Zahn kicked at the ground again, sending up another puff of sand that he’d failed to meld together. Ethan continued his weight practice a dozen feet away, crouching in endless squats as he watched the Custom play in the dirt. Pushing mana out his feet and into an Earth-type spell was fairly easy to Zahn by now, and he’d found he could even pair the action with casting another spell out of his arms while fighting Burnato’s boys. Casting his formless spell Shape had let him discover a number of other Earth-type spells, but this morning’s simple casting continued to prove fruitless.

Sinking both hands under the top layer, Zahn felt around the cold wet rocky level and tried to push his intent into the spell. His last effort was standing with both hands outstretched, and it had moved enough volume to mimic what he wanted if nothing else. Kneeling now in front of their doors, he pushed mana out of his Core by clenching the not-muscle he held under his diaphragm to keep his mana density low enough to temper his body. Risen higher, the concentration felt like warming himself internally as it raced through thinner channels and shot from his fingertips like he’d directed a river. “Shape,” He whispered with both eyes closed, trying to keep the idea in mind. The rippling heat faded as he relaxed the not-muscle again, feeling his body cool as the stronger mana stopped flowing.

“You tryin’ to hunt something on horseback?” Ethan huffed as he continued to heft his iron, balancing on the balls of his feet.

Zahn smiled at the ground as he opened his eyes, pulling the large dirt construct free of the surrounding sands. It looked and felt like packed sandcastle material, and even though it remained stuffed with dense green mana he could tell a solid smack would crumble the large staff he currently held. It was fat on the closer end, tapering to nearly a point as it traveled further from him.

Rotating the sand weapon in hand, he pushed more fresh power into the construct and grinned as he saw the native blue shift hues to the same vibrant green inside. “Hey, what are the requirements for a wand, anyways?” Without waiting for Ethan’s answer, he flexed for denser mana again and tried to push the new wave entirely down his arms, unwilling to let the increased concentration sit like acid in his organs. The wave of power filled the staff construct, nearly pushing the resident emerald color out before the inevitable conversion took place. Focusing on his intention, Zahn closed his eyes once more and cast. “Shape.”

The sandy staff shuddered, the endless tiny rocks and crystals forming its body grinding against each other as the magic spell attempted to enforce his will. When the movement stopped, he opened his eyes and marveled at the compressed creation, a smooth rock stick triple the length of his arm and thinning to a sharp tip at the end. The wider base now fit his right hand like a perfect grip, and when he swung the thing he felt the increased handling of his Improvised Weapon bonus trigger.

“This thing’s great! It even counts as ‘improvised’, so I can just use it without needing to hold it all fucky.” He swung and poked, stabbing at the ground as if it had offended and leaving a deep hole. He swung it in another arc, pushing more mana into the greedy construct as he carved a straight line in front of him. “Sever,” he whispered and watched the short pulse of magic slash a smooth divot into the sands, perfectly matching the movement of his new wand.

“Where’d you even get the idea for that?” Ethan set his weights aside, moving closer to admire the spellwork. “Not that you don’t need a new weapon, after you went and sacrificed your whole-ass dagger just to drive my sword into the stage. Not your smartest move.”

“I’d had some roach jelly already, and besides. Eating the whole cracker later is probably what screwed me.” Zahn swung his new toy around, narrowly missing the irate blond. “I got the idea for the stick from Two, and he was right. I need to be able to use weapons on hand, and I don’t have the stats to carry around rock-plate armor. But, I might be able to make a sword.”

“No, eating it at all like I explicitly told you not to is what did you in. And if that’s a sword, I’m an exotic dancer. Two wasn’t kidding, you’ve been pulled from the Roster all publicly and everything. The Ringmaster made a big announcement about it.” Ethan stepped back to his heavy irons and pulled them into his storage bag as he spoke.

“Well,” the unphased Zahn swung his stick around again, marveling at its mana changing colors so quickly, “that’s part of our friend, right? He’s supposed to fix that, and we planned for it the whole time.”

Ethan rolled his neck, reaching back to summon a simple straight staff. “Well, it’s not like we can even finish that conversation in public. Or maybe even during certain nights. Yeesh.” He brandished the weapon, twirling it menacingly.

“I see you’re obeying him too?” Zahn dropped into a crouch, keeping his new wand between the staff and his body. “What happened to not liking the guy? You were super hesitant to even talk to him about food until he started dropping serious knowledge on your ass. Change teams suddenly?”

“He’d been around for ages, knows a lot we don’t, and let’s be honest.” Ethan darted in, slapping at Zahn’s guard, “He doesn’t need to give us any advice, we can’t hurt him for years to come. Might as well take what he gives out while he’s feeling generous.”

Zahn grinned as he skipped back, keeping the stone weapon between the wood and his body easily. “You call it generous, I call it friendly. He’s been downright charming to me since I got here, and I’m pretty sure you’re just scared of how badly he can beat your ass.”

