by Chris Vines
My musing was interrupted by a bloom of pain in my stomach. Looking down, I saw a sword sticking through me. The pain in my abdomen flared as the sword was pulled out, and I collapsed next to the bandit I had slain. I managed to roll as I fell, landing on my back with a cry of pain. “Die!” shouted the other bandit, who was slashing down at me. With the last of my strength, I redirected his slash to the side with one hand and stabbed with the other, taking him through the throat. I tried to use Aether to stabilize my wound, but blacked out before I could finish.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
With a gasp, I woke up from the illusion and clutched at my chest. I could still feel the pain of the sword. Okay, that was too real. I’m gonna go throw up now! I got up and staggered off the Pavilion. A couple of steps into the grass, I bent over and threw up. Looking around, I saw several other people had done so already, and one of the Mentors came over and washed the vomit away with a wave of his hand. He handed me a cup of water and said, “Take a drink, it’ll help.” I took a sip of the drink, an herbal tonic to help my stomach, and walked over to sit next to Jamila and Jon. I saw my name, saying I made it to level five.
Huh, guess it counted when I got that last guy. Apparently we will also have to fight other people. I, uh, guess I never thought of that. Fighting the Beasts was exciting, but the bandits bothered me. I don’t want to become complacent with killing. I need to make sure it keeps bothering me, even as I grow used to it.
After another hour and a half, everyone had gone through the test and been eliminated. I was seventh on the list at level five. Two others, Nicky and Xiao, had been eliminated at level five but were ranked higher than me. Vaya, Bet, Anberlin made it to level six, and Ming was top at level eight. Holy crap, how strong is he! Brett, Bridget, and Weber Lea, someone I hadn’t met, rounded out the rest of the top ten.
10
Weber Lea
Level 4
9
Falconer Bridget
Level 4
8
Hunter Brett
Level 4
7
Kupiec Aiden
Level 5
6
Haodha Nicolai
Level 5
5
Lo Xiao
Level 5
4
Volkov Vaya
Level 6
3
Volkov Bet
Level 6
2
Haodha Anberlin
Level 6
1
Lo Ming
Level 8
“Congratulations on completing your first experience with the Training Pavilion. You will be going back in next week, so you have time to refine your ability and train some more. If you wish, you may request to enter the training one additional time before then. I recommend you use this. Training in actual battles is always helpful in engraining your skills into reflexes. The opponents you fight will be different each time, though their relative strength will be nearly the same at each level. Additionally, there are rewards available for every five levels you reach. Now, the top ten come on up.”
Everyone in the top ten got up and lined up in front of him. The Mentors walked over and handed all of us a pill. “Brett, Bridget, and Lea take a seat. Everyone up here has passed to level five, and so receive a reward.” Again the Mentors handed out the reward, this time a crystal badge. “By passing to level five, you have shown basic aptitude and the minimum required to advance to the next tier, and you receive fifty merit points. The total number of received merit points will be stored on the crystal badge. Your total merit point accumulation determines your rank in your class, and you may spend the merit points to get additional Techniques, Alchemical pills or powders, or weapons made. Aiden, Nicolai, take a seat.”
I walked back over to sit down, examining the pill I was given, not noticing the angry grimace from Nicolai. The top five received a small bottle with a healing powder in it, and the top three got ten additional merit points. One of the Mentors came over when he saw my questioning look at the pill. “It is a Minor Gathering Enhancement pill. Its effect is similar to and stronger than the Complete Gathering Powder you should have heard about in your first alchemy class.”
“Thank you Mentor. Um, how many merit points would it be worth? We haven’t heard much about them yet.” I asked.
“About ten merit points for this. Techniques cost around fifty, usually, though there are some higher grade techniques that would cost more. The healing powder given out to the top five is usually sold for twenty merit points.” He explained.
“Thank you. Uh, how do we get more points?”
“Right now, only by advancing in the Pavilion. Soon, I don’t know when, you’ll be given opportunities to take on missions or perform services that will also earn merit points. As an example, all Mentors receive merit points for assisting instructors with classes. You will probably be able to earn merit points through whatever specialty you focus on. With Alchemy as an example, if you become proficient at making the Minor Gathering Enhancement pill you have there, you could sell it for three to five merit points, depending on purity.” With that explanation, he left to talk to Brett and Bridget.
A couple of minutes later, Counselor Might announced, “Good job everyone. From here, run to the Training Fields and work on your techniques. I will be going around to everyone to discuss what you did well and what you did poorly. Together with your Mentors, we will start new training regimens tomorrow. Go!” Everyone got up and took off. I stumbled a bit for the first few steps, still drained and weirded out, but got my stride fairly quickly. The run back was only a couple football fields, so not as bad as our normal starting run.
As I jogged, I started going over how I did. So, the lion nearly got me because I let it have the initiative. Or it took it anyway. That roar knocked me over and I don’t know how I could have blocked it. At least I managed to get my Aether Shield up before that wind blade thing hit me. That would have sucked. I did okay on the Wolves. Maybe I should have used more Aether blasts? They only worked the first time, after that the Wolves could dodge. The blasts aren’t fast enough. I should work on making them faster.
