“So you made a potion to counteract the lightning?” Thomas sounded wary and a little intrigued.
He flicked his blade again. The motion seemed slightly off—it was too much for a nervous tick and too weird a choice for somatic casting. The element changed back from lightning to ice.
That seemed weird, too. Either he was an awesome spellcaster, or he was doing that way too easily and keeping the spells up for far too long. He cast for single strikes in combat training.
So the latter, obviously. If the sword was magic and not just styled after the Tower, was that related?
He whipped it forward and Micah stood his ground. He took in a sharp breath and the tip of the [Ribbon Edge] splashed against his dominion like water against the rocks. Weaker, even. Less than air. Fuzzy spots faded around the edges of his vision. Pure mana without authority.
Micah forced the dream of ice essence down his arm and closed his eyes with another deep breath for a split second. “[Condense Water].” He focused on the images and feelings:
Getting out of bed in a mid-winter morning, jumping into the ice-cold canal in the high summer, cold showers, the numbing sting of chilled hands, shivering outside, and the burn of snow against his skin—
Water turned to slush over his shield and Micah applied pressure until a chunk of ice fell into his waiting hand. He smiled.
A waste of mana, maybe, but there was a thin crowd of some of their teachers, classmates, and friends. Every second Thomas kept up that whip or he used it, it cost him as well.
There was a crowd, though, and in the brief moment after Micah closed his eyes and glanced at them, his opponent struck again.
He frantically breathed the essence from the corner of his eye but didn’t manage to get all of it. Or maybe Thomas had put that much more into the strike. A chill slapped across his face and Micah bore on through it. If he kept up a front, maybe his opponent wouldn’t notice.
Not to waste, he exhaled and took care to only breathe out what he wanted to lose. Like wet crumbs at the bottom of a bag, he’d stuffed essences that fueled [Surging Strength] down there.
Just thinking about it made him want to clean them out.
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “So what? You can steal the affinities of any spell I throw at you now?”
If you telegraph your attacks like that, if you give me the patience to do it, if you don’t abuse the side-effects, if the spell is weak enough, or slow enough, if the essences aren’t harmful enough, if you let me breathe at all, if my lungs aren’t already filled with something else, if I don’t have mana to off-load the essence into quickly, if it’s something I can see.
So many weaknesses Micah had needed to account for in practice and testing with sparring partners like Stephanie or Mason because his Path hadn’t been as interested.
But Thomas didn’t need to know any of that, so he just shrugged.
The guy scowled, dismissed the fractal patterns around his blade, and coated it with another spell—a second or two longer than when he had done the flick thing-y.
Micah almost laughed when he saw the silver-green swirls. Did he really only know elemental spells?
He whipped and Micah approached. Enough testing the waters. He breathed in and wind essences flooded his veins, making his body lighter.
His opponent flicked his blade back to lightning, but Micah threw the chunk of ice at him. The guy dodged, and he used the chance to yank the bottle off his belt, pop it open with his thumb, and take a swig—
“Dammit, Micah—” Thomas ran.
A sudden thought made him hesitate: If he tapped the earth essences at the bottom of his lungs, they might conduct his electricity to shock him. But it was a trick he could only use once.
Micah stepped back from a strike and breathed a cloud of fog in his face. Not enough to cover the field, which itself was bigger than the training fields; just enough to cover his vision.
It broke around his body and he flicked his sword back to swipe it away, complaining, “You said you wouldn’t use that.”
I said I wouldn’t cover the field. This is a show after all. And around them, he could hear chuckles.
Micah dodged the [Ribbon Edge], capped the bottle, and clipped it on his belt. In the same motion, he sheathed his sword and turned directions. He ran the other way to snap a glueball right above his armpit.
Lower his dexterity first. Everything Thomas could do relied on the might of his arm after all.
The guy jumped and swiveled around when he was hit from the wrong direction. He struck on reflex, slower than before, and Micah side-stepped another whip strike like a guillotine.
The referee called his point.
He aimed at his foot next, but Thomas was moving. The second shot hit just in front of his boot and splattered it.
Dammit.
“Can you stop doing that?” he asked. The bit of glue didn’t seem to be slowing him down.
“Doing what?”
“Fighting with these tricks.”
“I’m an [Alchemist]. Step up or step down, man.” He knew he had to have more up his sleeve than this. He’d been good enough to climb with Anne and he was on track for first place.
Micah just wanted him to play his cards already so he knew which cards he could play in turn.
Finally, Thomas dismissed the whip and stepped into melee range. Micah blocked the first strike and dropped his sling. A gale pressed over the sides of his shield and made it flap at his legs.
His opponent harried him while Micah fumbled to draw his sword, but then Thomas gripped his own with both hands and made him hesitate. A grande strike? Spell? Did he need both hands to charge it?
He used his surge of strength to meet the strike, bought the ruse, and in the corner of his vision, with a flick, Thomas slipped his left hand away from the handle to draw a lightning dagger.
Micah was still focused on breathing in the spell of his first blade.
Shit.
It went for his chest. Micah drew on the essences at the bottom of his lungs and pushed them into his arms, past the ebb of his strength, and forced himself into a second surge.
He drew his blade and used the same motion to block and counter. At the same time, Thomas twisted the blade into his wrist.
His arm seized up and he dropped his sword, Thomas winced from the impact against his chest, and the judge called, “Round!”
He breathed. For a second, he needed to process the word. His eyes still went to his sword on the ground, if he could find a chance there, and— Shit. Dropping it would earn him a penalty.
That last trade had almost been a win, too. He’d only struck Thomas twice, so … Wait. Was he in the lead?
