Aeres Academy - Chapter 24 preview

The next morning was much of a repeat of the day before, except this time everyone was dressed in their adventuring gear – or at least, some form of armor – and carried a weapon or shield. Marshall, waiting for us in the arena, continued to look bored, this time holding a book in one hand till the bell struck and we started running. Then, his free hand dipped to the nearest bucket and sent a stone blurring through the air only for it to be blocked.

The next few hours were grueling, the stones coming faster than ever. They curved, spun and hopped through the air, to be cut, deflected, blocked and otherwise dealt with by the students. All of which led to another form of danger, as those of us without a suitable skill had to avoid the shards and deflected projectiles. At times, there were as many as three stones in the air, never mind the weird leftovers from skills.

Fire wisps, of course. Stones that rotated, shifted or deflected. Flying balls of water or projected force. A throwing knife that always returned to its owner. Eventually. Teleporting stones – and weren’t those fun. There was even a kid who spat an extra powerful loogie that could shatter the stone when it hit – though he missed half the time.

Jogging beside Sophia, the lady who’d stood up to Marshall, I raised an eyebrow as another stone was shattered, one of the physical skill users doing a superb fast draw and sheath to cut it apart. Together, the pair of us sped up, pulling away from the next target. She glanced at me, a small smile on her lips, the tiny blonde somehow managing to still vibrate with energy.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who figured it out,” Sophia exhaled the words in between steps. 

“Except you still get targeted,” I said. 

“He likes to keep me on my toes.” Sophia grimaced. “I got to get a handle on my skill after all.”

“Uh huh.” I wasn’t entirely sure what it was that she did, but occasional mirror-like substances would interpose themselves between the stones and her. They either were sliced apart – sending very sharp stones tumbling through the air with their course barely changed – or were stopped completely.

Another sharp crack, the stone blocked by a single swipe of a mace. It sent the stone spinning off into the center, not targeted, and we kept running. Sweat dripped from both our faces, the added weight of our armor a drag on our endurance. Thankfully, knowing we would be running for the full few hours, everyone had chosen to pace themselves – only Rayzan near the front running fast. I had to admit, I was impressed by the kid’s athleticism.

In another world, he probably could easily have joined the Olympics. I wondered if he had cheated, been dragged lower by his parents. Given the benefits of a higher mana density to allow his body to strengthen.

Possibly. 

We all ran, the group spread out, covering the entirety of the arena as those with less overall fitness lagged behind. 

Eyeing Marshall in the center, I could not help but sigh. He would target another in the laggards for a few more rounds before he returned to the mace wielder. He was either a professional baseball player in the making or had a skill that let him target the stones. Big guy, the beginnings of a beard but it was sparse, a teen’s attempt at it. His lack of follicular abundance had nothing, of course, to his competence with that mace.

“You’d think they’d realize the pattern already,” she muttered.

“Not everyone’s paying attention in the same way,” I said. “Not everyone’s trained to think that way.”

“Who needs training?” Sophia said, rolling her eyes. “You just have to pay attention.”

“Attention and memorization,” I said. “He’s also occasionally mixing up his own pattern.”

“Not enough,” she replied. “He’s targeting those who need more practice dodging or paying attention to what is happening. Or—” A quick stutter step, as a stone, cracked open by a slicing sword aura projection, sent shards out to strike at the rest of us. I was hit, hard enough to leave a bruise by a shard but, other than a wince, I just kept running. “—who are near exhausting their skill.”

Now I was eyeing Sophia even as I put together her comments. Running through everything I had seen, trying to recall if she was correct. While I had spent decades playing, it was almost always on a one-on-one basis, other than the occasional fun scrums. Even then, the kind of pattern recognition she was exhibiting…

Well, I was not exactly sure where you would train to acquire that kind of view. Perhaps in an army setting. Or just having the right kind of mind for such things. Yet she wore basic adventuring clothing, nothing enchanted, all secondhand like mine because that was what was affordable. N nothing particularly expensive. Nothing that screamed “legacy.”

“What, exactly, is your skill?” I muttered, not really meaning to say it out loud.

“I call it the Land of Mirrors.” The look I gave her made the woman duck her head, a light blush rising on her cheeks. “It makes more sense than the skill name it was given!”

“And what was that?” I asked drolly.

“Razored Fractal Dimension.” I gave her a look and she shrugged. “I told you, no one I spoke to knows what it means. We asked around, but I had to come here to have a hope of learning it.”

“The skill teacher had nothing?” I said.

“Not yet, but he promises he will. Said it sounded familiar.”

I nodded, making note to follow up with her when she had time. At least that explained the glittering shapes she conjured up, and the razored part explained why the stones were sliced apart so easily. I just wished I knew the word she had utilized.

Sometimes, speaking in a different language was nothing short of infuriating. As it was, I had to translate what was being said to what I understood on an intuitive level, even if things were just a little different from my old life. For example, days were longer, seasons shorter and less mild, the year longer in total, even if the months were different. Then, you had measurements – and what a pain that had been, when one realized that the local equivalent of a mile was entirely different. 

After all, a foot was such an arbitrary measurement. But at least I had come at a time when all such measurements had become standardized, rather than were still argued over.

“Best of luck then,” I said.

I sympathized. At least with my skill I had an intuitive understanding of how it worked. For her, to have a skill you had to be extremely careful in use because you could not understand it’s full strength, even if it was powerful… well, that sucked. 

Especially considering how important skills were in this world.

“Thanks.”

“Well, that’s the reason why we’re here, isn’t it?” I said. “To learn to get better?”

A small smile broke out on her face, and I found myself smiling back. Which was probably a bad idea, because I had taken my eyes off Marshall long enough that he chose to send a stone right into my ribs. Its impact caused me to hunch over in pain, the explosion of agony radiating out from what I swore was a cracked rib. I nearly fell as I stumbled, doing my best to hold on. 

One other rule – pay attention to the world.

If not, he would punish us for it.