Kalden shot pure mana behind him as he fell, and the blast propelled him toward another piece of exposed floor. Pain shot through his legs when he hit the ground, and his momentum carried him straight through another wall. He fell face-first on the carpeted floor, and wood and concrete crashed down from the ceiling above. He gritted his teeth as they slammed into his back, hard enough to shatter his bones.

“Kalden?” Akari called down. Her voice sounded more distant than he’d expected. How far had he fallen?

It was hard to breathe with so much rubble weighing him down. A year ago, he never would have survived this, but the extra mana made his body far sturdier than before. He tried to escape, but it was too much.

“Kalden?” Akari’s voice sounded more urgent—almost as high as Relia’s.

“I’m okay.” His own voice came out raspy, desperate for air and water.

“I’m coming down,” she said.

“Wait!” He fought down a mental image of Akari leaping off the edge after him. Fortunately, no crash followed. She must have made her way toward the stairs instead.

“Be careful,” he added, more to himself.

He cycled mana to his injuries, the way Relia had shown him during their rooftop training sessions. Even for a non-healer, mana helped the body repair itself and work more efficiently. That effect only increased as he got closer to Apprentice. He also cycled mana to his chest and triceps, pushing hard against the floor.

His muscles shook with the effort of moving so much weight, but he kept his breathing steady as he pushed, surprising even himself. Eventually, the concrete fell away as he climbed to his hands and knees. Even then, he felt like he might collapse again at any moment. Waves of pain still surged through him. Not just from his fall, but also from his fight with the Grevandi a few minutes before.

“Kalden?” someone called from farther down the hallway. At first, his brain interpreted it as Akari’s voice. Then he looked up and saw Relia jogging toward him.

“I saw you fall,” she said as she knelt beside him in the rubble.

Kalden tried to reply, but he breathed in a cloud of dust. His ribs screamed as he coughed, and he fumbled for his pack with the mana potions. No such luck. He must have dropped it upstairs.

Relia pressed a hand to his chest and hit him with a burst of life mana. Waves of pain followed. He still struggled to breathe, and Relia uncorked a vial of blue liquid from her belt and raised it to his mouth. He inhaled the minty scent of it and took a good long swallow, banishing the dryness in his throat.

“Why’s healing always worse than getting hurt?” He asked through gritted teeth. She’d already broken his bones during their training sessions, so he was no stranger to this feeling.

Relia laughed. “It hurts the same, but you have more adrenaline when you’re fighting.”She glanced around, and her smile faded. “Where’s Akari?”

“Upstairs.” Kalden pointed at the ceiling as he found his footing again. “We better find her before more Grevandi do.”

Relia led them back down the hallway toward the central staircase. What was it with hotels in Creta having only one set of stairs? You’d think a nation full of Fire Artists would be more sensible. Then again, Fire Artists were also the best at dousing fires, so maybe they were overconfident.

Kalden looted several Grevandi corpses on the way, pulling more vials from their belts and throwing them back like shots of cheap whiskey. Unfortunately, these only restored a small part of the mana he’d lost tonight. That explained why training got harder in the upper ranks. Either that, or it got more expensive.

He also glimpsed his mana watch as they walked:

221/797.

Kalden blinked at the second number that showed his maximum mana count. Had he really gained two whole points in the last hour? He knew advancement happened faster in battle, but it still surprised him every time. That would have taken a whole day of ordinary training.

“How’s your count?” Relia asked when she caught him staring at his wrist.

“Three points from Apprentice.”

She nodded. “I’d bet we can get you there tonight.”

“What?”

She nodded. “The faster we do it, the safer you’ll be.”

Kalden was about to reply when they rounded the next corner and found the wooden staircase caved in. The supports looked like they’d been shattered by stray Missiles, and both flights of stairs lay in heaps of kindling.

A dozen soldiers stood guard around the rubble, armed with Missile rods and submachine guns. Most looked human, but white sigils glowed from their foreheads in the near-darkness.

Relia strolled forward as if she owned the entire hotel. Kalden matched her pace and activated his Silver Sight. Ten Golds and two Apprentices.

