Isiah punched me in the face. It was a normal human level punch, I could have easily avoided it if I wanted to but I didn’t. He could have also punched with superhuman strength but he didn’t, so I took the punch on the chin, actually it was my left cheek.

“Ow, that really hurt!” I whined. It didn’t. He clapped me on the back, HARD, as if to console me. That did hurt and he knew it, my ribs were still sore from where he had broken them a few minutes earlier.

“You deserve it.” He said, his anger was fading but obviously hadn’t completely faded yet.

I looked around the clearing yet again. It was a mess. Several trees were uprooted, a giant crater in the ground, even a tree that was cut perfectly diagonally. “We need to fix this up, or someone’s going to realise there was a magic battle here.” I said to Isiah

“Yeah.” He sighed, putting his hands on his hips. “Wow we made a mess” he said looking around.

“What do you mean we, I only destroyed 1 tree. You destroyed half the forest.” I said exaggerating massively.

“And those two” he said pointing to the two I had been smashed through. He was making jokes, he would pull through.

“Humph” I sighed angrily, conceding defeat.

“Replant the uprooted ones as best as you can, we can store the rest in my storage space.” After breaking through to the true mage realm I was able to visualise the void space in my head and it was unfathomable, the area I could see was at least the size of a city, and I knew there was more. It was like looking out at the ocean from the beach, you can only see as far as the horizon, but you know there is more.

I used my war sword as an axe to deliberately hack up the remaining stumps so as to make it look like the trees had been felled by axes and not smashed apart by my poor lower back. It really hurt, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain was coming back. Although I had won the actual fight, I had come out of it as the clear loser. I had broken Isiah’s were-cat kneecap, but that was instantly healed. As soon as he transformed back, he was as good as new. I on the other hand had tender ribs, burst blood vessels in my lungs, a badly contused back and god only knows what injuries in my abdomen from being kneed by an 8ft tall monster.

I had a distinct disadvantage in that fight, although I was superhumanly fast, even when compared to other mages, I was always going to be slower than a were-cat. They were built for close combat, mages weren’t. We were meant to fight from a distance. I was trying to compensate for that using Eastern Taoist cultivation, which also strengthened my body. I had only won using the flexor reflex. Isiah was still in his growth phase, the first 10 years of a were’s life is the growth phase, after which their physical growth stops and he would lose the flexor reflex.

I sat down on the now flat stump and started meditating. I opened up a connection to the void rotating my energy core faster and faster. During normal condensing of my power, the void energy could be absorbed into my core by my quantum phased meridians, but when I wanted to accelerate the rate of absorption I still found it necessary to open an actual connection to the void. I started circulating the energy around my meridians faster and faster until I reached 298 rotations, which had been my previous limit. I was able to push past this limit and reach 299; I knew I was close to breaking through the 300 rotation barrier. This was the barrier to a middle phased true mage. This was a significant step as a beginner void mages power was limited, I had a void shield which was only useful for hiding at night as it prevented any light or sound escaping or entering depending on its polarity, but was useless at stopping physical damage. I could also maintain the destructive discordant edge around my hands for 10 seconds. I had a feeling that breaking into the middle phase would improve my combat ability tremendously.

The protostar in my core was rapidly siphoning off material from its accretion disk, turning gaseous energy into a liquid energy. Over the last four months the protostar core in my centre had grown from the size of a pea to a small walnut size, it was getting increasingly stable and more and more dense.

I was expecting to stop at 298 rotations, I was pleasantly surprised when I broke past 298 rotations to 299 rotations, but the energy kept going. I completed 300 rotations. I was expecting something to change, a minor subtle change that would increase my strength somewhat. What I didn’t expect was the whole process being changed. Up until that point I had been gathering energy from the outside and bringing it into my core but what happened when I reached 300 rotations completely surprised me.

