With no time to spare, I booked it towards the direction where my father was fighting. On the way, I picked up my spear and readied it for yet another throw. I calculated that the mana crystal inside should last for another two uses.

The battle wasn’t far, so I made it back in a matter of minutes and surveyed the state of the battlefield.

Two bandits lay on the ground, bleeding. Jacob had a gash on his shoulder but was otherwise unscathed, but my father was bleeding quite profusely from a horizontal wound stretching across his abdomen.

Jacob was busy holding back two bandits by himself while my father faced their leader. He turned around, hearing my footsteps as I sprinted towards him.

“Fuck, why did you come back! I told you to run!” He roared, but I ignored him, instead choosing to focus on the bandit leader preparing to slash him with his machete.

I wound back, about to throw the spear, when the leader suddenly halted his attack and raised his machete in a defensive stance. It seemed his sixth sense was well developed, and he was above the level of a mere squire as dense mana quickly filled his entire body, augmenting it to even greater heights.

I positioned my left, non-dominant hand at the very front of the spear, and positioned my dominant hand at the very back. A pulse of mana reverberated through the spear and at the same time my right hand’s palm pushed on the back of the spear with as much strength as I could muster, while my left hand kept the whole contraption stable and aimed at the leader. At the very last moment, I rotated my right palm slightly. The spear immediately reacted and amplified this movement, causing it to spin at a rapid pace.

The spear shot out of my hands, burning my left hand via friction. The rotation kept it completely stable as it barrelled towards the center of mass of the bandit leader, his chest, its speed almost too fast for me to perceive without using any mana.

I willed my mana, which immediately flowed into my eyes and brain. The world slowed and I could track the spear as it moved towards its target, but it appears I had misjudged the bandit leader’s power.

With my senses enhanced by mana, I felt the flow of dense and pure mana bursting out from the bandit leader’s mana vessel and flooding his entire body to the maximum. The denser and purer one’s mana was, the stronger the augmented body would end up being. This, coupled with his already good physical constitution gave him enough of an edge to just barely move the machete in the spear’s path and intercept it.

With an ear-splitting sound, the bandit leader flew backwards, crashing through a few trees. The machete couldn’t withstand the force of the spear which, despite it being quite the high quality steel, tore a hole directly through it and lodged a small part of its tip into the bandit leader’s chest, breaking off.

Although it did not create a large wound, every little bit counted. With the leader weakened, I should have a shot at victory. The quality of my mana, representing both density and purity, was below the bandit leader, but it was acceptable. There wasn’t much I could do to speed up the quality improvements other than continuously using my mana, which slowly purified it.

Three tiny balls of fire rotated around my hand as a quarter of my mana drained from my body. I had about 3 minutes worth of mana for full body augmentation left, during which time I would have to dispatch the leader, who finally stopped rolling on the ground and got up.

“Oh, you bastard. I’ll sell you to the filthiest bidder at the filthiest black market in town! Fuck money, I’ll make you suffer!” He roared as he charged towards me at full speed.

There was no time to spare. I immediately reinforced my body with mana and got into an appropriate stance.

The bandit leader pulled a tree stump from the ground, throwing it at me like a cannonball. I dodged, but he had used the time to grab a weapon from one of his dead comrades - another machete, this time longer and with a sharp hook on top to take control of the opponent's weapon.

I took the initiative and took a swing at him. Our weapons clashed mightily, but he was at a large strength and speed advantage. I unleashed one of the three fireballs, exploding it right in front of his face while creating a simple barrier in front of myself to block the impact.

“A little mage, eh? Well now, that changes everything! I’ll give you the privilege of paying for a mansion for me and my boys!”

Children deemed as ‘gifted’ were sold on black markets at large, and their life force was harvested. There were quite a few very useful ways of utilizing said life force, but I would rather not think about them.

His skin and clothes were a little red, slightly burnt, but the mana reinforcement almost perfectly shielded him. My fireball was simply far too weak.

In my previous lives, one of these fireballs would be enough to completely incinerate him, because I would already have near perfectly pure mana at this stage as I could use dozens of times more mana every day, thus progressing quicker. This was one of the many advantages a huge mana pool held.

Through countless years of experience, I could perfectly predict his moves, but my counter attacks were blocked due to a sheer speed advantage. Metal clashed against metal tens of times each second as we were at a standstill. My arms and legs ached as I barely blocked and dodged the monstrous blows, but I wasn’t in much danger as long as I could keep my reinforcement up.

