Philip watched Zali as she demonstrated several Earth formations that she used in combat as a tank.

  “The first and most basic application of magic to tanking is to create a barrier between yourself and the monster.” Zali demonstrated while she spoke, using her magic to build a wall of Earth. Rather than just piling earth up in a mound, she compacted chunks of earth into bricks, using her Alter Earth ability to create a strong base of interlocking bricks in front of her. She used a combination of Manipulate Earth to take dirt and soil from around her as well as Create Earth to manifest blocks, demonstrating deft control.

  “This works well against monsters that are smaller or that attack from lower to the ground. It also works well to impede larger monsters. It can take time to build in combat, however, so it is best that you plan ahead when encountering monsters where this strategy may be beneficial. You can pre-build walls and then pull monsters back to them as needed. Of course, if you are pre-building walls, you can make them as large as you wish, but many monsters will turn to other members of your party if you hide behind a wall completely.”

  Zali finished building her wall, which came up to her waist. With the wall protecting her legs, she held her shield up, demonstrating how it allowed all of her body to be protected by an additional layer.

  “Now, you build one.”

  Philip looked at the wall Zali had built. He didn’t have much practice with Alter Earth. On the farm, he had no reason to turn good soil into rocks. He also only leveled to 15 a few months before coming to Etalen. Before that, he didn’t have the Alter Earth ability. When he first learned it, he used it by the lake to make little round skipping stones. Well, he tried to make them round. Most of them turned out bumpy and grainy like they had a layer of sand on them.

  “I can try.” Philip furrowed his brow and looked at the ground in front of him, sending his magic towards it.

  “You can do it, Philip! Hurry up and practice so we can get to the monsters!” Panu shouted over from where he practiced with a rapier against Kane, who casually duel wielded his own rapier with an off-hand short sword. Panu took the time to throw Philip a thumbs up with his free hand before Kane slashed at him for getting distracted, causing Panu to stumble backwards in an attempt to avoid an educational injury.

  Philip pulled a large chunk of dirt from the earth, carefully dividing it into pieces the size of the bricks Zali used in her wall. He had lots of practice with dividing earth, as he frequently worked in the greenhouse potting seedlings in the winter to prepare for spring. Each small pot had the same amount of soil added, and it went much faster to fill more than one pot at a time.

  He tried to push with his magic to compress the soil in his magical grasp, but he lost concentration and most of his piles dropped to the ground. A few spots of earth turned into small chunky bits of clay… not the bricks he tried to make.

  *One at a time, Philip.* Epona’s voice echoed in his head from where she watched behind him.

  “Right,” he said out loud, selecting just one small pile of soil and lifting it away from the ground. He concentrated on the pile, imagining it transforming into a hard, solid mass. As he sent his magic into the floating blob of dirt with this in mind, the soil morphed and merged into a solid mass. It looked more like a rock than a brick. He placed it in front of him anyway, turning his attention to another pile of soil.

  He repeated this process several times, each time resulting in a solid mass that had inconsistent size and shape compared to the bricks that Zali had formed. His accuracy did improve a little, as they became slightly flatter on the tops and bottoms, though the size and shape fluctuated between slightly rounded rectangles and the splatter shape of a raw egg when dropped on the ground.

  He pushed onward despite the problems, doing as he was told and building a wall. He tried to stack them, but the higher he got, the more his wall threatened to topple. He managed a roughly vertical mound of almost-bricks that came up to just past his knees, its four layers of blocks teetering precariously.

  “You are persistent, but you need more practice with your Alter Earth ability. How can you make the wall you have more stable?” Zali asked Philip, trying to coach him to improve his own abilities.

  Philip studied his wall, thinking about how they built things back home. Normally, walls had something besides bricks to help hold it together.

  “Uh, I could maybe put some dirt in the wall too?”