Micah tried to turn to the judge and felt his arm cramp up. He winced and cradled it. Well, I did want him to play his card. It still sucked. Where the hell had he gotten that dagger made of lightning from?
He turned more slowly and pointed at himself with his other hand, a question on his face.
The judge nodded. “Three, one. You’re in the lead.”
He shot upright, arm forgotten, and smiled. What? He had actually won the first round for once?
He wanted to jump in excitement or turn to find his friends, but then Thomas grunted, “I thought you were using a [Surging Strength] potion all afternoon?” He was rubbing his side as well.
Right. Don’t gloat.
Curiously enough, he was rubbing the area where Micah had first struck him instead of the last. Had his last surge not been at full strength? Not that he wanted to hurt him, he just hadn’t gotten many opportunities to experiment.
A thought to file away for later.
And no wonder he had known about his potion. Micah nudged his chin at his blade as he picked up his own. “Conducts mana, stores a spell, and lets you switch between the two like a mirror, inside-out?”
“So what, you made an [Enhanced Strength] potion just for this fight? Isn’t that a little outside your price range?”
He headed for the edge of the field to drink some water. Neither of them would get a straight answer until later.
Nature sight.
His vision flipped back and he snatched up his bottle. Across the field, he could see Thomas making a face as he scratched at the glue limiting his arm’s full range of motion. He almost chuckled. Good luck with getting that off.
Thomas froze it and then broke the clumpy pieces off.
Oh. Well, then …
He only took a sip, topped his combat bottle off, and fitted the slingshot back into his belt because it was annoying down there. Then he pulled the second bottle off his belt and drank.
It was the rest of his stamina potion. He had drunk most of it after relaxing, after the long-distance run, but not all. Even now, he left a swig inside and closed his eyes to clean his lungs. Just as he had before, he inhaled a part of the essences and stuffed them inside there.
Unlike the earthy essences, though, these didn’t want to stay down. The others had almost turned wet inside him and clung to invisible structures in his lungs; these rose up like mist in a bottle.
Micah mulled it over, unhappy, but it would have to do. Hints of lessened exhaustion on top of the other two, it might be like a weak version of Ryan’s [Surge] or a [Second Wind] Skill.
Maybe.
He left the bottle on the ground outside the ring, only one on his belt now, and got up to look around.
While a lot of people had left after the ceremony, it seemed like some students who had snuck out early had come back for the afternoon events. There were other fights going on down a line parallel to the wall, some of which seemed more exciting—a plume of flame shot up in the distance and people oohed—but the people here had apparently decided they wanted to watch them.
Micah didn’t know how much of that was because of Thomas and how much was because of him.
He spotted his teammates and waved, some of his teachers walked by, and Navid on the opposite end of the field spotted him as well with a grin.
“Thomas!” he cupped his hand in front of his mouth to call. “Put that [Alchemist] back in his place!”
“Screw you, Navid!” Micah called over. In the corner of his eye, he saw Lisa scowl and begin to push her way through the crowd.
Navid must have noticed, because he mouthed something that might have been an, ‘Oh, shit,’ and fled.
In the gap the two created, Micah spotted a woman in red and he froze. Ms. Denner was speaking with an unfamiliar man, head tilted close, and casually pointing in the direction of their match.
And for a moment, it looked like a young woman with bushy brown hair had been sitting on the man’s shoulders, legs wrapped around to his chest, and was surveying the field.
“On your marks!” their referee called.
“Huh?! Oh, uhm—”
He rushed to his position and tried to glance back to see her again, but the gaps in the crowd had filled. There was no woman sitting on anyone’s shoulders, either. Some people had opted to sit down and eat while they watched, so he couldn’t even search for legs.
Then again, he knew she wouldn’t need line of sight to observe if she wanted to. What about her friend?
“Have either of you changed your opinions on your preparations?” the referee asked them.
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said.
Huh?
“A ward for the audience, maybe?”
“We have that covered, right?” He checked with his colleagues, to which one of them nodded. “Right. Very well, then. Get ready. And maybe, less talking and more fighting this round?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Uhm, yessir,” Micah rushed to say. He was suddenly very aware of the watchers and drew on a bit of the stamina potion in his lungs to steady himself.
Relax. No worries. It’s no worse than fighting while the course watches in combat training or holding a presentation.
Except that his legs began to jitter and his voice trembled whenever he had to hold a presentation.
“Begin!”
Thomas crouched to tap his boots, but Micah couldn’t see what he did. Belatedly, he remembered to switch back: [Lens: Affinity Sight].
His opponent pushed off and speed-walked toward him with his sword ready and an unnatural speed. Enhancement spell?
Micah wasn’t ready. He’d wanted to glue him up again because he wouldn’t expect him to do it twice, but— and—
Too late. Adjust!
He reached down, fumbled for something wet in his pouch, and stuffed two paintballs in his mouth. He bit down one after the other and felt them pop between his teeth. Smoothe wet shells rolled around in his tongue and the unnatural taste of paint and glue assaulted his tastes. He pushed through it.
It was only one reason he had wanted to avoid this trick. The other was because, unlike his slingshot, this result wouldn’t earn him a point. He’d screwed up.
Micah drew wind in through his nose, built mana up in his throat as he swirled fluids together, and cast [Dissettle] as he breathed.
A cloud of white sticky fog shot at Thomas. He flicked his sword, then side-stepped and swung it down. A curtain of wind curved down in front of him and redirected the cloud past his side like a river.
Micah spat the shells out with a wet thwump and breathed more wind essence into that current.
He’d probably been expecting fog or something, that his wind would simply make it dissipate. But the cloud was wet and heavy. The essence extended the curve of his spell and carried it right back down on Thomas’ hip and left leg. Like a net, it draped over him to slow him down.
