Doran stood in front of the class on the sands of the arena. The battlefield had set itself entirely back to its plain state following Luke and Alara's battle; the two third-year apprentices were now long gone—they'd exchanged a few words with each other and left separately.

"I hope you all understand now," was the first thing Master Steelvein said to everyone.

Yes, I think we do. The Towers were not all study and scholarly pursuits. Not in a world where killing and strength went hand in hand.

Master Doran didn't address the duel we'd watched again after that. "I'm sure you've heard platitudes about fighting before. The best defense is a good offense. The best offense is a good defense. That's all rubbish. The best anything is what lets you survive and win."

"You," Steelvein pointed towards a mousy brunette. "What do you know about fighting?"

"Me?"

Steelvein inclined his serious face slightly but did not break eye contact with the girl.

"I've trained with my father's court-mage."

Steelvein lowered his hand, his look of disapproval itself serving to silence the girl. He pointed at a different acolyte, a boy this time. "And you?"

"Nothing," he said.

Steelvein's face showed no approval for the honest. Finally, he pointed to a blonde I knew.

"You have the look," he said to Cedric. "Like you think you know something?"

"I've hunted monsters with my father and brother, master," Cedric replied.

"You have spells for battle; spells you've actually used in battle?" Steelvein asked him.

"Yes," Cedric replied, his face showing the expected respect.

"Show me," Steelvein said.

Cedric appeared perturbed. "Show you?"

"Cast your strongest spell at me."

Cedric looked around to the other students. "You don't know what sort of mage I am. It could be a curse, something not easily blockable."

Steelvein kept his eyes trained on Cedric, waiting.

The young blonde's face grew serious. He waited for further instruction, and when none came, he raised his hand.

Steelvein nodded.

Cedric made a sign that shaped his hand to appear bladed and pointed it at Steelvein. He then spoke a few words that sounded completely unintelligible to me. His fingers lit up white, with a crackling outer aura of blue, and then...

Steelvein lifted his own hand and made a closing motion with each of his fingers.

A sigil flared to life in front of Cedric's sign.

The master across from the boy also summoned a sigil in front of himself that appeared identical to Cedric's, except that it was flipped opposite of the original. Both sigils flickered out before they could fully establish their existence.

Cedric's hand stopped glowing, and he appeared perturbed. He forced his face to smooth over and waited for Steelvein to speak.

Had the old man in front of us just stopped Cedric from casting altogether? That was possible? Master Steelvein was Luke's teacher, though, and I'd seen the glaive-wielding mage make great use of shield magics. Perhaps this was where the glaive-wielder had learned such things.

When Steelvein didn't say anything, Cedric spoke up.

"Abjuration magic," Cedric identified the school of the spell Doran had used.

"I teach abjuration," Doran said to everyone around himself. "You will learn wards for all the basic elements; I require that. General wards will fail to fully protect you from anything but mundane spells, but they might save your lives. I will teach you more if you are able to learn. More than that, you will learn to use your own personal magic to defend yourselves here. I promise you that."

Doran held his hand out beside him. A sign appeared on the sand below. The sand turned to stone where the magic circle touched it. The newly-hardened stone lifted itself up rapidly, forming a shaft in Stelvein's hand. The shaft grew and widened at the top, forming a broad face. Steelvein lifted the stone hammer, breaking it off of the magic circle on the ground. Another sigil flared on the stone hammerhead, and rocks began to crack off of the hammer, revealing solid steel now beneath.

Doran looked over us all, weapon in hand. "We'll start with ward signs for physical attacks. There are far fewer mages than warriors in this world to worry about. If any of you have weapons," he glanced to me, knowingly, "I would suggest arming yourselves. I will only show you today's ward just once before we begin the practical exercises."

"Weapons?" another student asked in a threatened voice, and Doran shot a glare at them.

"You look interested," Kara said to Garron from beside me, drawing my attention away from whatever Steelvein was saying to the student who had questioned him.

"I am," the broad mage said.

"So am I," I agreed.

Kara looked at us as if we were slightly out of our minds.

Steelvein turned to us with a threatening ruffling of his nose. "I'm glad to hear it, acolytes."

I hadn't heard whatever he'd said to the other student, but the boy was as pale as a sheet.

Garron bristled in anticipation.

Steelvein glared towards us. "Let's see how long that holds true."

**Scene Break**

Blood ran from Garron's face. His strong body was already wounded, and I was fairly certain he had a few broken ribs.

"This is insane," Kara panted beside us.

Mile growled as Master Steelvein kicked another student hard in the stomach, sending the girl rolling multiple feet away. He hadn't killed anyone yet, but I very much wondered if we were training in an arena with resurrection arrays for a reason.

