Author's notes:

Hello and thank you for taking your time to read through my story. This is the first time I seriously try to write one of my stories, so any kind of feedback, good and bad alike, is highly appreciated. English is not my first language, but I hope my writing is clean (enough). But please, I personally hate grammatical errors, so if you spot any (WHEN you spot any!), please notify me to fix them.

Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy.

Chapter V: Metal and silk

Martyn couldn’t let the memory of his recent scuffle go. He had learned by now that the academy had four types of students, and all were easy to identify by their clothes.

The wizards were divided into two categories. Battle mages were your basic artillery wizards. Strong offensive magic capable of shaping a battlefield as they wished. The other type of wizards, the support mages, were basically everything else. From healers, to enchanters, to scouts, to crafters and everything in between. Both wore white robes, the color of Aren, but battle mages had red trimmings on their robe, while support had silver.

The other people studying here were the knights, who were basically what he would have called warriors back in his village and spellswords. Spellswords were wizards that focused on martial prowess and used their magic to augment their bodies, armaments, and generally, in his opinion, just make them better knights. Both those groups wore armors instead of robes and white tabards. A black border around the edges of the tabard denoted a knight, while spellswords didn’t have one. He thought it was stupid that pure wizards didn’t train how to wear armor as well, but maybe it was because everyone except the warrior types was so weak and skinny.

He realised it was not a coincidence that he was simply given just a pair of leather trousers and a white tunic, clothes that neither mages, or warriors wore in public in the fort. Althought, personally, he prefered those simple clothes.

As for their ranks, those were the same for everyone. No dragon at all meant an apprentice, adepts wore bronze dragons, masters wore silver, archmages and knight commanders, not that he has seen any, had gold dragons, and grant mages and generals platinum. From Magister rank and up, each one used a unique material, like emeralds for their own grant magister.

So, from his observations, an apprentice ranked spellsword nearly defeated him, and lost only because he was a kid, while an adept could probably wipe the floor with him. If he was to stand on equal grounds with everyone else, he had a long way to go.

He withdrew from the window and sat crosslegged on the floor. Channeling his mana he started casting one spell after another as fast as he could, trying to improve his speed. Sure, spellswords were usually the faster casters while battle mages the stronger, but it was the degree of difference between him and Evan that had shocked him.

It took him about two hours before his head started buzzing and his mana to start dropping dangerously low. After that, it was basic physical training until he had recovered most of his mana, and then casting again. It was a very basic routine, but in the empty small room, by himself, the best way he could think in order to improve.

A soft knock on the door, in the middle of his second set of physical training interrupted his train of thought. His most common visitor was the man who taught him about the academy’s structure and various insignia, a middle aged master support mage.

From what Martyn had gathered, he was something like the head healer around here, but he was getting kinda annoying. He kept probing him with spells, trying to figure why he was unable to heal him when he was unconscious. He even reached the stage where he cut him and healed him back again. Thankfully, Martyn knew by that point not to argue against a master ranked wizard, especially a life mage that had access to his body.

Disinterested, without even pausing the push ups he was doing at the moment, he replied to the knock.

"Enter"

A short silence was interrupted by a bubbly giggle

"...ehehe..."

Petrified, Martyn raised his eyes from the floor, upwards, towards his door, only to see a stunning young woman. Wavy, shoulder length, blond hair framed her head as it was slightly tilted to the side, watching him. As her piercing green eyes run rampart over his body, her small mouth opened again, revealing a brightly white smile as she giggled once more without even paying attention that he had stopped moving and was looking at her.

Suddenly, Martyn felt overly conscious about his half naked, sweaty, appearance. He knew that his body was well formed, and the countless years of battle training, and the forge, back in his village, had chiselled his muscles more than enough. But on the other hand, the real battles, the bandits, the beasts and the demons, or even just their warrior trainer, had filled the very same muscles with countless cuts, scars, and badly healed wounds. To top it off, he didn't think that his scarification on his upper left arm, the one that marked him as a shaman-in-training, would be something that a southern would be accustomed to.

He shot up, instantly tapping into small amount of mana he had recovered during his exercises. Channelling his mana directly onto his body, he felt the familiar chill sensation as his sweat instantly dried up. He grabbed his tunic and threw it hastily on top of his upper body, offering a silent prayer to the gods that his pants were comfortable enough to exercise in.