Micah knew from experience it was like walking through thick spiderwebs. The guy visibly struggled not to slice the net off, but then Micah was there to distract him before he could.
If it weren’t for the boots of wind around his feet that made the net flap, he would’ve been at a clear disadvantage. As it was, Thomas flicked back to lightning and only needed a few strikes to gain the upper hand.
He tried to harry him like a fencer, because that was the only attack style Micah let him do while he retreated, and even got a hit in, but he must not have thought Micah could extract affinities from spells that weren’t single-use.
The moment he got the right chance, Micah breathed a sliver of lightning out of his sword and hid behind his shield to weather its influence before he used a surge of strength to slap his arm wide and aim a strike in.
It was stiff and forceful. Thomas had an easy time drawing his wind knife to parry the blow. But then Micah crouched wide, reft the wind out of his back foot, and twisted his hip to ram the edge of his shield into his waist.
He crumpled and shrunk back, full of weaknesses … everywhere, so Micah stepped up to abuse them. A sword strike to the leg, he ripped the wind out of his front boot as well, shoulder tackle, push, and—
“Hey, stop! Break it up!” the referee called.
He froze, a moment off from a third strike, and remembered the rules. Right, this was a match.
Rules, his mind almost scoffed, but Micah shook the thought off and backed up. He had to win this fair and square.
He had done nothing worse than what others in class would do, like Myra when she found a weakness or Thomas himself, but it was still poor form. And his opponent did look worse for wear.
Micah wondered if he should go a little easier on him. He had two potions, a shield, and a pouch of alchemical ammo to help him out. All Thomas had was his sword and—
He glared at him from a few meters away, and Micah raised his shield just in time to side-step a wall of jagged ice that rose in a flash along the line his sword drew at him.
In the back of his head, he registered a ward crack behind him. He jerked to a halt and felt something in his shoulder pull. A part of his shield was stuck in the wall, frozen shut.
A few months ago, he would have had to abandon his shield here; let go of his sword maybe to scramble to loosen the buckle, take the penalty, and—
No.
He breathed the ice essence in and found it was a lot. His lungs weakened the mana structure just enough for him to slam the pommel of his sword down so he could wrench his shield free.
Thomas slashed at head height in the distance as he approached. Something in the ice shifted and Micah threw himself into a crouch just as a ceiling of ice erupted from the wall above him.
If he hadn’t moved, that would have frozen him shut. So much for not wanting to give me frostbite.
Daylight dimmed and the temperature dropped as shards showered over him. He slipped on something and used the ceiling as a fixture to scramble back out from under it.
How the hell had he increased the density so much in a moment, though? Another item? Skill? Did he have a battery affinity Skill like Ryan, or was it skill?
No time to know for sure. Thomas vaulted over the ceiling and cracked it under his weight, but that must have been intentional because a shard levitated after his hand. Almost impatient, he clutched at it and twisted his body in a familiar motion: like skipping a stone, he pitched.
Too fast to react, Micah winced as the chunk impacted his shin and jerked his leg back. Dimly, he realized the ward was just two steps behind him. Out of bounds. It could be what he was aiming for.
C’mon, c’mon. Guard up, chin up! he told himself. He had to keep up his front or his opponent might actually think he had a chance. The mind was half the battle.
Thomas couldn’t do this for long. Spells like those took a lot out of him, especially if he had a battery affinity.
He headed left, dodged a swipe, and hid behind the ice wall. The second swipe went through it like smoke and Micah blocked with his shield.
He breathed ice essences in, switched his sword over, and flooded his free hand with tainted mana before he slapped it down on the wall. It cracked and refroze around it, giving him the grip need to vault over.
By the look on his face, Thomas hadn’t expected to strike someone above and Micah got the chance to swipe at him.
He was in an ice-slicing mood, though, ducked, and moved a hand through the wall below.
Micah lost the stable ground he was leaning on. The section of the wall crumbled. As gravity pulled at him, he kicked out blindly. It probably looked like a fish flopping on dry land, but he needed space.
He landed hard and winced, but with that sharp sucking of breath through his teeth, he took more essences in. A chill gripped his chest, but Thomas was right there. He jerked a kick out to make a low portion of the wall crumble between them.
His opponent did something so he could walk on through that like smoke as well, so Micah saturated the area with his own mana as he scrambled back and flared ice essence all around him.
C’mon, don’t screw me on this, please. Getting out of bed in the morning, jumping into the river, cold showers, shivering, cold snow—
Freeze.
And the ice re-froze around him, dragging him down like weights. Ice that wasn’t his own.
Ha!
Micah grinned and struck with shaking hands, but the guy managed to move his hand far enough to make another thin ice wall rise between them. He was a distorted black shadow behind it.
Micah backed off and frantically cycled wind, heat, and stamina potion essences through his body to warm himself up while he re-sheathed his sword and got his slingshot out.
The round had to be over soon … right? He was shivering.
As he took aim, the difference between the ruined ice fort that took up a fifth of the field and everywhere else was like night and day. The cold dragged down light and a blurry sun radiated like the end of a hot street.
The dissonance almost made him sick.
Thomas stepped out like an ice zombie, fractal patterns spiraling off his frame and breath fogging the wind. The glue cloud was gone, but his sword wasn’t in his hand.
Two flurries swirled around his fists and he seemed almost reluctant in the way he looked at them before he thrust them forward to cast, “[Frostbolt].”
Micah breathed one of them in, dodged the other, and loosed. The glueball grazed his shoulder despite his dodge and popped.
“Round!” the referee called a moment before Micah could frantically draw back a second ball.
