We headed to the far side of campus away from the city. There, snug against one of the mountains that surrounded the city, was where Gandalf here would be learning how to slay magic mutant monsters.

I'm not going to include myself in that equation. Nope. No monster slaying for me. I'm not crazy.

Some of the places on this campus are just weird. I was expecting combat class to be taking place in a dojo or some type of gym. Nope.

We get a coliseum. Complete with Roman baths.

The baths were inside the mountain with their own entrance, and there was a corridor that led to the coliseum. I didn't get a look at the baths. Tragic. Seth got his comfy exercise clothes on and we went in the opposite direction to the coliseum.

Seth was nervous. And it was an anxious type of nervous on top of an anticipation type of nervous. I wondered what he was scared of. He'd told the kids at lunch how much this was Saben's favorite class and he was looking forward to it.

Then it occurred to me that this was crazy magic land, and combat class might actually be gladiatorial fights in an actual coliseum.

I just can't with this shit. Now I'm nervous too.

The tunnel in the mountain near the baths was lit with the same magic string lights as the dining hall, and then about half way switched over to torches in metal cages. The torches were magic and weren't even burning anything, it was strictly for aesthetics. I liked the fairy string lights better.

The staging room was spacious, and Seth waited with forty-five other students, including most of the kids from the lunch table. I was comforted by the fact that no one was wearing armor. Whatever these loonies were going to do, it couldn't be that dangerous, right? Owen had just walked over when the ground vibrated.

“Useless, lazy, deadbeats!" Professor Mick’s voice echoed. Magically, of course, or so my whiskers said. "You go home for the summer and you come back like this? If you can’t give me a better showing next time I’ll have every one of you rescheduled with me every single day! I know you’ve got better, so you better show me next time. Now, dismissed!”

A group of twenty one students shuffled out of the arena. I wondered if that was the whole group, or just half of it. And then I wondered why there would be only half a group. Yikes.

I watched the group as they trudged past. These looked like upperclassmen to me. They looked sweaty and exhausted and more than a few were also sooty and singed. Also soaking wet and muddy? There wasn't blood on any of them though, not even bruises. Maybe this would be okay?

Out we went. Seth tried to put me down, but I wasn't having it. I decided I'd take his clothes with me if he kept trying. Smart boy, he let me stay.

Professor Mick was standing in the center of the arena with another Professor.

"All right, recruits!" the portly Professor Mick bellowed. "I am your Combat teacher, Professor Mick! I am known as Mick the Mighty! As you all know from reading your handbook, all students are expected to participate in the defense of the school during a beast attack. As first year students, you are the last line of defense! Do you know what that means?"

"We don't fight much," Blaise answered.

"Alas, that's true," Professor Mick agreed. "But it also means that if you are fighting, it's because everyone before you failed to do their jobs. And it's up to you to maintain the barriers and protect the school."

"I'm from Mariglade, Professor. How often and what types of beasts show up here?" Excellent question nameless student. Just what I wanted to know.

"We don't get too many, really," Professor Mick said, sounding disappointed. "A couple wyverns a year that mostly go for the mana wells, the occasional manticore, and then the small fry that typically wanders out of the Below when no one is looking. It's been decades since we've had anything to really worry about."

So. Useful information here. One, this is a city that gets attacked by monsters. Two, maybe I will be studying monster slaying after all. Three, I'm thinking that finding a way home needs to move up on my to-do list. Though honestly, I don't know why this is surprising me. I've already seen spiders bigger than dogs and cats bigger than trucks. I guess I thought that was a one off? What shit.

"Right! So, you recruits are too new to even be useful as bait, so you are still officially non-combatants." Professor Mick clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "It's my job to change that!" Professor Mick started outlining the physical training portion of today's class.

Right. Professor Mick the Mighty kept talking and I only listened with half an ear as I looked around.

This coliseum wasn't a full circle. It was a semicircle abutted against the cliff of the mountain. That was a design choice I couldn't get behind. If you are going to have a stadium, you need to maximize your seats. Come on, it's basic economics.

