Mahon and Zac were both resting after their fifth fight of the day. It was their first training session since they went together in Nightmare, and the atmosphere was totally different. They used to exchange awkward looks and avoid each other, barely communicating for the whole session, but this time they had stayed together and encouraged the other when it was hard for him.

After witnessing Mahon’s stances in Nightmare, Zac had complete confidence in Mahon’s capacity at helping him. Although Mahon himself could not hold the stances in Ratho, he knew exactly what to look for and what separated passable from perfect. Slander told them such advice, but the instructor had two hundred students to watch so his words by person were sparse during the training. So Mahon took his role while he was not around and advised Zac on how to improve faster.

At first he had not said anything, but it was Zac who had insisted that he correct him every time. They talked low so as not to draw the attention of the others and raise any weird questions regarding Mahon’s skills. The coaching continued during the fight and even though Mahon was disposed of easily, it was not always the case for Zac, even two against one. Mahon sketches some basic strategy on the sand and the two men were soon discussing how they could win their first fight even though Mahon would last seconds.

Zac was amazed at Mahon’s knowledge as he had never suspected the worst student to know the most before yesterday. But now that he knew about it, he spent every rest time with Mahon. As Mahon was rapidly out, he had time to look at how Zac fought his opponents and he was able to give him some advice after they had both lost.

“You’re supposed to be firm on your feet. When you rush to attack, you do have the surprise element but it’s not enough to justify this loss of balance.”

“Yeah…”

“Near the end, when you were cornered, you tried to dodge, but you were already too focused on your next move and you screwed up your footwork.”

“Focus on my foot and don’t think too much, is that it?”

“Let’s try that for the next fight, yes.”

The cycle of fighting and then analyzing continued, a loss after the other. In their last fight, Zac managed to take out one of their opponents alone, but he was then thrown away by the other and they lost again.

But instead of the usual feeling of distrust and betrayal at the end of the session, the two men were happily chatting, and they had been so enthusiastic that they didn’t see the session fly by.

“You sensed it, right? Why was it the perfect moment to attack? Because your opponent was not firm on his legs. At this level, it all comes down to balance.”

Zac gave him a thumbs up while he recovered his breath from his last fight.

“It seems it’s all for the day. We will get our victory another time. But you will have to do most of the work. I still need weeks before I can even do something.”

“Ah, don’t worry about that. With how hard you train, you will be there in no time at all! Now, let’s go eat with the others, I’m hungry!”

“As usual, our first session of the week will be on another topic than Amentiae before we focus back on that point.”

Yordar scanned the students sitting in front of him to make sure everyone was paying attention to his words. In the middle rows, Mahon, Zac, Wyrran, Allen and Kali were side by side, all focused on the lesson. Since the announcements of duels and the last physical test, they were eagerly awaiting the strategy test.

Everything that Yordar said was duly written in a notebook, and the First Red planned to talk about it together in the evening to make sure they were ready for the challenge.

“Today’s lesson is about magic. Perhaps, you heard about it before or maybe you have seen it yourself, although it’s quite rare.”

Yordar had already his chalks in hands and walked closer to the board.

“But contrary to what everyone believes, it’s pretty common to know how to do magic. It’s just that it’s pretty useless in everyday life, so few people use it. Let me tell you first about what we call earth magic.”

As he spoke, he wrote simple words on the board to facilitate their learning.

“Earth magic is the ability to materialize and manipulate earth. Its principles are rudimentary and any of you could do some basics within a year. So why is it not well known? And why am I talking about it now?”

As always, Yordar knew how to speak in the most interesting way to his students and, besides explaining a point, he also highlighted why it was important to know it. This added layer was often the difference between talking and teaching.

“It’s pretty simple. Earth magic is slow. Building a small shelter to sleep takes around one hour for a seasoned practitioner. Earth can’t be used during fight nor during battle. It’s just too slow. Instead, it is commonly used for fortifications and strategic positioning.”

“In Ratho it’s useless because we have limited space and everything that could be built has already been built. But on the frontier, war is never ending. Fortifications are destroyed and erected again every day. Scouts teams also use earth magic to build small refuges when they leave for an expedition behind our lines.”

“That’s why it’s mandatory for you to learn about earth magic. Not everyone has to know how to do it, but as future officers, you at least have to know how it can be used. Let me give you a quick example of what it might look like.”

Yordar moved some furniture around and pulled out a cart with a small mound of earth inside it. He regulated his breathing and waved his hands as if he was moving the earth with invisible strings.

