Anticipation rippled through my arm as the sword came down on it. My eyes were closed, not wanting to see the weapon drop, and my body shivered.

Getting stabbed really hurts.

“Don’t make that face. It’s a pinprick.” William grunted. “I don’t even think I drew blood. Wait. There it is.”

I opened one of my eyes and glanced down at my arm. There was a small drop of blood a few inches away from my wrist. The sword had scratched me.

“Oh, that wasn’t so bad.” I examined the injury. “When you said you’d stab me I imagined something different.”

“I was trying to go a bit deeper than that.” William tapped the sword against my skin. “It's like trying to cut through tree bark. Not tough, but not as soft as skin either.”

“You could’ve left that part out.” I clicked my tongue.

I heard a chuckle and a chirp from my side. Gerial and Gold were watching me from the sidelines as we conducted our skill tests.

Hours had passed, and morning had shifted into afternoon as we tested mana vitality and mana sanctuary.

Mana vitality was simple. If my body was hit, it would absorb some of the damage for me. The attack had to land on my skin and the damage absorption was negligible.

It also strengthened my flesh at the same time.

The amount of mana consumed was proportionate to the amount of damage it absorbed.

At lower levels it hardly made an impact. However, the sheer amount of mana I had meant that I could absorb a lot of damage. It would just cost more per activation. Eventually, it would become a second skin. Then an impenetrable armour. It likely had other applications, but I'd have to discover them along the way.

The word 'vitality' made me suspect it might be more than a simple damage absorber. Would the mana eventually merge with my flesh and body? Had it already done so? To test that theory I'd need time, and practice.

“You guys didn’t feel or see my mana, did you?” I asked.

My friends shook their heads.

“Good.” I spoke.

Getting cut would activate the skill automatically, but my mana was used up internally and immediately, which meant injuries didn’t reveal my golden mana. My identity as a Marked one was safe.

“Okay. My turn again.” Gerial spoke.

He cracked his knuckles and stretched, preparing to beat the morning drowsiness out of me.

Okay, I was exaggerating to myself. He wasn’t that intense.

I had received two defensive skills. That meant that I had to take a lot of damage to test them out. William was testing the limits of mana vitality, and Gerial was in charge of mana sanctuary.

It was like figuring out the limits of my earth and metal manipulation, except with pain.

It barely distracted me with my high pain tolerance.

“Are you ready?” He raised his fist.

“You’re holding your punches back too much.” I responded. “Give me your best shot.”

“Relax, it takes time.” Gerial swung his fist experimentally. “My fourth best shot should bring out some results. Anymore and I’ll probably kill you.”

“You have a high opinion of your punches for a magician.” I grinned.

Mana sanctuary activated and there was a tremor in the air as half of my mana rushed forward and tried to burst out of my body.

Sweat dripped down my forehead as I stopped the rushing tide from exiting, and I let through a small group.

It came into contact with Gerial’s incoming fist.

His knuckles dug into my stomach as he made contact, knocking the air out of my lungs. I doubled over in pain and let out a cough.

Okay. It was stupid to ask for his best shot, I knew that now.

I activated mana vitality and it lessened the damage I felt, but only by a minuscule amount. I’d have to level it up more for a noticeable effect.

Then I focused on my pain tolerance and stood up straight. The pain wasn’t gone, but it didn’t eat at my thoughts either.

“Okay, I definitely felt it that time.” Gerial looked at his fist.

“You and me both.” I huffed. “So, you slowed down?”

He nodded.

Mana sanctuary wasn’t a shield. It didn’t lessen the force directly or counter it. It was a field of some kind, active everywhere that my mana touched. It actively looked for threats and kept me safe.

When something tried to harm me, it would try to stop it by robbing it of its momentum.

In Gerial’s case, he had felt like his hand was slowing down.

Unfortunately, I would need to level it up a lot more for it to be effective against a normal punch, let alone a sword or other physical attack.

I wasn’t sure if it worked with magic, but I would test it thoroughly. After all, mana could defend against a lot more than just the physical. Oubliez' illusions had been destroyed by coming into contact with my mana in a similar fahsion. I would have to do it myself because the church wouldn’t help me.

It had a single standing order.

Keep an eye on me and don’t let me take advantage of their resources until I was confirmed as a Marked one.

