Reff and I stood opposite each other in a small clearing, a few feet apart in the bright moonlight.

Reff’s arms were covered in bright orange lava, and I could feel the heat on my face like I was peering into a fire. Flicking tongues of lightning lashed out from me with a series of rapid snaps, as I Focused on using as little power as possible.

Aella had instructed me to attack and I was hesitating, not wanting to come into contact with those bright, molten limbs.

“Hunter, if you do not attack, I’m going to come over there and kick you into the sky.” My teacher’s voice was flat and irritated, which sounded weird given her lilting, sing-song voice. I did not doubt the threat, however – I knew she was more than capable of it.

With a sigh, I dashed at my massive friend, throwing a kick at the side of his knee. What he had said to me the day before was true – he was much larger than I was, meaning that – without jumping or climbing – I was unable to attack anything above his waist – which left the legs and... things that were out of bounds. In that way, I had an advantage, since he was only coating his arms, rather than his whole body. It was, it turned out, not a large advantage.

As my foot kicked out, Reff stepped back with the targeted leg, twisting his ankle, dropping his other leg and driving one huge, bright fist towards my face. I wanted to push it away while stepping in the other direction, but his hand was covered in lava. I stepped away from the blow, twisting to avoid it. I punched out, but off balance, there wasn’t a lot of power behind it, and while Reff grunted as the electricity surged through him, he seemed to ignore it, preferring to bring his other hand around and down in a hammer blow that stopped just shy of my face, singeing my eyebrows.

“I know you’re at a higher stage than me, Reff, but how am I supposed to fight lava? Even with you only covering parts of you, I don’t stand a chance.”

“Finally!” Reff grinned at me as Aella stomped over to poke me in the chest.

“You finally asked. I was starting to think you liked getting burned.”

“Ugh, you mean there’s a way to not get burned...?”

“Of course there is. How do you think people with elemental Foci fight? Strong words?”

I thought back to my first day, about seeing Walker punch a fireball to pieces, as well as the times I had seen Reff and Sidona fighting. I felt like an idiot.

“Well, I guess that makes sense. So... how do it do it?”

“You need to expel Experience - or Praxis, or whatever – from the spot where your meet the attack or defence of your opponent. When meeting Reff’s stupid lava hands, you need to push out energy to create a barrier between you.”

“But, aren’t I doing that with the... lightning?”

“No. Why would I tell you to do something you were already doing, and already wasn’t working?”

“Right. Sorry. What’s the difference?”

“When you use your Focus, it changes the properties of your Experience, it becomes the idea described by your Focus. Does your Focus include blocking energy?”

“No, it-”

“Of course it doesn’t! There’s only so much you can cram into a Focus, the rest is skill.”

I held my hands up in defence, not wanting irritate my teacher. Instead, I concentrated on trying to push a little Praxis from my hand, without running it through my Focus. I was not difficult, I had done similar things when accessing my storage rings, though I had thought it would take some fine tuning to get the amount correct.

“Can I try? Ref, can I start by just... touching your hand?”

“With approval, you may, Hunter.”

I reached out with one hand, pushing a thing stream of Praxis out of it and laid it flat on the still molten rock of my friend’s hand. It hurt. A lot.

Jerking my hand away I shook it, blowing furiously. It was not burned, it just hurt a lot.

“Ow, that hurt. I guess I need more Praxis.”

“Idiot, of course it hurt. You touched lava.”

“But-”

“What good would coating yourself in lava be if you could defeat it completely so easily?”

“It wouldn’t be much good, Teacher.”

“That’s right. Only energy of a higher order can completely counter energy of a lower order, and even then, it takes a lot of it.”

“So, you either accept the pain, or you burn through your reserves?”

“Yes! One hurts, the other is stupid. Unless you can end the fight in an instant.”

“This all makes sense, but I’ve defeated at least one person who was stages higher than me, using lightning. How?”

“How should I know? Was I there? Did I see? It could be anything. Maybe they were surprised, maybe they had a weakness to lightning. Maybe they were unskilled or stupid. I don’t care. Take your pick and don’t make that mistake.”

For the next few hours, Reff and I continued to fight, using as little power as I could get away with. The fights hurt, that was certain, but I did start to get the hang of it. It seemed that the secret was choosing your moments to try to overcome your opponent’s defence, both physical and energy based. I mostly failed, but I did stagger my friend once or twice, and I took that as a victory, despite usually ending up on my back.

*

***

*

After ten days of travel, I finally got around to asking Walker exactly how far it was to the Blacksands. I was enjoying the forest immensely – the day before we had entered a section of the forest in which all the leaves were crystal clear and fractured the light into many colours, and when the wind moved, they made a beautiful sound, like distant bells. Despite the natural – or supernatural – beauty all around me, which I was constantly absorbing as part of my cultivation, I was still concerned that Reff’s people were suffering. Back in Everwood City, it had not occurred to me that the journey might take a long time – I was used to taking a sub-orbital shuttle across the world for lunch. Even when I had been in the other world, I had been aboard a ship, so the journey seemed natural, but I had not internalised the distances involved without cheating by leaving the planet.

