A piercing whistle broke through the din of practice, Shirayuki standing in the middle of the field.

“Everyone! Huddle up!” She called out, the words echoing as they got translated.

Spars ended, arrays were canceled, and we all walked, ran, or jogged over to the middle of the field. There were roughly sixty of us on the team, but there were a number of categories.

“Those of you who have been paying attention are aware that the Island is currently on a northern flight path. Unfortunately, this means we’re going to miss the next tournament. This also means we won’t be getting any new members of the School for some time. I’ve talked with the administration, and we’ll be getting back to the southern continent in time for the Gladiator Gauntlet that year.”

The ocean was dangerous, and flying over it wasn’t trivial. The island was a bit of an exception, because it was an entire damn island, but individuals were a different matter.

Some groans of dismay met the first announcement, while enthusiastic cheers met the second one. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was just a game, there was no need to get super worked up about it.

“While subject to change, I have the preliminary teams set. In the unrestricted free for all, we have the following: Hendrik, Floris, Huib, Renior, Bras…” Shirayuki continued to list off divisions and names.

I wasn’t surprised that the entirely unrestricted section was populated by high-level Immortals. Even if I was supremely arrogant and believed that I was a better technical fighter than they were, or had more life experience, they could just crush me with pure stats. There wasn’t a single black or purple-robed individual among them.

Those fights would be quite the show.

“For the under 30 division.”

I perked up. That was my division!

Ok, technically, I could participate in the under-100, under-1000, and unrestricted divisions, but I was a bit underleveled. Like, I could maybe take one fight in ten against the weakest School team member of the under-100 division.

“Free for all, Astarius, Suldrive, Notelle, Pascal, Elaine, Vikraina, Viscar, Jorgun, Bayonet, Krugnaier. The backups will be…” I pumped my fist as Shirayuki named me. It wasn’t like I was super pumped to fight in more free for alls, but being on the official A-team meant my scholarship was secure.

I looked around at my fellow free-for-all ‘teammates’, when Shirayuki said my name again. My head whipped back as I frantically tried to remember what she’d just said.

“Lastly, for the singles part of the tournament. Elaine, Noziri, Serah, Dha, Yong-Seo, Xenthe, Samuel, Vivian. Backups are Veroah and Tyrevis. I suggest teams meet up and start discussing. Break.”

Without another word, Shirayuki turned with a flick of her tails, and walked off the field. With context clues, the fact that she’d done every division in the same order, and the six people converging on me, I was on the team fights as well.

Welp. Being selected to participate in three events was better than one. While participating wasn’t the height of excitement or something I looked forward to, it was something I was going to dominate.

I was going to be good at this. I was going to show them what being a Sentinel of Remus meant, and why we were the best.

From left to right, there were six people, five of whom were black-robed - black workout clothes here - and the sixth was another purple robe.

Impressive!

“I believe introductions are in order.” The minotaur’s speech was more refined than I expected, and he was the only other purple-robed individual. “I am Pak Yong-Seo of the Geum Kingdom. If it is permissible, I will take the team leader position as the highest leveled member here.”

[Warrior - 531]. He was likely quite a bit stronger than I was, simply due to having time to mature his third class.

He inclined his head slightly towards me, for some reason.

“Pak, Pak… any relation to General Pak?” The other human asked.

The minotaur frowned a hair, then straightened up.

“He is my father, but I am not here to trade on his name. I have grown up around war and fighting. Conflict is in my blood and bones. I have been on the team previously, seen how it was run, and it is why with your acclaim, I will take the position of team leader.”

I sighed. Gods damn it all. I should at least make sure he was more competent than I was before ceding the position.

“Large-scale armies, or small-scale team operations?” I asked him.

“What?” He frowned at me.

“Your training and experience. You mentioned a general, growing up around conflict, yada yada, you’ve got the high level. Is your experience with armies and large conflicts, or leading small teams?”

“I have been a member of the army since I was old enough to hold a sword. My earliest lessons were around the strategy table, learning logistics and troop movements.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. DAMNIT!

“Ok, you’re the expert on armies, got it. You’re also an incredible fighter, with decades of experience, and the levels to prove it. That doesn’t translate into small-squad tactics.”

“And you’d do much better?” He challenged.

The rest of the team were going back and forth, watching our verbal sparring with interest.

“Maybe, maybe not. My experience and training revolves heavily around either acting as a solo operative, or taking command of a small squad. I don’t have the same decades of experience you do, nor have I ever seen one of these events before. If you believe your experience outweighs mine, I’m happy to let you be the team leader. If someone else believes they have the right knowledge and experience for the job, I’ll support you as the boss.” I looked around at that last bit, seeing at least two other members of the team fired up.

