A bell sounding throughout camp awakens me. Stepping out of my tent after a restful night of sleep I see several of the other recruits crawling out of their own tents, looking like they're suffering from bad hangovers. I smile to myself, even a bedroll on the ground still feels miles better than the wooden crates I had become accustomed to sleeping on.

As I look through the rest of the camp I see everything is in the process of being packed up, so I turn back to my tent and start doing the same. The others see me get to work and groggily follow suit.

Once I have my setup packed back into the bundle it started as I look back to the camp and see many of the veterans loading their tents and utilities into the wagon Bodelee had pulled my stuff out of.

I wait until the other recruits are more or less finished packing up their own belongings before heading over to the wagon myself.

Once there I start to toss my stuff onto it before I'm stopped by a, "Wait."

Looking to my right I see Albatos and Nika walking over to me and the group of half awake recruits that had followed me. Albatos has a bundle of cloth in his arms and I get the feeling I already know what's going to happen.

"You lot will be carrying your own gear from this point on," he says, taking one of the packs he's carrying and throwing it on top of my head. Setting my stuff down I take the pack off my head and see him similarly distributing the rest of the packs to the others.

"What do you mean, we have to carry our own stuff?" A single outraged voice speaks up. All of our eyes turn to Vurt as he continues, "How come the others get to use the wagon but we have to carry ours?"

"The others," Ablatos says as he shoves a pack into Vurt's chest, "aren't greenhorns, are they? No, see, unlike you lot they can pull their weight in battle. You can't, and until you can you'll be doing whatever it is I tell you. That includes hauling your own gear."

As Albatos unloads on Vurt, Nika quietly tiptoes around the pair and hands something out to each person. When she gets to me she smiles and says, "You don't need one of these."

"What is it?"

"It's a kind of edible tree bark. It helps clear up the migraine." I look at the others and see they're all scarfing down on tartos bark. I had no idea it had that property.

Though Vurt was the only one brave enough to speak out, none of the recruits were happy about having to carry their gear. I feel a faint smile form on my face.

I remember when I was like that, bothered by the slightest inconvenience. Sorry comrades, but this is pretty standard stuff. I'm sure you'll all get used to it. Even I, as worthless as I was, got used to it back when I enlisted.

Albatos instructs the group to line up and follow one of the wagons once they head out and leaves us to our own devices. With nothing better to do I go find Bodelee and help him pack up his smithy.

"Here ya go, Stein." Bodelee hands me a pair of leather shoes.

"Oh, you actually made these for me last night? Thanks, Bodelee." I accept the gift thankfully.

"No problem. We generally like to look out for each other around here. Now that you're here you're no exception."

"I had honestly thought a mercenary company wouldn't care much for bonds."

"Most don't. This groups a bit special. I think Zeph's got this vision he wants to see through, so he's pretty particular when he brings people in."

I help him lift the anvil into a wagon and we make more small talk while he packs up and disassembles his forge. Soon enough it's time to leave and I line up behind the designated wagon with the other recruits.

The company forms a procession that passes out of the woods and back onto the road. There we wait for around 20 minutes before we see a caravan leave the city and head our way.

When the caravan meets up with us Zeph and Albatos go to meet the caravan leader, and after some discussion Albatos directs the band to interweave itself among the ranks of the caravan.

Once the formation is settled we start moving again. Albatos comes over to the wagon we're following and hops up onto the bed of the wagon, taking a seat on the edge and facing us.

"All right you lot, yesterday we tested your skill and the limits of your mana. Today we'll be testing and expanding upon the limits of your knowledge. We'll start with a simple one. Who knows what the ranks designated by the guild are?"

Vurt replies immediately, "That's easy. It's warrior, mage, battlemage, and sorcerer."

"Good, now who can tell me what exactly those ranks mean?" Vurt tries to answer again but Albatos cuts him off, "Somebody else answer this time."

The group is mostly silent, then Redina speaks up, "Um, if I remember correctly a warrior is someone who doesn't use magic. A mage is someone who does use magic, and a battlemage is somebody who can use magic, reinforcement, and that thing you showed us last night, anti-magic area. Sorry, I'm not sure what a sorcerer is though."

"Good again. Alright, now who among you can use reinforcement?"

About half the group raises their hand.

"Okay, and who among you has received a formal education on magic?"

