacks subtlety and trickery so my attack is just as difficult to dodge as a heavy snowfall the size of a dog. After the boy rolls out of harm's way he sends my way what can only be the water magic version of Mana Blade. I’ve seen it at work on my earth wall and its cutting power is comparable to a smack with a wet towel, even so, I block it with ease and continue advancing.

Both earth and water are pretty good in close range because of their versatility so I’m banking on using the weight of my element to literally push him back and secure victory.

He deviously uses the water on the ground he has sprayed until now to make the surface all muddy and hinder my movements, something I’ve expected. Mud is part water and part earth so I could theoretically wrestle for control, something I won’t do both because of stats and because he is a dedicated water mage. So I just make a few small columns push through the mud under my feet and rush through his feeble attempt at stopping me.

When he realizes I, and more importantly my earth shield, will reach him he rushes towards me instead. That’s when I feel the water suddenly grab one of my ankles which results in an instant stumble face-first into the mud with the water enveloping me from all sides. Not before sending my now ram of earth toward him though.

I hear a muted thud but no grunt or any other noise one would expect from the impact that probably broke the rules of ‘Try not to harm each other’. Interestingly the water also recedes and when I look up I see Martha with one hand grabbing my projectile and with the boy in the other.

“I think we should call this a draw.” She declares. “Well done kids, I’m impressed.”

Martha loves watching the fight between the younglings even though it's nothing special, a few barely aimed spells flying back and forth, some light dodging and a few defensive measures. Her point of view is not an optimal one to judge these two upcoming fighters competing but at least she has ample experience to guide them past their mistakes. At their age she wasn’t even sure what she wanted from her future but the many many years marching under the banner of the Fist have hardened her, countless fights eradicated most of her soft and uncertain side. Most of it. She grew tired of fighting, seeing her comrades, civilians, brave and frightened soldiers lose their lives…

She had enough.

Throughout her career, she tried many times to make herself a home, to start a family… sadly work got in the way. Deployments, her being too unreliable to become a mother, the risk of someone using her family against her… There was simply no way. Her home is Fort Karon, her family the Fist, and still, she wished for children. So after she grew tired of fighting, she withdrew and dedicated the rest of her life to nurturing the new generation.

This is her new joy, these little brats with all their distrust, haughtiness, all their good and bad traits… They are her children. Teaching can be entertaining just as much as difficult. Every one of them is different, except the blue twins, they are utterly the same. Different personalities, problems and questions all with their hardships and joy. It's exciting, and so The Thunderous Magister is now just Captain Martha, caretaker of the orphans.

“C’mon, I could’ve won!” Elyssia protests the verdict as she crawls out of the mud.

Martha hoped for this duel to serve as an eye-opener for Elyssia and to show her how little she knew about actual combat. The opponent she picked for her was in every way stronger than the girl and had at least four months of experience on her who arrived just today. Things didn’t play out as she imagined.

“You’re right,” Martha nods. “You should also be disqualified for almost injuring someone quite seriously despite the rules, don’t you think?”

Elyssia opens her mouth to object, except she fails to come up with any witty replies and instead just returns to the other mages observing the duel, grumbling quietly. She acts like this match is her loss even though she just beat the odds that were heavily against her and edged out a draw that could’ve resulted in her winning the duel under different rules. But rules are rules and she agreed to them before the start of the match.

She’s a natural. Martha observes the girl cleaning the mud off her face and out of her clothes using probably more than just earth magic.

She realized she couldn’t win fighting like a conventional Mage. Even if faced with an opponent on the same level she’d lose because of her weaker output so she changed the rules and fought almost like a Warrior.

Even now the boy she went up against, Lucas, looks absolutely flabbergasted by the methods used to counteract his tricks. Martha quickly picks two new volunteers, eager to show their skills after the last match, and lets them duke it out while keeping one eye on her new favorite.

She saw through most of his traps and if I didn’t restrict her use of elements or if this was a ranking duel… I think she would’ve won. Can I even treat her like a conventional Mage?

“Elyssia, to me.” The girl trods over clearly grumpy because of the outcome, looking down at the ground and grumbling to herself. “You really wanted to win, didn't you?” She asks the question without looking at the girl, instead observing the new heated battle of her students. Always careful not to let any of them get mortally wounded.

“Who doesn’t? Going into a fight just to lose sounds really stupid. I lost but whatever.” She answers and Martha knows her words were followed by a shrug without even looking.

You’re a few hundred years too young to act tough in my presence, greenhorn.

