Chapter 2: First Battle
“So lad now that you’ve seen what kinda things ya can meet in the forest do ya still want to do this if you say yes now there’s no backing out.”
Whether the questions was in jest or not I did ponder it for a while. Was this test worth it? Even without passing through this trial I could still go back and join some small time faction be a small time mage for the rest of my life. Yet I knew the answer in my heart I didn’t sacrifice all links with my family and struggle through the mage academy to end up giving up now. My ambitions where way to high for that. Marcus the youngest person to ever graduate form academy gives up after getting scared in the forest. I’d be a laughing stock. SO with my mind set once again though a tad less argonence then the first day I came here I looked back at my mentor and replied with formal acceptance.
“Yes I will be in your service Mentor.”
A smirk entered his old face as he looked me up and down as if he was just now assessing me.
“No need to be so formal here boy. Anyway now that you passed the first day in these woods I can give you my first name it’s Bernth. If you survive till the end of this year I may even let ya hear what ma last name is. Now on to important things. I’m sure after the first day you’re sure ya are nervous and have some questions for me. So to try and clear them up before ya get the courage to ask them I’ll go over some basics for ya.
He paused after saying this seemingly waiting for my aknodlgment. I looked up and nodded which upon noticing he began his long speech outlying some of the basics of my job and the forest and general.
“Now the first question I get most often is why we as mentors not inform ya newbies about the peculiarities of the forest on the first day. This one’s simple enough to answer it’s because we as a group have found it’s much easier for ya to experience then to try to explain in mere words. Also if ya were scared into running away after entering the outskirts of the forest you worth time explaining anyway. The second question I’m you might not know you have but one you need to know anyway is about the hindrance on your magical sense. Normally this hindrance would start off small and slowly build up as you got closer and closer to the center of the forest where more power beings reside. Luckily or unluckily for you on the first day you happened to meet the maker of the forest so the pressure you felt was 10 times higher than it should have been. This pressure is also the reasons all mages are sent here to train. You may not of noticed it yet but because of this pressure you should have already approved many times faster than you would at a normal rate. It also brings many other benefits to your training that ill you figure out on your own. Well with that explanation over with why don’t we head back into the forest and see if we can’t find some little beasties for ya to kill so I can see just what their teaching in magic academy’s these days.”
Hearing what seemed like a book load of information thrown out me in the short bark like manner of speaking that my instructor had I struggled to comprehend the implications of everything he had said. Ye just as I was pondering his words he uttered that last line which made me instantly perk up. Monster hunting this was one of the things all mages should do to prove their skills. Even more so after coming from the academy where all I got to do was expand my manna pool and practice on magically reinforced targets. As I was daydreaming of fighting giant dragons I heard the clomping as my mentor started walking back towards the forest. Startled I rushed to catch up and as we neared the outskirts of the grand forest I started to get nervous and tried to think up battle strategies for my first fight.
The best way I supposed would to be using my unique element even if it might be overkill. Without that part of me I never could have becoming the academy’s earliest grad all my other elements were still at a very normal level for a mage and I wanted to shock my mentor after passing out on the first day. So I prepared to cast my spell at the slightest provocation muttering an incantation a bolt of what seemed to be liginting wrapped in fire appeared above my shoulder slowly heating up our surroundings. My mentor turned back and looked at me with a raised eyebrow then turned around and kept walking. I threw my shoulders back with a hint of pride this was my unique element a element who was as destructive as fire yet as fast and had the parzliing effect of lighting.
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After three hours of walking and with sweat poring down me in gallons I started to realize that maybe promptly casting a spell that dramatically heated the air around me without knowing how long it would take to find a monster wasn’t the best idea I have ever had. So with my fear of dying of heat stroke firmly in my brain I deactivated spell with caused the air around me to instantly cool down making me sigh in relief. This comfort lasted for about one minute before the strange muffling of my magic started again though to a much smaller extent just enough to feel as if I had a thin film lightly covering my magic sense.
After some time we finally passed the trunk of the first tree and slowly coming into my view was the largest dog I had ever seen. Its shoulder must have reached 10 feet tall and its panting was like a rumbling thunder cloud. Dropping to the ground praying that the doge would see me I hurriedly chanted the incantation for my most powerful spell I gather all the mana I could forming it into a large lance of fire and lightning ten feet long. I then compressed this to 6 feet and started spinning this lance was the strongest spell I had devolved in the academy and I just had to hope it would be enough. Finally finishing the incantation I sent the lance zooming at the dog. As it rushed towards the large monster the air around it caught fire forming a cone of flames around the lance. About halfway there the dog noticed the flaming projectile. Raising its head the dog attempted to avoid the projectile heading towards it. But before it could move one step the lance pierced its side then exploded into a column of flame and lighting 40 feet that blazed into the sky. After the column died down I tenderly stood up amazed at the sheer destruction of my spell. Observing the glass crater my spell had left after it died down I was amazed that I couldn’t even find a scrap of the dog left. I was wondering what in the hell had happened before this whenever I had cast the same spell it barely produced a column 3 feet wide and never produced enough heat to turn the ground to glass. As I was staring at the newly formed crater extremely confused I heard my mentor laughing in the background. Turning around as soon as looked at my mentor he stop his laughing and changed immediately back to his stony faced persona.
“Boy, did I not tell you that your magic would have improved after the pressure you were under yesterday.”
Now that I thought about he did but this amount of improvement in a single day if this happened every day wouldn’t I be a world shaking monster after two years in here. Seeing that I was still somewhat stunned by this set of circumstance my mentor sight and started to explain to me.
“Boy don’t get amazed at this level of power a true expert can cause a natural disaster without even using a incantation. Why do you think even King’s of millions of people are only equal in status to some who survives two years in this forest. Also if you think what you killed was a monster your stupider then thought you were. That thing was just an oversized dog. Hell if you let it try and eat you for half an hour it wouldn’t even be able to pierce your passive magic barriers.”
Hearing these words I started to realize how stupid I was being. Truly if I wanted to be this world shaking power this level of power wasn’t anything for me to marvel at. Also I remembered in the academy how a beast could only be considered a monster if it exuded mana not just if it was some kind of big animal. But still who the hell wouldn’t be afraid of a ten foot tall dog. It seems adjusting to the mages world is going to take some time.