We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and they stand on the titans before them. This imagery is correct in that we see further than those in the past, but also in that we miss the dangers below us and, inevitably, fall.

I stood next to the manager with a stoic expression. He tried to start a conversation a couple of times, but ultimately decided it’d be best to stay silent.

With nothing to do, I mulled over my current tasks and thought about how I should approach handling them. On the outside, I looked like a student sent to stand outside the classroom for misbehaviour, but on the inside…

My inner demon had a childish grin, only slightly blurred by the missed opportunity.

The hidden attacker who threw acid onto an innocent secretary and the young elf who attacked someone out of ignorance and emotion.

It would’ve been… satisfying. Amazing. The girl might be troublesome, but I could at least hunt down the unknown villain. It’s likely someone to be attending that rally of theirs, so I could start my search there. Since acid was the theme, I’d need to consult a chemist. I hope his family’s alive, that way I’d-

[Go, but keep it to those you’re certain are involved.]

“Aww, but whyyyy?”

[Do you want me to ground you to your room?]

"But it’s not fair~”

[It’s all I can offer.]

“Fine…”

I didn’t even notice the time passed by, but I assumed the matter has been taken care of by Sunk Cost and Taku. With each step I took, my vision became narrower and narrower. Inside, I was giddy, like a man in a desert finally coming across an oasis. I needed the stimulation. I needed that feeling again. I needed it, to feel… alive.

Taku felt the irony hanging in the air. Normally, his vampyric charisma made it difficult for others to severe eye contact with him, which made him felt popular, like an idol. Now, however, he was in the shoes of the opposition, incapable of tearing his eyes away from the silhouette of the First even though he left the scene a while ago.

The void that he felt… just now, he clearly sensed it. It stirred, as if somewhere inside the nothingness, the eyes of desire were hunting its next prey. This feeling wasn’t something like disgust or fear. The basis of it was void as if the concept of emptiness somehow had a desire.

Suddenly, Taku flinched and bounced to the left. Sunk Cost had tapped him on the shoulder.

[You haven’t been with him for long, so you wouldn’t have known. Though, I’m sure you sensed something at the beginning.]

“I thought he was a weirdo, but he’s a sociopath? Psychopath?”

[Not really. He’s… an addict.]

“Huh? To what, acid?”

[No no no, it’s not substance abuse. Some people are addicted to the high you get when you do extreme sports, some are addicted to porn or have specific fetishes. They’re all addiction.]

“So you’re telling me First’s a footballer with a different context?”

[How is that an extreme sport?]

“Cock and Ball To-“

[Fuck sakes, no. Urgh, how do I explain it? You know that feeling in a novel, or when you watch a movie, where a character gets away with something they shouldn’t have?]

“I don’t really watch movies, nor do I remember much.”

[Ok then, animes? Light novels or Wuxia?]

“Oh yeah, I got’chu. Like that uncle who’s trying to cripple the MC so someone else can succeed their clan, but failed with no retributions?”

[Or that friend who betrayed them for selfish reasons, but thanks to the sob-story effect the MC forgives them.]

“Oh, that villain who upheaved the entire continent to destroy the MC but in the end, the MC couldn’t kill them because of their tragic reasonings and suddenly, a random ‘accident’, usually self-inflicted, takes them out in a heroic light despite nothing they’ve done so far shown any signs of atonement?”

[Exactly. That’s pretty specific, you-]

“Or the alternative anti-hero MC that wreaked havoc throughout the story thanks to a misunderstanding, then realised the truth and immediately wanted to be good-natured, so that the original MC, who always treated him as a friend despite what he has done, could somehow bring him back to the light from all the atrocities he committed?”

[Okay okay, you can stop-]

“Like that madman who tortured and kill so many innocent people, but simply gets slain by a single chapter by-“

[Fucking enough! Yes, you got the point. We got the point. The gods reading our lives got the point. It’s that situation! Right, yeah. That scenario, where the author felt the need to keep things PG and all-happy-going. That situation happens in real life too. When a murderer got away because of a loophole in the system of law, or when a large corporation can bully individuals or local firms into obedience simply due to financial power.