Steelvein slammed his hammer into the sand hard, a sigil flashed, and a wall of transmuted earth erupted up to block a blast of lightning. I watched Cedric scowl to himself as Steelvein spun his hammer up and over his head.

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The master wizard's weapon collided with a fury against his own earth wall, tearing off the right half of the summoned fortification. Sigils flashed across the first of the now flying chunks of rock, which reshaped themselves into blunted spikes as they flew towards the group standing behind Cedric.

"Stand ready!" Garron shouted.

Steelvein continued in his spin, sheering off the rest of his earth wall's top half. The remaining projectiles, however, were aimed towards our group.

Garron stepped forward and formed both of his hands into fists. He shunted his arms out, a sigil appearing in front of him.

Steelvein met Garron's eyes and allowed one of his hands to leave his hammer. The master mage closed his fingers rapidly. A countersigil appeared before the older man and Garron's magic circle fizzled out.

Kara was already moving. She formed fire signs with both of her hands and then opened her fingers fully. Strings of brightly compressed flames extended out from her glowing fingertips. She whipped her right hand out, spinning like a dancer, and caught the closest of the incoming rocks with her flaming cords. The cords wrapped rapidly around three of the rocks and both sheered through them and redirected them into the ground.

Master Steelvein absorbed an incoming blast of wind from another student with a defensive sigil. He then raised his hammer with one hand, and another sigil formed in front of it. The blast of pressurized wind that had hit his other sigil erupted from this second magic circle and shot towards us.

I raised my free hand and swiped down violently. I sent a wind scythe, charged with as much mana as I was willing to spare, towards the wind blast. My scythe cut through the redirected incoming spell and shattered it.

Mid-run, I caught the surprised look of the wind blast's original caster. Rylan, Cedric's supposed friend, met my momentary gaze with piqued curiosity.

Steelvein, apparently, caught on to what I'd done as well.

"Sorcerer, eh?" He said and slammed his hammer into the sand again.

Where the master wizard's hammer hit, the sand once again became stone and flew as another boulder directly towards me.

Garron wasn't idle; however, he dove forward and, with a closed fist, smashed the rapidly flying boulder before it could hit me. I just barely caught the fact that his hand had become entirely coated with stone by the time he'd contacted with the projectile.

I rolled to the side of Garron's posted legs and reached into my component pouch. I doubted my spores would have any effect on an advanced fighter like Master Steelvein, so I grabbed a number of root cuttings instead.

Steelvein stomped his boot forward and, with a sigil flash where it met the sands, sent a rapidly moving streak of newly formed earth my way.

I jumped up and landed behind the still-moving section of the raised earth.

Steelvein, his face unreadable, turned away from me to block a coordinated strike from Rylan and Cedric.

"We move?" Garron shouted towards me.

"Are you mad?" Kara asked. "This is about surviving him, not beating him."

"Sure," I said and jumped down from the raised earth to stand beside my new friend.

Steelvein didn't flinch as Cedric's lightning hit his skin. Said skin cracked very slightly, like stone and not flesh, where the spell struck him. Rylan's wind blast didn't even move him.

Garron and I ran, with Mile at my feet now, forward towards our combat instructor.

"Damn it," Kara said and followed after us.

Garron turned to face us and, with a flashing of sigils all around us, formed a massive circle of raised rock that cut all five of us off from the rest of the class.

Even Garron stopped in his tracks at that.

"Well?" Steelvein asked us.

To my surprise, it was Kara who struck first. She whipped her hands out and sent her flaming strings directly towards Steelvein's throat.

The instructor might have chuckled slightly, or he may have just scoffed, as he caught the burning cords around his hammer.

Kara wasn't stopping, however; she was already spinning to the instructor's side. The incredibly coordinated-looking girl sent her other hand out as she twirled, and her second set of strings lashed out. Steelvein caught the second set on his forearm much the same as he had with his hammer. Kara didn't stop moving and used her momentum to untangle her other strings from the master's hammer and instead set them to wrapping around his trouser leg.

The strings suddenly grew intensely bright.

Kara panted, finally stopping her dance as she pulled strong against her strings and Steelvein. "It's not working!"

The strings constricted but failed to cut Steelvein's skin. I suddenly realized that Kara was trying to literally cut his limbs off. My opinion of the girl instantly grew more nuanced.

I threw the root cuttings in my hand towards the master's other leg and fed them mana with [growth]. The cuttings writhed and grew rapidly into wooden limbs that ensnared and straightened our instructor's legs.