This time only Vurt raises his hand, a smug look on his face.

"In that case, the rest of you have some reading to do." He pulls out the book on beginner magic. "I want everyone besides Vurt and Stein to have read through this book by the time we get to our destination. If you cannot read, Stein will read it for you."

How wonderful.

I feel the eyes of the group turn to me. I just sigh and do my best to ignore the stares.

"Um, excuse me, sir." Redina speaks up again, "You haven't explained what exactly a sorcerer is."

"Right, sorry. I suppose in the simplest of terms you could say a sorcerer is somebody who makes bargains with mana."

"Making bargains with mana? What does that mean?"

"Unfortunately none of you are ready to know that until you have mastery over your innate domains and can use anti-magic area. Trying to skip the proper order can lead to you doing something really dumb and dying."

"What's an innate domain?" I ask.

Albatos looks at me and strokes his goatee, "Who knows what happens if you use offensive magic that directly targets somebody else?"

These roundabout explanations are starting to piss me off.

When nobody answered Albatos motioned at me, "All right, since you asked the question, Stein, you get to be the guinea pig to demonstrate to everybody."

He's never going to leave me alone, is he?

Sighing I step forward and vault up onto the bed of the wagon, standing next to Albatos, who stands up next to me.

"Pay close attention, everybody, I'm now going to use a spell that will cause Stein's entire body to burst into flames," Albatos says with a smirk.

"Wait, wh-"

"Blaze," Albatos speaks his activation phrase while pointing at me and I feel my entire body grow extraordinarily hot. Sweat instantly begins pouring off my skin and I writhe in place as I feel pain all over my body.

And yet I do not catch fire.

"Alright." Suddenly the heat abates and the pain starts to recede. I'm left drenched in sweat and panting for air.

"So, who can tell me why my spell didn't work properly?" Albatos asks the recruits who are all watching me with disturbed expressions.

After a minute of nobody answering his question, he starts his explanation, "My spell didn't work because of Stein's innate domain. A person's domain can be thought of as a lingering presence of their soul, bleeding in from the spiritual realm. It encompasses your body, and can exert certain influences on the world that we know. For example, though my spell should have caused Stein to completely burst into flames, he only became very very warm. That's because his innate domain gave him a certain amount of resistance to the influence of foreign mana. Because my spell explicitly targets an individual, it's able to be partially nullified by the individual's innate domain."

"You should note that this doesn't affect spells that don't explicitly target the individual. For example," Albatos summons a small flame in his hand and makes a flicking motion at me. His little fireball lands on my arm and I recoil in pain, having received a small burn on my skin where it had touched me.

"Can anybody tell me why that spell burned Stein, while my other one didn't?"

"Is it because the spell was simply to create fire? That way since it didn't actually target the person, it wasn't able to be nullified by his domain?"

"Good job, Holeria. That's exactly correct. All right Stein, that's enough of a break for you, back in formation you go."

I glare at him as I hop down off the wagon, still rubbing my fresh burn. "Oh don't be a baby. Have Nika take a look at it later, you'll be fine."

Once I'm back in line with the others Albatos continues, "Sorcerers are people capable of using spells called projections on their own domains. Once they reach a certain level of control they can even perform feats such as this."

"Domain expansion." Similar to the anti-magic area Albatos previously demonstrated, I feel an atmosphere encompass me. This time it feels very different though. Anti-magic area just feels like there's something there. Being within Albatos' domain expansion I vividly felt like I was deep within an ancient, musty library.

"I have just expanded my innate domain beyond the boundaries of my body. If I wished to I could use my domain as a canvas and apply a projection to it. A projection cast in this manner could freely target other individuals within my domain, unlike normal spells."

I feel the domain recede, and the sensation I had felt leaves with it. The slight pressure I had felt from being within the domain reminded me of something. It brought back the memory of the sensation I had felt in the alley when Zeph had stopped me from trying to flee on my own.

I guess this is the level of a sorcerer.

"To have mastery over your domain is to know yourself. To reach that level usually takes several years." Albatos smirks, "But if I push you hard enough, I'm pretty sure I can get one or two of you to the level of a tier one in around six months."

"A tier one?" Someone asks.