Dammit. But good. He didn’t know how long he could have kept that game up against him.
Thomas looked almost like he was sulking as he surveyed the ice walls falling apart around him. Was he alright? Uhm, was he being a sore loser? It kind of made winning feel bad because Micah didn’t want to gloat but … Two out of three. He could do this. That was all that mattered.
He passed by his opponent on his way back to his side in silence, switched to nature sight, and carefully picked his way through the ice.
Ryan and Lisa were waiting there. The latter said, “Good job so far. I’m kind of surprised, actually.”
Micah held up a finger and knocked his water bottle back. He violently washed out his mouth, gurgled, and spat the disgusting mixture at the ground.
He groaned. He really didn’t have to want to do that. He needed a selective taste bud numbing Skill.
“As Lisa was saying—” Ryan started.
Micah stopped him right there by shaking his head. “I have two potions in me. Major advantage.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Without them, he wouldn’t be nearly strong enough or have the stamina to do this … right?
“Ah,” Lisa said in a tone as if that explained some things. She smiled. “Still.”
“No, you are doing good,” Ryan insisted. “He has magic items. You don’t. Or at least, none which would be relevant in this fight. Don’t let him sulking bring you down.”
The rebuke made him pause, but Micah nodded. He should have known Ryan would catch on to that. He was distant often, but when he did say something …
Or maybe not.
“Sulking?” Lisa thankfully asked, giving him something else to focus on other than his growing communication problems with his friend.
Ryan scoffed and jerked his chin forward. “Just look at him. He looks like a kicked dog.”
She looked. “Oh? Huh. Uhm, probably because his spellcasting isn’t working out for him? He had been looking forward to getting to use that.”
“He has been getting to use it,” Micah protested. “I’ve had to dodge ice walls and that stupid whip of his all match.”
It was late spring afternoon and he felt cold like he had just spent a few hours in the snow. A lot of that was his own fault.
“Yeah, no—” she said with a roll of the eyes in her voice and rephrased, “I meant to say, of course, he hasn’t gotten to use it to win.”
“Ohh.”
So he was being a sore loser, but it was like … if his alchemy were ineffective? Micah could see how that would bring him down, but Thomas could use spells literally every day, he had to save up for this!
Step up or step down. Would he act like this if he was up against an ice or fire mage who was better than him? No. Micah was no different.
He glanced across the field and saw his opponent had his own team huddle going on with Navid, Sion, and Anne of all people.
Traitor.
They were smiling and talking to him with their chain of arms around each other’s shoulder, glancing over every other moment, but Thomas didn’t seem to be buying into it or joining.
“He really does look like a kicked dog,” Micah mumbled. “Maybe I should let him use a few of his spells without messing with them? I can rely on my own tricks to win.”
“No,” Ryan and Lisa both said. She added, “And, I doubt he’s going to cast more spells like those last ones.”
“What? Why?”
Lisa cuffed the back of his head. It seemed thoughtful rather than forceful, and she squinted for a moment.
“Ow, what?” Micah asked.
“What does Burke always say? ‘You have eyes now, use them’?”
“Huh? Oh? Oh, right!” He focused for a moment to switch back to affinity sight and stared at Thomas really hard. He needed a moment to find the thin, flickering spores trailing off him but …
“I can see them, but there’s barely any there so—”
She cleared her throat.
“Oh, right!” That was kind of the point. “So he’s low on mana?”
“Wait,” Ryan spoke up, “you two can just … see how much mana someone else has now?”
“What? No.”
“This is unreliable,” Lisa explained, “because it’s different for everyone, but I know his standard well enough to say.”
He grunted.
“So maybe he isn’t sulking because he didn’t get to use his awesome spells, but because he won’t anymore. What, did he screw up his mana management?”
Lisa shrugged. “He’s been using mana all afternoon to enhance himself during the events—”
Wait, what? Micah had been fighting him at a lowered strength all this time?
“—but that’s less important. What is important is that, unless he’s hiding a mana ring under those clothes or acting sad …”
“I know what he’s going to do next.” Micah just didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Because when Thomas wasn’t trying to be flashy or relying on that stupid Skill of his, he used finesse.
He checked with the referee to ask for the time and the man showed him ten. Ten seconds?
“Really quick,” he said to the others and bent down for his bottle. He saw his stamina potion, hesitated, and grabbed the water bottle instead. “Is Ms. Denner still around?”
“Ms. Denner?” Ryan asked.
Micah knocked the bottle back and took a swig, nodding.
“Uhh,” Lisa said, looking around, but then it was too late.
“On your marks.”
He tossed the bottle down and wiped his mouth, then checked his equipment as he stepped in. Nobody seemed to have noticed. Nobody should have noticed. This was just for him.
Or at least, he thought so. Then his eyes caught Anne’s and she stared at him. In the distance, they seemed almost gold.
He stared while the judge spoke and finally shrugged. With almost the same expression, she shrugged back. Shala echoed it, though the guy looked like he had no idea why.
It wasn’t like he had something to prove. Using the potion would be proof of his skills, but … Micah had other skills that he had worked hard on, too. That he wanted to one day be ‘Skills’. He would win with those.
Final round.
He switched back to affinity sight and kept his eyes on his opponent. If Ms. Denner was watching, she wanted to see him do his best.
“Begin!”
I know what he’s going to do, right?
Thomas scowled at him and shifted his stance. Mostly sideward toward him, he held his sword close to his hip and gripped the front of the blade with his other hand.
Oh, fuck.
He was using actual sword-fighting. The glare in his eyes almost seemed to say as much. Accusatory, You made me do this.
He had no choice but keep his guard up and try to remember his own training. That stance minimized vision of the blade, stabilized his grip in the absence of a Skill, and offered control … right?
