Over the course of the next several days, Gust spent more time practicing his Mage Sword than anything else. It was an exciting new weapon which would help him not only beat Jonas, but also the beasts deeper in the forest. Just a little more practice, and Gust would be confident enough to accept his first mission.

But he quickly noticed a problem. The sword mana was too potent. Gust realized that when he searched the souls of other students at his level, they were filled with a pure blue mana and nothing more. They didn’t have aspected mana yet. If they did it was too little to use or notice.

Wood mana was the local resource, but Gust failed to see how that could create a better weapon than sword mana.

The fact remained that Gust didn’t want to dismember his fellow students. He wanted to make friends, not corpses.

And so, he discovered that he could change the ratio of mana which he used to create his Mage Sword. It was much like trying to surround the sword mana in his pathways with the pure version to alleviate pain. If he used mostly pure mana to power his Mage Sword, its slicing capabilities were dampened.

He looked forward to the next sparring day, though it was still more than a week away. Against Jonas, Gust planned to start with his pure mana sword, then slowly feed sword mana into as necessary.

Another problem was the spell’s rapid consumption of mana. It seemed that the more shaped the Mage Hand, the more mana it used. As a sword was very different from a hand, it was very taxing on Gust’s cultivation. He saw the silver cloud around his core shrink a noticeably after using the sword mana that first time, and quickly decided it would be a last resort.

He still needed practice, but Gust’s worries about not being able to compete with his fellow students quieted as those days passed. Gust didn’t mention it to Locke while they worked together. Instead, he saved it for the next time they sparred.

It was shady and cool, but the dark clouds in the sky foretold rain. Gust and Locke hoped the rain would start early, as it would give them the day off, but there was no such luck. It was around midday when they returned to Gust’s home.

As they started, Gust conjured a Mage Sword of pure mana and smirked when he saw Locke’s confusion. As he struck at his friend, though, Locke blocked this as easily as anything else. He simply brought one arm up and it was quickly surrounded by a blue sheen of light. The Mage Sword struck and bounced off in a burst of blue.

A Mage Hand appeared and grabbed at Gust’s sword but Gust swiped at it and the blue hand disintegrated. Locke’s eyes widened, but he brought his arm up and blocked again easily.

“That’s… good. Hmm,” Locke slapped his bag of holding and a wooden sword flew out. He immediately started attacking Gust’s Mage Sword with it and chips of wood flew off every time the two blades met. Lock squinted and surrounded his own sword with a Mage Hand before trying again, but still found that Gust’s version was stronger.

“How do you do that?” he finally asked.

As proud as Gust felt to be able to do something his friend couldn’t, he struggled to answer that question. “It’s just a Mage Hand shaped into a sword. If you focus on it, you can change it.”

Locke tried to do so, and Gust watched a blue hand morph into a rough image of a sword before it completely disappeared. Locke shook his head and waved his hand. Another Mage Hand appeared and quickly scattered into a dozen leaves hanging in the air. “As I thought,” Locke muttered. “Why don’t you try shaping some leaves for me?”

As Gust did so, he failed in the same way Locke failed to create a sword. Gust tried again and grew frustrated, but Locke laughed.

“It’s your cultivation method. Mind if I check your soul?”

After Gust shook his head, he felt a slight brush against his soul.

“Silver mana,” Locke muttered. “That’s the reason it works, then. The method the Swordsman gave you cultivates sword mana. Mine only attracts wood mana, so I can’t do it.”

“I’m not using sword mana, though. Look.” Gust cycled sword mana away from his core and into his hands, then swiped through the air with a silver blade. As quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

Locke’s eyebrows shot up. “You have that much? Patrons be damned! Even in the middle of a forest, I can barely attract a sliver of wood mana. Even those leaves I conjured used more than I’m comfortable with,” he grumbled.

Gust stood, silently shocked for a minute. He’d assumed anyone could shape their Mage Hand into anything, but it seemed that specific shapes could only be formed with the help of their associated mana.

He tried to shape the Mage Hand into a tree, and it failed. He tried a rock, a flame, a lightning bolt, and even a spear. They all failed. Vague shapes were simple enough, but as Gust tried refine the mass of blue mana into anything specific, it dissipated. He tried Mage Sword again, and it worked as easily as ever.

“I don’t get it. I’m not even using sword mana.”

Locke held up a finger. “You probably are. Just such a small amount our weak mana senses can’t detect it. Besides, it’s your soul that matters. Your soul contains sword mana, and so it knows what a sword is. It sounds strange, but that’s how you can form a blade, but not anything you want. And how I can form leaves. Your soul becomes aspected as it fills with aspected mana. Even a small amount.”

“Huh. So why don’t people just collect cultivation methods and different types of mana so they can do everything?”

Locke started laughing. “Oh, it’s that easy, is it? Our library has books on dozens of paths, sure, but they all take time. Plus, the rest of us need to actually find the mana. You, on the other hand, can just walk over to your master’s house and sit near his sword.”