“We have perhaps another ten days before we reach the edged of the forest. After that, we will be able to hire transportation, as we will be on the plains.”

“The forest is twenty days across?” I knew that there were larger forests on Earth – the Amazon, I was sure, could take years to walk across.

“No, of course not. Everwood City is very close to the edge.” I shook my head at the scale, glad at least that we were near the edge – I hated to think about what might have happened if the city had been a the centre of the forest.

“How long will it take from the... plains?”

“Only a few days. Rapid travel is inhibited by the forest, but once we leave transport will be easy to come by.”

“Well, that’s a relief at-”

Mid-sentence, a man stepped out from behind a tree in front of us, a wide, curved sword held in front of him. He had a notch in his lips and was dressed in brown, black and green rags, looking like ragged camouflage.

“Well met, all! You are outnumbered, so let's not be unpleasant. All we want is your money, weapons, treasure, storage rings, spare clothes... You know what? Just give us everything, and you can go.”

The speaker was grinning, and I looked around, noting there were another five of them scattered about us.

Walker, seeming unconcerned by the ambush turned to my teacher and spoke with a calm voice,“Aella, the leader appears to be at the Foundation stage – would you like the fight?”

“Here now, there’s no need-”

“Hey, shut it! I haven’t had a decent fight in a long time! Give us a second, I’ll be there soon enough!” Aella interrupted the bandit leader, a wide smile on her face as she unwound the weighted chain from around her slender waist.

“The others are all fall somewhere within the Core stage – Reff, if you could provide Hunter some assistance?”

“With certainty.”

Walker stood, relaxed with his hands behind his back, saying nothing more. Taking the hint, I turned to the people who were apparently my opponents, who were looking confused by the whole situation.

“Right, let’s dance, notchy!” There was a deep whump and I felt a shockwave, and I turned to see... mostly nothing. As my Teacher and the bandit leader began to fight, earth exploded and trees fell to pieces, the two of them only really visible in the moments they arrested each other’s movements.

Turning back once more, shrugged at the bandits, and seeing the fight had started, they rushed in.

Activating my Focus, I stepped forwards and away from my companions. I could feel the heat flare up from Reff’s lava armour, but I paid it no mind, trusting him to more than hold his own if the people we were fighting were at my level. I also spared no thought for Walker, knowing anybody who attacked him would regret it, at best.

My first pair of opponents reached me quickly, one wielding a huge glowing red axe, and the other wrapped in lashing vines. They came at me in almost in slow motion, as my Focus accelerated my own sense of the world around me. I stepped to my left, placing the vine-wrapped attacker between myself and the axe wielder. A long tendril of plant matter shot towards my face and I gave it my arm as a compromise. Wrapping around it, the vine began to constrict like a snake and I pulled back sharply, tugging the man on the other end of it towards me. The vine itself seemed somewhat resistant to electricity, but I could smell burning plant matter as the current started to work through it. As the vine-user stumbled towards me, I drove my fist into their face with a feral grin, and I heard twin snaps, as a filament of power entered their body at the same time as his nose broke under the force of the blow. The nose breaking must have distracted him, because the electricity seemed to have a decent effect, as he stiffed, before staggering back and dropping, his now burning vine falling free before disintegrating.

His companion had not been idle though, and I felt the red axe swinging down towards my right shoulder. Instinctively, I stepped in and raised my arm, catching the weapon just below the blade. The blow carried a lot of power, and it drove me down to my knees, but that was better than having my arm severed. From a kneeling position, I turned my wrist and grasped the shaft of the axe, pulling on it to provide leverage and allowing me to quickly stand. Using the energy of my rise, I pulled myself in and drove a knee into his stomach, driving the air from his lungs, along with a shock. I was about to follow up with an elbow, but I felt an arrow coming from behind me and my raised arm automatically snapped around to catch it. Both myself and the axe wielder stared as I brought the arrow around in front of me. For a split second, he froze before he turned and tried to scramble away from me. Unwilling to let him go unpunished, I stepped in a drove a foot between his legs, though I felt a little bad about it. The crackle of electricity intensified as he jolted away from me, stiffening mid fall with a strangled cry.

I caught another arrow without looking and turned to drive an elbow into an onrushing fist. There was a crack as my new attacker’s fingers broke, and while she was distracted, I caught her wrist with my other hand, letting power surge into her as I tugged her into a crackling headbutt. She dropped as I sensed the approach of another arrow – unlike the previous arrows, I did not sense how to counter this one, and as I turned, I saw why – the arrow split into a dozen copies of itself, each coming at me from a different angle and direction. I took the hint that it was impossible to dodge them all, so I leapt backwards, slapping out to deflect as many as I could, but despite my best efforts, I ended up with three of them sticking out of my left arm. I could feel the blood pouring down my side as I glared in the direction the arrow had come from seeing the archer on a few dozen feet away.

