Book 2: Chapter 38: Welcome to the Army

  The area they had all been herded into still stank of wet dog despite the fact the rain had stopped long before it struck noon. Grey banners stitched with the Terraxum military’s high command sigil snapped in the wind above the sandstone archways of the field. A sigil shaped like a sword breaking through a mountain. Alex stood at attention in the front of their squad.

  Across from them stood a woman clad in midnight armor with various visible overlapping rune-seams. She had hair tied back in a blade-sharp tail, and her voice like a whip wrapped in sandpaper. Alex had already looked at her aura through his aether sight, finding that she was a fresh Adept mage. Which, for a typical soldier, meant he could assume she had about three years of experience at the very least.

  “Striders,” she said. “My name is Lieutenant Ilvien Halstrad. You will not address me unless I speak to you. You will not ask questions. And if you think this is going to be anything like what you’ve survived so far—”

  She held up a single gloved hand, fingers tight. A gust of wind blew through the yard, enchantments sparked into being along the edges of the walls, pulsing in faint sync with her gauntlet. “—you are already dead.”

  Silence remained among the squad.

  Then she lowered her hand, expression unreadable. “This is not typical training. You’re not recruits. You’ve already been blooded, but you’ve been blooded the wrong way. You’ve survived on instinct, some talent, foreign ideas and personal flair. That ends today.”

  She walked the line, past Alex, past Kate and Lance. Her armor clanked quietly, cold and final. “For the next two weeks, your unit will undergo military adjustment. You will learn how our wars are fought, not yours. You will be placed in rotating squads, platoon sparring drills, spell harmonics, formation testing, and bonded casting trials.”

  She stopped in front of Devon and smiled down at him slightly. “If any of you fall behind… you’ll be reassigned. Or replaced.”

  Devon nodded weakly, she turned away.

  “Now. A few things you need to wrap those strange little offworlder heads around.”

  She tapped on a pedestal at the edge of the courtyard which caused the various enchantments to light up on the walls around them.

  Images bloomed in the air behind her, diagrams floated and the walls were awash in glowing silhouettes of weapons, armor, marching soldiers in formation, and arcane beasts, some running, some flying. She tapped the pedestal again and one of the images grew larger, pushing the others away. It showed a group of mages standing close, all performing the same movement and casting a spell.

  “Spell-formations: These are magically linked battle units that synchronize spellcasting through practice and a combined shared intent. In these squads, you cast as one, strike as one. One mistake, everyone pays.” The image suddenly showed a spell going awry, built up aether energy detonating, blowing off one of the mage’s arms, another was tossed like a ragdoll off screen, and a third was flattened into the ground, blood gysering like a fountain.

  Then the image changed, showing a small group that was quickly assembling some sort of squat structure form pre-fabricated pieces. Walls, support, foundation plates, all were pulled out of puches and attached together in a a dizzying speed.

  “Anti-siege enchantments,” she continued, “Not only walls or simply barriers. You’ll learn to erect mobile bulwarks together under pressure, even during combat. Fail, and everything behind you dies.”

  The image showed the groupd finishing up their construction and the newly formed pseudo-structure lit up, creating a large barrier of energy that reach dozens of feet high and even twice as wide. The barrier was immediately hit by some sort of spell, breaking the apart across itsurface and protecting the platoon of soldiers which stood behind it.

  This vision faded away and was replaced by various images of beasts floating in front of them.

  “Next is Arcane beast cavalry. Our frontline riders. Wyverns. Flame-hounds. Shock Tigers. Here in the Terraxum army, we don’t just ride them, we bond with them. Understand that difference, or get trampled.”

  “Oh interesting… Okay meatboy, whenever you can, you need to get as much of that wyvern blood as you can. That stuff is probably the next closest thing to dragon-blood you’re gonna get.”

  Why the fuck do I want go collecting wyvern blood?

  “Don’t ask me questions, pay attention.”

  He shook his head, and focused ahead, wondering why the sentient rock distracted him in the first place if he wasn’t even going to answer his questions. By then, Halstrad had moved on to the next topic.

  “Monster-handling squads, exist because the other side’s got creatures too. Sometimes they have bigger ones. Sometimes they’re smarter, or ometimes they’re just hungry. These units don’t ride our beasts, they focus on taking down the enemy’s. They suppress, redirect, contain. It’s like herding gods. Good luck.”

  She turned back to the squad. “You’ve all made waves. Impressed people, made enemies, too. But here, in this place, you are nobodies. No name. No past. And certainly no future unless you earn it.”

  She left a final pause, then she turned and walked away, boots splashing through a muddy trail.

  “Orientation concluded,” she barked. “Report to formation drills. Now!”