A connection to the void opened up in my core, engulfing the entire region. Void energy flooded in and the core seemed to expand to the size of a watermelon. A thought went through my head {if these were actual objects inside me, instead of energy projections, I would have literally burst apart}. The void energy particles in the centre, which were solid due to the incredibly high density, seemed to compress in on itself due to the high density and started to fuse, this fusion created energy which was used by the surrounding particles to also fuse together, this created a chain reaction. This fusion caused the watermelon sized energy ball to shrink, condensing back down into the size of a walnut with a surrounding accretion disk the size of a grapefruit. The core fusion reaction continued to shrink until the true fusion core was the size of an olive surrounded by a plasma ball the size of a lemon, which was surrounded by a grapefruit sized accretion disk. An energy force seemed to radiate out of the core, this caused the accretion disk to disperse and form a nebulous cloud around the core but it was not connected to the core.

There was a fundamental difference in the energy flow from before. Up until this point the energy flow direction was going inwards towards the core, at first to form the core and then to stabilize and ignite the core. However, now the core was using collected material to fuse void particles creating void energy photons. These void energy photons could be used to actually do things, and affect the real world. This had been my biggest problem; my power so far had been useful for storing things but not much else. It could not be used to defend or attack. Now it could.

I opened my eyes and was greeted by the sight of a dead deer’s face right in front of my nose staring at me. “WAAH!” I exclaimed toppling over backwards, my arms windmilling backwards.

“Hahahahaha” I heard Isiah laughing. I got up off of the ground brushing off the dirt from my shirt. “Funny, weren’t you supposed to replant the trees?” I snapped back.

“That was an hour ago, you seemed busy so I thought I would go out and hunt our supper, changing always makes me really hungry.” He said.

“An hour?” I had lost all concept of time while meditating; I thought at most 15 minutes had passed since I started.

He started to skin the deer carcass, making quick work. His years of experience hunting showed in the way the blade moved. Nothing was wasted, the skin could be used to make clothes or bags, the internal organs would be used in stews or sausages, even the blood could be used to make black pudding by mixing with oats, onions and spices. Of course hunting game was illegal and considered poaching, but we had been here long enough to establish some illicit connections.

The black Market was a necessary evil in the 6th century as things like meat and fish were regulated by the local lords. Even the grain production was regulated, 90% of the production of wheat was for the lords and the rest was taken up by the rich. The rest of us had to make do with barley and rye. The lords and nobles were known to show off their wealth by having elaborate feasts made and only eating tiny bites whilst throwing the rest away. A common way to judge the character of the particular noble you worked for was, whether he let the servants take the leftover food downstairs into the kitchen or whether it was deliberately thrown out.

The 6th century was different from modern times, 95% of the wealth was owned by 5% of the population… oh wait, Nevermind. It did feel different than modern times though, the quality of life for the average citizen when compared to the ultra-rich was better. 21st century laws may be lenient towards the rich, but at least it existed. You couldn’t openly get away with murder (OJ doesn’t count, that was prosecutorial incompetence), unlike the 6th century. That actually happened, the third son of the duke of Glouvia, modern day Gloucestershire-ish, was known to have sodomised and killed over twenty teen boys, he was never even questioned. The woman who poisoned him, a mother of one of his victims was whipped to death in the middle of the town square.

I shuddered and then shook my head, trying to clear my head of the disturbing thoughts. As an experiment I formed an imaginary edge on the fairly blunt war sword, using the new void energy photons. I touched one of the felled logs with the edge. The log fell apart into two clean slices, upon closer inspection these slices were the cleanest slices ever, they looked like they had been polished. They were shining. A spatial edge, my first attack skill was a spatial edge…

I swiftly cut up the log into small pieces suitable for a fire, I arranged the cut up logs into a conical structure with twigs and small wood chips in the middle. I used a fire striker to ignite some saw dust and used that to make the fire. I had to make the saw dust, normally cutting a tree into logs would generate bags of sawdust, but the spatial edge didn’t even leave a spec behind, so I had to use a saw to create some sawdust.

I used a fan to blow wind on the embers until the fire took hold. By the time I was done with the fire Isiah was done butchering the deer, he used the skin as a bag to carry the meat over to the fire, I brought out some metal skewers, I cut up the two hind legs into chunks, seasoned them using my own stash of spices from the future and started cooking them. We spent the next hour, grilling and eating the dear. I ate about 4 normal portions worth. Isiah ate half a deer.

