Emily finishes her lesson and then wastes the day, resetting twenty-four hours ter to gain more free practice brewing and to check for a first-try quest. Upon realising there is no quest, she spends a few resets trying differehods of iing mana and maa to stir the mixture and remove impurities. Maa has no effe the process at all, and the moment she tries to disperse her mana within the mixture, it ihe process and ruins the careful bance she has formed. However, she does realise that she create an indepe strand of mana with each core to help.
A few weeks ter, she finds herself returning to Oscar’s training room once again, this time set up as a pin grey and white hall, remi of the B-grade training room's default setup. Today is one of her few free days, without any of her new intermediate csses, and Oscar has gathered the expedition group to practise their coordination. Standing to the side as they wait for the st few members to show up, Emily and Ivor have a silent versation alone.
“Weren’t you meant to have hand-to-hand bat csses right now?” Ivns worriedly.
“Not anymore, A passed a few of us st week so I’m moving up to intermediate csses now. They’re in the m instead, but she told me to wait a week before joining sioday was a bad lesson to start on apparently.”
Ivor nods befng unfortably at Oscar, who has kept a close eye on both him and Emily sihey entered.
“Are you sure about this? He’s been ag weird for a while. Is this safe?”
“Yes,” Emily answers with a grin. “He’s currently slightly scared of me since I showed him these.”
She moves a hand to her chest and lightly taps one of the grenades hanging from a bandolier. Ivor shivers slightly and nods in uanding, remembering Emily telling him about the tents of the dangerous ons she carries so casually.
“That’s reasohen. As long as he won’t attack us, it’s fine.”
Their silent versation stops as the three final group members walk into the training room. Looking around at the group, Emily notices how all of them but her, Oscar, and four of the bronze-crested vassals are still only wearing their standard robes.
Oscar has a silken purple robe with golden stitg. As he moves to the tre of the room it fps open slightly, and she sees an intricate weaving of runes cealed within. The four vassals, two boys and two girls, are both without robes. Instead, they are just wearing simple trousers and shirts while carrying rge, oversized bags on their backs.
As for Emily herself, while at first gnce she doesn’t look much different, underh her robes are several pieces of newly finished battle gear. Her shoes are an E-rank pair of bck, knee-high leather boots that grant her ara four strength and two agility. The soles are an aggressive-looking bck metal, with a few small gears visible on the sides. With a slight burst of mana or maa into the magic array held within, a stream of steam be released to activate the internal meisms to adjust the treads otom. When activated, small sets of metal spikes extend out of the sole to give more tra or deal increased damage with sweeping kicks.
The feature that caused her the most grief to include, though, is the small earth crystal ied into the side of the heels, which powers a spell for increasing the weight of the shoes at will. With a sihought, she pnt her feet for more stability, or deliver a kick with devastating force. The bck metal spreads in thin ptes up her shins, providing a little added prote without much weight.
Her trousers remain unged, still a simple durable leather pair. However, strapped tht thigh is a ade six-shot revolver. While being a failure in Emily’s eyes, si only met F-rank, the gun is a delicately maed mass of bck metal that fortably sits in her hand, so she ’t really pin.
Around her waist is a belt with several pouches and a few gss bottles attached. Most of the pouches are filled with ammunition for her pistol, a few of them being unique by-products of her research, and a few being standard. The others tain a couple of magic crystals for p spells or arrays in a pinch. The bottles tain a few basic healing potions, brought along as ara precaution.
Her torso is ed in sleek E-rank body-armour, which sadly didn’t t towards her progression requirements, but provides her with ara five vitality. The base of it is a shirt made from the estit fibres she tested for Auntie Annie, dyed in bd given as a gift for helpihe fabric. There are several form-fitting sheets of thin titanium pced over her vital areas, and several runigravings trace her body’s curves, f the two passive entments of the armour. The runes all flow to meet four small magic crystals sitting at the base of her neck. Two are wind element, solely dedicated to redug the armour’s weight to a barely noticeable burden. The other two are earth aal element, the tter being a rare find Emily spotted on the tribution market, w in tao reinforce the metal ptes against physical and magical attacks.
