The days passed quickly under the revised schedule. This new way of training offered much more freedom, which many of the first years relished, Ranvir too, for that matter. After obsidian class and mostly handling his own business during ice, he was developing a taste for independent study and training. Even on the days Kirs wasn’t there, especially on the days when Kirs wasn’t there. Though, she wasn’t that bad to work with… not that he’d ever say that to her face, or anyone else’s.

They also discovered the results of manipulation versus tether-stretch in terms of effectiveness. Ranvir was, of course, right, tether-stretch was superior, though not by as much as he’d have thought. His growth was moderately better when stretching, then again moderately better every week for five years would grow into quite the lead. On the other hand, manipulation offered actual experience working with his element. After the week of training, he was much more confident in what he could and couldn’t accomplish.

Low-impact training, which at the moment comprised simply embracing the pressure, wasn’t showing significant improvements in his power progression. It seemed nothing could beat the raw force of the training he was doing during tether class. Then again, if he added five during his dedicated tether training, adding a one from the low-impact exercise was still a boon, and he’d take any he could get.

It did lend another benefit, however. Previously, he’d occasionally get a flash of feeling from a Master once they embraced their power, but only briefly, or if they were very close. Now he was getting it more often. One time, when he was visiting Ayvir—to talk about some theory he and Kirs had been considering—he thought he got a sense for his power without the Master embracing it at all.

Speaking of tether class, it functioned pretty similar to his obsidian class, in that he didn’t have a dedicated field or teacher. He would spend the time either at the library with Kirs, working through theories, or simply exercising his tether, mainly through stretching. Much of it was boring work with slow progression, though he had a standing invitation to both Ayvir and Svenar’s classes.

He made only slight progress during the week, then after the day-off, he would see a spike in both control and outright power. He and Kirs had decided on choosing the Discipline of Wings as his first advancement, then pivot into Body and move on from there.

It was nice to have some sort of certainty in his future, to know that there was a plan no matter how meagre it was. His progress with finding a technique to attune was miserable. The biggest problem was the waiting. He didn’t know what was possible, so he’d likely have to experiment with different techniques once he reached Veil.

If he looked up most of the basic obsidian or ice techniques, he could probably find records from at least a second stage tethered who’d attuned the technique, with written descriptions of how it changed in viability as their power grew.

So he had to take his time, because he didn’t get to pick again. It didn’t become harder to attune techniques at later stages, only easier. As he achieved further advancement, he’d gain better control, allowing him to employ the techniques more easily, attuning them ‘faster’. It would still take months, if not years, of practice.

As attuning outside of advancing the stages got easier, so did attuning while advancing get harder. While a knowledgeable pre-stage could easily advance and use their desired technique, thereby attuning it, the Sword advancing to Lance would have a much more violent advancement and have much more trouble attuning a technique at the same time. When a light tethered advanced to Dagger, they might throw enough light to make you squint. When Ayvir advanced to Lance, he threw out enough light to make everyone within a two-mile radius blind for a few moments.

During the past two weeks, Kirs had also been studying up on the tether phenomenon where it seemingly reacted to the churches. She’d found a bit more information suggesting it might not be directly related to the church as much as the Triplet Goddess. She’d found a few records from duelist tethered that experienced the same phenomena in their pre-battle preparation and took it as a sign that the Goddess was with them.

She even found an occurrence of it happening from a record in Ankiria, though they didn’t worship the Triplet Goddess, but the ‘Sisters Divine’. Who, despite being three separate beings, shared much of the same history as the Triplet Goddess. They were probably just confused. Kirs and Ranvir weren’t sure what her research meant yet, but they were getting closer to an answer.

That left only one subject remaining. Grevor’s training, and Esmund’s too, for that matter.

If one could call it that.

When Grev pulled them to a field at the edge of the academy to meet with a guy on the other side of the wall. Ranvir hadn’t been sure how to feel. When Grevor then paid him and the man started handing over jugs, he’d become suspicious.

