I thrust back with my hips to bounce my backpack a bit higher on my back, tightening the straps to hold it in place. Satisfied, slid my thumbs into small loops in the shoulders of the straps and cast my gaze out over the mountain vista before us. The Academy city stood like it’s own mountain peak behind us, and we could still hear the faint whistle of wind howling between it and the great mountain before blowing past us and over the ever shrinking hills out toward the country of Grimaxe. The frames of Grey and Kel standing before the edge of the rocky tor silhouetted briefly against the vast open sky and I caught myself reaching for a phone I didn’t have.

Damn. It kinda sucks we can’t take pictures in here. Unless…?

“Hey guys!” I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted to be heard over the chilly wind.

Kel, who was walking slightly closer to me, turned, the wind whipping a scarf about her face.

“Before we leave I wanna go buy a camera!” I shouted. As I watched I saw Kel pull on Grey’s sleeve and the two put their heads together for a moment. Soon after Grey formed a large ‘O’ with his arms and pointed over the edge of the escarpment. Following his arm, I spied a relatively flat peak a mile or so down the trail. It looked like they were planning on waiting there for me rather than turn around. I waved and turned back to the city at a quick jog. If I hurried I might be able to catch up in a few hours.

A bit over an hour later I was once again exiting the Western gate of the Academy armed with a newly purchased capture slate. I felt a smile split my face as I lifted it towards the cloudy firmament before me and squeezed the handles on either side of the small, grey stone. With a tactile ‘click’ a glimmering copy appeared on the slate. I was so focused on my new toy I started in surprise when a voice jabbed grumpily into my ear.

“Well well well, trying to leave without saying goodbye to your favorite culinary dependent, Pallus? How cruel. My heart is broken. Look, I’m literally dying of sadness.”

To my left, Jules was lying pitifully on the ground and clutching his liver in mock agony.

“Jules? What are you doing here?” I glanced down at him while slipping my slate away.

“I’m glad you asked!” Jules leapt to his feet, pretend agony forgotten. “It just so happens I heard you were headed to Grimaxe and I just so happen to live around there, so I thought I might as well tag along with your little crew. What do you say, sparkles?”

“Well-”

“Excellent!” Julian beamed excitedly then promptly turned and started marching along the path Westward. I grinned and began to follow him.

“Also I know you have the traveler skill and since we’re traveling together you should help.” Julian said, stopping by a large tarp strapped down next to the road. With a flourish, he whipped back the tarp to reveal lavish chairs, tables, and boxes of foodstuffs preserved in unreasonably expensive preservation enchantments. I scrunched my brows and gaped for a moment at the pile of expensive garbage.

“You’re kidding.”

>----------<

“-and that’s when I told her ‘Nay, villain! Only traitors would be allergic to crotanut pies!’ then shoved the whole thing down her throat. Needless to say it was only a week later I found myself contracted to a year in the Magic Academy an entire country away from home.” Julian gestured animatedly, summoning imaginary pies and political rivals to the forefront of my mind.

“Huh. You’re a surprisingly good storyteller.”

Julian scoffed at my remark with a haughty frown. “And why wouldn’t I be, dear Pallus? I was raised amongst the highest tier of society and regaled with the most culturally poignant tales peasantry such as you would be utterly-”

I kicked him.

“Agh my ass.”

“I meant I could see the people you were describing but like see see them.” I retorted. I wasn’t offering the praise lightly either, I truly could see images of people I didn’t recognize play across my mind as he talked. It was fantastical. Magical even.

“Well yeah I was using magic.”

“Hah?”

“Mind magic. It’s my family’s specialty. Actually it takes a high amount of control to use so our other specialty is Magitech.” Julian tugged at his traveling clothes which, much like everything else I’d ever seen him wear, were slightly too extravagant to be practical. “Which pays quite well, though is less useful in more...violent circles.”

“MIND MAGIC???” I sputtered. “You can control people’s minds??”

Julian hopped onto a large boulder in front of us and spun to face me, one arm covering his face as he leaned dangerously backwards and cackled.

“AHAHA PERHAPS YOU ARE ALREADY UNDER MY CONTROL DEAR PALLUS.”

“LET’S CHECK SHITTY JULIAN.” I shouted and launched myself into Julian’s waist. With a crash, we both slammed into the loose stone above the boulder.

“Alright alright you win. Now where are you supposed to meet-” Julian’s words were cut off by the feeling of stone shifting underneath the both of us. “Oh shit.” The stone held for one more instant before releasing like a long-held breath and tumbling out from under us. I reached out with my mana and moulded rocks into helmets, desperately slapping them onto Julian’s and my head before my world was filled with the crashing of tumbling stone.

>----<

“Man this is almost nostalgic, noob.”

I blinked my eyes open, taking in the wide open sky and Kel’s laughing face.