Steelvein leaned against the roots of his now bound leg, using them as leverage. He lifted his bound forearm and grabbed the slack of Kara's flame strings with the same arm's hand. He then began to reel her and her strings in towards himself.

While Kara and I tried to bind the formidable master, Garron moved forward and closed the distance between himself and the instructor. Without so much as a battle cry or a bit of hesitation, the broad teen slammed his rock-covered fist into Doran's cheek.

Master Steelvein didn't even flinch when the jagged, stone-covered knuckles contacted him. He met Garron's eyes and, with a flexing of his arm, yanked Kara from her feet. The girl slammed into Garron, stumbling him to the side as he tried to catch her.

Sigils appeared beneath the roots I'd ensnared Steelvein's legs with. Giant, jagged earth spikes shot out from the master's very flesh a moment later. My binding roots were shredded and ripped aside to fall on the sands.

It was then that I realized that the instructor's skin didn't merely look like stone; it was stone. Flesh-colored stone, but stone all the same. Whatever path his magic had taken him down, he wasn't entirely human anymore.

The spikes receded back into the master's freed leg, his trousers torn all along that side. This happened at the same time as he was slamming his hammer into Garron's stomach, just as Kara stumbled off of the other would be acolyte. The blow sent the broad yordian flying to slam into the nearby earth wall.

Garron grunted in pain and did not immediately move as he slumped to the sands.

Kara took the next attack, a violent backhand that sent her spinning to the ground as well.

Steelvein dragged his hammer up to rest in his hands and across his body as he approached me.

Mile growled from beside me.

Don't get hit, buddy, I told him. I don't think we're winning this one.

Mile barked and sent only one message to me. Try.

I bit down on my teeth. He had a point.

"Wind sorcerer, druid, swordsman, and what else?" Steelvein asked me. "Do you even know any proper magic at all?"

I gripped Mytharis in front of me.

Doran stepped forward and raised his Hammer. He was fast for his size—really fast. I rolled between his legs; I was very sure he was holding back and yet this was all I could do to avoid him.

I recovered my footing and swung my sword in a pirouette to try to cut deep into the instructor's back. He may have been holding back, but he wasn't pulling his punches entirely. We didn't have the luxury of restraint, or at least I think that was part of the point he was trying to get across.

My blade cut through his combat robes, but reverberations ran through my hand as the blade skirted across his skin uselessly. His actual back was barely even marked for as much as I could tell when I saw it for just a moment.

Steelvein spun his hammer and body around violently. I tried to use [strike redirection] to catch the shaft of his weapon, but he shifted his strike at the last moment. Even with the enhanced reaction time that my skill granted me, I couldn't stop him from hitting my knuckles with a glancing blow. Mytharis flew into the sand.

I jumped backwards and expanded my druidic aura to its limits. I sensed the damaged and pained bodies of both Kara and Garron within my spell. Garron was worse off than Kara, but I sensed only dizzy confusion from the girl's life force all the same.

I sent a jolt of mana through my aura and into both of my hands, casting [mending] on them.

I reached quickly into my component pouch as I jumped back from another hammer swing. I threw a handful of red-eye spores into Steelvein's eyes. The larger, older mage just ruffled his nose as he lifted his huge weapon over his shoulder and swung it towards me.

"Show me some real magic, boy," he commanded as I rolled under his strike.

Before I could get off of my knee, he recovered his momentum and raised his hammer over his head. I stood up just as the weapon's face was rushing down towards me.

No sword in my hand; my go-to druidry spells weren't working; I doubted [wind scythe] would cut the man's stone skin any better than Mytharis had.

My mind reached for an answer in the split second I had to react. I found only one.

As he had promised, Master Steelvein had shown us only one thing before he'd started this spar royale. Just one thing.

I splayed my hands out in front of me, calling upon my perfect memory to exactly replicate the sign he'd demonstrated down to the precise distance between my fingers. I silently screamed a command for my mana to rush up my arms and to do one thing and one thing only: to withstand.

A distortion in space rippled out in front of my palms; it was sloppy, shining irreguarly, and barely holding together. The combat instructor's hammer slammed into my attempt at a ward.

The hammer halted for only a brief moment before my imperfectly cast sign collapsed in on itself, but the weapon was indeed slowed. It didn't feel like by much when the hammer hit me firmly on the chest and sent me into the sand, but I'd seen my failed sign almost work.

"Close," Master Steelvein said as I gasped for air on the ground.

A flash of blue light and a thunderous crack erupted out of the corner of my perception. I heard what sounded like a great many stones falling to the sands.

Steelvein turned his head to the noise as my vision blurred. "Stormwind? Let's see if you can hold a candle to your brother then."