“There will be time for that later; let the others introduce their abilities first.” Lord Hatshepsut said to Aptera, who shrugged and returned to staring at his hand mirror.

Next, it was Durreg’s turn.

“I am an earth dragon and a swordsman. I specialize at wielding the terrain beneath my and my opponent’s feet as we fight, using it to strike at, block, and restrain my opponents. I also have powerful resistances to both physical and magical damage, making me a natural tank.”

While simple, Durreg’s abilities were nothing to scoff at. Fewer things were deadlier than an earth mage underground. If not for my [Orb of Devouring], I would not be able to beat him in fight. That said, nothing in his arsenal is capable of beating me either, since I am fast enough to run circles around him and wield enough mana to outwrestle any restraints that he could place on me.

Everyone looked to me after that, so I introduced myself.

“Anyone who calls me ‘Lady Azoth’ is gonna get smacked. Just call me Kiara.”

In the next breath, I gave a short summary of my abilities.

“I am a mage with both the arcane and atypical – force affinities, which lets me use the unique combination magic gravity. I also have a respectable repertoire of spells from all the attributes. I am an elemental, so I can cast regular spells for a long time, or repeatedly cast powerful ones. Finally, I can take on my true form as a dragon for a powerful boost in raw power, and so can Durreg. There’s more, but for now this should suffice.”

Nico and Durreg already knew, so they weren’t surprised. Either Aptera wasn’t listening or didn’t care, since he was still staring at his mirror. It was the other two whose reactions were interesting.

Astekhu’s eyes widened further and further with every word I said. When I was done, I was afraid her eyeballs were going to fall out of her skull. Lord Hatshepsut, meanwhile, listened intently and fell deep into thought.

In the meantime, Nico went next.

“My name is Nicotris Sept, though you can call me by my first name since we all seem to be going in that direction. I am the champion of Lady Mett, and I specialize in mounted combat and incantations. I also evolved into a fire elemental recently, so it will be interesting to see how I can integrate that with the rest of my abilities as well as yours.”

Astekhu’s eyes kept moving from me to Nico, then back again.

“Two elementals, two divine champions, two dragons… This team is obscenely powerful.” she mumbled in awe.

“Hmm. I understand your general abilities now.” Lord Hatshepsut nodded as his turn finally arrived.

I was eager to see what someone Nico thinks I would lose to is capable of.

“I do not care what you call me; Lord Hatshepsut, captain, or simply ‘Asten’ are all fine by me. I am the champion of Lord Amon-Re, the Patron God of Tamery. I am a peak rank A falconman, and my fighting style and abilities revolve around a central ability provided by my class. Like Aptera, I believe only a demonstration can show what it is capable of.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get demonstrating!” I said, rushing to my feet.

***

“This match will be a capture-the-flag team battle.” The Major said.

The three days she gave us came and went rather quickly, and before long, it was time for our match with the commoner team.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Your duty will be to guard your flag and return the enemy’s flag to your own fort. Victory will be yours once both flags are in your fort’s flag post when the time limit arrives. Taking out your own flag from its pedestal will immediately grant the other team victory. Each hour from the start of the battle, any fallen fighters will be returned to base. The time limit is five hours, starting from the moment you arrive on the field. Any questions?”

“No objections.”

“None, Major Amset.”

Nuhem and Nico answered respectively while Asten took a seat next to the wall since the major said he wouldn’t be participating. Both teams then entered the arena, and we stood on opposite ends of each other. The door closed and the arena activated.

When we finally descended onto to the surface, we found ourselves standing in a tiny, makeshift fort in the middle of an incredibly thick forest. The sky was hidden by the leaves and branches of the nearby trees, and it was only a few feet past the fort that all visibility faded as well.

The ‘fort’ was merely a flattened dirt surface with a few rocks forming a small circle in the middle of it. At the center of that circle was a stick planted in the dirt with a piece of blue cloth attached to it. At about a distance of fifteen feet from the flag, a shoddy wooden palisade surrounded us. Its wood was rotting and looked like it could fall apart at the touch of a stray gust of wind.

“As agreed, I’ll be heading off – ta ta for now!” Aptera said before walking to the palisade and jumping past it, leaving the four of us behind.

Astekhu took a look at the shoddy defenses and sighed.

“If we’re supposed to hold this with a numbers disadvantage, we’re screwed.”

“Lucky for us, Asty, we’re not. We’ve got two perfectly good earth mages and a boatload of mana – we can easily make this a lot more defensible.” I said, patting her shoulder.

Nico took a closer look at the terrain for a few moments before chiming in.

“The opponent’s team must be in the same condition as us. We also got lucky since siege battles suit us best. If Asten was with us, we’d be invincible.”

Durreg took out a clump of dirt from the ground and used his mana to fiddle with it.

“So, what’s the plan? If we’re going to fortify this place, we’ve got to start now.” He said.

Nico put a hand to her chin.

“I’ve got an idea…”

***

“Timbberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” I yelled, felling yet another tree with a mana blade.

“Kiara, for the love of the gods, stop it! You’re giving me a headache!” Asty yelled at me from atop the walls.

“Hehe, sorry!” I said.

Durreg had begun building stone walls, whose source materials he had to dig deep into the dirt to get. In the meantime, Nico and I were taking down trees surrounding the fort and spreading the logs all over the place.

Interestingly, our attempts at moving the pedestal itself were met with failure, as the space itself was locked tight with dimension magic. So instead, we began building around it.

Asty, meanwhile, was brewing concoctions and setting traps all over the fortress. The only people who can safely reach the flag with reasonable effectiveness were the four of us; Asty because she knows where the traps are, Durreg because of his innate defenses, and Nico and I because of the health pool granted by our elemental bodies.

Anyone else is going to have to bombard the fortress to pieces to take our flag without being poisoned or chemically burned. We even used some of the wood to plant makeshift stakes around the fortress and in hidden pits around the fort, which Asty made sure to treat.

“This should be enough, Kiara, we’ll handle the rest. Go and scout for the enemy fortress’s location from the air.” Nico said, chopping down yet another tree.

Nodding to her, I transformed into Ati’s form and took flight in the now clearly visible, blue sky. I slowed down to a gentle glide once I was comfortable it was difficult to see me from the ground then used my draconic eyes to look around. Outside of the decently large clearing we’ve made, treetops covered the land as far as the horizon went in any direction. With the exception of a few birds here and there, nothing moved in my vision.

“Hmm, they aren’t making a ruckus with fortifications like we are. Looking for their fort is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack, even for me. Maybe looking for their mana signatures would be a better idea.” I thought to myself as I activated my eyes’ mana sight.

Soon, the faint mana of the forest, the earth, and the sky became visible. Regular animals did not have mana cores like monsters and sapient races did, so they didn’t emit any mana in my vision outside of the ambient mana in the atmosphere. I slowly scanned through the forest, but my search continued to be fruitless.

I sighed.

“Scouting is a lot harder than I thought it would b-”

Immediately, something at the edge of my vision caught my eyes. In the areas I’d swept over, near our fort, incredibly faint mana signatures were making their way in our direction. They were so faint that it was almost undetectable when hidden by the ambient mana, but I just barely managed to catch it.

“Damn it, they’re already coming after us!” I yelled, rushing down to warn the others.