Seth sucked in a deep breath as he prepared himself for the next attack he knew was coming. “I ask myself the same thing all the time.”

When Taliser disappeared again, he was ready. He ducked as the mage appeared. The man lit up within the range of his senses a fraction of a second before he attacked and Seth swung his sword at him.

Taliser stepped away from the swing, evading it by a mere inch.

“Your awareness is amazing for an Iron,” Taliser noted, avoiding another strike. “Are you sure you’re an Iron?”

Seth stepped away from him when he saw his attacks were futile, increased the distance between them. When he held up his shortsword again, he held it with both hands.

Taliser cocked his head to the side. “And what are the ones on your hips for? I was wondering why you would be carrying four swords. Are you aspiring to be a swordsman?”

“Did you talk this much in the previous tests?” Seth asked. “Because I don’t remember hearing a lot of talking back then.”

Taliser sighed. “You children of this generation.” He flexed his fingers, loosening his grip. “You forget what fear is as time passes. Let me give you a touch of what fear is. You seem smart enough to remember it.”

He raised his hand in emulation of his actions against Fentil and Seth’s senses screamed danger.

“[Hand of Gaia]”

Seth activated the skill without hesitation at the same moment, his decision unhesitant.

“[Quick Step]”

The skill carried him away as the ground beneath his erupted like a volcano of solid rock and sand. It forged itself as it rose, morphing into a massive hand that closed around what should’ve been his body.

A panic suffused his body as he stared at the monstrosity of a hand. It was as tall as ten feet. Its wrapped fist was as wide as eight men and would’ve crushed him effectively in its hold and grains of sand fell from it as he watched its massive form, falling away like rain from the sky.

“Such amazing reaction speed,” Taliser complimented as he stepped out from behind the hand and into view. “But is that all you have? Does your skill only allow you to flee?” he tilted his head to the side. “And why are you trembling?”

Seth held his tongue.

As for his trembling, it was in his hands. He wasn’t sure why they trembled; not entirely. It wasn’t fear, that much he knew. Was it anticipation? He wondered. Was it excitement?

“Can we take him?” he asked his minds as he attempted to calm himself. “We can’t win,” he corrected, “but can we make a difference?”

Not without the skill we hate, a mind answered.

No! another object. We don’t get to offer opinions, we made a wager. We can’t affect his decisions while on a wager with dots of supremacy at stake.

“Now is not the time,” Seth scolded. “Can. We. Win?”

“You talk a lot,” Taliser said. “Is it normal?”

“Against a Gold mage?” Seth smirked. “Always.”

Without an answer from his minds, he activated [Quick Step] once more and closed the distance between them. He struck, with his sword in one hand, pulled its twin free with his other hand and swung it in an upward arc as Taliser evaded the first.

The gold mage acted quickly, stepped aside so that his second swing cut the air in front of him. his stance, easy and casual, was disrespectful as far as Seth was concerned.

By the time Seth made a third slash, Taliser was out of his reach.

He frowned at the now distant gold mage, his mind still seeking a victory it knew he would never have. The mage was toying with him, doing the same thing he had done to the examinees before him.

It was insulting.

But the others didn’t get to make him use any of his skills, one of his minds consoled.

He ignored its consolation as he found it unnecessary. What he needed was something impactful. Landing a single blow would qualify under this. But with the way the mage kept moving, faster than he could with [Quick Step] if he wasn’t mistaken, he would be unable to catch him.

It meant the only way to land a precise blow was with a counterattack. To counter a gold mage, he needed a precise point of action. For that, he needed focus. He needed awareness. He needed…

Stolen novel; please report.

“Sorry, guys,” he apologized as he made his decision, then activated another skill.

“[Fractured Mind]”

The world bled away around him even as it sharpened into focus. He had thought the arena silent once before. He had been wrong. Under the influence of the skill he heard it clearly. As silent as his audience was, he could hear their anticipation, their anxiety, their tension. They were almost as much a part of the fight as he and Taliser were.

He felt the touch of air against his skin. The weight of the blades in both hands. He shifted his hold on them and their weight lightened mildly. He had been holding them wrong the entire time, initiating power with the wrong muscles. It was nigh fascinating the differences a little change in grip could do.

With the world at his fingertips, he activated [Quick Step].

He approached Taliser, the world blurring around him from his speed. He watched the gold raise a casual hand in anticipation of an attack but ignored him. He spared the man the barest fraction of his attention, catching the action only because it was in his field of awareness as he stepped past him.

His skill carried him further and he passed the gold mage by four feet. When he came to a stop he threw his blade, flung it with the precision of a throwing knife and reached for one of the swords at his waist as he held the other shortsword in a reverse grip. He clasped its hilt in the familiar calm of the draw as Taliser leaned to the side to avoid the blade he’d thrown.

