Proof of Strength

As Alastor spent the next few days mastering the Rune of Change, he decided it was time to inscribe it upon himself to take his mastery to the next level.

Karna looked at him in puzzlement, "Are you sure I just need to make this shape across your forehead, and it will disappear?"

"It doesn't even look like a Rune."

Alastor just smirked and said, "Have some faith in me, my friend."

Karna shrugged and took an arrow, before a sudden blaze of orange flames appeared on it's tip, cleansing it.

Alastor pondered about what he had heard from Karna recently.

'To think he wasn't just any Gods' resurrection vessel, but the Sun God's.'

'That's a being that lives on the Sixth Heaven with ease, and has a pantheon under it.'

Being a resurrection vessel, Karna naturally wasn't supposed to find out, and wished to stay as himself and not his creator.

However, the Sun God allowed Karna his temporary freedom, not caring what his backup plan for resurrection did in it's life.

Karna, carrying trace amounts of Divinity, but mostly human, now used his power to carve the Rune into Alastor's forehead.

Alastor felt his flesh tear and burn, as the smell of burning flesh reached his nose.

Yet, he felt relief as the Rune of Change was carved into his head.

He felt his connection with it deepen, as he drew it upon his soul as well.

Karna looked on as the flesh on Alastor's forehead began to pulse and writhe, before rushing in and filling the gaps, concealing the Rune completely, healing it.

Or rather, his forehead changed to hide the Rune.

Alastor's eyes lit up as he smiled widely.

'Right now, I am the one with the greatest (and only) mastery of the Rune of Change. If I can increase my mastery, I can simply deny others from ever drawing it.'

Karna watched in morbid fascination, as Alastors featured began melting away, reshaping like molten wax.

Now, an unfamiliar person was standing in front of Karna, checking his features by touch.

"How strange", Alastor mused.

Karna looked at him with a disgusted face, "Put your nose back where it belongs please."

Alastor readjusted his nose from his forehead to it's original position.

'Just how exactly is this happening?'

'How can I breathe when my nose was on my forehead?'

'How does it let me control my features exactly?'

'I suppose these questions are the way to master the Rune.'

Alastor laughed and thanked Karna for helping him with the Rune, when Axel ran up to them.

"Alastor! Alicia kicked me out of her camp! I think she finally figured it out. I'm sorry!"

Alastor just waved his apology away, "It's fine. She doesn't particularly concern me anyway."

'What does concern me is A actually refusing to spar with me recently.'

'Does he know something? Is he a liability?'

As Alastor remained paranoid, the oblivious A was training to increase his durability further, so he could push Alastor further in their spars.

Time went on.

Another month passed.

And soon, it was time for Alastor's fight against Dana to prove he was competent enough to enter the mercenary program.

.......................

Alastor arrived at the sparring arena where multiple familiar Professors, as well as the instructor responsible for spear mastery, were waiting for him.

Dana was already in the huge arena, meditating.

Alastor entered too, yawning before stretching a bit.

'Was it really necessary to keep it at 5 in the morning?'

As Professor Bones began the match, a wall of ice rushed at Alastor as he heard her shout,

"Beasts and Demons won't wait for you to get ready to fight, brat!"

Alastor smirked as he watched the approaching wall, and the blade of his spear began vibrating extremely fast.

He held the spear near the end, and swung it with the maximum force he could generate.

The wall was cut apart just in front of him, however, Dana had been following right behind the wall, stepping on the spear to swing her sword at Alastor's neck.

Alastor leaned back to let the icy sword pass in front of him, and with his finger only barely touching the haft of the spear, he made the spear spin to throw Dana off.

She landed on her feet, and sent sharp shards of ice flying my his way, before stabbing her ice sword into the ground.

Alastor dodged the ice shards, and looked at her action with a bit of confusion.

Then he felt the rumbling beneath his feet and dashed forward just in time to dodge the pillar of ice erupting under his feet.

He engaged Dana in close combat, but her breath turned cold, making small icicles grow in mid air as she kept launching them while using her sword at the same time.

Alastor laughed out loud as he expertly dodged them by contorting, or changing his body in ways no normal human could do.

He felt his next spear strike be blocked by an ice wall that Dana hid behind after noticing that she couldn't match up in close quarters.

The ice wall began firing icicles at high speeds, but Alastor was faster.

He blocked them, and then spun his spear about it's shaft, rotating it extremely fast.

Even the mana within began spinning in a spiral.

Alastor let the spear drop from his hands, and caught it on his foot, as he kicked it towards the increasingly thickening ice wall.

With a bang, a perfect hole drilled through the wall, and through Dana's shoulder.

Immediately, the match was about to be called ot a halt, when Dana froze her wound, filling it with ice to continue the match.

'As if I could let some first year beat me! All my hard work wouldn't mean anything then! It would just be proving that talent supercedes hardwork!'

Dana's face was grim, as extreme amounts of mana rushed through her Ice and Wind Roots, draining her immensely.

Dozens of icy swords formed midair, with sharp blades coated in even sharper wind blades.

With an effort of will, she sent them all towards Alastor, a last ditch struggle.

Alastor felt the abnormal sharpness of the swords as a small cut appeared on his cheek despite dodging the sword.

'I see. So she hid her Wind Root.'

He smiled widely, before the other dozens of swords were upon him, trying to dice him up.

He thought to himself as he observed the mvoment patterns of the swords, 

'It's like facing off against dozens of Initial level sword mastery humans at once.'

'If her mastery of the sword was greater, this move might have caused me some more trouble.'

However, Alastor was at the peak of the Adept level of Mastery, the only thing holding him back from becoming a Knight, was the weapon Aura.

He pulled on thin air, and his spear flew back to him.

Dana was shocked as she saw the ability, 'Has he become a Knight already?'

However, she later figured out that he wasn't a Knight, but a peak Adept.

'But the spear returning skill?'

Alastor had attached a string of mana between himself, and the 'Connection' Rune on his spear that he engraved before the match.

Professor Bones looked away as if he hadn't been the one to teach and help Alastor with the Rune inscription.

Alastor shattered the ice swords one after the other, as they became faster and faster.

Three appeared in front of his face, and his broke two with his spear, but the third was too close.

He did what anybody would do, and bit down on it, coating his mouth in mana as he had earlier as well.

'Why don't humans use these attacks more often? Especially since they're so weak. Every part of the body can be a weapon.'

The wind blade coating the sword caused some minor lacerations in his mouth, but the ice shattered, disintegrating the wind blade as well.

As Alastor destroyed the final sword, he walked towards a completely drained Dana.

The whole battle had taken only 2 minutes and 18 seconds.

Dana knew she was done, as her reserves of mana had run out, and her Roots overstrained.

She opened her mouth to surrender, but couldn't speak before the butt end of a spear slammed into her mouth, breaking a few teeth.

Alastor said calmly,

"Beasts and Demons won't let you surrender this easily, Miss Argen~"

The match was declared as Alastor's victory.

He was informed that after the midterm exams, he would be granted a Bronze mercenary rank like the second years, as well as freedom to leave the Academy for missions.

'Nice.'