Fate/Academy: Episode 4

. *Athenox has woken up after his failed attempt to summon his weapon. Scene 1.*

"Hey idiot! Wake up." When I open my eyes I am surprised to find Luke standing in front of me.

"What is it?" I ask in response to Luke's question.

"Mrs. said to get some rest, not be an idiot and try something stupid. I can tell by the debris in your room that you made an attempt to use your mana."

"I thought you said that you liked to watch people blow themselves up. Especially if "they just can't help themselves"."

"Normally I would be inclined to agree with you, but Mrs. told me to keep an eye on you because she had a feeling that you would try something and who would have guessed, she was right. I also do not want to be responsible for cleaning up after your dead body when I get to tell Mrs. what had happened."

"Easy for you to say, you didn't just get your skill reset to that of an elementary school student."

"Maybe not, but I did get shown up by a loser who now has no idea what he is doing and only managed to do so because I myself wasn't strong enough. Given the current circumstances it was clearly a fluke, and I want to settle it. So I want to make a promise with you right now. When I get stronger and when you recover your powers, then I want a rematch to figure out who is better. Deal?"

"Deal, because I only ended the fight like I did because you were about to hurt yourself."

"How did you do that, by the way? It couldn't have been void if you were still using your parent's mana."

"Actually I used my detection to match the exact path that the energy emitted from your empowerment followed. Then, I used Caliburn's weird cloaking enchant to reflect it back on to you, which refilled you with mana to prevent you from getting seriously injured by the mana drain."

"I would have found it really hard to believe if it didn't work. Anyway you should go to bed. And to make sure of it…"

Without warning his fist hits me in the face and I go unconscious.

*Athenox's sudden slumber causes him to experience another dream. An altered version of the desert from before. Scene 2*

"This place… again? What are you trying to show me?!" I shout across the desert landscape before me.

I look down again to make sure that I am not impaled with blades.

"Why do you fight knowing that what you fight for is a lie?" A voice sweeps across the desert plane.

"What I fight for? I fight because I need to become stronger."

"What is the point of becoming strong?"

"I need to become strong so I may rid the world of the corruption."

"So you wish to protect the people?"

"No, protecting them implies that I am fighting for them. I am fighting for myself."

"LIES!" A flurry of blades descend from all around and impales me.

"Your ideals mean nothing and can only get you one thing." The dessert flashes and all that remains visible are piles of dead bodies and weapons.

"If that is what it takes then so be it." I walk up hill, stepping over the death that covers the ground.

I am coughing up blood. A sword appears in my hand as I stab it in the ground and use it to hold myself up.

"In your pursuit of justice, all you managed to accomplish was the assured death of those around you. In the end no one will be left to tell others of your story, or of your ideals, and if this is what you truly want then no one deserves to know your story."

The voices words don't make sense, and neither do mine. I obviously do not want to cause all of this death and destruction, but I need to fight harder or I will not be able to improve my powers. I would of course help someone in danger if I could, and why is that a bad thing? I fall to the floor black out.

*It is now Friday after school and as instructed Athenox is at the Elite Combat Team's building on the first underground floor along with all of his teammates. Scene 3.*

"I am glad that you are all here and I am just going to cut right to the chase. Monday will be your first day of classes and your first really challenging test. It will be the first grade you receive on campus. The test is from what we know going to be a very simple one and done duel against a random opponent. This is to provide the system with a composite of all of your abilities, so do not hold back until your opponent is unconscious. So for your training I am going to be breaking you into three groups each with an upperclassmen officer leading you. These groups are also going to be your groups when we start preparations for the competitions, so you should get to know them well. The rosters have already been made and are final, with one exception. As you all know, Athenox Emiya will be removed from his training group this weekend for special training. I will call out the group leaders who will in turn call out their group members." Mrs. explains to us.

If I wasn't so focused on wanting to train to catch back up to where I was, then I would be embarrassed for being called out like that.

"The group one leader is going to be led by Clara Kaminski and Corey Blackmore."

"Group members are Luke Matou, Jane Tohsaka, Solia Edelfelt, Scott Harway, and Macy Hisau." The girl upperclassmen who I figure to be Clara calls out.