Gust paused and thought about that. “What if you used all your wood mana? Would you still be able to form the leaves?”

Locke nodded. “The soul remembers. If you changed your cultivation method and path, you might lose the ability eventually, but I haven’t heard of anyone doing that. It’d be a waste of time. It’s far better to specialize in one type of mana, than try to master them all. Why else would paths exist?”

Gust nodded and shot his friend a glare. When Locke noticed, he changed his stance, and the fight resumed. As Gust struck at his friend, Locke blocked the blows again with small field of blue mana which surrounded his arm.

The Demon scoffed. “What’s that, then? You can’t form a sword, but you can do a shield easily enough.”

Locke shook his head. “Look closer. It’s just a flattened, dense Mage Hand.” As he spoke, Locke held his real hand out in front of himself and a Mage Hand appeared a few feet in front of it. When Locke twisted his hand and grabbed the air, the Mage Hand condensed and became a much darker blue. The fingers grew less defined, and the hand was soon a misshapen blob. Then it disappeared.

“The unformed spell uses a lot of mana,” Lock explained, “but it’s better than taking a hit.”

Gust nodded as he conjured a Mage Hand in front of himself and tried to condense it into a shield that resembled a pane of glass. Holding the form was tiresome, so he nodded at his friend. “Send a few of those leaves my way!”

As Locke complied, five blue leaves shot toward Gust like bullets. Four hit his shield and dissipated, but then the shield popped and was gone. The final leaf barreled forward into Gust’s chest with a shocking amount of force. He lost balance and fled a few steps back but didn’t fall. There was a dull ache in his chest, so Gust cycled some of his mana into the area. He noted that he had to use more mana to heal himself than he would have needed to block that last leaf.

“Okay,” Gust said as his breathing grew heavy. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.”

With a smirk, he planted his feet and conjured a pair of Mage Swords. One in front of himself, the other behind Locke. He attacked from the front and back simultaneously. At the same time, he paid attention to his mana senses in case of any surprise attacks and lifted his right foot just before a Mage Hand tried to grab at it.

Gust hopped to the left and brought up a shield as a few leaves flew at his back. Locke deflected one Mage Sword with his wooden blade and a blue shield blocked the other’s attacks.

Even if he hadn’t struck his friend yet, Gust was proud to make Locke sweat.

The two Mage Swords were as much as Gust could manage, so he pulled out a wooden sword and used the barest amount of mana to propel it toward Locke’s chest. His blue eyes widened and a few dozen leaves alighted in the space around his body. Most of them flew toward the blue swords, repelling their attacks, but a few flew forward to block the Gust’s frontal attack.

At the same time, he shouted, “Now, girl!”

Gust squinted and looked toward the path leading back to the school. There was no one there…

Then a weight crashed into his shoulder. It wasn’t heavy, but as Gust turned his head he nearly screamed. A queen ant nearly the size of his hand gripped his shoulder tightly and outstretched its mandibles. When they were poised against Gust’s throat, he threw up his hands. His heart beat quickly and he breathed rapidly. Not from exhaustion, nor even fear, but disgust.

“Fuck, you couldn’t have warned me she was gonna get involved?”

Locke was breathing heavily, too. He shrugged and held out a hand. As he spoke, his queen ant hopped off Gust’s shoulder and trotted over to her master’s sleeve. “I told you I’d have to start trying eventually. I’m just surprised it’s happened this fast. You won’t win the tournament, but at least you won’t embarrass yourself. Then again, it depends on who you fight,” he teased.

“Yeah, well I have a few more weeks to progress, don’t I? Besides, I didn’t even show you what this thing can do.” As he spoke, Gust conjured a silver Mage Sword and swiped it at a tree behind himself. The wood parted easily, and Gust retracted the spell, as well as his mana sense, to preserve his resources. Then he crossed his arms and smirked at his friend’s shocked expression.

Locke’s eyebrows rose, but the awe in his expression was replaced by humor. He pointed behind Gust just as the hewed tree started to fall.

Gust turned around just in time to see a myriad of branches and wood tumbling toward his head and he summoned a shield. Instead of pure mana, he used the sword mana which was readily at hand.

The wood and leaves that crashed into this shield were obliterated as soon as they touched. Wooden shards exploded and flew backwards, covering the ground around the tree. The top of the trunk was cut smoothly where the tree met with Gust’s shield, and nothing above that spot remained intact.

Something landed on Gust’s shoulder and the Demon swiped at it quickly, only to find his friend’s hand. He let out a sigh while Locke laughed.

“You still need to learn to keep calm during a fight, but I’ll bet that shield would destroy anything a first level mage could send at it. Just don’t use it too early, or you’ll run out of sword mana before they bring out their best weapons.” As he said that, his smile grew.

When Gust felt an antenna grazing his cheek, he gritted his teeth. “Unless your ant wants to regrow a few limbs, I suggest she stay in your sleeves.”