“Good, you both are here, we can start” Says the Boss as I arrive at the training area.

“So, how do we train?” In my past life I never learned anything related to fighting from other people so I have no idea how this works.

“Hold on a little. First we need to see what you can do. Aria can you please do the honors?” The Boss says as he gives space to Aria who was also there. In fact there are a lot of people, at least 50. And those are not the people who were training, those are still in the area behind all these people.

Aria is with the scale that can see the blessings and curses in a person and a strange glowing stone. She uses the scale on both of us with a piece of paper attached to the scale so she can read what we have. Then she does the same thing with the stone. Then she begins to read the papers.

“Arnold has the Survivor and Way to Victory blessings. Lucia has the Survivor, Great Sword Mastery, Weightless Mastery and Fire Magic Mastery Blessings. Arnold has great affinity with wind and earth, normal to everything besides light and darkness where he has no affinity. Lucia has… Ahn? Perfect affinity with fire, normal affinity with thunder and no affinity for the rest. Arnold has a medium mana pool and Lucia has a very small one.”

“Come on! Perfect affinity and no mana? What shit luck!” One of the soldiers complains.

“Hey, she already has mastery over a weapon, even without magic can you imagine what she can achieve?” Another soldier yells at the first one.

“The boy is also not half bad, shame he got two conflicting elements as his greater affinities.” Another soldier speaks.

“All right, we finished, time to disperse, you have jobs to do. When you are needed you will be called.” Says the Boss signaling the soldiers to get out of here.

“What are we doing now?” Arnold asks.

“You two are going to learn magic for a while because we don’t want walking bombs. And I am going to prepare training weapons for you two so you are able to train with more than one thing and not be sitting ducks on the field.”

We both just nod our heads as the Boss leaves the field and only Aria remains.

“Ok, let’s start the lecture, for now I will be your teacher so don’t worry, even if you hurt yourselves I will be able to heal you.”

Arnold seems ok, I am a little scared, I didn’t know learning magic could be this dangerous.

“First, do any of you remember how magic works?”

“You use mana, right?” Arnold asks.

“Besides that.”

“You use runes to say what you want, don’t you?” I ask.

“Yes. You form a rune using your mind and put mana into it. If the rune you made can make a spell and you put enough mana on it, you will cast it, if not, depending how much mana you put on the rune, it can just dissipate or explode in a pure magical blast that will damage everyone, including you, in the blast radius.”

I put my hand up and ask.

“How do you make a rune?”

“For now you two will need my help doing it. After that you will be able to do it as naturally as you are breathing right now.”

“... Ok.” Arnold says. He looks a little overwhelmed right now.

“Now both of you come closer to me and close your eyes.”

We both do it, then she puts her hands on our heads.

“Now imagine a circle of light forming in your hands. I will push my own mana into you so your body knows how it feels and the circle will be formed.”

I begin to imagine it. A tiny circle of light around the palm of my hand, like a little ball going really fast in circles so I can’t see it, just it’s movement.

“Ok, open your eyes now.”

We both do, we both have a small light circle on our hand that even if we move it just follows it our hands.

“Ok now…” Then Aria removed her hands from us. And I am sent flying. My circle exploded and I was throwed like those crash dummies used to test car airbags.

Luckily I only fell on the ground and not something and on my butt. Not so luckily, I was sent a good 200 meters and my butt was hurting a lot.

“Lucia!” Both Arnold and Aria screamed as they runned towards me. A few soldiers also saw what happened and went to take a look.

“Lucia, are you alright? Did you break anything?” Aria asks me in a desperate rush.

“My butt is hurting.” I answer.

Some of the soldiers begin to laugh which ease Aria’s mood. She casts a basic healing spell on me so the pain stops.

“I think we better study some theory before we try this again.”

Arnolds look a little disappointed and I am fine either way. We move to the library.

We sit at one of the tables and Aria picks three copies of the same book from a closed off section. It's the magic manual.

“These are the most basic books about magic that exist right now. Since you both can use magic you both need to own a copy so those are yours now.”