Those five members walk up to their leaders.

"Group two will be led by Aubrey Kotomine and Katlyn Kotomine."

"Group members are Sarah Tohsaka, Mary Tohsaka, Micheal Matou, Gabriel Matou, and Zachery Blackmore." I can't help but think that they have a lot of siblings in their group.

I couldn't imagine being forced to have to work with my brother.

"Group three will be led by Connor Kaminski and Eric Sajyou"

"Group members are Devin El-Melloi, Miraldes McRemitz, Athenox Emiya, Alexander Ryuudou, and Adam Fujimara. All members except Athenox Emiya please step forward." The four of them who were supposed to be my group members all advance to their student leaders.

"Alright all groups are dismissed for training. Please follow your group leader's instructions very carefully. Athenox follow me" She leads me out of the student organization building to the elevator.

"Where are we going?"

"I have decided that for the initial phases of your training it would be best if we were not in a confined location. Given the volatility of your magic right now. So I have arranged an arena for us to use."

"Ok, that makes sense."

"Luke told me about what you tried on Wednesday night, and I must ask you. Do you have a death wish? The dormitories have no internal magic absorption like the school building does. You could have easily took out the whole floor and killed yourself in the process."

"I know but I couldn't stop myself. I had to keep pushing. I figured that if I could at least summon my weapon, then I wouldn't be as far behind."

"I do not think that you are looking at this situation from the right point of view. You are not really starting over completely, Athenox. You still have all of the spells and techniques that you have learned before, but you will just have to adjust the processing to account for your new affinity. Who knows with my training you may find that you will be able to easily surpass your former self."

"Ok I am sorry. I promise that I will not be that careless again."

"I can tell that you are lying, but I accept anyway. I would be lying to say that in my years before being a teacher here at Avalon Academy, that I myself didn't do things were at least on level if not more irresponsible than you."

I have a really hard time believing that. The way she carries herself is like that of a knight, very valiant and straightforward. I just couldn't imagine her doing something that wasn't fully thought out.

*Athenox and Mrs. have now exited out of the elevator and are in one of the arenas. Scene 4.*

"Authorization code 932. User: Lanslac. L. Empower bounded reality marble." She speaks into her watch.

The arena starts to flash with light and the other empty arenas go out of sight. The outer field of the arena is converted and unrecognizable from when the arenas were used for the class tests. Instead of just adding the test stations, the whole arena is reshaped into a medieval style barracks complete with horses, metal forges, training dummies, archery targets, sparring pits and sleeping tents and campfires. It is like a scene straight out of a fairy tale.

"What is this place? Where are we?"

"You know what a reality marble is right?"

"Yes, it is high level magecraft that can alter an area around the caster. The academy use them on the arenas to modify and contain the area for the class tests."

"They do. However those are very basic reality marbles as they do not make any drastic changes to the environment and simply add in objects in controlled arrangements, which is ideal for projecting them onto multiple targets such as groups of students. A more advanced reality marble can take many different forms depending on the caster. In theory every well trained mage should be able to cast a reality marble unique to them. However it is not common practice because everything projected by the marble is not real and simply made of mana so it is seen as being a very worthless tool in combat. I myself even used to think that. It would make sense to think that way under a basic sense of what reality is. Things that have structure, shape, mass, or weight. Values in which we can observe with our five senses, but that is the point of a reality marble. Not to evaluate your own reality but to project it onto others and force them to see what you see. I found myself able to create this reality marble after going through major experiences with my phantasm weapon. After seeing the things it had shown me, and it had shown me its reality."

"Your weapon showed you all of this?"

"This and much more, but the other things it had shown me are not scenes suitable for most as they are the wastelands of combat. My point is that as a void mage, your sense of reality is your biggest weapon. You will have the ability to best control what form your reality takes." She starts to summon her weapon as purple energy emits from her hands.

"Arondight, the Unfading Light of the Lake! Come forth!" The weapon appears in her hands. It is a long two handed sword with curved edges and dark chains around the hilt of the blade. It looks like it has seen a lot of combat at some point because various nicks can be seen in the blades edges.

