Damien rolled back to his feet with a groan. By the time he was standing again, Delph had already torn the paper away from his face and was blinking his temporary blindness away with a scowl.

“He’s pissed,” Henry observed. “Pretty fast recovery time for a human. He’s definitely looking at you.”

Thanks. I couldn’t tell that myself.

Delph glanced down at the slip of paper stuck to his armor. His lips thinned and he tugged at it, but all he succeeded in doing was tearing a small corner of the paper away.

“Runes?” Delph asked, sounding surprisingly calm. “Interesting. You’re either very dedicated to your lie about learning a cultivation method in a single day – or you’re telling the truth. Regardless, slips of paper aren’t going to be effective in a real fight.”

Damien didn’t respond. He held the last piece of paper he’d prepared in his fist, watching Delph carefully as the man approached him. His brain screamed at him to run, but there was no way he’d be able to outpace a man who could teleport.

As Delph walked, his armor grew several shades lighter. He stopped before Damien. Then he frowned. He touched his armor, then jerked his hand back with a hiss.

The professor raised his hand over the paper stuck to his armor. The air contorted and crumpled in on itself. When he lowered his hand, the paper was gone.

“Clever,” Delph said. “Flame runes?”

“Heating,” Damien corrected, rolling over and scrambling to his feet. His chest was sore, but the interested look on Delph’s face gave him hope. “Plus some binding ones, activated on impact.”

“And the last rune you’ve got clutched in your hand behind your back?” Delph asked.

“Another heating rune,” Damien said. “In case the first one needed help.”

“Then you’ve lost. You will not beat me with a heating rune circle, no matter how clever the idea is. It is not meant for combat. Just like you.”

Damien thrust the slip of paper into the ground. The force of the strike activated the rune. He yanked his hand back and threw himself to the side as the ground lit up a cherry red. Delph flickered, disappearing as the air where they’d been standing fluctuated from the intense heat.

“That was not a normal heating rune,” Delph said, his tone still calm.

“I might have tweaked it a bit,” Damien admitted. “But imagine if that was the one I stuck on your armor.”

“It could have been proven to be momentarily problematic,” Delph said, a scowl crossing his features. “But this is nothing more than mere trickery. Do you think that and rune circles will let you win fights?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re probably right,” Delph said, pursing his lips. “Well done. You aren’t strong enough for me to use the force I used against your roommate, so I don’t even get the satisfaction of knocking you unconscious.”

“Thanks, I think,” Damien said suspiciously. “Does this mean you’ll train me?”

“For now. If you fail to show the required talent, then all deals are off and you will receive nothing that the rest of your class does not get.”

Damien didn’t feel like cheering. He barely even felt relieved, but there was still a spark of pride that lit up within him. Delph noticed his expression and clicked his tongue.

“Don’t get a big head, boy. Your test was much, much easier than the ones that your fellow classmates went through. I had to hold back on account of your claims of not knowing magic. You will be expected to progress at a very rapid pace if you want to continue with me.”

Delph walked in a slow circle around Damien, inspecting him with his flat grey eyes.

“We will begin now. I expect you at the arena every other day, two hours before the sun rises. Is that understood?”

Damien started to nod, but he didn’t get the chance to finish.

“Good. Now, stand straight,” Delph snapped. The man grabbed Damien by the shoulders and practically lifted him into the air as he adjusted his posture. He set him down and clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Your stance is terrible.”

He grabbed Damien’s hair and tugged on it slightly. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was enough to get the boy to grimace and stretch to get the pressure off.

“You are a toy puppet,” Delph instructed. “Imagine that your body is held aloft by a single string that comes from your head. Do this at all times.”

The professor had gone from refusing to teach Damien to ordering him around like they’d known eachother for years within seconds. Damien scrambled to keep up with Delph as the man continued walking circles around him, barking out instructions.

“Square your shoulders. You look like you’re a hunchback,” Delph said. “Weight on the balls of your feet. It will help you move faster.”

Damien wanted to ask what the point of a fighting stance was when he’d be using spells. Luckily for him, he was smarter than that. And, even more luckily, Delph answered the question not a second after the boy had first thought it.

“Magic is our greatest tool, but it is highly related to our physical fitness. Your mind is like a muscle, and it depends on the fitness of the rest of your body to work properly. You’ll also need to be fit enough to dodge and trade blows with someone that gets close to you, with or without magic. If you want to be on the front lines, you cannot just be a mage. You must be a fighter.”

Damien did his best to nod without moving his chin away from the position that Delph had put it in. If the professor noticed it, he didn’t say anything. After around ten more minutes of nudging and adjusting, Delph sighed.

“That’s enough for now. Go run laps around the field until your roommate arrives. Full speed. No slacking.”

“But we don’t know when she’ll get here!” Damien said desperately. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour since they’d started, and the last time Damien had seriously run anywhere was when his mother had made pie and called him home from school to eat it.

“You were the one that was confident she’d show up,” Delph said, baring his teeth in a feral grin. “For your sake, I hope you’re right.”