Ellie wore blue fatigue trousers and a plain white shirt that morning. They buffered in the wind as Light mana ran through their folds and trailed down her body. She shone like a bonfire, her light filling up the pre-dawn arena, and Seth stood across from her, beads of sweating trailing down his chin.

She'd slowly unleashed herself and her new abilities over the past month of sparring, and just when he thought he was getting used to one rune, she'd spring another on him. She was using her aura Spell now, which despite her encouragement her mastery over hers was miles better than his, but he'd been improving too. His aura was twice as thick, and he'd pulled in mana every morning. Using aura alone, he knew he could take her.

He raised his sword, drew in quick breaths, and nodded to her to begin. She shot at him like a cannon, and he nearly snapped his spine in half weaving low just to dodge her strike. She followed up with a powerful kick which he blocked with his forearm and struck out, but she was already gone, and he chased after her.

He scorched mana weaving, cutting, running alongside her, and the wind howled as he moved, unbidden. The exchange went on for nearly a minute before Seth spiked his aura and drank from his core. His blade moved faster than he could almost follow, slashing down for a quick faint before jabbing forward for a lethal stab. Unsurprisingly, Ellie guided the thrust away with the flat of her blade, glided on the side of his, and lashed out. Seth's eyes flared wide, and he reached for that strange strength he'd managed to call upon their first duel. Light mana answered instead. Clumsy and unstructured, it splashed into his runes and sent a flash of white pain through him.

The thrust caught him one of the silk steel plates of his fatigues as even nearly paralyzed, he tried to slip away. He was shoved to the floor with his chest throbbing.

"You almost got me this time," Ellie said as she loomed over him, smiling. Sweat pooled on her brow. She looked to be enjoying herself. "If it wasn't so easy to read you, I wouldn't have reacted in time."

Seth gasped in response, his body and mind still reeling from the crash.

"You still have enough power in your core?"

Seth answered in a strained nod.

"Good. Let's go again, but this time I'm switching to Holy missile."

Seth groaned. She was going to pepper him with shots from afar while she left him to chase from afar. He could already see her smug smile. He'd pointed out to her several times that it wasn't fair, and she'd reminded him that life hardly ever was.

The second fight went as well as the first, with Seth dodging, weaving, rolling, and tanking hits with his sheathed forearms. In a lucky windfall, he tucked below a light streak, he came upon her with a palm strike. Ellie looked almost worried until she flashed him a dangerous grin and knocked him off his feet with a holy missile square in the chest.

It took five whole minutes before the pain of the impact faded, and he managed to pull himself to his feet, but even through the pain, Seth wore a confident grin.

"What's has you so chipper?" Ellie said, strolling back to the sword rack. "Aren't you typically scowling at the end of these things?"

"Not always," Seth protested, but of course, she'd was right. Today was different though. He was simply too excited to stew on about his lackluster performance.

"Medzka's seeing me today."

"Oh."

Seth nodded eagerly. In the month since they started sparing, they'd fallen back into their old routines. Ellie was less serious now that their lives weren't in danger, and he'd told her about his meeting with the General-- at least some part of it.

He'd told her that the General had seen it fair to compensate him with a six-month-long tutelage under one of the most accomplished runescriver in the Empire. It did not exactly roll off the tongue, but it'd been specific and vague enough to slip by her-- he hoped.

"I only managed to read 30 but there's a lot of overlap. I'd say I have more than a basic grasp of runescripting," Seth said, beaming with a smile.

"Slow down there," she chuckled. "It's not me you need to convince, but I'm sure he'll be impressed."

Seth blinked when he heard her say that.

"You're amazing, Seth. Never doubt it for a second."

"Thanks..." he squeezed out. He'd heard her compliment him more than once, but it still didn't feel quite right. She'd changed since Blackfire and so had he, Seth reminded himself.

"Off you go," she said, bringing him back to the present. "You wouldn't want to be late for the Instructor Arkis's class. You know how touchy he can get."

Seth nodded and hurried off the ring. He was loud and brash like Penta, but unlike her, he relied on the power of his face to whip them all to shape.

