“Maybe give me a sec-” The frenzied girl growled like a demon, becoming twice my size. With unbreakable focus, she stared at me, and that grin informed me of her intentions.

  “Fight!” She roared, ready to dash at me.

  I weaved the mind acceleration as fast as I could, and the world slowed down. With her new technique, there was no way I could have defeated her with strength. I had to utilize the ice bomb.

  As Steel gained speed, I condensed starpower within my palm. In but a second, she would ram through me, so I had to dodge. Tensing my legs, I jumped away. My head hurt from overstimulation as I forced my will on the ball, preventing it from dissolving.

  Steel’s eyes widened, and she dug her feet into the ground, trying to redirect the momentum. I wasn’t standing still, trying to circle her. With a gesture and some effort, I turned the starpower to plasma and switched to infusing frost into the condensed ball.

  Suddenly, her wings spread open and she jumped. Steel flew through the air; I couldn’t have expected her to cover so much space. Her fist drove ahead, aiming right at my head.

  There was just enough time for me to realize one opportunity – I lifted my palm and thrusted the ice bomb at her fist, ordering the energy to blow up outwards. The bomb exploded. With a scream, Steel was sent flying. She hit the wall with a bang. Her fist and her shoulder were all covered in ice…

  I wasn’t unharmed; a burning cold pulsed in my arm, and I could barely move my fingers; somehow, I managed to prevent ice from appearing. Taking a deep breath, I dismissed the mind acceleration. “Are you alright, Steel?”

  The green-haired girl clenched her teeth, staring at me. Violently, she smacked the ice that covered her shoulder and hand, growling in pain.

  “The spar is over; I don’t want to actually hurt you.” I shook my head, watching her struggle.

  Suddenly, she grinned. The ice cracked. “It’s over, when I say it’s over!” She jumped to her feet, with blood dripping from her arm and shoulder, as shards of ice stuck out of her hand.

  “Stop this, and take a healing pill!” How reckless was she?

  As if she wasn’t just frozen, Steel went back to dashing at me, and this time, I wasn’t fast enough to activate mind acceleration.

  Picturing a staff, I quickly solidified starpower in my hand, swinging at Steel mid-dash. My eyes widened as she caught it in the air, clenching her fist so hard the staff cracked. With her other hand, she swung at me.

  She overextended her reach. Despite her superior speed, I managed to get away in just a nick of time. Annoyance flared within my starpower, as I countered by kicking her knee; it felt like punching a tree.

  Steel grinned, and like a crazed barbarian, she wound up a hook. There was no technique behind her attack, but the sheer power would be enough to knock me out. I ducked beneath the punch. I concentrated the starpower in my arm, breathing more strength in.

  Aiming for her liver, I struck. The punch sank into her side, and her body folded, as she gasped for air. With her head lowered, I could finally land a hit there. Jab after jab, I punched her face.

  Ignoring the barrage of punches, Steel wrapped her hands around me, pulling me closer. My heartbeat raced with panic. I was done for. She pulled her hands tight, crushing me in her embrace.

  Pain surged through me as she shrugged off all my attempts to escape. I had to do something, I had to get out. Steel roared, and my ribs groaned under pressure as my breath caught in my chest.

  With shaking hands, I made a freezing form, pulling as much starpower as possible. The cold immediately penetrated through her VITA, and the contest between my lack of air and her freezing has begun.

  Steel was as cold as winter from the ice bomb, but despite that, she moved. The frost form was a drop in a bucket. She cried out at the unexpected cold, tightening her hold. In turn, I let more starpower flow.

  All I wanted for her to do was – stop, and that was the exact nature of cold. Absence of heat, lack of movement. Starpower, engulfed by my emotions, became several degrees colder. Her hands shook, but my body was already breaking.

  Sudden pain swelled in my head, as the world became a blur of colors. I dropped to the ground, painfully breathing in. My ears rang and my heart beat like a drum.

  “I win!” A loud shout resounded through the room, which slowly came back into focus. I wiped my head, feeling blood covering the surface. She head-butted me…

  “N-Now I-I’m t-the l-leader.” Shivering, Steel hugged herself. Her form slowly shrank down, as blood flowed from her hand and shoulder; there were still icicles lodged there.

  “Fug yu-” My words got tangled from the dizziness.

  I reached towards my pocket, taking out a bottle of pills… Somehow it was unharmed. Without hesitation, I swallowed one of them, feeling a warm sensation flow through me.

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  “Y-you h-have to listen to m-my orders now!” Steel couldn’t stop shaking.

  Soon, the dizziness disappeared, and I felt confident in standing up. “What the hell was this Steel?” I stared at the girl.

  She tilted her head; her jaw clicked. “It was a s-spar.” Despite the cold, she smiled. There wasn’t a hint of mockery in her voice.

  What was I doing with my life? I sighed, taking out another pill from the bottle. “Eat this.”

  Steel caught the pill and, without hesitation, gulped it, nodding her head. “I-it’s so cold. That was a g-good technique, Magnus.” She grinned.

  Your SE has increased by 1. From 24 to 25!

  I couldn’t even be mad at her. My pain was already gone, and here she was still shivering. Twisting my facial features, I activated mind acceleration. A page from the Fundamental Forms appeared in front of me.

  I pressed my fingers together, putting the thumb right underneath the palm. I directed starpower towards the form, trying to match it as closely as I could with the diagram on the page.

