(Jason, 16)

"This is where we draw the line," the professor stares at me.

"What line?" I ask.

"You cannot take a baby dragon on a practical training mission!"

Zevenas gives the professor an annoyed look, and I pat the baby dragon on the head.

"It's okay," I whisper to him. "He doesn't realize how stupid it is to tell a dragon tamer to leave behind the dragon he's keeping tame."

The professor pauses for a moment, then looks nervously at the gathered students. It's the Sorday after I took in Zevenas, and we're about to begin the once-a-term joint training program between the all of the first-year students at the two universities. Uncle Zach is serious about making sure the students are able to work together and that the less-experienced and less-skilled students receive assistance from their more talented peers.

As for Zevenas, he's been with me every day of lessons so far, and my fellow students are starting to adjust to his presence. They're still a bit nervous and scared of him, as he's a dragon, but they've accepted he won't try to eat or roast them.

Usually. He has taken a disliking to a couple of students, one of whom he likes to ram with his horns any chance he finds. I've managed to catch him on that and prevent the actual ramming from occurring for the most part.

Despite that, I still made sure to receive permission for Zevenas to come with me for this trip. It's important that he stays near me, or he'll start getting up to actual trouble, and even my mamas and papas are too weak to stop him.

He is a dragon, after all. His power is innately grey.

I could, of course, give him to Fael Mira for the trip, but I would rather not ask her to watch over a baby dragon for a couple of days. She already has enough going on, especially with the Delvarkari cleaning up my mess from my attack on the ogres and corrupted the other day. Right now, they're focusing on restoring the land and regrowing the plants I destroyed during the attack.

So no, I'm not going to leave Zevenas with them. Especially as I think that he'd probably try to track me down on his own, now that he's seen the real deal rather than just something with a bit of my magic and essence within it.

The professor relents on allowing me to take Zevenas, so I return my attention to the students assigned to me. There are twenty of them, all in A-Class. Ten knights, ten mages. As with the last one, each S-Class student is assigned a group to lead and will have a Royal Mage and Royal Knight accompanying them as supervision and emergency backup.

I have a smaller unit than the other S-Class students, but that doesn't bother me. It's more than sufficient for our mission.

Every Magus and first-year, long-term member of my training group other than Jacob has or is in a different group here. Each group with one of them has a special mission involved in their training program, something only we were informed of.

Not even the Royal Mages and Royal Guards were informed of this.

Uncle Zach showed up at my training group on Monday, the same day we were informed of this training mission, and asked to speak with us in private, so I dismissed the few students who were not qualified for that. Our groups are being sent to specific locations for various reasons.

All of us will be performing hunts or training exercises, but the important thing is our presence in that region and the display of might.

My group, for example, will be near the Vel border, acting as a reinforcement just for this weekend. We'll mostly do some patrols and training, but also some hunting of beasts. While the basic idea is to show Vel that even our students are strong, there's another purpose to it.

Hope that Vel attacks us. If they see a group of twenty-one students and only two Royal Guards, they may hurry together an attack to send after us. We know they have a few stronger mages and knights along the border as a result of Adam's attack.

It might be seen as a provocation for war, but that's exactly what we intend it to be. If they attack us while we're merely training, then they will no longer be able to deny to Varil what they are doing and intending.

Thus allowing Varil to hammer them down with their full might. But that's not the only reason there's my group here.

Technically, Jeshema doesn't have an alliance where we will back Varil up in times of war. But if someone attacks a prince of Jeshema, then that will give us an excuse to step in as well. And there's also the fact that I'm also a prince of the Delvarkari. Which means they could step in as well.

Uncle Zach has probably thought about that, then dismissed it, thinking the Delvarkari won't actually take action. He's wrong, though. I've already spoken with Fael Mira.

I also made sure that the troops near where my group will be know who I am. If they attack, they won't be able to claim ignorance.

My unit will specifically be near the border where Varil touches the neutral zone before Vel and Nelem. That way, there are two nations sitting there to think about, rather than one. We are hoping they take the provocation, especially as Uncle Zach says that some of the intelligence agents leaked this information already.

Niko's unit will also be nearby, but a safe distance from us. His black hair will make his status as a northerner obvious, and it was leaked to the units that the prince of Mar might be training nearby for the weekend.

That way, Niko can also step in to the battles, as until he marries Lina, he still counts as an outside force, and we still have a few years before their marriage will happen, since the custom is to wait until after university.