Unwilling to act as their pincushion, I ran towards them, eager to close the distance and hopefully take them out of the fight. I was half-way there when I had to pause as a woman slammed into the ground in front of me. I looked around to see Reff, coated in his molten armour shrug at me and turn to kick a man holding a giant flower like it was a mace. Bemused I turned to the female projectile just as she rolled to her feet and wiped a trace of blood from the corner of her lips. Taking a guard stance, she manifested an incandescent white sword seemingly carved from light, as she glared at me.

I moved in, trying to get around the sword but it followed me easily, always blocking my path. I reached for the blade, pushing Praxis out of my hand, hoping to grab the sword and allow my lightning to conduct down its length. As my hand closed about the edge, my opponent jerked it back and I yelped as the blade cut easily into my flesh. There was a flash of light as my lightning travelled down it, but she shook it off with seemingly little effort.

My opponent grinned, the expression predatory as she started her own attack. The blade flashed as it caught the diffracted light from the crystal leaves and it darted towards me. She was every bit as fast as I was, and had a definite range advantage. She was also more cautious and skilled than the axe wielder had been, and I found myself on the defensive, just a little too fast for Instinctive Precognition to give me clues.

I dodged the cuts and thrusts, at least glad my new opponent stood between me and the archer, and waited for an opening. My opponent did not seem keen on providing one and — seemingly tired of my dodging — stepped it up a gear. The blows came faster, still controlled and balanced but much more aggressive. I was forced to start slapping the blade aside as I dodged, my hand hyper-extended, so that as little of it would touch the blade as possible. Even so, I started to accumulate cuts on my hands and along my arms as she maneuverer the blade to do damage even as I blocked. Each deflection sent a rush of power down the sword, accompanied by a flash and crack and I recalled my unfortunate interaction with the guards back at the palace, and hoped that something at least based on metal would do something similar. It was a pretty big assumption, I have to admit but my options were a little limited, given the fact that I was obviously outclassed in terms of skill. The next time I deflected the blade, I pushed hard at my Focus, driving a chunk of power out of my body and in to the bright sword, not so much hoping it would have the desired effect, but more resigned to the possibility. There was a sharp crack and I had just enough time to see a bright, violet-blue bolt of energy flash between us, and then the two of us were blasted apart. I staggered to me feet, blinking afterimages from my eyes as I felt a burning pain on my chest. I stood twitching for a second as I stood dazed, but I was pretty used to electrocution at that point, so I recovered by bearings quickly. I limped over to where the woman lay, blood running down my arms freely, and the burning pain on my chest pulsing with heat at every step. The shining sword had vanished, I was glad to see, though I was less happy to see my opponent climbing to her feet. I should not have been surprised, seeing as whatever reaction that had been had not put me down for long.

Not hesitating, I stepped in and dropped down, driving a fist into her rising jaw. I had lost my Focus, but I was still strong and there was a dull crack that finally seemed to do the trick of knocking her out.

I looked around, still blinking away afterimages, anticipating more arrows. A brief search told me the archer seemed to be down and I turned to look around, seeing that all of the bandits were either on the floor or had fled. The only ongoing fight was between Aella and the bandit leader. They were still moving too fast for me to follow, but I caught glimpses here and there. The leader seemed to be throwing out a cutting wave with every slash, and it was fascinating to watch my teacher flipping around and between them, all the while spinning her chain in his direction. For several moments, the two seemed to be fairly balanced, but the petite woman that had told me she had taken a mountain as her Focus suddenly shifted into a series of offensive moves that I could feel against my skin, like a massive bass drum. No longer dodging, the weighted chain simply shattered the cutting waves, and I could see panic starting to show on the leader’s face. Too late, he decided to run, but as he turned the chain came around and impacted his back and he burst apart like rotten fruit

Aella turned back to us, a grin on her face, as she pulled her chain back and began to spin it again, the blood flying from its length like a dog shaking itself dry.

“Well, that was fun! And Hunter, you didn’t die! Good job. Why are you bleeding so much? Are those arrows? Why did you let yourself get shot?”

Apparently safe, I allowed myself to relax, and shaking slightly in reaction, I sat and pulled a healing pill from my ring, before placing it I my mouth and swallowing.

“Well, it turned out that the archer could split their arrows, making them hard to dodge. Also, I found out that swords are sharp, Teacher. Who knew?”

My teacher grinned at me and I let out a pained chuckle. Painful, and violent it may have been, but it felt great to be alive, and I knew I would be making gains from the Experience,

I looked at my companions as they moved about, at the casual normality with which they treated the situation. Every time I thought I was accustomed to my new world, I was reminded how very different it was from the Earth I had known. The constant threat of death, however, was something I hoped I would never have get used to, though that did not seem likely, given the deal I had with Xiournal.

“You performed satisfactorily, Hunter; almost all of those you fought were lightly above your level of cultivation. Reff, your control is most impressive; many of your level and elemental inclinations would have set the forest on fire.” Walker, his voice perfectly calm and unperturbed bowed his head in respect to my huge friend, and I shook my head, going over the fight in my head. It had seemed like a short eternity, in the moment, but in retrospect I was vaguely astonished at just how short a time had passed.

I would have to ask Aella about training versus weapons though, as blasting myself every time I fought somebody with one was probably not going to work against more than one person at a time...