"When I was watching all of your tests and your duel. I had noticed that when you summon your blade, you never called it out by its name. Calling it out by its name declares its existence and makes it a single line spell chant that will cause the blade to become strengthened by your magical energy. Is there a reason why you have not?"

"The blade had never shown itself willingly when I had summoned it. So I figured it would be pointless if I revealed its name so freely. Besides, I had been managing to summon it without saying its name all of this time."

"That is honorable but that means that you were not summoning it with your own mana but instead the mana of your parents. Projecting it as their reality and not yours. If you want to grow stronger, then you and you alone must believe in the power that you have, even if no one else will."

"You are right. I need to rely on my own strength. I need to believe in my blade just as much as my parents have."

"That is right. Now I want you to summon your blade and this time call out its name as it comes to you." I reach my hands out and slowly start to channel.

"I call upon this reforged dark sword of my determination, Caliburn!"

The blade erupts as darkness in my hand and upon inspection is incomplete and in its present form nothing more than a glass replica that is filled with fractures. I grip the handle of the blade causing it to shatter into and explosion.

"That is a good start but it seems as if you will need to regain control of your mana flow before the sword will summon with enough structural integrity for you to use it effectively. If it helps you gauge your progress, then I would say that the summoning was at 15%, which is below the level of stability for most swords. I guess we need to try a different approach. Follow me." We walk over to a tent with a metal forge and a rack of swords.

Mrs. takes a sword off of the rack and tosses it to me as she picks up the rest of the rack.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"It is simple. You know how to use a sword quite well. We are going to practice sparring with these swords until you can get a handle of your magic flow. Since these swords are mana constructions, it should be easier to for you to control them. And do not worry about overloading and breaking them because there will be a ton more if these run out. In fact it may almost be better because as you know mana flow is like a muscle and the more times you practice with it then the stronger it becomes."

I put a firm grip on the sword with my right hand and start to charge in. I make a few swings towards Mrs. and each one of them is blocked. I try to empower the sword as I evade her strikes. The blade is shattered as I try to land the empowerment against her sword. Arondight is a tough sword and its master is no different. Her stance is very firm and her strike placement is smart. If I was trying to win, then I would be going about it the wrong way because my one handed stance simply tries to avoid and out maneuver her blade with a faster attack speed. Which might work if I was using my blade. Having both hands able to control the blade is allowing her to make more impactful movements with her sword. I will switch it up to match her. Placing both hands on a new blade that I picked up. I try to empower the sword with my mana, which is once again successful, but once again the sword breaks upon striking against Arondight. The swords solid physical construction seems to cause each and every one of the blades I use against it to break. The swords that I am using have a limited capacity for magic energy and I have been charging them accordingly and filling them. I keep trying with every combination of attack pattern. Carefully changing when I empower during the strike, only to find myself breaking more swords.

"Something in my approach is not correct, but what?"

"Keep trying." She says encouragingly to me.

I grab another sword and rush in to attack. She blocks the first set of attacks but leaves an opening on her side as a result. I slide around her to try and charge a strike, but she catches it with Arondight and my sword shatters once again. This is going nowhere. Each attempt only leaves me with a broken sword. What is it? Is it because my swords are too weak or because that her sword is too strong, or maybe even both. Either way that you look at it, void mana seems to be very unstable. Whenever I try to solidify it into a blade, it instantly becomes unstable and explodes. Something is not right though. Usually I would have worn myself out from summoning my blade or trying to empower it this many times. I know I am not back to that level, so why have I not been exhausted to the point of passing out on the floor. I get that these aren't fully summoned weapons but I am still empowering just as much. Plus, it is not taking too long to activate the empowerments. I need to see if I can play off of this advantage. I kick the pile of swords in the floor between me and Mrs. so that I can always get to one when I need to. I grab one and try again to rush forward and empower it. It still breaks but I keep grabbing them off of the ground and striking with them at a rapid pace. Eventually one actually manages to resist being shattered and allows me to channel the empowerment, while I grabbed a second sword and empowered it also. Mrs. evades them but that is irrelevant to the fact that after a countless number of broken blades are left on the ground. I managed to build back up enough tolerance to successfully empower two swords.