All in all, we hope Vel and Nelem take the bait. Jacob might be trying to negotiate some treaties and peace with a few of the eastern kingdoms, but if this goes well, then two more powerful nations will be entering on Varil's side.

Which should hopefully enable a lot more handling of the situation.

But I'm not telling my group any of this. They are students of the Royal Knight University and Royal Magic University, so they'll no doubt suspect such things, but I'm not going to confirm it to them. As far as they're being officially told, we're simply there to temporarily reinforce the border in the wake of the rebellions and their subsequent removals.

With all of that in mind, I give my group the basic rundown, then Mama Elena approaches us and opens a gate to the location. The Royal Guards step through first, then my new students, and as all of that happens, I open up my spatial storage.

From it, I withdraw an amulet made of a dark brown wood with spots of mithril, its white-gold beauty catching Zevenas's attention. There are a few jewels set into it, too, though Papa Jared and I had to carefully figure out where to stick them so that they wouldn't interfere with the enchantment.

It hangs from a star iron chain, which I use to fix the amulet around Zevenas's neck. Then, I pulse a bit of mana into it to activate the amulet.

While I can still see Zevenas, I know he just disappeared from sight. Papa Jared and I spent most of our free time this past week working on it, and even Niko helped us. He's not a talented enchanter, but he's still able to at least understand enchantments.

The basis for the enchantment is something Papa Jared, Papa Samuel, Mama Alyssa, and I had been working on for a few years already. It's not intended for public knowledge, and I'm not actually sure why my papas and mamas wanted such an amulet.

This one can't cover much, but a baby dragon isn't too large for it to conceal.

"It really does work," Mama Elena tells me. "I can't sense him at all, even with my magic sight."

As a grey-level mage, such an illusion doesn't affect me, we discovered. We tested this theory by showing it to Fael Mira and using it on a small animal near her. She could see it, I could see it, no one else could see it.

The rabbit was very confused.

"One day," I say. "You are all going to tell me why you wanted this. I spent seven centuries researching magic and enchantments, yet never touched into something like this."

My concealment enchantments were never meant to be mobile, but always fixed to specific locations, covering a set range. While I do know how to actually perform the same concealment spell enchanted into the amulet, I never thought about putting it into an object to be worn so that someone could stealth their way around.

Well, there was always that one object I made, but it wasn't intended on being moved around. Come to think of it, what happened to it? I'm sure I'd have heard of it by now if it was still active, so either it was dislodged, or it's no longer functional.

"One day," Mama Elena tells me. "We might answer that question. I'll see you on Sunday, Jason."

I roll my eyes, then turn and head to the gate, ducking under her swing at the back of my head. Then I'm through the gate, and it disappears.

"Alright!" I call. "Let's get camp set up!"

As my students start setting up our camp, my thoughts wander to Jaklenai. What's he doing during this? While he's technically acting as a student, he's not coming on this trip. No one wants a god to participate in this, and while he said it sounded fun, I made it clear to him in no uncertain terms that if I found out he showed up at any of the training groups, I was going to be unhappy.

He's probably found something to amuse himself with.

Zevenas walks alongside me as I walk through the camp as it's set up, content to just be by my side right now.

Once the camp is set up, I set students off to perform various duties, such as ensuring the bedding is prepared in each tent, as we are tenting in five groups of four with the Royal Guards having a tent together and me having a tent for just Zevenas and me.

As dinner cooks, I sense a gaze upon us. It took them long enough to notice us, but that's still rather fast, considering that we're still a few miles from the border.

(Aaron, 42)

Two Varilan Royal Guards and twenty-one students, one of whom matches the description of Prince Jason of Jeshema. The son of the Sages, who have decided to take a political interest in Varil, from what our reports have said.

As long as we act quickly, we can take care of the students and the pair of Royal Guards with ease. From the report I was given upon arriving here a few hours ago, they're both blue in magical power, something discovered when they demonstrated their own force barriers as part of Jason's training.

If we can kidnap Jason, we can use him against the Sages, convince them to stay out of the war between the kingdoms. The binding collar from ancient times will suffice to prevent him from using magic. We've heard too many stories of his own powers to take him lightly, but we have counters for that.

Even a violet-level mage will fall under the right circumstances, and we have ensured that we have those right circumstances.