“You there!” one soldier said in Espirian. “Let’s see your marks.”

Relia’s casual approach had thrown the others off, but they all raised their weapons at the officer’s sharp tone.

“This is it,” she told Kalden. “You can reach Apprentice now, or you can take cover. Up to you.”

“Hey.” One of the braver Golds approached them. “Did you hear what—”

Kalden’s hand shot forward as his blade took shape. The pale mana cut through the darkness and tore the man’s throat. He staggered back, staining his hands crimson as he tried to block the river of his own blood.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Relia thrust out her arms in either direction, forming a shield against the barrage of bullets and Missiles.

“Behind you!” she shouted to Kalden.

Kalden spun to see another Grevandi emerge from the corridor. Fists of stone flew forward, as quick as shifting shadows. Kalden deflected one with the flat of his blade, dodged another, then closed the distance in two quick strides, plunging his weapon through the man’s stomach.

Another man broke past Relia and flung a fire Missile toward him. Kalden tried to parry, but the angle was wrong, and the fire burned his left shoulder.

He sagged to one knee, turning his gaze on Relia. She kept the rest of the soldiers busy, but she made no move to intervene.

“Keep going,” she said. “You’ve got this!”

Apparently, she didn’t plan on helping. Did she honestly expect him to fight all these guys by himself?

“Cycle your mana to the wound. Then get up.”

Yes, Kalden realized. That was exactly what she expected. The strongest Apprentices were forged in war. She’d said that multiple times this past week. You broke down your body at the peak of Gold, and you filled those cracks with mana.

There were no spoken revelations at this stage. Instead, you asked yourself, “What physical pain will I endure?” Then you proved it with your actions. The more he endured now, the stronger he’d be when he finally advanced.

Besides, Relia had implied they’d cram two days’ worth of training into a single battle. If that were easy, then everyone would do it.

The Fire Artist struck again. Kalden conjured a shield in one hand, and the orange mana exploded mere inches from his face. He thrust out his other hand to launch his blade forward. It sliced across his opponent’s hamstring, and the man staggered back.

And so the fight continued. Kalden put his back to Relia as he forged a second blade in his offhand, as sharp and perfect as the one he’d made upstairs. The pair moved in unison, blocking, parrying, and throwing counterstrikes at their opponents.

Kalden’s own body screamed with a dozen scrapes, cuts, and burns. Relia fed him life mana, but only enough to heal the bullet wounds and broken bones. Otherwise, Kalden leaned into the pain, embracing it for what it was—a source of strength for all his future battles.

He remembered the promise he’d made with Akari and Relia back in the lab.

Master by twenty-one.

He remembered the people he’d left behind on Arkala. His mother. Maelyn, Darren, and Emberlyn.

We’re coming back for you. No matter what it takes.

Kalden opened another Gold’s throat, knelt down, and drank the vial from his belt. He repeated this process several times, consuming just enough to stay afloat.

38/798, his watch read.

The left number seemed impossibly small now, but Akari would have laughed if he ever said so out loud. Low mana had never slowed her down. And advancement was like strength training. You improved when you pushed yourself beyond your limits—when your enemies backed you into a corner and made you prove your worth.

Eventually, Kalden fell into a rhythm with his opponents. But just as he touched on the flow state, Relia relaxed her own efforts, letting more soldiers past her.

Kalden fought harder, dodging and weaving through the storm of techniques. He conjured more blades of pure mana as he fought. One moment he had four, then six. Each one was a Missile encased within a Construct, and they orbited his body, just like in his dreams. They spun too fast for his eyes to process, deflecting volleys of bullets and Missiles. He felt the impact deep in his channels, and his body reacted to the smallest movements.

0/799.

His soul was dry now, but he kept pulling mana through to guide his blades. Normally, this would risk straining his channels for weeks, but his advancement would heal that damage.

Hopefully.

He and Relia retreated down the staircase as the room filled with smoke. Their route took them back toward the lobby’s remenets, where even more Grevandi joined the fight. No sign of Kyzar and Valdez. They’d probably taken to the streets once the enemy Artisans were dead.