He wasn’t sure. It was a defensive stance, if Micah remembered right. Was he supposed to be attacking here? What if he just … switched to his slingshot?
He took a step back and Thomas rushed forward a few steps, still hunched slightly forward and with his stance wide.
Oh, fuck. He’s keeping it up. Sticky cloud it is. He reached into his pouch, pulled out two shots, one water, one glue, and popped them into his mouth while the guy ran forward.
Any attack he made would just get blocked, so Micah built up mana in his throat and backed off toward the back left corner, looking for an opening.
It came soon enough—Thomas stumbled on one step and leaned forward a little too far—and Micah seized the moment before his glue- and paint-assaulted brain could catch on.
He struck.
Of course, it had been a trap. Quicker than before, Thomas jerked the blade up with his pipe grip to block his strike, shoved his leg and elbow forward, and twisted the tip around to stab his chest.
Micah rammed his knee up at him, aiming for his abdomen but the height difference might have thrown it a little lower. At the same time, the guy drew something that was little more than a lightning steak knife from the front of the blade and rammed it into his shoulder.
Micah barely had time to react and realized he couldn’t then—his mouth was full of glue. He started to seize up and used a surge of strength to shove him.
What did he need?
He breathed and aimed the cloud down at his hip, legs, and the ground between them. He needed a chance to breathe.
Thomas jumped back.
Thwump. Micah spat the shells out, reft the essence out of lightning knife stuck in his shoulder and slapped the rest away like a spider on his shoulder while he retreated as fast as he could.
Thomas tried to follow, grunted, and coated his blade with wind to swipe away the glue cloud covering him.
The moment he noticed, Micah almost skid to a stop and turned back around. Front! Front! Stand your ground, his mind screamed at him. This was the best chance he would get now.
He held his shield hand up as he approached, cast, “[Condense Water],” and tacked a river of mana on to hold it. And guide it.
Please work.
Thomas looked up at the growing water bubble like a weapon and shifted stances, but Micah changed the flow of the river both outside and in. He reft the wind from the sword and twisted the water toward himself—
[Dissettle].
—and breathed another cloud of fog right into his face. He was blinded for a moment, and Micah used the chance to slip a strike past his guard. Thomas struck out blindly and clipped him before he could recover his guard.
The sticky cloud was still slowing him down, though, and it wasn’t long before Micah got another hit against his leg.
As he backed off, Thomas almost seemed to fall back on another spell on instinct and Micah nipped that one in the bud as well. His mana was too low. He had nothing.
It was only the referee’s call that made him back off. The sticky cloud was ripped off in an instant.
Thomas was at his most vulnerable now, but also at his most dangerous. And Micah felt the same tell-tale signs of an oncoming headache that showed his mana was running low.
If he did that cloud trick or fog another time, he didn’t know if he could do anything more after that. Weaker spells? He wasn’t an expert. He still needed a way to guide this last minute of the fight his way.
Thomas raised his blade as if to prepare a spell and Micah hesitated. He knew the man had said not to talk as much, but …
“Really?” he asked and tried to keep his voice friendly but with his heavy breathing, it could have been prickish. “You know it won’t work. Whichever spell or element you choose, I will subvert it.”
Maybe he could make sure Thomas did what he wanted him to do. ‘Keep him from anything unpredictable like that lightning knife again.
The guy hesitated, then scowled. With a flick, he changed the blade to a blurry edge. It burst into flames.
“Fine. You want fire? It seems to be the only element you never ‘subvert’ or whatever, so here it is.”
He walked forward with another swordsman stance, but Micah’s eyes stayed trained on the angry red cloud around it.
That hadn’t been what he wanted but … he would take it. He had considered there had to be some reason why Thomas never used flames, if it was because of an ice affinity, personal preference, or whatever. The bottom line was: He sucked at it. The flames were flimsy, worse than Ryan’s when he’d started out. He could see as much even with his shitty eyes.
But still, that blur? It wouldn’t do. So Micah would deny him even this. He built up mana in his shield hand, kept his guard up, and approached.
At the last step before they met, Thomas shifted to aggression and swiped the flames forward. He moved behind them, but Micah met them with his shield and thrust out a pulse of his own.
The element didn’t matter. If the spell was sloppy enough, any spell could interfere with it. Ice just helped.
On reflex, he chose cold and from one instant to the next, the clouds withered into wisps of red. The edge of his sword became clear as day, Micah leaned past his strike, and moved to grapple his arm—
[Skill — Freeze obtained!]
Wait, what?
Thomas rammed into him, almost knocking him off his feet on his own, but he swept his legs out from under and the back of Micah’s helmet bounced off the ground.
Suddenly, he had his arm twisted back, a boot on his wrist, and the frosted sword trained at his throat.
He needed a moment to catch up. “Oh, come on!”
Thomas’ expression turned to angry confusion, and Micah considered explaining, but he wouldn't believe him anyway. Really? Now?!
“Round!” the referee called, much earlier than the end, because his opponent had debilitated him beyond recourse.
And it would earn him five freaking points, and he would probably win the match because of it, and Micah couldn’t even be angry because—
“The contestants are tied,” the referee said, making his thoughts come to a rumbling halt.
A tie?
Thomas looked up, too, and both their expressions changed as realization dawned on them.
The man sounded almost exhausted as he followed up, “And as per the rules of the sport’s festival, the tie-breaker shall be a single event or test of strength decided on by—”
“Arm wrestling!” Micah blurted out.
Decided by the younger party. He was the younger party! Thomas had moved away already so Micah shot up, full of excitement.
“Arm wrestling,” he repeated. He still had a little while of surging strength left. This was a clear win.
