“Cadets!” Bellaris shouts as she walks out of the basecamp and into the field we are in. Lucien, Tien and Lee trail behind her. It is around midday and the harsh sun of Volea is bearing down upon us with its full force.

  We snap to attention, the familiar position is strangely comforting. It’s like a nice bit of familiarity on an alien planet, who knows how far from where we started.

  Bellaris stops a few meters in front of us, a grin on her face. “Good to see you are all alive, and with great results, as expected from our special operations unit.”

  Lucien steps forward, “What Bel means to say, is we are glad you did not die, and you did a great job, kiddos.”

  She glares at him and lifts a hand, causing him to recoil out of fear. She smiles and continues. “Now that we have observed you five in combat, we are aware of what you can do.” Her smile widens. “So now, we get to break you.”

  Lucien mirrors her smile. Though it seems far scarier on his face for some reason.

  They split us up, Stephen goes with Tien, and Liv with Lee. Violet is taken away by Bellaris. Which leaves Lucien, Moxie and myself.

  We have moved about a kilometer away from the basecamp, in an empty stretch of land between two small rivers. “Alright then, let’s get started, shall we?” Lucien says and walks over to one of the river banks. I see nothing but a bright flash, and a large wall of solid earth appears on the riverbank, it is about four meters high.

  “First exercise, jump to the top of this wall, and then to the other side of the riverbank. No magic or skills allowed.” He commands.

  I glance at Moxie and she shrugs and then moves over to the wall. She jumps upwards and manages to get her hand on the ledge, but loses her grip and ends up falling onto the ground. “Fuck.”

  A single laugh escapes my mouth, and Moxie turns at me, glaring daggers at me. Perhaps I shouldn’t laugh at the girl that can create explosions capable of wiping out scores of enemies.

  I move towards the wall and give it a try of my own, I manage to grab the ledge and pull myself up. My muscles protest at the action. “What the heck, why is this so hard?” I ask.

  “I have cast an inertial cancellation field. It makes movement harder.” Lucien shouts from below, I can hear the amusement in his voice. “Wouldn’t want it to be too easy.”

  That does make sense. I look across the river, it is about thirty meters to the other side. But I should aim a bit over, since movement is harder. I ready myself and leap across the river.

  I make it about halfway across before I suddenly plummet downwards, right into the water. At least I have my armor on, so it's not like I get soaked. But that doesn't stop me having to struggle through the water.

  It feels heavy. Far more so than normal. It takes me an embarrassing amount of time to get back to land. I crawl onto land and collapse, exhausted from the effort.

  I look up to see Lucien standing over me and Moxie is loudly giggling in the background. “Cadet, on your feet! You will try again and again. You aren’t leaving until you can make the jump.” He says sternly.

  I push through the exhaustion and rise to my feet. “Yessir.” I climb back onto the wall, Moxie manages to join me after mumbling something about wrong calculations. We jump again. And again. And again.

  About seventeen hours, and two hundred and three jumps later, my feet impact the sandy soil of the riverbank. I promptly collapse face-first onto the sandy soil and raise one arm in celebration. “Heck yeah!”

  Moxie gives me a thumbs up – she managed to do it about four hours ago – and Lucien claps from the other side. “Great job. Now, get back over here.”

  I swim across the river and when I emerge, Moxie is waiting. She gives me a headpat, “Good job, fool.” It seems I am still medically a fool, despite my recent strides to be not so.

  “Alright you two, that is enough of that for this session. Go get some rest and be back here in five hours.” Lucien commands.

  I head to the mess hall to grab some food. It seems they have some stuff that is a bit fancier than rations, which is nice. They aren't the worst thing ever, but eating the same bland food for three weeks does get old fast.

  As I look for a place to sit, I spot Violet. She looks quite tired and like she doesn't want to talk to anyone. So naturally, I collapse into the chair across from her. “Nice weather today, isn’t it?”

  When I sit down she glances at me, but quickly averts her eyes. “Fuck off loser.” She says oh so nicely.