"It took a little longer than I thought it would have but you are starting to regain your mana control. In order to solidify this, I want you to successfully perform this at least three more times. Each time you do it, I want you to visualize and feel the mana flow in your arms when you empower. That will be critical to understanding how you will need to readjust the rest of your spells, including your full weapon summon. Oh and know that you have weapons that won't shatter, then maybe you could try to prove more of a match as a sparring partner." She laughs.

I overload the weapons in my hands and pick up two new blades from off of the floor. I tightly grip the weapons as I charge in and start swinging. I start throttling mana into the blades. Now that I know what it is supposed to feel like I start to feel a difference than when I empowered Caliburn before. It was less fluid and I had to nearly force my magical energy into the blade. This is different. I get why all of those times it was not working. It was because I still thought of it as the same magic energy, when in all reality I was just overloading before I could even accomplish anything. Void mana wants to work in a different way than the dark energy, and I have to adjust accordingly. It wants to flow and absorb faster than a weapon can use it. It wants to overload and control the weapon. It wants to explode. I need to control it and keep a balance over how much of the weapon is filled with energy. I swing and force the blade to release controlled amounts of magic energy into each strike. The empowerments seems to speed up the blade and almost cause them to fly out of my hand when I strike. I need to be able to dampen the amount of mana that a strike uses. I use the blades to catch Arondight in a strike. Mrs.'s physical power is far greater than mine and as a result causes me to be pushed back a steady distance. I rebound off of the sword and jump into the air. This is it, I overload the weapons which sends me flying back towards the Mrs.'s location. I pick up another two blades and slam them into Arondight, which actually manages to send her back a few feet.

"Impressive strategy controlling the mana flow and using a timed overload as a way to accelerate a final strike. However it does have a problem with it, well two problems specifically."

"What problems?"

"Well the first is that it in a normal situation it would require you to have the ability to summon multiple blades, but I guess you seem to have the mana pool for it which is a very unusual Saber mage trait. So if you can manage to summon your blade, then I suppose it would be possible to summon your blades multiple times to perform a maneuver as complex as what you just did."

"And the second problem?"

"Considering your strategy required you to induce an overload to trigger an explosion in order to accelerate your strike enough to actually knock me back. It would require you to absorb the blast in a manner that would not deter you from the strike. In a normal situation without any absorption there is no way that you do not walk out of this with major injuries."

"I suppose that you are right, well I guess I will just have to account for that in my next try."

I pick up two more blades off of the floor. I cannot use the same strategy I just used. Even if it was a practical maneuver that I could use in a real world fight. I know that Mrs. could very easily be expecting it. I empower my weapons as I rush in again. As our blades cross, I can feel the mana from the surface of my blade. With every strike I see the mana paths of our swords in the air. I feel the mana of my blade as an extension of my own existence in the area around me. I currently seem to be at a stalemate with Mrs. and if I am going to break it, then I need to create an opening for me to attack from that she will not expect. I wonder if I can use the amount of mana in the air to my advantage. I throw one of the blades in my hand behind Mrs. and it lands in the ground behind her. I empower the blade and unconsciously reappear next to the blade as I pull it out of the ground and manage to catch and disarm the blade from Mrs. as she noticed me and tried to counterattack with a backswing a she spun and faced me.

"You seem to be getting much better at controlling your mana. It seems as if you followed the mana trail given off by your blade when you threw it and managed to use that power to enhance your body. And enhancing your body allowed you to accelerate faster along the trail. Causing you to be able to grab the blade and disarm me before I could realize it. Very impressive. Now for your final try."

"Ok."