We take the books and open it.

“I will explain a lot of things to you both now. You don’t need to remember all of it as you can just read the book and you will find it there, but as your teacher I have to explain this at least once.”

Both me and Arnold start to pay close attention to her.

“There are seven basic elemental attributes. Fire, water, wind, earth, thunder, light and darkness. There are also some more advanced attributes such as blood, sound and even metal. But they require both experience on the use of two or more of the basic attributes, and sometimes outside forces are necessary as well like magic items or spells so you are able to use those attributes. The only other way to acquire one is via a blessing from the gods.”

If I had a notebook I would start to write things right now but I guess I have to trust my memory.

“Magic in general has 3 principles. Creation, Destruction and Manipulation. They define what you can do with magic. Create things, destroy things or manipulate things. The healing magic I use, for example, in its most basic form, uses Manipulation where I can make your body go back to the state it was before you got hurt, but you need to be all there, if part of you isn’t there I can’t manipulate that part. Other people in the medical team can destroy the bad things in your body, while others create what is missing in you so you get better.”

“So that is why you are so beautiful? You use your magic on yourself so you are always in your best state?” I ask.

“Aww Lucia, thanks. But that is because of something else.”

I look at her confused.

“The more mana you have, the prettier you get and the less you age. Great mages can live two to three hundred years while still looking like they have twenty or thirty years.”

“Ooohh” I say in surprise.

“Continuing what I was saying before. There are various ways to use the same type of spells, you just need to find the right runes. And if you study enough you can probably create your own runes. But if you do that you need to submit them to the Great Magic Institute.”

Arnold, that up to this point, might as well have been emanating smoke from his ears says something.

“Hey, I know that name. They are the guys that won’t let you use magic for fun.”

“You could say that. But they are just in charge of the laws around the use of magic. Almost everyone can use magic and if there is no way to stop people from doing that we will have a lot of exploding people. All of this I am explaining to both of you is also law. If you are going to teach someone magic you have to explain all of this or they will stop servicing you.”

“Servicing?” I ask confused again.

“Those books you have were given to us by them for free because we teach magic to a lot of people and we follow their guidelines on it’s use and spread of magic. They also provide magic services like enchanting and healing. You get a discount or are outright banned from receiving their official services depending on how much you follow or break their rules.”

Both Arnold and I are a little lost.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s very probable that both of you will never even have contact with them professionally so you don’t need to worry about the rules. Just don’t kill other people with magic for no reason and that is good enough.”

We both nod our heads.

“Until it’s lunch time read the books and look for a rune you think you can make. The ones there are all beginner’s level ones so they don’t use that much mana. Also the greater your affinity with an element the less mana you have to use on it, but it will never be 0. So I think even you Lucia can find something.”

“Ok.” I say while flipping through the book.

Both me and Arnold flip through the book to find anything either of us could try and after some discussion we found what we wanted. There are various spells of each element. You can cast pretty much any type of spell using any element, healing can be done with fire just as well as it can with water or light. You just need to be able to make the rune.

Arnold chose the Spell Pebble, it creates a pebble that is shot depending on how much mana you put on it. I took the simple Create Fire that just creates a fire in your hand for a while or until you stop the rune, just for safety.

After that, lunch came, we ate and after resting a little we went back to the training area with Aria.

There we spent a week training magic. Magic is hard, and for me it’s impossible. Not the it’s really hard impossible, but plain impossible right now. Runes are pretty much drawings you make on the magic circle, the mages make the rune with minimal to almost zero mana then when it is complete they put all the mana necessary to activate it. In my case drawing the rune automatically activates it for some reason. Even with up to 10 mages holding my mana back via spells, that happens. The week we spent training was the week that Arnold needed to fire the spell he chose without anything going wrong. After that everyone pretty much gave up on me, including me. The experience of being blown away again and again is not a fun one.

After that, at the end of the day we both were walking back to our tents when we began to talk. I was with a really pout face.

