His body felt like it did a ragdoll impression in the jaws of a bulldog. It ached and hurt and felt hot and cold either at the same time or one after the other. Groggily, he got up and stared around. Rightly enough, the glowing dome of light still stood and on the other side of it he saw the student body watching him with wide eyes. He could hear them too, though the sounds were slightly muted and distorted.

His eyes caught a glimpse of Micah and he wanted to ask boy what was happening when he saw him shouting and gesticulating wildly, pointing at something seemingly behind him. On instinct, Michael rolled over, as something slapped the floor where he had been just a second before.

“Whoa!”

The thing retreated just as fast, but Michael managed to get a glimpse of a limb… maybe a tentacle?

He looked back and what he saw wasn’t the gigantic monster he expected. Instead, he was looking at a swirling, multicolored, cloud of… something. Everything about it was hard to describe. Its consistency was at times solid, at times gaseous like mists or cloud. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of eyes in the floating mass or horns. Paws, wings. Even more, the colors never stayed the same. A greenish fur appeared for a second, before disappearing into a multicolored veil, that turned into metallic blue scales before disappearing altogether and turning invisible.

A distant part of his mind amused itself at the thought that this might be a glitch, before being shouted into seriousness by the rest of his mind.

“I believe this to be a manifestation of pure magic!” the old elf shouted. “It is causing untold stress on the artifact. You boy, end the test quickly, before it breaks down!”

He almost wanted to laugh.

“How?”

“Find a way!” the elf snapped. “This is your test!”

Michael wanted to shout at him when a part of the swirling vortex of magic lit up and spat out a fireball. The one that he had seen before was bad enough. This fireball? It shot toward him and even as Michael dodged, it blasted into the floor, scorching part of it. Only the detonation was large enough to throw him a few feet in the air anyway.

Area of Effect Damage. Not good.

He looked at the crystal egg again. It was positioned right behind the vortex. Thinking quickly, he outlined his options. What did he know about the manifestation? It didn’t have a solid form and seemed able of launching multiple types of attacks. It also seemed to be at least partly cognizant, since it was able to see and target Michael.

It was time to see how fast it was. Could he run around it?

Mind made up, he dashed forward, running in a wide circle, aiming at getting to the artifact before his opponent could either stop him or reposition. As it turned out, running around it wasn’t an option. A long transparent chain manifested itself around the being and it swung like a bat towards Michael.

Here goes nothing.

Putting everything he had into his already tired legs, he jumped. The feeling of triumph was exhilarating as he raised his knees to his chest and let the ghostly chain pass underneath him. It was glorious.

It was also short-lived, as a second chain whirled out of the blue and caught him across the chest. It didn’t constrict itself around Michael, but it did blast him back a good distance, making him bounce on the hard marble floor.

He hurried to get up quickly, before noticing something and taking it a little easier.

It doesn’t attack continuously. I think it can, but… it’s still working under ‘testing’ rules. It has to make the challenge at least somewhat fair.

Good. I’ll still get attacked if I stay in one spot too much, but I don’t need to worry about getting pummeled continuously.

…just repeatedly.

And yet he kept thinking. One option down, what next? Running around didn’t do it. Michael himself couldn’t teleport and he had no method of hurting it. To get it out of the way and get at the egg… he needed to make it move.

Well. ‘Taunt’ was a viable tactic in a lot of games. Even armies in the real world had used it, albeit under different forms. Could work.

“Hey y- you! Yeah you, you ugly piece of magic? You call that an attack? I saw better performance from a cheap wand!”

The barrier of light had dampened noises enough that he didn’t hear shouting or cheering around him. Only murmurs. But now… he heard nothing. He refrained from looking back since he already felt like a fool. He started to think that taunting a magical manifestation might not have been as smart as he had thought it would be.

He waited and waited, but nothing seemed to happen.

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Damn it. Alright, on to the next-

Suddenly, the entire manifestation lit up, a swirling mass of colors appearing.

“Yes!” he shouted. “I knew it- Oh, shit!”

A fireball shot out at it, but it wasn’t just one. It was followed by a spear made of water alongside an arrow of fire and a whip of vines and an entire host of spells targeted Michael as he ran for his life. First until the end of the barrier, then alongside it, letting the spells splash on the barrier instead of himself.

“No!” the elf strained. “I can… barely contain it anymore. The artifact… it’s breaking!”

As he was running, Michael caught a glimpse of egg. It did indeed seem to be cracking. Perhaps breaking the thing also counted as a ‘pass’?

“Boy, end the test! If the artifact breaks, I promise not you, nor any of your line will ever be allowed into Gnosis!”

So that’s a no, then.

Alright, so taunting did seem to provoke it. Only it didn’t move, since it was perfectly capable of launching attacks at a far range. Even spells that honed in on him, as he noticed every now and then a Spell would turn and follow him rather than splash on the old elf’s barrier.

