Paxton and Goddard woke up first, being used to early mornings, and they woke up Barrot and Samson for their first day of school. It would likely be an in-processing day, like most first days tend to be, but some quick magic lessons were promised.

   They got up and joined a few hundred other students in the raised courtyards sorrounding the central building. One at a time, they were called to come forward, recieve two uniforms, and do a quick magic test. The magic test was a simple crystal that would be imbued with magic, turn a color, and return.

   Obviously, Paxton's crystal turned white and Goddard's crystal turned a deep shade of red.

   All students were then ordered into their respective color classes. Paxton joined a small group of about five students while Goddard was lumped in with over a hundred people, including Liz, luckily enough. Barrot and Fred seemed to be in a group with twenty or thirty other people, Samson was in a group with close to seventy, while Christina was nowhere to be seen.

   'White magic must be rare,' thought Paxton as he noted the relative smallness of his group.

   'I don't see Christina,' Goddard thought, looking over at the wind magic class. 'I hope she's in regular trouble again and not angel trouble.'

   Once the classes were together, they split off with their respective teachers. Goddard moved with the masses towards the outside training fields where he had been sparring with Paxton previously while Paxton was taken inside the academy to a classroom.

   Goddard's class started noisily, but predictably with the teacher challenging people to come fight him. Mr. Gonz, the warrior instructor, was a burly man who could rip a tree out of the ground with his bare hands. Some of the kids who had any confidence in their swordsmanship stepped up to see if they could do anything, but Mr. Gonz demolished them.

   Goddard watched all of this with bemusement and nostalgia. He could see the techniques that his old instructor used and felt a pang of guilt that the old man wouldn't be alive to see the wartime refinement of his style.

   'Perhaps I should get in the ring with him,' Goddard pondered. 'It would be good to see whether the current me could stand up to my old trainer.... Nah. It's probably better to just-'

   "YOU!" Mr. Gonz shouted, pointing directly at Goddard, "Come over here!"

   Goddard was a little shocked at being called out, but he dutifully walked over to his instructor.

   "You've been eyeing me, boy," said the old man, holding his sword over his shoulder. "I'm guessing you want to have a go, but don't have the BALLS."

   'Oh yeah, he had this kind of character,' thought Goddard with a nostalgic smile. "You're right, sir, but I don't know if I can do it."

   "WELL, GIVE IT A SHOT! WHO KNOWS, YOU MIGHT JUST WIN!"

   Goddard smiled softly, then grabbed a training sword and took his place at opposite ends of the field.

   "GO!" called the instructor, and they both started in towards each other. They slowed down, getting just within range to test the waters.

   In his previous life, warrior training was the hardest experience of Goddard's life. Even though Paxton back then had done some training together, it only made him a bit more athletic. The warrior training, with its fifty mile triatholons and hundred man skirmishes were brutal to the core.

   However, this new life had given him time to prepare, and a brother to fight with and push his limit at all times. He was now at peak performance for his last year at the academy, and he was just getting started.

   'Let's give them a show,' Goddard thought.

   Goddard rushed with a flurry of blows that were deftly parried by the instructor, who was caught off guard by the sudden display of power and agility. The deftness by which they handled their swords was nothing short of beautiful. The trainer and trainee switched rapidly from parry to deflection to attack to fient to counter to parry, going through the motions like a coreographed dance.

   The instructor instantly noticed the skill of his adversary and brought himself up to match it. The two fought with grace while the students cheered for Goddard to win.

   "You're quite good," Mr. Gonz said after the two seperated.

   "You're not so bad yourself," Goddard complimented.

   "Who taught you all those moves?"

   'You did,' Goddard wanted to say.

   "A knight my father hired for swordsmanship taught me some things," Goddard lied.

   "Don't lie to me. You met that woman too, didn't you?"

   Goddard paused, uncertain as to what his old trainer was referring to.