Getting stabbed sucked. I never want that again, but it’s probably going to be a weekly occurrence. Or getting mauled, or bitten, or poisoned, or some other way of dying, as it seems that death is the only way out of the Pavilion. I guess if we get used to wounds and fighting on through them here, where the only damage is mental, that’s better than elsewhere where it will leave scars. Even in a world of magical healthcare, there are still Counselors who limp and have long term injuries. Magic, like science, is not a panacea. It has its limits, I just don’t know what they are yet.
I got to the PT field and jogged over to a training dummy. I pulled out the memory stone for the Aether Blast technique and watched through the process again. I saw a couple of places where I could work, getting the Aether more consistent, more uniform, and having thinner streams. I spent the next twenty minutes just circulating the Aether, working on making each second have the same amount of Aether flow through at the same speed. Once it was as uniform and consistent as I could make it, I sent a blast at the dummy. The blast was slightly smaller, but it rocked the dummy back just as much as I did earlier. Nice!
“Good job, though the Aether is too thick. That is what is slowing your projections down. You should work on moving finer strands of Aether, as thin as you can make them, and then join those up until you have enough to send out.” Counselor Might said, approaching me from behind. “That is one of your tasks as feedback from your Pavilion run. You did very well for a merchant’s son. Normally the top ten are entirely either nobles or those whose family are hunters. You did especially well when you attacked the Wolves. Though you need to watch for when Beasts are going to attack at range since if that had been a level three Wind Wolf, as is more common, you would have died there.”
“They weren’t level three, sir? What was the progression, if I can ask?”
I asked him.
“You can only know up to where you have achieved. The first level was a level one Earthen Boar. The second a level two Silverfang, and the third level was two level two Wind Wolves. The last level was two bandits, one Vapor and one Mist. You did well against them until you froze. That was your first time fighting a person, wasn’t it?” He asked me.
“Yes sir. Or at least the first time I seriously injured one.” I responded.
“That is what I thought. Freezing is not an uncommon reaction to the first time you kill a person, and that is a good sign of character. Feeling nothing when destroying a bandit group often causes as many problems as it solves. You will have to work through that, though. One of the main jobs that graduates from here do is hunt down bandit groups or defend merchant caravans. There will always be people who think that stealing from others is the easiest way to get rich. As the sword of our Kingdom, we have to be ready to put an end to that behavior.”
“Yes sir!” I said. I had wanted to be my nation’s sword in my previous life, and here I was going to be as well. Of course, in my last life I was planning on being in a fighter jet, not stabbing someone.
“Now, your reaction times for the Aether Shield technique were pretty good, though you can improve them. You have a skin meridian, so you should be very fast with that technique. Your reaction times with your agility technique were poor, though. You should work on getting that first sideways motion to be quicker, not just on getting distance. I’ll make a second course for that. Other than that, one additional benefit of breaking into level five is that you can use the Pavilion four times this coming week, rather than two like everyone else. Additionally, you will be able to start at level five rather than one. While it is allowed, I do not recommend you do that the first time.”
“Thank you sir. Um, are the enemies the same every time you enter the pavilion?” I asked.
“No, though their levels are. There could be up to four bandits, all at Vapor, or only one Smoke level bandit. Let me know if you would like to run the Pavilion again. You will have to come during your evening Meditation time. The second agility course will be done tomorrow. Continue on.” He said before heading over to speak to the next student.
I spent a minute digesting what I had been told before I continued working on the blasts. After the next hour, I had managed to get the Aether threads a bit smaller, which had a noticeable effect on the speed of the blasts. After that, I went over to the agility course. There were two other people using it, Brett, and a young woman I hadn’t met yet. I didn’t know what element she was using since there were no visible effects from her technique, but she was fast.
After she had taken off down the course I hopped up and worked on moving down it. Trying to work on my speed of calling up the Dancing Northern Wind technique, I stopped on each step and relaxed, before flaring the technique and stepping to the next one. Like this, I was only able to make it halfway down the course. Well, I still have a lot of work to do on this. We alternated using the course until it was time to go to lunch.
“Hi, I’m Kupiec Aiden, I don’t think we’ve met.” I introduced myself to the young woman. She was slightly shorter than I was, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes.
“It is nice to meet you, Aiden. I am Skipari Maove.” I chatted with Brett and Maove on the walk back to the dorms. I found out that she had Exceptional Affinity in Water and the technique she was using mostly relied on sudden bursts of strength in her muscles. Which was awesome. Her family owned one of the trading ships that traveled from Azyl to the capital and back. They sold Alchemical and Inscribed products from and to both cities.
When I asked her about the whip she said, “Bring it to me the next time we are allowed to leave and I can get my Father to appraise it and sell it for you if you wish. It will take longer than just selling it to a shop in the city, but you can probably get more for it.”