[Have you ever thought about acting judge?

[Have you ever experienced the satisfaction left behind, knowing that you are in control of karma, that people get exactly what they deserved?

[Do you know how addictive that feeling can be?]

“That is… messed up.”

[It’s worse than an addiction to power. Don’t misinterpret it as a god complex. You could get a similar experience by giving something back to those who did good.

[The problem is that enforcing the punishment onto someone who did bad… has a stronger impact. A higher dosage, one might say. It’s like the control for the amount of morphine you’d get when you are in pain. If you left it to him, he will definitely increase it as far as possible.]

“Is that… necessarily a bad thing?”

[I dunno, you decide. If you think entrusting a decision like that to a singular person, and letting him run amok, all the whilst knowing he’s taking joy in the thrill… if you think that is reasonable, then support him.]

“… It’s primal. Almost inhuman.”

[Then keep an eye on him. It’s a performance, a delicate balance between the withdrawal symptoms and the ecstasy of the act. I’m telling you now – he’s not a bad guy, and he’s trying his best to subdue it. He simply can’t do it alone. Addiction shouldn’t ever be tackled alone. Also, I’d advise you not to owe anything to him, no matter how trivial. Because so long as something’s imbalanced… his addiction will urge him to correct it.]

“Ah. That was something I said casually, I didn’t realise it’d be so important. Geez, what fucked up backstory does he have to become like this?”

[Hmm… Hey, Taku, aren’t you unaging?]

“Yeah, so?”

Sunk Cost left behind a cheeky smile as he disappeared inside one of his golden portals. His head went in first with his leg, then his body…

“I won’t become like that.”

… Finally, the last leg. He wouldn’t have heard Taku, but it was unnecessary anyway.

“… Wait, they just left me here?”

Life as a JanZe apprentice in a combat camp was mundane.

They were not entrusted with any jobs of significance, and they were removed from any events. The three of them were told not to interfere with the hostage extractions or exchange.

Thankfully, they learnt how to obey orders a little better by now. They limited their mistakes and misinterpretations, which gave them more time to…

Be beaten black and blue by Marvin.

Every day, without fail, the three of them would create a plan, charge bravely against this shivering, stuttering senpai, only to be completely crushed to the ground.

They used their abilities, but Marvin returned fire with the same Powers. Even though his mimicked abilities were weaker, his understanding and usage of their own abilities were far beyond them.

When Kelvin charges in, Marvin’ll disassemble his movements into several sections, and counter them one by one. Kelvin empowers his entire body as he moved, but Marvin accurately adjusted the strength into specific limbs to emphasise efficiency. Not only was Kelvin slower, but his martial skill was weaker too. By the time Kelvin noticed a technique, he was already swept under Marvin’s pace.

Sometimes he blocked with a guard, sometimes he swiped his upheld palm across Kelvin’s arm and deflect it whilst heading straight for Kelvin’s neck. Sometimes he would dodge. Sometimes he’ll ignore the punch, focusing Kelvin’s own Power into negating the damage. Sometimes, he’d turn a part of his body ethereal, unaffected by physical attack, just to avoid the incoming punch.

Kelvin’s control over his secondary ability was clearly weaker than his enhancement Power. Marvin had limitations on his Power to mimic abilities, but even then, despite the slower speed of transformation and the harsher penalties, Marvin was more capable of wielding this strange Power than Kelvin could comprehend.

“C-close combat isn’t just t-techniques. M-my master taught m-me ap-propriation, variation, and r-rhythm.”

It’s an old-fashioned outlook, but it worked wonders in most situations. Essentially, it boiled down to experience and eccentricity. Humans are adept at noticing patterns, so don’t follow any. Use an appropriate response based on your experience and your creativity to improvise as you go, forcefully dragging your opponent into your pace.

