Melody of Mana

Professor Endel decided that we all needed to be judged for his class before we did anything else. To that end he led us to the arena and had us ready for one on one fights.

The rules were fairly simple. We were to fight to disable, not to kill, so fire and other often lethal elements were banned, as well as going all out. We had to stay in the arena until one of us won. We were allowed a wooden weapon if we desired, and a strike from it was to be considered as if delivered for real. Most of the students didn't take a weapon, and my choice of a dagger and mace was considered deeply strange.

I was of course in the first match, and soon found myself opposite a boy from the wizard program. Endel stood to the side after a brief overview of the rules yelled 'Go!' I opened with a focused scream, it was fast even if I didn't expect it to do much.

The wizardy boy seemed to be expecting that and threw up some kind of shield. It worked partially for him but him being distracted gave me plenty of time to start casting. While he was trying to recover from the partial blast I threw up invisibility and my standard bubble around my mouth.

Wizard boy had recovered by this time and was looking around for me looking a bit confused. I had to be careful as I moved so as not to be seen, moving only when he was looking away and very slowly then. After a few moments I decided to sing in some fake footprints running around on the other side of the arena. It was just my movement trick from the exam, simple and easy to do.

The hard hose of water slamming into the wall there was a bit alarming. I could practically feel the force where it hit. While he was looking that way I slowly, slowly crept closer. If I could just get close enough I'd just use my dagger and be done with it.

My opponent was now shooting all over, here and there as I closed in. As I rose the little wooden tool he released a big wave. Perhaps he sensed that I was closing in on him. Perhaps he was just searching. I honestly didn't know, and it didn't matter much as I was swept off my feet and far back, slamming hard into the ground.

"Cease!" Professor Endel called as I rolled to a stop.

He moved out onto the sands and towards the two of us. Giving me a moment to catch my breath and get back up as I dropped my spells. I also cast the drying spell, since being soaked was no fun.

"Not bad, to either of you. Girl, do you have any attack spells other than the scream?"

"A flamethrower, but fire was against the rules."

The Professor took a second to look at a piece of paper from his pocket and I could see him visibly flinch. "Well then Alana, we'll need to work on that. The stealth approach wasn't bad, but we will really need to beef up your direct attack and defense." He then looked at the boy. "Lad, you did well near the end but you let her lead you around too much. Think about countermeasures to stealth on your own for now, we'll be discussing that later on in the class. You were on the right track with the area attacks."

I hummed a light healing spell as we returned to the stands to watch the next bout. I'd taken a pretty good hit there, and was currently on my way to some lovely bruises, which I didn't need. After I'd finished the boy I'd been against looked over at me.

"So... how close were you?"

"I was right next to you. You got me as I was setting up to jab you."

"Nice. I'm Troy, good to meet you."

"Alana, the same. What was that shield you used?"

"Oh, I was just trying to put up something to block sound. Figured you'd go with sonic attacks."

"Yeah, the easiest bard attack is just that scream."

"What about like... water or air?"

"They don't really work. Who knows though, I bet Professor Endel knows of something that will."

He nodded and we watched the rest of the fights quietly. There were a number of different approaches on display, some far more effective than others. The boy who soaked everything and then dropped the temperature like a stone was particularly good. Both myself and the priests who'd opted for this class got a good workout on healing by the end of it.

Professor Endel looked over all of us at the end. "Not bad, not bad at all. I want you lot to consider all that you saw and did today. Think about what worked, and what didn't, and what could work better. While I have much to teach you, you also have much to learn from experience, and considering that experience will lead to you learning faster those lessons that will keep you alive. In our next class I will be having a discussion with each of you on what you learned today, so be ready."

Our next day was designated as a rest day, and while I couldn't speak for everyone I was sure ready for it. Of course not much resting was done by most students. Everyone seemed to be quickly heading to one of the many places throughout the school to study their various subjects. A few of the older students even took the time to work on personal projects like magical items or spells.

I was no exception, having tons of subjects and not nearly enough time for them. Being that most of my subjects were something I could spend an hour or two on with ease every day. I was fortunate that at least I didn't need to study math and where I was now I could easily do my instrumental classes.

I spent all morning studying my different classes one by one, eventually being joined by several of my classmates. They were of limited help, being that most of them were wizards and the bulk of their classes were focused on things like rudimentary and often wrong physics or natural science. The company was nice though.

