“Amun, congratulations."

Fighting back a sigh, I halted at the top of the steps to face the songful voice and saw Duke, approaching with his feathered hands wide. “I look forward to our working together,” he said.

“Thank you.” I nodded. “As do I. I plan on speaking to you, Samson, and Slate formally before class tomorrow. So spread the word.”

“I shall be there.” He stepped away with a nod, clearing the way for Zakira and Peter to approach and follow me outside to my spot.

After settling himself on the bench to my left, Peter turned his intent gaze in my direction and held it there for a few long moments before rattling the air with his shaky voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He leaned in closer, eyes wide. “The lightning. Back in Maru. Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

“It’s like Slate said.” I shrugged. “It’s inconsequential. I was only testing the depth of my Mana Well that day. I had no way of knowing how you or anyone else would react to it, nor was it on my mind.”

“I guess.” Peter sighed. Then his gaze drifted off in an ambiguous direction while he began to contemplate my words. Or something else entirely.

Reaching between my feet, I pulled a blunt and a copy of the Elemental and Fusion Theories out of my shadow and gave the latter pair to Peter before letting the former hang loosely from my lips. "You should be more confident, Peter.” I smiled at him. “Your Well is deep. You only lack experience and training. But there’s no better place than here to accrue such things.” I gestured around us before bringing my finger back to point at him. “More so, you have four high-tier affinities. You alone are in complete control of nature in a way that humans can only dream of. These will help you understand them.” I tapped the book's cover. “Share it with no one. Not even the staff.”

“I’ll try.” He nodded. Then brought his eyes up to me and nodded again. “Thank you.”

He was certainly a strange one. Though he wasn’t as timid as before, probably due to him warming up to the team, he still was by a fair margin. Beyond that, he seemed… satisfied, ever since the duel yesterday. Though he wasn’t smiling per se, he was cheerful in a way that was hard to ignore. A stark contrast from the skittish boy I met just over a week ago.

It went without saying that I decided to go through with his recruitment. And with Winston’s as well. Though they each had their issues, those could be overcome through guidance and experience, and the things they could bring to the table were worth their weight in gold. In truth, that applied to all of my classmates. Their youthfulness made their minds as mailable as gold. Patience and subtlety were the keys to overruling their emotional impulsiveness and cognitive biases. Their potential was blatantly obvious, after all. Winston’s defensive capabilities were invaluable on their own but could be adapted for offensive roles over time. And I could train the shit out of Peter to make him a walking calamity.

With three vampires, a goliath, and a dwarf added to the mix, the prospects were looking good. But I wanted to expand my options even further, so I made a note to myself to begin interacting with others outside of my party and team. It’d require way too much socializing, which was exhausting just to think about. But with my increased notoriety, hopefully, my classmates would start coming to me instead.

After getting my fix, we migrated to the cafeteria for lunch and, ruefully, found Slate and Els huddled under the dark tree, drinking and shouting compliments and insults at each other in the same breath.

“Hey, Slate.” I threw my head up in a nod before taking a seat. “I need a word with you and the other team leaders before class tomorrow. Let Samson know if you see him.”

“Of course.” He bowed in his seat.

Els, on the other hand, all but belly-flopped onto his plate of cubed meat candy to lean as close as he could to me. “That duel of yours was something! Didn’t get a chance to tell you over those blabbering mouths. But ‘twas the craziest thing I’ve ever seen the way you handled that boy!”

‘Aw, shit.’ I groaned into the console. ‘Here we go again.’

“Do you feel no pain?” Slate asked with a beaming grin.

“It’ll be a lot easier to show you rather than explain it,” I said just as my meal arrived. “I wanted to do some training after this anyways.”

“Then it’s settled.” Slate beamed. Then rounded his gaze to Els, sweeping his longing gaze across the table. “I’ll go to talk, sure. But to train?” His face curled while his shoulders rose into a shrug. “Eh.”

“I assume you’re going, Zakira? So what say you, Peter?

“Peter?” With Slate's second call, all of our eyes were drawn to the small, brown-haired boy resting his forehead on the table while he flipped through my book almost obsessively.

“The fuck's up with him?” Els recoiled in wonder after his slap on the table resulted in nothing more than a short scowl from Peter.

“He’s reading,” I said. “It’s a book I wrote. But I don’t wanna talk about it here.”

“I know a place,” Slate leaned forward to say with a cunning smile. “It requires points to enter, but if we pool ours together as a team, we shall have more than enough.”

After more or less agreeing, we worked through our meals and returned to the courtyard to huddle around one of the many doors fashioned into the roots to pool our points together and agree on a training environment. In this case, a mimicry of the forest surrounding the Bodhi Tree with a remarkably unremarkable interior space; save a tiled deck near the entrance that housed an assortment of the same glowing consoles installed across campus.