The seconds ticked by, but I suddenly spotted a larger, more exploitable mistake. The bandit leader had stepped too far forward due to a lack of patience, causing his center of gravity to be shifted too far towards me. I quickly launched the two fireballs between his legs, causing them to explode behind him. He ignored them, as he thought they weren’t a threat, but this was a mistake.

The force the small explosions created was just enough to tip the bandit leader over, causing him to stumble forward. I created a large pulse of mana within myself, which overloaded my augmentation for just a second, strengthening my body and speeding up my perception. This move was, however, dangerous, and could have lasting aftereffects if done for prolonged periods of time, which is why I had kept it short. It was also exactly what the bandit leader had used to deflect my spear, but unlike me, he had never stopped pumping out more mana and his body was already suffering the aftereffects. I launched myself to the left at a frightening speed, comparable to my spear, and extended my right leg which he promptly tripped over. My sword’s runes glowed as its ability activated, sharpening and lengthening itself as I firmly planted my left foot on the ground and slashed down just before my augmentation overload finished.

The bandit leader, who was in the midst of falling over, had no means to defend himself. The head flew off the torso and the battle was finished, with a mere tenth of my mana remaining.

The rest of the bandits were dispatched with a stunning display of teamwork between Blake and Jacob, who were now tending to the wounds of my father.

The panther we were originally after approached, but he merely dragged away the corpse of the leader and did not bother us. It was said that beasts have an innate sense for mana, and his corpse was the densest of them all. All of us were out of mana, so it did not target us. Why take a generic, store-bought meal when there is a delicacy right in front of you. Slowly, we departed from the forest, where I left my spear behind as it was turned into scrap metal, and reusing materials from already created artifacts was a huge headache. I made sure to pick up the intact weapons from the bandits. This encounter gave me a great deal of ideas.

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Father finally woke up, and I already knew I would be in for a long questioning. Or at least I thought I did.

“Johanne, I won’t ask how or why you know how to fight and use magic to such an extent, because you saved all of our lives. However, please do not keep such secrets from me. If I’m not taking it well, then you can probably guess what a disaster it will be once your mother finds out.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “But promise me you won’t keep any more such secrets from me.” It was his unusual serious demeanor that really drove in how much he meant his words.

I gulped as I thought about what mother’s reaction would be. “Alright, I won’t. But.. I would like to ask you something in return. Blake called me “another offspring”. I know what he meant by it, and by the look on your face at that moment, it wasn’t a mere slip of the tongue. Could you tell me?”

Father looked away for a few seconds with a sad expression and sighed. “Okay. Yes, I will tell you, but I don’t want to burden a child as young as you with any family drama. All you need to know is - you had a brother.”

As much as my father was carefree, he was also stubborn. Getting any answer from him would be next to impossible.

I left the situation at that. Everyone was a little tense at this moment, so I just decided to go work on some artificing and get some rest.

…

Night fell and I still couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts and ideas were coursing through my mind. I picked up my artificing gear as well as the weapons of the bandits and started working on recreating and improving my spear. The concept was definitely worth exploring.

I first picked up the various steel machetes and a large piece of oak wood. Into the wood, I carved a mold for an iron spearhead and then some fire and heat resistance runes. I chopped off the excess, which I was going to carve the spear’s shaft out of.

Here came my first idea. I released ultra thin, almost imperceptible strings of mana from the tips of my fingers, attempting to slice the wood with them. At first, they broke or I was commanding them too imprecisely, but with each minute I improved upon them until they carved through the wood like a hot knife through butter.

The spear’s handle was quickly complete, but now came the difficult part. The spear I had used had two major downfalls which I wished to correct.

First disadvantage - I would have to pick it up each time. While this problem could now be alleviated with the aforementioned mana threads, the difficulty of controlling them and the mana waste increased exponentially with distance. It was like trying to suck water from a 5 meter long straw. It would, at first, feel really easy, but it would be harder and harder to suck the water up the further in the straw it was.

Second disadvantage - The durability. After impacting a simple, magicless steel machete, the spear turned into a pile of scrap despite the quite large and complex array of reinforcement runes. I already had a solution for this, albeit an incredibly complex one. It was called ‘Layering’.

Layering multiple layers of steel on top of itself was quite simple - it was the whole purpose of damascus steel. However, carving runes on each individual layer while not overloading the whole item with mana or triggering one of the other million failure points was the truly difficult part. A rune’s size, depth, and every other aspect influenced the way it would guide mana along the correct path, causing the correct effect to occur. A rune too large and deep would waste too much mana and possibly cause unintended effects as the mana leaked out, while a rune too small would cause the effect to be barely noticeable. Adding layers of material on top of this already difficult concept would be insane, but I knew that eventually, I would get it. The artificers of old, with very little to go off of, had managed it, and in a world with more modernized magic theory, I sure could too. And once I did, I could even carve runes into my own body.

