Two things had become apparent to Michael in the last few minutes. One was that Regitris’s furniture may have been composed out of vines, but they were as hard to damage as stone. And second, those vines may have had the life stolen out of them, but that didn’t mean they were now incapable of movement. He had learned that when he had tried to hide under the table or behind a chair. As soon as he stayed in one place for more than a few seconds, a vine shot out and slapped Michael across the nearest body part. Stomach was ok. Face hurt. Under the belt though…

And why was he trying to hide? That was because the old elf seemed intent in administering Michael a test of his own, not content with the normal testing session every student endured. Oh, it didn’t look like he was seriously trying to hurt Michael, though the elf did provide a couple of Healing Potions the young man needed, after Regitris’s Spells cut a little too close for comfort. And most of the Spells thrown around were low-level or so the elf said. The problem was twofold though. One was that he just wouldn’t stop. The second is that he wouldn’t tell him why he was doing this.

“To tell you would be to interfere with the experiment. Now, if you can talk, you can dodge.” The elf said, after Michael raggedly asked what was this all for one more time. “|Flame Orb|.”

Michael had been dodging Spell after Spell for minutes. The first time he got tired he had simply tried to weather the rest of the Spell. They hurt and they were annoying, but they didn’t do damage. That was when the elf switched from wind and blast spells to fire and lightning.

Now, he dodged or blocked or tried to hide, though that last one didn’t work too well.

“Sir, at least let me know the win conditions! Do I have to defeat you? Or escape?”

“I would not be as cruel as to have you defeat men, Michael.” He laughed. “And the ‘win condition’ is when I decide I’ve seen enough. |Stone Darts|.”

Shit.

That was one of the more dangerous ones. The last time he got clipped by the flying stones, they actually had to stop for him to gulp down a Healing Potion. Regitris tended to send one of those his way whenever he talked too much.

Can’t keep dancing like this. That Stamina Potion already almost made me throw up.

It tasted foul, though perhaps it did because of all the other potions he had ingested before it. Still, Michael thought that if dodging wouldn’t do the trick and blocking only worked for the easiest of Spells, his only choice was to go on the attack. He couldn’t win, but maybe it would win him enough time to get to the door, which was sightly open and directly at the elf’s back.

Yet strategy was needed too. If he just started to fire away, the mage would block his Spell before he managed to run around him and then target him again. No, he needed to get close first. Then fire his Spell at point-blank range. Too close for it to be stopped. That might win him a way out…

Or I manage to piss him off for real and he starts using me for target practice.

Strategy thought up, Michael started running around the room more energetically. He noticed than whenever he did this, the old elf preferred to target him with softer hitting Spells, though he sent them much faster than other types.

“Trying to play to your strengths. Agility, the bane of elders everywhere.” He laughed. “Well thought. Though not enough. |Wind Blast|. |Homing Wind Darts|. |Water Jet|. Good, good! Let me know when you require a potion of any kind.”

It wasn’t big enough of a room for Michael to do laps in, though he had grown very tired. Yet asking for a Stamina Potion would require him to stop.

Unless…

“I’ll have another Stamina Potion.” Michael called out and ran to the mage.

“Of course.” The old elf nodded and reached inside his robes.

He took out the glowing vial and tried to toss it at Michael, before freezing for a second. Michael had moved towards the old elf, but had never stopped running. And given the short distance, he was now just a couple of feet away from the mage. Right next to him. Why, his hand was practically in Regitris’s face.

“|Fire Bolt|!”

It should have worked. Michael was perfectly prepared to run away. He just needed to see the blast go off and he’d sprint it to the door. Yet that didn’t happen. What did happen was that his Spell left his hand, made impact and just… winked out.

But I could feel my Spell hitting… something.

A great force lifted Michael and slammed him back to the floor.

He raised his eyes and froze, seeing Regitris looking at him with a murderous look.

“You would dare try and trick me? Attack me?!” he thundered.

Oh, shit.

“My apologies, sir, I was sure you would be able to block it-“

“Of course, I am able to block it. |Magical Nullification Barrier|. An advanced Spell. Not that a worm like you could cast even a simple |Barrier| Spell.”

He was looking scary… Waves of power were emanating away from him and there was pure fury in his eyes.

“Here. Let me demonstrate.” He jeered. “I’ll cast a simple Spell. Simple enough that even a |Barrier| will stop it. Simple, yet deadly. Try and survive, Michael the Gifted.”

“Sir… sir, please. I was just trying to win our test.”

“Talking will not save you, boy.” The old elf said, eyes grown wide.

Michael had no idea what was with the sudden change in behavior, but he didn’t have time to think about it. His whole focus was on surviving. |Barrier| Spell. How could he cast that? He had no idea what it was? But… he did feel his own Spell hit something. And Regitris had said he had an advanced version of it. So…

Damn it. What did I see?! Think!

His mind worked itself to oblivion trying to bring a fracture of time into perspective. He remembered… the feel of it. Like a separation of space. A shield, but spanning out. His own magic sinking into it.

“Time’s up. Greater Light Lance!”

A ray of light shot out from Regitris hands just as Michael’s eyes snapped open.

He knew it. It that slip of time between thoughts, he figured it out.

|Spell Received: Barrier|

A pane of transparent forced appeared before him, outside of his reaching hand, ready to stop the elf’s spell from impaling him. Only, Reitris’s lance of light just stood there. Frozen in time. And the elf himself no longer looked menacing. There were no more waves of power roiling out and he was once again smiling serenely. Even the room itself looked hospitable.