That included skill information and training.

Ophelio had been over the moon when the golden mana had finished coalescing into me, but he wasn’t allowed to do more than provide a room for us to practice.

It comforted me to see how conflicted he was about it. The guards had also expressed sympathy before disappearing.

“It’ll take dozens of hits to figure out how much damage and momentum your skills negate, but I’m willing to make that sacrifice.” Gerial stepped back. “Maybe softer though, I don’t think I actually have to make contact for your field to slow me down.”

He hadn’t been able to feel a difference with slower punches, but I couldn’t be sure if that was because of his intentions or if there was a threshold of damage or contact that needed to be met for the skill to activate.

“I hope that’s true.” I winced. “Getting punched doesn’t feel good.”

Normally I would have the arena’s spells protecting me in this kind of situation, but if I activated mana sanctuary in the arena, I’d give myself away. Thankfully, it also levelled passively when it helped regenerate my mana.

The sound of wings flapping reached my ears, and I raised my arm.

Gold landed on it and hopped onto my shoulder.

He squawked and ruffled his feathers, and I raised a treat up to his beak. He gobbled it up joyfully, his head bobbing gratefully.

“Alright, let’s give this another try.” I spoke.

Gold ruffled his feathers and nodded.

My ears perked up and I listened intently, the sounds of the world lessening around me as I focused on the puffer. Gerial and William went quiet, and curiosity tinged their gazes.

Gold let out a single chirp. It was a clear note that tickled my ears and bounced happily through the room.

I sighed.

“It didn’t work. I can’t understand you.” I scratched his neck. “Well, no more than usual.”

I had tried to test spirit communication first, but I wasn’t sure it was working.

I’d expected Gold to start speaking English, but he sounded like he usually did.

Neither Gerial nor William had heard of the skill. Mr Black might know, but skill information was rarely given freely, and he hadn’t listed this among the possible skills I’d receive.

He’d finished his job for the academy. It would be up to him if he wanted to give me any extra information.

I was grateful for what he’d already provided.

My class selection would have gone a lot differently if I was going in blind and had to work out skill effects by their names.

“You’ll get there.” Gerial’s hand patted my free shoulder. “Most skills aren’t levelled in a day.”

“You’d think that would be false with my mana pool.” I grinned.

We’d quickly worked out that an attack big enough to exhaust my mana reserves would kill me once it hit.

Would consecutive small attacks work? I’d have to check.

Mana sanctuary tried to unleash half my manapool in one go whenever I used it, but having it all out there didn’t increase my levelling speed.

There were only two skills left to test.

Mana communication, and mana affinity.

In my opinion these were the two most important skills I’d been given by my class.

“Hey.” Gerial gazed up at me. “Didn’t you have the arena booked for today?”

I jolted out of my thoughts.

I’d forgotten my appointment with Amanda. She had said not to worry about it, but I’d told her I could still make it.

“Relax.” William called out. “You’ve got plenty of time. They’ll portal you right into the academy, remember?”

He was right. I calmed my mind with a deep breath and Gold nestled beside me.

I had time.

The important thing was that I had the skills now, and my class.

“You’re not coming back to the academy?” I turned to the two of them.

“I’m heading back home and catching up with my homework.” William tapped his head. “Some more relaxation wouldn’t hurt either.”

He had been using [Wisdom] for two days straight. Normally it was a passive ability. It required immense concentration when he was trying to use it actively.

The strain was showing on his face.

“You’re right.” I smiled. “Thank you so much for your help.”

“Anytime.” He walked up to me and gave me a pat on the back. “I’ll still come with you to the portal room.”

“Sounds great.” I responded. “How about you?”

There was one last person in the group that hadn’t responded yet. Gerial was deep in thought as William and I turned to leave.

“Gerial?” I tilted my head.

He blinked as my words got through to him.

“Sorry, sorry. I got lost in my thoughts.” He raised a hand. “I’ll stay here. I want to give that report we spoke about to the church, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course.”

We’d talked about this in depth while exploring my skills. He was going to tell the church the abilities I allowed him to, and we hoped it would speed up the verification process.

Or maybe they would grant me access to some training resources.

I just needed to wait as they deliberated.

A section of the church was assigned to receive reports from my guards and other people that met me in order to determine the validity of my Marked status.

