As the term progressed, things felt normal, at first. Then, the whispers at school and in town grew more pronounced, and shortly thereafter, all anyone was talking about was Dulth.

  Before the term was halfway through, Somnial and Byron departed Ivarnel for the border.

  I was just an academy student. A junior, at that. Even if I wanted to involve myself in the war, I was too young to join the army. I had no family connections to follow what was happening, and few of my classmates were willing to divulge secrets about the war effort.

  Felton and Felris would have told me, but they didn’t know anything, and even though they did get letters from their parents, Obdorn was far from the Dulth border, so they weren’t particularly well-informed either.

  All I could do was study, practice, train, and wait.

  Most of my fall break was spent in hard training with Tory. She taught me dual wielding forms, which varied from the single-sword forms I already knew. It was surprisingly difficult to keep my arms out of the way of each other so I could keep up the same kind of constant pressure Tory had displayed in her exhibition bout with Byron. A mistake could mean the consequence of cutting myself, so I had to start really slow with each form and gradually work my speed up. Any time I had accidental contact with my own blade, she slowed me down and had me start over.

  “A lot of people think [Dual Wielding] is just swinging two swords at once, but it’s an art in and of itself. Each movement leads you to your next strike, building off the previous. Where traditional [Swordsmanship] is a back and forth, combat as a narrative, [Dual Wielding] is an onslaught. Keeping up the attack prevents your opponent from taking complete control of the narrative, so long as you don’t tire—but most importantly, so long as you don’t self-inflict damage,” she explained as I moved through an intermediate form at a snail’s pace.

  “How does [Dual Wielding] compare to traditional [Swordsmanship] against monsters?” I asked.

  “Good question. Monsters, at least those that fight without weapons, are kind of like natural dual-wielders, particularly those that fight with their claws. In some ways, they’re even tri-wielders, as they often can attack with their mouths as well,” she said, clicking her teeth together a few times with a biting motion. “Swords are a closer-range weapon than some people realize, and even more so when facing a larger monster with long natural reach. Having two blades can even out the odds a bit, if you know what you’re doing, but the real secret is learning how to move, dodge, and get in close so you can land an attack. To be honest, a spear is generally the better weapon against most monsters than a sword, as it keeps you at more of a distance. Ranged weapons are even better.”

  “Huh,” I said. Maybe I’ll find a [Spearmanship] teacher, too.

  “I’ll show you some monster-specific fighting forms once you’ve dialed in these first forms further,” Tory said.

  By the end of the short break, I was weaving through the forms at a decent clip without any accidental contact. When Tory wasn’t around, I trained the mirror version of the forms, leading with my left hand instead of my right. Once I gained the initial skill, I could start really experimenting with blending the two, or switching between them midway, to stack my abilities and maximize my advantages.

  Fall term began, and the class started learning the spell for [Create Ice]. Most of us were already dreading the upcoming winter of training the spell out in the cold, which had been tempered last year by all the fire we had been throwing around.

  “A lot of new mages think that [Create Ice] would be easy to learn after [Create Water], but find that this is not the case,” Somnius said as he lectured the class. “While ice is another state of water, there are a number of different aspects to ice magic when compared to water magic. The first, and most obvious, is that ice is a solid, whereas water is a liquid. Can anyone tell me why this matters?”

  A few hands went up and Somnius picked a student to answer. “The shape of a solid is harder to change than the shape of a liquid?” she answered, though her inflection made it sound like a question.

  “Close,” Somnius said. “More precisely, adding mass to a liquid can be done with displacement, whereas adding mass to a solid is more like layering. In order to create specific forms, the caster has to have not just a clear picture of the final result, but consider the order of growth to the construct, starting at the center and building outward. This will remain relevant through to next year when you learn [Create Stone].”

  Somnius went on to describe various growth patterns of ice crystals and stone formations, and the best ways to envision certain processes to arrive at specific results, like an ice lance versus an ice disc.

  I paid some attention, but it got me wondering about other things. Was there no way, using this magic system, to turn water into ice? [Control Ice] would probably only allow me to manipulate existing ice, from the sounds of what Somnius was saying. Maybe there was a different spell, like [Freeze Water], which I could learn to add that function to my repertoire. I would have to check Somnial’s library when I got back to the manor.

  The old sage had given me free rein of his library while he was absent, though cautioned me to avoid taking on any spell that was beyond my Will. Since I was being pretty algorithmic with my approach to absorbing this world’s magic, I hadn’t really planned to learn more than additional creation and control spells, but the more I learned, the more interested I was becoming in the fringe cases. I wasn’t insane, though, and I knew better than to just grab his most dangerous spell and start memorizing it when it would surely go wrong, if not kill me outright.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Slow and steady, I thought. Rushing had led to me losing a hand, and while it was back now—and arguably I was better off for it—self destructing with magic would surely have even more dire consequences. It might take me another life or three before I could face someone like a [Sage] with my growth rate, but I had that and infinite more lives to spare, if I was careful.

