A month of nothing but exercise and then hand-to-hand combat training had passed by and Roman and his classmates were finally going to be tested in combat magic class. Their teacher would be testing them on their ability to react to incidents on the battlefield.

A man, whose hair grayed in old age and had a bulky body as well as a swarthy complexion, led them to one of the many empty fields of the academy. He dragged a cart behind him; a white blanket draped over its opening. Roman didn't know exactly what was in there, but he guessed they were probably dummies for their training. The man's name was Lugard, an ex-marine who had been a feared battlemage in his heyday. Lugard faced all of them with a fierce gaze and an unsmiling expression.

Lugard sat down on the sand and a puff of dust blew up from the ground into the air. He crossed his arms in front of him. He did not speak for a few minutes and just closed his eyes in concentration. Suddenly, his eyes bolted open and he began screaming, shouting an elongated "Ah!" Roman and the rest simply stared in confusion at him. When he had finished he breathed in and out. Then he screamed again at the top of his lungs. The next thing he did made Roman and the rest frown. He pointed his index finger on the ground and raised himself up. Then he straightened his body up into the air with nothing but his finger supporting him on the ground. Lugard had also been doing these kinds of stunts in their past classes; no one dared interrupt him or ask why he did it.

"Good to be alive," he said, still doing a handstand with a finger, facing them. His students stiffened, surprised that he suddenly spoke. "Alright, before I begin, I want to ask you one question: what do you think defines a battlemage?"

No one raised their hands up. A few students elbowed each other, pushing one another to answer their teacher, but no one dared attempt an answer. Moments later, a beautiful girl raised her hands up. Her hair was separated by two locks of braided hair, while her ears tapered to a point—she was an elf. Her eyes were as green as a fresh evergreen leaf. Roman recognized her, she was that girl who had bumped into Kaemon accidentally and had slapped him when he had grabbed her wrist. He didn't know they were classmates in this particular class, but then again, Roman didn't familiarize himself with his classmates. He rarely interacted with any of them.

Lugard raised an eyebrow and stared into the girl's direction. He coughed and dropped his two feet onto the ground, now standing to face them.

"Yes," Lugard said, pointing to where the girl was standing. "You there, elf girl. Tell me what defines a battlemage?"

She grinned. "Thank you, Sir," she said." While there are various philosophical definitions spreading out there about what defines a battlemage, one particular answer juts out above the rest. It is true that there are three types of mages with different approaches towards fighting in general, but they still have something in common. This one common thing is as obvious and as useful as the pigeonhole principle—a battlemage is someone who fights with his magic."

A few students sniggered at the definition. The conclusion was rather anticlimactic with how well she set up her answer, and how long it was. But Lugard simply nodded at her.

"That's the simplest and most practical answer," he said. "Certainly better than the one that says battlemages are tacticians on an individual level capable of infiltration, subjugation, retaliation, attrition, and attack that your books talk about. Heck, it even goes in depth into why a battlemage is given these five attributes. Such a long-winding and useless definition. A battlemage is in all simplicity a warrior. Even a child armed with only a butter knife, but could sharpen it through enchantment and can fight with it is a battlemage. You would do well never to underestimate a battlemage, in other words, never put your guard down before a man and his magic—this is basically what the elf's definition is trying to point at. Only someone with magic can be a battlemage."

Lugard turned to Roman's direction. "Remember that well."

"Alright." Lugard clapped his hands. "This past month I trained you all in hand-to-hand combat and nothing else. I never taught you how to use your magic as I assumed you were all being taught that in another class. So I'm expecting that by now, you can mesh your magic to a certain extent with your physical abilities. By the end of this test, we'll be able to see how good each one of you are. Anyway, behold."

Lugard then removed the cover on the cart and showed them a multitude of marbles all packed into it. Roman apparently was wrong, they were not dummies. All of them walked towards the cart and circled around it, curious about the trinkets. Roman pushed through the crowd and picked up one marble from the bunch and inspected it. The marble was lined all over with various symbols; the symbols even reached inside the marble as if suspended in transparent liquid. The symbols were a work of art in their symmetry. But they were no art, Roman knew, they were pure runes, capable of moving the marble and giving them some measure of intelligence in their movement. Such intricate and genius design. To pack all that sophistication the designer inscribed the runes onto separate layers of spherical transparent material and then stacked them up into a tiny ball, thus building the marble.