Thomas looked at him and rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh.
The referee nodded. “Arm wrestling it is.”
Messing with your opponent wasn’t allowed, and you had to follow the regular rules of the afternoon, meaning you had to do things on your own, but everything else was free game.
So Micah drank the last sip of his stamina potion. Thomas showed up with a gauntlet of wind. His spell was similar to the boots he had worn, but it seemed to fizzle and drift off in places.
The difference between a Skill and skill, maybe? He supposed you’d go for agility first, but …
No matter. The moment the referee said, “Begin,” Micah used a surge of strength to slam the guy’s arm two-thirds down toward the table.
Thomas managed to hold him back, but Micah was resilient and still had his last strength from the potion. He held his position, took deep breaths to scrape loose essences from everywhere else in his body, and redirected them toward his arm so he could … slowly …
He groaned inward, felt the cool wind around their clammy grips, and breathed until the Skill was finally strong enough for a second push.
It was no contest, then.
He slapped the hand down and ran a victory lap around the table, arms up and cheering. Part of the crowd had the decency to cheer with him, but he only really cared about his friends.
Oh, and—
He quickly glanced around but couldn’t see her anywhere, so he ran to the side and called, “Lisa, Lisa!” He leaned close and lowered his voice, “What about Ms. Denner?”
“Ah, I wanted to tell you about that. She left.”
“Oh, what?” He’d put so much effort into this as well, if only with his preparations for today.
“Yeah, she wasn’t there for your first round, but she watched the second. She was showing Bastian around. Last I saw—” She began to point.
Next to her, Ryan blinked at the mention of the name and put a hand on her shoulder. “Bastian?” his voice was casual, but there was a strange intensity in his eyes.
Lisa immediately looked wary. “Uh, yes?”
“Bastian the Spring Knight? The Enchanter?” His voice became a little less casual with each word.
“Uh, yes?”
“Where? When? Where?” He looked around like a dog that had caught a scent.
She finishing pointing. “Last I saw, they headed for Brian’s match.” The direction was roughly where the plume of flames had come from earlier.
Micah had no idea who Brian was, but he saw someone else who was much more exciting than either option and rushed off, leaving Ryan and Lisa alone to talk about famous people.
Tall, lanky, dark hair, and with a slight tan that didn’t seem to fit his appearance: Jason.
As he crossed the combat ground, though, he saw Thomas speaking with an older man and remembered something he had forgotten. It would be rude to interrupt, but it would be even worse not to do it at all.
He walked over and stayed close enough that they might notice him, but far enough away that he wouldn’t overhear and waited.
It was mostly the man talking. His hair was short enough that it could be described as bald and he wore a white shirt and formal pants that made Micah think of his father, the older generations.
Thomas’ father? Or his instructor, maybe? The features might have fit, but their body language reminded him more of Ryan and Gardener on a bad day.
Finally, they looked up and saw him. Their silence was the invitation Micah needed to step closer, and he did it gladly because he had somewhere to be and really didn’t want to think of Gardener.
He held out his hand, “Sorry, I forgot to do this earlier. I just wanted to thank you for the great match.”
The guy shook his hand, but it seemed like an automatic response. “Good match,” he said and squeezed. That seemed a little less automatic.
Micah still had enough of [Surging Strength] to squeeze right back. “Maybe we could do it again sometime under cleaner circumstances?”
He didn’t like how messy that had been.
Thomas hesitated, but the man gave him a look and he quickly nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Maybe.” Stern, reproachful, maybe even disappointed? “We see each other in the gym after all.”
Micah shook the doubts off. At least, someone showed up for you. He gave him one last smile with his goodbye, nodded at the man, and left.
Two steps past the dueling field, he skipped, spun sideways, and cried out, “Jason!” as he slipped through the crowd.
The guy had gotten pretty far and seemed like he was headed somewhere, and the other matches were ending so their crowds dispersed, but he was loud and persistent enough to get his attention.
Not that he looked unhappy to see him. He fell into step with Micah’s aimless tempo that turned into an aimless meandering and said, “Hey, Micah. Congratulations on your match. I saw a bit of the final round.”
“Thanks! And congratulations to you,” Micah added and tipped his head a little, “on getting the job.”
“The job?”
He swept his arms out and walked sideways to face him. “The job, the spot, the position on the team?”
“Which team?”
“Our team!” It was his spur of the moment pitch to recruit him and surprisingly, it got a chuckle out of the guy.
Yes!
“You’re inviting me?”
“We all, uhm …” He looked back. Ryan and Lisa were nowhere to be seen. Right. He had abandoned them. Kyle wasn’t around either. Figures. “They’re looking for someone named Bastian?”
“Who? Wait, no.” Jason shook his head. “Who’s this ‘we’ or ‘they’ in the first place? Who’s on this team?”
“For now? Lisa, Ryan, Kyle, and me. And hopefully you …? You’re considering. You look like you’re considering. Does that mean you don’t have a team yet?”
Jason stifled a chuckle, but it wasn’t as happy as he had been a moment before. “No, why?”
“Oh, because Saga and Stephanie shot us down and they already had a team, and Brent joined up with Eliot to hunt monsters and level; can you believe it? So he shot us down, too.”
Jason smiled.
“We wanted to get ‘the team’ back together again, but of course, with Alex gone back to his old team with his cousin and everyone, we wouldn’t have been able to anyway. I was worried he had invited you and you’d turn us down, too, because you wanted to be with your friend.”
The smile slipped. Jason stopped walking and wore a pained expression on his face. “I wish you would stop saying that.”
“What?”
“‘Friend’. You keep on saying that; that Alex and I are friends. We’re not. He’s not my friend.”
