“Let the match begin!” booms the voice of Professor Tenace.

In a way, it is fortunate Rina is looking at me; she doesn’t see the massive fireball heading toward us.

I cast Root.

The fireball lands in front of us a few feet off exploding upon impact and sending Rina, Boeri and Gareth flying out of the arena. Their barriers protect them from the flames but not from the force which sent them out of bounds.

The fashionably dressed, scrawny elf kid who sent the fireball stares and his smile turns to surprise mouth agape that I am still in bounds.

My spell magically fixed me to the ground. Though it only lasts ten seconds. It is a simple, effective spell used when climbing or hunting.

I pat some of the singed edges of my plain, russet robes little left clings to my body.

I roar expressing my fury and frustration at the situation as the pain burns my skin.

Then I cough, my chest heaving and blazing pain radiating off my charred skin.

Fortunately, the fireball was aimed short and used for pushing force. That kid Fleur using such a powerful and well-controlled Destruction class spell. An unknown elven mage with vast potential.

He is dangerous, more so than I feared.

“It's okay, Marcus. You performed magnificently. Let me deal with the August.” says Alessia ruffling the silky, blond hair of the new kid.

The cold look in her beautiful blue eyes that she directs exclusively at me is unnerving.

In an instant, my frustration finds a focus.

“No mercy for an old friend?” I ask with good humour and a trace of bitterness.

“It was a good try!” she responds with a grin. “But this is as far as you go.” she promises her blue eyes freezing in chilling anger.

“So be it.” I utter dispassionately. Her loveliness is matched by her magical prowess both theoretical and applied.

Alessia, confident in her barrier, takes her time to start amassing an armada of mana bolts. The most basic offensive spell.

Most mages with her talents would never lower themselves to such a spell. Alessia is too pragmatic to not go with the best option. She poses well as one of them but that doesn’t change the fact that she cannot escape her past.

It takes her twenty seconds to get enough mana bolts to cover the entire space in front of her. If she had done one of the flashy, powerful spells it would have taken thirty or forty seconds to power a spell to cover the same area.

She looks so indifferent, uncaring that she is crushing our dreams, her face a mask of stone. Alessia is one of the most talented mages of our year, a rising star able to surpass the station of her birth. Shown by her being with Dragon Wing, yet she isn’t a prodigy. Unlike, Marcus.

Most would surrender or flee out of the arena. Honestly, I want to save myself the humiliation but I don’t know how. I only ever learned to fight.

The power difference between Alessia and me is great. Yet, I have my spell preparations ready: A specialised mana barrier, a summon and a half-woven offence spell.

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I fire the summon spell, at the centre of the field and whisper the activation title and begin the summon from the Tilled plane - a Decoy.

“Bring it.” I whisper a half-smile hidden under my hood.

Alessia unleashes over a thousand mana bolts. They fly forward like spears and smash into a fully summoned decoy. But pass through the summon without effect.

I wait until after the blue wave has passed the summon point until I activate Decoy’s special ability.

“Switch!” I shout.

I teleport to the place of the summon while it switches with me.

The special ability of the decoy spell summon class type.

There are downsides, it takes ten seconds before I come out of the other side and that time is spent there in tormenting darkness floating in space of a different dimension.

Unfortunately, as a result of those ten seconds, Alessia has time to prepare. Upon materialising a pillar of flames engulfs me.

Predictable, yet powerful. My mana barrier protects me but the barrier shatters from the damage as the pillars dissipate.

Trying to make up for the mana bolt swarm with a flashy, fire spell. Boring and banal.

Three more seconds and my offensive spell capable of breaking your barrier will be formed.

“Is that all.” my taunt is cut short as I notice a single mana bolt flying forward.

I don’t have time to curse before it hits and I fall into darkness.

Yellow and green that stretches far beyond what the eye can see. Enough land to fit every suffering soul, with plenty of crops to feed every one of them. Mountains of stone and forests of trees stretch to the clear sky standing united ready to be shaped into shelters. Curves of blue string along from the tallest mountain through the forests and into the fields wherein lies the source to wash parched throats and soil alike.

By my side are the faces of friends. Looking at me. The soil, stone, water and wood are ours under the blue sky. A land to carve out a home.

*

“Oh, awake are you?” a familiar voice calls out.

The world comes into focus. The stone ceiling is illuminated by the floating mage light orb.

“Took it right to the face. You should know better than to rile Alessia. She doesn’t like us anymore, remember.” A friendly, mocking voice. Gareth.

“I am well aware. Ouch, I suppose Tenance didn’t cure my headache?”

“Said it was a good lesson for you.”

“Of course.” I add sarcastically.

“Battling without a barrier is the height of foolishness. It is one of the first lessons we are taught, August.”

“I took a chance.”

“August! You could have died.”

“Your point?” I look at Gareth for the first time during the conversation.

Gareth is speechless, his jaw set in a firm line closed as he suppresses his anger. His mind whirling trying to see sense in my stupidity. He deserves better than me.

“I am all for a good fight. I will gladly wipe that pretentious smirk off Alessia’s face. Just because we have nothing doesn’t mean we should just die. We have fought for too long to just give up.”

“I know, trust me, I know. I miscalculated. I made a mistake.”

“Do you? Maybe one day, you will.”

I nod. No words are required.

"We are assigned to Dasflakas. We're expected in the morning."

I frowned, "The adventuer's hall? Not the army?"

He shrugged, "Slaves and mercs are fine. But, they won't let foreign citizens into the Stratee."

"Not how I expected our second military conscription to go."

“Here we are." He smiled with concern. "I will leave you to rest. I will tell Rina and Boeri you are fine.”

“Thanks.”

Before he closes the door behind him, he turns back.

“Oh, we only have today. They want us to be gone from the grounds by dawn.”

“Right.” I say a lump forming in the pit of my stomach.

Gareth gives one last intense stare and then leaves. The mage light flashes off once he is gone.

“Fuck.” I mutter.

I notice underneath the blanket that my fists are clenched hard.

“Rile her, I think it is the other way around.” I add speaking to darkness.

I set the clock alarm on a cabinet next to the enchanted lamp, to an hour before dawn. I don’t need much time, I have little to pack and no one to say goodbye to in the academy.

With that done I soon drift back to sleep.