Simulated Explosions

Sera dodged another series of small explosions in a panic, dropping her bow in the process. With the merciless fireballs descending on her in another wave, she didn't have the time to stop and grab it. Although they'd run through a few basic scenarios so far, this was crazy.

She had been running from the increasingly intense barrage of magical projectiles for close to ten minutes now, and it showed no signs of letting up. Throwing up her arms to protect her face as showers of dirt rained on her after a particular close blast, she couldn't help but feel a little singled out.

Tal, who was limited on what she could do without the ability to speak and therefore chant, had been quickly cornered and overwhelmed. The elf was currently encased in a solid block of earth leaving only her face visible. She was passively watching the proceedings with eyes that seemed a bit more emotionless than usual.

While Sera felt a small amount of pride in having lasted this long, the whole situation seemed unfair. Taking a moment to glance up at her attacker, who was lining up for his next shot from the top of his summoned stone pillar, she yelled her complaints, "How is this in any way related to actual combat?!"

"This is simulating an airborne enemy capable of laying down a large volume of fire. It's testing your ability to respond to a threat from above while simultaneously avoid his or her attacks. I had thought it would be pretty straightforward. After all, didn't this exact thing happen to you just a few days ago?" Mike replied calmly, while halting the barrage.

Taking a moment to catch her breath, Sera glared up at him. "Yeah, but Tal was able to handle it just fine without me."

"And yet, there she is, unable to defend herself due to her current circumstances, forced to rely on her party member to somehow overturn the situation. However, you've done nothing besides run around in circles, occasionally firing poorly aimed arrows."

She gritted her teeth, "What do you expect? I'm weak! I can't fight someone like you, even if you are holding back. It's unfair!"

Mike's face was unreadable for a few moments, golden eyes staring down at her in an impassive manner, "Life is unfair. Sometimes, you will be asked to face impossible odds."

With a smooth motion, he stepped off of the pillar, landing easily on the ground below despite the nearly 10m drop. "It is inevitable that you will face an overwhelming enemy someday, and I or Tal or Brenden may not be around to protect you. When that enemy comes to deliver the final blow, will you complain that is unfair? Will you simply give up?"

Sera swallowed. What he said made sense, but it wasn't something she was comfortable thinking about. A part of her had always accepted that she would be weaker than the others, someone that needed to be protected. While this gnawed on her and drove her to improve, she had, to some extent, internalized this rationale.

Challenging that assumption would require her to re-examine a fundamental piece of her own identity through a painful period of introspection, something she had unconsciously shied away from. However, this seemed to be exactly what Mike was aiming for in his strategy.

Some of her uncertainty must have shown on her face, since Mike's eyes softened, and he casually released Tal from her earthen prison. The elf continued to look emotionlessly listless, which was probably the closest she ever came to looking depressed.

"Perhaps a change of pace is needed." Mike muttered as he cleared away his pillar with a wave of his hand.

"Rather than a single, difficult enemy, maybe something a bit closer to what you would see in warfare would be appropriate." With that he broke into a muttered chant. It sounded oddly gravelly and guttural, very different from the usual flighty tones most mages used. Almost as if he were using a different chanting language. She noticed that Tal had snapped out of whatever depression she had been suffering from, and was watching Mike with a rapt, albeit expressionless, gaze.

When he finished the chant, and raised his arm, five figures rose from the ground as well. They appeared to be little more than humanoid outlines composed of packed earth, save for a strange, runic symbol carved in each of their foreheads.

"I call them Earth Golems. Pretty neat, huh? I hit upon the idea last night, but I hadn't had the chance to try it yet. Anyway, they should be a little faster and stronger than the average soldier. This should give you a chance to practice your skills against a more reasonable opponent, while I come up with something for Tal in her current state. Anyway, let's get started." Mike commented cheerfully.

Sera, who was feeling slightly overwhelmed by all this, was about to voice her misgivings, when the closest golem turned towards her and leapt. Its arm transformed into a wickedly sharp battle axe in mid-air, and only a quick backwards hop prevented her from being split in two. A small crater formed under the power of the golem's attack, causing the ground to vibrate with its intensity.

"Eh?" Was all that she could muster.

[That's 'a little stronger than the average soldier'? is he insane?! These things are going to kill me!]

She was forced to continue evading, as another three stepped forward to do something similar, each of which formed their own weapons in the process. Seeing no other alternative, she turned tail and fled, narrowly dodging the attacks of the earthy monsters while screaming. "I'm going to get you back for this, Mike!"

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"Hm, looks like I made them a bit too potent. Oh well, I'm sure she'll figure it out." Mike muttered to himself as he watched his creations chase the Oracle around the training yard. He'd made sure to include an in-built limitation to the golems that would prevent them from actually harming Sera, but she didn't need to know that.

Satisfied, he turned to Tal, who was watching him expectantly. "First of all, I would like to ask, how did your project go? Did you make a breakthrough?"

Mike thought he saw a hint of pride in her face, as she began writing on her chalkboard. "I succeeded. Will need time to adjust and practice."