“Thank you! I’ll think about it and let you know before then. What is the capital like?” I asked. She described a city much like Azyl, though bigger in every way. The walls were a hundred meters tall around the keep, which boggled my mind. Only with magic is that possible! The Academy there is apparently not as welcoming of non-noble talents. There is a much higher concentration of nobles in the Capital, so they don’t accept as many commoners. If commoners had the choice and talent, they went to a different Academy. Hence why Maove was here and not there.
“I can’t wait until the All Academy Tournament at the end of the year!” Maove said, “The Capital Academy likes to lord it over all the schools, but with Ming, Bet, and you, we should be in a good position to beat them in the first tier category. I especially want you to wipe their noble faces in the dirt, jerks lording over normal people,” she finished with a growl. Brett and I both looked at her confused and she explained “At the end of every year there is a tournament held in the capital and sponsored by the king. Every academy sends their best students in a hope to win awards and resources that the king puts up for the prizes. Last year the prize for the top first tier was to have the king’s armorer make a weapon just for them. Nearly every year, the Capital Academy takes all the top spots. Now we can take back the lead from them!”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” I said, “that sounds amazing. We will all have to work our bottoms off to get strong enough for that. Do you know how they pick the competitors from here?” I asked.
“No, but it probably will be done with merit points, or the tournament that rumors say is the end of the month. Though that is really early. Maybe there will be a tournament here to decide who goes there.” We all agreed that made sense, and that we would find out later. As we did so, we split to shower and go to dinner.
At dinner, I went to sit with Jamila, Vaya, and a bunch of others, and we talked about the Training Pavilion. Jamila had made it to the third level, but ended up fighting two level two Fire-tailed Hawks and she had ended up losing to them. She didn’t say how she lost, and she shuddered a bit when she mentioned it. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, which got me a smile. I told her my trial to the third level, describing how the Wind Wolves had fought. When asked, I told them about the bandits and how I froze and got run through. Jamila squeezed my hand back, and Vaya patted my shoulder in support. We all agreed that going in again is going to suck, but it is probably necessary for advancing and graduating. “We should ask if there is a surrender ability next time, or see what other types of simulations it can do.” I said.
“Simulations? Is that another word for illusions?” Jamila asked, confused.
“Uh, yeah. I heard that word in relation to this type of illusion before.” I said awkwardly. Watch out for strange words, Caleb Aiden. I thought, smacking myself mentally for the slip up. “Counselor Might said that ‘Today we are conducting a ranking challenge’ which implied that there are other types of illusions. Hopefully there are some with less pain involved.” We finished eating and I walked her to the Meditation Grotto.
After saying goodnight, I jogged to the pavilion where I usually gathered. After laying out some fruit for my bird friend, I pulled out the gathering pill I had been given, and examined it curiously again. A faint whiff of mint and other herbs came off it. “Here goes nothing.” I said as I popped it into my mouth. As the last pill did, so this one seemed to dissolve instantly into a liquid that I swallowed. I could feel the energy of the pill as it entered my stomach, and the Aether inside was dissolved into my meridians and center.
I stood and worked through the Eight by Eight Gathering Forms, and the pill Aether seemed to explode within me. My gathering speed had nearly tripled from this morning. This boost lasted for an entire hour, giving me three times as much Aether as I normally would have been able to get. “Well, that was useful. Three hours work for one hour actual time. This is also twice as much Aether as I normally would be able to absorb without resting, so the pill essentially saved me half a day’s worth of Gathering. Let’s go find Jon and see if he managed to get past th
e moves that we worked on yesterday.”
I jogged to where Jon and I had worked yesterday and found Jon assiduously going through the first six moves of the Eight by Eight. He still had a small flaw in the position of his arms for the sixth move, so I walked up and helped him adjust it. After two tries he got it down, so we moved on to the seventh move. I spent the next hour doing this, then said goodnight when Jon was nearly falling asleep on his feet. Even though I still had energy, I walked back with him. I spent the next hour studying Elemental Birds, especially the chapters on the Crimson Zarorzel.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
The next morning I woke up and laid in bed for a minute. “It’s been a week now, Earth day again. Though I guess the concept of a weekend is foreign here. Only the end of Month Darkness and Light days substitute for a rest period. Everyone seems so driven, so you don’t hear anything like ‘Man, I’ve got a case of the Earth Days’.” I mused, sending myself into a fit of snickers. I got up and hurried to breakfast. After breakfast, we all ran to the classrooms, where there were four Mentors and Counselor Sila. The two new mentors for this period were Mentors Bonde and Granjer from Alchemy.
“Today we will be discussing the courses you will be taking for the next month in addition to continuing to work on the Eight by Eight Gathering Form. Bridget, Travis, and Ming please stay here. The rest of you, head to the front yard and work on the Form. Mentors Lo and Bonde will assist you. As we finish with those who stay, they will come get the next person to discuss. Head on down.”
