In the days since Fomoria’s last meeting with Marigold, he wasn’t allowed to go out on missions with Amber anymore, he wasn’t even supposed to go out the first time, it was Amber’s choice to ask him without first asking Marigold.

To her, it made perfect sense, he mostly seemed there, he wasn’t having the outbursts like before or becoming suddenly absentminded.

And it worked at the time, he handled himself perfectly during the assault.

Then he ran into Xol, lost his temper, and seemingly regressed slightly.

Not enough that it was evident in the moment, but his progress halted and he more easily slid back, shown clearly to Marigold by his failure to maintain a sense of time along with refusing to even have a conversation after being told no.

So, he was to remain in New Kor and teach magic, since his technical mind was still there, but his emotions and personal memories were far more faulty.

He was to be training the Marked.

Marigold tried to pick a different name, but the two names that popped up and failed to die were either the Marked or Blessed Ones.

She convinced people that the Marked was better due to the other clearly coming from the Cult of Fomoria.

Still, that failed, since he was being seen as more divine than before to some, so she made Amber law down the law.

The Marked were a military asset even if they were just craftsmen, thus falling under her command, and if anyone wished to go against her, they had to do so in combat.

Marigold wasn’t supposed to raise her fist against the people for risk of her being seen as another outsider trying to conquer them and losing support, or rather, losing soldiers.

But Amber was a relatively familiar face and sister to their great leader, she was one of them.

His class was made up of few people, all of them already knew magic and were fairly elite by the standards of the lands outside of The Veil.

Ironically, those who weren't used to magic had no issues adjusting to this new power, but those whose power was already at a higher level had difficulties and needed more specialized training.

It pained him to not be teaching thousands of ordinary people who were most likely to die on the battlefield, and instead being stuck with some unfortunately familiar faces.

He tried not to even look at the Canis when he marked them, other than the albino he considered a friend, but the holes he had for eyes glared no matter the angle.

It wasn’t visual, nobody saw them move outside of the normal scratchy warping, but they all felt it.

“My goal with this class is not to tell you how to use magic, it is to provide a safe environment by which you may use for improving your magic to a level that can actually go against Xol’s army.

Where I learned, we had mock battles.

I learned warmagic, and thus mine were against an opponent and their army of statues, and the goal wasn’t to do more than destroy more of the enemy army while also protecting my own.

Battlemages, those who were likely to become knights and fight in smaller engagements against more powerful enemies, fought in a much different manner.

But, before we get into that, each of you must be able to cast a perfect fireball, one that lets off so little heat you can hold it in your hands without any burns.”

Jakel scoffed.

“We’ve been able to do that since you first gave advice.”

“Firsly, mutt, I did not ask for questions, nor did I simple give advice. I spent weeks turning you from middling mages to proper ones.”

“How dare-”

Fomoria stepped closer, startling him.

“I am teaching you of my own will, because as much as it would please me to see you dead in a ditch, there are other things at stake here.”

“You can’t just-”

“YES I CAN.”

Patra stepped forward.

“Both of you stop acting like children. Right now, as Fomoria said, there are other things at stake here.

If left alone, that Lich will control the world and he is unlikely to be as kind as Fomoira.”

“So long as he minds himself, I will teach him to the best of my abilities.”

“Yet you can no longer cast magic yourself.”

“Within The Veil, within The Grand Academy, there is the title of archmage, the height of a mage.

I have achieved that title twice in completely different fields.

My technical knowledge, my practical knowledge, and my own time teaching the students under or even above me because I’m just that good, means that I could never cast a single spell for the rest of my life and still be a dozen times the mage that you are. Now shut up so I can explain.

The mark means that you are stronger than you were when you walked into this room.

Now cast the fireball.”

Jakel tried and failed to hold his fireball; the smell of burning fur and a yelp filled the room

“Your mana control is something which subtly changes and your mind automatically accounts for any growths you have. The weaker mages don’t have an issue that takes more than a few minutes of training, but the mark seems to be a multiplier for both regeneration and power, and now you’ve gone from a 10 to a 40, a much larger gap than 4 to 16. I was able to punch through the steel chestplate of a soldier with my bare hands, but I was also able to hold a newborn without issues. This is because my physical self-control is beyond normal people, because I’ve always been stronger and subconsciously lowered myself to human levels.

When a person is greatly enhanced, they can take weeks to get used to their new physical prowess.

This is no different other than I expect you all to meet my standards by the end of class at least.

You will be paired up based on how quickly you can do this and then the mock battles may start.”

The first two which completed the test were Joan and Petra.

“Good. Move to the right side of the room. Spire, make a rectangle, 50x100, put a line in the center.”

The spire shifted its bone floor, turning from marble white to a bloody red.

“Now, I will explain this. Amber, she took both warmagic and combat magic classes.

Combat magic trains battlemages, battlemages are intended to fight within an army against other powerful mages. To this end, they devised a method of training designed to minimize the damage to their own side.