"I am disappointed in you," Instructor Arks said, weighing each word like pronounced judgement and with a striking face to match. His eyes crinkled half shut, deep grooves ran down his stony ebony face. "I thought I saw a real hunger in you. Perhaps I was wrong." The words struck with a glacial weight, filling his heart with something he could only describe as sorrow and shame.

I was just late! he wanted to say, instead, he gave a deep bow. "Studies kept me," Seth said. "I got overly excited for our first assessment that I spent my meditation time this morning, researching the creatures we'll be hunting."

Arkis's eyes bored deep into Seth's neck and from the corner of his eyes, Seth could see Ellie winking at him.

"Then you won't mind a short quiz, then? See it as a warmup before your meeting with Medzka."

Seth craned back up. "Of course, Instructor Arkis."

"What vampire lord is rumored to have made them, and what do they fear even more than Light and fire?"

Seth scrunched his brown for only a moment before he fired off. "Olzuth, the bone crusher is their father, and the Vampurah fear black steel more than anything. It is rumored that their father used a rod of black steel to break their ancestors, and they bruised so deep they never quite recovered. Even the oldest Vampurah still fear the black metal."

Arkis nodded and cracked a pleased smile. Seth gave another deep bow.

"You are forgiven, this one time. 'Light reading' won't excuse you from punishment the next time you turn up to class late after a morning scrap."

Seth's eyes went wide, but he suppressed the emotion. Of course, he knew. They all did; all the time. "I apologize....it won't happen again."

Instructor Arkis waved at him, already bounding to the rest of the class.

"Junior Knight Ryall set the mood, and you'll finally put all that knowledge you've gathered over the past month to use. You're going to be taking down a Vampurah in today's class."

There was a string of murmurs and shuffle, but no audible protest. They'd been weak if they'd spoke out.

A large cabinet yawned from the corner. It'd almost snuck in without their notice. Three knight instructors tended to it, guiding it toward the pit in the middle of the class. Two more knights followed behind, one of them in frilly clothing he barely recognized as uniform and Harkness, in a pair of steel gauntlets that hummed with an earthy golden light.

"Last week, Junior knight Harkness lead a team to cull a nest of Vampurah at the edge of the General's property. Upon my request, he spared one, and Scilla, one of Chief Runescriver Medzka's adepts bound it. She'll be here to rein it in when it inevitably tries to wet its mouth with your blood." Arkis gave both knights a nod, which Harkness returned. Scila waved at them, her hair flowing aerily, seemingly just as pleased to be there with them.

"I will break you down into teams of twos and each will try to take down the beasts using black steel weapons provided by the smithy, and traps from the General's stock. And remember, this is the first of many evaluations you'll carry out in my class. Give it your all and do not disappoint."

The class ramped up no sooner than he said his last words, but Arkis took no protests. He lined them up at the edge of the ring, armed with two Artefacts each. Seth was third in line, fighting with golden-haired Gord Goldstein.

A Netean woman, Alaina, and a lithe man were the first to step into the ring. The trunk laid open before them, its body shielded from light, and the beast within snarled and whinged. The challengers didn't look the least bit afraid when Arkis gave the order.

Scila's fingers lit up with golden light and the chains clicked open.

It had scarcely slipped off the body before the beast bounded out. Its body was ink black, and it peered down on them with two bloody orbs, its low-hanging jaw of yellowish teeth salivating. One swipe of his sinewy clawed finger sent both knights darting in opposite directions, barking orders.

"Open with the Firebomb!" Alaina called out to Marcus and the man pulled the canister free from his coat ready to pitch, but it was snapped out of his fingers with a crack of a whip-like tail both knights hadn't caught. It let out a howl that was like nails to a chalkboard and bounded towards Marcus, who froze to massage his hand despite the situation, leaving Alaina chasing behind.

"Remember, if one of you fails, you both fail!" Arkis casually announced, cutting above the murmurs and yells of the watching students. Everyone seemed to think they'd fail or they could do better. Seth belonged in neither. He was almost certain the beast would gobble him up, though he helped out small hope. He'd seen Gord practice, and he was a natural at his fire stream rune spells. In an unprecedented case of luck or unluck, he'd been blessed with three Fire stream spells. Maybe...