“Don’t be like that Lucia, at some point you probably will be able to use magic.” Arnold says while trying to cheer me up.

“It’s not fair, I have no mana and all of it just explodes. I want to use magic.” I say while a little angry.

“You don’t need magic, you can already use swords.”

“But… Magic….”

He then pats me in the head.

“You are already pretty strong. So try to not rush it. It took me a week to make a pitiful spell and I am exhausted, maybe it will just take a little longer for you.”

I just nod my head and then we go our ways.

After dinner I try to find if there is another way to use magic but find nothing. Then I take my bath and go to sleep.

--//--

Next morning, in the training area, we find the Boss there, with a lot of weapons. Spears, swords, bows, axes, etc...all made to be able to be used by children. There are also around ten other people there each one with a different weapon. Some people are walking around so I don’t know if they are part of this group.

“All right kids, today you will try every weapon I could find and you need to choose two. No soldier should only be able to use one type of weapon. What you choose is up to you, so don’t feel pressured to take anything you don’t want to.” The Boss says.

“Who are those people?” Arnold asks.

“They can be your teachers, each one of them is pretty much an expert with a weapon. After you choose your weapons you will be assigned to them for training.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Ok Boss.” We both say.

After that we spent the entire day trying each weapon. Since I already had the Great Sword mastery I only had to choose another weapon. But that was a little harder than expected. I had to choose something I could carry in the future along with my sword that would help me cover the weaknesses of the great sword. The bow and arrow were the first ones to go. Looks like my aim is not that bad, but I don’t feel right using a bow. The next one was the spears. My sword already has the reach of and spear and can do pretty much the same things but better sometimes. Axes, both single-handed and double-handed ones were not fit for me. You need a lot of raw strength to use those and looks like I will not have that now or in the future. Guess that means the power of my sword doesn't come from me. I then tried all types of blades, to normal swords down to knives. After some talk with the women there, I chose to dual wield sabers. They are a little shorter than normal swords but almost as light as knives. They will be my speed option while the great sword is my power option. I tried a shield during this but the women there told me it’s better to try to not get hit than to reduce the impact because as women, we will have less bulk than men, but in general women are faster. Looks like genetics work a little different here in this world.

Arnold took the bow and spear. The reason he gave is so that he can be effective at any range since he can also use magic.

After that we were excused and went to sleep. Starting the next day we would be trained non-stop until we became adults. It’s illegal almost everywhere to deploy minors to the battle field, outside of emergencies, but not to train them. So we would be trained until we were 15 years old. As recruits we would have a salary. It will be really small, but we will receive some money. We had to sign a contract and I finally learned the name of the coin used in this world. It’s called Kir, in all the documents they used the $ symbol so I never got its name as people just use coin or money when they talk. They are coins made of various materials, mostly metals, but sometimes out of gems or even wood. I don’t know how the economy works so I will just accept it for now. My salary will be 2 Kir per month. In perspective a normal soldier gets 15 Kir per month he works and a little extra depending on the missions he does. 100 Kir per month makes you middle class in this world. 1000 Kir per month makes you rich. Kingdoms have around 200.000 to 300.000 Kir in their banks.

After a good bath and a night of sleeping we were ready. During this night I was finally able to Astral Project myself again, but my range decreased, by a lot. I can’t move more than 2 meters away from the body, but in compensation I can hear, see, even smell things with just my invisible astral body.Some of the mages can probably sense me, but they rarely pass by my tent late at night. I Started to use this time to review what I learned during the day and be my own night patrol so when I went back Lucia would have a better grasp on what she did and learned throughout the day as well not having to worry about night attacks.

In the morning we were assigned our teachers. Mine where Hugo and Katia. Hugo was a big black man. He probably was in his thirties, he is tall, around 2 meters tall, he is bald and really muscular. Just his arm is as thick as I am. He uses greatswords. Katia is one of the few people in this camp that can be called an assassin. She is also a mage so I can’t pinpoint her actual age, but she looks like she is in her early twenties, probably younger as she is really petite. She has short straight orange hair barely reaching her shoulders along with green eyes. She uses wind spells to become faster and go invisible. She will also be teaching Arnold in the future.