He remembered then. They’d both said something similar before. Part of him wanted to ask and another, older part wanted to apologize and move on, so Micah went for a middle ground instead.
“You sure look like friends?” He went up with his voice to turn it into a question, in case he wanted to share.
He shrugged with long arms and voice was bitter. “Well, we’re not. He’s an … acquaintance. At best.”
Micah realized then this wasn’t just an inside joke they had kept up for too long; he was actually serious. He couldn’t help himself. “What? Why?” he asked. “Why don’t you like him?”
Jason scoffed. “I never said I don’t like him. But I’m not about to talk shit about Alex here.”
“What? No, I don’t—” Micah tried and couldn’t find the right words, so he groaned and started over instead. “I have troubles with … navigating these things, you know? Like, you saw me and Brent during our team meeting, right? That. Or me annoying you by calling you friends, and … and stuff.” He gestured helplessly. “But I want to do better, so in order to do better, it would be nice to know why two of my friends don’t consider each other friends? If that makes sense?”
He seemed to consider for a moment, but glanced back to the school entrance as if wanting to escape.
“Do you have somewhere else to be?”
“My own duel. I need to get my equipment and stuff. I mean, I still have some time to get ready but—”
“We can do both?” Micah jumped in. “On the way?” He pointed and began to walk in the direction.
Jason mulled it over for a second before he followed. “Sure?”
He still didn’t seem convinced, though, so Micah added, “C’mon, just … tell me something. It doesn’t have to be mean.”
“Hrn.”
They walked through the shifting crowds for a moment and Micah kept on glancing up at him, but when Jason did speak, he started with, “You know I believe in the Shepherd, right?”
“Huh? Oh, uhm … yeah.” Micah hadn’t been expecting that and quickly looked ahead through the crowd.
It wasn’t something you talked about, really, or if you did it was to rant. Or fight. Or … to do something about the issue. At least, that was how it had been with his father and his Nana.
Had Alex done something similar?
“And you know who the Tors are, right?”
“Uhm, [Guards] mainly? And they’re wealthy. Though I’m not quite sure how, because like, how are you going to get rich from being a [Guard]?” He smiled, a joke to the lighten the mood.
Jason just nodded. His voice was quiet. “Mostly.”
They joined the stream of people in and out of the building then. The edges of the event had been sectioned off, but without much effort put into it. Climbers stepped over the ropes to spectate and people could head into the Tower without buying a pass if they wanted to.
It was in the crowds that Jason seemed more comfortable talking, weirdly enough.
“Alex and I … we’ve known each other for years, but not because we were friends. We don’t even live near each other.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, but we kept on … bumping into each other, I guess. On New Year, during the summer festival, in the Bazaar, shopping for books, at the Guild, in training courses, inside the Tower …”
“That’s a lot of a coincidences.”
He nodded. “… handing out pamphlets in the streets, in public forums, as visitors to the parliament, at official speeches, at protests looking at each other across from the streets, in jail when we would bail out my uncle or grandfather. In the morning one time when it was just me.”
“Oh.”
He had been in jail before?
They reached the hallway to the locker rooms then, but Micah could hear the ruckus of guys getting ready and stopped.
Jason stopped, too. “But that’s not important. Or at least, it isn’t the worst thing. I like Alex. I’ve tried to talk to him lots of times to … show him my point of view, you know? I like to think he likes me.”
Micah nodded. He thought so, too. How else could they speak so easily or look out for each other? Alex had told them Jason needed a team to join.
“No, but … the worst thing is; the Tors? They’re religious, too.”
“Wait, what?”
“They call it tradition, it’s religion. I know it.” His voice was strangely hard. “It might be even worse but …”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Jason had lost him there. How was Alex supposed to be religious?
“The Tors say they remember their family history,” Jason said, “from before … all of this.” He gestured around himself, but the only thing around them was the dim hallway deep inside the walls of Tower.
“Oh, that’s impressive. If it’s true. And how does it …” He trailed off as he couldn’t find the right word.
“Relate?”
“Yeah.”
Were their beliefs at odds or something?
Only few people and families claimed to have reliable records of what had been before. Nobody was quite sure why, but if you went with the myth, the Dwarf had picked people up where they walked on the streets and hadn’t exactly let them bring any luggage with.
And those people had become the strongest generation in history. Strong enough to found a nation in two generations. Things had generally gone downhill from there, with the Tyrant killing his cousin for the throne, and invasions, two revolutions, and the Church taking control …
Jason leaned against the corner of the hallway and seemed to be struggling with something for a moment. He scratched his head and said, “Look, I’m probably going to butcher this and I know … how much it sucks when someone else misinterprets your beliefs, so …”
Micah needed a moment to catch on after having been lost in thought. Then he scrambled to say, “Oh, no! I’m not going to take you by your word. I mean. of course, I’m going to take you by your word, but not like … blindly? I mean, uhm … I’ll get a second opinion first?”
Jason stared at him.
In a much calmer voice, Micah said, “I’ll ask Alex first before I draw any conclusions. I won’t mention I spoke to you.”
He sighed, and it sounded lost.
“Go on, please?”
“The Tors believe they used to rule a city in their old world, or they were prominent figures in the city, or— They had clout, anyway. A lot like they do now. They lived good lives there.”
His voice sounded tired.
Micah nodded eagerly and suppressed a frown. Why would they have been chosen to come here then? The myth said the Dwarf had only collected lost souls and refugees.
“What they didn’t have,” Jason said, “was magic. Or Classes, Skills, level, Paths—all that was before. And one day, a great demon of shadows of destruction came to their city.”
Ah, here it is.
“A demon?” Micah asked.