"I see, is there anything I can do to help?" He asked, while successfully ignoring Sera's declarations of vengeance every time one she had a close call with one of the golems.

Tal paused, in thought, before shaking her head and scribbling her reply. "Not right now. I just need time."

"Fair enough. Anyway, I've been thinking over things we can all stand to improve on, and it seems to me that your biggest weakness is a lack of flexibility. You are arguably the most powerful in terms of sheer attack power, but you lack the variety of attack vectors that is the Elemental Mage's greatest power. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Pact Magic to know for sure if this is a standard problem, or something unique to you."

"It is common among Pact Mage's. Our abilities are limited by the contracts we form. More flexibility requires more sacrifice. However, is only real constricting factor." Came the reply.

Mike frowned, lost in thought. If Tal's contracted spirits were the limiting factor, there wasn't much he could do to fix it. Finding powerful spirits or creatures to contract would be the most direct route, and he suspected that her baseline abilities this would improve with time and experience, but they needed something faster.

Suddenly, and idea came to him, and removed the Flawed Bracer of the Master Mage, and passed it to her. All three disks were glowing dimly, a sign of the mana he'd been slowly pouring into it since he got the item. At the moment, it was nearly full, containing the equivalent of roughly half of his own reserves.

"You said before, that your issue stems from a natural lack of mana, right? Try putting it on."

Tal nodded, looking slightly confused as she complied with his demand.

"Now, use the item like you would one of your spirits. Try to create some water with Lifestyle Magic while letting this bracer provide the power."

Mouth formed into a line with concentration, Tal started down at her had. After a little while, a small pool of water formed in her hand. She gasped, and quickly waved her arm, summoning a small burst of wind in the process. With another wave a spike of earth erupted from the ground, before slowly bending into a circle. He noticed that her arm was trembling slightly.

[Looks like she'll need to practice with it a bit.]

"I thought so. It seems like there is nothing stopping you from doing magic, you merely lack the mana to do it on your own. You'll probably still need the spirits to provide a channel of sorts, since you lack the magic skills themselves, but this should give you much more flexibility in what you can do." Mike commented, pleased that his experiment had borne fruit.

Tal threw her arms around him in a tight embrace, catching him completely by surprise. He opened his mouth to give a smart reply, when he noticed that she had his face buried in his chest, and he could feel the growing wetness of tears soaking into his shirt.

[I probably should have seen this coming, considering her background. Oh well, at least she seems happy.]

He gently patted her back, giving her time to regain her composure.

"Are…you…seriously…having…a…moment…right…now?!" Sera panted while in mid-sprint. She had finally built up a bit of a lead on the golems, and her sudden burst of anger seemed to be the motivation she needed to solve the situation.

Growling, she spun, drew and arrow and loosed in one smooth motion, driving it into the forehead of the golem that was pursuing her most closely. It collapsed into a pile of dirt almost instantaneously, so with quick efficient motions, Sera performed a similar style of execution on the remaining four. Danger averted, she turned a crazed look on the pair.

Huffing, she marched up to Mike, grabbed his collar, and started shaking him. "What in the hells is your problem?! You sick murderous dirt puppets on me, ignore my pleas for help, and then you have the audacity to have an intimate moment with Tal right in front of me?!"

"Congratulations!" Mike replied enthusiastically.

"Huh?"

"You managed to beat the golems and successfully complete this training exercise. I knew you could do it." He made sure to give her a wide grin.

Looking momentarily confused, Sera glanced back at the formless piles of dirt that was all that remained of her enemies. It seemed she hadn't quite realized what she'd been doing at the time. "I really did that?"

Mike patted her head. "I'm proud of you, Sera. You've taken the next step forward."

A stunned look crossed her face before it was replaced with a flush of embarrassment. "Argh! Don't surprise me with something like that!" She said while throwing his hand off and stalking away angrily. "And don't think this means I've forgiven you!"

Mike chuckled, it looked like she was still in that delicate age. Tal pulled on his sleeve and showed him a written message of "Don't tease."

"I'm being honest, she did well. Now, if I can just get her to do that when she's calm, I'll count it a victory." Mike glanced at the sky, noting that it was already quite dark. "Anyway, let's call it here tonight. We can start again tomorrow, depending on our schedules."

Tall nodded, and the pair of them followed the still grumbling Sera back to the dorms in a companionable silence. Once they'd arrived, the women left to get ready for bed, while he moved to the study to start his new nightly routine.

With a several dozen mana cores at his disposal, along with some decent materials, he felt like he could make some decent progress in his crafting skills. Pulling out the crafting guide, he started looking into how to create mana storage devices, since he wanted to get Tal a full set when he could.

It seemed simple in principle, since you merely had to provide a battery of sorts that could serve as the basis. However, there was a lot of nuance in the methods used to craft them, which gave him a number of options, and lines of research to pursue.

[Maybe there's a way of making them self-replenishing, somehow. That would be ideal…Why do I feel like I am forgetting something? Hm, maybe it will come back to me later.]

Putting the thought aside, he went back to his research.