Before Kuzari could really process it, two more weeks passed. He spent every waking hour in training. Two more times he experienced tribute, and two more times, he was drained dry. There was one whole week left before the next tribute where his "grace" period will end, and it scared him. So far each time he had barely been able to meet quota, and while he made some amount of progress, it wasn't nearly enough to meet the seemingly arbitrary demands the next tribute would bring. Something needed to change, and he honestly was at a loss.

He was considering his options when he heard a faint knock at the door. That was strange. No visitors in weeks.

Kuzari got up and answered the door and met face to face with....no one? Confused, he popped his head into the hallway and looked around to spot a woman walking away.

"Adara?" He asked.

Adara froze and turned around, looking nervous.

"Oh uh, hi."

"Did you need something from me?"

"No, well of sorts. A small group of apprentices and initiates were going out for drinks. Saban mentioned how you never talked to anyone, and I just thought...nevermind."

Adara seemed nervous, and Kuzari was amused. Where had this side of her come from?

"I would love to, but it's not safe for me." He said, turning down the informal invitation.

Adara pouted and walked up to him.

"Oh come on! You can't just sit holes up in your room forever; it's not healthy!"

"Maybe," Kuzari said, leaning against the door frame with his arms folded over. "But there are other Contractors out there. I'll be a sitting duck."

"Well, you can't hide forever! Besides, you'll be out with Ratcatchers, who's going to mess with an entire group of us? Magni is one of the most feared mages in the whole city." She pouted.

She did have a bit of a point. If this faction held as much power as it seemed to be any lone Contractor would have to seriously consider if assaulting him would be a smart move. He did need a break as well, he wasn't getting anywhere at the moment, and some relaxing could get the creative juices flowing.

"Fine, but you owe me a favor" Kuzari relented with a smirk. He immediately planned on cashing in his favor to help him develop enough to meet quota. Apprentices had to have some tricks in that department to make it as far as they did, right?

Anna smiled widely and motioned for him to follow her.

For the first time since he arrived in the city, he stepped foot outside the spire. It was night already, but the streets were still bustling with activity. Adara led him through meandering streets. Lanterns hung by ropes and braziers burned at street corners. The light reflected off all the decorative glass, creating a dazzling kaleidoscope over the roads. It was beautiful in a chaotic way.

Eventually, she brought the two of them to a large tavern. Sounds of cheer assaulted his ears before Kuzari even stepped inside. Once inside, he found a crowd of people forming a ring as two burly men swung fists at each other. The crowd cheered as a man dressed in a green tunic laid out his opponent. He raised a fist in the air and roared in triumph.

"You brought me to a fight pit?" Kuzari asked incredulously, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd just barely.

Adara laughed at him and caught sight of two blue robbed figures sitting around a table with drinks in hand. She waved over to them and grabbed Kuzari's hand, dragging him over.

They sat down at the table and Kuzari nervously glanced over his table mates. Saban waved to him, his broad smile bringing out his brown eyes. His cloak was down and revealed a short cropped set of brown hair, stylized in what appeared to be a common trend amongst the initiates. One could hardly tell from his cheerful demeanor that he spent nearly every other training session puking blood from overextending himself.

A middle-aged man with a red scarf barely glanced up at Kuzari from behind a large pair of glasses. He seemed engrossed in a book titled Migratory Habits of the Mas'Quin He sported shoulder-length salt and pepper hair.

"Uhh hello. I'm Kuzari" He introduced himself, yelling to make himself heard.

The elder apprentice rolled his eyes and reached to the center of the table, giving it a single tap. Kuzari felt a pulse of power, and the noise became more muted. Still loud but a far more manageable level. Evidently, the apprentice knew some sound canceling spells.

"Thanks," Kuzari said nodding to the man.

The apprentice ignored him and returned his focus to the book.

"Don't let him bother you Kuzari, Odai always does stuff like that," Saban said with a smile and reached his hand out for a shake. Kuzari accepted it and smiled back as well.

He was glad to see a familiar face of sorts but was disappointed to find this "gathering of Ratcatchers" was merely four people.

The group engaged in small talk as Odai sat silently. A waitress brought a new round of drinks. Kuzari was a bit worried at first having no means of payment on him, but Adara said she would take care of it and to relax. Now that he thought about it, he didn't know anything about the currency here or how he ought to go about gathering any.