The sandy area of the arena was shaped like a hockey rink. I knew there was a word for that rounded rectangle shape, but whatever. That's what this was. One of the long sides was against the cliff. The walls surrounding the pitch were high, like twenty three feet high. And nearly every speck of every wall was covered in spells. Circles, symbols, sigils, you name it, it was there. Not that I could read any of it yet. That was a goal that would take time and tons of work.

Above the walls were the bleachers. There were even students and other people there now. One middle aged guy was setting up a table and placing an array of colored jars in front of him. And look at that! One of Asshole Arnold's friends was right there too! Actually, I recognized three of the eighteen people there as Arnold's cronies. Didn't they have a class to go to? Ugh.

And above the peanut gallery was the top of the coliseum walls. And those walls were completely occupied by birds. A few I noticed were odd types, and I figured those were probably familiars. But a bunch of them weren't. Weird.

I saw only two exits. I had a hunch there were more, but they were not obvious on a quick look. Sand floor. Comfy landings or abrasive scouring? Both! At least I didn't need to worry about sand getting stuck under my clothes. My naked nethers on the other hand…

Mighty Mick was just about to explain what was after physical training today when another Professor hurried into the arena. She was middle aged and frazzled looking. She was carrying a stack of papers and had an overstuffed tote bag. Her blonde bun looked like it would be undone before the end of class.

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"My apologies, Professor Mick, Professor Edmond, students. I am missing my assistant. He was supposed to meet me prior to coming here, but I've just been informed that well, anyway, let's get started."

"No trouble, Professor Marjorie!" Professor Mick exclaimed. "Go ahead and get set up. Students! We've got something special for your group today. You all have the privilege of joining a magic study on your very first day." He rocked up and down on his heels. "The project you are joining today is on the correlation of physical fitness and magical power. And we've got Ollie up there," Professor Mick pointed at the guy with the colored jars, "so you can get a souvenir!"

"Excuse me, is this mandatory?" This question was asked by a girl with a long, thick braid.

"Of course it is! Professor Marjorie, why don't you explain while Edmond and I get this open?"

"Right." Professor Marjorie looked around, sighed, and put a stack of paper on the ground. She addressed the students as she worked. "We are going to be using an artifact that will map your power levels in high detail." She pulled out an ink bottle and a clipboard with way too much attached to it and tried to organize what looked like multiple projects. "Give me a moment to sort this."

"May I assist you, Professor?" the girl asked. Without waiting for an answer she stepped forward to help organize the stacks of paper. Good girl.

I watched in fascination as this research professor took the stray pencils she found in her disorganized materials and absently stuck them into her bun in a futile attempt to resecure it. Oh honey, pencils can't rescue that dead bun. Anyway, with braid girl's help, she started lining students up and writing down names.

Professors Mick and Edmond were over at the mountain wall dinking around with something. Mighty Mick was standing to perfectly block my view.

And then the upper half of the mountain wall opened up. This was a magical garage door opening thing. A section rolled up, sections rolled to the sides, and stairs came down. It revealed a fancy VIP box carved into the mountain. And in that box?

A picture of a tree. Carved into the stone.

I don't get it. These people carve pictures and shit into everything. Why put this behind a magic door? I was honestly expecting more with how fancy the door was. It's like when the box is better than the present.

Yeah, pretty lame.

"Only one person at a time is allowed up the stairs," Professor Marjorie said. "There are protection wards, so the rest of you, do not try to go up those stairs while someone else is already up there. Stay behind this point. These wards can be touchy and might actually kill you. No familiars on the stairs either, for the same reason."

Well okay then. Pretty tree carvings need murder wards.

The idea that someone can put graffiti somewhere and have it kill anyone who touches it is frankly terrifying to someone in my line of work.

Professor Marjorie continued like possible death was just another day at the office. "You'll see a circle at the base of the image. Put your hand on it and push with all of the magical power you can. Your goal is to light up the tree as much as you can. Then come on back down so we can get a good look at the result."

So. A magic scale. Didn't they do this already right after the Gauntlet? That was different though, they'd taken a bottle of something and used an actual scale. What was this doing that was different then?

"Name, please," Professor Marjorie asked the first boy in line who answered. She made a note on her clipboard and picked up a blank sheet of paper from a pile at her feet.