“Alright.” I turned to Slate and Els with a sigh. “Peter’s reading my theories for elemental manipulation.”

“As your subordinate, I ask that I have one.” Slate formally bowed.

“Whatever. Here.” I sighed. “But you have to swear to share it with no one. Not even the staff.”

“I swear to share it only with those you deem worthy.” He excitedly bowed again.

“What about you?” I turned to the dwarf after giving Slate his copy.

“Well.” He looked away with a sigh. “Maybe if I can give that spear of yours a look-see one day, I’ll think about it.”

“Deal.” I handed him a copy with a wide grin. Then turned to stand before Slate and face the others. “Alright.” I sighed. “Slate. Let me hit you.”

“Okay.”

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With his consent given, I delivered a swift hook and felt my knuckles break against his stone-skin chin. “Weak, right?” I laughed in the face of his shocked expression. “That’s my natural strength. Now, shake my hand.”

“Okay.” He reached his hand out, chuckling like a dummy until our hands made contact, wherein he instantly recoiled and stared at me like a child that just touched a hot iron. “My hand." He gasped, staring at the appendage in wonder. "It feels… numb.”

“I’m going to punch you again.”

“Alright.” He put his arm down and faced me, unguarded, as he did before.

Following his consent, I stepped in to give him an uppercut to the gut with enough force to lift him off the ground- if barely.

“Wow! Haha!” He cackled as he reeled back. “That was- oh.”

“Here.” I slapped his shoulder with my left hand. “Have it back.”

“What… was that?” Peter asked with gaping eyes.

“I use necromancy to enhance my strength,” I said. “Slate’s numb hand was an effect of my Leech Hand spell. With it, I steal another’s strength and add it to my own, either temporarily or permanently. False Strength and Usurped Strength respectively. But there also exist versions for life. What I used on Winston, however, was gravity, accelerating fist to ludicrous speeds. But, as you can see.” I held up the object of their discomfort. My right hand. Shattered, splintered, and coiled into an unnatural mess up to my elbow. “In either case, it exceeds the limits of my body by leaps and bounds.”

“Do… do you not feel that?” Els asked, wincing.

“Oh, it’s extremely painful.” I laughed. “I’ve learned to ignore it, though.”

“Then why don’t you heal?” Peter incredulously asked.

“Because it terrifies people. And, as you saw with Winston, fear is a weapon. That and because it’s more painful than getting injured in the first place.” I activated the spell with a mad cackle.

“Unbelievable.” Slate gasped after witnessing my arm crack and mend itself back into shape. “Your tolerance for pain is unfathomable.”

“Terrifyingly so.” Peter shuddered.

“Like I said.” I shrugged. “I spent four years being beat to the brink of death by my Great-Grandfather and his undead army.”

“In other words, you’re just like the stories of necromancers.” Els huffed in a tone that was neither derisive nor admiring. “Death to others for the sake of power.”

“Well, yes but no.” I shrugged. “I do steal life and take souls, but I don’t do so indiscriminately. Only from those who are wicked or seek to do me or mine harm.” Unlike fake necromancers. “Anyway.” I waved the tangent aside to cast a gravity domain around the lot of them. Then fought back a fit of laughter from watching them struggle in zero-g. “This is my Gravity Magic- what I used to make Winston fall around the arena.”

“I think I’m gonna hurl!” Els wheezed. Meanwhile, the other three were floating in dreamland.

Letting them absorb the moment, I took to the air to orbit around them while I went on with my spiel. “I normally describe gravity as the force that keeps us planted to the ground. But it’s much more than that.” With their attention captured, I flicked a small gravity bullet at the ground to free the sand, dirt, and other things from the surface before spawning another Artificial Well. Then watched along with the others as grains began cascading into the air. Drifting towards and amassing around the mass of gravitational energy until a small bead was formed. A small target for the cascade of dirt, grass, and stone to rain down like an organic meteor shower until a small earthen planetoid was left floating beside me.

“Gravity is the creator and destroyer of worlds.” I declared with a gesture toward the ruined surface below. “It’s my most-used affinity. followed closely by either Darkness or Space-Time Magic. But you’ll see examples of those as time goes on. So I’ll explain my innate traits before we begin. To put it simply, I have indefinite night vision, heightened agility, and my senses are on par with most animals. I have an inborn resistance to magic. I also can’t be put to sleep or charmed. I’m immune to poisons, heat, and cold, but can still freeze or burn in both fire and acid. Lastly, I can see mana and use it cast spells. In exchange, I have a weak and frail constitution. But that can be countered with my sorcery.”

“Gods.” Peter gasped. “That’s a lot.”

“You can see mana?” Slate incredulously asked. “What’s it look like?”