  “Dirt is one idea, but it may not stay as well. You can transform more of the soil into clay, and that will help pack the holes and smooth out the uneven areas. It will stay more firmly in place, and the clay does not have to have a consistent shape, since it remains malleable. Clay is a very important and useful substance for Earth mages. You can use it to reinforce defensive structures or use it to layer on monsters and impede their movement.”

  While she spoke, Zali demonstrated on her own wall, creating clay directly from thin air and layering it onto her wall.

  Philip nodded, taking soil of his own and morphing it into clay. He could make clay a lot more easily than bricks. The clay felt more like regular dirt to his magical senses. He quickly applied it to the bottom layers of his wall. He plugged holes between uneven bricks and layered the clay on the outside. When he was done, he had a far more stable wall that he could add more layers onto if he wanted.

  Zali nodded, “Much better. Now, that took you some time to create. You must practice those skills, as forming bricks and applying clay are foundational skills for Earth magic tanks. What could you do instead of bricks if you needed to create a temporary barrier during a fight?”

  “I could just pile up some dirt. Or clay. I can do that pretty fast.” Philip started to make a low wall of dirt in front of him.

  “Building barriers in front of you or holes in front of the monsters you are fighting is a quick and easy way to create time and space between you and the monster. You may need to regroup or pull back and have difficulty disengaging the monster. Using a barrier will assist with that.” Zali paused a moment, looking at Philip’s wall and thinking.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “I was going to teach some other shielding methods today, but I think you need to practice using Alter Earth on your own more before we do that. For today, we will practice with creating small barriers and holes while tanking monsters and work to move them through these barriers.”

  “Okay, I can practice more later!” Philip smiled at Zali, not caring that he didn’t have the skills he needed today. He focused on the fact that he still had things to practice today. And if he did a good job she would teach him more!

  —--

  Panu waited for Philip to position the monster so he could charge in with his rapier. He never thought he’d be excited to get face to face with a monster, preferring his traditional method of blowing things up from a distance. But men with swords were just plain sexy. And he would, of course, do anything to remain firmly in that category.

  The creature in front of him stood about as tall as Philip at the shoulders. A fine layer of dark red hair covered its body, short and thin enough to see the grey skin beneath it. It had four wolf-like legs, but they ended in hooves rather than claws. A stub of a tail stuck up from its rear end, awkwardly covered in hair far fluffier than the rest of its body, like a strange red cotton ball. However, its rubescent hair only covered the body up to its shoulders. Its short, stocky, hairless neck instead consisted of ugly matte grey scales, thick and bulky with irregular edges.

  On its beefy neck rested a head massively out of proportion with its body. A long flat snout opened wide like a snake but contained multiple rows of teeth. Four bulging black eyes threatened to pop out of its skull with every movement. A ridge covered in spikes ran along the top of each eye and continued down the sides of its short neck, ending abruptly where scales turned to thin hair. And for some reason, the monster had a strange mane of straggly hair falling from the center of its head down its almost absent neck, like some kind of nightmare demon horse.

  Looking at the ugly creature assaulted his eyes, so Panu focused on Philip instead. The Degeta intrigued Panu. Not in an interested way, though he had the looks. The gods must have programmed attractiveness into their races, because no one on this planet so far came close to unpleasant to look at, but the heroes had certainly received more than their fair share of beauty.

  No, Panu found Philip fascinating because he spoke his mind, simple and direct as it may be sometimes, and he wasn’t afraid to ask stupid questions. Panu cared about how he came across, so he did his best to vibe with whatever came his way and figure things out on his own, but Philip just plowed through life regardless of what other people thought.

  Of course, some of that may be due to his… unique… intelligence. He didn’t have the kind of smarts that would make him successful on Panu’s planet. No, he would get eaten alive on Theledes. But that, in itself, Panu found refreshing. He didn’t have to question where he stood with the stalwart Earth mage. Philip didn’t have a duplicitous bone in his body. And Panu found that he liked having someone around that just got through life on the simple things. With food on his plate and a warm bed, Philip floated through life with a smile.