“That’s quite enough of that,” Taliser said, impatiently. It seemed throwing his sword had annoyed the man, surprising even him.

Something shifted in Seth’s awareness at the man’s words It was in the shaping of the world, in the turning of the air and the rolling of sand grains. It was like watching the air bend as if at the hold of a growing hurricane not yet arrived. It was like a heraldry of something incomprehensible.

Seth refused to dwell on it; did not allow his mind wander. Instead, he acted on his instinct as they roared to him; four fractured minds complaining as one.

What mattered was the sensation was new and that he avoided what came.

Whatever it was, it wrapped itself around Taliser’s hand, raised as it had been once before. Now that it had taken a point of leverage, it gave the sensation of something pulling and Seth’s senses of the world blurred where it was concerned. To his awareness, that point was anathema. It was not to be addressed.

When Taliser spoke again, it was as if the man poisoned the world.

“[Shield Wall]”

The world lit up in Seth’s senses like a bonfire. From Taliser’s mouth the air rippled so mildly he would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been looking. The sensation it left him with was wild and chaotic with the tiniest sense of order. He could feel it but not comprehend it. It overloaded his mind and he closed his eyes to it, turned his face from it. But he did not let it dissuade him.

All of it happened in the space of a single moment and he called his own skill to bear as he had always intended.

“[Quick Strike]”

He felt the familiar sensation of reia flooding his reia channels. It spilled from his steadily depleting core, surged upwards, filling his torso and spreading to his arms. When it activated, he drew. His sword shot out of its sheath as a wall of sand and soil rose in front of him, standing in his path to Taliser.

In the quickest moment, the blade was back in its sheath and Seth watched the wall before him tremble, then fall.

In the comfort of its sheath, his sword was lighter.

………………………………………………….

Taliser stared at [Shield Wall] as it stood between him and the boy called Oden, a massive wall of sand and soil ten feet high and twelve feet wide. With his gold eyes active he could see the swirl of his reia mixed with sand reia and soil reia. There were other aspects of reia flooding it, holding it together along with his so that it took form, but at its heart was sand and soil. Most magi thought they were the same, but for someone like him, someone whose skills were wrapped around the concepts of them, he knew they were different, and vastly so.

His reia played a basic part. Its job was to form the spell, and to hold it when it had finally taken shape. That, in its most basic essence, was the skill. To see an Iron mage’s sword cut through it, even if it was before the completion of its formation was—for lack of a better word—terrifying.

You sly fox, he thought, sparing Jim a glance where he sat in the crowd. You’ve done it again.

He raised his hand to the tip of the sword stuck in the wall of coalesced sand and soil and touched it. The moment his skin met its tip, his amazement grew. Oden’s sword was broken. The mage had possessed enough physical strength to vie for supremacy against the sturdiness of the wall. He obviously hadn’t been able to win, but to think that rather than lose, the sword had proved a casualty of his unwillingness to succumb was mind befuddling.

Every year House fifty-eight brought in at least one superior prospect. One monster in a sea of potential adventurers he wished to sponsor. The rest could be anything from mediocre to simply acceptable. But there was always at least one who defied the norm.

Taliser released his skill. The reia that helped hold it all together washed away, flickered into the air. It was reia he would not get back. Every time he watched it happen, he always felt a certain loss.

[Shield Wall] fell away, crumbled to the sand beneath it in a cloud of dust. On its other side Oden stood poised for battle. In one hand he held his odd shortsword while his other hand was on his other sword. It seemed he’d noticed the loss of his sword.

Much like when he’d arrived at the arena, he continued to breathe quickly. Taliser had thought him tired then, or at least at the verge of fatigue. He knew better now.

How many skills did he even use? He wondered.

Normally he would not have needed to think on it. With his gold eyes he could anticipate a mage’s skill activation. It was a skill every mage of gold authority possessed. It was in the way the ambient reia warped around them, accommodated their skill even before its activation, and the way some of their reia leaked from their body upon activation. But with Oden it had been impossible. The boy’s reia control was flawless. He wasted none of it, so much so that he’d been unable to anticipate the boy’s activation until it was complete. Even then, the ambient reia barely reacted to him.

There were magi whose skills did not affect the ambient reia. They were the magi who used internal skills; applied their skills on themselves. So it came as no surprise. But wasting none of it? That was control the likes of which no Iron mage should possess.

He raised his hand to announce the conclusion of the battle and noted Oden’s alertness grow even as his eyes never left his. The boy’s awareness continued to stun him. He almost activated another skill just to see what the boy would do.

“That concludes this session,” he announced, then dropped his hand. To Oden, he added: “You can return to your benefactor. Your results will be presented to you at the front desk.”