"Sorcerers are divided into five tiers. The requirement to be a tier one is to be able to use projections on your innate domain. Tier two is to be able to perform domain expansion. Tiers three and four are generally assigned based on fame and perceived strength. Does anybody know what other name a tier five sorcerer goes by?"

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Vurt said quietly, "An ascended, right?"

"Indeed. As the title suggests, people who reach tier five are considered so far beyond ordinary as to barely even be considered human anymore. Some examples of current ascended would be the demon lord, the archmage of Djudiria, and the dwarven queen. And I can't forget the most powerful of all the current ascended, the Sword God, said to be the strongest man to ever exist."

Albatos lapsed off in a train of thought as he looked off into the distance. None of the recruits dared ask a question, not after being told of the strongest fighters in the world.

After a few minutes Albatos sighs, "All right, I went a little off track. Who can tell me what magic you should never ever perform in a fight?"

Redina speaks back up, "Summoning magic?"

"It's true that summoning magic is forbidden, but I was thinking of a different kind of spell."

Vurt says, "Barrier magic, right?"

"Correct."

"But why?" Holeria asks, "Wouldn't something like that be useful?"

"It's only natural you would think that. After all, creating a barrier seems like it would make for a great option to bolster your defenses. And when I say barrier magic I don't mean a spell to create a barrier out of stone or some other material. I'm talking about a spell that simply uses mana to create a barrier."

"Since magic is a phenomenon created by using mana to give life to concepts, something like barrier magic is incredibly dangerous. Usually, the root concept of a barrier is something everyone can understand, the desire to protect oneself. But because that concept is incredibly vague the actual effects of the spell aren't what you would expect."

"Take the concept of protecting yourself. Can anyone tell me what else is a part of you that is as important as your body?"

"Your soul," Redina answers.

"Exactly. So when you manifest a barrier to protect yourself the mind takes that concept and protects the thing it unconsciously considers more important than the body, the soul. Creating a barrier in this way usually results in using mana to forcibly harden a shell on the outside of your soul. This can be good for domain expansion training because when you raise this kind of barrier you're effectively expanding your domain so the edge can serve as your barrier. But here lies the fatal flaw of the spell. Because the barrier is just a hardened outer shell of your soul, if it's shattered that damage is reflected back onto your soul in its entirety, breaking it apart."

"There is a name for the condition of the poor fellows who have their barriers broken in this way."

I swallow, already sensing what he'll say next.

"They call that condition soul devastation, and as far as I know nobody has ever survived past a week with a shattered soul."

I feel a chill go up my spine, and nobody says anything for a few minutes.

Eventually, Albatos says, "That's enough lecturing for today. Stay in formation until we stop for a break or make camp. That's all." And he hops off the wagon and walks off towards the front of the convoy.

When the sun is high in the sky Nika comes around with leftover bread for everyone to snack on for lunch. She heals my burns and tries to apologize on Albatos' account. Though she admits he probably wasn't sorry in the slightest.

******

Once it started getting dark the caravan leader called it for the day and we set up camp. I watched as Albatos went around and assigned duties to all the experienced members and told us where to set up.

So an hour after the camp had gotten settled we recruits found ourselves gathered once again by Albatos, Nika, and Annora.

"Alright you lot, listen up," Albatos starts. "In case you haven't met yet, this is Annora. She's our defender. If you're ever assigned a position near her, your only objective becomes to support her in any way you can."

"Hey there greenhorns, looks like I'll be teaching you lot about reinforcement. I guess before anything else, a demonstration is in order."

She looks around, then identifies a tree she likes and walks over to it. The tree isn't too thick, about half the thickness of what I could wrap my arms around. Taking a deep breath, Annora takes a wide stance and executes a blindingly fast roundhouse kick on the tree.

With a tremendous crack, the portion of the tree she kicked splinters into a thousand pieces. She hadn't kicked through the tree entirely, but she had done enough damage the tree tipped over and fell with a crashing thud.

"There's no need to put on fancy airs or give complicated explanations about reinforcement. You simply use the mana within yourself to strengthen your body. That's it."

Walking back over to us she continues, "Your test tonight is to reinforce your fist, and hit me until I decide you can do it good enough."

Vurt says, "Why should we have to hit such a fair maiden as yourself? Could we not simply practice on trees, as you've demonstrated?"

Annora gives him a nice smile, seemingly wooed by his elegant demeanor. "It would be too much of a hassle to figure out if anyone was cheating with magic. This way, I'll know."