“How long has it been since I found you knocked out like this in front of a T-Rex?”

I grunted and lifted myself up, quickly finding my arm pinned by a large rock. I sighed and flopped back down, beginning the annoying task of disintegrating enough stone to pull my arm out. “I don’t really know. A bit over a year I’d guess? How are you here anyway?”

“Hmm that sounds right. I need to log off soon then. Yeah you guys were way off track so Grey and I were following you when you had a little tumble off the cliff.”

Kel started chucking creepily to herself so I focused on my arm and pulled it out of the stone in a small puff of stone powder. Kel seemed content to choke on the powder that had blown into her mouth so I took the opportunity to glance around the valley we were in. It seems the rock slide had taken most of the loose stone off the upper and middle sides of the valley so we were on a rather smooth ledge about halfway up the valley wall. Aside from a few sizable boulders, the whole forty foot square area was pretty clean. Just down the slope from the edge of the ledge, Grey and Julian were hiking up to meet us.

“Kel! Pallus!” Grey waved. “Let’s camp here for the night. It’s protected from the wind and seems pretty safe.”

Kel was still busy clearing out her lungs so I nodded agreement. “Yeah this looks nice. Plus Julian can tell us about mind magic while we wait.” I grinned at Julian.

Jules grinned back and threw a rock at my head. Grey laughed, “Glad to see you’re all feeling better. Here let me drop a ward quick and we can settle in.” With that, Grey knelt near the edge of the ledge and closed his eyes. After a moment golden runes appeared encircling the entire camp with a dim glow. Immediately the sound of the mountain was muffled and the temperature rose slightly.

My eyes widened as I looked around the circle. “When the hell did you learn to do that?”

Grey smiled and stood from where he was kneeling. “The Apprentice level of magic mastery is all about lasting magic. It’s basically a primer for casting enchantments. I read a bit of it while we waited on you.”

A bit? And he already learned ward magic?

“Damn. I really need to read that then.” I poked at one of the glowing runes. It looked like those ancient norse runes you always saw in games.

“ALLLLLLLLLRIGHTY EVERYBODY. Storytime!”

I turned back around to see Julian had raised a small platform to stand on while I’d been distracted.

“Pallus wants to know about mind magic, so settle in and prepare for a show.” With that Julian raised his hand with a dramatic flair and threw a small marble at the platform in front of himself. The marble burst into a cloud of smoke that began to twine against itself like snakes as it drifted through the camp. The snakes were oddly alluring and at the same time familiar. As I looked at them my vision faded to black then blinked back in. I was in another place, standing in a lavish hallway with nearly twenty foot tall arched ceilings, rich blue carpeting, and small busts of unfamiliar figures dotting the spaces between regularly spaced pillars. My hand raised to eye level and I saw I was holding a copper mirror that seemed almost unnaturally reflective as I could clearly see Julian’s features reflected within it. He winked and began to speak.

“Mind magic is one of the most versatile magics in the realm of information.”

Julian’s body that I was in began to walk somewhat jerkily forward along the carpet. Pulled from Julian’s voice, I noticed there were parts of the walls that were cast in as vivid detail as others; the wall behind a statue was blank, the carpet in some places had no texture, etc. They were small things, but disconcerting as I noticed them.

“A practitioner of the discipline can show others what he has seen, or even take a jaunt through a world entirely of their own creation.”

At this, a wall of smoke rushed from one end of the corridor and wiped the hallway away to reveal a large grassy plain.

“In here, in the practitioner’s world, nothing we say can he overheard except by a more powerful mind mage.”

A off-kilter copy of Julian sprouted up out of the grass and shouted over the fields like a yodeler: ‘Pallus is a whoorrororororrooooeeeee’. The crash of waves responded to his call as waves rose from the grass and the wooden deck of a ship pushed from underneath the earth and lifted them above the water. Lightning slammed into the roiling sea and Julian once again raised his copper mirror.

“Also-”

His words faded into silence as the dream ended and I opened my eyes to the camp.

“Ah shit the smoke ran out.” Julian was sitting on his raised dais pouting. “Well anyway, when I get good enough at this stuff I’ll be able to mess with people’s minds and make really convincing illusions and stuff.” He leaned back on his hands and raised an eyebrow. “Any questions?”

I hopped to my feet indignantly. “Yeah! Why am I only hearing about this now?”

“Please, sparkles” Julian scoffed, “I was hardly the only foreign dignitary who took advantage of the Academy’s slackened restrictions and I very well may have been the only friendly one. It would be foolish to reveal my hand amongst enemies.”

The Academy loosened their entry requirements? Wait enemies? Why do I always feel out of the loop?