More specifically, the Orb of Defense. While no one knows who created it, rumors date it back to the King of Magic. When used, it generates a grey barrier that stops all attacks from passing into it, but amplifies any spells sent out of it.

The coloration of the barrier suggests that the blood of something powerful, such as a dragon, was used in its creation. We found it a few centuries ago in the cave of a dragon which died of old age, which only supports that theory to us.

So far, Nelem has never used it other than to test it out and discover what it did. Because of that, none of our enemies even know we have it. As far as we know, we're the only ones who even knows it exists.

It will be the key to taking down Jason Jeshema. From the reports we have on him, he will stay to protect his fellow students, so all we have to do is keep up the attack. With the Orb of Defense's power, that won't be an issue.

As soon as he runs out of mana, we will place the binding collar on him and bring him to a special prison in Nelem.

"Remember," I tell the forces assembled. "Most of the students will be exhausted. Jason has pushed them in their training hard today, and they went on several hunts, including taking down two wyverns which drew too close to them. Only Jason and the Royal Guards pose a threat. Make sure to stay within the orb's barrier until they run out of mana. As long as you do, we can win this with minimal casualties."

My troops salute and acknowledge my instructions. There are one thousand of us present, including as many upper-level mages and knights as we could muster. We considered that this might be a trap, which is why, after pulling in our own forces with teleports, we promptly went to work on laying down a large-area teleport suppression field.

That would not be possible without another artifact, a crimson stone which amplifies enchantments it is connected to. Without it, we would never have managed to create a field large enough to cover their camp without having drawn close to them.

No one knows who created it or where the stone came from, but there is a theory it might have been created by the King of Magic as well.

Nelem authorized the use of many ancient artifacts. The Orb of Defense, the Stone of Amplification, the Spear of Chaos, the Shield of Illusion, and more.

A dozen ancient artifacts collected over the eras. Some were found by Nelem, others by nations that used to be here or which were conquered by Nelem. Some were inherited to Nelem when the old kingdoms fell apart and it formed.

With them, we should succeed in taking down Jason Jeshema, binding his magic, and stopping the Sages from entering the war. Hopefully, the other group is just as successful in kidnapping Prince Niko. While Mar is not our enemy and not a threat in any form, the reports we have received since he began attending university suggest that Princess Lina is deeply in love with him.

If the man she loves is kidnapped, it might also make King Zachary a little less willing to attack us. They will want to find out where Niko is and rescue him first, the same as Jason. And our prison is quite hard to find, protected by yet another ancient artifact.

"Alright, men!" I call as I turn around. "Activate the Orb of Defense! As soon as it's up, release the Shield of Illusion! Our attack begins!"

The shimmering grey barrier forms, a dome appearing around us. A few seconds later, the illusion which prevents the Varilan troops from noticing our approach disappears. I take the Spear of Chaos from my squire and aim it at the training camp, then thrust it forward.

A shimmering, red-and-black copy of the spear soars forward, passing through the barrier. Even if it looks no different than before, I know its power has increased greatly.

The attack flies across the field, straight towards their camp. It will rip through their barrier and probably kill a few of the students.

It disappears before even reaching their barrier, as if swallowed up by something.

"Zevenas! No!" I hear someone exclaim, then see Jason rush forward and grab… the air. "Stop that! No eating enemy attacks! Especially that one! I don't care! It'll give you indigestion! No, it's-now you're puking."

As my troops and I try to figure out what's going on, puking starts appearing in the air in front of Jason, falling to the ground.

Only with my enhanced hearing can I hear what he says next.

"Yeah, that's why you don't just go and eat random magical attacks, Zevenas," Jason says. "Irukatis isn't something you can just handle, you know. It uses grey magical power. Lower grey, like you. Don't just eat random spells because they smell like my magic!"

What is he talking about? And to whom? There's nothing there.

He's distracted, though, and whatever ate the attack is as well, no doubt. I also doubt it could stop several attacks of the spear in rapid succession, so I thrust the spear forward several times.

The spear consumes a great deal of mana to use, but I can release its attacks around twenty times before running out. If Jason is already aware we're here, then it's best if we simply attack him directly. I doubt the attacks would kill someone of violet magical power, even if he claims the spear can-

He said the spear uses grey magical power. And he seemed to know we were here, too.

The five spears of chaotic energy stop only a few feet away from Jason, who then looks at us, shifting whatever he's holding to one arm. Then, he raises a hand and flicks a finger towards us, and the five spears disappear.