  Despite his simple nature, he had talent with magic and fighting. Panu had to work hard for years to master his magic, and judging by what he learned from Kane, he still had a lot he could improve. Philip may have struggled with what Zali gave him today, but Panu knew that in a few days, he would master it. His magic control, from what Panu had seen, was exceptional. Unlike the Princess.

  Panu grimaced thinking of the wild wind attacks from Morigan. He definitely would stay away from melee combat when she came back to the party, but he didn’t expect her anytime soon. Yasima said they had Aether mages working with her daily, but she still refused to come out of her room. Panu didn’t completely blame her. Waking up on another planet without so much as a question about whether they wanted to risk their lives for another world’s problems wasn’t exactly the best way to start an alliance. But an alliance was like a relationship, and Panu had had worse first dates that later led to mutually beneficial circumstances.

  He shook his head, coming back to himself as he saw that Philip had moved the ugly monster into position. He had set up a wall of dirt and clay to prevent the monster from charging him, an attack Zali warned him about. She’d listed some other abilities as well which Panu probably should have paid better attention to. This ugly creature was a boss, after all. Ah well, he’d find out what it did soon enough.

  Panu had already applied his Heat buff, so now he cast his Fired Up and Blazing Speed buffs, giving him a damage boost and decreasing his spell cooldowns as well as increasing his speed and reaction time - necessary when he decided to dive into melee combat against his previous better judgement. Nevertheless, he quickly cast Immolate and Fireblast as he ran into melee range. As he reached the creature’s flank, he focused his magic into the rapier in his hand.

  The rapier had a magical enchantment that made it easier to imbue the steel with elemental power. While technically someone could imbue magic into any weapon, the difficulty increased significantly without proper preparation of the weapon. Kane had gotten him a rapier with the Primary Infusion enchantment the previous week and thus Panu practiced imbuing his magic and maintaining the weapon’s power on the days they didn’t head to the dungeon. Panu had never much cared for practice, but a glowing fire sword was hot. Both literally and figuratively.

  The rapier took on a red-orange glow as his magic interfaced with the enchantment. He slashed forward with the sword, leaving a blackened gash along the flank of the monster as the smell of singed hair reached his nose. The downside of fire magic.

  In response to his attack, the creature bucked with its back legs, kicking at air where Panu had stood a moment earlier. He danced out of range the moment his sword left the creature’s flesh, waiting for it to refocus on Philip before lunging forward with another strike.

  Philip, meanwhile, swiped towards the side of the monster with his trident, attempting to bypass the scaly head to stab at the fleshy shoulders and stomach of the beast. The creature swung its head to knock the staff of the trident with its spiny ridge, preventing the business end of the trident from making contact.

  “He’s a quick beastie, isn’t he!” Panu called to Philip while releasing several firebolts at the beast’s head, hoping to damage its eye and leave it with a blind spot. The firebolts made contact and the creature roared a sound like shattering glass and crunching metal. It retaliated by charging towards Philip, who jumped back, allowing the creature to stumble into his clay wall, its front hooves catching and thrusting its head towards the ground.

  Philip stood ready to take the advantage, and he raised his trident over his head to thrust down toward the base of the creature’s neck. It managed to raise its head enough to send Philip’s trident raking down its back. Panu, meanwhile, took the opportunity to run in and stab several times at the monster’s hind quarters, attempting to cause enough damage to incapacitate the back leg.

  Upon taking this damage, the creature activated one of its defense mechanisms, and a murky, misty cloud began to seep out of its skin. The mist seemed to seek out the two men, moving quickly towards them.

  Philip and Panu both backed away from the creature, the sickly, inky look of the mist discouraging any curiosity from the men.

  “Uh, Zali, what is this?” Philip called to his trainer, who watched from the sideline.

  “You won’t always know everything a monster can do. You need to think and adapt! How can you counter it with your magic?”