“A demon.”
“What, like in the stories, or the Lightless from Lin?”
He shrugged as if to say, Who knows? “They say it towered over buildings, and that everything the demon touched turned to black dust. And the Tors couldn’t do anything about it because their weapons were ineffective and they had no magic. All they could do was flee or watch.
“But then heroes showed up to drive the demon away, and there are some mentions of it being slain elsewhere later, and—”
He frowned, shook his head, and caught himself, “The bottom line is: everywhere the black dust spread, nothing grew anymore. No flowers, trees, food; no diseases, animals, or babies in wombs.”
Micah almost chuckled at the last part because it caught by surprise. “Wait, what? That doesn’t sound very demon-y.”
He scratched the back of his neck and shrugged. “It’s what some of them say. People turned infertile near the dust. And they slept longer and aged slower. It was like life had been frozen there.”
“Huh.”
That sounded … interesting.
“So the Tors were forced to leave their city, their home, and wander. And a few generations turned them from people with clout to … well, the type of people there are a lot of rumors about.
Then the Dwarf supposedly picked them up and they, uh … Now that they had actual power, they vowed to never let what happened to their home to anyone else ever again.”
He finished a little too quickly, awkward.
Micah needed a few moments to work through the … story? Was it just a story if they believed, allegedly?
He wasn’t sure what to call it—lore, maybe—but he caught on to the insinuations near the end and was pretty sure of his follow-up question, “Are you telling me they’re demon hunters?”
It was hard to see in the dim hallway and because he wouldn’t meet his eyes, but Jason almost looked like he was blushing. “Yeah? Some of them?”
Micah opened his mouth to say something.
The other guy blurted out, “Not actual demons, I don’t think. That’s just the rumors you hear. Things like people with illegal Classes, or monsters that cross the border, or evil spirits—”
“Like the twig-men!” He smiled.
“Yeah. They were paid to keep those in a special prison in Anevos. But you hear rumors of other things deeper down the cells and …” He trailed off and shook his head. “But that’s not the point. They’re rumors. The important thing is the hypocrisy of it all. How they enforce the laws that keep us from starting churches, or groups, or clubs in school, or that keep gatherings below a certain size while they treat their own history like … like a cult, you know?”
Micah didn’t know. Not really. But he still nodded and dropped his smile. From his voice, it sounded like Jason needed to vent.
“I like Alex. I do. And I tried to talk to him, to make him understand, and be friends because I thought that maybe … maybe it wasn’t coincidence we kept on meeting each other, you know? But … it didn’t work. So he and his entire family can go fuck off. I don’t care.”
That last bit had taken a sudden turn. Micah stared for a moment, eyes wide, and slowly said, “Yeesh. That was … a little harsh, don’t you think?”
Jason glared at him, angry and hurt. No, it said.
“Sorry. I just … I didn’t want to pick a side. I like both of you. And sorry for everything else.”
He kept the glare up for a moment longer, but broke into a sigh. “No, it’s fine. I’m used to it.”
Micah knew what that was like, but he still didn’t know how to put it into words. So he stayed quiet.
He hoped his silent presence would be comforting and not awkward; he wanted it to be, but after a few seconds, he couldn’t help but twiddle his thumbs behind the small of his back.
He had really thought they were friends.
Two guys came out of the lockers in the distance and lit up the hallway for a moment. Micah glanced over, Jason was a little slower, and he seized the moment to grip his elbow and drag him along.
He put a smile on his lips. “Hey, you still have a match, right? Let’s move on to happier things, getting you into gear, and sunlight. I want to see you kick their butts.”
“You want to watch me fight?”
“Sure! I have time.”
“Don’t you have someone else to cheer on?”
“Well, Lisa is fighting,” Micah admitted, “but she won’t care. And I already know she’s going to win.”
The guys walked past them, distracted by their own conversation, and he hesitated a moment before he pushed through the door. “And Jason?”
“Huh?”
He seemed surprised by the sudden break away.
“Thanks for telling me. I won’t make an opinion, but at least now I won’t embarrass myself.”
He frowned. It looked unsure. “You’re welcome?”
“That’s not to say I won’t embarrass myself at all,” Micah quickly amended the statement. “I’ll have plenty of chances to do that these next few weeks or when we’re in the Tower together. What with fighting monsters, or snoring in my sleep, and using way too much cologne to make up for a lack of showers, or having to hide behind the corner to take a dump.”
He pushed through the door and glanced back to see Jason smiling behind him. “At least, you’ll make us climbing cookies?”
Us.
“Yeah.”
Micah loved the sport’s festival, he found out. Even if there weren’t any other schools to compete with this year, it was much more fun than sport’s day in classroom had ever been.
It was also exhausting.
He had wanted to ask Vladi about Thomas when he got back that evening, because they’d learned sword fighting in the same place, but he was way too tired to do anything other than wash up and throw himself in bed.
“You look like you’re going to get a full night’s rest for once,” Lanh joked across the room.
“Are you?” Vladi asked. His tone was less casual.
Micah considered apologizing again, but just grumbled into his pillow instead as he snuggled into it. Aside from a, “G’night,” he ignored them and fiddled with his ring under the pillow.
The thought was nice, though. Maybe he would get some uninterrupted sleep this night. They had the day off tomorrow so he could sleep in, but he still wanted to make the most of the day.
Maybe … the former would help with the latter. A good night’s rest and he would be full of energy. The comforted him as he closed his eyes.
He was woken up by a sound. The morning was early as usual. His eyes shot open to stare at the wall.
[Alchemist level 12!]
[Fighter level 5!]
[Skill — Lesser Constitution obtained!]
He hadn’t been expecting that.