Holeria snickers, "Is that why Nika's here? To patch you up if any of us end up hitting you a little too hard?"

Annora gives Holeria a wicked smile, "Nika is here to fix you if you end up breaking your hand. Last time I did this test there were three instances of that happening."

Vurt says, "Now, now ladies, no need to fight. It's fortunate I already know reinforcement, so I think I'll go first." He steps forward, standing in front of Annora. "I could never mar such a beautiful face, so I'll be going for the abs."

Annora smiles at him again, "Sure, wherever you please."

Taking a deep breath Vurt slams his fist into Annora's abdomen with as much strength as he can muster. Annora doesn't even flinch, much less budge.

"I had hoped after your bravado that your reinforcement would be more than half baked, but it seems you got my hopes up for nothing. Go work on it and come back later."

"Yes ma'am." Turning around, Vurt walks back to the group gripping his limp hand he had used to punch Annora. I thought there might have been a tear in his eye as Nika came over to help alleviate his pain.

"Enough." Morvin, the only dwarf recruit, steps forward. "I'll be going next."

"Oh? Alright, let's see what you can do, failure." Annora's words to her fellow dwarf are far harsher than I had expected.

Morvin took a stance before Annora and punched her in the same place Vurt had. Once again she doesn't even flinch.

"Oof. For a failure, you're pretty decent. Pass. Now get out of my sight."

Morvin leaves the group and heads back to camp.

"Um, sorry," Redina says, nervous. "What exactly are we supposed to do? You said we use mana to reinforce our body, but how exactly do we do that?"

"When you cast a spell you think of the concept and feed mana into the array your mind creates. When you reinforce you think of what you want to reinforce and feed mana into that. If you want to make the reinforcement even stronger you can think of your mana as circulating through your body, flowing through your flesh and back into your soul."

So instead of feeding mana into an abstract concept we were feeding it into the concept of our own bodies.

Doesn't seem that hard.

I focused on my fist and tried to recall the feeling of feeding mana into a spell. Once I felt I had a good grasp on feeling the mana, I channeled it into my fist. Punching my open palm I found that my fist was much more solid than it should be.

Several of the others had tried and failed in the time it had taken me to grasp the fundamentals. I step forward to take my turn.

Standing before Annora I brace myself and throw a punch into her gut. "Not terrible, but need to do a bit better than that to pass. Try to circulate the mana a bit more, you're not far off from a pass." She smirks, "Boy, you're really bad at throwing a punch, aren't you?"

"How can you tell the difference between a good punch with bad reinforcement and a bad punch with good reinforcement?"

"Could you tell the difference between getting hit with a stick hard and getting hit with a metal pipe softly?"

"Yeah, fair enough."

Stepping back I try to improve my foundation. Looking around, it seems many of the others are confused on what Annora means when she talks about circulating something within yourself. But to a child of the 21st century, it's practically common sense how blood circulates through the body.

So with the image of my mana being blood and my soul corridor being the heart, I pump mana through my fist so it returns to my soul corridor. The sensation is new and strange. I've become accustomed to the sensation of expending mana, but the feeling of taking it back in is… unusual.

Stepping forward again I throw my fist into Annora's abdomen. "Good, pass. You catch on quick. Dismissed."

Leaving the others who remain to their trial I head over to the mess area. When I get there I'm surprised by the somber atmosphere of those waiting to get their food.

Walking over to another soldier I ask, "What's with the sour mood?"

"Bodelee's been left in charge of cooking."

"Oh, yeah I guess since Nika is needed for training she can't do it herself, huh? Is Bodelee's cooking bad?"

"You'll see when it gets served."

If I didn't know Bodelee better I'd have thought he was trying to poison everybody in the camp that night.

After somehow managing to choke down Bodelee's culinary disaster I wandered around looking for anything that caught my eye. As I walked back to the area where we had been learning reinforcement I see that all the other recruits have cleared out by now and Annora is nowhere to be found. Now it's just Albatos, Nika, and Zeph all sitting around a table.

Since they don't appear to be having a serious conversation I decide to walk on over.

"Hey, kid. Adjusting well?" Zeph asks as he spots me heading over. Albatos looks over his shoulder at me and scowls.

