Before the fight began, I thought it best to take Great Girl’s advice on something. I had four points, and spent three of them to learn a second level spell. She was more experienced, so even if her powers lay in different directions her advice was worthwhile. She’d used logic, and though it wouldn’t solve my most recent problems it was still useful. Shield, that is. I was beginning to understand that you couldn’t have too many defenses. Couldn’t do anything if you were dead.

“We’ve got healers on standby,” Great Girl said. “So don’t worry about holding back. Just don’t aim for the head.”

I wasn’t planning to. Among other things it was a smaller target so I could easily waste mana with an unnecessary miss. “Understood.” I remembered the previous time had been much the same, and she’d avoided punching me in the face even though it was the most convenient point of attack. But that had been around a month ago, and she hadn’t really been taking things seriously. Then again, I hadn’t really required anything more than simple moves.

The spar started with a signal from the observation room, after we were confirmed to be ready. There was some distance between the two of us, and I immediately opened up with a Firebolt. She ducked out of the way. The spell wasn’t exactly slow moving, but Great Girl had shown her capability to react to Shockwave to some extend, and had excellent reflexes. Even if I had hit, it would have mostly sputtered off her costume.

I didn’t have specific hand gestures I had to make for any spell, I simply gathered mana and released the spell from- in most cases- my hand. If we were enemies I would make the choice to be as obscure as possible, but I thought it only fair to change the arrangement of my hand from a point to a flat palm aimed at her- just like when I used Sonic Lance earlier for demonstration. I gathered mana and then…

She dodged out of the way. A good instinct, since the attack would both be basically invisible and moving at the speed of sound. The right choice, but I’d been counting on it. Out of my palm came… nothing. Not at first. But I tracked her movement for a moment before then unleashing Sonic Lance. She’d already increased her size to around eight feet, and with that came durability. It would be fine.

Great Girl was blasted backwards. That was probably the best possible result for her, as if she held her ground she would have had to deal with the entire force all at once. As she briefly left the ground I only had time for a smaller spell, using less mana. I judged where she would land and cast Grease. Previously she had avoided its effects by never really being subject to it, first jumping over it and then expanding her body. This time I was hoping to get her feet coated.

When she hit I could have followed up with another Sonic Lance, but though she had assured me she could take a hit from it, two seemed a bit… rude. I didn’t have a good angle anyway.

As she was knocked backwards she must have caught a glimpse of the grease, as she twisted her body and expanded as she moved through the air. That did strange things to her momentum, stopping her short of where I expected. She still almost fell into the grease, but she had reached what I was pretty sure her maximum size of fifteen feet tall, and she caught herself with her arms on either side of the black goop on the ground.

I almost regretted not hitting her with another Sonic Lance as she shoved herself back to her feet, but with my current set of abilities I wanted to fight her in another way. I was aware that I would lose, but I first cast Haste. She turned to look at me, almost slowly from my perspective even though she was spinning on her heel.

Next was Enlarge… leaving me actually a good bit shorter than her, approximately double my height ending with me twelve feet tall. I had a decent amount of martial training under my belt now, from my time here and the spars with Hammerfist. I was absolutely, positively still going to get thrashed… but I would draw it out as long as I could.

Great Girl appeared to charge directly towards me, but I knew she could do all sorts of things to shift her momentum. Even so, I had to take a shot with another Firebolt to throw her off just before she got close.

Then things turned into a brawl. She still had the advantage of reach and strength, but with Haste I could at least be faster than her… though moving three times as fast really didn’t help as much as I wanted. If I let myself get grabbed I was in for an immediate loss, so I had to settle for quick jabs she couldn’t react to and a single use of Shocking Grasp. Each normal hit was only a small fraction of what a Sonic Lance could do, but I could also sustain this for a full minute. She knew that, though, and could just endure.

But she didn’t choose that. She was aggressive, moving on the offensive with leg hooks to trip me along with punches, kicks, and grabs. She managed to get me off balance and then shifted into a kick towards my ribs. Having taken a hit from her before, I knew Force Armor wouldn’t stand up against it. But I had been saving Shield for such a moment, and Haste let me actually get the timing right. A semi-translucent circular barrier appeared between me and the kick.

The impact sent me rolling halfway across the training room, almost into my own Grease spell. Had she been aiming for it…? I had to imagine she was. As I got to my feet I took stock of my defenses. Shield had just barely held against the attack. She was probably only expecting Force Armor, and had thus been holding back. Now that she knew about this she’d know she could hit a bit harder. So as to not disappoint her and my ribs, I had to refresh the ability with the last of my mana. Well, I had about a point to spare but that wasn’t enough to do anything useful, and I needed it as a buffer against mana exhaustion.

We moved to clash again, exchanging moves rapidly. Every strike I landed barely fazed her and almost tired myself out more as I felt like I was punching steel. Shield helped keep me in play as I could mentally move it to get into the way of her attacks. I would have liked to do a bit more to interfere with her strikes, preventing them from gaining momentum by pressing the Shield forward, but I wasn’t used to it yet. She didn’t seem that perturbed by it though.

The battle ended with her grabbing onto the edge of the spell and tilting it out of her way. It was held firmly where I wanted it with magic, but that was with respect to normal sized people. Both of us were well over ten feet tall and the Shield wasn’t held more firmly in position just because I was bigger.

With that out of the way she used her other hand to grab onto my shoulder when I thought she was going in for a different move. She made a move as if to knee me in the side, but then suddenly I found myself flipped around and pinned face down, my arms twisted behind my back. “... Well?”