Ethan spun on his leading heel and left an opening, one the other Player tried to use to score a hit only to reveal his staff lunging around his body first. He caught Zahn square in the chest as he continued his rotation, ending with the end of his staff cupped in his trailing hand. “I think I can fight better with my weapon than you can with yours.” Before the Custom could draw breath the blond whipped his arm forward and launched the hapless Player and staff into the wall hard enough to make him see stars.

* * * * *

Zahn hurled spell after spell, using improvised rests on his shoulders and wrists to try and cast up to six of the spells at a time. Fire Bolt’s light streaked across the sands again, driving the dim sunset back before the lithe Rogue and hulking Barbarian swatted the missiles away. His efforts to punch through defenses hadn’t yet borne fruit, but practicing with willing targets day after day had already let the Player learn how to punch through melee defenses easily.

The day he’d learned how, he’d nearly taken Ethan’s eye without even being in an official duel. He was trying to use his improvised rocky weapon to channel his fire spells, after meditating under the imp’s guidance for nine hours the night before. With his body still purging higher-tier mana, he wasn’t ready for the level of output from the fire mana he’d spent hours infusing into the forward half of the weapon. His new wand successfully cast a single shot of Searing Bolt before shattering, with the blazing missile burning white-hot and cutting a hole cleanly through the Warlock’s chainmail armor as it passed over his shoulder. The beautiful spell gained a bloom of color as it sailed over the walls of the Collisae, a blue aura that then shrouded itself in orange and red before exploding high in the sky and shooting a line of red high into the upper layers of the sky.

Neither the Warlock in question nor any of the other Gladiators had found the display nearly as beautiful as the Custom, despite his many attempts to justify the wonderful spell. He’d been locked in place by Three and Five, as they fetched One and had her perform a magical inspection to check him for stimulants. Zahn was subjected to a thorough Inspect, the fifth-Rank variant of his own Observe, and learned she was apparently disgusted to be so near a ‘nasty Player’ for so long. He learned this as she provided crude medical care for the wounded, while confiding her feedback to Ethan.

Before the First Five members left, they verified once again that Zahn had been stricken from the Roster for his reckless behavior, and would not be invited to rejoin any matches for the duration of his punishment. He took the news with a nod, trying not to grit his teeth as they sneered at his one lifeline to escape.

Training hard with and against the closest ally he had helped the low-leveled Custom grow his stats without using points. He’d already spent his bank earlier, and mulling over his progress showed he wouldn’t be gaining any new points until he passed level eight again. His physical stats had improved considerably under Ethan’s guidance, even as his mental abilities were only growing infrequently through the demon’s help.

Name :

Zahn

Class:

Custom

Race :

Human

Sub Class :

N/A

Title(s) :

N/A

Type :

Player

Deity :

N/A

Home :

N/A

Free Stat Points :

0

Free Att Points :

0

Player Level :

7

Total Exp :

3122

Alignment :

Chaotic Neutral

Next Level :

378

Health :

245.1

HP Regen :

226.2

Stamina :

285.5

SP Regen :

260.8

Mana :

480

MP Regen :

670

Strength :

23

Muscular powe...

Melee damag...

Constitution :

23

The physical ch...

Total Stamin...

Endurance :

24

The ability or st...

Health regener...

Agility :

25

The power to m...

Ranged dama...

Dexterity :

24

Flexibility an...

Dodge chanc...

Perception :

17

The capacity fo...

Ranged accu...

Intellect :

30

Capacity for th...

Magic damag...

Spirit :

30

The energy of c...

Mana pool...

Charisma :

21

The ability to co...

Social fluen...

Luck :

21

The force or cir...

Beneficial occ...

Willpower :

8

The control of o...

Magic accu...

Will(Passive):

11

Blazing red Bolts arced away from his vision, rapid blinking driving his daydreaming away. Zahn dismissed the window he’d opened while in la-la land, seeing his large friend Gardor barreling down on him with the fiery spells clearly missing him entirely. Zahn barked in frustration as he tried to turn his normal litany of curses into actual magic ones. “Fire Spi- ah, Bol- fuck, Fire Shape!” Waving his arms in circles, he tried to cast the Earth spell in another school, and learned his first lesson about how magic worked.

The flames in his hands spun about, forming perfect donuts as they stripped his arms of his stored spells and shaped into perfect disks floating in front of his splayed hands. Pushing against the new structure felt like pressing against the side of his automobil, warping and tensing without causing him any pain from handling flames. As he pressed experimentally with both hands, the streaks of fire that were harmlessly passing between his opponents changed course and leapt at his new target.