You will start by deciding who will attack first and who will defend.

Then you will explain to your opponent exactly how you intend to attack.

It is dangerous to just let people spar with their full might, and so this will prevent you from suffering real harm by a surprise and it will combine the offensive and defensive from both sides.

Just like it is important to know many spells, it is also very important to know how to use them.

No need for a fireball if a lightball would do a better job of distracting your enemy.

Outsmart your enemy, don’t overpower them. Magekillers, those with middling magic by powerful bodies and martial skills are trained in much the same way.”

Petra raised her hand.

“My magic is mostly based around research, I’m not here to be a soldier.”

“I like to think of myself as a healer, but that doesn't mean I haven’t killed millions. If your work is meant to help win this war, then combat classes will help you better understand the needs of the soldiers.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

At the same time, magic is just magic, it’s not anything else.

You can learn something here, an example of how someone else uses magic that you never thought of and it can expand your mind on how magic can be used.”

Joan was naturally the one who won nearly every engagement, be it offensive or defensive, but most was not all, and Petra was improving.

The doors swung open and Amber stepped in; Fomoria stepped to her.

“You started without a full class.”

“I started when people stopped arriving.”

“Then these pricks are late.”

A large shadow descended on Fomoria, trying to lock him between her arms.

Yet she simply passed through him.

“An interesting way to guard against me.”

“You are… Bojana? It’s been a very long time.”

“And whose fault is that? You’ve had your gates for a very long time, yet you never visited.”

“It’s because…”

He froze up and twitched his head.

“Because the people of The Confederacy would not suffer a Fomoria.”

Her big brown eyes drooped a little.

“Amber said you were having a hard time remembering things. I did not think it possible.

Is this what you are now?”

“Yes. I lost my body, my soul, and now I’m… something else.”

“You are still just Little Shadow.”

She tried to chuckle and lay her paw on his shoulder.

“Why are you here?”

“Oh? I didn’t realize your mind was so far gone. We’re here to help of course. Xol isn’t a problem for you, he’s a problem for all of us. Now give me that handprint.”

Fomoria put his mark on her, but it was hardly visible since it was skin deep, not over her fur.

Bojana shivered with excitement and breathed deeply.

“I can smell the mana.”

“You can smell it?”

“It’s beyond explaining. It just feels right.”

“When you said we, who else is here?”

The others walked around the corner.

Ky, Reet, Adelwulf, Ibery, and the elder Cato.

Fomoria raised his finger and used to pierce him, but it bounced off, scuffing the floor.

“You ruined the surprise, Ursa.”

“Quiet. Fat man.”

“The others I understand, but why him?”

“The gods are still working with the Reinoans, and they picked a champion to represent them.

As much of a bastard as he is, his bloodline abilities are strong and compatible with your mark unlike certain others.

Everyone here is a representative of their nation or just someone who I thought would be well suited for this. I tried to get Tau-”

“He’s not a fighter, not a craftsmen. He would gain nothing from this.”

“Right. But he said that he didn’t want to be involved in this because of you.

The Confederate Civil War was pointless bloodshed that wouldn’t have happened the way it did without you giving them golems.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

His voice was cold.

Fomoria marked them, all but one.

“Reet, what are you hoping to do here? You can’t become a warrior in a short time, even with this mark.”

“I can’t keep up with Harlan and Deimos. They’re killing me in the forge even after enhancement.”

Fomoria gave the mark with a chuckle, and Reet’s hair turned black and gray, but his fire also gained a coarseness like real hair.

More and more of them got their mana control to acceptable levels and were put against the others.

And more and more, as people got into the swing of things, he stepped around the room and subsumed the spells which would’ve seriously hurt the other side.

After the day was done, Fomoria gave everyone reports, written by Phoebe rather than himself.

Jakel of course took offense at his.

“Lacking the mind of a real warrior? What kind of stupid joke is this?”

“Of everyone here, you stepped outside of the lines the most.

Do you recall what I said the purpose of the training was? To fight a strong enemy while minimizing damage to your own side. Those Sand Furies you’ve brought me to train have no issue with staying in the lines, because they are trained to give their lives, and you were trained to protect yours.

I won’t deny that you can fight, I’m denying that you can pass this test.

You are a small, greedy, prideful man, and you can’t fight the way I am training.

I will recommend that anywhere you are deployed you will do so with your own forces so you don’t kill mine.”

“So what if a few weaker soldiers die in the process. This war won’t go on long enough that we need to worry about the next generation's battles, we win or we lose and we do it soon.”

Fomoria shook his head.

“The other part of minimizing damage is that you shouldn’t move around too much. Small movements, just like in sword fighting, know when you can safely block or dodge or deflect, and by how much.

There will always be spells that you cannot handle, this training will make you able to handle them.

When splitting stones, we don’t just grab a hammer and bang away at them, we use chisels and target weak points, fractures, we use as little energy as we need.

