Finally, the time for class had come. MY class. This time, I wouldn't be playing cards, while others would be learning the secrets of the Arcane Arts.

Walking inside, after getting here, with the help of a handy Teleportation-pad, I looked around and saw the familiar shape of a large bird.

“Do you have any reason to constantly be a bird, or is it just your preference?”, I asked.

“Preference, mostly”, Metis said, hopping down on the ground from a branch, and almost instantly changed into her usual human self. “But, it does help when fighting. People usually underestimate a random non-magical bird.”

She sat down on one of the sofas, and I did the same. They were surprisingly comfy, for something that looked like they were made of rock.

“Well, how did it go?”, Metis asked, with a curious voice.

It's about the dungeon.

I've realized.

“It went well.”, I said, thinking back on my trip to the dungeon. “I didn't really plan for anything like, what happened. I had expected to fight monsters, but I even had to fight another Mage.”

“Yeah, I heard about that”, Metis said, her face more serious than usual. “I'm kind of surprised, you even got over to the Anchor. Most of the younger Mages aren't able to fight it, but it seemed you can, even if just a little.”

´Just a little´, she says. What does she expect of us? She was clearly more experienced, with her Talent.

“But, let's not focus on that part. What I want is how you went about fighting, using Shapeshifting.”, Metis said. “Don't spare any details.”

And so, I spent the next ten minutes listing every single thing I did, using Shapeshifting, from the big things like the arm of a Fire Elemental to just using it to remove fatigue from my muscles. Every single detail that I could remember, which was all of them, came out of my mouth at some point.

When I finally finished telling my story, Metis leaned back on her sofa and sighed.

“You did great.”, she said.

I did great? That's fantastic!

“Thanks for the-”

“Great, if you were untrained.”

Wait, what.

“I mean, how could you mess up, with the Fire-elemental Pattern? The Mana-regulator was literally the easiest part to remember about it! And constantly Shapeshifting your nails into claws? Why didn't you just Shapeshift them into claws one time, and then just not change them back? You do realize how much Mana you wasted, right? And, that not even the worst one! If you hadn't-”

And so, she continued her rant, while I just sat in the sofa, frozen, and unsure of what to do.

“- and THAT is why you should you should have given me your desert, instead of eating it yourself.”

My god.

I couldn't have said it better myself. For thirty minutes straight, saying every single thing that I could have done better, and why, what I had done earlier, was only something a pure idiot would.

Listen. Sometimes you gotta say, ‘What the f*ck´. This is one of those moments.

Throughout the debacle, I had been slowly losing myself in shame. If she had continued any more, I was afraid that I would have just laid down on the floor in self-pity.

“Well”, Metis said. Oh god, I thought she was done. “Now, that that is out of the way, we can finally begin some actual training.”

Seriously?

“Wait, really?”, I asked, slightly- no, who was I kidding- Very astonished.

“Yes, really.”, Metis said. “While I could just continue berating you, which I can,-” That hurt. “-if I want to, It wouldn't help, with fixing all those mistakes you did. The only thing that can fix that is some good old training.”

And so, the training would finally begin.

“For today, we can start with… Let's call it apdation techniques.”, Metis said, with a smile that I did not like at all.

“What will that entail precisely?”, I ask.

I have a bad feeling about this.

“You´ll see. Now get off your butt, and follow me.”

She stood up and walked towards the wall to her right. Just before I began wondering how she would get past it, the wall just morphed around for a second, before having a simple wooden door build into it. She went inside, and I, feeling like I shouldn't even have been surprised, quickly followed.

Out of the doorway, was a massive room, which looked exactly like the one in that Phil and I had talked in. How did they even fit this in the buildings?

Magic.

Why do I even ask?

“So”, I said. “Do you want to elaborate on, what we will be doing now?”

“Go stand over there”, Metis said, ignoring my question, and pointing over at a spot that was about thirty meters.

I do so, and look over to her again.

“What now?”

“Do you remember the other patterns that I showed you?”, Metis asked, being so kind as to ignore my questions again.

“Yes, I do.”

“Good. Use them.”

´In what way?´ was what I wanted to ask, but was silenced by the need to dodge a massive fireball. After doing so, I look over at her.

“What was that for?!”

“You might want to dodge, right about now.”

