“GO DOWN DAMMIT” Frederick screamed, turning his body to perform a wide swing.

A smile crept up my face.

I ducked under his attack, clenched my bandaged fists as tightly as I could and punched his chin with all the power my body could muster.

Sweat showered my face as his head was wildly thrown back from the tremendous force. I immediately followed up with another punch that hit him in the pit of his stomach, catapulting him away from me.

He hit the sandy ground with a dull thud, rolling a few times before coming to a halt.

It only took a moment for his sweat covered body to be covered in a layer of sand, but judging by the tears that were coming out of his eyes, he had other matters occupying his mind.

“You okay?” I asked, crouching down next to him.

He shot me a resentful look.

I sighed, patting his sandy and sweaty back. “C’mon, it’s not that bad, right?”

The sun was mercilessly trying to burn us to bits, and if it weren’t for our inhuman constitution it would probably have succeeded in doing so.

Frederick pushed me away and slowly stood up. “You do realise that this was jus-“ he hissed, rubbing the slowly reddening spot where I had hit him. “Just a sparring match, do you?”

I straightened my clothes and wiped the sweat on my face away with a conjured towel. “Yeah, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ll go all out.” I pointed towards some of the many bruises that were caused by him. “It’s not like you hold back either, so I guess it’s fair game.”

“Is this the whining of cowards that I hear?” Owen said, striding into the training field with bandaged fists.

I patted the last remnants of sand that were still clinging to my skin off. “Up for a fight? We’ll see who the coward is then.” A grin spread on my face.

“Errr I’ll pass,” he waved his hands with a large, silly grin on his face. “I don’t want to hurt you after all.”

Rolling my eyes, I unwrapped the partially ripped bandages from my hands.

Fuck, this is already the 5th pair that I destroyed since the reunion.

A few weeks had passed since we arrived at the Academy and Frederick and his friends turned out to be surprisingly mature and reliable, resulting in us slowly becoming friends.

After a few small fights, it became a custom to spar in the morning in order to improve their seriously lacking fighting experience. Even before we left, sparring was an extremely rare occurrence due to the injuries that take lots of mana to heal.

Which, considering that every single speck of mana is essentially invaluable for your growth in the beginning, is quite understandable, really. Still, if a warrior doesn’t know how to deal with dangerous situations then the only outcome will be his eventual demise.

The only thing that continued to worry me was that the situation seemed to worsen by the day. Every day, more and more warriors arrive in Frumentum, slowly forming an awe-inspiring army.

Every time my mana vision looked into the direction of their training grounds, a multi-coloured firework greeted me. It was like looking at a small sun that occasionally flared up when a few of them sparred against each other.

It was nothing compared to the sight of Pandora’s stellar fleet though. I’ll never forget the sight of it setting off into the stars, only to come back with barely half of their troops a few weeks later.

It was probably one of the turning points after the artefact suddenly stopped working, but at the same time it marked the end of the revolutionaries.

Will I end up like those veterans? Am I destined to have the fate?

“John, just what is going on with you? You’ve been quite absentminded recently.” Frank asked.

He was standing in front of me, the concern quite apparent on his face.

“I’m okay, just a little worried.” I told him, forcing a little smile out.

He frowned. “The war?”

“Do you even need to ask?”

“What are you even worried about? The probability of us having to fight is extremely low. Plus, even if we do have to fight, it’s not like we’ll be used as sacrificial lambs. We’re far too valuable for that.” Frank shrugged. “At least that’s what I think. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I sighed. He had a point, even though many of his assumptions were quite naïve. “Anyway, are there any news about the extra resources every warrior in Frumentum is supposed to get?”

Frank shook his head.

“I do.” Larry spoke up, “one of the teachers said that it’ll come in form of small mana pearls, their size depending on the power and talent of the warrior.”

“Wait, are you sure that it wasn’t mana marbles they were speaking about?” Fred interrupted Larry. “I doubt that they would seriously hand a sizable number of mana pearls to every single warrior in Frumentum. That’d be just ridiculous. I mean, who would be rich or powerful enough to do that?”

Larry looked at Fred as if he were stupid. “Frumentum and his advisors himself of course. Who else could possibly have the required amount of mana to do that?”

““…””

“What are you gathered around like that for? Hurry up guys! Training’s about to begin.” Greta shouted from behind us.

We hurriedly packed out things and followed Greta to another training field. As we approached it, I could already see that most of the others had already arrived. Thankfully, Teacher was still absent, so we were able to smoothly push ourselves to the first row.

It didn’t to take long for us to be able to catch a glimpse at Teacher’s familiar figure slowly approaching us under the sweltering heat.

He had a massive cart trailing behind him which he examined every few seconds with undisguised glee. When he saw us watching his every move, however, he instantly straightened.

“Good news kids!” His voice thundered through the whole field in its usual volume. “You’ve been provided with plenty of resources in order to enhance your survival chances in the case of you having to fight.”

He took a list out of one of the uncountable folds in his robe and began to call one after another out.

---------------------------------------------------------

“John!”

It was finally my turn. If it had taken any longer I would have become insane from watching all these gleeful faces around me.

He rummaged through the half-empty cart and pulled a big bag out of it, handing it over to me.

I received the surprisingly heavy object and went back to my place, where I immediately activated my mana vision and opened the bag.

Numerous extremely mana rich pearl like objects emanated a simply massive amount of mana that pleased my eyes to no end.

I nervously gulped before sneaking a peek at the other’s bags, only to discover the same incredible amount in theirs.

I’ll be damned. This isn’t even ridiculous anymore. Just how much mana would it need to provide such an amount for every single warrior in the Academy alone?

“That would be all for today. Go back to your rooms and cultivate diligently! If I see even one of you playing around, I’ll make sure that he won’t be able to sit for the next few months!” Teacher sternly shouted and sprinted away with the cart in tow.

Seems like he also got plenty of mana pearls, huh?

I shook my head, clearing it of unnecessary thoughts and sprinted back to my room. Once there, I opened the door without looking back and laid onto my bed.

I threw a mana pearl into mouth, which quickly dissolved into countless warm tendrils that streamed through my body.

Incredible…Who would have thought that a single mana pearl would have even more mana than a warrior ants core?

My very being seemed to warm up as the warm mana streams continued to spread incessantly, soon reaching some strange area that I wasn’t even aware of. Unfortunately, it vanished as quickly as it had appeared and I was left with the streams that had combined into hot currents.

Unfortunately, the current soon dried up, prompting me to pop another one into my mouth as if it were a candy.

During that time, the mysterious feeling appeared multiple times, but I was never able to get a concrete grasp on it despite my best efforts. It was like a word on the tip of my tongue that continued to elude me.

After an unknown amount of time passed in this state, my hand finally grabbed nothing but air.

I opened my eyes and found a gaping void where a precious stash of mana pearls used to be. Even turning the bag inside out and shaking it a bit didn’t change this, causing me to sigh in resignation.

I knew that I had wasted about a tenth of the total mana by meditating at the same time, but it was definitely worth it.

A chance like this wouldn’t come around often. Who knows how long it would take for me to accumulate this much mana again?

Well, now that there are no mana pearls left to absorb I guess I should put it to good use.

I closed my eyes again and entered my core space.

AN: As you can see I've made some changes. They were recommended to me by Stenduring, one of the people who recently reviewed this fic.

I'd like to know what you think of them, so feel free to comment and propose things that are on your mind!