"You know," Jason says. "I pretty clearly heard you identify me. The fact that you attacked me means you have now attacked by Jeshema and the Delvarkari. We are now at war."

Without warning, Jason appears in front of me.

"Oh," he grins, holding up a red, crystal-like stone. "By the way, when attacking me, you probably shouldn't leave things just laying around. Zevenas is attracted to my magic. He picked this up an hour ago and brought it back."

The Augmentation Stone!

I thrust the spear forward, not giving Jason time to react, and yet the spear stops, as if held by a great force.

"The spear," Jason says. "Only actually casts the spell once the thrust is completed. If something, say, stops the thrust, such as a bit of force magic, it won't work."

It's as he speaks that I realize something else. The Orb of Defense prevents teleports from working as well. Our suppression field was set up to prevent them from escaping, but even with that failing, he shouldn't have been able to make it through the orb's barrier.

"Also," Jason says. "This is an unwelcome military force on Varilan lands which performed an attack against Varilan students under a training exercise to learn how to combat wyverns in a region with relatively few of them. You have committed and act of war. Do you surrender?"

"We have a few more artifacts to take you down," I tell him. "It's you who should be surrendering, Jason. Do so, and you can make it out of here with few injuries."

Jason simply laughs.

Then he does the most ridiculous thing.

He snaps.

The moment he does, the world goes to hell, the ground opening up, fire spitting out of it as gales whip at us from all directions, lightning coming from the cloudless sky to strike at random soldiers.

"I'll be taking that," Jason quickly pulls the Spear of Chaos out of my hand. "It's not as if you'll have a use for it anymore, after all."

I try to grab it back as he begins skipping backwards, but a pillar of earth rises up in front of me, throwing me backwards.

Just how powerful is Jason? This is beyond the rumors of what Sage Samuel could do!

"Retreat!" I call as I scramble back to my feet. "All forces! Retreat!"

"That's not possible," Jason's voice echoes around. "Sorry, but you tried to kidnap me and kill the students I'm training. You came here with hostile intent to bring harm and grief to the nation of my friends. Now, you are facing the power of the reincarnated King of Magic, the most powerful mage to ever walk this world. Don't worry, though. Those who struggle the least will die the quickest. Stay still, and death will come in an instant. This is the true power of Irukatis, what you call the Spear of Chaos."

I turn and face Jason, who is pulling out some sort of metal plate, his lips moving even as his words stop echoing here.

Then, his statement holds true, and everything disappears.

(Niko, 16)

The spell flings me backwards, and if it weren't for the wyvern hide vest Jason convinced me to wear under my student robes, it probably would have hurt a lot more than it did. I struggle back to my feet.

There are three indigo-level mages here. Nelem has four total people at indigo in magical power, if I remember correctly, so I am guessing that the fourth went after Jason. He mentioned earlier that they had brought several artifacts he had forgotten about with them to the fight.

Apparently, Zevenas decided one of them should be returned to Jason and retrieved it. I'm not sure if they realized yet that their suppression field shrank to a normal boundary, but that is not important right now.

I have not been able to contact Jason ever since the battle began, and the Royal Guards were taken out already.

As I return to my feet, another bolt of force is thrown at me, so I summon several more barriers to lessen the impact. As with the others, the attack breaks through my defenses as I attempt to flee, only to be struck anyway. They have someone set their bolts to follow me.

Thankfully, these forces are following me rather than staying behind to deal with the students. With the Royal Guards out of commission and most of the students injured, I doubt we would make it out without deaths if the Nelem soldiers chose to attack them again.

My golems seem to be useless here, and I cannot get close enough to cast my other, more dangerous spells. They also do not let me have enough time to begin casting something more dangerous, something that would guarantee my victory.

All I need is a distraction, a few moments, and I can recover and turn the tides. Even just trying to pull my Magus Sword or Sacred Sword out takes too long for me to succeed. When I try to fly, they batter me with attacks to bring me back to the ground.

I wince as the last of my golems is destroyed. That is way too painful for me to handle with my other injuries and the mental pain I am feeling from the destruction of the others, and I collapse to the ground, groaning.

The Nelem soldiers approach me cautiously, and when I don't even defend against their attacks, just keep my hands on my head as I roll around, they decide I am subdued.

"This only worsens if you continue to struggle," one of them says as the other two pick me up by the arms. He has some sort of collar made of isivinite in his hands, and is moving as if to place it on me. "Remove the barrier he just put around his neck."