We packed up the rest into the deer skin and made our way back to the camp. We gave the rest of the meat to the private who was in charge of the cooking, he didn’t care about poaching. We were imperial and poaching fell into local lord’s jurisdiction. We waited until night to take the deer skin to the local tanner, who bought the thing without saying a word.

We split the money evenly and went to bed.

The next day we went back to normal, except that Isiah avoiding Frank. By mid-day Frank was getting annoyed, this would need to be dealt with. I was thinking I would have to talk to Isiah to calm him down at lunch. But before I got the chance, we heard the sound of horses. We turned around to see a group of 5 armoured men on horseback coming into camp. The man in the middle seemed to be important. He was riding a beautiful black warhorse, a stallion, whereas the others were riding the same types of horse used by Mark when he came to “recruit” us.

So this was our commanding officer, Sir Henry Warren, second son of an Earl from the Kingdom of Atrebatia, a small “Kingdom” in the south of England, the northern half of modern day Winchester County. He was what you would call dashing; 5’9” chisel jawed, fit. He had an air of richness around him, although that may have been because he was wearing the most expensive clothes and had a sword with a jewel encrusted hilt.

He got off his horse, handed it to one of his subordinates and made his way towards the waiting Staff Sergeant, who was standing to attention.

They went in and had a debriefing session. The other corporals who had arrived went off to see the quartermaster, to return any borrowed equipment. The only topic of conversation at lunch time was about the Lieutenant’s arrival and what that meant for the battalion. People were excited at the thought of going to the capital; many of us had never been to the capital and were rightfully excited.

“I heard that the capital is the most modern city yet. I heard they have adopted some of the newest technologies and have something called plumbing.” Frank said excitedly

“I heard the city doesn’t smell” Josiah said just as excitedly. This fact had me excited as well, medieval times weren’t the most hygienic, especially the cities. The was filth everywhere, chamber pots were emptied out of the houses and dumped out into the street, it was like walking past an open sewer pipe.

“It is the newest capital in history, it was purpose built by the mages of old to be their capital if they won the great war.” Merlin said as if that explained everything. “It has a magical network of pipes for water and something called a sewer system to remove waste.”

“I thought that magic was illegal” I said curiously, the whole point of this war was to fight a witch, to stop the spread of magic.

“Magic creatures are abominations that need to be killed on sight, but magic artefacts are used by the crown, for the betterment of his subject’s lives.” Merlin said, a hint of fanaticism creeping into his voice. The King’s hypocrisy was lost on him.

“How do you know so much?” I asked Merlin curiously.

“My father is a respected physician in the capital. I haven’t seen him since I was a child, he moved there when the drought destroyed mother’s farm. He moved to the capital to provide for us.” He said proudly. “He even treats the King on occasion; he is the 4th alternate physician to the King.” He said boasting, but there was something else there; resentment. Resentment towards his father was understandable if the two hadn’t seen each other in years.

We were interrupted out of our conversation by loud clanging noises. We all had intimate knowledge of these clangs. We all went to sleep dreaming of destroying that infernal instrument. These were the morning clangs. We all rushed out of the tent and assembled at the assembly point. And then we waited for half an hour. This was England in the summer so of course it was raining. So there we were, outside standing to attention in the rain for half an hour. Eventually the Lieutenant arrived with his entourage of 4 corporals and accompanied by the Staff Sergeant. He walked from the left edge of our grid formation to the right, barely looking at us.

“So these are my new recruits… they will have to do I suppose.” He said, apparently not impressed.

“So where is this squad of elites you spoke of?” he asked the Staff Sergeant

“Squad nine to the front” the Staff Sergeant commanded.

We hurriedly rushed forward, whilst still maintaining formation. The Staff Sergeant ordered us to form a line ready to be inspected.