  As the squad started to move, still dazed from the torrent of information, Devon leaned toward Allie, voice dry and barely above a whisper. “We just got dropped into Final Fantasy: Fort Hell.”

  Allie blinked. “…Do we get chocobos?”

  “More like choke-bros,” Garret said.

  Peter snorted despite herself.

  Alex said nothing, he just stared at the diagrams still fading in the air, watching the spell formations spiral and vanish one by one in his aether sight. Then he jogged to catch up as they were all led to a large field.

  Rows of soldiers stood in formation under the steel-gray sky, the quiet broken by the rustle of breastplates and leather tunics. Lieutenant Halstrad paced the front line like a thundercloud with legs, barking instructions as Aether-Formations were drawn onto the cracked stone with precise glyph chalk.

  Alex and the other Worldstriders moved into the lines and kept their heads down, mouths shut for once.

  "Today is drills only!" Halstrad snapped. "No one dies unless I say so. That includes your pride."

  The drills were old hat for Alex and the others. Formations, maneuver orders, tempo spacing, rear-line repositioning. They’d done worse during their first month of boot camp back on Earth, before ever setting a single boot down on Aetherios. They had the foot callouses to prove it.

  So all of this? This was just choreography. Sire it was magical choreography, but still mostly timing and not tripping over your own boots. Which Devon managed twice.

  “Sorry! My fault!” he said, scrambling to untangle his bracer straps.

  Allie sighed. “You are the only person I know who can fall sideways from a standstill.”

  Alex held back a smile and leaned into his observational mode. Watch, record, adapt. The Terraxum military had fancy tools, aether-enchanted relays, beast-rider callouts, signal flares that could bend through fog and around obstructions, but the core of it was still humans in rows being told where to go and how not to die. The real danger wasn't in the drills, it was in the egos of the other soldiers.

  Murmurs trickled in from the other squads. Grunts, cadets, even a few veteran sergeants that were leading the marching. Some soldiers were fresh-eyed, some with the dead gaze of those who’d seen one too many friends die screaming.

  “Courtiers in fresh boots,” someone muttered.

  “Royal pets.”

  “Pretty foreigners. Let’s see if they bleed like us.”

  It made him wonder if being able to sense someone’s cultivation level wasn’t a normal thing. Everyone there was basically high Mortal Tier at best. If they were able to sense His and his team’s aura’s they’d probably not be as cocky.

  That’s when Alex noticed tow things; the others on his team could vaguely sense aura, as they had noticed when or another was in Adept Tier, but they always asked him for specific details. Like they couldn’t get a good idea of the exact strength of an aura like her could.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Also, he and ever single other worldstrider were holding back their Adept Tier auras. It was something they had learned to do and helped each other with constantly. Alex gave pointers with his sixth sense, and the others gave him feedback as well. So they were all rather skilled at suppressing their energy.

  They probably vaguely felt like strong Mortal Tier mages to everyone else. Thus, they got mocked, relentlessly.

  Alex heard every word. So did the others.

  Eric raised his chin. “Let it go.”

  But Garret didn’t. “I’d love to go right now.”

  Allie elbowed him. “Please don’t embarrass us on the very first day.”

  Then someone in the formation, likely trying to be clever, piped up loudly enough for the commander to hear: “Maybe we should test ’em. Make sure they’re not all System shine and no spine.”

  Halstrad paused mid-step. “Oh?” she said, voice as dry as broken bones. “Is that a challenge I hear?”

  She turned on her heel, locking eyes with the speaker, a hulking sergeant who stood off with the others veterans. He was tall, well kept, with one too many decorative scars and a smirk that suggested he thought the word “subtlety” was a kind of pastry.

  “Mock trial,” Halstrad announced. “Set up the sparring gauntlet. Volunteers only, unless you’re feeling particularly brave, Cadet Striders?”

  Alex didn’t hesitate, he stepped forward, hands calm at his sides. “We’re happy to participate, Lieutenant”

  “Excellent,” she replied, with a grin that could curl paint off a wall.

  From the other end of the yard, a ring was cleared. Lines etched into the ground to show the boundaries of the ring. It was barely fifty feet in diameter.

  Garret stepped up beside Alex, then Kate, and then Eric. Even Devon stepped forward to participate, though he looked like he regretted it instantly.

  Allie sighed. “Fine. But if someone hits me in the kidney, I’m sending their ass directly to the medical tents for a month.”

  Lieutenant Halstrad clapped her hands. “Right, then. Let’s see if the Worldstriders can do more than talk.”

  Runes were set up around the ring, creating a shimmering translucent barrier that didn’t seem to be designed to hurt or even stop anything from crossing it. Alex simply assumed it was an easy visual indicator for what entered or left the ring.