I pick up another pair of blades off of the ground. I suspect that she will now keep a cautious guard up on front attacks as well as surprise attacks from out of nowhere. I can't evade my way out of this fight. I will have to use my mana to overpower her while she is using that sword. That sword, Arondight? I have struck at it many times and am starting to get familiar with it. She wields it in a two handed stance but is not limited to attacking that way, as she just attempted a backswing with it while using one hand. The sword can generate a lot of force in a strike, and I would say that it could easily contest with most weapons that I have seen, and it may even be able to hold its own against a sword like the Gate Key of Babylon if they had equally skilled users. I honestly doubt that Caliburn could do much against it at base level. There is something off though. It seems to have been nearly coated in my mana. So much so that it is starting to seep into the nicks on the blade or at least it appears as such. Mrs. is a void user also, so she may have intentionally absorbed my mana to either supplement her own or to cause any empowered strikes I performed to be rapidly depleted. Regardless, I stare at the blade intently before starting my strikes. As I come into contact with her blade again. I feel the components of the blades structure. So much so that I can envision it perfectly in my mind. I empower my blades and they flash with a purple light. When the flash stops, the blades appear to have changed shape into Arondight. I can feel the void power emanating from them. I am able to empower them against Mrs.'s blade. I manage to produce a flurry of strikes before the weapons explode and I am force to jump back and evade a strike from Mrs., and this whole process happened over the course of a few seconds.

"Where you using Arondight? How were you able to replicate my sword?"

"I was able to envision it in my mind and summon it, because I could detect the structure of it from parts of my mana essence that had gotten onto it. Very sorry to take it from you."

"No don't be. You found an advantage and took it. If you are able to gather enough data on a weapon to summon it just from combat with it, then I do think that you are skilled enough to be worthy to use it. However, I am not sure that what happened is a full summon. Considering the modified replicas seemed to break faster than when you empowered them normally, I think you just altered the construction of the original swords to match the properties of Arondight. I think that through all of this training that you can start to see the full extent of what is possible with your void magic. If nothing else you can throw off an opponent and gain the upper hand while they are distracted."

"I do still see problems though. The weapons structural integrity is far less than what I was able to with Caliburn, and when I altered the blades which turned them into Arondight, they had even less. I do not think I would be able to use a full empowerment with them."

"That is true, but Athenox you must give yourself some credit. You have a very vast mana pool and you are learning how to use it pretty well considering the amount of time you have put into it. A normal mage would take years to learn their skills in the first place, but you are learning a new set of skills in a matter of a day. Imagine what will be possible if you continue to train at this rate. I think we should take a break before continuing. You did just use a massive amount of magical energy, and whether you have the quantity to supply it or not, it is still very physically demanding."

"Yeah, I know. I do feel drained. So much so that it is kind of making my head spin."

Before I can say anything else I drop to the floor

"Athenox!" Mrs. shouts as she runs over to me.

I regain consciousness within a few seconds. It is not a long time but when I come back to my senses I am on the ground. I try to get up but am unable to move.

"I can't move at all. What is happening?"

"I am not sure, but I do not think that you can continue your training today. It must be a side effect of some kind. Does it feel like it is showing signs of lessening at all?"

"If it was, then I would be moving whatever I could."

"Alright, well then I am going to have to take you back to your dorm."

"Take me? But how can you do that? We just established that I can't move." She picks me up and puts me on her back as the arena transforms back into normal.

"Put me down!"

"Athenox, do you have another way of getting back to your dorm?" She takes me by force as we continue out of the arena.

"I guess not, but this is a little ridiculous. I don't know of any magical side effect that can cause full on paralysis."

"It is bizarre. I will look at the data from today in order to see what exactly is happening with your powers. I will even have the upperclassmen take a look."

"Ok, but do you think it would be okay if you kept it to them, I do not want to seem like a complete loser to my teammates."

"Why would you think that? You are in completely new territory on your magic abilities. It would be stranger if you didn't run into any problems. Any of your peers would be the same under the given circumstances. That is a thing about void. Each user will run into a different set of problems in their training, and because of our limited numbers it is hard to determine what is considered a normal behavior in the magic and what is not, but if it makes you feel any better. I promise to keep the number of people who know about this to a minimum."

*Mrs. is carrying Athenox in the Saber Dormitory. She is taking him back to his bedroom and dropping him off. Scene 5.*

"I am very sorry to that you have to do this for me. It must be a pain that you have to help me so much."

"It is not. I would help any student who reached out when they needed it. Besides you are officially an active member of the Elite Combat Team, which makes you my student. It is my responsibility to make sure that you are all in good condition. Not to mention that I know when you are able to, you will put your best effort back into the Teams objectives." She places me on the bed.