“Level is a poor criteria for selecting a leader though. It’s the knowledge, not the power, that matters.” I concluded, thinking of Night and his personal philosophy. I could practically hear him now, whispering in about warlords.

“How’d a healer make it onto the combat team anyways?” The human asked me. Hearing my name used as a noun was still weird. She looked the most normal of the lot.

“Why don’t we finish introductions?” The beastkin suggested, bouncing from oversized foot to foot. “I’m Souphis of Ankhelt. Kangaroo beastkin. Fossil-Sand warrior. [Pocket Sand’s] a favorite trick of mine. Blind my enemies, then give them the old one-two-three-four.” He kicked with each foot, and punched with each hand on that.

[Warrior - 433]. I had almost 100 levels on him, but I still didn’t want to end up close and personal in a fight.

“Iris of nowhere. Selkie. Ice-Electric sorcery. I specialize in fighting underwater in either form, although I’m not sure how much of that we’ll get.”

[Mage - 180]. I gave a side-eye to that level. Either she was running some type of level obfuscation, or she ended up with an insane class quality, letting her punch like she had twice as many levels. Someone who couldn’t hold their own wouldn’t be allowed on the team, and with her low level, rapid growth was a possibility.

It had been ages since I last saw a selkie, although they looked exactly like humans on land. She was a bit taller than me, with frizzy, wild ginger hair that refused to be tamed. There was one hell of a story behind her level and being on the team, and I couldn’t wait to find out more.

“Elaine of Remus. Yes, the name’s Elaine. If the name’s confusing, Sentinel Dawn or Dawn work. Human. Celestial healing, Radiance sorcery. Third class isn’t going to help.”

I got a number of looks, but the next person started speaking, taking the attention off of me.

The next person was using an oversized leaf to float gently above the ground, and had distinct velociraptor-like aspects. Mainly in her long fingers that looked like claws, her slitted eyes, and her too-sharp teeth.

“Ling Li of the Blue Luan Paradise Sect. Saurian. I study the dao of leaves.”

[Mage - 450]. Strong. Kind of absurd how high level people could get in this day and age, seemingly easily, but… then again, we had self-selected to be the best of the best, concentrated from the entire world around into a single place, then concentrated again into a small team.

With that a flurry of leaves swirled around her.

“Acidic leaves, right?” Souphis leaned away from her.

“A crude, barbaric description of the elegance I am capable of.” She sniffed at Souphis.

The next person, well… I was pretty sure there was a person under all that armor. Most of us didn’t use armor in our daily practice, but this guy was wearing his clothes outside of his armor, and I swear I’d seen him walking around with his wizard’s robes over his armor again.

Even his head was fully encased, and he only spoke a single word.

“Pascal.” He introduced himself, morphing his helmet a few times. It morphed from a human, to a snarling wolf’s head, biting and snapping as he put on a show.

We waited a few moments for him to say something else, but it never came. [Long-Range Identify] came in handy, showing him as a [Warrior - 420].

“Bartolo. Yellow Jacket. I like hitting things.” The devil said, slapping his oversized mace into his palm. “When can we stop talking, and hit things?”

[Warrior - 462].

It was rare to see an Immortal at such a high level at such a young age. As a rule, they seemed to take the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ approach.

This team was fairly heavy on the “people hit things hard” aspect.

We looked at Yong-Seo, who’d spoken up earlier, but didn’t give his elements or anything.

“Yong-Seo. Steam, Brilliance, Gemstones spellsword. Gems aren’t permitted due to their cost, but being down half a class doesn’t matter when it’s the third.” He gave me a short nod, and I agreed with him. Simply crossing the 512 milestone and unlocking our third class was a bonus at the tier we were fighting at.

“How’s a healer work in a fight anyways?” Souphis bounced around me as he asked.

“Like a hydra. Annoying, annoying.” Bartolo answered.

“How does that work in a tournament setting?” Iris asked.

“A most excellent question.” Mormerilhawn, the Black Rose, master of the arena said, having walked over. “And the answer is - it’ll depend on what the judges rule.”

“Could you explain more?” Yong-Seo asked.

Mormerilhawn gave him a superior look, like he’d expected the minotaur to ask that, and he was playing a part orchestrated by the tournament shielder.

“Naturally. Elaine Elaine is a healer powerful enough that she is capable of simply negating all damage that occurs to people near her. This is before we consider her considerable personal combat prowess, which all of you could learn from. I will be taking the position that, while Elaine is on the field with you, the team is entitled to a strong shield, at the cost of mana to Elaine on a per-hit basis. I can’t promise success, or that the other judges will agree with me. I am, naturally, biased. Other judges will be advocating their own interesting positions. At the end of the day, we will attempt to mimic the conditions of a true fight as closely as possible. Questions?”

There were none, but I was getting a different set of appraising looks from my teammates.