“Almost like the world has been submerged in liquid crystals.” I shrugged. “But it’s... half-there, half-not. I can see through it like glass tinted blue. It breaks apart when things move and changes color when people use spells.”

“Fascinating.” He gasped, scratching his chin. “And what of the final spell? The one you used to dispel the barrier?”

“Ah, yes.” I nodded. Then set them all down gently before turning to Peter with a warm smile. “Hit me with your strongest spell.”

“A-are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” I nodded, still smiling. “I’ll be fine.

“Okay.”

Hesitantly, Peter moved a fair ways away and eventually turned to face me with his palm outstretched towards me. And after a final nod on my part, he let loose a cone of blue fire that could’ve easily encompassed the four of us standing side-by-side. But one I easily destroyed with a Void Shield of equal size, disappearing the intense flames the moment they came into contact with the substance.

“See!” I spread my arms and smiled. “Fine.”

“I- I don’t like attacking you, Amun.” He said shakily. “You’re my first friend.”

‘Aw, damn…’ I sighed to myself. “I understand. So how about this?” I took a moment to focus on each of their shadows before imbuing my voice with the umbral energy and saying, “Doppelgangers, rise.” Amused, I stood back and watched my teammates react to their umbral clones taking form with shock, fear, curiosity, and unbridled sadness. “This is the first shadow spell I learned.” I grinned at Peter. “Will you be fine attacking yourself?”

“My Doppelganger.” Slate stepped around his clone with a studious eye. “What can it do?”

“Everything you can!” Umbral Slate laughed. Much to the original's surprise.

“This is from my Sorcery,” I explained. “I can manipulate the elements like everyone else. But I was born with three affinities merged into one. Darkness, Death, and the Void- like you just saw.”

“Oh!” Zakira stopped moping to jump forward with sudden interest. “I heard of someone like that who came to the Hells, like, a long time ago!”

“Could’ve been my Great-Grandfather.” I nodded. “Everandus Cole? The Necro King?”

“Nah.” She shook her head. “I mean, I heard of him growing up too. But the one with your void stuff was funnier than that. His name was, like, tuff nut or something.”

“That’s definitely funnier.” I snickered. ‘And infinitely more interesting.’

“Anyway. If we’re done talking, I’d like to train Peter for a bit. You all can train with your clones. And, Zakira?” I turned to the vampire, who was once again moping at the edge of the group due her inability to have a clone. “You can train with mine.”

I turned away before I was faced with the brunt of Zakira’s excitement and pulled Peter off to an ambiguous section of the grounds. Smiling in anticipation. “So." I eagerly turned to him. "What weapon do you use?”

“Well, I’ve been training with the sword.” He shrugged.

“Ugh, of course.” I groaned. “Swords don’t really fit your style.” Which was true. But also… just- yeah.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you don’t seem like the type to fight in close combat, which is how you'll be fighting with a sword.” I snorted. “That, and being efficient with a sword in combat takes years of training to accomplish. A luxury you don’t have. You have, at most, four years to become adept at a fighting style and gain experience. Lastly, which coincides with the first, there’s no synergy between swords and your magic.”

“Synergy. I’ve heard that word before.” He nodded slowly. “What does it mean?”

“Take my shadows for example.” I gestured around. “I can link shadows to step through them and attack someone. Or, I can thrust my spear through a shadow to do some real damage without exposing my body. That's synergy. On the contrary, swords are tools for one, maybe two to three enemies; whereas your magic is best used against multiple enemies spread over a large area.”

“I… think I understand.” He turned back to me after a few moments. “But, what weapon should I pick?”

“I would recommend war fans.”

“Fans?” He recoiled.

“Yeah.” I reached into my coat to access my Shadow Pocket and tossed him a cheap pair I took from the house. Then took a moment to corral everyone else for a quick lesson.“Peter just got these fans.” I gestured to the things. Prompting a strangely placed round of applause from Zakira that Slate latched onto with gusto. “I’m going to teach him to use them with his magic, but they’re cheap and will break on their own. I see this as an opportunity to teach what Zeff called ‘Mana Molding.’

“Now, I’m sure they have other names for them, but the techniques are the same. I call them Mana Skin, Mana Reinforcement, and Mana Infusion. The latter will be used for this fan.” I gestured again to Peter before taking a rotten stick from my clone. “The key lies in manipulating or molding the mana into copying the object you want to infuse. In this case, wood grains.” I split the stick in half to show them the grains before I reset it with the Chrono Dial, infused it, then swept it against a stone to crack its surface with deep webs.

“Fascinating!” Slate and his clone growled at the same time.

“Your Doppelgangers will teach you the other techniques.” I sent them off with a wave. Then turned an eager smile to my first student. “Now, let’s get started.”