I opened up my notepad and started furiously scribbling ideas. Combining multiple runes into one, theories on layering, various concepts of the spear’s looks and more.

The moon, already midway through the night sky, shone brightly through the small triangle shaped window of the attic I was sleeping in. It was going to be a long night.

…

And like this, almost 12 months had gone by almost instantly. Tomorrow was the day of the entrance exam.

I honestly had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t actually bothered to check what level of magic was common within the average 13 year old. The only measure I had was the level of the bandit leader, who was in his mid 20s, and wasn’t very impressive at all. With his mana capacity, he could have been at the level of a knight or possibly even a swordmaster if he so wished. But on the other hand, he was probably a bandit for a reason.

There were three rounds to the exams happening over two days. The first round consisted of two duels to root out 3/4 of the entrants. The second tested one's spellcasting abilities and control over mana.

However, what seemed the most problematic was the third round. It happened on a different day because it was different for each participant. Customized, targeting their biggest weaknesses. Mine would of course be mana capacity, which is why I spent the last 9 years artificing many useful gadgets for this exact purpose. My artificing skill wasn’t on the level of an expert yet, but it wasn’t at the level of a novice or even an intermediate either.

I slotted the ridiculously expensive mana stone into its rightful place. It was finally finished. My longest and most arduous project, and the item which would allow me to swiftly make my way through the exam.

…

It was finally time. I filled up my backpack and waltzed through the front gates and directly up to the exam hall receptionist.

The receptionist looked like someone sucked out her soul. It was a given, as there were at least a few hundred young children around, and as young children tend to be, they were loud.

Very loud.

My head felt like it was about to burst just from a minute of standing there, so I could only imagine what the receptionist felt. Let’s get some peace and quiet, shall we?

I snapped my fingers and a simple spell sprung to life around me. It was a noise suppressant spell, which worked on the basis of an extremely thin veil of mana calming the air around oneself, disturbing the air vibrations which carried sound.

“Good morning, my name is Johanne Henderson and I’m here to take the entrance exam. I also need some of my creations authorized for use.” I grabbed my comically large backpack and plopped it on the table.

The receptionist looked at me, wide eyed. “Oh, this spell. You looked like you desperately needed some peace and quiet, and, well, me too. My head hurts after a minute of standing here, my god, how can you last the whole day?”

“N-no.. It’s just that this building is supposed to block unauthorized spell use.. But don’t worry, I won’t report you.” She sighed. “I also needed some peace and quiet, so thanks for that. Anyways, I’ll get your items appraised and checked. You’ll also need to be there, as you will need to prove that you have created each item.” She looked at me vigilantly.

There were probably too many rich kids coming in with overpowered items thinking they’ll get a free win only to be smacked by cruel, cold common sense.

“You probably derive some pleasure from watching rich brats pulling up with artifacts worth hundreds of gold only to learn they can’t use them, don’t you?” She pulled back into a more defensive position. I was correct. “Well, I don’t blame you, I’d do the same. Anyways, I can assure you that everything in that backpack was created by me.”

She still didn’t seem very convinced, but she handed me a paper slip with a number and told me where to go to get my items appraised.

As I was walking through the crowds of children, I felt someone staring at me. I turned around, getting a good look at them.

It was a woman sporting long red hair. Her face showed an expression of intrigue, but also a little bit of greed. Could she have been interested because I managed to cast magic? No, it couldn’t have been because of that. It was simply too easy. No matter how good I was, I was familiar with anti-magic fields, and this didn’t feel like one whatsoever. Could she have listened to my conversation? A mix of multiple things? I really didn’t know.

I entered the room I had been instructed to with my large bag of stuff. I had to repeatedly assure the employee that I had created these items, as well as give detailed explanations for each one that only the creator could give. This was annoying as all hell, and lasted for 2 whole hours. Luckily, as soon as I got out, my number was called. I was to enter the arena.

Here it was, my first duel. I couldn’t wait to see what level the potential students of this school were at.

I had to pick my gadgets before the fight instead of taking my backpack. This was logical and expected.

I walked into the arena with 4 rings adorning my hand, a spear on my back, and a dark blue cloak I had created. I brandished my spear, and my opponent, a young boy with golden hair, brandished a sword.

The sound of a whistle spread throughout the large, circular arena, and our blades instantly moved toward each other's bodies.