Though they had all only met two days prior, and perhaps had some issues with each other, the students appeared to get along to some degree. And it would be needed, the three months of training was the typical make or break point of all students. It was harsh, brutal, and devastating. Only the most physically and mentally resolved could make it through, or those who were willing to adapt and improve.
Those of the six that were already resolved: Ventrix, Olicia, and Bif. They had their ups and downs, but it was nothing they couldn't already do. Ventrix and Olicia were "Lancer-Ready" as some would put it, so the first three months were only reinforcement to them. Bif, on the other hand, was a dimwit. Though completely physically-able… His mental abilities were lacking. He could learn and study magic, but often refused to show. He also did not appear to have the advanced emotional maturity to be able to pass for a Lancer, but nonetheless, he passed the training.
Those of the six that adapted: Rael, Lylas, and Avures. They weren't already in bad shape to begin with. But, as it turned out, Rael was a natural. After the first month or so, she started excelling at all physical activities. And with some help from Avures, she picked up a knack for her Fire Magic. Lylas lacked some of the physical conditioning needed at first, but quickly came into his own. He apparently already had some experience with magic, not being so much a natural, but prepared. Avures was the most hard fought of the three. He was in abysmal physical shape, though he wasn't so bad with magic. It took him nearly all three months to get into good enough shape. It had worried Zen and Grula so much that they thought he might get cut from the Academy. But, with help from Lylas and Rael, he persevered. Some might say his sheer interest in magic is what fueled him though. It was thought that he was learning it way too slow at first, but as it turned out, he was merely perfecting techniques and methods before moving on.
All six of the students that were assigned to Grula and Zen passed the examination to keep going. With that, they were now free to pursue more specialized training. That is, to unlock their inner potentials. As, even a prodigy is worth nothing if they refuse to do the basics.
Though during all of this, Deputy-Headmaster, Meius Valkir, had been hard at work traveling and scouting. His mission? Take out Tobias before he has a chance to enact his plan.
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Meius had the great advantage of knowing the location of Tobias's compound beforehand. And, even before the assassination attempt, had been spying on his compound with his Shade. Being paranoid of his enemies had its advantages in some ways. It would take a while for Meius to physically reach the location though. At least a single month was taken traveling to the compound which was way south of the capital. While normally this trip would take three days on horseback, Meius trekked it himself on a different path. After all, he had to keep his approach silent.
Meius then spent a few more days silently scoping the place out himself instead of using his Shade. People would come in, people would come out. They were all the usual suspects. The building itself was an old, desolate guard tower. From what Meius saw before, there was the main floor, an upper floor to the rooftop, and a lower floor beneath the ground. The research lay at the bottom floor. He waited, and he waited. One of the late nights or early mornings, roughly an hour before sunrise, Meius was privy to the sight of the mercenaries and Tobias's son leaving the compound. For whatever reason, Meius wasn't sure, but it gave him the opportunity to strike.
Meius casually strode over to the front doors of the building. As far as he figured it, he might as well walk in the front door. Meius gently pushed forward into the building. The doors quietly closed, and as he took his first step forward...Meius was already in a trap. A Rune lay upon the ground beneath his feet. The glow of the carvings within the ground lit up once, seemingly becoming aware of his presence, and then glowing even brighter.
Suddenly, Meius's vision and movements were drowned out… Literally. A strange magical barrier spiraled in a circle around Meius and filled completely with water. Meius frantically flung his arms around, trying to gain a sense of what was going on. As this happened, muffled footsteps could be heard. Something had entered the room with him, but he couldn't quite see what it was. Meius had enough. Bringing his hands close, Meius clasped his hands flat together, and pulled apart. A ripple of darkness expelled forth in all directions followed by a shattering sound. Water spilled out in all directions, as Meius coughed up a bit himself. Though, he quickly recomposed to see who was in the room with him.
An old man. He had completely white, long and thin hair. He wore a black eye patch over his right eye, and his left was a clear green color. His skin was sickly looking and wrinkly as well as littered with all sorts of old scars. He wore a dark blue robe stitched in black sections along with leather armor trousers. His hands were fitted with brown gloves, and his boots to match. Meius also figured that he wore a chest-plate underneath the robes. And, despite how old he looked, he seemed quite fit, enough to fill the outfit. This was Tobias.
"Explain yourself right now and I might not kill you." Tobias pulled out a hand-crossbow and pointed it at Meius.
"Deputy-Headmaster of Lancer Academy in Palmenae. The right hand of Xilvas Numidis. The all-seeing eye..." Meius fixed his hair slowly as he announced himself. "Meius Valkir, and I'm here to kill you."
"No… It's too soon… It wasn't meant to go this way." Tobias put his finger on the trigger of the crossbow as he lamented.
"You should have thought about that before you sent an assassin after Xilvas."
"Assassin? Are you crazy? There is no assassin-no… No one-person who can kill Xilvas Numidis. I'm no fool!"
"Well… There certainly has to be one… And you thought you had the right guy, huh?"
