Aether Engineering

Chapter 55

Maston Academy

The Town of Maston in the Candis East District

On the second day of the month, the dormmates walked into combat training to find an unexpected sight. Reah was stretching. The sand pits in the room had been set up for sparring matches.

As Silas walked in, he said something that Myles felt was probably a good vocalization of the group’s thoughts. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Reah pulled out of her latest stretch, waving at the group. “Hey guys. Are you ready for training?”

Primrose clapped her hands from the front of the room, bringing everyone’s attention to her. “I’ve decided to have a unique lesson today. I’ve had you all spar against each other before, but I think you need more variety. After all, the core arcaner’s way of the fist is about flexibility. You can’t expect all of your opponents to fight exactly as you do.”

Reah grinned, casually stepping into one of the sandpits and placing her hands on her hips. “Primrose asked me to take part in the lesson today.”

Primrose brought her hand in front of her mouth. If Myles didn’t know better, he would have said that she was suppressing a giggle. As it was though, Myles was fairly certain that she was entirely unaffected by the proud tone that Reah had taken.

“Right.” Primrose said after a moment. “Do we have any volunteers for taking the first sparring match against Reah?”

Nobody in the room volunteered themselves. All of them were confident in their decision too. After all, Primrose had always taught them to avoid fights they knew they couldn’t win. She had told them that there was usually a more clever solution to the problem that didn’t involve risking their lives. In this case, every one of the students saw the best way out was to simply not volunteer.

Primrose seemed to realize she had left something out. “Reah won’t be able to use anything but pure mana. Even then, she’ll be limited to evocation and commutation only up to the amount of mana you guys have.”

Still, nobody stepped up for some time. Under Reah’s hopeful, eager gaze Seth eventually broke down though, much to Myles’ relief. He had felt himself wavering just slightly. A moment or two later and he might have found himself as the first one to have his face shoved into the sand.

Out of the entire group, Seth was perhaps the best-suited to the fight. He had claimed the title of best overall fighter from his peers. His speed wasn’t quite as impressive as Kate’s and his technique was slightly inferior to Mercy who seemed to move with impossible precision, but his physical strength was greater than anyone else.

Seth stepped into the ring with due caution. He may have been slightly ahead of the others in wins throughout their sparring match, but they all knew that Reah had them beat in experience. The group generally expected Reah to be some martial arts expert.

When Primrose motioned for them to start, Seth was the first to charge in, probably hoping to catch Reah off guard. He led with the first step; a palm thrust. It was a reliable opening move, less destructive than the falling javelin, but also far safer to use. At the very last moment when Seth was about to make contact, he released his commuted mana around his palm.

It was a move that had taken Myles quite some time to use so smoothly. Releasing commuted mana was more complicated than it sounded. Since commuted mana was constantly moving, what Seth was really doing was causing a momentary gap in the commutation, timing it perfectly so that the gap reached his palm at the moment of impact. If you failed at executing the move, your own pure mana would simply soften the blow.

For all of the training that went into the strike, it still missed. Reah danced backward, moving with far less expertise than Myles had expected. Seth saw the same thing and chased after her, pressing his advantage. A moment later, he was eating sand.

It took another moment for Myles to realize what had happened. Reah had evoked a thin wire out of pure mana as she had stepped backward, all the while drawing Seth’s attention towards her by pretending to be on the back foot. It had been a clever trick and it had worked as intended.

The fight was far from over though. While Seth had been sent to the ground unexpectedly, his feet caught up by the pure mana, he had been trained for being in a bad situation. Primrose was nothing if not meticulous in training. There were several times during sparring when she had forced one of them to start a fight in an awkward position.

Seth swept out with his leg, aiming to trip up anyone who approached while he was down. It was the classic counter. It would have been predictable to any of the students, but Reah hadn’t attended most of their practice sessions.

The outstretched leg very nearly tripped Reah, but her instincts served her well. She was able to dodge at the last possible second, jumping towards Seth with her knee extended.

Seth was forced to evoke mana to block the attack, stopping her knee at the point of contact. Without missing a beat, Seth made to step straight towards Reah. The moment before he made contact, a thin wall of pure mana was evoked in the way of his step. Seth embraced the pure mana, letting it guide him to his right, avoiding a counter that Reah had been about to throw.

Seth found himself in a good position and he moved to throw another palm strike. Reah wasn’t done showing them her tricks though. A globe of pure mana suddenly appeared around Seth’s head. It was a genius move to be sure. Reah was still forced to take the blow from Seth, but much like him, she was able to block it with evoked mana.

For his part, Seth found himself in a serious bind. With his head trapped in a hollow globe of pure mana, his senses were effectively cut off. He couldn’t see and Myles suspected that his hearing would be muffled too, with sound only being able to penetrate through the gap around his neck. Seth tried to duck out of the mana that enclosed him, but Reah had evoked it with too much precision. It was almost skintight, leaving only the smallest gap.