  “Standard rules,” Halstrad said. “No killing. Try not to cripple anyone unless you’ve got a real poetic reason for it. First one to yield or hit the glyph wall is out.” At her words, the translucent barrier grew darker for a moment, then returned to it normal state.

  Oh, so it does become a wall, once the fighters are inside. Neat. Alex rolled his shoulders as names were called out.

  “First match: Cadet Devon vs. Cadet Luron.”

  Devon blinked. “Wait, what?”

  Garret gave him a hearty slap on the back. “It’s like debugging a spell array, right? Just with a lot more screaming.”

  Devon stepped into the ring, clearly already second guessing most of his life choices. Across from him stood Cadet Luron, a thickset fellow whose neck had long ago disappeared into his shoulders. He grinned like someone who collected teeth, ideally from other people.

  “Begin!” Halstrad barked.

  Luron charged, Devon didn’t so much dodge away as flail sideways, narrowly avoiding a full-body slam, only to stumble directly into a follow-up kick that sent him stumbling towards the ring’s edge. He squeaked, it was not a manly squeak. Luron continued his assault, running at Devon ready deliver another punch.

  But Devon, to his credit, recovered. He yanked his dagger from his belt and swept it upward. A defensive enchantment etched into his glove activated immediately after. The magic flared and Luron’s punch was diverted just enough to miss Devon’s nose and instead smacked into the glyph barrier, which triggered the sigils with a sharp crack!

  Silence followed.

  “…Did I win?” Devon asked.

  “Yes,” Halstrad said, clearly disappointed in everyone involved. “Cadet luron has touched the ring barrier and has thus lost the match. Next!”

  The next match ended up being Kate against a Cadet named Yorra. Kate practically skipped into the ring, ready to get her fight underway. Yorra was tall, slender-looking, and holding a pair of training knives. She smiled at Kate like someone about to win a bet.

  Kate didn’t smile back at her, instead she exploded forward.

  Her Emberglass footwork kicked in, her weight pivoting like a dancer’s, blade flashing with surgical speed. There was a clash and a parry. A Slide. Yorra backpedaled as Kate pressed, every thrust measured, fast, and aggressive.

  “She’s getting even better,” Eric muttered from the sidelines. “That’s actual impressive form, not just speed and rage.”

  Holly added, “And look at her moments of attack. She’s watching her opponent as going to the lulls in Yorra’s own rhythm. But—”

  “But she’s still overextending,” Alex noted. “Half stride too far, and half a heartbeat too fast.”

  The other cadet managed to stay somewhat in pace with kate for a few seconds. Despite Kate, Devon and the others being Adept Tier, they didn’t have the experience points, or the Kingdom’s body cultivation tattoos to keep their physical stats on pace.

  The Atherios natives on the other hand, were slowly building their foundations, unable to use Essence Fragments or other items to push themselves along. Their physical stats were not neglected the same way. Even his friends, like Garret and Lance, who put most of their attention on strength and agility, they had put a lot of points into their magical stats just to have their soulspace and aether gates not collapse under the power of their Adept Tier mage cores.

  All in all, it meant even as Adept’s, they didn’t have an overwhelming advantage over the high level Mortal Tier cadets and veterans. Not without utilizing their potent aether energy through their spells. But that would lead to them accidentally killing someone.

  “It over now though,” he said, noticing Kate’s eyes narrow as she no doubt saw her path to victory.

  Yorra twisted inside a strike and almost clipped Kate’s shoulder, but Kate ducked, spun beneath her, and swept Yorra’s feet from under her with a precise kick. Yorra hit the dirt, hard. Kate simply pressed her blade to Yorra’s throat and starred down at her.

  “Yield.” It wasn’t a question.

  Yorra blinked, then nodded. Kate sheathed her sword like she hadn’t almost committed casual homicide.

  “Next.”

  Garret then entered the ring, his wide smile already on display. He looked back at them all, giving an exaggerated wink. His smile faded as he turned back around and found not one, but two cadets standing in the ring opposite him.

  “Oh come on,” Garret said as the two large cadets cracked their knuckles simultaneously. “Is this because I laughed when that guy tripped on a training pike earlier?”

  “Yes,” shouted someone in the crowd.

  Halstrad gave him a mild shrug. “You did volunteer.”

  Garret cracked his knuckles as well. “Fine. Let’s dance.”

  The fight was a mess of limbs, laughter, and sudden unexpected skill. Garret fought like someone who didn’t take it seriously right up until you noticed the precision in his footwork and the way he controlled space between himself and his opponents.