"You're mistaken-"
"No, I'm not. Who else would be out to kill him? Obviously the one who needs the location of the obelisk… The death site of Ozix for their ritual. After all, only Xilvas knows of the location. And for what? A ritual that would destabilize and kill our world? You're done, Tobias." Meius pointed a single finger at the old man. Tobias fired the hand-crossbow. Blood started pouring down Meius's torso as the bolt penetrated through his chest with ease. The projectile made him stumble back, but he poised himself once again as his hands glowed and brimmed to life with Mana.
Meius clasped his hands together like before. He pulled apart, but quickly made both of his hands into a fist, and bumped them together. A boom sent shock-waves throughout the room, knocking every item in it around. Tobias fell onto his rear, but quickly stood up and started running towards the staircase. Meius gritted his teeth as he pulled the bolt from his chest. His outfit ripped slightly and revealed the wound. The skin around it seemed to rapidly dry and peel away…
"A curse huh?... Unluckily for him, I have the cure." Meius's right hand glowed with a strange gray hue as he touched it to the wound. The skin and pierced flesh reformed itself and nullified the pain within a few moments. Along with that, Meius could feel the mana of Tobias leave his body as his skin began to remoisturize. As Meius was ready to fight, he could see Tobias running down the stairs.
“Hm… I suppose I can pull the mask off for a moment…” Meius tapped two of his fingers to the side of his head… After which, he pulled those fingers away and made his way over to the staircase.
Following him down, Meius could see all the research documents, all the failed rituals, all the gems and other magical tools they had used before. It was just like how he saw it last time. But as he took note of those, he felt the channeling of Mana so large that it couldn’t be hidden. Looking around, he noticed it when it was too late. Tobias stood up from behind the table he was using to hide. His arms were spread wide apart, his palms facing inwards towards each other. Touching each palm and spread wide was a curved blade of water. Flat and long, the blade rushed through the air at blinding speeds as Tobias released it. The magical attack left Meius no time to react.
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There was the sound of a solid cut, and blood squirting everywhere. Water dissipated at the wall behind Meius, and blood coated the surfaces all around him. Tobias stared on in shock and complete relief... Tobias let out a sigh and thanked god aloud. Meius's decapitated head rolled off of the stairs and onto the floor below. Tobias then turned to one of his research tables, bent over, and rested himself on it.
"Ha...Ha-ha...Tobias laughed, not at the thought of killing his enemy, but that he lived another day. A laugh of joy.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" And that was when Tobias heard another laugh join.
"N-... No..." Tobias's hands trembled, his eyes shook with fear. His body moved on its own, taking a step backwards from the sight that befell him.
"This is pretty funny!" The body still stood. Erupting from the decapitated body of Meius was a sort of thick, light blue pillar which Tobias could determine as a structure of mana. The light blue pillar twisted and turned, its path and destination becoming ever-more clearer.
"How?... It just doesn't make any sense!" Tobias's hands gripped the side of his head in disbelief. The severed head of Meius rose from the ground, the blue pillar of mana being connected to where his neck once was conjoined to his body. The blue pillar slowly retracted itself back into Meius's body, bringing the head along with it. Disturbingly enough, Meius's head was now touching the part where it was severed from. His body's left hand then raised with a dark glow encompassing it. Touching it to the afflicted area, the wound, the decapitated head skin and flesh regenerated and reattached itself. All of the nerves, bones, arteries...they came back together. By the end of the short process, it was like Tobias's attack had never even happened.
"It makes plenty of sense." Meius slowly walked forward. "That's the power of my Shade. You should have dispelled the mana I held within my body while you had the chance. My Shade allows me to continue living and functioning through any bodily harm by letting me create a make-shift body from my own mana."
"You-... You're a monster!" Tobias mustered up all the strength he could, eclipsing his right hand in mana and throwing a punch at Meius. Meius caught the punch with his left hand and looked very unamused. Tobias yelled in pain as his fist began being crushed by the strength of Meius's grip.
“Yes, I am… What a shame. You could have had Losuto here to help you… Or at least sent him to try and kill Xilvas instead.” Meius tilted his head to the side as he kept total control of the situation.
“I-... I didn’t send anyone!” Tobias felt his knees start to buckle under the pressure his mind placed on him to stop the pain.
"I know… Perfect Dark." A complete blanket of blackness surrounds the entire structure the two were fighting in. Meius keeps his grip on Tobias as dark tendrils erupt from the ground around both of them.
The ground shook below their feet and suddenly Tobias was launched upwards through the heavy rock and stone of the guard tower floors and ceiling. Meius was carried up to the top by one of the dark tendrils as Tobias landed on the roof. However, that was but a brief reprieve as another tendril spiraled upwards and coiled itself around his frail body. The tendril whipped around, slamming him into the desolate walls of the tower and the cracked stone floor back and forth. After a short while of this beatdown, the tendril threw him to Meius’s feet. Bones shattered, blood everywhere… Tobias could only lay on his side as he watched the early morning sunrise start to become eclipsed by Meius's Perfect Dark. The area for around fifty feet was enveloped in the same darkness.
