Throughout my shower and into the night, I thought about everything I had heard. When I did fall asleep, my dream was of the girl that Lance had prevented me from helping. How the guards had treated her. Was she even still alive? Could I have helped her? Should I have? Should I just leave the city and let what would happen, happen? Surely then none of it would be my fault, right?

“Kyren!” Barti’s yelling broke me out of my stream of questions and thoughts. His voice and the fact that I was no longer in my room caused me to grow very confused. The confusion got even worse when I realized I was in the training room and currently facing off against Tindi. “While I appreciate that you are giving the situation a ton of thought, that does not mean you cannot focus on what is going on around you. Tindi, stop holding back.”

Her nod was as sharp as her smile was predatory. What was with everyone around me looking at me like I was a piece of food? Without warning, she charged. With a flash of mana, I shifted to the side. The fist she aimed at my head slid past. My hair fluttered as the displaced air shoved it this way and that.

With one hand to act as a pivot point, I used the other to slash upward. The sharp, fast movement aimed at her belly missed as she flashed away. Her movement was so fast that I only saw a blur between the two points. While her exercise was hard enough to cause her to break a sweat, she never went hard enough to do anything else. In fact, I had never seen her having an issue with breathing, until now.

Tindi’s breathing was coming harder and faster than a few moments ago. She truly was not holding back. A sudden tensing in her hands was the only warning I got before she blurred a second time. My body reacted on instinct as it moved forward and twisted to the side.

Her blurred fist passed within a hair’s breadth of my nose while her shoulder rammed right into mine. The hit sent me spinning to the side. As I tried to regain control of my momentum, a kick to my back sent me flying.

My face ground against the floor as I came to a stop. It hurt like hell. Not that I had time to care. Not when she was likely on her way to do yet more damage. I shoved mana through my body and into my surroundings. I rolled just in time for her fist to miss.

I don’t think it sank in just how much she had been holding back before. Not until I saw her fist sitting where my head used to be. The cracked stone belied the amount of force she had used. I would be dead if that had hit me. Not willing to give her another chance to hit me, I put as much space between us as I could as I gave up on close-range attacks. Instead, I focused everything I had on keeping her at a distance.

Or at least I tried. She was quick. Always managing to keep within an arm's reach no matter what. The kicker was, with my mana flooding through my body, I could keep up with her moves. But only just. I still had to move to dodge and deflect while trying to strike back.

Nah, just kidding. I wanted her to think that I was struggling to keep up. While, at first, I had struggled to dodge and deflect her strikes, I had gotten a feel for her momentum within the first minute. It didn’t take me but another minute to find openings and mistakes. Nothing large enough for me to attack her with a fist or foot, but long enough for something else.

As soon as the last part was in place, I took a blow to my sternum. It hurt like a bitch but it did its job in launching me across the room. I played possum. To my surprise, she didn’t hesitate as she charged at me. The moment her foot stepped over my first spell, I released the lot.

Earth walls jerked up behind her. Forming a large bowl. As soon as it formed, a sphere of water formed, compressed, and exploded from the center out. The explosion of water split as the back half met the earthen bowl. It bounced around before being redirected to join the first. It was at that moment that the first wave met its target with enough force to stagger her. A moment later the the second sent her sprawling to the ground. “Stop,” Barti called.

“But…” She spluttered.

“If he had used fire you would be dead. If he had curved the bowl just right, he could have focused the water onto a single point and done significant damage. Face it, you lost.” His voice was calm and matter-of-fact. “Kyren, take a few minutes to rest. Mindi, you’re up.”

By the time I got to the edge of the room, the two girls faced off. While I wanted to get back to thinking over my decision, the scene before me caught my attention. Mindi had cast a decent number of spells. Balls of fire and water flew around the room as they chased Tindi. Tindi, for her part, dodged the spells as she moved around the room. Any time she got close to Mindi, the spells grew more accurate and faster as they forced her back.

The moves were smooth and well-timed. It all looked like it was choreographed given the lack of hits. Finally, though, Mindi growled in frustration. A dozen different spells spawned in the area around her. As one, they flew at Tindi in such a way as to leave her no way out. Tindi, for her part, blurred as she still tried to dodge the hits. But as soon as the first stone hit her shoulder, she lost her momentum. Spell after spell met their target as they did some damage.

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Nothing was strong enough to kill her, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Her scream ended the match without Barti having to say a word. Instead, he flashed in. A microsecond later, staggering amounts of mana flooded out of him as he cast a spell on her. Even from where I stood, I could see her wounds visibly healing.

