Karmic Balance

"Ow," Sloan said, neutrally, though inside he was feeling a bit of embarrassment warring with pride. He underestimated Jun, expecting her to still be reeling from what Ivar had done to her, but she somehow sensed his punch and managed to block it. Better still, she used her magic to help absorb the shock of his blow without falling or losing her weapon. Even if he was restricting himself to the abilities of a peak Iron with enhancements active, it was an impressive block, and her wild attack managed to catch him in the ribs. With a true blade, she would've caused serious damage to a Peak Iron even in armor.

He couldn't help but grin to himself as he felt Gina's mana move. More of those wind strikes he guessed. A smart move, using multiple small and fast spells instead of larger attacks. Even though they were weak individually, every single one would still bloody a Peak Iron just a bit, and even minor wounds mattered in an extended battle. He thought about retreating to give the girls another chance, but this fight was already going longer than the others, and he still had half the class to beat his lesson into.

Besides, it seemed this group at least understood the heart of it. Whether mage or warrior, you couldn't rely on a single path. Whether a mage or a warrior, both paths used magic in different ways, but that magic alone wouldn't always be enough. Regardless of your path, you needed to be ready and willing to fight with everything you had, and no one way was truly superior to others. The most important thing was survival The way Gregor and Emily hemmed him in and Hunter and Melody distracted him, all so Gina and Jun could strike from a distance, it was a sound strategy that made it clear they knew no one path was better than the other. What mattered was how they used their skills. They didn't need to keep fighting to learn this. Also, his rib hurt a bit. Time to end this.

Before Gina could finish her spell, Sloan swept Jun's legs and prepared to dart forward, only for his plan to be foiled as a massive gust of wind struck, pressing him back. Before the gust faded, a dozen wind strikes screamed for him, forcing him to drop further back as the spells pierced through where he'd just been. Moving in a zigzag pattern, the distance between him and the students slowly increased. Not the best choice against two mages, but it was all he could do with his self-imposed rules and limitations. Closing while avoiding Gina's wind spells wouldn't work.

Then his mana senses tingled as Jun's mana began to move again, screaming that what was coming was dangerous. Fighting mages who knew what they were doing was a pain.

Jun ignored the pain in her ankle as she dangled just a couple of inches off the ground supported by her snares. Focusing, she split her mana again and again, leaving only the bare minimum remaining in her pool. It was all or nothing.

The barriers coalesced first, a dozen shifting planes of magical force that linked together to form a solid dome around the Sergeant, trapping him in a small space. Then her snares coalesced, anchoring to the dome. Dozens of the things. Hundreds. Trying to control them all individually was impossible, she couldn't split her attention like that, but what she could do was give the spells a single simple command: attack. One after the other, her snares lashed out at the Sergeant. The first one shattered as he parried it, but even that brief contact stole some of his mana, and as Jun hoped, the stolen mana immediately strengthened the entire magical construct. She wasn't sure if the Sergeant realized this, but he immediately changed tactics and started to dodge the blows, only breaking the snares when there was no other choice. Each brief touch stole more and more mana before the snare shattered, strengthening the remaining spells until they started to survive longer. Instead of shattering as the man parried, instead they lasted just a moment or two longer, siphoning more and more mana.

Next to her, she could feel Gina preparing her own spell. From the amount of mana she could feel, it was big. "Hold him as best you can, then open a hole at the top when I say. I'll only have one shot at this before I'm tapped out." The strain was obvious in her voice.

"Got it," Jun replied distractedly. Most of her focus was on her spells as the Sergeant changed tactics. Instead of merely defending, he'd gone on the offensive, breaking through an entire section of her snares to attack the barrier directly. The entire structure shuddered but held as the Sergeant slammed his fist into it. Taking control of four of her snares directly, Jun attacked from different directions. Three of the spells shattered as her Professor turned and counterattacked, grabbing and squeezing two of the snares as he stomped on the third, but the fourth managed to wrap around his other ankle. As soon as the snare grabbed him, Jun pulled, yanking the Sergeant off his feet and into the air away from her barrier.

Grabbing more of her few remaining snares, she sent them to wrap around the man's limbs, grabbing more and more of her quickly dwindling spells as they began to snap against his struggles. More and more stolen mana flooded through the construct to power it, but instead of weakening as Jun siphoned his mana away, the Sergeant only seemed to get stronger, the snares shattering faster and faster. She wouldn't be able to hold him much longer. Then she felt Gina's spell start to form.

"Now!" the girl commanded.

Jun shifted her top most barrier away, opening a hole as a massive tornado twisted down and struck the Sergeant. The rest of her snares shattered as Gina's spell ripped up sand from the arena floor and accelerated it to insane speeds, creating a cloud of dust that hid their Professor from view. Containing Gina's spell with her barriers was difficult as it rapidly chewed through the spell's mana. Feeding what little mana she had left helped sustain the barrier, but she could feel her barrier beginning to fail. Fighting off a mana headache, Jun channeled every drop of mana she recovered into the barrier, desperately trying to keep it up as long as possible.

Gina groaned and slumped heavily against her staff moments before her spell began to fade. The magical winds slowed, leaving behind a cloud of dust and debris that started to fall to the ground now that the forces keeping it up vanished. Gasping for breath, Gina looked up at her with a tired smile. "That's a solid barrier," she rasped, the dark grey aura around her pulsing with appreciation.

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"T-Thanks," Jun replied, fighting to ignore the pain in her limbs and head. "Your last wind spell was ridiculous. Think we won?"

Before Gina could respond, something bodily landed in the sand between them and Jun's battered barrier. "Nice spells students," the Sergeant's voice came from the direction of whatever landed near them.

