Olimpia

I stood in the doorway, with the first rays of the morning's light slipping past me and into the long hallway. The dawn revealed the smooth, dusty ground marred by the imprints of footprints heading down its length and into the rooms on both sides of the passage. Faintly, I could hear the sounds of snores and the slight rustling of clothing as people moved around in their sleep.

Reaching out to my right, my hand wrapped around a rope, the coarse fibers pressing against my palm for a long second before I pulled down. At first, there was a definite resistance as I dragged the rope down until I heard a muffled clack, and the rope was dragged back into the air along with my hand. When the rope reached its upward apex, I assisted with its downward motion again, changing the muffled clank into a high-pitched ring that enveloped the barracks.

As no one was up yet, I continued to pull on the rope connected to the bell over my head. Over the racket, I could faintly hear the groans and shouts protesting the sound, but that only added to my amusement, and soon, figures were stumbling out of the doorways. More than a few of them had bloodshot eyes and scowls plastered onto their faces.

I could easily imagine being woken up similarly. In fact, I could distinctly remember several occasions. I was in the legion, after all. It was not an uncommon event, and I would much rather be the one waking everyone up at this forsaken hour than the other way around. At least this way, I had their irritated glares to soothe my weary soul.

As they slowly began trickling down the hallway to join me, I stopped pulling on the bell to walk outside and wait for everyone. I could still feel their looks of annoyance, but I did not care. They were not the only ones operating on a few hours of sleep.

After I happened to overhear the planning session of the tribunes and centurions, I was given my orders and sent off to get some sleep. The only surprising part of the whole experience, other than me being able to be near the conversation — though I was technically the leader of the scouts in the Western Fort at the moment with no one else around — was that a messenger arrived to tell the prefect that a scout had returned and that the letatus wanted her back at the command building to hear the report.

With my orders already given, I found myself walking back to the barracks to get some rack time before morning came. Which came all too soon for my tastes and the trainees, if I could interpret their expressions at all. But it was our lot in life to suffer and serve, so nothing could be done.

I began speaking once my scout trainees were gathered in front of the building. "Guess what? You are all lucky. The prefect of the 15th has decided that you all don't need to be trained and are honorary members of the Scout Century. As such, we will leave this morning to scout along the Rush's western side up to the Northern Forest's southern end."

My words were met with incredulous silence. I understood why. Everyone who was accepted into the scout training program was already somewhat capable. Usually, they came from family backgrounds where they spent time running around the woods as kids, and their fathers showed them some of the tricks of the trade like mine.

Those who grew up on the streets of major cities and learned some of the skills of being a thief were also good candidates. However, they often had to be taught while having other habits beaten out of them, but their instincts were good. Basically, all the people who already knew how to move quietly, and now just needed to be taught some casting techniques to elevate their skills to the next level.

The other category of people who typically sought to join the scouts were those with strong mental powers, though strong was relative. Anyone would be considered strong in their reserves when it came to me, so that didn't mean much. The metric that the Republic uses to determine your rank on the… Psy Reservoir Scale to gauge your mental energy pool and power is by no means absolute.

It was discovered a long time ago that everyone's mental energy was generally the same density. Unless the caster exerts their willpower to compress or expand a casting, it will seek to reach the equilibrium once exposed to the world. Once the size of an orb was agreed upon, which was ten inches in diameter, the number of orbs that someone could produce before running dry determined their ranking.

Thanks to the linear progression and arbitrary division of the ranks, the top of one rank and the bottom of the next were basically the same. That case was not the same from the top and bottom of the same rank, a situation that only grew more extreme as the tier increased, as every tier added ten orbs to the previous increase after the base ten of the Minimal Tier. This means that the upper limit of the Lesser Tier was thirty, and the Minor Tier was sixty.

To become a knight, all but the rare exceptions had to be in the Significant Tier, and those exceptions were close enough that the difference was meaningless. So, the recruits who were considered strong when they entered the scouts were high on the Average Tier and low on the Significant Tier. Comparing a bottom rung Significant to those considered strong knights can mean a reserve difference of fifty orbs or more, which is almost the entire difference between the bottom three tiers. Meaning that while those who came to the scouts might not be in the Average Tier, they weren't that far away.

Typically, they fell into the lower end of the Significant category and ended up like Markus, where they can enhance their bodies to superhuman levels for short periods while never being able to quite take that next step of attributing the energy. An adequate showing for those who were most likely the bastard of some noble.

That wasn't to say that those who grew up on the streets or in the woods couldn't have what is considered a large reserve, but the nobles remained in power for a reason. It was common to hear of someone born with unusually large Reservoir who was not born into a noble house, either joining some house as a servant or disappearing.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Of everyone who survived yesterday, I would say all of them had decent but not great skill in casting control and moderate power. Suggesting to me that all the nobles died with Prick as they raced to join us too late or during or fight around the pit. It might be a prejudice on my part, but I found that the ones with a higher status took offense to those of a lesser status, giving them orders for any reason, and would generally not follow them if given an opportunity.

