The wooden stands on the outside of the ring were essentially slapdash together with wooden boards. The shipbuilder who built them managed to do so as fast as he did by leaving the insides completely hollow. In the end, it was lucky that Arinn got kicked into those stands instead of towards one of the brick instructors buildings.

As the sawdust settled, Arinn could be seen half buried in the wood. Thankfully no one had been sitting there. His back end was clean through the seats, with his arms and legs sticking straight out; his wizards cloak was draped over his body and he had somehow kept a grip on his staff. It wasn’t until Arinn began to groan and attempt to wiggle his way out that everyone snapped out of their staring. Those closest rushed forward to help him untangle himself from his cloak.

I stand up and glance at my remaining mana; it’s a little under half now. I finger the potion bag strapped to my right hip — If Arinn can still move around it means he hasn’t Passed Out. I haven’t won yet.

“I’m, ugh — I’m done! I forfeit, whatever, just get me out of here.” Says Arinn.

Oh. Well, I guess the fight is over then.

“What do you mean you’re done?!” Says Mr. Lopez. He rushes up the stands in a huff. Arinn is swiping wood chips off of his robe. “You can clearly still move about fine, so get back in there and finish the duel!”

“Have you not been paying attention?” Says Arinn. “Apparently, D0n can cancel my fire magic. And I am a fire mage. Going back out there is only asking to get dropkicked through a wooden structure. Again. I'm done, it’s his win.”

Mr. Lopez groans while holding his head. “You were hired as an instructor because the system recognized you as an experienced magic user. I am sure you know more than just fire magic, so why don't you give that a try?”

Even from here, the disgust on Arinn’s face at that suggestion is clear as day. “Hello? I am a fire mage. Why would I want to use anything other than fire? That’s just ridiculous.”

I nod my head; what he’s saying makes perfect sense. I mean if you went through all the trouble of crafting your character to match a certain aesthetic, there's no reason to ever go outside of that. I'm not the only one agreeing with him, almost every player here is nodding their head in respect towards Arinn.

Mr. Lopez uses two fingers to rub at his temples and mutters, “This is why I can't stand gamers.”

Arinn shakes his head at the man, and goes to find himself a seat near the front. A couple of the other players give him a sympathetic pat on the back as he walks past.

Mr. Lopez makes his way down and returns to the ring. He points blindly to his left, towards the other combat instructors. “You, there, I don't care which. Come get in the ring, you're next.”

His finger ends up pointing at the Long Range instructor. This must've been their first day, because I don't recognize him. He looks young, somewhere in his mid teens. He is wearing a simple green hunters cloak, over some very light leather armor. He has a crossbow strapped to his back. He jumps up after being called on, and nervously takes off the hood of his cloak, revealing messy, sandy-blonde hair, and a freckled baby face that makes him look even younger. He glances nervously at the Attack instructor and Zhaz. They both give him a nod and so he makes his way to center stage. He is clearly intimidated by the exasperated man from management.

I start to hop in place and loosen my shoulders from the adrenaline of the last fight. My mana is already mostly regenerated; luckily it regens faster in safe zones, when not in combat. But even the residual heat of Arinn’s last spell chipped a good chunk of my health away. I flip open the flap on my potion pouch and reach in the front side to grab one of the healing potion pills. My character hasn’t been able to level up my health pool, so I need to make sure I start each round fresh.

I pop the pill in my mouth, chewing it. Both the leaf wrapper and the sugared potion dissolve almost instantly on my tongue. Whoa! Emily somehow made the healing potion strawberry flavored. Weird, I wouldn’t have expected it but the combination of strawberry and basil actually tastes pretty good.

The Long Range instructor keeps glancing nervously between Mr. Lopez — who is still rubbing at his temples — and me. I give him a little wave.

“All right then,” says Mr. Lopez. He flips through a couple invisible screens and then looks at the Long Range instructor. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“It's uhh, it's ShhhSquirrel.”

Mr. Lopez groans and wipes his hand down his face. “Of course it is.”

I give ShhhSquirrel a huge grin and a thumbs up. His name is fantastic!

He gives me a shy smile back.