A shriek cut of his thoughts and Seth looked to find Alaina mid-air. She had a nasty welt on her face with both her eyes rolled back. Marcus let out a loud scream and ripped off his spear from his back sling, the sight seemingly lighting a fire under him. He struck out in quick stabs, pushing the creature back and melting flesh with each successful hit. The rumors of their weaknesses had not been exaggerated.

He fought well, but Seth thought he had seconds until he collapsed. The arm he'd been struck had turned Tomato red and began to swell. He realized it too after his tenth or so strike; he'd been poisoned.

Marcus swept spear in a desperate arc with his right hand and struck out with the free one. His hand lashed out in an awkward but practiced sweep and a whip of water burst from it and struck at the beast's head. It exploded with a violent crack, drawing blood, as did the three others that followed. Marcus had abandoned his spear, taking on the beast with spells alone.

But it was not enough to overwhelm it.

The fourth strike flew over his head, and its red eyes glowed with cunning. Marcus sensed the shift and switched to his second attack spell. Water bullet. It hit the Vampurah in the chest like a hammer. It tore up skin and drilled an inch into its chest, but it recovered too quickly, and Marcus was not ready when it knocked the breath out of him with a whip to the chest. The beast loomed over him, yellow teeth dripping with saliva when a Tetrahedron rolled behind it and exploded a blue net with dancing sparks.

Its entire body seized and it fell to the sand like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Marcus had the foresight to back away from it in time, and Alaina stood across the pit panting, her cheek swollen.

The class was silent save for the spasming Vampurah until three loud claps and a booming voice shattered the silence.

"Quite the performance," Harkness rubbed his low-cut chin. "I expected you to put up a fight, but I didn't see you taking down the beast. Instructor Arkis, you might have struck gold with this generation."

The large man grunted. "They move well for knights into one month of training, and the rest are yet to prove themselves. I'll call them gold when one of them can beat it."

Arkis turned an eye to two of his three assistants and they ran up to the creature and began untangling. In two breaths, they had the creature crouching in its cage healing, chained up again. He was munching on a small rabbit Avin had begrudgingly fed him.

"Team two, move in!" Arkis barked and Ellie and Ramon took the stage. He was a bespectacled Venta knight with a small mustache and propped-up hair. Scila waved her hand and the shackles came loose, leaving only a tiny ring of silver wrapped around its neck.

Seth held in a breath as Ellie moved in. He'd sparred with her dozens of times now. Even with her teleporting rune spell, he was unsure if she could handle--

Ellie flashed in front of the creature and sent it flying back with a kick to the jaw before Seth could string his thought together. With a drop of a kick, she crushed the creature back into the dirt as it squirmed back up. It whinged out in a syrupy voice, and she kept it thrashing and tumbling in the sand like a toddler with quick flicks of her sword.

Seth's jaw hung low, as did the rest of the watching knights. Even instructor, Arkis seemed somewhat taken aback, his brow raised higher than he'd ever seen it climbed. Only Harkness seemed unperturbed by her skill and ruthlessness.

"Gold," he said.

Scila watched with some interest.

While she worked the beast, her partner slowly jogged over and held out a cylinder to the writhing beast. It exploded with a sweeping gust and tangled up the creature, marking the end of the spar.

There was a silence again, and again Harkness broke it with his applause. The air was tenser, and each assistant took at least a breath to react.

"Ever the monster!" Harkness declared. "Even in my year, She was a legend. You could all learn from her," he added with a sagely nod.

"Choke on a spear," Ellie said as she strut off the stage, never sparing the man a glance.

The ring was reset with haste, and Seth climbed with his partner, Gord. I am not ready were the words that chorused in his mind as he eyed the hungering beast. Its eyes seemed to follow Seth as he wandered to the weapon rack. He considered the sword only for a brief moment before his hand reached for the glaive. It was a gut feeling mostly, but he also figured the reach wouldn't hurt.