By now, all the Golds had fled, and Kalden only fought the Apprentices. He couldn’t hope to withstand their techniques head-on, but his blades formed a protective barrier around his body, knocking his opponents’ mana aside. He still wasn’t as strong as he’d been with his aspect, but it was close enough.

Even the Apprentices grew tired as the battle went on. One stopped moving, and Kalden hurled a blade straight into his stomach. His body must have been weaker than the others, because the mana went straight through him, shooting out the other side.

Another Apprentice dropped his Cloak technique for a split second. Maybe he’d run out of mana, or maybe he’d just gotten sloppy. Either way, Kalden’s eyes snapped toward him like an unprotected crowns piece. Four blades closed in at once. The dragon raised his hands to protect his face, but the lower blades speared him through the torso.

Then Kalden felt a sudden pain in his own chest. He ignored it at first, the same way he’d ignored his other wounds. But then it grew more insistent, spreading through his channels.

His whirlwind technique broke apart, and the blades turned to mist around him. His enemies were quick to seize the advantage, but Relia leapt forward with her own defensive barrier.

“Keep cycling,” she shouted to Kalden. “I’ve got you covered.”

Kalden followed her advice, but the pain only grew more intense by the second.

Akari had described her advancement as “a good kind of pain.” That might be true when you went from Bronze to Silver, but not Apprentice. Tears clouded his vision, and he couldn’t hear his own screams. His body thrashed on the ground, and it felt like all his bones were breaking at the same time.

Still, it got worse as the pressure built. Before, he’d only felt that pressure in his soul, or when he formed a technique. Now it was everywhere, from the tip of his head to the bottoms of his feet. His skin broke open where the pressure was too much, and blood erupted out like small volcanos.

Kalden couldn’t say how long this went on. His vision was a blur as the mana clouded his eyes. His limbs felt like iron weights, and he couldn’t feel the floor beneath him.

At some point, the pressure decreased. No … decreased wasn’t the right word. It was more like his brain had finally accepted it. Instead of feeling on the verge of death, he felt strong and solid.

When Kalden opened his eyes again, he saw Relia standing over him with a wide grin on her face. “Apprentice feels good, huh?”

She offered him a hand. Kalden accepted it, and she pulled him to his feet. The world spun around him as he moved, and his body felt like it belonged to someone else. But when he took his first step as an Apprentice, he felt like a conqueror claiming a nation. He ran a hand over his right forearm, and it felt dense enough to punch through a brick wall. Which—judging by what he’d seen from Relia—might actually be true.

"Quality test." Relia grinned again as she pointed a submachine gun at him and pulled the trigger. Kalden had no time to react before the bullet slammed into his left shoulder. He'd already been shot several times that night, and he braced himself for the burning pain.

Instead, he felt a dull impact, as if someone had punched him. The bullet bounced off his skin, ringing like a small bell as it struck a pile of stone rubble.

Akari had killed Agent Frostblade with a bullet like that, and he'd been the strongest Mana Artist on Arkala. Somehow, despite their journey, Kalden hadn’t truly seen himself as Frostblade’s equal.

Now, there was no denying it. He was stronger than any of the Martials back home. He was stronger than his parents, or his brother Sozen before he’d left.

Kalden took a good long breath to savor the moment, then he turned back to Relia. “Come on,” he told her. “We should keep—”

Another dragon stepped off the sidewalk before he could finish. His presence was far more imposing than any of the Apprentices he’d faced that night.

Another Artisan.

He strode forward with a different technique burning in each hand. The first was orange like an ordinary flame. The second was pale white, like a storm of ice and snow.

“Zakiel.” Kyzar stepped up beside them, gathering his own mana into a pair of plasma blades. Kalden had heard the Unmarked leader approach, but he was glad to see him here.

“Friend of yours?” He and Relia backed away from the newcomer in the entrance, putting themselves closer to the friendly Artisan.

“My cousin,” Kyzar replied. “Valeria Antano’s son.”