“Very well,” says Mr. Lopez. He lifts his right hand in the air. “Round two of this challenge will be between the challenger, D0n, and… ShhhSquirrel. Get ready.”

ShhhSquirrel hurries to grab a bolt from the quiver strapped to his waist and then bends down to draw his crossbow string back. Securing the base of the crossbow with one foot, he pulls the string to the locked position, places the bolt in the barrel groove, and aims the loaded crossbow at me.

I turn my body sideways and activate a Wind Cloak. I agitate the mana along my chest, ready to launch a Wind Burst at a moment's notice. I could never convince the previous Long Range instructors to shoot at me, so I don't really know if I can react to a crossbow bolt in time. But I'm hoping this method might give me enough speed to dodge.

“Begin!”

“Eek!” ShhhSquirrel jumps at the announcement and shoots his crossbow immediately. I push a Wind Burst out of my chest and slide back a couple feet; though it really wasn't necessary. In his surprise, ShhhSquirrel had shot the bolt into the building behind me, a good five feet above my head.

Well… that bolt still flew super fast, so I don't want to just give him another shot for free. I switch to a Lightning Cloak and — for added power — thrust my right hand out while saying, “Lightning Arrow.”

So a bad habit I never quite fixed from fighting Riyu all the time is that I tend to shoot a little bit to the left or to the right of an opponent — trying to predict which way they will attempt to dodge. But ShhhSquirrel’s didn't react at all. Which meant that my Lightning Arrow flew harmlessly past him. Apparently that was close enough to freak him out, since he desperately scurries away from where the spell passed; he half trips over himself from trying to pull back the string of his crossbow and run at the same time.

Huh.

I think everybody here also just realized that ShhhSquirrel is not used to Player vs. Player fighting. Like at all.

Hmm… a critical hit from a crossbow bolt could still knock me out though, so I guess I should try to end this as quickly as possible. Before he can get his nerves under control.

Might as well try that technique then.

ShhhSquirrel is still in the middle of pulling his crossbow string back, constantly glancing between it and me. Can't get any closer, or I might scare him away. I switch to a Water Cloak, and with as much force as possible I push water mana out of my left hand towards him. I purposefully don't give the mana any form to take, so what comes out is just regular water; it looks like it was shot from a water gun. It flies in a straight line, making a puddle of water from me all the way to where it drenches ShhhSquirrel’s legs.

He stares at me in confusion with a crossbow bolt still in his hand. I give him a gentle smile. I switch to a Wind Cloak, pull my left leg back, and shoot out pure wind without form through a kick.

A while back I had tested how elements react to each other. And I found out that certain reactions will occur as long as both elements are made of my mana. In the case of water — when wind touches it, it turns into ice. Setting up for an ice spell normally takes me a lot of time. But when I do have that time, I can do little tricks like this.

The wind launched from my kick spreads across the puddle of water I previously shot, changing it to a sheet of ice. It also freezes ShhhSquirrels legs to the ground. He freaks out from the sensation and tries to back up, but since his legs are still frozen in place it causes him to nearly fall down. In the end he is left pulling on his legs, confused and worried.

I glance behind the wiggling ShhhSquirrel and spot Arinn sitting with the rest of the instructors. Since he was the inspiration for what comes next, I give him a wink. I lift up my right hand and point with two fingers.

“Oh deities of fire, oh you proud denizens of heat…” While speaking the incantation words, I pull a string of mana through my fire point, to my finger, and shoot a small ball of flame to the left of ShhhSquirrel. Instead of extinguishing on contact, the ball of fire smacks into the ground and stays hovering in place.

“Any obstacle in your path can be burned…”

As the second Fireball marker lands to the right of ShhhSquirrel, a look of horror spreads across his face. Looks like he realized what I’m doing. He hurriedly grabs a crossbow bolt from his quiver and nocks it into the grove. He lifts the loaded crossbow up and turns to aim it at my chest.

“And through the air itself your embers fly…” I calmly shoot the third fire marker just under his left arm, to mark a point behind him. Like I expected, ShhhSquirrel flinches from the fireball flying so close to him. In his fear, his finger accidentally twitches on the crossbow’s trigger, and the bolt gets shot harmlessly into the air.