Finally, lying across her chest armour, barely visible through the opening in her robes, is her bandolier of assorted grenades. Some simple mana grenades, and some a new design taining a mix of bck powder and powdered light crystals, with eight thin els carved down their sides.
As he es to a halt in the tre of the room, Oscar cps his hands to grab everyone’s attention and calls for them to group up.
“Right, everybody, we leave for The Gde in three weeks, so until then, we will meet up like this once a week to practise formations and bat together to make sure everything goes smoothly. To start with, let’s introduce ourselves and our specialities so we all uand what everyone is capable of. I’ll go first,” he says with a fident smile as he looks around the group. “I’m Oscar, sed circle, and I’m a wind mage. I specialise in barriers and le attack spells.”
Emily ’t help the small grin that creeps onto her face at his introdu.
No wonder my implicit threat worked so well; I proved that I could kill him through his speciality!
Oscar turns his head to a short boy with a stern frown standing to his left, gesturing for him to introduce himself .
“Enzo Dianthus, sed circle, earth mage, trol spells.”
The moment he finishes his brisk introdu, the tall boy with a beaming smile and fiery red hair standing with his arm around Enzo’s shoulder jumps in.
“Dante Hibiscus, sed circle, fire mage specialised in area of attack spells.”
“aemone, sed circle, darkness mage specialised in debuffs,” the final silver-crested boy states calmly, his gaunt fad sizeable eye bags making Emily question if he has ever seen light in the first pce.
“Nora Anemone, sed circle, light mage specialised in healing,” a short, expressionless girl o atinues.
“Mia Poiia, sed circle, water mage specialised in barriers and trol,” the other silver-crested girl introduces herself before direg a cold gaze towards Emily and Ivor.
The group all turn their focus on them , with only Oscar and Da dispying clear displeasure at their presence.
“Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago, sed circle, I use several elements but mostly focus on fire and lightning. I specialise in close-quarters bat and area destru I guess,” she says calmly while gng down at her grenade belt. “This is Ivor Juric of house Madonna, sed circle, he’s ah mage specialised in siarget attacks.”
Ivor nods silently in agreement, causing the group’s displeasure to visibly increase. Uned by his group’s reas, Oscar turns to the gathered vassals aures for them to begin introdug themselves at st.
“Bianca Ianni of house Hibiscus, sed circle, I’m a wind mage specialised in le attacks.”
“Matteo Caprio of house Poiia, sed circle, fire mage also specialised in le attacks.”
“Erin Moore of house Anemone, sed circle, water mage specialised in she attacks.”
“Bel Angelico of house Dianthus, sed circle, water mage specialised in barriers.”
“Fionn McCarthy of house Salvia, sed circle, anht mage healer.”
“Callum Gavin of house Salvia, first circle, I’m a space mage but I specialise in close-quarters bat.”
The six vassals in robes speak first, following the example of their family members and giving a short expnation of their bat type. The st of them catches Emily’s attention: she reises him from hand-to-hand bat csses but is surprised by his element.
I never knew he ace mage. I’ll have to keep an eye on him. Maybe I’ll get some ideas on how to cast switch.
She furrows her brow slightly at the thought of the space spell she collected but still ot cast properly. As Emily focuses on Callum, the fes carrying bags introduce themselves.
“Maeve Boyle of house Salvia, first circle, fire mage with no specialisation.”
“ Gavin of house Salvia, first circle, earth mage with no specialisation.”
“Riilos of house Dianthus, first circle, wind mage with no specialisation.”
“Linda Doria of house Ulex, first circle, earth mage with no specialisation.”
Emily gnces between Callum and , uo spot any family resembweewo boys.
Are they actually reted?
“Great! I hope you all have good memories so this doesn’t bee a weekly occurrence,” Oscar says after they all finish, holding a light, joking tohat elicits a few polite ughs from his silver-crested friends. “First, we shall cover our basic travelling formation. After we get dropped off at the edge of The Gde, our entire expedition will be on foot with danger lurking around every er, so we have to be alert and prepared for battle at all times. Maeve, , Ricardo, and Linda will be carrying most of our supplies so I would like them to stand at the tre of the formation. Nora and Fionn, you will go with them as well.”