Wait. That’s it!

It’s stupid and maybe it wouldn’t work in real life, but… this is a test. You’re fighting an opponent who can hit you both close and far. Your opponent can’t be taunted or outmaneuvered. It has weapons, while you don’t. Some of those weapons, in this case, are throwing daggers instead of arrows. Reusable. So, what do you do in this type of situation?

Take its weapons for yourself.

“That’s still a waste of an attack, you worthless excuse for magic!” Michael shouted, as he ran laps inside the dome of light.

“Child, end it!” Regitris pleaded. “This is clearly a mistake, you shouldn’t have been faced with such an unfair test. But that is no reason to break it. It is a priceless artifact of Gnosis. Of my people! Please, we will test you again!”

The elf had reason to be panicked. He was already straining, trying to keep the Spell protecting the student body from harm in one place. Some among them had caught on and stepped back. The older students and other professors had already cast shielding Spells of their own.

That’s because Michael’s taunting worked. The manifestation of pure magic swelled, lighting up, looking ready to disgorge an absurd amount of magic. All the while, the cracks in the crystal had spread almost entirely across its surface.

“Is that all you got?” Michael screamed. “Is that all your makers allowed you to let loose?! C’mon!”

Whatever primitive sentience lurked inside the artifact seemed to have had enough of Michael. With a quiet roar, felt more through pressure than through sounds, it unleashed a barrage of spells of all shapes and colors. The ‘test’ might not have been intended to kill its participants, but it seemed there was enough wiggle room there that it could skirt its limitations.

This time, Michael waited until almost every Spell was launched at him, before turning direction and running straight to the shapeshifting vortex. He dodged and weaved and even blocked small smells like blades of wind, though they left cuts and burns on his robe and skin. He ran through them, around them, always advancing towards his opponent. Because while most spells he evaded blasted the ground or air behind him, every few steps one more spell would add itself to the trail of homing magical attacks having had formed something reminiscing of a comet’s trail behind him.

And though he could not see it himself, some of his trailing spells impacted with others and… absorbed their effects. He would be told by others, in the days to come, how the first time they had ever seen him, the first thing he chose to do was to charge a creation of almost boundless magic, one that even senior mages would have been reluctant to confront and attack it with its own spells, trailing behind him like a sort of deadly, magical cape.

He ran like his life itself depended on it, since that was a very real possibility. After moments which passed painfully slow, he was finally just steps away from it. All the spells it had launched had either implanted themselves into the floor or were now trailing behind Michael. It didn’t have eyes, yet Michael felt a certain sense of… skepticism emanating from it. As if it couldn’t believe someone would ever dare to simply charge it like that.

Fifteen feet. Ten feet. The being was hovering in the air, shivering. It finally caught up to what was really happening and started to light up again.

No turning back down.

Five feet. A safer option would have been to dodge underneath it. Sure, it might have lashed out with spells, but Michael didn’t think it was ready yet. The risk of this path was that the Spells trailing behind him would slide underneath it as well. That wasn’t good enough. There was no guarantee that it wouldn’t simply turn around and blast Michael a second before he touched the crystalline egg. No, he had to either go big or go home.

He was right before it when he finally squeezed the last ounce of energy from his legs and jumped, forming a human ball in the air and bringing his legs forward. But there was one thing you learned if you played a particular type of games. If you’re not the type of character who can lay the beatdown on opponents?

Hit them and run.

The skin on his bare fee burned as he kicked at the vortex, but thankfully the energy didn’t snare him. It was also dense enough that he managed to kick off, into the air. He was flying, rolling in the few seconds of no gravity to see the results of his planning and daring. And it. Was. Beautiful.

Perhaps a dozen Spells must have been trailing behind him and they all hit the incarnated magical guardian. Maybe it was out of energy or maybe the Spells that hit it really were dangerous. Or maybe, since the Spells had been a part of its own being, triggered a ‘Win’ scenario for Michael.

In any case, his opponent literally blew up, in a backlash of color and power. The sad part?

Michael was still in the air when it happened.

FU-

He woke up to the sound of screaming. Only one of his eyes managed to open and that was already a bad sign. All around him, mages knelt or sat, mumbling and hitting him with different flashes of energy. Some even burned scrolls or spilled potions on him. Regitris himself stood near him, looking worried.

There was no more magical dome, but mages were holding the students back. He though he heard Micah. His mind felt fuzzy, but he still spotted the artifact. The damned crystal egg. It looked brand new, no crack on it.

And most importantly?

No damned magicky cloud. Hah!

He felt tired. Some sleep would do him good right now. Yet… one more thing happened in an already eventful day.

|New Class Available: Mage|

|Class Level and Skills accessible after acceptance. |

|Accept new class? |

Huh. I was wondering when something like that would happen.

He grinned, both mentally and physically and felt something tear on his face, to the relief and horror of his caretakers.

Sure. I accept!