The next day Derek’s training began again. He would wake up well before dawn and head down to the smithy for a few hours before heading up to the castle for training with the clan. Children of the clan were not required to participate in the clan classes and training once their trials had started. It was understood that once the trials ended they would be adults of the clan from then on.

Derek went to these sessions anyways. There he would meet up with Belany and Hector. This provided a good example for the children and they were able to assist the younger ones with their training. Afterwards, the three went up to the training yard in the mountain clearing where Derek helped prepare Belany and Hector for the third trial competition under Ovid and Rebekah’s supervision.

Belany and Hector were at a distinct disadvantage when compared to Elton and Feros. There were multiple reasons for this. The first and most important was that this competition only allowed the use of the clan’s fighting forms and spells and any that the competitor had created themselves.

This was no issue for a warrior type. While the clan’s forms were inefficient for fighting humans, the glaive and warsword were still more than effective enough to defeat someone with comparable basic attributes. Magic warriors would start to encounter difficulties. They could still use the spells created by the clan for defense, holy magic as a combination of light and order was just as strong on defense as earth magic, but the offensive capabilities of smite which is the premier Thorne clan offensive sword spell are mediocre at best against a human opponent.

This is even worse for a mage type. Holyfire was designed to wash over a region, killing demons and their cultist followers and healing and rejuvenating nearby untainted humans. This was the primary offensive spell available to Belany and Hector and not only could it not hurt Elton and Feros, it would heal them and rejuvenate them.

Besides that reason for their disadvantage was the basic disadvantage that all low tier mages had when in short range fights with warriors. But compared to the difficulty imposed by not being able to use most of the spells a mage has at their disposal, that was a mere nuisance. This meant that the goal for the three of them was to come up with strategies and custom spells to overcome this difficulty.

The three of them donned training garb. Derek put on the old training armor he was used to and equipped a training glaive that would approximate the weapon Elton and Feros would pick for their contests against Belany and Hector. The glaive had better reach and was the better choice for fighting a mage that might attempt to stay out of reach to cast more spells. Belany and Hector equipped loose flowing armored robes and mage staffs. All of their equipment allowed use of level four spells and the glaive had a blunted softwood head that would absorb most of the blow when it struck something to prevent injury.

The three of them came out into the training yard initially to discuss what strategy would be effective for the competition. Ovid and Rebekah could not interfere but merely supervised so that the three youths would not be in danger. The first few sessions like this were to determine what types of spells to create for the purpose of the trial and how to use them. The sessions after this were to practice them and to improve their use.

Derek’s purpose in all of this was to represent their opponent and he had no intention of being a punching bag. He would of course suppress his power to that of peak tier zero to give an adequate representation of their opponents, even slightly stronger than Elton and Feros would actually be, but he would not go easy on them. It was his intent to help them improve as much as possible in the month that they had.

This effort continued until a few days before the trial. Derek was in a sorry state. Belany and Hector had improved greatly and with the limitations of the rules of the competition it was not them that were suppressed but rather him. Belany had already defeated him twice before and The defeat today was enough to know that further defeats were all that he could expect in the future. Hector had won once a few days ago and now they were facing each other again.

Derek did not like losing at all, even if it was to help his clansmen win their upcoming trials he still had his pride as a warrior. He had no intention of losing this time. If Hector wanted to win he would have to fight for it. The two youths were standing ten yards apart from each other and Derek could see perspiration forming on Hector’s forehead and a look of concentration in his eyes. Hector was going to give it his all.

“Fight!” Belany shouted to start the match and the two boys started to move. Hector drifted backwards, his whole body leaning back while Derek attempted to dash forward. Just as Derek’s foot hit the ground with the second step he sensed the fluctuation in the air.

He had experienced this attack before. He formed a defensive spell within his armor and attempted to lower his body to reduce the area that the wind could hit. It was too late though and Hector’s control was too good. The wind that was initially merely flowing from Hector towards Derek shifted downwards and caught Derek in the upper chest with an upward motion. This wind was like that of a fierce hurricane. Derek was protected by his spell but the force still lifted him off his feet.

“Damn it!” Derek cursed as he was lifted and propelled backwards. Fifteen minutes ago the wind that Belany used had sent him all the way out of the match space, a result that would have been scored a loss for him. He was not a fan of letting that happen again and he used a smite and all the torque he could muster as he slammed the glaive into the ground that was swiftly passing below him. He finally came to stop a few feet from the line that would have marked him out and glared at Hector.