Arnold’s teachers were Ken and Bella. Ken is a 170-ish tall man with short blonde hair and blue eyes. If he didn’t have multiple scars on his face he would probably be very handsome. He uses spears. Bella is the only one who will train us that is not a soldier from what I heard. She has some form of PTSD but her bow skills are second to none here. She is in her mid-thirties but the stress isn’t helping her and she looks a little older. She has long green hair all the way to her waist and black eyes.

Both me and Arnold were also assigned a resident healer whose sole job would be to heal our injuries as long they were not needed somewhere else. Mine was Besta and Arnold’s was a new one that was just recently contracted, a beast woman called Sunny. She had traits of Felines. A lot of yellow fur, a tail. It was really strange seeing a humanoid cat walking around. The normal clothes the medical team had did not fit her so she was using her own clothes that did the bare minimum as her fur covered the rest. I was told that beast-man can look more human or animal at random so it’s best to just accept. I of course have no reason to not do it so I just ignore the fact the she walks around pretty much naked.

Beside physical training we also were assigned tactical and management training. The Boss doesn’t care if we are children, he will put us through the gauntlet of learning and if we want something we have to survive it.

Both of us learned survival from the medical team from time to time, things like what to eat in the wilderness, what is poisonous, how to do emergency surgery on the field, how to get clean water, etc… Everything you need to survive on your own or with a group on the field.

We also had to learn about monsters, but that was more like self-study time than actual lessons. The teacher of the day pretty much just gave us any encyclopedia, book or report about monsters we had and answered questions if he could. Looks like in this job you can find monsters at any time, even when you are battling someone else so you must have the knowledge to fight any type of monster with what you have or know how to flee from it at least.

Technically both of us also had magical lessons with the mages of the group but since Arnold was the only one who could do magic I spent most of my time trying to figure out what was happening with my magic.

Arnold got sent to the tactical school because of this blessing. His blessing makes him feel if he can win a battle. If he knows about tactics and fights in general better he will be able to more accurately feel if he can win a battle using the current tactics or if he needs to change so he can win with the people there. It’s only a feeling but if you hone it enough, they said it would be incredibly useful.

I got sent to management since my math skills were so good. There I would learn how to manage a camp like the one I am living right now. Contracts, supply and demand of goods. What food to prioritize at each stage of a battle or mission. Handling money and how to get more goods on the field. Not gonna lie this sounds easier than it seems.

The more mental training was done by lots of people so I can’t really remember all of them as they pretty much rotate at random. The only two constant teachers we had besides our weapon ones were Aria and the Boss who could pretty much teach us anything besides magic as his magic was too unique and dangerous even to tell us what it was.

We spent 4 years training almost non-stop like this. The conflict the group was part of had become a full blown war so we were stuck in the camp all that time. More people came and went during those years. Some recruits joined us, they were older than us, but unlike some of the temporary contracts we had for a single mission or battle, these guys would enter the group and become part of the Purple Dragons after training.

Both me and Arnold grew up a lot, not just physically but also mentally.

Arnold was 160 cm tall, he let his hair grow a little, now you could see his spiked straight hair in it’s full glory. It’s length was around his chin. It really combined with his black eyes.

I grew to be 150 cm tall. My hair goes all the way to my butt and no matter how much I cut it down it just grows back up. Some of the women even made wigs out of it to sell. I just tie it up now. I am also beginning to grow tits. If I got any genes from my mom's side I will have some big ones but this is for later.

He is now 12 and I am 10 years old. Going by the camps celebration we should actually be 13 and 11, but that is for them and those are our actual ages.

Arnold became a good general. He still suffers from the fact he has a child’s mind so dirty tactics are his weaknesses, but besides that, his blessing can now be used at will to great results, shame it only works on life or death situations that involves fighting or he could use it on gambling and make a lot of money.