The kid walked right up to the tree like murder wards were no big deal, put his hand on the circle and the thing lit up orange. It started in the circle and then a few of the vines lit, wrapping around each other and tracing up a small ways and then unfurling into leaves and spirals. While it vaguely resembled a tree, it was much smaller than I expected and not nearly the whole carving was used. It lasted about ten seconds before starting to fade.

On a hunch I looked back at the bleachers. And sure enough, that guy with the colored jars was casting a copy spell and made a copy of the kid's power tree. The students up there were shouting encouragement.

Professor Marjorie was scribbling notes all over the copy she had cast. She didn't use colored ink like the other guy. She put those papers aside and pulled out a fresh one and called the next student. This one was roughly similar to the first kid, but the color was light blue, and a bit wider.

"Is that what magic really looks like? A tree?" Seth asked Professor Marjorie.

"Of course not. That is just the design they used when building this. They could have used any shape and it would work the same."

Interesting. Did they have a reason to choose a tree then?

"So there are other carvings like this?" Duvessa asked. "What are they pictures of?"

Good question, Duvessa!

"No, there are no others. The only other one we had was also a tree, but it was destroyed more than a century ago. It's why we keep this one behind wards," the professor explained.

So both were carved as trees, but the shape has no meaning. Okay.

Then Duvessa was up. Hers was bigger than all the previous people, and somehow was inky black while still glowing. Her tree looked like a tree. The vines that formed the trunk were all wound together, the branches had multiple leaves and even flowers. The other remarkable thing about Duvessa's tree was that there was one branch that was completely missing, yet the tips of the leaves in that section were still lit.

Up next was Blaise. I expected her to fill the whole tree.

She didn't.

Almost every leaf and flower in the carving was filled, but the trunk and interior vines were pretty scant. It looked unbalanced. It was brighter than any of the others too. The deep blue of the trunk and the pale gray of all the leaves were bright enough that they could have lit the arena. I hadn't really noticed differences in the strength of the glow before.

This tree was not just a scale. It was a map of someone's power.

Professor Marjorie was making her copies in black ink, disregarding color entirely. And it didn't look like anyone was measuring the light intensity, so either it didn't apply to this study, or they didn't know how to measure it.

More students had their tree read until Owen was next. His was a little unusual too, but not as much. His was tall, about the same size as Duvessa's, and a lot of it was vines. The trunk was thick, and the vines branched out, but there were not many leaves.

I bet there was a whole field of study based on trees like this. This was cooler than tea reading or tarot cards. Probably more meaningful too.

And then it was Seth's turn and I hopped down. His was average. Mostly. It was typical both in height and number of leaves. The only remarkable thing about his was that the circle for him was white, a color I hadn't seen yet, and then a dead space, then the vines and leaves continued in a pale minty green. The big difference between Seth's dead space and Duvessa's was that Duvessa still had connections going all the way around it. For Seth, it stopped and then started again. None of the vines touched the white circle.

I looked over at the professors, wondering about their reaction. Professor Mick was organizing a pile of giant wooden spoons. Professor Marjorie was focused on her clipboard. Professor Edmond was looking up into the bleachers and telling off Arnold's cronies who were hurling insults about Seth's tree. Seth was pretending he couldn't hear them.

Poor kid. His anxiety had spiked when he saw his tree. That gap must be scaring him. I was surprised that Professor Marjorie didn't address it at all, neither his or Duvessa's.

Why was Professor Marjorie skipping so much data? She seemed to be after just a couple specific data points. Maybe they already knew the rest? Maybe she didn't give a fuck? No, she did care. She wouldn't be so frazzled if she didn't. She had to be looking for something specific.

I worried about that. If she is looking for specific data, then that makes me think she has a theory, and is looking for confirmation of the theory. She doesn't want to see data that might disprove it. But that's not how science works.

But, this is crazy magic land so what do I know. Yet another situation where the ability to ask questions would save me weeks of wondering. Oh well, no help for it.

That guy in the bleachers though, he did color copies. I think we'll want to see those. I'm really interested to see if he's got one of Saben's power.