When did it stop looking like that?

“Oho! So you do learn by adversity. Though only one you truly feel, I now see. My apologies, dear boy. I had to sell the act. |Remove Fear|.”

The elf smiled at him, waving his hand and dissipating the illusion of a light lance, as Michael slowly got his breathing under control.

“What…”

***

Regitris came clean after serving Michael a new cup of tea, one he sipped on with still trembling hands. Apparently, the first part of his test, the one involving hitting him with Spells was because he needed to test his strategy. He had revealed to Michael that this was also part of the official test, the one every student faced.

“We can teach magic quite easily. Character and the strategic mind are harder things to instill.”

It seems he approved of Michael’s attempt of distracting him via a close range attack, though he did warn him that would have been unlikely to work on anyone over 10 Levels higher than his own. Unfortunately for Michael, that was also when Regitris discovered an opportunity.

“You see, I dislike uncertainty. I have already told you that you may be the type of mage who advanced via adversity. That picks up new Spells by combat. Yet I didn’t know for sure. Therefore, when you attacked me, I saw my chance. You know little of elves, as most people do. You cannot be sure of our temper. Therefore, an explosion of rage caused by a slight affront seems… believable, I suppose.”

Well, Michael mostly knew that elves had long blonde hair and liked shooting arrows, but hey…

“A |Fear| Spell here, an |Illusion| Spell there and the conditions were optimal for you to believe me. I then only had to persuade you in learning a new Spell and waiting to see if you were capable. And my boy, you do not disappoint.”

Michael would have dearly wanted to comment on that. He also would have wanted to ask for more details about this entire learning by combat thing. It sounded like it had good uses and we wouldn’t have said no to a chance at gaming it out. Not to mention that he was quite interested in exploring his newly received Spell.

Yet… here’s the thing. He had just been transported to a new world a few days ago. The he went into a trial by combat which landed him in a magical coma. Then he got drunk inside a magical academy. And only after all that, did he have the chance at being used as a target dummy by the most powerful mage around, before being frightened into learning a new Spell.

So… yeah. He was tired.

“Sir, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m very tired. And I don’t think a Stamina Potion will do the trick this time.”

“Ah.” Regitris said, his eyes growing kind again. “My apologies, young Michael. I sometimes forget that our younger members do not have the Skills or Stamina to last as long as the rest of us. Especially as a great part of your tiredness was of my own doing. I will let you off to bed, but first, I will tell you of my faction.”

Michael groaned internally, but still listened dutifully. It paid to be informed.

“You may have noticed that young Micah has found his own backer. Ravena. A mage of natural inclinations. Their faction is not strong, not wide, but there are a number of them even here in Gnosis. There are other factions as well. Those whose main purpose is their interest. Golem makers, monster tamers. There are factions whose purpose is the aesthetic and which are full of |Magical Painters| or |Spellsingers|. And there are also those who take interest solely into the martial aspects of our lives. |Battlemages| and |War Wizards|. I consider us lucky that they didn’t get to you first.” He laughed.

Michael privately though that he would have liked to meet any and all factions before making a decision, but kept that for himself.

“Then again, I find it likely that they will approach you surely enough. Yet that is not either here nor there. Gnosis is filled with factions and it would take a lifetime to expose them all. Some… I am not sure even exists anymore. Some I know are hidden. And some are as loose with their membership as to not even exists, except in name. As for my own faction, I will only say this.”

He stood up straighter then, his eyes looking more focused. It didn’t look like he was about to hold a speech. It simply looked like he was finally completely serious.

“My own faction did not have a name for a long time, for we did not consider our goals to be unique. We thought them to be the logical way of life for all magic users. In time, though, other streams of thought appeared. Even today, very few actually oppose us or call what we think and do wrong. Other factions simply have other primary goals or choose to dedicate themselves to other scopes. Yet yes, in time, other streams of thought have appeared as well and we found ourselves in need of a name.”

He looked almost amused then, as if remembering a joke.

“Other understood our goal as ascension. Yet that is not what we seek, not exactly. Nevertheless, it is the name we adopted. I am an Ascentionalist, as are other like me. Yet we do not seek to remove ourselves from this world, as the name implies. We seek the continual betterment of ourselves. We seek mastery over magic and through it, mastery over anything else. We seek to become the best, to continually become the best, ever surpassing, even if that which we have surpassed is the version of ourselves from a time past.”

Regitris looked at Michael and nodded.

“Where others have interest in the here and now, we look only towards the future. To the next step and the next peak. Both for ourselves and others. That is why I have come to you, young Michael. I believe you can be one of us. Understand, we are not elitist, at least not as some understand the term. We welcome all to think and do as we think and do, but we open our inner circle only to those who have both the drive and the capacity and raise the entire bar.”

He placed his hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“There is so much more to tell, yet I see the weariness in you. Therefore, I will say no more, at least not tonight. I do not require an answer from you Michael, not right away. But please, think on it. We could use your talent.”

“Thank you, sir. I will think on it.” Michael said and meant every word.

That had been a better speech than he expected.

Regitris smiled and waved his other hand in a circle.

“Good night, young Michael.”

“Good night, sir.”

With a flash of light, Michael felt the pull of teleportation again and in a second, he found himself in front of a bed. Barely managing to take of his robe, he collapsed in it, his mind reaching the plane of dreams almost immediately.

So started Michael’s first year at Gnosis.