Right now with some help I could manage our camp. Ever since Barley changed how we do our financial books, things only got easier and easier. We even found out who was stealing money. It was one of the middle men from the kingdom. Took some time but as Barley but it to me.

“He is probably someone’s prison bitch now.”

It’s probably better than whatever the Boss would do to him.

Neither me or Arnold got any new blessings during this time, but we managed to get good enough at fighting with the weapons we chose that the weaker soldiers we had actually couldn’t win against us. Also we could easily fight a group of adult wolves on our own.

Arnold became, what the Boss called, the Stingers. Someone who would hit his foes with a lot of weak hits that didn’t take that much energy so he could open his foe guard and deal with it in a single move. In his free time he also learned how to fire his spear as an arrow. It was pretty cool. Besides that, his style and form were pretty standard for the group.

Me on the other hand went the other way. I made my own style of fighting, based on dancing of all things. Most people who use greatswords are the slow big type, do a lot of damage in one hit but you can’t hit that much. Normal dual-wielding also wasn’t something I could fully learn from. At least not in the way Katia uses it. Fighting is a last resort to her so she just fights to run. I had to learn how to fight to actually win. Her assassination strategies were pretty useful at least.

I think around two years ago some prostitutes were brought to the camp for their services as well as a show. They did a dance using swords and by sheer luck I was able to see them when I got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet.

In the morning before they had leave I paid one of them to dance for me. It was a strange experience for both of us, but money talks and she did. Her movements were all smooth. Every different move she made could easily go to any other she had already shown. They were not really useful in battle, but they gave me an idea.

Using part of what I saw I tried to make a swordsmanship style where any move could go to any move, and any move would also be able to be used to dodge a type of attack. It took some time and the occasional paying of a prostitute for a dance in secret when they came here, but I managed to create the basics at least. The faces that some of the men did when they saw me training were hilarious. You could taste their guilt sometimes.

As for magic I am now able to use magic. It’s not useful and has more chance to hurt me than others, but I can use the Create Fire Spell. Arnold learned lots of spells but he mostly uses wind and earth and both for support. He uses wind to go faster like Katia and also to control his arrows better for long distances and earth to create pits, walls or shields in emergencies.

Me on the other hand can only create a big fire that vanishes just as fast as it is made. All those years I spent training magic was to make my rune making faster. If I can make a rune really fast, it doesn’t matter if it activates. The problem is that it uses pretty much all my mana when I do it even though it is a really weak spell. This process makes me use the rune to its maximum potence. I was able to do it safely only a few weeks ago so now I am looking for another spell, but so far I found nothing useful.

Also during this time, me and Arnold became really good friends. Since we couldn’t really play with the other kids anymore we had to rely on each other for socialization with people around our age most of the time. There is also the fact that we were the only two recruits in training on the camp until a year ago. Most of the recruits are in the home base and we can’t be sent there as we would need to cross the entire kingdom for it.

--//--

Today is the 14th of Aries of the year 241 of the golden age. Me and Arnold are camping a little ways away from the camp as part of our survival training. It’s early in the morning of our second day here.

“Good morning” I say.

“Awn… Good morning. How do you know when the sun rises every time?”

“It’s a secret.” I can't tell him I have part of my soul on watch 24/7 so I know when the sun rises.

“So, what do we have to do today?” he asks me.

“Nothing, we got all the food we needed yesterday, remember?.”

“Oh yeah.” He says while looking at the bags full of fruit as well a little boar we have tied up near our campfire.

“At least this time they gave us actual weapons. Those training one are good for training but that's it.” I complain.

“Hey, at least I will not die when you hit me with them. You need to learn to hold back a little when we train.”

“Why should I? You still use magic, why can’t I go full power against you?”

We both stop for a moment and start to laugh. We usually do these little petty fights almost everyday. It’s kind of a running joke between us. Yesterday we fought because a leaf was too green.

“So are you planning to go to the back lines when you are old enough?” He asks me.

“Only if it’s the enemy’s back lines we are talking about.”