A battle isn’t an RPG with fixed mechanics and skills.

Amelia’s lightning was strong and quick but took quite some time to be ready. In contrast, Marvin wielded it in short bursts. Rather than firing off one powerful attack every ten or twenty seconds, he’d manipulate small discharges here and there and accumulates power to use at an opportune time.

If he fought at range, Amelia wouldn’t last for more than a minute. If he rushed in for close combat, Amelia wouldn’t last five seconds. That was due to her secondary power – the ability to disrupt mana formation.

However, she received the biggest praise from Marvin.

“You are q-quick! But you need m-more experience. You can solve e-easy things, but when I do something new, or inc-crease the intensity, you can’t keep up. Fight o-on!”

And the one who got the most criticisms was none other than Hazel.

“Use y-your fire creatively! It’s a scary Power that many p-people have! You could use it as a direct a-attack, or block their vision, or even f-force them into a direction you want them to go! Y-you need to understand what f-fire really is. It’s m-more than just heat! If you throw it w-whilst thinking of heat, then it’ll d-dissipate quickly!”

It’s not that Hazel hadn’t tried to spice up her techniques, it’s just not enough. In Khondour, the most common form of Power was fire. Don’t compare the JanZe to the average mana user, because that sample wasn’t accurate in a realistic situation. Though it’s true the child of fire attribute parents would be more likely to wield fire than other forms of power, the matter’s more complicated than just that explanation. Still, one out of every eight humans that can actively practice mana had a fire attribute. As such, it’s common for any combatant to be trained against elemental attacks, especially fire.

The two fought again. This time, Marvin chose to rush into a melee, to which Hazel responded by flying backwards to maintain distance. To the untrained eye, it might’ve looked like a cat and mouse game. However, to those sensitive to mana like Amelia, they’d be able to notice the stark differences in skill.

If you held a candle flame next to the skin of a fire-user but restrict their mana, then they’d burn like a normal person. Hence, our bodies evolved to maintain an external coating of mana, which provided some resistance to damage. The defensive mana also had different effects when used against fire created by material substances, or fire invoked by using mana. In short, mana was more effective when used against other mana-based tasks.

This also explained the tendency for elemental fighters to conjure or invoke their respective elements. Similarly, those who controlled the terrain around them – mostly earth elemental users – had a stronger resistance against all attacks, simply because they’re accustomed to manipulating matter using their mana.

With that being said, let’s return to the battle between Marvin and Hazel.

Hazel’s entire body was burning with fire conjured by her mana, turning her into something similar to the Human Torch. It looked impressive, but in reality, was extremely wasteful. She’s wasting mana by constantly maintaining the flame around her body that served no purpose unless an attack impacted her. She invoked fire into a stream and shot it towards Marvin’s general direction, but without any threatening speed or accuracy. Aiming a flamethrower at someone might’ve sounded scary, but if the opponent saw its trajectory, not to mention that the stream was unbroken and therefore not random, actually hitting a moving target was almost reliant on luck.

Attacking whilst retreating was the most common method of fighting by long-ranged fighters. Hazel was displaying her textbook understanding of combat.

Marvin ran forward with a steady rhythm. Whenever his feet left the ground, a burse of fire propelled him further than normal. Whenever the momentum peaked, the fire shifts from the calcaneus to the sole, before stopping altogether as soon as it touched the ground. Occasionally, the fire would also be used at his palms for balance correction or to dodge incoming attacks. There was little to no wastage in his movements, all of which boosted his movement speeds beyond what Hazel was capable of despite using barely a tenth of the power.

Moving at high speeds with long hang time, controlling multiple complex actions and reactions, and even doing barrel rolls whilst maintaining balance? That shit’s no joke.

A resonating thump signalled the end of the fight and gave rise to a formidable bruise on Hazel’s cheeks.