He groans and brings his crossbow down, trying to pull the string back again, but doesn’t know what to do as his foot is still frozen. He doesn’t have anything to brace the crossbow with to let him to pull back on the string hard enough.

“Allow me to be the vessel of your ascent…” I shoot the fourth flame marker just to ShhhSquirrel’s right, hitting the ground behind him. An intermediate spell sure does take a long time to cast. But the resulting power is so worth it.

ShhhSquirrel looks behind him, glancing at the nearly finished ring of fire around him. There’s terror in his eyes as he starts to yank back on the string of his crossbow with both hands. The mechanical advantage of a crossbow’s locking system means that you can use a draw strength far higher than normal; it’s like being able to always shoot an arrow from a bow that you yourself are not strong enough to draw. And the drawback of that fact was fully dawning on him.

I point my two fingers to a spot just in front of ShhhSquirrel and shoot the fifth and final Fireball marker there. He stares at the little flame, seeming to forget to breathe. Now in the grips of full panic he yanks a bolt from his quiver and starts jabbing it against the ice trapping his legs. If he had done that from the beginning, it might've worked.

“Let this ring be the point of origin, let the tongues of fire reach towards the heavens…”

I stick out both hands, feeling little tongues of fire gather on my palms. “Rise up, Flame Pillar!”

I slam both hands — now wreathed in flames — into the ground. On contact, I feel an immense amount of fire mana flood out of my body and stream in a line underground towards the last fire marker I shot; it joins all of the markers into a circle of fire. And ShhhSquirrel is right in the middle of it.

The the spell fully activates from here on. In a swirling motion, a column of fire bursts up from the ground. Intense heat radiates across the whole of the Tutorial Village square, and my vision is filled with red. The column reaches so high in the sky that the tips of the fire lick against the edge of the cloud dome.

The spell lasts for a few seconds at full strength. As it finally dwindles away, a charred ShhhSquirrel is left in the center of a scorched circle of stone. He collapses onto the ground face first like a puppet with its strings cut. He’s Passed Out.

Everybody turns to look at the man from management. He was staring at the spell like everyone else, and grimaces as he notices all of the attention turn to him. He lifts his hand up. “D0n is the winner.”

There might have been some applause for me normally, but everyone’s attention is currently pre-occupied. I make my way towards ShhSquirrel, worried about him as well. I reach down to try and help him up but my hand freezes before I can touch him. It suddenly hits me that we've never met before, so I can’t possibly be on his friends list as someone registered with access to move him in a Passed Out state. In fact, it looks like everybody has realized this. No one else comes forward, which means nobody here knows him like that either. There’s an awkward silence as nobody is sure what to do.

“Go heal him,” says Zhaz Morrowolf. He is looking at the priestess NPC, Laurel. She nods her head with a very serious expression and moves forward towards ShhhSquirrel. She turns him around, on to his back, and casts a healing spell. Everybody lets out a sigh of relief.

Of course. Those kind of access restrictions wouldn’t apply to an NPC the way it would to a player. Quick thinking, Zhaz!

ShhhSquirrel suddenly starts coughing and gets up on his hands and knees.

“You okay?” I say.

“Yeah — cough — yeah I'm fine.” He sits back on his heels and pats some of the soot off of his hair.

“That was, umm…” Mr. Lopez says, walking over. “… How did you get here as an instructor?”

“I’m a hunter, not a PVP’er. You need to learn how to find and track a specific animal? I can identify their footprint at a glance and tell you which biome you can easily find them in. But I don't even like hunting hostile mobs if I can help it. There's no way I was gonna know what to do against that!” He says, pointing at me.

… I blame the fact that my usual sparring partner was a battle junkie for making me think everyone knows how to fight. I feel a little bad now.

I go to ShhhSquirrel and offer him my hand. “Yeah… sorry about that.”

“Don't be.” He takes my hand and gets to his feet. The priestess Laurel is hovering behind him the whole time, still concerned. “Everybody got so excited about setting up for a fighting tournament against you; you had like three people making your gear, AngryTurtle put so much effort into making this stage, and everyone started betting on the outcomes. I wasn’t able to find a good time to speak up that wasn’t awkward. It doesn’t matter though. You’re a damn good fighter, and that last spell was insane. Good luck with the rest, D0n.”