As I began feeling a searing heat from behind, I quickly dodged to the side again. Did she cast another one? No, she couldn't have. I would have noticed the fluctuations. Then, how?

The answer was clear, when I saw the Fireball turn, quickly flying towards me again.

A homing missile- Well, a homing Fireball.

How were you supposed to dodge that?

Just tire it out. Eventually, it will fizzle out. Ours do.

Good plan. If we just continue dodging, when it comes near us, it should be drained of Mana soon.

After a minute of doing so, Metis spoke up.

“I do see, what you're doing.”, she said. “But, that's not what you're supposed to learn from this, so let's just stop you from dodging to the side.”

In the instant I realized, what she said, she had already acted. The floor beneath me grabbed ahold of me, with human-looking hands, and stopped me from moving.

Oh, shit.

I had just dodged the Fireball, so I had about five seconds to think of something.

Got any bright ideas.

Nope.

What?

I can't think of anything.

But you're supposed to be the smart one!

No. We are. And, if we don't start thinking together, burned toast will be the new white.

I wanted to argue, but there wasn't time to do so. The Fireball came nearer and nearer, and they're still wasn't anything I could think of.

Let's begin. She already said that we need to learn a lesson. We need to know, what that lesson.

She teaches us Shapeshifting, so it must be something related to it. But, what?

It's something that we did wrong in the dungeon. Maybe, something we did wrong, while Shapeshifting? The Shapeshifting itself, possibly?

The Fire-Elemental! It's what we know that relates to the Fireball the most.

What, so I just need to Shapeshift my arm into that of a Fire-elemental again?

No. That would take too much time to do. We need to something else, with the Fire-Elemental Pattern, but I'm not sure what.

Maybe, we should take a look at the Pattern?

Yes. Let's do it.

I look back at the memory of me memorizing the Fire-Elementals pattern, trying to spot anything that might answer all of this.

I don't get it. The Pattern has, what we need, but we don't have enough time to Shapeshift into it. Is the lesson to know how to Shapeshift fast? We really need to have some more brain enhancements, if we will ever hope of being efficient enough to do that.

And, that's when it hit me. I knew what to do.

But, there wasn't enough time to do anything, and the Fireball hit me right on. The ground let go, just before I was hit, making me fly back because of the impact.

I open my eyes, and rise from the floor quicker than expected, ready to dodge the oncoming Fireball. But, there wasn't any. And, Metis was beside me, sniggering to herself.

We messed up there. I didn't even realize the time had run out before it hit us.

And I didn't realize either, so it's fine. We are both to blame. But, I think I've figured it out.

Do you want to share this information?

If it works.

I look over at Metis, who was still having the time of her life, looking at my earlier stupidity. People here really do have a concerning sense of humor.

“Can I try again?”, I ask.

Metis looks surprised at that and then smiled.

“Thought I have to force you.”, she said, walking over to her earlier place. “Get ready now. Fire in the hole!”

An all too familiar Fireball blasts its way towards. Before, I would have dodged, but now I stood still.

The smile on Metis´ face gets wider.

As the Fireball gets even closer, I reach out my right hand towards it. Now came the hard part.

I close my eyes and concentrate. I did not want to mess this up.

I mentally step into the pattern on my right hand. Not arm. Hand. I then go further, simply focusing solely on my index finger. On it, I begin rewriting the Pattern. Nothing big. Just a few small details. Details that were stolen from a certain Fire-Elemental. The newly changed Patterns sets in, and I open my eyes.

The Fireball comes near, only a few meters away. I activate my Ability. Then, all hell broke loose.

That's what it must have looked like, from an outside perspective, at least. From an inside perspective, it was much worse.

The formerly round Fireball turned into a cone-like shape, before being sucked into my index-finger. When the massive Fireball finally disappeared, I breathed a sigh of relief. For just a moment, I had been afraid that it wouldn't work.

“Great work!”, Metis said, suddenly at my right. How she got there, was something I decided to not think about. “But, you might want to release those fire again. If you don't, that finger of your might pop.”

I look down the finger. It looked as if, a powerful light was shining through it, making it possible to see the veins. I could see the pulsations, as the blood flowed through them, each pulse hurting just a bit more than the last. Yeah, this was gonna pop soon.

I point it to my left, and release the accumulated energy, with turning into a powerful, but brief, beam of fire. I could feel the rebound of heat, as it hit the wall.