   "You just used the cross-section parry," Mr. Gonz explained. "Only my old teacher ever knew how to do that. She wouldn't teach me that technique, and I've never been able to copy it precisely. So, what's the old hag up to nowadays?"

   Goddard was bewildered, but surfaced some memories from his past life that put the pieces together. The warrior style that Mr. Gonz was famous for teaching was being taught to hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the war against demons. Someone, somehow, came out with an off-shoot of Mr. Gonz's style that worked better, with more emphasis on parrying and dodging than sheer strength. It was easier on new recruits to learn and had a better end result when mastered.

   Every rumor claimed that the person who refined the technique was an elderly woman.

   'How much about my past life am I going learn in this one?' Goddard bitterly asked himself.

   "I've never met this woman," Goddard announced, "but if she can teach me good technique, then I'd like an introduction."

   "If you beat me," Mr. Gonz declared while brandishing his sword, "I'll consider it."

   Goddard looked very closely at his old instructor. He was much larger, much faster, much stronger, and probably more trained than Goddard. Even with his past memories, the old man likely held more experience. Even in magic terms, Mr. Gonz had better trained for minimal usage of magic.

   Which also became more commonplace in the future... after the old woman fixed the technique.

   'If I need to win, then there's no real choice,' Goddard thought to himself.

   Lowering his body, Goddard set his feet apart and his sword horizontal to the ground.

   He was using his brother's style, which he'd faced every day for the past five and a half years. It was incomplete, and he'd never learned to win with it, but he knew enough to win against someone who'd never seen it before.

   "Oh?" Mr. Gonz exclaimed, "Another style? Did the hag teach you another style?"

   "This one's from my brother," Goddard said, then he rushed his teacher.

   The teacher put his sword up, and Goddard already knew what he was going to do. A wide swing from the right, pull the sword in to block, then hit with the arm. Goddard would need to dodge the swing, angle his sword around the block, and stab through his teacher's guard.

   Easier said than done, but the stage was set and the lines were being read.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

   Goddard hunkered low, then saw the swing come in from the left, not the right. Instinct took over where the plan failed, letting Goddard dodge the blow without further action. His mind took the simpelest route from 1 to 2. His position was away from his enemies vision, so Goddard took his sword and thrust it into his teacher's armpit.

   The hit was sudden. Mr. Gonz had to look at the sword buried under his arm and sneer at it.

   "Your brother, huh?"

   "Yeah," Goddard said, aware that Mr. Gonz was not happy with him. "About this teacher...?"

   "I can send a letter of introduction," Mr. Gonz said while sheathing his training sword, "but I can't garuntee she'll reply."

   Goddard knew that wasn't going to work. It took a full-on demon invasion for this woman to do anything, and all she did was write some documents. If he was going to get this woman on his side, he needed something hard.

   Something in the future, something about her techniques that only he would know, nobody else.

   "Can you give her a message?" Goddard asked, pushing his luck with his distraught teacher.

   "What?" he demanded, clearly not in the mood.

   "Two left, on your feet, a sword and shield can't be beat," he rhymed.

   It was a chant from the demon war that championed the use of a sword and shield. It meant that anyone trained with a sword and shield could take on two opponents at once, so long as they remained standing. It was about balance, staying on one's feet, and the utility of matching attack and defence. Perhaps the greatest use of weaponry in the war. Instead of the ten to one man vs demon power scale, it changed to five to one, giving humans more power and better experience. More people survived thanks to that chant, and more survivors meant more experience, which meant better soldiers to hold the line.

   "Two left, on your feet, a sword and shield can't be beat," Mr. Gonz scoffed. "That sounds right. I knew you've met her. She used to say that so many damn times, I'm sick of the phrase."

   "Will you send the message?" Goddard demanded, not in the mood for the belittling attitude.

   "Yeah, I keep my word. Leave it for after class."

   Goddard nodded, hoping that Paxton was having a better time.

   Coincidentally, he wasn't.