The flood of mana stopped just as fast as it had started. He took the opportunity to help her up and across the room. With her sitting against the wall, he looked over at me. “Your turn.” I expected Mindi to join me in the middle but, to my surprise, the elf joined me. He looked utterly relaxed as he spoke. “Feel free to come at me at any time.”

I didn’t so much as move, choosing instead to ask a question that had been bugging me off and on all night. “Why me?”

“Why you what?”

I thought my question was quite self-evident but I humored him. “Why is everyone trying to recruit me?”

“Ah,” He sighed, “Honestly, you just got lucky, or unlucky. If not for that first day you came into the guild and got us as trainers, none of this would have happened. At least not to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Other than a few oddities and traits, you are just like every other traveler that the gods drop into our city.” And here I was thinking that there was something about me that everyone wanted for their side.

“Wait, what oddities?” I asked, curious what he was talking about. I mean, the only thing I could think about as being odd had to do with my mana, but I doubted it was what he meant.

The elf took a second to look me over as he thought about his answer. Finally, he simply said, “No, if you can hit me one time, then I will tell you.” Well, guess I would never know. Then again, he wouldn’t pose this unless he thought I could pull it off. Or if he didn’t want to answer, but I doubted he would do such a thing.

I could stand here and debate if it was possible or not forever or I could give it a go. And, given that I only knew a fraction of his power, I needed to either come up with a foolproof plan or go for broke.

It took me all of a couple of seconds to decide what to do. There was no way I would be able to come up with any sort of plan that could account for everything he could do. In fact, I needed to have absolutely no plans. No planning ahead, just attack fast and hard. It worked for the Germans in World War Two, it was likely to work here.

To that end, I needed to remove his ability to react to any tells my body might give. I needed to shut off my mind. Specifically the part that planned ahead. The part that reacted. Relying instead on pure instinct.

He must have seen some sort of change in my posture or expression because he suddenly smiled. He might have said something to me because his mouth moved, but I ignored it. My focus was centered fully on releasing my mana. To allow it to flow freely. Every drop rushed out of me, through my body, and into my immediate surroundings.

None of it went far though. Most of it seemed to rebound off something and rush back toward me only to be pushed back out. This back-and-forth occurred more times than I could count. It only ended when the majority of my mana settled at one of three points. Two sat at the top of my head while another was attached to where my spine ended. It was the same place my mana had settled during the fight with the idiotic creeper. Unlike that time, this time the mana felt more like a part of me. Like I could reach back and grab whatever it had become.

I ignored the desire to look, to find out what my mana had formed. Instead, I charged at my opponent. The world around me blurred as I moved. He moved just enough to the side to avoid my stab. Something behind me swung. It smacked into the area around his body and ground to a stop as it encountered something.

It was as if I was in a train going full speed down one of the lines between towns only for the driver to slam on the emergency brakes. The sudden forces probably did a fair bit of damage to my body, but I did not care. Not with the position it put me in.

I used what little leverage I had and swung my sword at the back of his legs. At best, this would take one of them out of the fight until he healed. Unfortunately for me, my sword hit something solid and froze. It wasn’t that it bounced or skidded off something. Something caught my blade and held it in place.

“Not bad,” Barti said from above as I struggled to pull my blade back. It was well and truly stuck where it was. “While it was a good attack, I am afraid it leaves you fairly vulnerable if your opponent manages to stop it.” Before I realized what he meant, his hand wrapped itself around something on my back.

Arcs of electricity shot up my spine. My world narrowed down to the pain and the evil creature that was holding me in place. With hands as white as marble, I tugged and yanked at my sword a few more times before dropping the useless thing. Left little choice, I used my hands to try and claw at my captor.

Blood ran down its pants, but not from any cuts on it. Every drop came from me. From my fingers as my frantic attacks ripped my nails off. Still, I kept scrambling against the creature.

Something else grabbed my arms and legs. With a grip like iron, they held my limbs in place. I heard the creatures scream at each other as I continued to fight against their hold.

Somewhere in my mind, some part of me understood what they were saying, but the rest of my mind ignored that part. It wasn’t relevant. Not when these things were going to kill me at any moment.

“Fuck, hold him down.”

“What did you do to him?”

“I did nothing but grab his mana tail.”

“Why does his mana form into a tail anyway?”

“I don’t know but you know what they say about mana and the soul.”

“What who says? I have never heard of any connection between the soul and someone's mana.”

“The elves have always said that the mana is an extension of the soul.”

“Is that why you don’t want him using his SoulStone?”

“It’s only a hunch, but yes.”

“Is there anything we can do to bring him back to us?”

“Not really.”

“Fuck this then, I’m knocking him out.”

Something slammed into my head. It caused me to see stars. A moment later, it hit again and I remembered no more.