They were also conducting tests, although they hadn’t asked me to come in personally. That could change soon now that I had a class, but the estimated two-year timeframe wouldn’t shift that drastically.

The issue wasn’t just verifying if I was a Marked one.

The church had to prepare the public itself for the information. They would slowly disseminate rumours or reinterpret their doctrines for the inclusion of a second Marked one.

They were hoping to lessen the impact of announcing me to the world by changing the beliefs of the public beforehand.

It gave me a headache just thinking about it.

“I’ll catch you tomorrow at school.” William’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

We’d walked all the way to the portal room while I’d been thinking.

Mist was already spilling into the room, drops of purple water splashing onto the carpet. A spell formed in front of me, and I saw a familiar door.

It was the portal to Koshima academy.

“Good luck with tomorrow’s fight.” William grinned. “Don’t underestimate your opponent. He’s got experience under his belt.”

He was talking about Shar.

“I know.” I nodded.

The noble household earth magician wasn’t someone to look down on. Every student at Koshima academy was at the top of their generation.

I was strong, I had no illusions about that. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t lose.

I’d never fought another earth user before.

Indra had trained me, but we hadn’t sparred. Especially not in an arena setting. The most we’d done was use earth manipulation against each other as practice.

It was also a team battle.

I walked through the nexus corridors with Gold by my side.

Purple mist spilled across my body, my clothes growing damp and my ankles awash with purple water.

Gold and I quickly reached the door to Koshima academy, and I stepped out into the grassy hills that littered its entrance.

I saw strands of fiery red hair and joyfully bright eyes.

Amanda was standing on the grass, fire mana dancing around her as she spotted me. I heard a chirp in the air and saw Agni in Amanda’s hair, her body shifting in greeting.

“Hey guys.” I waved back. “Did I miss much?”

Amanda made her way towards me, and I saw a smile touching her lips.

“It sounds like I’m the one that missed stuff.” She poked my side.

She was glancing at me with excitement in her eyes.

I knew that Amanda wouldn’t ask me about my class. She was too polite to do that, and she knew it was rude.

That wouldn’t stop her from being curious.

“By the way, I made these.”

She dug her hand into her blazer pocket, and I saw her take out a stack of pages. There were at least ten. Each page had handwritten notes scribbled onto them.

“It’s everything I know about our opponents.” Amanda held the papers out towards me. “Is it bad that I want to beat them so hard it sends a message to the others?”

I took the pages in my hand and read them carefully. They had our opponent’s potential skills, and it included their family histories and bloodline abilities.

Amanda had gone all out in preparing.

“If they didn’t want to risk their opponents winning then they shouldn’t have started a fight.” I flipped through the pages. Then I paused. “This is…”

Shar and Vesper were second year students.

That didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was the track record of arena fights Amanda had listed under their profiles.

They liked to duel.

A lot.

The first thing written on their pages was that they’d been fighting together as a team since their first year, alongside one other person.

For our fight there would only be two of them present, but from what I saw that wasn’t an issue for them.

They had experience fighting as duos as well as trios.

“They’ve got a lot of experience compared to us.” Her tone turned serious. “We can’t go into this flippantly or we’ll be knocked down before we know what’s happening.”

“You’re right.” I frowned. “I was just thinking about how I’ve been taking this too lightly.”

A single practice session in the arena wouldn’t do.

“I was thinking the same thing about myself.” Amanda spoke.

She tapped her hands against her side.

“We have a day until the fight. Maybe we can talk about tactics?” Amanda clasped her hands together nervously. “I’m- um- happy to tell you about what skills I can use for the fight. If you’re okay with that.”

Amanda looked down, embarrassed. ‘Tactics’ in this context meant sharing skill information. That was normally given, not asked for. I could tell she felt uncomfortable even saying the words.

She didn’t need to be.

“Heck yeah we can.”

I scanned the papers in my hand, the information on them far more than I could absorb in a few minutes of reading.

“Can we do it somewhere private?” I pursed my lips.

I trusted Amanda but saying my skills in public was a different matter.

People would try to guess them during the battle when I used them, but their names and exact details were for private ears only.

“Of course.” Amanda beamed. “My place?”

“That sounds like a plan. We’ll do our practice then head straight into planning.”

My lips parted into a grin.

“Let’s figure out how to destroy these guys.”