I could be wrong in my entire line of thought, but this wasn't me just assuming that every noble ignored my command and died. While we were in the union, I got enough of a feeling for everyone's mental energy pool to guess the sizes. That kind of inspection was by no means accurate, but you could get the general feel, and I knew enough to tell that no one was in the middle reaches of the Significant Tier, let alone anything higher.

All of that was a long way to say that I was assuming and really hoping that everyone here had some level of experience running around a forest. But there was a big difference between tracking a deer through the woods and searching for beastkin hoards as a scout.

Being a competent scout takes months of training to build a foundation for skills that need years of practice to perfect. Or a decent level of control and a massive reserve of mental energy to utilize the mental castings we scouts practiced with minimal exposure, scraping by on raw power until they learned. I wasn't stupid enough to hope anyone here fell into those categories, and from the looks on their faces and body language, neither were they.

Seconds passed, and finally, Joxin spoke up, "Domine… we're not ready. Bloody crows, we haven't even been taught anything yet!"

There was a bit of hysteria in his words, and I nodded in agreement. "You're not, and you haven't been." Everyone seemed taken aback by my words as if I couldn't see the truth when it was pushed right in front of my face.

"But that doesn't matter." I continued. "We are on the brink of a battle we do not know the scope of, and the fifteenth needs all the information we can give it. Last I heard, a scout returned. Maybe more have shown up by now, maybe not, but it doesn't matter. The legion does not have enough eyes around us. Anyone capable will be pushed out onto patrols, even if they don't possess the title of scout. You lot are better off than them, as you have me, and I will teach you what I can in the time allowed." The fifteen trainees did not look convinced or reassured, but they would have to get over it and move on.

"We have our orders, and we will follow them," I declared, looking them all in the eye one after another, showing them my resolve. With that said, I took the trainees over to grab some hot food before leading them to the supply tribune, getting them the right gear. While legion grunt armor was good for standing shoulder to shoulder in a shield wall, it was not ideal for moving around in a forest unnoticed, so everyone was given leather armor and a cloak to trade it out.

The few experienced with a bow were given one, while those without experience were given spikes as medium-range weapons. Which were six-inch long solid metal spearheads with a four-inch handle and loop on the back end. Anyone who had even picked up a rock and thrown it around with a mental strand of force could use one to some degree. To top everyone off, they were given a backpack of food and other supplies that they needed should we be out more than a few days.

After we were kitted out, I led them through the fortress as I talked, trying to convey as much as possible about our situation. "The beastkins have better senses than us. As you all should know, we are inferior to them in terms of sight, smell, and hearing. But you don't know what it means in the wild. They will hear us farther away, smell our passage or when we are upwind, and see us farther or in darker areas than most would expect. Before, our advantage was that we could sense them with psy at a distance while remaining hidden, but even that is taken from us, as they have developed a method to hide and hunt us."

I looked around and took a moment for my words to sink in. "To counter their advantages, we scouts train relentlessly to project a thin layer of mental energy over our bodies to hide our scent at all times in the field. At the same time as you perform every other casting you might need, you will learn to encase the ground around your feet with a casted dome to dampen the sound of your footsteps. Most of you have some experience with these castings, correct?"

Nods met my words, with only a few people suddenly looking more concerned. "Some of you have even practiced this while hunting." Again, there were nods, but this time, there were fewer than before.

"But have any of you done it for hours and days without stopping. Have you learned to sleep while maintaining a casting.? I did not look this time, knowing there would be no nods. "I didn't think so. The scouts are considered a stepping stone to the knights and are a step above all other legionaries because few can muster the force of will to do what is required to join our ranks. And it is only willpower that is the dividing line. But if you can overcome the hurdle, becoming a knight is only a half step away."

I couldn't stop a hint of bitterness from entering my words at the last part. After years of my father's training, which was basically ever so slightly watered-down scout training, I finally achieved more than I could have dreamed, and now what should have been so easy was impossibly out of reach for me… but I had long accepted that truth. "Okay… while there is so much more you will need to know and learn, it's not important right now. Your sole focus will be to contain your scent, as learning and perfecting the skill is your only chance of returning if we encounter beastkins."

A hesitant, fear-soaked voice called out after a second of silence, "Instructor… how do I perform th—

"Don't worry," I said, cutting off the tentative voice that was speaking up, "I will show you, and then everyone will practice." With that, I began sending mental links out to everyone, continuing to talk while I did so. "As you could have guessed, I have smaller reservoir than all of you. If you can get close to my shell size and control, you should be fine for six hours." Encasing my body with a small layer of force thinner than a hair, I put my words into practice.

Holding the casting for a few moments, I retracted the energy and reformed it several more times while I tried to send every action I was doing into the mental network. "The hardest part won't be monitoring your mental energy reserves," I stated, "but keeping your casting active the whole time. You won't believe the mental exhaustion you will feel by nightfall."

After I showed them how to make the body shield. I gave them a few more pointers and suggestions as we continued to walk out of the new gate and past the training grounds outside the Western Fortress, stopping on a small hill. Far in the distance, past the sea of waving grass, I thought I could just make out a line of green that marked the edge of the Northern Forest along with the river Rush off the side, which came out of its heart. I knew it was my imagination for now, but I would be seeing soon enough.

Turning to my trainees, I looked at them and said, "Now, this is where we split up."