One of the mages slices it with force magic, then starts screaming, releasing his grip on me. As if the Magus of Decay could be taken out that easily!

I kick forward, my foot connecting with the sensitive bits of the mage with the collar, and the mage still holding my arm begins screaming as well. The two I placed curses on stumble away as they continue to scream, and I drop to the ground, kicking with my left foot to sweep the third mage off his feet in a move Jason taught in the training group.

I might not be a warrior, but I do still know a few warrior techniques.

The mage I sent to the ground casts a spell at me, but my movement takes me just barely out of its range. At the same time, I manage to pull Gargoyle's Gaze out of my spatial storage, and I point it at his throat.

"Move," I say. "And I will kill you."

He turns his gaze to his two companions, the rest of his forces – that which remains, anyway – staring at me in shock and horror. The two I cursed are decaying while alive, a quite nasty death.

"It was only," I say. "Because you caught me in a brief moment where I was unprepared that you managed to cause as much trouble as you did. Toss the collar to the side."

He obeys.

I swiftly slice through it with Gargoyle's Gaze, suppressing the sword's spell. If that collar is what I think it is, then it is a relic from a certain god and would bind my magic. We were able to escape them with ease as Magi, but as I am only blue in magical power, I doubt I would be able to succeed in that right now.

"I am going to place a curse on you," I hold up a hand. "It will ensure you do not struggle or fight against me anymore. If you resist, you will suffer worse."

The mage does not resist, and my curse knocks him out. I sheathe Gargoyle's Gaze, then calmly swap it for Mountain's Break. Judging by the direction of where my fellow students are, I can use this safely to deal with the rest of the troops.

I draw my sword, then swipe it across the air, aimed at the ground under the feet of the soldiers and mages before me. Nothing visible happens in the air, but the ground beneath them opens up, breaking, cracking, and shaking. It shifts and quakes, and the enemy troops are consumed by the ground, suffocating to death.

A gruesome death, but this is war, after all, and they are not the first to fall to my powers.

I sheathe the sword and return it to my spatial storage, then look down and realize my left leg is exposed. Their attacks destroyed part of my pants and most of my robes.

Immediately upon noticing that, I grab fresh clothes out of my spatial storage and change into them, hoping none of the others here saw my leg. That would be bad. That would be very, very bad. I am not talented at illusions like Jason is, so concealing it at all times that way is simply not something I can do.

With a bit of force magic, I carry the sole surviving soldier and the two pieces of the collar back to camp. A few of the students give me uncertain looks, but if anyone saw my leg, no one comments on it.

I drop the prisoner on the ground and check on the Royal Guards, who are now waking up, being tended to by a couple of students. Then I pull out my comm plate and call Jason. When he answers, I can hear screaming in the background.

"What is that?" I ask him in Marran.

"Illusions of light, wind, and mind tormenting people," he responds in Marran. Good, thank you, Jason. "They tried to use one of my artifacts against me, so I turned one of its other powers against them. It's knocking them out one by one, though they think they're dying. How did things go on your end?"

"Badly," I answer. "They caught me by surprise, in a brief moment where I was not prepared for the attack. I think I am going to be sore for awhile. I also think my leg might have been seen, the lower half of the left leg of my pants was burned off by an attack."

"I can have Jarenidis check," he tells me. "And then erase the knowledge, if you want."

"Yes, please," I answer.

"Alright," he says. "I'll contact him once I hang up."

"What did they try to use against you?" I ask.

"Irukatis," he answers.

"The spear?" I ask, not sure if I am remembering the artifact correctly. "The one which can create powerful illusions of death, knocking out the victims with a potent sleep spell?"

"That's the one!" He cheerfully responds. "Stop that! It's not a chew toy!"

"Zevenas is trying to eat it," I state.

"Yep!" He laughs. "He wants to taste it, and I don't want teeth marks on it. Though I think it's partly revenge against the spear for making him sick, he ate one of its projection attacks."

"Of course he did," I roll my eyes. "We should regroup and recover together. Should I take my forces to you, or you to me?"

"Stay there," Jason tells me. "We'll see what Uncle Zach says while Jarenidis is looking into things."

"Okay," I say. "Thank you, Jason."

"You're welcome," he says. "Now, we can hopefully end this war a little sooner than expected."

"Hopefully."