“Did you make that last one more powerful?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“So, you would learn the lesson of humility, if you failed to succeed. Lucky you!”, she said, clapping on my shoulder.

Would I survive getting hit by that?

Likely not, but then again, you shouldn't have survived the other one, so who knows?

That's comforting to think about.

“So”, Metis said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “What was the lesson learned?”

I look at her with a smile. It had taken some time to realize, and oh was I happy to figure it out.

“To be efficient.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“It just as simple as that. I have to be efficient if I ever hope to win in a real fight. Take, what just happened a minute ago, as an example. With my current Mental capabilities, I couldn't ever hope to Shapeshift my whole arm into that of a Fire-Elemental, in the few seconds I have to prepare. I need to think as efficiently as possible. Instead of Shapeshifting my whole arm, I simply Shapeshift my finger, as that's all that's needed to do, what I need of it. Now, don't get me wrong, if I have the time, it would be best to Shapeshift the whole arm. The Fire-Elemental Pattern has a lot more uses that simply blasting fire in somebody, as you just a few minutes ago, and I cant all of them on a single patch of skin on the tip of one of my fingers. But, I didn't need all of them to deflect a Fireball. Because of that, I just isolated three parts of Pattern; the absorber, the container, and the releaser. Instead of using several minutes Shapeshifting my whole arm, I used a few seconds Shapeshifting my finger.”

Metis grinned after I finished.

“You could have said it in fewer words, but that doesn't matter.”, Metis said, waving one of arms. “What Is important, is the fact that you've learned one of the more important lessons in Shapeshifting. To be efficient.”

She walked back to her earlier position.

“Get ready to learn your second lesson of the day.”

It was then that my vision filled with fire. I could only hold up my arms before losing consciousness.

I wake up soon after though, after getting a light slap from Metis.

“Sorry”, she said, helping me up to my feet. “Got a bit too excited there. Let's try again.”

Just like before, she went back to her earlier position.

“Ready?”

I straighten my back, and breathe in, quickly beginning to change all my fingers, with the ability to absorb. It took under thirty seconds. Efficiency really is key.

“Ready”.

My vision filled up again, but this time, I was ready. I took out my arms to both sides and spread my fingers as much as I could.

I activated all my abilities, and it honestly was one of the most entrancing things I had ever seen.

All of the fire spread out in ten spirals, looking like elongated tornados of heat. It all went much better than, what was expected.

But, that wasn't how it continued.

´Here comes the fun part´

Was that you saying something?

No, it was Metis. She's a Psionic, remember?

Oh, yeah. What do you think she meant by the fun part starting?

Um.. you might want to look at your fingers.

I did as asked, and was horrified. What before were slightly see-through fingers, had turned into bloated glops of matter, that looked as if they were ready to explode.

“For how long are we doing this?!”, I shouted into the fire, hoping Metis would hear me through the torrenting blaze.

´As long as I desire´

I needed to release the fire, and I needed to do it now.

But, if you do that, the fire will hit us!

I'll just do it one finger at a time!

I did just that, starting with releasing the contained energy in my pinky. It quickly deflated, turning into something that safely could be thought of like a finger. I begin the absorbing fire with it again and moved on to the next finger.

And so it continued, I stop a finger from absorbing fire, empty it of fire, let it absorb again, and move on to the next one. I did this for a solid minute, with it working perfectly before anything happened.

It was subtle. After I had emptied one of the fingers for the third time, I noticed that it didn't absorb the fire as fast as before. I thought it a fluke before I realized that the next finger had the same problem.

We have a problem.

I've noticed. The Patterns are breaking apart.

Dammit. We need to get that fixed.

But how? We are a little preoccupied with stopping the fire, from making our fingers explode.

No, we are not. I am. You can do it.

Wait, no, I can't!

Yes, you can. I've figured out the lesson. We need to be able to Multitask. I can't do it, so you need to help.

Bu-but, I have never done it before!

You've seen me do it a thousand times! You know exactly how to do it. And hurry up with it. I am not sure it will even absorb anything after I empty it a fourth time.

Fi-fine! I´ll try.

He was unsure at first, fixing the cracks slowly and gently, but, as time went on, he got more confident. He tried speeding up and up until he fixed the cracks faster than they could be made. It was then that he made a mistake, and the whole thing fell.

The fire reached my body, and I fell unconscious again.