The definition of "training" varies depending on who you ask. For a knight, it's swinging a sword until your arms fall off. For a mage, it's meditating until your mind expands. For Kaelen Thorne, training was simply... survival.
The training grounds of the Student Council were located in a suspended arena, floating high above the Academy clouds. The air was thin here. Cold. It was 5:00 AM. I stood in the center of the white marble floor, shivering in my coat. Across from me stood the three monsters of the Academy.
Kaelen Thorne (S-Rank Mage): Specialist in Gravity and Space magic. The tactician.Lyra "The Valkyrie" Storm (A-Rank Warrior): A girl with silver hair and a spear twice her size. She was currently doing one-finger pushups while levitating a boulder on her back.Jax (A-Rank Tank): A silent giant whose skin was literally made of organic stone.
"You're late," Kaelen said, though I was exactly on time. "Five seconds late is late."
"I had to calibrate my gauntlet," I said, holding up my left arm. The Spell-Driver was humming softly.
Lyra stopped her pushups and flipped onto her feet. She looked at me like I was a bug. "This is the new guy? The alchemist?" She scoffed. "Kaelen, he's F-Rank. If I sneeze, his bones will break. How is he supposed to help us win the Nationals?"
"He has a brain, Lyra," Kaelen said coolly. "Something you occasionally lack."
Lyra growled. "I'll break him in half."
"That is exactly the point," Kaelen smiled. He snapped his fingers. The gravity in the room suddenly shifted. My knees buckled. It felt like the weight of the world had just landed on my shoulders. I gasped, forcing air into my compressed lungs. [2x Gravity Field Active]
"Lesson one," Kaelen said, walking around me effortlessly while I struggled to stand. "The Nationals aren't fair. Our opponents will be stronger, faster, and richer. You cannot beat them with power."
He stopped in front of me. "So, you must beat them with unfairness. Show me what you can do, Architect. Survive against Lyra for one minute."
"One minute?" Lyra grinned, spinning her massive spear. "I'll give him ten seconds."
She didn't wait for a signal. She launched. She was a blur of silver and violence. My brain screamed MOVE, but my body was sluggish under the heavy gravity. I couldn't dodge. Not physically.
But I had played this game. I knew the "Valkyrie" class moveset. Skill: Lightning Dash -> Thrust -> Upward Slash.
I didn't try to run away. I raised my gauntlet. [Load: Flash-Bang Cartridge]
Just as Lyra was about to impale me (or at least bruise me severely), I fired. BANG. A blinding white light exploded in her face, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom. It wasn't magic. It was chemistry. Magnesium and sonic powder.
"Gah!" Lyra screamed, blinded, her spear going wide. She stumbled back, rubbing her eyes.
I didn't stop. [Load: Grease Slick] I fired a canister of alchemical lubricant at her feet. She tried to regain her balance, slipped on the friction-less oil, and crashed face-first into the marble floor. THUD.
The gravity field vanished. Kaelen was clapping slowly. Jax, the stone giant, let out a low rumble that might have been a laugh.
Lyra scrambled up, her face red with embarrassment and rage. She wiped the oil from her chin. "You little rat! You blinded me! That's illegal!"
"The rulebook says 'No Lethal Magic'," I panted, my chest heaving. "It says nothing about chemistry."
Kaelen nodded approvingly. "Precisely. Magic has casting times. Magic has mana costs. A flash-bang has neither." He looked at me with new interest. "But tricks won't save you when a Barrier Mage locks you in a cage. You need mobility."
He pointed to the edge of the floating arena. "Jax. Throw him off."
"Wait, what?" I stepped back.
Jax stepped forward. He grabbed me by the collar of my coat with one hand. "Training," Jax grunted. And he threw me. Literally threw me off the floating island.
I fell. The clouds rushed past me. The ground was thousands of feet below. "Use the gauntlet!" Kaelen's voice echoed in my head via telepathy. "Propulsion! Figure it out or die!"
I flailed in the air. The wind roared in my ears. Think. Think. The Spell-Driver was designed for impact, not flight. But every action has a reaction. If I overloaded the kinetic chamber and fired it downwards...
I pointed my palm at the ground. [Overload: Kinetic Blast] BOOM. The recoil shattered the bones in my wrist. Pain shot up my arm. But the blast slowed my fall. It launched me back up. I fired again. BOOM. And again. BOOM.
I was flying. Or rather, I was exploding myself upwards in a series of violent jerks. I crested the lip of the arena and crashed onto the marble floor, rolling to a stop at Kaelen's feet.
I lay there, groaning, clutching my broken wrist. "He passed," Jax said.
Kaelen knelt down. He placed a hand on my wrist. Green healing magic flowed from his fingers, knitting the bones back together in seconds. It hurt more than the break.
"Crude," Kaelen critiqued. "But effective. You have the instincts of a cockroach, Aren. Hard to kill."
He stood up. "Welcome to the team. Now get up. We have 58 minutes left."
The Workshop - Late Night
I stumbled into the warehouse at midnight. I was covered in bruises, scorch marks, and oil. Elara was waiting. She had bags under her eyes, fueled by coffee and obsession. "You look like you got run over by a carriage," she noted.
"Worse," I mumbled, collapsing into a chair. "I got run over by a Student Council President."
"Did you learn anything?"
"Yeah," I winced, rubbing my shoulder. "I learned that I'm weak. My gauntlet is too slow. The recoil is too high. I need an upgrade."
I pulled a crumpled piece of paper from my pocket. It was a list of materials I had stolen from Kaelen's private supply closet while he wasn't looking. "And I learned that the Nationals allow 'Equipment' as long as it's not a artifact."
Elara looked at the list. "Void-Steel? Condensed Mana Crystals? Aren, this is military-grade stuff." She looked at me. "What are you planning to build?"
"I'm not a warrior, Elara. I can't swing a sword like Lyra. I can't tank like Jax." I looked at Unit Alpha standing silently in the corner. "I'm an Architect. I don't fight. I pilot."
I grabbed a fresh blueprint. "We're going to shrink the Chimera Engine. We're going to make a micro-core."
"For what?"
"For a suit," I said, my eyes burning with a manic idea. "An Exo-Skeleton. If I can't strengthen my body with mana... I'll reinforce it with steel."
Elara's mouth fell open. "You want to build Power Armor? In a fantasy world?"
"Why not?" I grinned, despite the pain. "Iron Man meets Gandalf. Let's get to work."
The Shadow in the North
While we worked, miles away in the dark forests of the North, a carriage with no markings rattled down a forgotten road. Inside sat a man with a burned face. Half of his noble features were melted away, replaced by scarred tissue. Lord Valerius.
He wasn't dead. He was festering. Opposite him sat a figure cloaked in red robes. A member of the Crimson Dawn, a radical cult that opposed the Royal Family.
"My house is ash," Valerius rasped. "My fortune is gone. All because of that... boy."
"The boy is resourceful," the Cultist said, his voice like dry leaves. "But he is distracting the Academy. He is distracting the King."
The Cultist handed Valerius a mask. A mask made of white bone. "The Empire is preparing to march, Lord Valerius. But they need a gate. They need someone to lower the shields of Babylon from the inside."
Valerius took the mask. He looked at it. He thought of Aren Vance. He thought of the humiliation at the auction. "I will open the gate," Valerius whispered, putting on the mask. "And when the city burns... I will make sure Aren Vance is the first to scream."