The four robeless mages listen to his instrus and move to stand together in the middle of the group, surrounding Nora and Fionn without instru, everyone easily uanding the importance of proteg their healers.
“We then need people designated for defen each side. For this, I want Mia to the left of the carriers’ group ao the right. Although you ’t use barriers, Enzo, your area trol will help prevent us from getting surprised from behind, so I want you there. I will take the front.”
As the four defensive mages move to stand in pce, Oscar looks at the rest of the group thoughtfully.
“The rest will be more flexible and if anyone else has suggestions on their positions go ahead and speak up, if not I’ll split our forces evenly,” he says while looking around calmly.
Seeing a ck of response from the waiting mages, he nods with a small smile and keeps going.
“Fihen, I want Biand Matteo at the back with Enzo. You should be able to support the front still with ye if we run into trouble. Ivor and ac will join the left fnk, and Erin and Callum will join the right.”
As everyone moves to stand in their designated pce, Emily and Dante are left standing alo of formation.
“And that just leaves you two to joi the front, with both of your firepower we should easily be able to clear our path,” Oscar says with a grin while clearly fog on Emily.
Emily nods calmly while asking a question.
“What about deteg enemies? It seems a bit odd to just put rge-scale power in the front without the ability to work out what we’re walking into.”
“Good point! Does anybody here have any stroion spells?” Oscar suddenly turns and asks the group, having overlooked this point in his preparations.
Nobody says anything and Oscar quickly grows disappointed. However, after a few seds of silence, Ivor raises his hand.
“How does your spell work?” Oscar asks him immediately.
Ivor looks past him to Emily and quickly signs a message.
“He said it detects vibrations in the ground. It works better when he’s stationary but still be used as an early warning system,” Emily transtes before adding input of her own. “Oh, I also have that spell, but I’m not great at using it so I’m going to work on somethier before the expedition.”
“That should be fihe me know when you finish. For now, we’ll keep this basiation and ask Ivor to use his dete periodically as we move. Is that okay?”
Ivor nods his head in agreement.
“Sorted! Thanks for thinking ahead, Emily,” Oscar fshes her a grateful smile.
“No problem. It makes my job easier if I know what’s ing to attack me.”
“Haha, fair point. Let’s put our formation to the test then shall we,” he calls out excitedly, looking over the group as his smile stretches into a grin. “Training room, ge setting to The Gde test one!”
The moment the words leave his mouth, the entire room starts to shake slightly, surprising everyone as they start looking around. Emily sees the distant pin white walls start to fade, being repced by a horizon and skylihat she knows ’t actually exist in the underground space.
The grouh their feet shifts, turning from smooth grey stoo soft, damp earth, befrass and bushes begin to grow from nothing. As the shrubs reach their chests, suddenly tall trees begin rocketing out of the ground, shooting to tower dozens of metres above them and partially blog the artificial lights above.
Emily even tastes the air gaining a hint of humidity and a natural earthy smell as a low fog rolls in to surround them. As the shaking subsides, Emily looks around in wo the drastic ges and hears the faint sound of branches snapping and leaves rustling, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
“This is a training mode set up by past members of the Salvia household who have been into The Gde. Both the enviro and the enemies have been modelled to give as realistic a training exercise as possible,” Oscar says quietly, only just loud enough to be heard by everyone.
“Enemies?!” Maeve cries out in shock from the middle of the formation.
The moment she does, a long, fast-moving object shoots out of the trees ahead of them.
Core two, assistive processing.
With a single and, Emily’s perception slows to a standstill, and she gazes at the long dark red object stretg past her towards Maeve. With a small grin, she reaches and grabs the object, stopping its advance befiving it a violent yank.
A rge dark green frog flies out of the trees towards her against its will, pulled by its tongue, and Emily quickly stabs her free arm towards its head. With a small spark of maa, her Cw shoots out and impales the creature, stopping it dead in its tracks, its rge dark eyes gzing over within moments.
Assistive processing off.
“Yes, enemies,” Emily says quietly, dropping the beast's disiing corpse to the ground and turning to look at the horrified expressions of her teammates.