"I think we should approach this strategically," Seth said to Gord. "We have one trap between us if we--"

Gord charged the creature with a warrior cry, leaving Seth behind slack-jawed. He fired two generous streams of fire in large arcs, closing off all easy paths of escape.

"What are you doing!" Seth yelled.

"Ending the fight before it even begins," he called back. "You can thank me later."

The Vampurah mewled, his inhuman eyes edging to the wall of flames to each side before it bounded at them. Gord's face split into a confident grin and all at once, he fired up two of his runes at the same time. Fire streams flowed out of his jaw and fists, and the passage of orange was swallowed in churning, crushing heat.

Gord fell to one knee a breath later, panting and Seth needed no prodding to know his core was spent. The man still maintained his grin, and Seth would have hit him upside the head if his gamble had not paid off.

Or at least he thought it did.

He was entirely unprepared when a shadow fell overhead a breath later and slammed into Gord, dredging up a cloud of sand and dust. Seth heard bone break and Gord's scream ring out.

There was so much blood Seth could taste it in the air. Buried under a distant pang of hunger and rage, he touched an emotion he knew all too well: desperation. Something shifted, and it was as though the world was covered in a veil of red. Something had woken deep within him; the same power he'd struggled to tap into for a nearly a month now flowed through him and it was...intoxicating.

His glave whirred forth before he realizing it. His blade arced through the air and slipped into the shoulder of the beast up to the hilt. The beast wailed and with a violent swipe, sent Gord's body out of the ring. Its attention fixed on Seth, teeth bared and hackles raised

Seth swallowed air and tugged Light mana from his core filling his body with even more strength. The power almost gagged from the power. It flooded his vein with pure electricity. He felt like he could could do anything, and he was almost too distracted to dodge went the beast swung at him, claws trialing with darkness.

He bowed and the blades from the claws angled close enough to scrape him. He struck out with a fist a heartbeat later. It caught the beast in the jaw rattling it, and he would have followed up with another if he didn't see the tail angle around to strike him. He crossed his hand to take the blow, but it still tore through his combat fatigue and claim skin. He would have let out a scream, but the beast wasn't done.

A dark maw came down on his head, and he only manage to avoid the chomp by a quick twist and a kick to the shaft of the spear that stuck out of it's left shoulder.

It let out a cry, and Seth pressed his advantage. His fingers wrapped around the shaft and angled up. The glaive tore skin and forced the beast to his knee. Empowered by Aura, he swept the blade outwards hinging away from the body and ripped out its shoulder in a sickening crunch. The beast mewled, blood and spittle flared in every direction and equal parts of it bathed him. Seth's pupils had shrunken, his heart pounding. Every inch of him itched to finish the beast and it took all his willpower to pull out the Icebomb they'd been given and stuff it in the bleeding arm instead.

It exploded with a bluish wave that swept across the beast, encasing half of its torso in ice.

The class did not continue after Seth's display; the beast needed time to heal and Arkis feared it'd been flogged into submission by the pain. The rest of the knights looked at Seth with some respect. Although they might have achieved the same given the same opportunity, it was a testament to his skill he'd managed it with just one rune--- tagged on with whatever that feeling of strength was. It came and went in burst and he did not understand what it was, but he was certain it was related to his blood mana. He'd beenstuck on testing and switching out formulas, even with the knowledge he'd gained from the book. Perhaps this new phenomena was his ticket out. He'd only hoped activating his Light rune had been enough cover from prying eyes. He searched for Harkness in the crowd but he was already gone. Seth tended to Gord instead, joining in the healers to strong-arm him as they attempted to sedate him.

"I should be awake through this," he demanded. "There won't always be healing priests frolicking around in the wilds. I won't let you pamper me!"

Seth was more than happy to stuff his mouth with a strip of bandage he stole from the bag of one of the healers. He looked hurt at the betrayal even as his consciousness faded.

Arkis came up to him as he waved over to Ellie and clapped him in the back. "You fought well!" he beamed, his eyebrows wrinkled later. "You would have fought better if you hadn't treated this as a combat class and utilized the artifact as soon as you had the chance to. On the battlefield, every silver of mana is precious, my boy."