ShhhSquirrel gives me a little thumbs and slowly makes his way back to the other instructors with the help of the priestess NPC.

Hahh, what a waste. It would've been super fun to ask him about all of his hunting knowledge. Granted, even if I didn't have to leave after this, it would’ve been really awkward to go up to him and ask for help after casting a Flame Pillar on him.

I glance down to my right and look at my mana bar. The power you get from an intermediate spell is incredible, but I'm simply not at a high enough level to do it more than once. Looking at the mana bar now, even after the fight has been over for a while, there is only the tiniest sliver of blue there. It’s practically at zero.

I reach into my potion pouch and grab two mana potion pills. I’m not even sure these’ll be enough to fully regen my mana, but it’s likely I’ll have to use more during the next round. If I take too many now I run the risk of getting hit by mana poisoning in the middle of a fight. I pop the two into my mouth and chew, waiting for the powder to dissolve.

Oooh! She went with a kind of jelly for this one, like a soft gummy, with sugared juice in the center. It’s blueberry flavored. Again, even with the addition of the leaf’s basil flavor, this tastes shockingly good. Dang, Emily is one heck of a cook.

Mr. Lopez continues to flick through some invisible screens in the center of the ring. Without looking up he says, “Okay then, for the next round I suppose we can —“

“I will go.” It’s the new Attack instructor. He is a serious looking man with hair shaved close to his head; he is wearing a gray monk’s outfit, complete with cloth shoes bound to his shins with cord. The staff behind his back is just taller than he is, and made of dark metal.

“After witnessing the last two fights I became quite eager for my own turn. I had asked the good Sir Morrowolf if I could go before him, and he agreed.”

Mr. Lopez is not bothered in the slightest this time about getting cut off. In fact he looks pretty pleased that one of the combat instructors finally looks enthusiastic about fighting me. He gives a nod in assent and goes back to his holograms with a smile on his face.

The attack instructor turns to me now. “My name is Bufo. I've seen you around the village before, D0n. But I don't think we have ever had the chance to properly meet. I look forward to our match.”

“Same here.” I say, and give him a little bow in return.

When I had first thought of challenging the Village instructors, he was one of the big inspirations for it. Bufo was usually logging off around the time I would login for the day, and vice versa. It's been a while since I last got to spar against an Attack alignment, so I’m getting excited.

“Very well, round three of this challenge will be between Bufo and the challenger, D0n. Ready…”

The Attack instructor pulls his staff out from behind his back. He holds it with both hands in a loose grip and relaxes his legs in a wide, stable stance. I lift both of my hands in the air, hovering them around shoulder height. I haven't had a chance to fight against the range of a staff user before. For now, my best bet is to test out his reactions and get a better feel for how he fights.

“Begin!”

“Waterball! Fireball!”

As soon as Mr. Lopez swings his arm down I use a shortened incantation to shoot a Waterball out of my left hand and a Fireball out of my right hand.

Without getting flustered, Bufo thrusts his staff to break the Waterball. He then immediately links that movement into a twirl of his staff to catch and extinguish the Fireball following behind. He’s good.

Then how about this…

I pull mana through my earth point and bring it down into my left leg. I slam the heel of my foot into the ground in front of me and say the now shortened incantation, “Reach out and fight, Earth Spear!” From the ground where I stomped, a sharpened shaft of earth rises up and thrusts out at an angle, aimed right at the attack instructor’s chest.

Bufo leans backwards and plants the butt of his staff into the ground; he uses it to spring up and over the Earth Spear. He actually finishes that movement by landing on the protrusion of earth caused by my spell and runs down it right at me.

Damn it he’s fast! Thanks to the reach from his staff it’s only a moment before he’s throwing out his own attack.

I pull on an earth cloak by blocking my metal mana point, and immediately activate that mana inside of my right arm. It forces all of the muscles in my arm to lock up, but in exchange it raises my defense tremendously. I take Bufo’s first staff swing with my arm, the earth buff allowing me to defend it. He immediately reverses the spin after the first hit to aim for my left side. It’s all I can do to bring up my left forearm and activate the mana there to lock it in place; I’m able to get my guard up in time to block the second attack as well. But this is only the beginning.

