“Hey! Don’t be giving him orders in elvish, that’s not fair are you leading him to the commander?!”

Dodger’s voice broke through interrupting her.

“Dodger,” she sighed switching to common “just focus, whoever beats the groups near them fastest will be able to go to the commander. You and Brick are right in the middle of two. Head to your right at the next intersection and keep going straight.”

She switched back to elvish, “I’ve sent her in the opposite direction of the commander for now. You’re about to- far aw- Pae-“

I stopped hearing her and slowed down tapping the device.

“Sailhin?”

“You must be out of range. Paeris should be able to connect to you with a spell once you’re in his view. Now take the right.”

I turned down the road and ran into a few of the footmen. With how small the road was, they were all lined up for me, so I knocked them out of my way as I ran.

The further I went down the road, the more spaced out the buildings became. They also gradually got shorter and shorter until I ran into a large cleared out park area.

The plant life wasn’t close to anything I was familiar with. The structures weren’t thick and covered in leaves or flowers. Instead, they were thin and short with a diverse type of structures and colors. The ground was sand and not grass. There were some stone pathways between the different groupings of plants, and they all lead to the center were a large pavilion stood.

I looked up at the sky above it, and saw a magic circle being written.

“Just your toes, and jump.”

The stone paths were a bit out of my way, so I ran along the sand instead, which was new. I hadn’t ever been to the south and all of the lakes and rivers I remembered mostly had rocky beaches or pebbles. As I got closer, I passed across a few of the stoned paths, but none of them took a direct path.

I reinforced my toes and jumped up. Mezu gripped my hair reminding me of his presence.

With that amount, I made it about halfway up and landed on one of the columns, the sand probably limited me more than the amount that I had used.

I would have to make some holes in the columns to climb easier. It wasn’t damage I could avoid, but Sailhin said I could do what I needed to. So, with my fingers and toes reinforced I started climbing.

“To continue what I was saying…”

I had mostly forgotten what he had said anyway with the interruption.

“And to specify a bit more, I only think that covering external objects with aura is when you need to consider the opening and closing of a hole as the method and not actively imagining moving it. With the aura in you its more about activating the aura in specific parts of your body, and only a few of the pathways. The more you can isolate them the-”

I made it to the top and the captain turned towards me unsheathing his sword.

“Can we do the lecture at a time where I can pay attention?”

The captain ran through the circle of mages and swung its blade down on me. I blocked it with my arm, pushed it away and twisted my arm to grab the blade itself. I pulled him towards me and grabbed the front of its armor with my left hand.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I focused on the pathways in my fingers and crushed the blade.

“Fine, but get the mages first.”

I threw the captain off the side of the pavilion and headed towards the nearest mage. I punched with the same amount of force I had used earlier but my had slammed into a barrier.

I looked closer and saw a solid mana barrier surrounding them. I needed more.

More to cover my hand and my arm reinforced.

“Imagine opening and closing a small hole in a specific place!”

It was like opening my mouth and closing it to breathe. But quicker, I only needed a little bit, right?

I opened something and went to close it, but my aura came rushing out. It took a lot of force to close it, but there was now more than enough lining my fist.

Reinforcing specific parts of my body was easier than covering it. With both parts done I punched the barrier again and made it through.

My fist slammed into the mage right behind the barrier and it flew across the circle into the one right across from it. The mana moving stopped and the circle above started dismantling.

The other mages screamed in agony though, clutching at their heads and I felt a small change in the aura on my back.

“Quartz! can you hear me?”

It was Paeris, with that same strange clarity from the ice floor.

“Yeah, I can.”

“Good I was worried I couldn’t get through with your aura.”

“What? Anyway, something weird happened when I interrupted the mages.”

“It seems they use dark mana, you should get out of the area quickly.”

“Why?”

I turned and ran to the edge of the roof to jump off.

“When a joint dark mana spell is broken, the mana doesn’t retreat into the air. It goes back to the one who used it. If the circle is broken, then the mana only retreats to those in the original circle, so it can overwhelm them. If they can’t contain it, the mana will burst out of them. You’d be fine even if you got hit, probably, but it’s better not to take any chances.”

I jumped off and landed in the sand rolling to soften my fall.

“Which direction do I go now?”

“Turn to your left and take the middle street. Dodger and Brick are on their way to the second captain so you should hurry up if you want to fight the commander alone.”

“Sounds good.”

I took off as fast as I could. The last time I’d fought anyone fun, was the high orc captain. This floor felt arguably easier than that one, but I guess since we couldn’t just use a large area spell it was over all more work.

I had just barely made it through the fight against the high orc. If this floor felt easier maybe it was because of my aura or maybe the enemies were weaker. I did hate that fight but before I hated it, it was a lot of fun. So hopefully the commander was harder than the captain I just threw off the pavilion.

“Take the first right, then the second left. You should make it to some stairs, but you can just go to the roof tops of the lower part of the city instead. A bad landing will slow you down, but don’t worry too much about accidently destroying things. You’ll be out of visual sight for a bit, so I’ll get cut off again. Have fun.”

I took the right and felt the pressure on my back dissipate.

“That’s quite the spell, I’m surprised he was able to get through your aura.”

“Did he get through it? I don’t think I felt anything touching my skin, it was just on my aura.”

“Take this left here.”

I did so and saw the ocean like sky in the distance not more city.

“You have a mark on the strap of your chest armor. It seems the spell activates the mark and connects you to him. The last time communications spells were researched this in depth was during the elf and goblin war over three thousand years ago. Since there wasn’t a need recently, I didn’t think there was any advancements. But this one must have done research on his own. I want to learn more but if I make you ask him, he’ll find it weird that you’re interested in this.”

He groaned, “why must we wait so long for the selection?”

I made it to the end of the road and there was a small wall and a set of stairs to my right. I looked over the wall and saw buildings, in much worse condition lower down. They were sparse and stopped all together where the port was. At the port there were large buildings spread out and odd-looking ships on docks. I saw a small group of people near a destroyed building.

“What happens after the selection?”

I leaped over the wall and landed on a roof below and continued along. Alcoroth didn’t respond though and I looked over at him to see his lips moving but I heard nothing.

“Oh, its seems that I’m unable to explain that just yet.”

“Seriously? But you can mention the selection? Can you explain that at least?”

I jumped to the next building when the gap came up.

“The other monarchs shall choose who they wish to become their avatar and bestow a blessing upon them.”

“A blessing?”