  “So, what kind of horrors did Bellaris subject you to?” I ask, ignoring her.

  She sighs deeply. “We sat down on the ground and did absolutely nothing for twelve hours. Then she almost killed me.”

  “Hmm, that sounds a lot more fun. Lucien had us try to jump across a river for seventeen hours.”

  “I didn’t ask idiot, fuck off.”

  This time, I actually do stand up and leave. Once I am a few meters away though I hear faint laugh from behind me. I head to my quarters and drop into bed, falling into sleep instantly.

  I wake up three hours later and immediately rush back out to the training field. I am still exhausted, but I think that is part of the training. Bellaris did say they were going to break us after all.

  Moxie is already there, looking equally as tired. Large bags hang under her eyes and her hair seems a bit frazzled, it looks a bit like fire. It’s kinda awesome, though I keep that to myself of course.

  “Maka, nice of you to finally join us, even if it is two minutes late.” Lucien shouts as I approach. I check the time, and surely enough, I am two minutes and thirty seconds late. “As it is your first infraction, you will be spared. Do not let it happen again.”

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  “Yes, of course, won’t happen again sir.” I don’t even want to imagine what kind of punishment he could think up. I might not live through it.

  “Great. Now, take a seat you two.”

  We all take a seat on the ground, thankfully this area has fairly soft soil. Perfect for sitting on.

  Lucien clears his throat. “So, what do you two know about magic?”

  “Magic make big boom.” Moxie says expertly.

  “You make a rune, push mana into it, and then get a big boom.” I add.

  “Ha. Well, that is one way to think about it for sure. Take this rune for example.” A strange rune appears in the air between us. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before. “You have likely seen nothing like it before, and that is because I just imagined it.”

  “What do you mean you imagined it?” I ask, following his line of thought.

  He smiles. “Well to put it very simply, runes are bullshit. Nothing more than a way to help the average guard learn how to shape mana. What really matters is the intention behind the mana you use. Runes are just a convenient way of recalling and solidifying that intention.”

  “Explain?” Moxie leans in closer, and I can practically see the hunger for knowledge in her eyes. I want to learn more too, but my own hunger for knowledge is completely dwarfed by hers.

  “You both have the Spell Book skill right?” We nod. “It says some stuff about rote spells. Basically it is just allowing you to cast the spell from memory, without the rune, right? It is the same thing as that. But you don’t even need the skill to use it, we never have figured out why it exists at all.”

  I have thought a few times that Spell Book did seem a bit lame. Guess the system has a few quirks here and there. “So you mean to say we can cast without using runes?”

  Lucien smiles. “Hold onto your stomachs, I am going to teleport us a bit away.” Before I can say anything, It feels as though my insides become my outsides, and then it quickly goes back to normal and I am suddenly looking at a vast open plain, completely devoid of all life save a bit of grass.

  “Woah, that was weird.” I say, still a bit dizzy. “When do I get to do something like that?”

  Lucien bursts out into a fit of laughter. “Damn, you guys really are strange. Most people would be puking their guts out after their first Teleport. Yet you have the ability to ask a question… You might be able to get the skill if you evolve the blink tree in the right way, but that is a topic for another day.”

  He points out towards the open field, and his finger starts to glow with an intense blue light. It starts to burn my eyes, but I can’t seem to look away. After a few seconds, a large blue ray explodes out from his finger. It is made out of pure mana, and far more concentrated than anything I've ever managed to produce.

  But, it doesn't go in a straight line like one would normally expect.

  Instead it forms into a large torus in the air, and alternates between dozens of colors, like a fancy rainbow.

  “As you can see, this is pure mana. It is not very useful on its own as it can’t do much more than maybe a distraction. But if you manage to keep it stable, you can use it to create spells with much greater flexibility and effect than with runes. This is also part of the reason why you were completely outmatched by the Grand Mage, as monsters seem to intuitively understand mana and how to cast it.” Lucien snaps his fingers and the mana explodes into a shower of gigantic shards of ice. The world shakes as the force of the blast ripples outwards, devastating the surrounding area. One spike flies towards me at high speed and I am forced to Blink to the side lest I die.