"Well enough." Looking at Albatos, who is pointedly trying not to look at me, I say, "I was wondering if I could ask some questions about the things you talked about this morning."

That caught his attention. He looked at me in surprise and said, "Very well. What questions did you have?"

"I suppose this is a question for you as well, Zeph. You said that offensive spells can't affect another person if they themselves are the target of the spell. But before Zeph found me I did just that, I used a spell to directly change my opponent's body. How is that possible considering what you taught today."

I had honestly thought to myself that maybe Albatos had simply been misleading all of the recruits for some obscure purpose, but seeing the look of absolute confusion on his face I could tell that doubt was unfounded.

"I was thinking about that little trick you did myself ever since you told me about it. I think the reason that spell worked is based on several factors. First, your concept for the spell was simply to freeze all the water between your hands, correct?"

At my nod, he continues, "In that case, the target of the spell wasn't the person themselves, but the water contained within their body. Usually, this would still cause a spell to fail in this situation, but going on to the second factor, I'd bet you never originally intended that spell to be used in that manner, right?"

At my second nod, he finishes his explanation, "Since your idea of the spell wasn't an 'attack' spell, his innate domain probably didn't perceive it as such either. It likely also helped that he didn't seem to be a mage, so his innate domain was undeveloped. If that had been a sorcerer you had faced I guarantee you that spell would have failed."

"So basically I got lucky."

"Yup."

"To think Stein went through something like that…" Nika, who had been silent thus far says that with a sad look on her face.

I try and give her a comforting smile, "It wasn't that bad. I'm fine, Nika."

Nika doesn't say anything but gives a small nod.

"Any more questions?" Albatos looks like he couldn't care less what suffering I had been through on my own.

"Yeah, actually. I was wondering if you could explain more about that forbidden magic that was mentioned."

"Barrier magic? I thought I went through that quite thoroughly but very well."

"No, not that. The other magic, summoning magic? Why is that forbidden?"

The table goes very silent and Nika stands up, "I think I'll excuse myself for now. Good night everyone."

When she's out of earshot Albatos says in a hushed voice, "Very tactful. Why don't you try and have some consideration next time, brat?"

"Oh give the kid a break, Albatos. He couldn't have known he was stepping on a spring trap."

Albatos sighs, "If you must know, it's related more to history than anything else. History from 700 years ago."

"What happened?"

Zeph says, "You remember that map Zak showed us? The world as we know it is generally thought of as just those two continents. But in truth, there is a third. Beyond the northern sea is the shattered lands. It is said that 700 years ago the people of that land, wiser and more advanced than any other civilization in the world, attempted to summon something."

Zeph paused, leaving me in suspense. "What did they try to summon?"

"Nobody is certain of the truth, but it's said they tried to summon Bymos in the flesh. And in return, he annihilated them. Nothing was spared, not the people or the land. It is said that from the northern cities of Nourne pillars of white fire could be seen across the ocean. The remnants of their technology went rogue and sparked a war for survival that lasted several decades."

"Bymos did that? Why?"

Albatos cut in, "As if we could understand what goes through the mind of a god. And yet the people of the church still put their faith in him. They avert their eyes from the ugly history that doesn't suit their precious doctrine."

"Nobody knows the truth behind that disaster. It's unfair to say the church is in the wrong, Albatos." Zeph chides Albatos, "Most of them are just interested in the cause, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to help people."

"Whatever you say, Zeph. I don't think I'll ever really be able to trust anybody who puts their faith in that thing."

"Anyway, kid. That event is generally referred to as The Summoning. Since that time summoning magic has been something of a taboo. It's really bad if the church catches you doing it too. They don't bother getting involved with much, but they stomp down hard when they catch a whiff of anything that might be related to summoning."

"Good to know. Thanks for answering my questions, I'll be heading to bed now."

Taking my leave of them I head off to somewhere to find some peace and quiet. Settling against a tree I think about the self proclaimed god that put me here and what his goals might be.

As I'm lost in thought I hear some leaves rustle. Looking at where the noise came from I see Black moving through the trees, away from camp.

That's the second time now I've seen her do that. I can't help but wonder what she's doing alone out there.

As curious as I am, my tiredness outweighs my curiosity as I get up and head back to my tent. No matter how much I think about what that thing wants from me I just don't have enough information to draw any conclusions.

The only thing I can do is move forward. Wherever that may take me.