If you are backed into a corner, unable to dodge, what do you do?”

“I move forward.”

“And that shows the depth of your mind. Why not go down instead? Why not pull the walls towards you and crush your enemy or just make a barrier? A corner isn’t a trap, it is a different situation to fight in.

You are dismissed.”

“This isn’t done, we-”

“KY, DRAG HIM OUT OF HERE.”

Ky quickly dispatched his opponent, Bojana, and began walking towards Jakel.

“Don’t make me do this.”

Jakel launched a few attacks, and Ky moved around some, but he allowed a hard air bullet to skim his side as he jumped in the air.

In doing so, Ky spun very quickly and used that wind he was generating to enhance a kick with aura and air magic of his own.

The wave of air crashed against Jakel in a flash, sending him rolling across the floor.

Ky stopped himself by turning his feet into something tougher for more friction, then he leapt with a body like a cheetah.

By the time Jakel got his bearings, Ky was already there and restraining him.

He dragged him back to Fomoria.

“That, that is the mind of a warrior. In an instant, your attacks became his, and while you didn’t care about what was behind him, he deflected three of those shots that would’ve interrupted the final matches of the others. He’s dismissed.”

Jakel screamed the entire time, and though the Sand Furies which were there moved to stop him, it became clear that they were the few, and the room itself wasn’t on their side.

Fomoria’s desire to teach a class wasn’t just because he wanted to be useful, he wanted to be surrounded by magic.

Xol knew how to cast magic, both Earthborn, and Aardian.

If he could do it, then surely Fomoria would find out how.

Another day, another class.

Everyone was getting more in sync, their knowledge was crossing over.

Two days ago, Ky had shown the ability to boost the strength of his hands with aura and flick away small attacks with almost no real cost, and now Joan was doing the same to him.

Fomoria floated above the room and became double sided, then each hand split until he was like a tree, and he fired off pierces mostly at random.

The room erupted in annoyed shouts, and when he landed, he was surrounded.

“Quiet.”

And the room became so.

“In a real fight, you can’t expect to just focus on one person. I was strong enough that I could plow my way through hundreds of enemy soldiers without even thinking about it, but none of you are like that.

I will now begin adding random factors, the chaos of war as it were. This room is part of The spire, and The spire is not a building in the strictest sense, it is a living being, in a looser sense. Perhaps the floor becomes slick to simulate muddy clay, or a bump forms to act as an unseen rock. Change how you fight depending on your enemy, but also your conditions.”

He snapped his fingers, and the quiet ended.

How did that happen? There was no magic in the act of snapping a figure.

But really, how did any of his magic work?

In the past he cast such spells by focusing mana in his throat, and with the intent being part of that, the effect happened.

But now there was no mana, he had no throat.

He just had his thoughts.

But he didn’t have a mind.

Who told him that? When had he come to that conclusion?

The Marigold and Sepul told him that he didn’t have a mind, but in the magical sense alone was what they really meant, that he had no detectable one.

He failed to interpret based on what he should’ve known, and instead interpreted it based on what relatively few memories he had in that moment.

Fomoria thought more on what he thought, and he went back through everything that he thought he knew.

The class had long since ended, and after giving out the reports, he had remained still for hours.

“Mister Fomoria… can I go?”

“Huh?”

Phoebe could hardly keep her eyes open.

“You told me to keep casting spells until you said to stop.”

“Sorry, I got lost in my head. Of course. Go to bed.”

“Thank you.”

She rubbed her eyes as she walked away.

“Spire, send someone to make sure she gets back to her home safely.”

Without anyone else there, Fomoria went back to training from his youth.

The spire had a perfect internal clock aided by magic, and it was childsplay to set a pendulum that always swung in a perfect rhythm.

He sat there, closed his eyes, and moved his head left and right.

As a child, this would’ve been a pouch with small stones in it that he tied to a branch, and the punishment for having a wrong sense of time would be the risk of a black eye.

Now, there was no punishment other than the spire making buzzing sounds, but it felt much worse to him.

He missed pain, or at least he thought that he did.

Pain was bad, but it was also related to touch, and he missed touching things.

By morning, he felt that his sense of time was right, and how he perceived things felt different, no longer too slow or too fast.

It was always a strange feeling when something normal suddenly becomes abnormal.

Once the spire had stopped making loud noises, once he settled into his own pendulum-like rhythm, it was easier to organize his thoughts in the trance-like state of his.

Suddenly he stopped, and the spire made a noise.

Fomoria moved his hands in a complex pattern, and a beam fired from his hand, easily going through the spire.

However, he had not destroyed anything, the beam had become intangible, unharming, but unstoppable.

A rune was asking the world to let a mage do something.

A sigil was a level higher than that, and came more from the caster than the world.

With the balance now in the favor of the caster, Fomoria’s being could fill the gap that should be filled by the world itself.