“Oh. I give up,” I declared. I didn’t have much duration on Haste left anyway, and I never intended to win. It wouldn’t even count against someone who was holding back so as not to turn me into a paste. Not yet anyway.

A moment later Great Girl was standing over me, holding out her hand. I took it and she pulled me to my feet. “Nice one.” Then she returned to her normal size. It took me a moment to cancel my spell, but after that we were more or less evenly sized again. “With a fighting style like that, have you ever considered a spell like Transformation? I know it’s a bit higher level but…”

“Transformation?” I frowned. It sounded familiar, but I was a little fuzzy from being knocked around and low on mana.

“Yeah. It makes you strong and fast but unable to cast magic while it’s active.”

“Oh right. Martial Transformation. I… might get it someday.”

Previously, I would have avoided fighting like I was now. Even if it wasn’t the other apprentices, someone would have said something about it being typical for an orc, even if they had magic they just had to fight with their bodies. I had grown pretty comfortable here but… I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go in that direction. I had a lot of other things to learn first regardless.

“We should get ourselves checked out,” Great Girl said, clutching her side. “That new spell… is pretty hard on people.” She’d kept the strain out of her voice, but considering that Sonic Lance would straight up kill most people, the fact that she had no visible damage was something big. But it couldn’t be nothing.

As for myself, I was only had a few bumps and bruises. I didn’t mind being hurt, but it made me remember something. Great Girl talked about not liking pain, long before. That was in relation to Shocking Grasp… and no doubt she hurt much more now. But she didn’t say anything about it. How awkward. I felt a bit bad, but it was a spar. Still, pressing her for more might not be appropriate. Maybe if I could find that Gloom guy. Which would be… later. Much later. I very much preferred my brain not being mush.

-----

“You did great, Turlough,” Midnight said after I was checked out and back in the cafeteria. “Last time it was both of us, but you really held your own in there.”

“Thanks,” I grinned. “But I can tell I still have a long way to go, if I want to catch up.” I’d only sparred against Great Girl once before, so I received a nice bounty of experience for making things become at least a bit serious. “Not too long before I’m level 19,” I commented. “But I really should have been level 20 years ago,” I shook my head.

“Hey,” Midnight said, placing his paw on my shoulder from where he sat on the table, “Don’t worry about that stuff. I know it was hard to grow strong where you were with that curse… but here, you’re able to make progress. I can’t even keep up, and I have your abilities.”

I grinned, the feelings of warmth through our bond amplifying back and forth. “I know you work hard as well. Looking forward to using those food related spells, huh?”

“That’s right!” Midnight nodded. And I could tell he was, but his motivation was deeper than that. After all, he could just buy tuna. And he did.

-----

Except for the unique circumstances with Gloom, I didn’t get experience from Scrying. Even if someone resisted, it wasn’t normally a fight, so Aspect of the Barbarian meant I got nothing. Normal mages could get experience from it, though it wasn’t necessarily quicker than study or any number of other activities.

It was kind of a pain to use, with all the requirements of time and space and how much mana it drained. But it was also nice to have a spell truly unrelated to combat. There were other vision spells that had more direct tactical use, but Scrying was further removed. Just being able to use magic calmly was nice. Though I also wanted to learn all sorts of other things, so fighting would continue even if it hadn’t been so fun.

I was still working with the guy in the suit. Calculator. I was getting uncomfortably familiar with Handface, but such was how spying on people worked. That familiarity was actually good for the sake of the spell, as even when he noticed and tried to resist I had some leverage to use against him. But even if we tried at irregular times, he was never without that device that informed him. I probably wouldn’t be either, but I didn’t have one. Besides, I had felt someone Scrying on me without it. Once. It was actually kind of odd it had never happened again, especially since Handface didn’t seem to have any acquaintances of a magical persuasion, or even with similar sorts of powers.

“Wait, turn back clockwise for a moment,” Calculator said. “Three more degrees.”

He was very precise with what he wanted, but we had a good system going. I turned slightly, only stopping to ask, “Through the wall?”

“Of course. That’s where all of the most interesting stuff is.” I listened to him, and saw a brick wall. “Aha! There it is. See this?” He traced his finger in front of the mirror, “96. That’s something useful.”

I frowned, “I can barely see that it’s so faded.”

“I know,” He nodded. “I missed it a few times, but there was a sort of pattern to its shape and I picked out the outline. It’s not a full address or anything, but it might just help us scope him out.”

“Great,” I said. “If we find him… what else do we need to know?”

“We know he’s had more contact with Rodentia, and that woman called Sirine. Also that splitter. We can’t be quite sure who he is, since he’s been very cautious with his face. Though that also indicates he might be a known villain, there aren’t any matches. Other than those supers, he has minions. I’m fairly certain they don’t have more of those high powered rifles but…”

“One is too many,” I nodded. “We need to incapacitate him without giving them a chance to use it. Or maybe it should be another group.”

“We have plenty of reasons to go after them even if it’s not for personal revenge,” Calculator nodded. “If the Elemental Magic Squad doesn’t want to make the attempt, I don’t blame you. We can send someone else.”

“Well… I don’t know about the others, but I would prefer to go. Just not quite yet. Maybe after a bit more training.”

“Fair enough. Just don’t forget other people can improve themselves as well,” Calculator cautioned me.

That was true… but as far as I knew levels like mine were a rarity. I was also growing quickly, and had nearly caught up to where I was expected to be- but it should continue at a decent rate afterwards.