“Ah!” Kel exclaimed suddenly. “That’s it! I know how to beat the game! Grey- wait not you- Pallus!” Kel turned to me. “I’ve spent all this time in one country ‘cause the site said that’s where all the important stuff ends but it never said it starts there! I know where the demon king is! We have to log off right now to give our Early Access report but when you log back in tomorrow help me! We’re gonna win!”

With that Kel immediately rolled out her sleeping bad and was out the second she lay down.

“Damn. Wish I could fall asleep that fast.” Grey noted then turned to us. “Alright guess I’ll take first watch. Pallus, you can take second then Julian’ll take third. See you all in the morning.” Grey raised a stone bench from the ground then sat down and pulled out thick tome he was already a good quarter of the way through.

That little shit is studying right now! Well I’m not gonna fall behind!

I spread out my sleeping bag then slid under the covers before sneaking my own Apprentice Magic tome out of my bag.

Chapter One: An Introductory Into Mana Permanence

Now the first thing you must understand about mana is the inherent transience of the matter. Now it has often been theorized that overcoming the fluctuation wall that would allow mana permanence merely required more personal mana. This is not so! You will find in this chapter that the true secret is to achieving favorable results lay not in brute force, but in understanding that the world itself is the greatest expression of permanent magical manifestation and so to infringe upon that manifestation is to simply borrow the characteristics of it. In layman’s terms, merely remove as much personally characterized mana as possible OR cast with a characterization of mana that melded naturally with the greater world around us.

Ugh. This is so dry. I really hope I’m not woken up by some monster.

>--------<

I startled awake at the sound of Grey shouting. “Guys! Look alive! We have company!”

I guess I forgot to knock on wood.

Suddenly a large branch swung from behind a stray boulder and slammed into Grey, knocking him a few feet back our way.

I’m not sure if that counts as knocking on wood.

Grey skipped backwards to bleed momentum then continued his backward movement until he had arrived in front of us

“It’s a man-eating flesh butcher.” Grey ground his teeth and raised his sword.

“It’s a what.” I blinked by eyes a few times in Grey’s direction. Julian raised his scimitar and responded for him.

“It’s got a long-ass story behind the name but basically it’s a tree. We just have to cut it down.”

I glanced around and noticed Julian and Grey were both already dressed, but Kel was still asleep and I was still in bed. I scrambled to my feet and pulled my cat claws onto my hands. As I clasped the buckles onto my wrists a sharp stone dug into my bare foot, eliciting a wince. I finished buckling my claws just as a large humanoid tree dragged itself into view. It was about seven feet tall with two stumpy legs and long arms reaching from its shoulders all the way down to two oversized curled claws of wood. The arms were so long, the knuckles of those hands grazed the ground as the thing lumbered1 closer. It had two vividly emerald eyes and, as I watched, its face split vertically into a jagged maw that issued forth a roar in our direction. Grey sank into a stance a pointed his sword at the monster.

“I’ll take the front. Pallus, see if you can trip it or pull it over somehow.” I nodded once then ran up the hill. That boulder it was behind was the biggest piece of useful terrain nearby and I would be significantly less useful if it got too far from it. When I was close enough I noticed the butcher’s eyes tracking me and once I was within ten feet it began to swing in my direction. Not taking my eyes off the monster, I shouted down to Grey.

“Grey! Lure it!”

I was basically on top of the thing now and it raised an arm to swing at me, clawed fingers cracking as they opened. Suddenly, a longsword sprouted from the things chest and it staggered back from the force of the impact. “GRRRuuuUUUughhgh”

My mother is a nice lady, thank you.

I translated for the tree and Slid across the stone ground underneath its wide swing. Behind it now, I looped a quick wire over the boulder and, with the tree turning back around, I fired the other end into one of its legs. I looked up to see Grey had ripped his sword back out while Jules was using earth spikes to keep it distracted.

“Get clear!” At my warning, Grey backed off while Jules shot three earth spikes into the beasts torso. As Grey moved, I looped my wire around the button of my immovable rod and threw it. Then, once it was close enough to the rage-tree, I yanked on the wire. The explosive knockback triggered and threw the flesh butcher forward. It staggered a step before the line snapped taut and the butcher crashed into the slope.

“What? No timber jokes? Really?” I looked at Julian and Grey who were sprinting for the tree that was already pushing itself back up.

“Pin it down!” Ah, that would be directed at me. At Grey’s urging, I stopped patting myself on the back and scrambled down to the butcher before anchoring a wire across its shoulders. The butcher groaned and pushed against the wire, a worrying creak coming from the unenhanced metal. “Now tear it up!” Grey yelled while hacking the tree with his sword.