Lugard parted the crowd with his massive arms. Roman thus dropped the marble he was holding into the cart. "Alright," Lugard said. "Enough, enough. It's time to start your test."

The students backed away and gave Lugard some room at the center. "Each marble has a different grade from one to ten. The higher the grade, the rarer it is. Moments from now, I'm going to turn on the runes on these marbles and they'll all fly all over the academy and even into the northern forest. Your job is to capture as many of the marbles as you can. The accumulation of the grades from your marbles is your score. You're going to form teams of two and are going to be collecting the marbles together."

"Wait a minute," one student interjected. "How is this supposed to help us become battlemages?"

Lugard looked around for where the voice had come from and saw no one who would admit it had come from them. He simply sighed.

"The marbles are difficult to catch; they will react to your approaches appropriately. You will find it… challenging if not frustrating. It will force you to be creative in the use of your magic. Any questions?"

Everyone was silent.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I take this to mean everyone understands the task well. Alright, pair up."

The students began pairing up until only Roman and the elf girl were left without partners. Roman approached her.

"It looks like it's you and me then."

"Yeah," the girl sighed.

An awkward silence ensued. Roman didn't know what to say to her and it seemed like she was in the same boat as well.

"Um…" the elf began. "I'm Aisaca Funta a Caster."

Roman was taken aback by her sudden introduction.

The Funta family huh, Roman mused.

They were a long line of elves that defected from Sykos—a land mostly run by elves—and moved to Mythos. In the last decade, their house had been elevated to noble status.

"I know."

"Oh so you already know me?"

"No, I mean I know you're a Caster." Roman put his left hand into his pocket. He pointed to his ears with his right hand. "The ears were a dead giveaway."

"Oh right," Aisaca said, looking Roman directly in the eye. "Forgot about that."

"Right," Roman said, grinning. "Anyway, I'm Roman Dacre and I can't do magic."

***

Later, Lugard tipped the cart onto the ground and the marbles spilled to the sand. The marbles started glowing in various lights, some glowed green, others white, while others were gold. They spun at great speeds as though they were mini suns whose energy was compressed into tiny balls that bode an explosion of untold proportions. But instead of exploding, one by one, they started darting to the skies, too fast for anyone to catch them from the get go. They flew into all directions rapidly leaving the ground empty of a single marble.

The students looked at the spectacle in awe; they were struck by the beauty of the phenomenon before their eyes and none had the thought of hurrying up to chase.

"Well?" Lugard said, raising an eyebrow. "What are you waiting for? You have one hour."

The students were startled and looked at Lugard for a moment. Then their eyes widened and they raced to everywhere in the academy as well as the northern forest. Realizing that fewer students dared to go to the northern forest Roman and Aisaca went to the forest's direction nodding at one another. They assumed that the fewer the competition the easier they could capture a marble.

While the forest wasn't inhabited by dangerous magical beasts it was still full of minor creatures that could hinder any low-tier mage. But the threat wasn't so great as to warrant the worry of either Roman or Aisaca. For Roman, he had an ace up his sleeve, while for Aisaca and her mana well that was a hundred times bigger than the average human it was a piece of cake.

They entered the forest. The canopy of the branches above stained the ground below in black shadows. The air was cool and the chirping of the birds was loud. They ran through mud and thorny undergrowth.

"How do we locate them?" Aisaca asked, panting.

"After looking at their design earlier, I'm guessing we don't have to look…"

"What? What do you mean?"

As they ran, a marble flew past both of them at an astonishing speed, it was circling them. When it finished circling it would turn and fly in a pattern that looked like the number eight, then when it finished, it zigzagged. It repeated these patterns and sometimes deviated from them with a new pattern.