“That won’t happen twice in one day!” He shouted ferociously as he started to charge forward again. He could see the distance between him and Hector was quite large. Hector had used the same wind he had summoned to propel himself to the opposite end of the competition space.

Derek already knew that this fight was going to become a nightmare for him. He had helped Hector and Belany design the spells they would use in this fight and had helped create the strategy. He knew that unless Hector screwed up he was going to have a bad time.

Derek gritted his teeth and started to charge forward but just as his foot touched down on that first step the solid earth beneath his feet became a mire. His foot sunk into the packed dirt all the way to the knee. The dirt had not become mud, it had merely given way for his leg to become trapped there. He used his own earth magic to step out but every step he had to repeat the action. If he was Elton or Feros that would be enough. Neither had an essentia pool large enough to power this usage repeatedly.

An essentia pool can often be called a mana pool. Both terms are effective in describing it. It is formed by the gathering of essence into a pool in the body. Mana can then be drawn from it. Mana is the energy released by essentia, the solidified form of essence. It can be used to power magic and regenerates over time naturally.

Though the three of them did not expect Elton or Feros to be able to last long expending their essentia in this way, this Earthtrap spell they had created was only the second spell designed for this competition. Windbuffet was the first. The third was a derivation of Holyfire that kept the order element of the spell and replaced the light element with fire.

It produced a point blank area of effect attack similar to Holyfire that could be manipulated from a spherical blast to a narrow cone shaped attack. The cone was much longer than the distance provided by the sphere as the spell only allowed for so much space to be effected. The two shapes had to preserve the volume. For a lower tier mage it was already quite good that they had managed to formulate the change from sphere to cone.

Unlike Holyfire which would harm only demons and their corrupted followers and heal and rejuvenate others, the substitution of fire for light meant that it would burn anything that entered the scope of the spell. In fact, while mixing order with light may create a Holy spell that is soothing to most beings. Mixing order with fire creates spells classified as Wrath spells. Thus the group decided to call this one Wrathfire, though Ovid and Rebekah were quite amused at their lack of creativity.

While they might find the name Wrathfire to be amusing Derek most assuredly did not. Since the creation of the spell he had been the only person to suffer from it. As he slogged through the Earthtrap spell he prepared a water and earth based defensive spell for his armor and gritted his teeth.

Just as he did so the first Wrathfire struck. It wasn’t enough to get through his defensive spell but that wasn’t the issue. What made Holyfire the premiere spell of Thorne clan offensive spellcaster was that it was powerful, mana efficient, and able to be cast rapidly and repetitively. Wrathfire largely inherited those traits, it’s only downside was that Hector and Belany were not as specialized in fire as they were in light element magic, but that wasn’t enough to change what was about to happen.

With every step Derek ate another Wrathfire until he got halfway across the competition space. At that point his constant effort of resisting the Earthtrap and forming the defensive spell had depleted his mana. He could no longer fully form the defensive spell and as the training armor ate the Wrathfire a bright aegis spell was released from it to protect its user. Once it did so Derek collapsed to the ground, the training armor locking up and preventing him from moving.

Derek stared up at the sky, a bitter feeling moving through his heart. He was quite a prideful youth with a lot of confidence in himself and his skills. Yet today he had been beaten twice. Sure, he had been suppressing himself to give them a fair fight within the rules and sure, the end goal was to ensure that the two of them thoroughly beat Elton and Feros at the trial, but it sure didn’t feel good to feel like a mouse being toyed with by a cat.

“Haha, Hector you got him good this time!” He heard Belany say as he stood up and removed his helmet.

“Belany, I am right here. Please don’t start dancing on my corpse.” He said sourly.

“Oh, don’t start with that sore loser stuff. You won a few dozen of these matches yourself. How am I not to be happy for my brother for his second win?” She said with an almost serious face. When faced with that how could he stay dispirited? “Besides, this is all to beat Elton and Feros in a couple of days.”

When she mentioned that the three of them were all grins and couldn’t help doing a group hug and patted each other on the back. The third trial was going to be very embarrassing for Elton and Feros. These three didn’t feel sorry about the idea of that at all.

As they laughed and changed out of their training garb Rebekah used her magic to fix the training ground. They all stood by the well with mugs of mulled cider while Rebekah praised them for their recent accomplishments. As they talked they heard a greetings from Richard as he came up the snow-covered path towards their clearing.