When he’d smelled the wine after uncorking one, he knew this wouldn’t be actual training.

That turned to not actually be true. Partly. There was some training. What Grev affectionately called ‘Sip’n’Grip’. They’d grab two training swords. One person held the sword, while another had one strike to knock it out of their hands. If the ‘gripper’ held on, the striker had to take a sip of wine. If the ‘gripper’ couldn’t hold on, then they had to take two sips.

If the ‘gripper’ held on, it was someone else’s turn to strike. When the gripper lost three times, it was someone else’s turn.

The trick to Sip’n’Grip, Ranvir believed, was to use one hand to hold the sword with and only hold it with that hand. While it might get numb, striking with the other hand also made it numb, which would weaken the grip further, even though it was the stronger hand. However, if Ranvir kept one hand solely for gripping, then it would have time to recover between bouts.

After Sip’n’Grip, they would play chess, just normal chess. Except they’d been playing the stupid drinking game for half an hour and their game was beyond sloppy. Esmund even pulled home a few wins, which he was excited about.

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Depending on how well the drinking game went, they would either turn to sword sparring—only swords, no other weapons allowed—or another drinking game involving handstands. Just thinking about it made Ranvir shudder. Fortunately, Grev knew well enough to limit them to the after study periods. Since he wasn’t much interested in guiding ‘training’ that didn’t involve drinking, he basically gave them the rest of the time off.

Still, Ranvir was surprised he’d made it through the first two days of Grev’s training without keeling over during one of his more strenuous classes, let alone the whole ten days. He was even more surprised none of the teachers disciplined them for drinking so much during the week. Well, no major punishments. He was certain Vigo was aware and seemed to ride them harder during physical than usual. Then again, that might just’ve been the hangovers.

Soon the ten days passed, and Ranvir with a sigh of relief, knew that Esmund wouldn’t make them drink themselves into early graves… He’d do something better, but much dumber.

The fucking idiot just had them playing games. Play fighting, tag, stick fighting—not with practice weapons, actual sticks—hide-and-seek. Sometimes they would break this up with an actual meditation on their elements, but otherwise it was non-stop physical play for twelve days, during all the free study period and the after study at the end of the day.

At first, Ranvir’d been mortified as other students would glance at them playing tag. Though, when he managed to forget and simply play along, it was actually quite fun, to his eternal chagrin.

After a full ten days of playing, however, he was getting a tired of it. Thankfully, Esmund’s regimen came to a stop. They only had another twenty-two days left of their first trimester at the academy. With the last one taken up by exams and the one before that by his duel.

Overall, Ranvir was really surprised by the experience of the academy. He’d spent nearly three months at the Royal War Academy of Elusria and time had flown by. They’d were headed well on their way to autumn at a breakneck pace.

Despite his initial faith in his plan to induct his friends into his training, he was starting to worry it had been a waste of time. Each period accounted for nearly two hours of work, forty periods, eighty hours’ worth of training that he’d thrown away playing with sticks or getting drunk, instead of working towards his goal. Now, he had less than a month to upset the struggle against whatever tethered Master Grimar sent against him.

And he still had to get through Sansir’s training. At least, he had a hope that Sansir actually planned for them to train, instead of playing around for a couple hours each period.

Towards the end of Esmund’s regimen, Ranvir made his way over to the obsidian classes. If only so, he could get a better view of the opponent he would be facing soon.

Ranvir focused on the shiny piece of obsidian in his hand, shrinking the space it occupied until it filled less than the outer link of his pointer finger. It wasn’t quite a serious attempt at making the stone disappear, though he was trying.

He easily found Master Grimar’s class in the distance. He avoided getting too close as he didn’t want to confront the Master just yet. The thought created a black and purple cloud quivering through him, hints of painful reds showing through. He felt his throat dry up, his hands started shaking, eyes burning. Involuntarily, his mind returned to the day when Master Ayvir had confronted Floki.