Dras joined Kala and I as we went over our runes. He could now talk to us about that kind of thing and together we went over several of the sequences we'd been told to study. None of these were overly complex commands, but it was fun nonetheless.

He was currently going over a far more in depth sequence and trying to figure out how to get it to work in an item. It was another lighting enchantment, as those were rather popular for testing. There was no real risk of explosion and the mana cost on smaller ones was so low that it wouldn't break you to keep it going as long as you felt like it.

As I poured over what he did and he explained what each part was I nodded along. This had commands governing frequency, intensity, and pattern as well as a simple on and off command. It ended up simply running through the different patterns in a cycle but the goal was to get the cycle to run in a certain way.

I would love to say that I instantly understood Dras' work, and could tell him how to do it, but I didn't. The runes and command structure was simply too different from anything I'd seen before. I did get that one of the variables was based on frequency of flashing, but honestly, everyone understood that one. There was another that was using numbers to represent light. I was pretty sure I'd seen something like that in high school physics, but I couldn't remember too much about it. When I asked Dras just kinda shrugged, seemed it was just one of the things that had come predone with the whole magical item system that nobody really understood too much about, but everyone knew just worked.

My afternoon and evening were spent on dance and light music, followed by a couple of hours spent meditating to build my core further along. I was speeding along compared to the others in my class on that front. At least that's what Professor Hern told me when he came by to check on it. It took most students the better part of a year to form the apprentice level of their core, but it seemed I might manage in just a couple of months, if my speed held.

My week complete I finally stumbled up to my bed and fell in. As far as first weeks of school went, this might be the most intense I'd ever had. The topics were a mix of old and new, but the sheer number of them and the difficulty, both physical and mental, was on another level. Practice for Atali dancing alone probably counted as a decent workout.

The following week during our class on bardic magic Professor Magnolia grabbed us all up and began to hustle us towards the door.

"Come everyone, we're going to one of the nearby workshops. We're going to see paper made first hand and you need to pay close attention."

"Um, sir, is there any reason we can't have them come to us?" One of our bolder number suggested.

"Certainly is, the equipment to make paper is rather more large than most would like to admit. We went through all the trouble of having the shop made, and even getting it approved to run in the city every now and then just so that you lot could go and see it, now come on."

I didn't understand that as we were rushed towards the gates. When we got there the whole street was empty. Not slow, dead empty. I could see on the ends a few barriers and guardsmen pointing people around. In an instant my hackles raised and I started prepping for some attack.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, already pulling magic to hide myself so I could flee if needed.

"Huh? Oh, there are a few classes going to places on our street today. In the past we wouldn't have bothered but... with what happened last year and the continuing unrest the Headmaster decided to organize our outings in such a way that the road could be shut down so we can go in peace."

"Isn't that like... really obvious and going to make us a huge target?"

"Indeed it would, but don't fret. Now, off we go."

His ending made it clear that he was done discussing it. Of course it also made me want to panic even more. I hated the idea of being bait, particularly for anyone as insane as the current flock of rebels seemed to be. That said I knew that this class was mandatory and complaining would only get me in trouble.

I lamented that I didn't know any spells to shield myself, even if they were sub-optimal I'd still need to pick those up. I concentrated on that, and looking all around me for any sign of movement as our little class walked down the street. June and Lora were both looking at me like I was crazy but they hadn't been on the receiving end of two botched assassination attempts.

It was as we came up to the paper shop that I took a deep breath in relaxation. I immediately regretted that decision. It hadn't occurred to me that we were going to a paper manufacturing shop, and that the professor had informed us that it only ran on certain days. I understood now why that was.

The place was rank, absolutely, positively, foul. As the door opened I feared I might cough up my breakfast. I was fairly sure that old style paper mills from Earth didn't smell this bad, but this one certainly did.

Lora didn't manage to keep herself as steady as the rest of us and bent to empty her stomach in the gutter. It wasn't dignified, but I understood. That of course led to two others joining her and with the sound, and the added smell even I couldn't hold it in. Within moments the whole class had begun to thoroughly toss our cookies in the street.

"Gets 'em every time." Our professor chuckled from the door. From his tone I could tell he was breathing through his mouth.