"Not using your guns?" Michael asked as Nathan rolled his shoulders.

The other senior had put his guns away for the Optional Challenge, which had surprised most of the others, since they were his preferred weapons.

"No."

"Why not?" He asked. "Didn't you bring them because-"

"Then I'd gain less Experience," Nathan stated. "Same as with using Ichtvar."

"Uh," William said. "Wouldn't you gain less anyway? Even though we're in Beginning, you'd probably take the things out in one or two hits."

Nathan chose to ignore that comment.

"Speaking of Experience," William looked at Keith. "You gain it pretty easily, and I've heard you mention a few times that you have more magical power than Nathan. Isn't that a blatant lie?"

"Yes and no," Keith scratched the back of his head.

"That doesn't answer the question," Michael said. "It's confused me, too."

Confusing you isn't hard, Nathan thought to himself.

"It has to do with familiars," Elise informed them. "When contracted to a familiar, a magician can draw up on some of the familiar's power and traits, if their bond is strong enough. From what I've observed while we've been here, Keith has a strong bond with his familiar."

"Which allows me to draw upon his full power," Keith nodded. "And he's three thousand years old and nearly an angel, which makes him pretty powerful. When I tap into his full power, I'm twice as powerful as Nathan in terms of magical power. I do need to have my familiar concealed within me, though."

Further discussion was interrupted by the message informing them of the Challenge's start.

Optional Challenge 1 has begun! You have 6 hours to slay 20 G-2 monsters and 50 G-3 monsters. Participation is not mandatory, and you will not be penalized for failing to participate or complete this Optional Challenge.

The timer refreshed in everyone's vision, setting to six hours and beginning to count down. William chose to stay behind as everyone else took off, and Nathan made his way out of the cafeteria with slow, casual steps.

He wasn't racing to complete it or to be the first. Here, it was only optional, and he knew he would complete it. Nathan walked past Michael, who was battling against a pair of G-3's, and jumped forward, slamming his fist into the gut of another. When his right foot hit the ground, he pivoted, kicking another G-3 with his left foot.

With his current stats, G-Ranked monsters in Beginner Difficulty were easy to take down.

Nathan slowly walked around the school, killing any monster he saw. The G-2 monsters were rarer than the G-3 monsters, but he still managed to kill all twenty he needed before he succeeded in the amount required of the G-3 monsters, finishing the latter a little more than five hours from the Challenge's start.

When he finished, Nathan returned to the cafeteria, where he was greeted with the sight of Keith's familiar swirling around Samantha, binding her and holding her to the ground.

"Uh… what's going on?" Nathan asked.

"She tried leaving a few minutes ago, and he did that," William answered.

"I have to pee!" Samantha exclaimed. "I told you that! You were going to go with me!"

"Yeah," William said. "But I don't think he believed you."

"Splashy, can you let her go?" Nathan asked. "She really does need to pee."

The elemental released Samantha, and Nathan escorted her to the restrooms. They returned to the cafeteria and waited for everyone else to finish, then received their rewards. Samantha complained to Keith about his familiar's actions, and Keith stared at the elemental.

"Seriously?" He asked, and the familiar did what everyone could only assume was a shrug. "Okay, that's just… whatever."

"What?" Samantha asked. "Why did he do that?"

"He said that Ichtvar dared him to, knowing Nathan was almost back."

"Samantha is supposed to leave only with two others," Nathan said. "Or me or Keith. I guess Ichtvar was thinking of that?"

He knew that it was really just Ichtvar wanting to amuse himself, but chose not to say, instead opting to enter the kitchen and prepare lunch for everyone.

The players returned to their daily routine, interrupted only by the next two supply drops, and the Optional Challenge on the day after their fourth total Food Supply Drop. For that Challenge, they had to earn 500 Points in three hours. When Nathan returned from completing it, he found Ichtvar sitting on Samantha's head.

Rather than questioning it that time, he made lunch, then returned to the usual routine. A few more days passed before he glared at Keith.

"Why are you able to shoot your force push hundreds of feet and I can't?" He asked after another force push that only managed a few feet.

"Several reasons could contribute to it," Keith shrugged. "Part of it comes from experience. I've done the spell enough that it and altering it is much easier. Part of it comes from you putting more power into the push than your creation of the spell is designed for.

"You need to focus on it being able to hold together in addition to having power," Keith told him. "All that power means nothing if the spell won't hold itself together very long."

"I've tried making it hold together longer."

"Try thinking of it like an enchantment," Keith told him. "There are several parts to it to make up the single spell. You have the power, the form, the energy put into it, and the making of it. Right now, your spell favors power over the actual making. Switch to focusing on that instead, and you should be able to make it last longer without unraveling."

Nathan muttered an insult to Keith's heritage under his breath, then returned working on casting the spell as Keith worked with the others. They hadn't been needing to use Mana yet in the Challenges, and the monsters were still G-Ranked., though some G-1's had been spotted. F-Ranks were coming soon, they knew, and they wanted to get their magic training in after a Challenge ended, since it seemed, based on the first two, the Challenges would occur after every second Food Supply Drop.