"You call me a monster… For beating up an old man? Sure. For shrugging off a mortal blow? Acceptable." Meius slowly walked over to the heavily battered Tobias and put his foot on him. "But am I a monster for killing someone who would threaten the world?"
Tobias couldn't respond. The only sound that emitted from him was that of a gasp and wheeze as he slowly bled out. The pain for Tobias was excruciating… He was on death’s door.
“I already knew what needed to be done for your ritual to succeed. If I didn’t take initiative…” Meius squinted as he pressed down on the old man’s rib cage…
“Wha-... I c-... Ah…” Tobias’s fingers twitched as he wheezed and coughed up spouts of blood that stained the trousers Meius wore. A vile sense of disgust filled Meius.
"It's a shame what happened to you… You were a legend. Go reunite with Mathias, old man." Several dark tendrils wrapped around the old man as Meius stepped off of him and backed away. Meius turned away. The wrapped tendrils lifted the old man into the air. Meius stared blankly ahead as a sickly crunching and ripping sound emanated from behind him and blood sprayed everywhere.
The darkness lifted, the technique ending...the early sunrise blanketed the landscape and the scene of action. It was time for him to leave… Though, he needed to check one last thing. Meius walked down the staircase of the tower, avoiding all the wreck and ruble he had just created. At the bottom floor, the research room, he looked around. When he was still battling, he noticed something odd. Something out of place…
Rushed footsteps could be heard all around the tower as Meius brazenly searched the area, realizing what was out of place. There was normally an orange looking book sitting on the edge of a certain table. Standing over that said table, he bowed his head and cursed under his breath. The book wasn't there...
A few possibilities crossed his mind. Maybe the book wasn't important and it got under the rubble? Maybe the book had been grabbed by his son or something before and wasn't important? Or… That book was the one he needed and would have enough to go off of if Tobias’s son were to try and continue it. Meius sighed. In reality, he definitely knew it had some sort of key in it. He'd seen them writing in it before when spying on them, but he didn't want to believe it. This meant he'd now have to spend time finding the guy's son. And now, with the tower being damaged like it was, there was no way he'd come back if given the choice. He'd think he was walking into a trap. How unfortunate.
“The plan is altered again…” With no other options at hand, Meius did what he could. Finding the nearest flammable materials, He spread them out over the research materials. The flame burned bright, it burned hot. Even as Meius casually walked away from the guard tower, he could feel the heat emanating. Still, at least he got one job done…
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"Let me congratulate all of you kids for making it past the first three months!" Grula's voice reverberated and echoed throughout the arena.
"Typically, most dropouts happen within that period. So, there's a bit of room for celebration!" Zen chirped as he walked back and forth.
"Ah! Does that mean we're gonna party?!" Rael's eyes lit up.
"Nope!" Grula's loud and excited phrasing harshly dampened the mood of the students. "Oh what?! You guys will get a week off for the festival later! Don't start bitching at me!"
"Eh, besides… You can't party now. These next few months are actually the most important. I know we might have said that before, but this time it's true." Zen pounded his fist into the palm of his hand.
"That's right. The first three months were to get you in fighting shape, and to test your resolve. These next five to six months will be for unlocking your potential. Basically, it's where we really shape you into Lancers." Grula pounded her fists together.
"Think of it like this. That was the basics, this is the real stuff. You won't be worked as hard by us, but you still need to be pushing yourselves."
"Instead of the training routine, we'll be working with each of you to help mold your battle style, your techniques, and any abilities you might have." Grula finished. Lylas raised his hand.
"Does this mean we start at different times or?..." Lylas hoped he wouldn't have to keep waking up so early.
"No. Same time as always. Oh, and for the first time, we'll be officially allowing you guys to spar among each other." Zen clapped his hands together. "Also, In case you were wondering when you were going to use that enchantment on your training gear… It's now."
"We're also going to work one on one with you from time to time starting today. Alright, starting now, everyone go find a sparring partner except for Avures." Grula pointed behind her with her thumb. As usual, Bif and Lylas would immediately look to hurt the other, and that left Ventrix and Olicia to pair up. Grula put her hand on Rael's shoulder as Avures looked confused. "You'll be working with Zen, Avures."
"Alright everyone, come on up so I can bolster your training gear." Zen beckoned everyone. Bif and Lylas competed to see who would be first, both of them quickly scattering up to Zen. Zen wouldn't indulge them though. He touched his hands to their shoulders. A glow emanated from his hands. Suddenly, Bif and Lylas buckled at their knees slightly.
"Holy cow! How… Heavy is this stuff?" Bif strained and struggled to feel comfortable moving around in his altered gear.
"Protection is at the medium range, weight is at the low range. C'mon. You're supposed to be a strong guy." Zen laughed as Bif slowly walked away, Lylas following suit. Olicia, Ventrix, and Rael followed in their footsteps. All of them struggled to move around as normal. But, soon enough, they had all started. Olicia and Ventrix started a clash, Bif and Lylas fought, and Grula was fighting defensively as Rael got the hang of the new weight.
"Hmm..." Zen stared at Avures, his hand resting on his chin. "Where do I start with you?..."