   Paxton had entered the class, introduced himself and Mini to his peers, and then the entire class sorrounded Mini.   She was adorable, and everyone wanted to touch and prod her. Mini herself was suddenly overwhelmed, hissing and squirming under the petting hands. Paxton had to focus intently to keep people from touching her horns.

   An illusion might hide them, but they didn't stop existing.

   It took Paxton stepping in and picking up his daughter before the class could actually start, but by then the damage was done. Nobody could focus, not even the teacher, they just wanted to play with Mini.

   Try as he might, Paxton couldn't get them to stay on topic for long before derailing to childish topic. Sometimes it was Mini, other times it was a cute baby cousin, and once it was the teacher's pet fim, which is a fox-like pet.

   Eventually, the midday bell wrang out, alarming everyone to get lunch.

   The brothers met up in time for Paxton to exert his frustrations that nothing got done in class.

   "Just leave her in the room," Goddard urged.

   "No!" Paxton shouted, "She's not a dog! She's a person, and she deserves people interactions!"

   The brother's left the fight for later, getting in a line already a hundred people long for food. It was moving at a slow walking pace, meaning the lunch ladies must be miracle workers.

   The seven deadly sins sat together, talking about school and what their first day was like. Christina was excited, explaining new ways she could pitpocket people from a distance. Samson was describing his class as learning about fire, how it consumes the air to create light and warmth. Barrot hated his class, everyone in the class was even more vain than he was, except for Fred who tried in vain to stay awake. Liz just stuffed her face and went back for seconds.

   After lunch was theory training. Paxton carried Mini to the next class while Goddard went back out to the fields to learn techniques.

   At the end of the day, everyone returned to their rooms with an idea of what life was going to be like from now on. The sun was only just starting to go down, but it had already disappeared behind the mountain. The glow of the academy was ethereal in many ways, almost as if the magic academy was made of magic itself.

   After a short break, dinner was set up, and the scholarship students met at the usual table.

   "Why do they have theory class after practical lessons?" Barrot asked with a slice of toast in his mouth. "Seems stupid to me to practice something AND THEN learn about it."

   "Stupid," Liz agreed between mouthfuls.

   "Something about magic being better in the mornings," Goddard excused through his own bites.

   "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I learned a lot from that class," Paxton said with a smile. "Watch this!"

   Paxton held his arm out, then a white flame consumed his arm like an inferno. The flame seemed to bend back and forth, then it began to die until it was just a light burn around the edges.

   "So?" Fred asked, his chin resting on the table.

   "So!" Paxton exclaimed. "Look how much less energy I'm using! I can feel the difference by just focusing on how much I need to cover my arm without using excess. I'm so much more efficient!"

   "You didn't know?" Barrot asked curiously. "I thought you were a super-mage, but you didn't know about controlling magic output?"

   In fact, Paxton knew very well about controlling magic output. One of the few lessons that Crystal had actually deigned to teach was efficiency in magic control. He'd been training for months on focusing the output to make the most out of every drop, even though he had a lake at his disposal.

   But that's not what a normal pre-teen boy who was learning new things about magic would know.

   "Did you guys know," Goddard said, "that warrior magic is a kind of body magic? It controls muscles and bones, as well as blood flow. I can make myself stronger with magic!"

   "That's seems unfair," Christina pouted. "Wind magic can't do anything! I thought that I could walk silently on a breeze, or lift someone's coin pouch, but NOOO, green magic is just for making strong winds!"

   "Can't you make blades?" Samson asked.

   "But it kicks up too much wind! I'll get noticed! Magic is pointless! At least with fire magic I could be warm."

   Everyone looked at Samson, who lifted a single finger and produced a small, flickering candle light that steadily burned. His meager demonstration earned an embarrasing round of polite applause.

   Paxton and Goddard shared an uneasy look.

   They nodded, understanding that they needed to do something about the meek boy, and it had to be soon.