The force of Seth’s duck was easily absorbed by pure mana. Seth made to break through the sphere by effectively trying to punch himself in the head, but right before his fist impacted the sphere, Reah delivered a devastating kick to Seth’s back, breaking through Seth’s commuted armor and earning herself the win.

Seth collapsed to the ground, throwing his hands up in surrender. For her part, Reah helped him out of the sand, giving him a pat on the back. “Well fought.”

Primrose walked up to the pair, nodding at them before turning to the rest of the group. “Can anyone tell me how Reah fights?”

Kate stepped forward. “She used pure mana to give herself an advantage. First with the tripwire move then again with the sphere.”

Primrose nodded. “This is an example of the inventiveness that I would like you all to have when you fight. The steps that I teach you are general purpose moves intended to optimize your combat ability and quickly put enemies, even groups of arcaners out of commission. It is an effective style, but it is intended as a base to grow off of. Combat between arcaner’s relies heavily on their use of mana, their weapons, and other factors such as terrain.”

The group nodded, giving their assent. It was a very similar lecture to what they had seen before. The addition of Reah’s demonstration made it seem much more important though. Myles mind raced, thinking through counters to her moves. The tripwire could be jumped over, but that had the potential to be a bad move. In the air, you would be unable to move. Reah would simply step in and deliver a blow. Unless…Myles grinned, an idea popping into his head.

It may have been unfortunate timing because the grin came at just the time when Primrose swept her gaze over him. “Myles. You’re up next.”

Myles stepped into the arena again, preparing himself. He would open up the fight much as Seth had, hoping that Reah would react the same way.

“Begin.”

Myles moved forward, pushing himself to move as fast as possible. This time though, Reah held her ground. Myles continued his charge, delivering a palm thrust that was swept to the side with an arm. Myles moved into the iron turtle, spinning to show his back which was more easily protected with evoked mana. He caught a kick from her and continued his spin, delivering a crushing leg sweep that forced Reah to retreat much as she had in the fight against Seth.

Myles pursued, wary of any evoked traps Reah might create. He was wise to be cautious. A tripwire appeared on the ground. Myles jumped over it. Just as he had expected, Reah changed direction in an instant, throwing a punch at his side that would have been nearly impossible to block in his position.

Myles had realized he didn’t need to stay in the same spot though. He evoked a wall of pure mana in much the same way he did when using the snake step. His movement wasn’t anywhere near as smooth here. This was after all his first time attempting the move. The improvised move wasn’t perfect, but it did work.

Myles’ jump was diverted just far enough to avoid Reah’s fist. Myles didn’t miss a beat, flowing into anther leg sweep as soon as he touched the ground. Having committed to her punch, certain it would land, Reah was unable to move out of the way. She went crashing to the ground.

Myles moved to land a final blow, but Reah was far from done. Myles saw something out of the corner of his eye. His brain immediately registered it as movement and Myles instinctively swung his head around, his training having hardwired the patterns for fighting multiple opponents at once into his brain.

Of course, this was simple bait. Reah had known Myles would be distracted by what turned out to be a sliver of pure evoked mana. Its sudden appearance had given it the illusion of movement.

Myles was only distracted for a moment, but Reah was fast to recover, throwing herself into a tackle. Myles attempted to counter, but the steps he had been taught did not provide him much of an edge in a grapple.

Myles found himself on the ground. Two powerful punches to the gut later and Myles’ commuted armor gave out, giving Reah the victory.

Much as she had with Seth, Reah helped him to his feet. “Well fought. You surprised me with that jump move.”

Despite the loss, Myles found himself smiling. He usually didn’t find too much enjoyment in sparring, but Reah seemed to be having a blast, and her energy was contagious.

Primrose clapped again. “That is what I was hoping to see. You came up with a counter for a move you had never seen before.”

Myles grinned. “It was rather sloppy though.”

Primrose nodded emphatically. “Of course, it was. Practice is what lends you the ability to move with certainty.” Primrose gestured towards Reah. “As you saw though. Adding the occasional improvised move can catch an opponent off guard, especially one who knows your normal patterns.”

The lesson continued on with Primrose starting to point out different reactions they could take to Reah’s seemingly endless supply of creative evocation techniques. All in all, the lesson was far more entertaining than most of their combat training lessons. Myles felt himself growing, starting to think on his feet more as he fought.

Reah looked happier than usual, grinning throughout most of the morning. He remembered Siter Liza’s words the night before about Reah just wanting to be accepted. He supposed that this was about as close as she had gotten. Here she was sparring and training with a group her own age. Sure, she was beating all of them up, but she still seemed to be having a great time. Myles frowned. Perhaps he was wrong. Reah might have just been enjoying beating on them.

Regardless of the reason, Myles knew he had to have a conversation with her about what he and Jane had heard the previous night. As soon as they had returned, the pair had tried explaining things to their dormmates, but it seemed that the informant hadn’t been lying. Their friends had acted like they were just talking some gibberish about aether engineering. Myles wasn’t sure if he hoped that Reah would react differently. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t know her own life was in danger. If she did, that would mean that she was a member of the organization.