Slowly the earth started to respond to his weird gestures and moved along. Yordar spent several minutes directing the earth and when he lowered his hands, a perfect cube approximately thirty centimeters squared could be seen inside the cart. Yordar picked up the cube and gave it to a student sitting in the first row. While the cube moved from hands to hands under the scrutinizing look of the students, Yordar continued his speech.

“That’s how it’s done. It’s quiet, you don’t need much space and you can build a lot of this block if you’ve got a team. These blocks can then be used to build whatever you need.”

The block passed among the students until it arrived in Mahon's hands. The cube seemed very compact, but it was lighter than it looked. As others before him, he struck the cube to test his robustness, and the result was exactly the same as the hundred previous hits. The tough cube didn’t change in the slightest.

Mahon gave the strange material to Zac so he could test it himself while Yordar continued his lesson.

“Before we delve further into earth magic, it’s worth mentioning that some other types of magic exist, although they are rarer. One that is well known to us is called time magic. Those who can perform it are few, but its usage is more combat related.”

“The main manifestation of time magic is almost invisible, but when you know what to look for, you can easily see it. When it happens, you might observe a warrior fighting like he never did before. His steps are perfectly in the right place at the right time. His stances and attacks are neither too fast nor too slow, they just come at the perfect timing.”

Yordar mimicked a warrior fighting as he spoke, and the students were soon intrigued by this rare magic.

“Time magic induces some kind of trance that we often call the Flow. The Flow is a state where everything fits in. If you experience it, you might feel that everything has a rhythm and somehow you know them perfectly. It might seem hard to understand at first, but let me demonstrate the concept here.”

Yordar took out three small balls and threw them in the air without looking. The balls followed a simple trajectory, and as Yordar caught them, he started juggling with ease.

“That’s my usual juggling skill. Now let’s see what happens when someone throws another ball at me.”

With his head, he gestured to a student to throw him one of the balls which were upon his desk. The student picked up one ball and threw it at the professor with hesitation. Yordar’s juggling pattern became messy, but he managed to grab the ball and continued.

“Throw another one, don’t go easy on me.”

This time, the student threw the ball strongly and although Yordar caught it, the other balls fell on the ground. Yordar picked up the balls and started juggling again. He seemed highly focused, but he was able to juggle with the five of them. He quickly stopped and pursued the lesson.

“This was my normal skill level. That is to say, I’m able to juggle with five, but it needs most of my attention and when one of the balls is thrown at me, I can’t directly juggle. Now let’s see what happens once I use the Flow.”

He threw back two balls at the student, closed his eyes and regulated his breathing as if he was trying to meditate. After a minute of silence, he opened his eyes and started juggling.

When the student threw the first ball, Yordar modified his juggling pattern to catch and include the ball in his loop with perfect ease. The second ball was caught in the same smooth motion and effortlessly assimilated in the juggling.

A moment ago, Yordar had been struggling to hold five balls in the air, but this time he was doing so almost without looking and even took the time to explain.

“See how it works? My timing and movements become more fluid, more gracious, more synchronized. I don’t need to be as focused as before. But Flow has limits too. It can only make you better at something you already know. Throw me another ball, please.”

The student sent a sixth ball and Yordar caught it in a smooth move, but the juggling collapsed just after.

“I don’t know how to juggle with six balls and even in Flow I can’t do it.”

Yordar put back the balls on his desk and gestured for the student to return to his seat.

“We believe there are other types of magic than these two, but we don’t know them well enough to talk about it here. One example is the magic the Amentiae used to create Nightmare. We believe it was some kind of time magic mixed with something else. How do we know that? It has been recorded that the Flow was much easier to perform in Nightmare than in Ratho and we believe that it is due to the strange nature of Nightmare, probably soaked in remnants of time magic.”

“Another example lies in the well-known story of how the queen sacrificed herself to save us from being fully dragged into Nightmare. Because of her, upon dying in Nightmare, we only lose our memory, but our body is left intact. Again, it’s possibly another kind of specific magic that we don’t know much about.”

Yordar walked to his board and wrote earth magic on one side and time magic on the other.

“Earth and time are the only magic we teach at the Pine Hill Officer Institute if you’re ever interested in learning them. I don’t remember from which rank you can access the lessons, but I recommend everyone to attend at least one lesson of time magic. The professor will be able to tell you if it’s worth learning it or if you have no talent for it.”

“It’s a harsh truth that not everyone can do time magic but deal with it. And don’t think you’re all powerful just because you can do it. It takes years to master and only makes you better at something you already know.”

Yordar glanced at his class to make sure they would follow his advice before moving on.

“During this course I will not teach you any magic, instead I will tell you how earth magic, and in a smaller measure time magic, is used in warfare.”