The stream of missiles halted and erupted to the side as one, leaving behind clouds of varying size depending on how far they were from the target. The streaming Bolts that still lit him with their passage snapped to the left and buried themselves under his pumping arm, driving him to a knee as he gasped out his shock on impact. The missiles further away left smoke behind as they shot towards him, losing much of their heat as they slammed into him like dull arrowheads. The furthest distant spells, nearly striking the far barrier, fairly exploded as they launched themselves in the opposite direction and shot as cold missiles of force that slammed into his prone form and drove him to the sands.

Zahn held the discs as they rapidly shifted from red to orange and yellow, finally fading as a pale whitening before the mana collapsed. He was still marveling at the discovery and trying to sort through his notifications when Two draped an arm over his shoulder and sank a dagger in his kidney. “Don’t get distracted on the battlefield, there should be a way for you to shrink those things. Just a tip.”

Respawning and cursing the powerful sneak, Zahn looked again at his popups he’d been interrupted from reading so rudely. Ethan strolled by as he was focused, handing him a bowl and spoon. The blond cleared his throat repeatedly, eventually waving a hand in the other Player’s face.

“Fine!” Zahn scooped up the bowl, tasting dinner. “It says: You have unlocked a new Spell in the school of Fire. Yadda yadda yadda, here. ‘You may manipulate Fire(s) that already exist in the local environ, and Shape them to your will. Cost is increased by distance, intervening materials, outside forces.’ So basically, it’s like when I cast Earth Shape, but there’s not usually fire just hanging around like dirt is. I need to wait for something already on fire if I want to use it for anything.”

“I’m sorry,” the little demon hopped up on the Hearth with difficulty, its belly making the exercise an effort. “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve just unlocked something as powerful as Fire Shape, and you’re bitching about it? You’ve been using the Earth version to break into so many spells, and you’re whinging about getting it for free?” Ethan pointed solemnly with his spoon, letting his minion make his points.

Zahn scoffed, trying to hold out as he felt the moral ground slip out beneath him. “Well, it’s not like I’ll always have a source of flames nearby. And besides, I’ve been figuring that stuff out mostly through training, not combat. I’m still working on summoning that wand consistently.”

Iengoris glanced at their magical, ever-burning hearth filled with perfectly shaped coals that never needed changing out. “Yes. Because training with fire would be hard. In this. Specific. Environment.”

* * * * *

Training at night with the demon minion became attempts to change the shape of his existing spells until he grew exhausted, then guided meditation until sunrise. He hadn’t been noticing any great increase to his body’s abilities in the last several days, but his growing stat scores continued to reinforce the idea he was finally doing something right. Less than a week after unlocking his second element Shaping, he accidentally tried using it while pulling another wand out of the ground and found his Fire Breath exhale worked wonderfully for wrapping around the sandy stick to squeeze it into the desired density.

He unlocked the spells of Earth Squeeze and Fire Grasp in the same morning, and found his new maximum at holding two individual wands crafted from the ground at once. He held the left in midair with an ongoing cast of Shift, ready to fly forward and stab at any opening Zahn noticed too far away to easily handle. Upon seeing his student’s new ready stance, Two cocked his head thoughtfully before drawing his own weapons out of a shadowy midair.

Throwing magic long distance was much easier when he used Earth designs to plan out how he wanted each spell to fly, and maintaining a Fire Shape spell circle under his left hand was easier than trying to cast eight spells two-handed. Throwing carefully measured Fire Bolts, he twisted their shape before they’d even traveled a dozen feet and often found he could make them faster and pierce better just by slimming and extending the design. Zahn continued his efforts at casting through all his limbs, stomping mana into the ground and trying to pull up new Shaped wands each time. He’d found with enough mana in place already converted to the right element he could simply cast his new Squeeze spell to compress the sands in the right pattern and form another tiny spear to throw with Shift.

Gardor quickly grew comfortable facing off against the flying rock spears and improved flaming missiles. The huge man continued to either dodge wide shots or simply bat aside the closer ones. He’d learned from the experience of letting them all pass, even if he’d inferred the wrong lesson. The steppe fighter was now determined to strike away all missiles coming near him, to master the skill of deflecting spells and arrows alike and defending his people. He classified Zahn’s crude rocky spears as close enough to their arrows, and had already advanced half the distance, smashing every spell away when Two brought his blades against the Player’s body once again.

Waking up on the couch once more, Zahn coughed and glanced at his experience bar displaying his losses. “That fucker needs to stop killing me at the end of the night,” he griped to his roommate as the Warlock served up stew.

“Would you really stop otherwise? I don’t think I’ve seen you empty your mana pool twice, even. Eat up.”

Zahn looked around their commons, failing to find the world’s worst pet. “Where’s your minion?” He mumbled around a mouthful of dinner.

Ethan smirked, falling into the couch across from him. “It’s still a couple weeks till the next Match, and I sent him to get you back on the list.”