“You are the strangest girl I know.”

“I am the only girl you know. The other kids don’t even want to talk to us anymore, what a bunch of brats.”

“Lucia, you burned their toys.”

“It was an accident. I even paid for new ones after I apologized.”

“You came back to camp covered in blood and lots of magic crystals in the middle of the night. They are scared of you now.”

“When was I supposed to hunt monster wolves if they only show at night.”

“I don’t think you are supposed to do that.”

“Well, it’s too late now.”

“Yeah…”

We both finally get up from our makeshift beds in our small tent.

“I am going to get us some water, check to see if anyone is trying to prank us again like the last time.”

“I can probably start a forest fire now, I don’t think they will, but I will check.”

We both go our ways for a few minutes. As I look around the camp someone approaches me at high speed.

“Katia!?” I ask in surprise as she just appears in front of me.

“Go get Arnold, we have an emergency. Forget about everything that is not your weapons and armor and come to the camp as fast as you can.”

I just nod my head and go running towards the pond we found nearby. There Arnold was filling some buckets we had.

“ARNOLD! It’s an emergency, we need to go back to camp now.” I scream as soon as I see him.

“Hey slow down, what happened?”

“I don’t know, Katia just said that we had to go back now.”

“Ok, let’s pack the camp and go.”

“No, we need to go now!.” I say.

He just looks at me in shock. We both just pick up our reserve weapons at the camp and go running at full speed to the camp.

When we get there everyone is packing the camp.

“What is happening?” We both ask.

“A monster break happened, everyone will be either deployed or sent back home.” One of the guards explains to us.

A monster break is what happens when a monster is summoned with the use of magic but the rune goes out of control and uses the mana of everyone nearby as well the mana on the area. For this reason summoning spells need a licence to be used legally, it is one of the few types of spell that you need one. Lack of one means you are pretty much being hunted if the Great Magic Institute finds out about you.

“Let’s find the Boss. He probably knows more about this.” Arnold says while we begin to walk to his tent.

“Yeah, he just came back a few days ago, he probably has some information.” I say.

When we get near the tent there are some people outside and we can hear a discussion inside between the Boss and Aria of all people.

“NO! They are just kids, send them back home!” She screams.

“They are better than half of the people here and are just kids. Imagine what they will be able to learn on the field.” The Boss says with a calm voice.

“They will learn death.”

“And if we don’t send them, a lot of other people will learn it instead.”

“We didn’t train them for that.”

“No, we did for even worse things, they just don’t know.”

“That place will become hell.”

“And we will go there.”

“...”

“...”

After a few moments of silence both of us enter the tent.

“We are going.” Arnold says.

“Yeah, if we don’t we would be just cowards. You taught us that we should help the people who need help and probably can pay us with something.” I say.

“Yeah, if there are no people, who will pay us?” Says Arnold.

Aria just looks at us and then at the Boss.

“Ok, you will, but I will go with them and that isn’t negotiable.”

The boss just nods his head in acceptance and pulls two contracts.

“Lucia and Arnold, as of right now you are being drafted to fight an army of undead monsters being summoned south of the city near here, Papyria. Do you accept it?”

“Yes" we both say. While signing the contract.

“As of today, you are no longer minors. Due to state of emergency you are now considered adults and should act as such and have the rights of one while on the field. But please think before you do something.”

We just laugh a little at the last remark.

“All your goods will be stored and moved back to home base. They will be cataloged and any losses will be compensated after you return. Prepare to leave immediately, anything besides combat gear should not be taken. Basic goods will be provided in the field such as water and food as well hygiene items. When you are ready just hop on one of the carriages near the south exit of the camp and you will be taken there.”

“Yes Sir” We all say.

I go back to my tent and pick my good sabers I got a while ago from Katia and tie them to my magic string.

When I get to the carriages, Arnold and Aria are already there. Arnold is also with the weapons he got from his teachers, as well a barrel of home made arrows he did with my help.

We all enter the open carriage along with another 17 soldiers and go full speed towards the battlefield.