He’d felt Master Ayvir when he’d been angry at someone else, and it still put him out of commission for a day.

Blinking rapidly, he refocused on the fields before him, scouting out Grimar’s again. It was clear which was his. The students all held themselves the same, they threw on command the same, and took breaks the same. And never once did they so much as dare look behind them, to the Master prowling along their rear.

What Ranvir saw unnerved him. In terms of the difference over the last few weeks, they hadn’t gotten all that stronger. He would rank them behind Master Ayvir and Svenar’s students by a good bit. But where Ayvir’s students were sort of unruly, unstructured, and undisciplined, Grimar’s students were all neatly comported, they performed nearly the same, and something drastic had changed, because they’d gone from weakly throwing stones to somehow launching them. Stones flew from their hands with unnatural swiftness, if not unnatural accuracy.

They needed breaks quickly and often, their powers ran empty fast. They spent it well, however, the frighteningly loud crack of stone on wood attested to that. Not to mention they were breaking pieces of obsidian off from a much larger chunk, creating those sharp points Master Svenar had shown on the knife during Esmund’s ‘Degrees of Sharpness’ test.

Ranvir could see where this was going. He was already lacking severely in the combat department. Sure, he was getting pretty good with a hammer, but they’d already developed a ranged arsenal despite their lack of advancement. Each of the students in the class was still pre-stage advancement, yet they threw with force that said otherwise.

He had to come up with a solution to counter them. He couldn’t rely on his power to come through for him. Ranvir had severely underestimated Master Grimar’s capabilities, despite Pashar’s warnings not to.

He focused his will onto the stone in his palm. It shrunk to a thin line of black material. If anyone was looking, it would’ve been barely visible in his hand. He held the shrinking for as long as he could, barely half a minute, before the stone returned to shape, the sudden weight always a little surprising as it settling in his hand once more.

Turning around, he headed back to the empty field he’d picked out as his own and restarted his training.

Two days later, Esmund’s training had ended, and Sansir’s was about to start. Because of the odd layout of their training, it was in toward the end of the week, which meant they talked about it at the cafeteria after physical.

Ranvir tore off a bit of the dry bread and dipped in the remains of the stew. He and Esmund ate the stew the same way. Picking out all the chunks from the overcooked vegetables that were too soft to the sometimes delicious meat. Then, with the remaining liquid, they dipped the bread into it until they’d ate all the bread. After which, they slurped the stew and finished the meal by throwing the fruit away.

“So, what are we going to do today?” Grev asked, scraping the bottom of his bowl with his spoon. He ate his stew like a boring, normal person.

Sansir cocked his head. He ate his stew like a maniac, liquid, then fruit, then meat, then vegetables. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I wanted to ask,” He turned to Ranvir. “Do you want to take over my spot? Then you get both our training days?”

“Why?” Was the only question Ranvir could think of, caught off guard as he was.

“You brought up this idea, leading me to believe you might have an actual plan.” Sansir said. “You’ve been basically training yourself for the last few weeks, anyway. And you’ve been quite vocal in your displeasure with the performance as a teacher of the last month.”

Ranvir couldn’t deny it. “But why not try it yourself?”

“I’m less prepared than you and I doubt I would be a better teacher.”

Ranvir blinked. “You think I would be a better teacher?”

“You’ve done more studying. I’ve been suspecting that you’re doing things, and know things that aren’t common within the academy.”

Ranvir frowned. It was sort-of true. Not that they were any great secrets that couldn’t be found by anyone willing to look in the right places. Not a lot of students were, though. Even fewer masters. Who would take some untethered academic’s opinion over their decades of experience?

“Then we’re going to meet by one of the small fields closest to the dorms, during the free period before tether.” Ranvir said.

Esmund looked pensive, but Grev, who was in the middle of chewing on a large bite of pear, just gave him a thumbs up.