Seth nodded politely. There was clearly no pleasing the man. He received several more congratulatory pats and once-overs for his performance, as some of his fellow knights were apparently not satisfied. Brick sauntered over when most of them had disappeared.

"And here I was thinking you'd struggle just a little bit after your bad Judgement."

Seth laughed out loud at that. "At least someone finally says it to my face. I think this might be the first fight I've won in a month. Ellie's been kicking my teeth in every morning."

"I know," Brick said. "I've see you slink off every morning for nearly a month now. You need to work on your Stealth. "

"I suppose it's something to work on before our second major exercise," Seth said. "I think we might be hunting beasts in the wild. Gord and Ellie are convinced."

"Any excuse to leave those stuffy quarters. I feel like a rat in a cage after living it up in the Seno mansions."

Seth had just noticed. They weren't together. He'd assumed there was something between them.

"We had a disagreement." Brick shifted on his feet awkwardly, then added. "She is a very different person when she's around her family. It never really clicked that we were so different until a few weeks ago."

"Beer after Classes?" Seth offered. From the tension on his face, Seth knew there was much to unpack, not on a training field.

Brick looked him over. His eyes touched his messed up hair trailing down to his fatigues, and took in the cut on his forearm.

"I'll be by your door at 8," he said. "We'll make a whole night out of it."

---

Medzka towered over Seth, his wheel inclined, spinning slowly, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How did you do it?"

"I...read," Seth simply said, trying only slightly not to sound insufferably smug.

"Obviously," he snorted. "I didn't sense any communication crystal or a Light crystal. You also breezed through most of the questions I asked, which was far more than I expected from... someone such as yourself." His distaste was nearly tangible but Seth held his tongue.

"It's hardly reasonable for you to go from grasping the basics of runeology to explaining the relationship between the major glyphs and how they affect mana flow, with no practice or demonstration, I might add."

Seth had gone from an enthusiast to a poorly trained first-year adept in several weeks. Medzka had good reason for pause.

"I had considerable help," Seth said. "A bookkeeper narrowed my reading list somewhat."

"A bookkeeper?" Medzka drawled.

"Dale was also some use," Seth added with some mirth on his face. The man perked up from his furious scribbling. He had pretended not to follow the conversation.

"Was he now?" Medzka's wheel spun and his eyes settled on the clerk and he withered under it.

Seth watched Medzka with some envy. It was a true wonder how the man managed to make his receptionist squirm with only a wheel and some cleverly woven light. Seth found out far into his reading that the man standing before him was a Light construct.

The construct wheeled back to Seth. "I could turn you away and your General wouldn't bat an eye. I am well within my rights, you know. You answered 50 out of the 60 I asked correctly. That is a gap in your knowledge I neither have the time nor patience to fill..."

Seth sensed a 'but' coming and tried hard to clamp down on the thrill of smugness blazing through him when it actually came.

"...but I can't let you slip through my fingers, even if you're less informed than I'd liked. Your mind managed to lap up that much information on its own. I'm excited to see what you could accomplish with some guidance." He had a sinister edge to his voice. He cleared it out with a cough and pronounced. "Two days from now, return here, don't be late. Dale will see you to my lab."

With a blinding flash, Medzka disappeared, leaving Seth with the disgruntled receptionist. "It seems we'll be seeing much of each other, Dale," Seth said as he walked over to the desk, a cat-like grin splitting his face. Dale seemed pale and constipated.

"Before I forget, I should probably return this," Seth stretched out a scroll. It was the folded-up list of books Dale had provided just a month back. The man stretched forth, hands shaky to retrieve it, and Seth shamelessly let it slip.

"Oops."

Dale's face was a strange shade of red and blue, his eyebrows wound so tight Seth was afraid, he'd split his head in half.

"I'll see you soon, Dale." Seth strolled out of the hall, satisfied. His problems were far from solved, and he'd given up valuable meditation and dream time to catch up, but the look on their faces had made it worth it entirely.