The two girls whirled around, Jun raising her sword and shield and Gina pushing herself into a ready position with her staff held ready to fight, even though neither believed they stood a chance against the Sergeant in true hand-to-hand combat with their mana all but gone. The Sergeant stood just a few feet away, his hands behind his back as he nodded at them. His clothes were ripped and torn, but visibly repaired in front of their eyes as they looked at their teacher, ready to go down swinging.

"Relax, it's your victory," he said, putting a hand out to stop them. "Go get treated." Dismissing them, the Sergeant turned to the silent crowd of students still sitting in the bleachers. "First group to win today. Next group come down."

Sagging with relief, Jun dismissed her spells, only to wince as she landed on her injured ankle. "Ow!" Limping, Jun began to make her way towards the triage station, only to feel a jolt of surprise as Gina grabbed her arm. "What are you—"

"You're hurt, I'm not," the mage said, her usual irritated tone coming back. "Lean on me."

With Gina's help, the two quickly made their way to the triage station where they joined the rest of their temporary team. "Good work you two," Emily said as Mara rushed over to them.

Before anyone could say anything else, Jun felt her wrist and ankle light up with heat that seemed to sooth and slowly take away the pain, and it wasn't long before she was able to stand on her own, if a bit uncomfortably. She still felt the echoes of pain in her wrist and ankle, like the injuries had occurred a week ago. "I wish I could do more but there's more people to treat," Mara said with a blush before running off again.

"That girl…" she heard Gina mutter as the mage dropped Jun's arm.

After their victory, Jun sat with Emily, Gregor, and the rest of their thrown together team as the rest of the class fought the Sergeant. No one else managed to beat him. Jun watched as the mages in the last group unleashed a series of powerful wind and fire spells. A fireball, boosted by the wind blades screaming towards the Sergeant, ballooned in size and exploded, hitting both the Sergeant and the five warriors harrying the Sergeant.

Her senses screamed as she felt an enormous wave of mana ripped through the arena, tearing the spells apart before they could finish detonating.

"You lose," the Sergeant growled as the students in the arena slammed to the ground as if something stepped on them. In her strange sight, Jun saw the silvery-white light surrounding her Professor flare and expand, filling the arena barrier and constricting the dark grey auras around the students. One of the mages started to gag and vomit down the front of his robes. It was the mage that cast the fireball spell that set off a chain reaction.

In the space of a single blink, silvery-white light retracted as the barrier around the arena disappeared. Healers rushed out from the triage area and began to treat the burned students, while some of the teaching assistants grabbed the vomit-covered mage and quickly hauled him out of the stadium.

In just a few minutes of frenzied activity, the burnt students were recovering under the ministrations of the healers while the Sergeant took his position in the center of the arena.

"500 students, and yet only a single group won. Why?"

The question echoed through the silent arena, many of the students looking down in shame, but Jun caught more than a few jealous glances shot their way. Fighting down a blush, Jun stared at the Sergeant's feet and tried to ignore the attention she could feel on her back.

"You," the Sergeant's voice boomed as he pointed at someone.

"Uh, well, the group that won used powerful magic—"

"Wrong. You."

"Gregor and Emily fought well together and were able to keep up with you?"

"Closer. You."

"You went easier on the girls!" A boy's voice said, followed by a hum of whispers. Jun couldn't help turning around to look for the voice, only to see a familiar looking boy standing up and glaring in her direction. One of Ivar's friends, she realized. Though she'd seen him in the Forest just a few weeks ago, he'd been in full armor then. She didn't recognize him in just his training clothes.

"No. 30 laps around the arena Karl. Say something like that again and you're done." Muttering broke out around the students at the harsh punishment. "Get moving, now!" Jun flinched back as the Sergeant's voice, laced with something else, shook her to her core even though she wasn't the target of his ire. Some kind of silvery-white light slammed into Karl for just a moment before it seemed to slither into the dark grey aura surrounding him and disappear. The boy, standing defiant just a moment before, dropped his head and made his way out of the bleachers to start running. What was that?

As Karl made it a quarter of the way around the arena, the Sergeant spoke again, the silvery-white light around him pulsing irritably. "The reason that group won wasn't because of the mages who struck the final blow, nor the warriors or archers that demonstrated their skill with their weapons and positions. No, they won before they ever stepped into the arena. Despite being a thrown together group, they made a plan that played to each person's strengths. Gregor and Emily didn't fight for glory or honor or to prove their strength, they fought to keep the rest safe. Melody and Hunter worked together to distract and increase their chances of success. Gina and Jun supported all of them. But most importantly, they didn't leave anything in reserve. Both Gregor and Emily sacrificed themselves to give the others a chance. Melody and Hunter didn't just rely on their bows and drew their blades, willing to fight in close rather than run. Jun defended Gina with both her magic and her weapons, and even managed to land a blow on me with her sword. Gina used her magic to support everyone, not only attacking but subtly easing movement for her entire team, and when she ran out of mana she didn't just give up or retreat, but got ready to fight with just her staff."

Jun glanced at Gina in surprise, only to see the irritable mage blushing and looking at the ground. She'd felt Gina's mana constantly moving, but didn't realize the girl had been supporting everyone like that. She thought the girl had just been attacking. Realistically, there should've been no way that she was fast enough to intercept the Sergeant's punch the way she did, let alone hit him with her sword, but she did.

"The lesson each of you should take away from today is that as you cultivate your power, level up, and develop your skills, know that each of your peers and countless others around the world are doing the same. It doesn't matter if you're an expert in a single skill or type of combat. There will always be those who are better prepared, better trained, or simply better than you. If you only cultivate a single strength, you will inevitably face someone who will beat you. Do not neglect a single path as irrelevant, or weaker, or not worthy of your time. Use everything you have to your advantage. That is how you survive."