  Outside of my studies, I was enjoying spending time with Felton and Felris. I continued training with Felton, who maintained his lead in height as we both continued to grow. With marriage talk resolved, for the moment, spending time with Felris was a lot more comfortable as well. Her brother and I continued to support her through the challenges she faced at the academy, but as was the case with kids, they soon got bored of the drama Gustar had whipped up when other things became more interesting, and the war with Dulth was of much greater interest to the seniors, and especially the nobles.

  As far as I had heard, Dulth hadn’t succeeded at pushing into Argadian borders, failing their first incursion and being immediately repelled, but most of the rumors I picked up were second-hand at best. I hoped Somnial and Byron were okay, and I hoped my family was safe, but mostly I tried to focus on what was in front of me.

  I hadn’t needed to worry about it for long. By the end of fall term, everyone was saying the same thing: the war was over, and Dulth had lost, decisively. Argadia had not only pushed them back, but claimed some of Dulth’s territory in retaliation, expanding its borders. From the sound of it, Elsaria’s dead [Sage] gambit had worked, and Somnial had easily turned the tide, forcing Dulth’s young and overeager king to concede and enter peace talks to prevent losing more ground.

  While I was glad to hear that things were resolved, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people Somnial had needed to kill, and worried about how he was doing. I hoped he was all right, and wished that he would return soon.

  Winter break came before Somnial and Byron returned. Without them around, I wasn’t sure about visiting Redding, even if the war was rumored to be won. I asked some of the staff, but nothing had been arranged, and they didn’t have permission to arrange something for me. Felton and Felris invited me to Obdorn, but given the state of things, I decided to stay home and continue working with Tory on [Dual Wielding] and practicing my magic.

  * * *

  Practical [Create Ice] wasn’t a problem for me, which I learned when classes resumed.

  Mostly, this came down to my Will. [Create Ice] was considered a 5-Will spell, despite [Create Water] being a 3-Will spell. I would have thought my entire class already had that much Will, but some, who didn’t practice as much as someone like me, were only just getting by.

  I was just a bit over-trained for my age.

  Even if I removed the two levels worth of across-the-board skill points, I was still pretty advanced, and not just in Will. My training with [Mana Manipulation] had helped that, but I was also studying hard. I was learning about twice as many spells as my peers on average, which, combined with my meditation and other mental practices, was advancing my Mind. My physical training was also solid, especially when considered on top of all the rest.

  I knew that pure soldier types would quickly outpace my Body, especially after the onset of puberty, but for my age and given that my specialization was actually magic, I was pretty proud of myself, even if I hadn’t picked up [Dual Wielding] just yet. I was doing pretty well in that regard, but I wasn’t sure that I was actually making progress towards the new skill or if I was simply leveraging [Ambidexterity] with my [Swordsmanship], and I had no idea what I would need to do to trigger the skill gain. Given how things had gone with my combat skills so far, I might need to face off against another monster, but I wasn’t eager to rush back into that after my dungeon experience.

  Especially when I was making so much progress with my magic.

  After internalizing Somnius’s lessons, and with plenty of Will to pour into the spell, I found [Create Ice] relatively easy. Mentally shaping the construct I wanted to create was a bit like mentally 3D modeling, extruding outward to build the desired shape. With [Create Water], [Create Fire], and [Create Wind], all I had to do was pour more mana into the tank, and I could compress and reshape as needed. Forming a solid from the get-go, without it cracking or shattering, required a more iterative mental process. My Mind was more than up to the task.

  From there, it was the usual task of launching projectiles with the correct power, force, and accuracy. Ice fell a bit faster than fire, so I updated my mental model for magical ballistics, and once I had that dialed in I switched my focus to connecting to it with continued intention, like I had done all my other types of creation magic. After that, I started to learn [Control Ice], since I had little else to do to progress my magic until third year began.

  Towards the end of winter, Somnial and Byron returned.

  “Oh, Tovar, good to see y—“ Somnial started to say when I greeted him, but was interrupted by a raspy cough.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Just another cough,” he muttered, waving away my concern. He asked about my education and training, and I told him what I had been up to, but when I asked him about the war he pardoned himself, and headed to his room to rest.

  I turned to Byron after Somnial was gone. “His cough is back.”

  Byron nodded. “The winter war camp while pushing back Dulth was... difficult on master Somnial.”

  I swore under my breath. Somnial was too old to live on the front. He shouldn’t have gone. “Can Elsa heal him again?”

  “She already did,” Byron said, lips pressed tight in frustration as he exhaled through his nose. “We detoured to the royal capital after we settled up the front line. That’s part of why we took so long to return.”

  I looked back towards the hallway that Somnial had disappeared into. “It didn’t take?”

  “He was better, for half the journey back to Ivarnel, and then started coughing again.”

  My eyes met Byron’s, and I saw a deep sadness in them. We both understood what that meant. It had been a lie before, but if his condition worsened any more, the lie would become truth.

  The era of the Great Sage would soon come to an end.