Kuzari was mostly quiet throughout the conversation as Saban and Adara chatted ceaselessly about local drama. Never knew these two knew each other so well. Time passed as more rounds of drinks were brought to the table. Kuzari only sipped his single drink little by little, intent on not getting too buzzed. He did have to admit that it was nice to relax for a few hours without worrying about mana, tribute, or Contractors. It didn't stop him from permanently maintaining a state of constant internal self-awareness. The skill had become second nature to him by now.

He enjoyed watching the fights as well. The contenders didn't seem particularly skilled, but the spectacle was still entertaining nonetheless. A dim part of his ego said he could probably take a couple of the fighters himself, but he didn't feel particularly compelled to find out.

Eventually, the mood of the place was winding down. Adara flagged down a waitress and paid their tabs with a couple of odd looking crystals. Kuzari hadn't heard of rocks being used as currency before, but this was a different world after all. Quite frankly he was surprised no one had bothered him over the subject of him being a Contractor the entire night. Either it wasn't widespread knowledge yet, or Adara was making everyone polite.

They decided to call it a night and head home. They strolled down the bright streets together, laughing at some joke Saban made. Kuzari noticed the roads were slowly starting to empty at this time of night. He wasn't concerned about this fact until mid conversation an arrow struck Odai in the chest.

Alarms and panic went off in Kuzari's head as adrenaline flooded his system. He spun around looking for the attackers as Saban screamed and clutched Odai who dropped to one knee. The older man grimaced but did not cry out. You did not make it to apprentice without bearing some pain. Adara was on full alert as well, eyes scanning the rooftops.

She hurled a small fireball at a man she spotted on the rooftop of a nearby building. Her target ducked out of sight and evaded the blast.

Kuzari sorely wished he had a weapon on him. More so when a cloaked figure darted from around the corner of a nearby building and lunged at Kuzari. He lept back from his attacker, barely dodging the sweeping blade. God damn what the fuck is with people trying to stab me?

More figures emerged from the intersecting streets and engaged the group. Saban was in full panic mode and mostly of no help whatsoever. Adara launched a barrage of fireballs at her targets. Her foes screeched as they were engulfed in flames that made Kuzari's first display of magic look like a simple spark.

Odai really surprised Kuzari however. The man stood up on both feet and clasped his hands together. An aura of power rose up around the apprentice, and with it, idle rocks and shards of glass circled him. He waved his hands, sending streams of piercing projectiles at his foes. Several shards embedded them in the skulls of his opponents, a flash of blood filling the air before their bodies crumpled.

Kuzari focused on his opponent. He was being pressed back and away from the group, dodging strikes as much as he could. He was just thankful they hadn't been surrounded yet. His inner awareness did afford him a sense of agility that aided him in evasion. Unfortunately, without a weapon, he didn't have many ways he could attack back.

He did have one method, but he was loathed to resort to it.

He moved to dodge a slash coming from his left when he was felt the sharp pain of a blade digging into his right arm. He had been wrong about being surrounded as another cloaked figure assaulted him from out of Kuzari's vision.

The wound was enough for him to abandon his apprehension.

Magic came mostly in two overarching types. Structured magic, channeled mana in a specific manner to create a particular effect. This type of magic was powerful and efficient, but called for a considerable amount of study and focus to achieve; each spell learned a significant addition to a mages repertoire. This was how Odai flung his rocks with lethal precision and how Adara burned her foes with extremes spurts of power.

The other kind was unstructured magic. Raw mana channeled for their primal effects. One horribly inefficient but incredibly fast use of unstructured magic was to simply emit in forward to strike an object. This was less than ideal and what Kuzari did instinctively with his first puff of flame. A far more useful application of unstructured magic was to imbue its properties into your own body, gaining some of the traits of the element in question. It was how Bakir could catch a fist unperturbed, or Magni could melt iron with his bare hands. It still burned through mana at a rapid pace, and while couldn't compare to the might of a real spell it was still a useful tool when applied correctly, and best of all it required minimum training to reach a useable state.

Trying to ignore how much it would set him back, Kuzari exhaled and pushed out from his core. In that single moment, shadows flooded his channels. His flesh absorbed the energy greedily. He felt light, and his form was hazy and indistinct. White hair and bright green eyes turned grey and muted sea green.

He felt cold and refreshed. His attackers seemed ever so slightly slower, but that's all he needed.

With agility that surprised the two attackers, Kuzari dropped low to the ground, even as that meant dragging his shoulder across his attacker's blade. He shoved off with his left foot, ramming into the man's armpit. The attacker groaned from the impact and dropped his knife. Before it could hit the ground, Kuzar's hand snaked out and grabbed the handle.