  The inverse of freezing felt harder to do, as if my starpower didn’t want to be wrangled into that shape. I forced it in anyway. Barely-perceptible light shone from my hand, as starpower converted into heat.

  Heating Form learned at Initiate rank!

  “Come here, you, idiot.” I walked towards the shivering girl who glared at me strangely.

  “I’m not an i-idiot.” She gulped. Her face mellowed out as I touched her hand with the heating form. I could still feel my starpower within the tiny pieces of ice that stuck out. “That’s good…”

  The power was nowhere near the freezing form, and it was understandable given my affinities. The same thing happened with the light form. “Of course, you’re not an idiot, but maybe you should warn me before engaging in a spar!” If that’s what this bloody beat-down was considered here… Damn space barbarians.

  “But I did warn you…” She looked into the corner of the room with a frown.

  “What I mean is – you should say, ‘I want to spar’ and only when I say, ‘yes’ should you start fighting. How come nobody taught you that?”

  Her body was so cold that the heating form barely changed anything. She scratched her head. “They told me to never train with them again…” Steel sniffled.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. There are far too many things wrong with this school for clones. “Just ask before we spar again... Also, we need to have some rules or someone watching.” I intensified the flow of starpower, fueling the form with my anger at the academy and Vogelgesang. As the wave of energy passed through her arm, the icicles disappeared.

  “Okay!” Already her hand was becoming warmed, enough so that she groaned, “My hand hurts a lot…”

  “Stand still and I’ll heat it right up.”

  Despite the concerning circumstances, I really did feel like a wizard. If only this place wasn’t a terrible war academy… It reminded me that I had to prepare for a war.

  “Listen, Steel. You must learn a combat style.”

  “What?” She tilted her head. Her serpentine eyes refocused. The heating form probably made her relax.

  “I said you must learn an actual combat style; swinging your arms all over the place isn’t going to work.”

  She shrugged. “It did work! I won against you, which means I’m the leader.”

  What an annoying kid. “Listen, Steel, if I didn’t let you just break out of the ice and just launched another bomb, could you have won all the same?”

  “I… I guess I wouldn’t.” She sighed.

  “Now forget all about that leader talk. If you learn a combat style, you’ll be able to protect Kory better! Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  Her face brightened. “Yes!” She smiled. “Can you help me learn?”

  “Actually, I have a question, shouldn’t they have given a combat style at your soldier course?”

  “No. Why would they?”

  What was wrong with the strategy in this world? How can they be soldiers if they aren’t even on the same wavelength?

  “Doesn’t matter. How is your arm?” I stopped making the heating form. I felt better, too; the ice bomb was extremely powerful. Even incomplete, it nearly took out Steel.

  She flexed her hand. “It feels great! And I got two SE! Thank you.” She nodded rapidly. How can I be angry when she didn’t mean harm?

  I checked the mental clock. There was still plenty of time before the dungeon. “Steel, when does the dungeon delve begin?”

  “18:00. I’m feeling hungry.” I was starting to feel hungry, too, but that was beside the point.

  “Alright, so here’s my plan. I’ll teach you how to throw a punch, and then we will go eat. How about that?”

  She raised her hands up. “Great!”

  “Now repeat after me, to properly throw a punch you first need to learn how to stand…”

  I showed her how to stand right in combat, how to punch with all your body, and how to walk. She had perfect memory, too, so all she had to do was remember. It was incredible how easy it was to teach her. But even if that was the most basic stuff, it still took around an hour for her to understand the purpose of what I was saying to her.

  Then we headed towards the cafeteria. Luckily, this time there were no interlopers, only an increasingly loud crowd of dragonlings, and aside from curious glances, they didn’t bother us.

  Biting into my sandwich, I started my lecture. “Alright, Steel, we have to acquire several techniques to create a foundation for the future.”

  Like a hamster, she stuffed her cheeks full of food, hopefully, listening to me.

  “We need to make a kit that will be able to work in any combat situation. I say, a proper one has to have a strengthening, damage, mobility, defense, and some sort of trick technique, something to get an edge over the opponents. That way, it’s possible to compensate for all possible weaknesses. Are you listening?”

  “Uh-huh.” She gulped down more food.

  “You already have a good strengthening technique, but you also need a good way to deal damage, something better than just hugging opponents to death.”

  “But that worked?” I could barely recognize the words.

  “Don’t talk with food in your mouth. You need some good close-quarters technique, something that will deal overwhelming damage. Have you considered learning how to breathe fire?”

  Her eyes lit up as she stared at me. “Yes?”

  “That’s your next task. Go to the archive and pick out an Emerald fire-breathing technique, got it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I have to learn a better strengthening technique if I want to compete. Except that the time until I can grab more books hasn’t passed, so I’m stuck. That’s why I’ll focus on perfecting my Ice Bomb and learning the fundamental forms, that couldn’t hurt.”

  “Maybe you should make your starpower staff better? It was easy to break.” And suddenly her answers started making sense.

  She was right – I ignored solidification too much. Ideas surged through my head. Solidification must have incredible utility… Maybe I can create a defensive technique, and if I can make a good enough defensive technique, then I could get admitted to the technique design course. Of course.

  “You’re a genius!” I already opened the fundamental forms book, my attention gliding from page to page as I imagined the possibilities.

  “No need to thank me.” She wiped her mouth. “I’ll go get that fire-breathing thingie, wait for me in the training room!” Just like that, she stood up and left.

  I ignored the hollowing hunger, reading as fast as I could. My food was left untouched. A powerful idea was brewing, and all I had to do was try it…

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