That second hit of his slides off of my forearm and is immediately shifted into a thrust, aimed right at my shoulder. This time I’m not able to activate my mana in time, and the force behind the blow is intense. Luckily, in my haste I had just activated the earth mana across my entire chest, so it’s there to block the following three thrusts. But man, getting hit by a metal staff hurts!

The swings from Bufo’s staff are coming in a flurry I can barely see, the speed only getting faster. I'm doing my best to block them but he’s careful to constantly switch up his aim. He’ll go from a swing at my head to a thrust towards my thigh, and back up to a short swing at my shoulder. I can't react in time to all of them and each one I miss shaves more and more of my health away. There’s no clear gaps in his attacks, so I can’t see an opportunity to get in or get away, and the strikes don’t seem to be stopping any time soon.

I close my thighs together and lift my arms in front of my face to defend my head. As a last ditch attempt I'm forced to activate all of the earth mana throughout my body. His hits are doing significantly less damage now but thanks to the side effect of all of my muscles locking up I'm just a punching bag at this point.

Since I can't move anyway I shift my focus to the mana along my legs. Very carefully I loosen the mana activation there and imagine it zigzagging back-and-forth, violently traveling down my thighs, through my calves, to my feet, and into the ground. I can only perform this spell voiceless if I ignore everything and just focus on it. But right now that's all I can do anyway. I activate the earth spell, Quake.

The ground underneath Bufo and me begins to shake violently. This spell doesn't break the stone floor of the ring, nor does it do any damage, but it's perfect for interrupting an opponent. The fact that the barrage of hits on my body stopped is proof of that. It's time to give back what I got.

I move the cork used to block my mana point, and change the Earth Cloak into a Metal Cloak. The metal mana spread throughout my body helps to stabilize me against the after-affects of the Quake spell. I’m able to move freely. I can see Bufo, still with unstable footing and struggling to get control over his balance. I rush forward in a low crouch and deliver a left straight packed with metal mana, directly into his gut. That punch has enough force in it that he doubles over. I chain the attack by rising into a short uppercut. The motion of the punch makes me stand up straight and his body rises off of his feet. I lift my right leg into the air and kick straight out into his chest. I make sure to release some metal mana with each hit. The look of pain on Bufo’s face tells me he can feel it.

That last kick pushes his body away just far enough that he can’t immediately launch a return hit, even with his staff. I take the lull created by it to glance at my remaining health. A quarter of it is already gone.

“Final hit!”

All of a sudden I feel an incredibly sharp pain lance through my right thigh. Bufo is in a low stance with his staff still in an extended thrust. Even now he looks like he’s too far away to have hit me. But there is an extension of orange energy receding from the tip of his staff. That skill must have been a combo finisher, designed to let you get one last hit in, even after your opponent gets blown away. Used on its own, it gives a much longer reach than normal.

I don't have the mental focus to criticize myself for being so careless. The pain radiating through my leg drops me to one knee. I took a direct hit from a skill while wearing a metal cloak. And the cost for the speed and power of that element is that I take far more damage if I’m hit while it’s activated. That one blow alone took me down to half health.

I’m clutching my thigh in pain when I hear a yell. It came from above. Bufo had used his staff like a pole vault to launch him high into the air, and now he's coming down with a big overhead swing of his metal staff right at my head.

Shit!

As quick as I can, I shift to a Wind Cloak and lift my right hand up into the air, bracing my wrist with my left hand.

“Palm of the Wind Sprite!” A sensation like that of wind stumbling through my arm goes all the way to my palm. Wind gathers from the air in front of me and shoots out in a concussive, solid blast of air. It smacks Bufo square in the chest. He was mid-swing as the spell landed, but thankfully there’s enough force in the wind’s push to shove him back just in time. Even still, the tip of his staff grazes so close to my face that I can feel the air being parted from the attack.

Bufo is launched backwards far enough that there is now the width of the ring between us.

I'm shaking. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. Goosebumps rise across my arms and I feel my breath getting faster. Adrenaline courses through my blood. My muscles tensing in anticipation.

This is it. This is that same rush I felt whenever I fought Riyu near the end of his stay.

I missed this.