He inspected each of us closely, he dismissed Isiah and Merlin as not powerful enough, and he seemed to like Josiah and Frank as strong powerful fighters. Finally he got to me; he spent a few seconds walking around me, mumbling to himself. normal people couldn’t hear him but Isiah and I had supernatural hearing. “He is a tall freak, looks sturdily built. Nice-bottom, I wonder if the front is just as pleasing. Pity, pity, pity, he is going to die soon, too inexperienced. His death will bring me glory… glory to house Warren.” He kept mumbling but I was stuck on the die soon part, I shot an alarmed look at Isiah who seemed just as concerned. “Well if they pass this test they might have a chance at survival… but alas, there is no chance of them passing. Pity, pity, pity.” I heard him mumble to himself as he did a final pass around all of us.

“Well they certainly look the part” his eyes darted over to me, “but let’s see how they handle a battle.” The Lieutenant said to the Staff Sergeant. He signalled at the corporals lined up behind his back who then lined up in front of us. “You five will have a fight against these four corporals, so that I can assess your battle prowess.”

The nine of us made our way to the battle area, it was wet and muddy, the slippery ground would favour the more experienced team, it would also neuter Frank and Josiah as they both relied of solid footholds to generate their power. The Sergeant came to the middle acting as the referee. “Choose, your weapons, you may only choose one weapon, a shield and a knife.”

Frank and Josiah chose the spear and shields, Merlin and I chose the sword and shield, Isiah raised some people’s eyebrows by choosing his bow and arrows. The battle area was pretty small, only about 30yards across and 25yards wide, not enough space for a bow to come into its own.

“Let’s be careful” I said, looking at Isiah.

We lined up opposite the corporals, they were all using spears. The Sergeant raised his hand; we all tensed up, all of ready to explode as soon as the hand moved. The elbow twitched downwards and all 9 of us moved.

Isiah retreated back, putting some distance away from the melee.

I used the edge of my shield to block a thrust of the spear, moving forwards past the spear’s point. I slashed at the corporal, I was 5 inches taller than him and I had long arms, I was using that to compensate for the spear’s extra range. My strike was blocked by my opponent’s shield; I swung my own shield at his shield, binding the shields. I was close, too close. At this range the spear was useless. He tried to let go of his spear and tried to grab the knife on his belt, but it was too late. I had leveraged myself to his left, past his shield, which I had skilfully moved towards his right. I used a horizontal swing to “cut” him down. It wasn’t the best of swings, the extreme close proximity had nerfed some of the swords power, I hit him with the heel of my blade, which had less power. In a real battle this may not have penetrated his mail, but in this mock battle this counted as my win.

I looked around at the other battles, both Josiah and Merlin were out, Merlin had at least managed to create an opening and his opponent had been “shot” by Isiah. It was now two on three, but Frank was losing. I saw Josiah’s opponent charging at me whilst using his shield to block a couple of Isiah’s arrows. I turned to face him, but then I got lucky. The wet mud caused him to slip a little, and he thrusted his spear too early, I swung my shield to block, using its inside edge. I used my own swing’s momentum to twirl behind his thrust and then used a reverse swing at his torso to end it. This time the contact was much better, it probably would have broken some ribs if I hadn’t pulled back at the last moment.

I turned my attention to Frank’s battle. Frank was losing; his battle had gone on for about 30 seconds now. This was a fast frantic battle, it was anaerobic, and Frank was getting tired. Frank tried a low thrust trying to trip his opponent, or cause him to drop his shield to block, giving Isiah a chance to shoot Frank’s opponent. His opponent was good, he dropped to one knee blocking the strike trapping Frank’s spear. An arrow sailed over where his chest would have been. Frank had had to overextend slightly to go for the knees; his opponent used that slight gap to strike. “Spearing” Frank in the gut.

Before Frank’s opponent could even stand up I placed the edge of my sword on his neck. He looked up surprised to see me looking back at him. He nodded his head conceding defeat. I retracted my sword. I offered my hand to pull him up off of the ground.

“Good, your squad may just be able to survive the next few months.” He said looking me in the eyes.