If they practiced with magic until the first Food Supply Drop, then waited until the second, they knew they would have a decent amount of Mana, thanks in part to the regeneration decrease potions they were able to buy, something all of them had done as soon as they had the free points to do so.

The fact that extra items became available after reaching 5,000 Points held at once made them wonder if there were more items that could become available at another Points threshold. As all seven of them had each reached 15,000 Points during the Points Battle Challenge, they knew it had to be at least 20,000 Points.

Something both Keith and Nathan were nearing, due to their familiars slaying most of the monsters. Neither had accessed their Points Shops yet, either. Due to the Food Supply Drops and the crates of supplies that came with each, no one had needed anything – they had all already bought Mana and Health Potions before starting.

While Nathan and Keith knew they would probably need more towards the end of the Survival Challenge, if they went through with their plan of actually fighting against the harder monsters towards the end, they knew they could also wait until then.

Nathan was a bit impatient for that to happen, as he wanted to return to acquiring Levels and had run out of stuff to practice enchanting with, other than the decks of cards that showed up with the supply runs. He didn't have glue for those, however, so he couldn't properly create the enchantments.

It was something that told him they weren't watching at all times outside of the game. His enchanted cards required him separating the front and the back, discarding the layer of glue from between them, then inscribing in the enchantment. Once the enchantment was inscribed onto it, he would then glue the two halves back together and weigh them down to dry flat. The art on the cards was mostly so that they weren't just labeled what they were.

Nathan looked at Keith, who was helping Samantha create a push of force, and listened in for a few minutes before returning to practicing as Keith switched over to William.

"Ow!" Keith jumped, spinning and glaring at Nathan. "Don't do that!"

After his exclamation, Keith quickly realized two things. The first was that Nathan was standing twenty feet away. The second was that the player looked stunned.

"Did you just cast a force push from there?" Keith asked.

"Finally," Nathan responded, then shot another at Keith, who ducked, the push slamming into the wall behind them.

Keith's barrier flared up, dissipating the spell, and Nathan shrugged, then returned to casting the spell, beginning to acquire a feel for the version that flew further. It wasn't as strong as his other version, but it did fly farther.

Deciding he was done practicing the force push for the day, Nathan began practicing generating a barrier, something that elicited laughs from everyone else. It was the first time they had seen him creating a barrier, and he glared at them.

"Sorry, Nathan," Samantha covered her mouth. "What is that?"

"It's a barrier," he grunted, quickly dispelling it.

"A barrier?" Keith snorted. "Nathan, that looked like a thin blob. Or a splat. I've never seen a barrier made that wasn't at least roundish, even by an amateur. You have the control to create enchantments, yet not to-"

He cut off at Nathan's glare.

"Hey," Keith said. "It's at least comparable in size to am amateur's."

Nathan glared at Ichtvar, who was chuckling. The phoenix had told him the barrier was just fine how it was, and that he could focus on reshaping it properly later. That it was normal to have them shaped weirdly when first starting out.

"I will start plucking your feathers and feeding them to Splashy."

Ichtvar quickly stopped laughing and gave Nathan a serious look.

"Don't do that," Ichtvar said. "He likes to play with any feathers of mine that get loose. Ever seen a storm elemental flying around, flapping the feathers it's holding as if they're wings? It is a sight both ridiculous and frightening."

"When did he do that?"

"When we last met," Ichtvar answered. "That was probably in the fifth or sixth century, I think? Around fifteen hundred years ago."

"You two knew each other in Merlin's time?" Keith asked, then his eyes widened. "Wait, you didn't go by Ichtvar then, did you? You're-"

"Ichtvar is my name," Ichtvar stated. "Your familiar just has a tendency to call me Nairusa, or Fire Breath, because he was there when Endariv was born and saw me teaching him how to breathe fire. Normally, it's the papa dragon that does that, but, well, there wasn't one around."

The phoenix flew up a few feet to avoid being hit by a push of force, before glaring at Nathan, who was 'innocently' checking his cards.

"What was that for?" He asked.

Nathan pretended not to notice.

"We're starting to get the basics of the spell down," Samantha decided to change the subject. "For the force push. Will you start teaching us how to create a barrier, like Nathan can?"

"Next run," Keith shook his head. "Let you guys develop a better grasp of using force magic first. Nathan's only able to because Ichtvar worked with him, according to my familiar."

Ichtvar yelped as a ball of water slammed into him.

"What the hell, Nathan?"

"Stop gossiping with Splashy," Nathan held up another card. "Or do you wanna get soaked again?"

"I can both dodge that and incinerate it," Ichtvar snorted. "You only caught me off-guard because Sparky was interfering with my magical senses."

Everyone looked at Keith's familiar, who was floating a few feet away. The elemental formed a hand and waved at them before returning to its normal state.

"You call him 'Sparky'?" Keith asked. "Sparky and Splashy. Jeez. Hey!"

He glared at Nathan, who had hit him with another force push.

"I'm going back to training," Nathan said. "Make fun of my barrier again, and I'm using a stun card on you."

"That will probably slide off my shields," Keith told him.

"Want to try?" Nathan held up another card.