Aisaca was quick, she pointed her wand and casted a three dimensional spell–a spell only casters could cast–that formed a thick blanket of web that looked liked it could even stop an arrow and tried to stop the marble in its tracks, but too late the marble stopped just before it hit the web, then it started to fly vertically and finally slipping above the blanket of web and started moving around them again. The web fizzled and winked out of existence.

"We don't find them, they find us," Aisaca realized.

"Exactly."

Roman pulled a small cubical stick from his pocket, it was filled with runes. He released it and it started flying above them. Strangely the stick followed after the marble as if it were attracted to it. The marble flew below a branch and the stick followed suit. But the stick wasn't nimble enough to fully avoid the branch and it hit it, causing it to spin.

Roman whistled and the stick reoriented itself. Aisaca for her part casted a two dimensional spell. Vines started creeping from the trees surrounding them and it chased after the marble. One vine rose diagonally to hit the marble but the marble simply swerved to the side avoiding it.

"Shoot," Aisaca let out.

Roman simply stood there as he couldn't do anything except watch his contraption follow the marble. He clicked his tongue for his uselessness. If only he were magic, he could help Aisaca bind the marble. But Aisaca didn't mind or even notice his stupor, she simply kept casting spell after spell. She raised her wand, beginning to cast. A two dimensional spell construct appeared in her mind, one corner was bent at a 90 degree angle while its opposite corner rose acutely. Inside this shape were a series of interconnected shapes such as stars, squares, and shapes that had no name. When her mana took the shape of this construct the leaves from the trees began to flutter. They started to separate from their branches and chased after the marble.

The marble was surrounded, but as if it were cunning, it began slipping through holes between the leaves and it successfully escaped. Out of options Aisaca turned to Roman.

"I'm stumped," she said. "I have no more idea."

Roman was startled and looked back at Aisaca. An idea clicked into his head.

"The marble's too fast," Roman pronounced. "I need you to slow it down so my device can catch up."

"Leave it to me," Aisaca replied.

She waved her wand as if she were conducting an orchestra, she envisioned a three dimensional spell-construct in her head and slowly she formed her mana into the spell construct. An orb of light instantly appeared in front of the marble then from the orb rushed forth a gush of strong wind, since the marble had more of its surface area exposed to the wind it started slowing down. Meanwhile, the stick was flying with its tip pointing forward so it was able to cut through the strong wind and it caught up to the marble. The stick stuck to the activation relay of the marble, thus blocking the flow of outer mana into its runes, rendering the marble inert. The marble fell down to the forest floor.

Roman picked up the marble and inspected it, it was glowing in a golden color. He then put it inside his rucksack. Meanwhile he held onto the stick for further use.

"That's ten points," he said. "More points to go."

"Right,"Aisaca said, relaxing her nerves. "That was intense."

”Indeed. Worst of all, I couldn’t do anything.”

“That’s not true,” Aisaca cheered Roman. “You have that stick that flew and chased after the marble. Ultimately it was your stick that stopped the marble. What is that anyway?”

"Oh this," Roman raised the stick. "It's my personal project. I was saving it in case we were to fight a poorly made golem. Those cheap golems don't have animation cores and instead have its runes carved all over its body. In that case you only need to block the activation relay to render the golem inert, so I made this. This device homes in on the activation relay of any runes, and blocks them."

"Impressive!" Aisaca exclaimed.

"How about you? Are you using a wand to increase your casting speed?"

"Not exactly," Aisaca replied. "I… I have a condition. Normally elves have five times the mana well of an average human but I have a hundred times that, which makes casting a spell without a wand impossible."

"Oh," Roman blurted out. "That's kinda like a double edged sword, you get overwhelming power while at the same time you're vulnerable without your wand."

"Exactly."

"But at least you can do magic, whereas I…"

"That's not true, your runes are amazing! I've never heard of a runic device that homes in on an activation relay before."

"Well," Roman scratched his cheek with a finger. "If you put it that way, then I guess I can cheer a little. However, to clarify, devices that home in on runic contraption have been made before. I based my creation on that, except mine homes on the activation relay."

Roman turned around, "Anyway, let's go look for other marbles."