His first initial attacker was too surprised to respond quickly enough as Kuzari lunged forward, propelling himself off his right leg. The sunk the stolen blade into the man's neck and with his free hand, he grabbed the cloaked man's wrist, adamant to not make a repeat out of his first knife fight.

The man gurgled blood as Kuzari stared coldly into the man's dying blue eyes. Kuzari removed the blade and twisted to meet his other attacker, just in time to dodge another wide strike aiming for his side. Evidently, the man had more than one blade.

The two combatants spent no time sizing each other up, immediately engaging. They swiped and slashed at each other, seeking openings. Shadow-infused Kuzari was faster, more focused, and hard to hit. He felt a part of the night itself, and the darkness seeping through his body felt good, damn good in fact. His opponent, however, was more skilled. He was caught off guard initially, but he knew his craft and knew it well enough to compete with magical reinforcement. Kuzari knew his mana would burn out before his opponent's stamina did.

Adara and Odai were too busy dealing with the array of numbers before them. They were visible apprentices after all, and the group was smart enough to concentrate their forces on the more experienced members. It was shit luck that they didn't manage to take out Odai in the initial surprise. They would likely have been overrun at this point if Odai had gone down for good.

Kuzari was starting to get desperate. Thin cuts were building up on his arms and torso, but his opponent wasn't looking too poorly. The cloaked figure smirked knowing victory was near. Kuzari decided to take a gamble. He checked that he had enough mana for his plan and then went for it.

He threw the blade at his opponent, relinquishing his only weapon. The man swiftly dodged the poorly aimed blade, but it was only to buy a few seconds. Kuzari dipped forward and broke inside the man's inner guard and placed his palm against the man's chest. He had less than a second to realize what happened before Kuzari pushed.

Liquid darkness flood to his palm and pushed out of the open meridian. Kuzari held the meridian tightly, pushing the mana out in a small pressurized force. A lance of inky darkness erupted from his palm piercing through the man's chest and out his back.

Unstructured emission of mana may have been horribly inefficient, but point blank and under pressure? It was effective as any other spell at that point in terms of lethality.

The shadows receded from his body as his channels emptied of mana. It required the last drop of shadow mana he had stockpiled for his little feat, and he already burnt through all his neutral mana, inefficiently converting it into more shadow mana.

He felt woozy and weak again, and he fell to one knee as his opponent dropped dead. His eyes darted around, wary for more opponents to show up. Fortunately, it seemed whatever group was behind their assault had given up on sending men to the meat grinder that was two Ratcatcher apprentices. It was almost scary to consider the disparity between those with magical abilities and those without.

Kuzari stumbled his way back towards the group. His ego was a least partially mollified to see Adara and Odai were visibly tired too. It would have been too depressing if the gulf between initiates and apprentices were so vast that flinging all those spells did nothing. Saban was still frazzled, trying to gather himself together. Kuzari was ashamed that the reaction annoyed him. They almost died, and Saban didn't lift a finger.

" I told you it was dangerous for me to go out," Kuzari stated loudly with a hint of frustration in his voice.

"Whatever, not everything is about you and Contractors." Adara snapped back in frustration. The life and death struggle had put everyone on edge.

Odai was rummaging through the bodies, looking for any sign of identification. Finding nothing, he broke his rare bit of silence and spoke with a gravelly voice.

"We should be moving. No telling when more might arrive. They may even bring a real mage next time." He spoke with an air of authority. He expected everyone to obey, and nobody was in the mood to challenge him. Home, or at least what passed for it anyways, sounded good right now.

Kuzari grabbed a pair of knives, deciding he didn't want to be caught weaponless again. He wondered if there were any such thing as city guards that would investigate what happened. Or if anyone at all would check on the commotion for that matter. Then again, as far he could tell the Ratcatchers seemed to be the closest thing to guards as he could see in this place. There didn't seem to be a single organized government. Just mages powerful enough to enact their will on the city and the factions that follow them such as Magni and his Ratcatchers.

They made it back to the spire without further incident. Saban was still shaken up, and Odai promised he would get his shoulder wound checked out soon after making sure Saban made it to bed.

Kuzari didn't have the energy for any more words and left for his room, leaving Adara alone in the entrance hall with her thoughts.

He was struggling to figure out how he would make quota as it was, and now a whole day's worth of mana was burned up, not to mention he had no idea who had attacked their group or why. Adara had insisted nobody in their right mind would publicly mess with a group like theirs. Kuzari went to sleep angry and frustrated.