“If so then you can stay for some extra after the sparring session. Since losing is lame and you still look so fresh this should be a piece of cake, right?” Martha tilts her head and smirks, she knows she has Elyssia on the hook.

The other kids around snicker at the play. Everyone knows that’s what you get if you act cocky.

“I hear some people laughing, they must be full of energy too. Does anyone else wish to stay as well?”

Dead silence. Training is reasonable... to a degree. Nobody wants to spend whatever little free time they have practicing a few more Skills. Well, some do…

At first, Elyssia looks annoyed, then thoughtful and finally a vicious smile stretches across her face.

“A piece of cake it is…yeah. As a matter of fact, can we get back to it after dinner?” She asks, her smile changed to an innocent one.

Even the fight between the two boys comes to a halt at her question, only the training from the other groups breaking the complete silence.

What the hell is wrong with this one? I’ve seen that smile many times before torture sessions… Just what is on her mind?

“I’ll see what I can do,” Answers Martha with something dangerous gleaming in her eye as she finally looks at me from its corner. “I’ll take your free time if that is what you want but more importantly, could you show me your magic at maximum output?” Martha asks for some reason so I lift an earth ball as big as I can make it. “For 46 Intelligence this is too little...”

She really could’ve just asked me. “Yeah, it wastes a lot of mana and is quite difficult to control most of the time. Especially multiple elements at once.” I add the last bit as quietly as I can.

If I remember correctly this is supposed to be a secret but I wouldn’t mind ditching this charade, it’s tiresome. I hope Mom and Dad are okay…

***

The training continued without anything interesting. Okay, that’s not entirely true, the fight between the older kids with about double my levels was quite the spectacle and compared to them I looked like a child playing in the dirt. They’re faster, hit harder and are just more experienced than me so it’s not a fair comparison in any way, still, I don’t like being outdone.

I ran out of mana twice throughout the practice but that's exactly why the Fist was kind enough to place a massive Hadron crystal in the middle of the courtyard. To recharge.

The piece of white rock holds a ridiculous amount of mana and continuously draws in more at any given moment. We can just touch it and draw on some of the, compared to our own mana reserves, nigh-infinite supply.

Just like the body of any living being the stone draws in mana and holds onto it persistently, the core acting like our souls. Unlike Willpower, however, which increases the amount of mana we suck in, it is the size of the Hadron crystal that determines both how much mana it can hold and how effectively it replenishes.

The weird thing about it is that if you break a bigger crystal in two then their combined effect pales in comparison to the original big one. A weird thing. All in all, the crystal as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Honestly, I’d love to see what happens when you grind a crystal to dust or melt it, or what would happen if you drilled a hole in its core without breaking the whole thing… And what if you added one to the body, like an accessory but permanent… would it show on the Status?

Man, magic really is the best. Anyway, back to the practice.

The duels continued for about an hour after which we were basically ordered to rest and allow ourselves some time to digest what we learned. It was nothing like digesting food with food coma making you all sleepy so instead I went to bug Martha. After looking through my gains.

[The class Skill [Mana Shield] has reached lvl 15.]

[The general Skill [Running] has reached lvl 15.]

Oh yeah, I forgot to use my new Skills. I was so focused on winning my duel that the goal of the whole practice session completely went out of my head. No matter, I was promised some extra training as a form of punishment and I’m too full of energy to sit back and enjoy any sort of free time anyway. I need to catch up to the others so I can have cool flashy fights like the older kids.

“Hey Martha,” I approach my instructor. “what are we waiting for? I want to do the class up thingy already.”

“With class skills at that level?” She raises an eyebrow like I’m joking before huffing and shaking her head. “You’ll be lucky if you can advance at the end of the week and even then only if you train every second of the day.”

Ok, now she must be exaggerating, it's only like ten~ish… just a few levels. Just a few more fights like my last duel or the little brawl during lunch and I’ll be there in no time. Actually… it's Friday, heh, easy end-of-the-week deadline.

With that said duels can only do so much for our levels with all the veterans and rules around. It lacks the danger factor. I’m not saying they’re useless, just that the real stuff would get me through those levels much much faster.

“Hey, I’m doing my best here.” I forgot to act outraged so time to make up for that. “Besides, these duels and Skill practice are pretty lame, how will we ever learn anything without some actual danger?”

To be clear I’m not courting death here, I had my fill of lethal situations in the past few weeks and I’m definitely not a big fan of all that danger. That’s for the mentally ill. I just want to speed things up a little and become the one who looks down on the others, the biggest dog in the fort.

“Ah, I almost forgot about that, our little challenge…” Martha rolls her eyes with her smile betraying her act. “How about a bet then, young lady?”