Normally, I would hesitate doing the same. Not because I think the tree thing wouldn’t butcher my flesh if we let it live, but because using a sword to cut up a tree will drop that swords durability faster than a fat kid on a teeter-totter. Well apparently, coating your sword in mana prevents that. Not the fat kid, there is nothing in this world that can keep him from the ground, no it prevents dulling. It’s kinda funny because it can’t increase damage output or anything it just means you don’t have to sharpen your sword every day. Naturally, I was thinking all of this while energetically stabbing the tree with Sir Spike. Soon enough, the butcher gave one final, groaning roar then collapsed onto the stony slope. I collapsed alongside it and grasped my bleeding feet.

“Shit.” I spat on the ground. “I really wished I’d be done with hiking barefoot.”

I glanced down at the tree monster. It was so strange if I stopped for even a second to think about it. It looked and felt just like a tree, even its blood was just sap, but it had been trying to kill us mere moments ago.

This was undoubtedly a dangerous world, but surviving here wasn’t really difficult. I leaned over and used Sir Spike to pop out the green eyes of the tree monster, translucent sap clung to the emerald orb and dripped back down to the socket. I’d only been here a year and something called the flesh butcher didn’t even scratch me. I should be proud, right? But what if I was alone? My gaze drifted from the monster’s face to the long, jagged gouges in its trunk reaching well past the center of the beast, then further down to the collection of chipped bark and shredded wood near the bottom. Grey had nearly cut the monster in two before it had died. If I was alone? Could I still trap it without someone distracting it? Could I even kill it? I pocketed the eyes and frowned. It hadn’t bothered me before. I joked in the ‘adventurer’s’ guild that my image of myself had lifted its visor to reveal Grey, but isn’t he just ridiculously powerful? I’m an assassin so I don’t have to fight monsters, or even people face to face, but what if the Guild sent an order to dispose of Grey? Or Kel?

A brass box clanging against my shins broke me from my stupor. “Ouch!” I glared up at Jules who was standing a few feet away looking innocent.

“What? Your feet are injured not your eyes, not my fault you can’t catch.” Julian laughed and walked back toward camp. I grumbled under my breath about sons of prostitutes while pulling bandages from the brass medkit that had so recently left a welt on my shins.

With my feet bandaged and my shoes re-laced I stood up and took a quick steadying breath.

“Hooooo. GREY!” I stared at my feet and listened to him turn around. I could feel Grey’s eyes land on me but he said nothing, merely waiting for me to continue. I took another, deep breath, glaring holes in my shoes, then looked up at Grey.

“This isn’t easy for me to ask. You once trained me for a day as like a joke or a game, and I’ve been here a while and even became a magician so I shouldn’t need to ask this. Also I’m not even in the same guild as you so you can say no obviously but like…” I trailed off and fought not to go back to looking at my shoes. “How do I get strong?”

Grey’s expression flickered from surprise to some sort of mixture between relief and joy. For a few agonizing moments, he just stood there, slowly grinning at me.

“That you are willing to ask means-”

“Just don’t be weak, obviously.” Grey’s thought out speech was instantly cut off by Julian haughtily butting in.

“You see, sparkles,” Julian twirled his scimitar before smoothly sheathing it in a single motion. “true warriors are well versed in the ancient art of getting good. You have to- umpf!” Julian’s vapid speech was interrupted by Grey shoving him off the mountain ledge. The sounds of crashing and faint echo of screams wafted back up over the ledge as Grey turned back to me.

“Anyway. Just being willing to ask means you have everything you need. And besides… Pallus you’re already strong.” Grey walked over and dropped his sword next to me and looked out into the valley below us, the only sounds the cry of birds overhead and the faint echo of Julian cursing carried on a gentle wind. “You went from asleep to battle-ready in less than a full minute.”

“Well that was-”

“You pinned the Butcher alone the second I asked with no questions and less hesitation.”

“Well it was all happening so fast I mean-”

“We trained in magic for the same amount of time and your control is years ahead of me. Do you have any idea how many days the rest of us had to spend in Piercil’s class to shape magic into animals?”

“I..I don’t…”

“You’re fast, you have a good eye for terrain and traps, you’re a good teammate and you’re unreasonably talented in some aspects of magic. Which is another question.” Grey finally turned to me. I sat there, beet red, and glanced back. “Why didn’t you use any magic just now?”

“Well I…” I paused to see if Grey would continue viciously complimenting me, but he patiently waited for an answer. “I’ve only really fought Jules with magic so I just kinda reverted to what I know.”

“Then there you go.” Grey slapped his knees and stood up. “If you want to be strong, then work on adding your magic. You have all the tools to be strong, just remember to use them.”

I stood up as well as Greys words tumbled around in my head and found myself grinning.

He’s right. All that training and I didn’t even use any magic. So stupid.

“Thank you, Grey, I-”

“I gotta say, fellas, this is some of the gayest shit. I’ll just fall back down this hill here while you two make out how about that?”

1Heh.