“That shield won’t apply for the individual portion of the teamfights, will it?” Iris asked.

The Black Rose shook his head.

“It will not.”

“Hang on, the individual portion of the teamfights?” I asked.

“I vote for Yong-Seo to be the team leader.” Souphis immediately said. Nearly everyone immediately agreed with his declaration.

I mentally shrugged. Ok, cool, the team had reached a consensus.

“Alright, fine with me, now explain?”

Yong-Seo gave me a measuring look, then relented and explained.

“There are two different team tournaments, and the same team is expected to fight in both. The first is the standard seven versus seven teamfight. Last person standing on the stage wins the round for their team. The second is a single fight portion. Each team sends up their representative, and winner stays on, while the losing team sends up their next combatant. Last person standing wins.”

Everyone was nodding along to his explanation.

He closed his eyes and sighed, relaxing his shoulders.

“We should discuss your experience. It is… possible… that your command over small squad tactics is superior to mine, and an important lesson for a [General] is to put the right person into the right position.”

I grinned at him.

“That’s all I was asking!”

I thought I might get along with the team.

I was walking back to the dorms, thinking about the team and the teamfights.

I wasn’t going to rush my biomancy to be in time for the event. That was a good way to get myself horribly killed. Plus, it was only the first event! Presumably I’d be in more than one tournament. I was not going to let some freak accident kick me out of the School early. No way.

I knocked on a pillar of Arcanite to ward off the bad luck I’d invoked by thinking about it.

The fun part about the event was I wouldn’t need to change my [Persistent Casting] to only cover my teammates, but I’d still get the full benefit of the skill. I might not get the [Wheel of Sun and Moon] distance penalty applied either, nor a knowledge penalty.

Hmmm.

It seemed unlikely that Mormerilhawn would make that many oversights on his skill.

I was thinking about my [Persistent Casting] as I saw something drop in the flying obstacle course, a brightly-colored light blazing.

It was like something clicked, and I realized I’d been an idiot. Or if not an idiot, unthinking.

[Scintillating Ascent] was my only [Butterfly Mystic] skill that wasn’t capped. While I tried to get in a number of hours flying, I only had so many hours in a day, and I wasn’t in high-stakes, high-challenge situations.

But there was another half to leveling skills up. There was the fast route, which I had taken for nearly everything I’d done, and there was the slow route, which I’d rarely explored.

I had originally eyed [Persistent Casting] to shield myself in my sleep, to protect myself from the elements, bugs, spiders, and attacks. A critical skill when I was operating alone.

Something I hadn’t considered was using it to fly. I hadn’t been in a situation where I could properly check the synergy between all of my skills when I upgraded [Scintillating Ascent], and when I’d finally been able to regenerate more mana than I spent while flying.

Specifically, I could use [Persistent Casting] to hover while I slept. The experience would be terrible, but six hours every night? That would add up.

I chuckled as I realized I’d reached max nerd. I was now literally training in my sleep.

Still, it was for a good cause. Flying!

With a side-dish of making myself prettier every time I leveled the skill up.

What else could I use with [Persistent Casting] that I wasn’t thinking of?

“Hey Book-A-Saurus! I’m going to the gym, you should come!”

I looked up from my book to see a grinning Iona.

“Book-A-Saurus?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah! You always have your nose in a book. You’re a total Book-A-Saurus!”

I opened my mouth to protest, saw the piles of books in front of me - school, to-read, finished, did not finish - and closed my mouth.

“Ok, but then you’re a Sex-O-Saurus.” I tried to shoot back.

Iona posed, flexing her muscles.

“Awww yes, I’m a total Tyrannasaurus Sex!”

“Just don’t let it get to your head!”

“Too late!” She flexed some more. “Gym?”

I looked at my books, and back at Iona. Doing things with friends was good, and being in true peak physical shape would help with biomancy. That didn’t happen overnight, although with my skills and abilities I could try to make it happen overnight. Plus, if I just spent all my time reading books, what was the point of being at the School? I remembered my thinking on opportunities.

Plus, Iona had been trying to get me to the gym for ages now.

“Yeah, sure!”

A hop, skip, and a jump, and we were at the gym.

“What floor do we want to try?” Iona asked me after we got changed into exercise clothes. Nobody expected us to run in witch robes.

“You’ll have to explain more.” I drily answered.

“Each floor’s got a different gravity multiplier. Gives me a real challenge. Normal on the ground floor, and it doubles every floor until it’s 124x normal.”

“Don’t you mean 128?”

“MOVING ON!” Iona blushed. “What floor?”

“Eh, let’s do 4x.” If I had known the gym was loaded with magic I would’ve come here earlier! Benefits of trying new things! Cool new magic! I wondered if the ceiling was tall enough for me to practice flying under an increased gravity load.