  He ducked a swing, caught one opponent’s wrist, flipped him over with a grunt, and used the poor soul as a projectile to knock the other down. Both cadets groaned from the dirt. He bull-rushed them as they tried to get back to their feet, knocking them insto the ring’s barrier and winning his fight.

  Garret grinned and dusted his hands. “Any more jokes?”

  Allie walked calmly into the ring, daggers in hand, against Cadet Brann. Brann was older, lean, and clearly the kind of guy who called women “sweetheart” before getting punched.

  Their fight was much shorter than Alex anticipated. Brann might have been stronger than Allie, but she simply had far too much agility for him to keep up. She beat him with a barrage of kicks and pommel strikes to his knees and elbows, slowly putting his limbs out of the fight.

  Once that was done, she was able to happily pin his hands to the ground with her daggers before he finally forfeited. Allie was the first to actually draw blood, and the look in her eyes as she returned to their formation told him that she might have actually enjoyed it.

  “Cadet Alex Pierce, Sergeant Kreel.” Halstad barked.

  Sergeant Kreel was the man who’d called them "courtiers." He was built like a trebuchet made of spite and old war stories, and he didn’t smile their names were called.

  “You ain’t special,” Kreel said.

  Alex offered a nod as he stepped into the ring. “I’m not,” he agreed.

  Then the air flared as the barrier reactivted, and the fight began. Kreel came in swinging, brute force in a single clean arc. Alex ducked, pivoted, and countered with a jab to the ribs that thudded like a battering ram against a vault door.

  Wow. He was genuinely impressed. While his friends were lacking in the physical stat department, he wasn’t. His aether attuned body ensured his body was on par with even other middle stage Adept mages. And he had even invested further into his stats with his experience points as well. Alex should have dominated the sergeant with his strength, but he had taken the blow well.

  He suddenly wondered what Kreel’s tattoo’s looked like and how long he had them for. But his opponent give him any time to gawk and day dream.

  Kreel grabbed Alex’s arm with surprising speed, and threw him. Alex tumbled across the dirt for a few feet, spun, and bounced back up, stance already in place as Kreel charged him.

  He didn’t need the disruptive energy of his [Burning Fist] technique, but he didn’t stop it from forming as he kicked out at the sergeant. Kreel blocked it, but narrowed his eyes, looking at his arm. Alex saw what he was looking at, the man’s arm muscles twitched. The veteran looked at Alex with a tinge of surprise, as it appeared he hadn’t expected their physical stats to be so close either.

  So he’s a physical based warrior then. This will be cleaner than I hoped.

  He closed the distance with a rapid change in martial stance, switching from a defense stance, to offense. He sent a quick set of jab high at Kreel’s head, making the man block with his arms, then ducked and slid into his guard, wrapping the man up from behind.

  Alex felt an elbow slam into his side as the man tried to break his hold, but he didn’t let go. He bucked his hips and lifted, bringing the man over his shoulder aqnd slamming him into the dirt with a thunderous fwoomp! Kreel landed on his back, and Alex crouched on top him, legs pinning Kreel’s arms down.

  He only looked down at the scarred face of the man below him for a moment, before slamming his fist into the Kreel’s nose. He felt it break under his hand as much as he heard it. The sergeant snarled, trying to thrash and buck Alex off of him. A simple shift in his center of gravity stopped that from happening. He punched the man again, his fist striking his left eye-socket and whipping his skull back to bounce off the ground.

  He punched him again. Then again. And again.

  By the second punch, Kreel’s mouth had filled with blood, so he couldn’t speak to forfeit anyway. By the third, his was completely dazed, no doubt his vision was fluttering in and out of blackness. The fourth punch knocked him unconscious outright. The fifth punch Alex threw just because he wanted to.

  Even before Halstrad could call the fight, Alex had stood, picking the man half-off the ground by one arm. He looked out over the formation of Terraxum soldiers, hundred of pairs of eyes starring blankly back at him.

  Then his tossed Kreel against the ring’s barrier, ending the fight.

  “Damn fleshsack, that was brutal. Was that just some kind of sick fun for you?” Obby’s illusion body floated in front of him, but Alex simply turned and walked back to where his friends were waiting.

  Eric’s face showed obvious concern, Allie’s expression was simply disappointment. He saw a glint of respect from Kate and Henry. But the rest were either neutral, or dumbfounded. No one spoke as he stood back among them in the formation.

  That wasn’t just some fun entertainment. He finally said in his mind.

  He looked at the Terraxum regiment spread before him once again. They all still looked at him, but most turned their gazes away as he met their eyes. Many of them fidgeted where they stood. Whispered murmurs fluttered about.

  It was a clear message.

  Halstrad stepped up in front them, stopping directly before Alex. She didn’t smile, but her voice warmed just enough. “Welcome to the army.”