  When all the ice finishes falling, it looks as though a natural disaster just swept through the area. For kilometers all around us, rise giant spikes of ice that are quickly starting to melt in the heat.

  Moxie and I stare at him, jaws practically on the floor at his casual display of cataclysmic power.

  He glances out at the surroundings and scratches at his chin. “Oh dear.. Perhaps I overdid it a bit, whoops. I hope Bellaris doesn’t get too bad…”

  I am suddenly wracked by an intense bout of hysteria which quickly spreads to Moxie as well. “Sir, I think you might get in a bit of trouble.” I add.

  “Hmm. Probably. She did warn me not to destroy any ecosystems. But there isn’t any life here, right? She won’t get mad about grass I hope.” He looks a bit scared at the thought, just what has Bellaris done to him? “But for now, cadets, I want you to practice until you are able to do something similar, though obviously not with such severity.”

  My amusement immediately fades as I resign to spend the next several hours in hell once again. Though, it will help me get stronger and slay more monsters.

  Every muscle in my body screams its protest. But I push through the exhaustion and steady my legs. A familiar calm washes over me as I close my eyes, paying attention to every part of my being.

  I feel the well of mana and aether resting within my soul, and I gently reach out for it. I draw out a single strand of mana and pass it down my arm into my finger. All of my nerves burn, screaming out their protest at my actions. The system really dislikes it when you bypass its natural functions.

  I form the image of fire in my mind and break it down to its essentials. Fuel and oxygen go in, heat, water and death come out. Nothing more, nothing less. While holding the concept firmly in my mind, I open my eyes and focus on the stone target dummy a few dozen meters in front of me.

  I release all the mana that I have collected in an instant and it flies away from my pointed finger. It flies towards the target, far faster than any normal spell. I feel it the instant it makes contact, and I activate the concept in my mind.

  The target explodes in a gigantic fireball, the shockwave hits me like a truck and I go flying back several meters and land on my ass.

  Once my ears stop ringing, I hear a lot of applause from my side. I turn to look and see Moxie, Lucien, Lee, Tien, Stephen and Liv standing with large smiles on their face.

  Lucien promptly walks over to me and offers his hand to help me up, which I accept gratefully. “Good job, cadet. You are now one of about five hundred Dragon Guard capable of runeless spellcasting. And to think, it only took you six days to learn. You have great potential, kiddo.. Perhaps you might surpass even me one day.” He smiles wisely and I can feel the genuine praise in his words.

  “Is it really that rare?”

  “It is indeed. The knowledge may exist, but not many receive the training early enough. It takes a certain type of person to circumvent the system after all.” He says.

  Tien appears behind me and slaps me hard on the back, sending me tumbling forward. “I think what Luciboy means to say is that you are really special. In fact, I think you are the second person below rank 5 to ever manage runless spellcasting.” She glances over towards Moxie, “With Moxie dear being the first of course.”

  Moxie smiles in her superiority. It took me six days – with a few rest breaks at least – to learn how to cast spells without runes. But Moxie did it in just two.

  “I think I still have a lot of work to do. That spell was a bit stronger than I imagined…” I say.

  “We all still have lots of work to do, so don’t worry Maka.” Stephen assures me and his eyes flick towards Liv. “After all, someone still doesn’t know how to use their new skill effectively.”

  “Hey! It's harder than it seems!” Liv protests, “I want you to try getting hit with an attack while also swinging a sword!” Liv has been struggling with her newest paladin skill, which allows her to absorb the damage from an attack and dish it back out in her next swing. Though apparently she is having trouble deactivating her counter skill, thus can not actually get hit. It is quite a weird predicament.

  I start laughing hysterically. My eyes grow quite heavy and for some reason gravity seems to get heavier. Perhaps the exhaustion is finally claiming me.

  Then my head hits the ground.

  Next Chapter: The Essence of Magic

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