We climbed the stairs and made it to the third floor. Yellow and black caution signs were plastered along the hallway, and as we walked down towards the door, I could feel my limbs getting heavier. My breath started getting short, and it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Nevermind that I’d been getting an hour of intense exercise in daily, this was a whole new set of challenges for my body.

I shot a jealous look at Iona. She wasn’t struggling at all. I suppose that’s why she wanted to go to the gym regularly.

We made it to the room. A track circled the room, with a few people diligently making laps. The ceiling was too low to easily fly, which was a shame. A couple of punching bags were gamely keeping their stuffing as people beat on them, while balls of metal with grips were mostly neatly racked. A few had been carelessly left scattered near the storage, and there was an open area where three people were working on stretching, pushups, and lunges respectively. A pair of benches completed the look.

Iona tsked at the sight.

“Lazy bums don’t clean up after themselves.” She muttered, heading over to the weights and putting them away.

I looked around, and figured I’d get started with a few laps to warm up. I kept an eye on Iona, curious what someone with her strength would do to keep fit.

It wasn’t like we had a bunch of boulders around, and she couldn’t pull a Brawling and lift them.

I caught her glancing at me now and then, and it made me feel nice. I looked good and I knew it.

I moved over to the weights, finding some that I could pick up with some effort, but not at my max.

Time for the most boring activity. Picking up heavy things, and putting them down again.

Zzzzzz. I spent some time thinking about biomancy and magic. Getting a stable configuration was one thing, but could I get a slightly unstable configuration, letting vitality plug any holes? Alternatively, I’d need to check that any modifications I made wouldn’t fall apart under increased or decreased gravity.

Which got me thinking about air pressure and water pressure. Making myself more resilient to the crushing depths of the ocean or the vacuum of space was surprisingly easy. Chitin, or an exoskeleton, would solve that issue practically without trying.

Now, solving the issue and looking good, or hell, human?

That was more challenging.

The only entertainment here was watching Iona, and as she grabbed some ludicrously-sized weights and headed over to the bench, I saw an escape from picking up heavy weights and putting them down again.

“Hey, need someone to spot you?”

“Yeah sure!”

I got in position as Iona started lifting, and bit my lower lip.

Gods.

What a view. Sweat trickling over rippling muscles as Iona’s whole body focused on the task and activity. A thing of beauty, honed and polished. A perfect anatomy model.

Yum.

My thinking on biomancy, [Persistent Casting], and Marcelle’s advice about modifications led me to the firing range.

I nicked my finger briefly, the blade passing through skin without visibly disturbing it. Good, my [Persistent Casting] on my healing was still working.

It was time to set a second [Persistent Casting].

The lymphatic system was one of the only full-body systems that I could mess with, and if things went horribly wrong, I wouldn’t die. Immediately. I’d have enough time to seek medical attention. Everything I knew said that wouldn’t happen, but what I was doing was risky. It was best to check every risk and mitigate them.

It was why I was messing with my lymphatic system, and not my circulatory or nervous system. Those going wrong would swiftly kill me, while I could probably limp along for a few days or even weeks with goop replacing my lymphatic system. Long enough to make it to the nearby hospital and ask for help.

What Marcelle had said about changing extremities granting stronger classes that worked on extremities resonated with me. If I changed all the different parts of the body, I’d get higher quality biomancy classes when I eventually pulled the trigger.

Add in [Persistent Casting], and the near-limitless mana at the firing range, and I had a formula for experience. I was going to set two of my skills against each other. [Dance with the Heavens] to heal myself, and [Dabble] to try and modify myself. [Dabble] would make a change, and [Dance] would revert it.

My magic power stat was how much mana I could use in a single second, in a single skill. [Dabble] being weaker than [Dance] meant my changes were instantly reverted, which meant the skill could turn around and immediately burn more mana, up until I hit my magic power cap. With 23,000 magic power, that meant I was spending 23,000 points of mana per second on [Dabble], and significantly less, maybe a quarter of that or so, on [Dance].

[Dabble] was horribly inefficient, and [Oath] was only applying to [Dance], because I knew I was just grinding and training my skills with [Dabble]. When I applied biomancy ‘for real’, [Oath] would kick in.

I’d never use the skill to make actual significant biomantic changes. It only made small, incomplete changes, no matter how well I crafted my image, a downside of how incredibly broad it was as a skill. It did, however, count as an achievement and as System experience.

Breathing fast, I focused on [Dabble], working my way through the human lymphatic system, and thinking of the changes needed to make it an elf lymphatic system. With my image in mind, I tied it off with [Persistent Casting], put my hand on one of the arcanite pillars in the firing range, and started to draw mana to replace my rapidly-dropping mana.

[*ding!* [Celestial Affinity] leveled up! 488 ->489]

IT WORKED!!