As his head popped out of the tunic's neck, he was surprised to see that the small woman was already directly infront of him. Despite her struggling to stand as straight as she could, he still towered at least a head above her. She raised her head to meet his gaze and gave him a wholehearted smile as she extended her hand.

"Hi, I'm Kathlyn, you may call me Kat." She said overenthusiastically.

He looked down, towards her, and accepted her handshake.

"...M-Martyn" He managed to stummer as he felt his blood rushing to his cheeks, blushing.

From what he've seen, the uniforms in this place weren't that stict. As long as it was any kind of armor with a white tabard, it was ok, as long as it was a white robe with the appropriate trimmings, it was ok, but in no way or shape could anyone call what the woman was wearing a robe and not a dress. The long, white, with silver trimmings, fabric hugged her figure perfectly, and an, inappropriately wide, neckline accentuated her full bust. From up where he was looking, he couldn't help but have his eyes glued to her chest.

He broke the eye contact by looking awkwardly towards the ceiling.

"So.. uhm..."

"I'm here to see what you can do with enchanting" She said happily as she patted the mattress of his bed behind him, "Sit"

Dumbfounded, he followed her order and watched her as she walked away, leaving the room. His eyes still glued to her figure, but at least he had a second to collect his thoughts. "She is at my age, or just a bit older and yet she flaunts herself so..." His trail of thought was interrupted as she reappeared, this time pushing a small cart inside the room and closing the door behind her.

"Eh, I'm sorry, I've heard that you barbarians use big swords, bigger than us, so I didn't know how much metal you would need to transmute a sword, I hope it's enough." She said as she pointed at the cart full of metal ingots that she was pushing.

She pushed it right next to him, and stomped her foot to the ground. Suddenly, the stone where she hit the floor rose, creating a makeshift stool. She sat down on it gracefully and looked expectedly towards him.

Martyn looked in disbelief, his gaze alternating between her and the cart. It was absurd for someone to haul a cart full of metal ingots just for a single sword. To make matters worse, the way that she kept her hands close to her body as they rested on her lap, pushed her bust even further, and her face, brimming with excitement, made him feel like he was looking at a child just before opening a present.

And yet, he had just seen her magic, pure magic at that, not even runic, easily shape the protected floor to a stool, and right there, next to her impressive breasts, a bronze dragon was engraved.

He finally grabbed an ingot, looking it more carefully, even using his magic to see throught it.

"...this is iron."

"Yes!"

"Swords are made from steel?"

"..." She tilted her head, looking at him puzzled. "It won't do?"

"I can change iron to steel, but it won't be permanent?" He said, unsure if that was his own limitation, or if crafting magic worked the same for southerners as well.

"But the smith uses those to make weapons?" She said as her face became more anxious and her eyes pleaded him to agree with her.

"Your smith uses coal to make those into steel, and then steel to make stuff..."

"...you are a support adept?" he added in disbelief

She hang her head down in shame "I'm mostly an enchanter, I only create stone and fabrics... Father forbids me to create anything out of metal..." she said as she looked ready to burst into tears.

"Ehhhh it's no problem. I'll just grab some wood, turn it to coal, and then transmute steel first and then a sword!" He hastily said, not understanding why he was in such a hurry to stop her from crying.

Her face shot up with a smile as she looked at him with puppy eyes, waiting expectantly.

"..."

"I'll do it tomorrow?" He added, trying to break the silence "I've spent most of my mana doing exercises in the morning, so I'll need to recover a bit."

"Oh! I see."

She stood up with a bit of flair, the stone stool merging with the floor once more, and she rushed towards the door before he could react. She paused, turned her head towards him and smiled.

"See you tomorrow then!"

Still dumbfounded, Martyn played with the ingot in his hand, weighting it.

"It would be a ton easier, and better to actually enchant something I've forged with my own two hands instead of a piece of junk I'll just transmute" He mumbled to himself . "At least, it's more interesting than flinging spells for no particular reason." He finished as he laid on the mattress.

He stretched his hand to the air, still clutching the ingot as he played with it. He realised at some point that he had transmuted its form to something resembling, badly, a curved woman's form, before cursing himself and straightening it back to its original form.