"So if you think it is okay, are we going to continue my training tomorrow?"

"If it can be determined that this is not a critical situation, then yes. Do not worry, and get your rest without trying anything. Not that I think you can in this state." She walks out, and I pass out.

*Athenox is able to walk and receives a message from Mrs. to discuss the findings from the training yesterday. In the Elite Combat Team's student organization building. Scene 4.*

"So I got your message. Did you find anything out?"

"Actually it was Mr. who figured it out, so I will let him explain in." Mr. is standing next to Mrs.'s desk.

"Thank you. So I was doing a little more research into the cloaking enchant on your sword, Caliburn that is. You said before that the enchantment would only break when you empowered it over a certain level, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I will explain it. You told Mrs. that you could only replicate her weapon after striking against it enough for your mana to be absorbed into it. It is almost the same process, except there is one difference that stops you from being knocked out after you summon your own blade."

"Which would be?

"Had you ever seen Arondight before? Do you personally know of the blade?" Mrs. interjects.

"No, I have not. The name seemed kind of familiar. Maybe I heard about it in a book or something, but not enough to recognize it. So what you are saying is that I passed out just because I had never seen the blade before?"

"Well more specifically, it is because of your unfamiliarity of the weapon that you had to overload your nervous system trying to scan the entire structure of Arondight with your magic energy down to a level of detail that would allow you to produce a competent replica."

"Essentially, the more I know about a weapon beforehand, then the less strain I am going to have if I were to try and replicate the weapon? I do not know that much about my own weapon and I could still summon it."

"I think that is because it is the sword you are the best trained with. You have consistently used it enough since you were probably a very young age, so it is established as your weapon. That is why you got to a point to where you could summon it automatically without saying its name. Trying to figure out more about your own weapon would indeed help you summon it more efficiently, but I doubt that it is required. We called you here to inform you of a second thing as well." Mr. explains.

"What is it?"

"Since you seemed to have recovered your mana control quite well and do not seem to be in any real danger, so long as you do not overload your powers beyond your limit. We have decided that we are ending your training early so that you may rejoin your team. You will finish your originally scheduled training this weekend as planned. I also took the liberty as being a student organization faculty leader of building your schedule based off of all your current data, and waiving the remaining class tests as it is unlikely that we will get any good data from them since they are your lowest classes. I have to ask two things of you before you are dismissed."

"Sure, what are they?"

"First, do you like archery? In your initial phase of testing you seemed to be doing fairly well at it and I didn't know whether to put you Mr.'s class with the other team members or not."

"It was actually kind of a fun challenge, before I blew myself up. So yes I would like that. What is the second thing?"

"Secondly I want you to try summoning your weapon before you go in there to train with the others. I have a better feeling about it this time." Mrs. asks me.

"Ok here goes. Dark sword, Caliburn!" I reach my right arm out as I feel the void energy materialize. It seems to flow more consistently than yesterday. When I open my eyes I get a look at the sword. The enchantment doesn't seem to be there anymore, and the sword seems to be back to its original construction unlike the weaker attempt I made yesterday.

"You addressed the sword by its name and declared it as your own. I am sure that if you tried to summon it without saying its name the cloaking would return." That is good to find out, but I still need to work harder on summoning because from the looks of it this blade seems to be only have 85% structural integrity. This means that I can only channel 85% of whatever its maximum potential magic energy cap is before it will overload and explode. This is for sure better than only being able to put 15% into it, which would barely even be able to contain physical force and could easily be crushed by my fists.

"Mrs. if I may be excused to go rejoin with my group and start training."

"You may but do not push yourself too hard, especially with any of your newfound abilities. Master your own sword first, before you go and take anyone else's."

"Got it."

*Athenox leaves the room and meets his group in a designated room of the organization's building to train with his group. Scene 6.*

"Athenox, it is good to officially that you have made a hastily recovery and are now able to join your teammate. I am Connor Kaminski." The one obviously named Connor shakes my hand.

"Yeah it is always nice to put a name to the data reports. The name is Eric mac Roich, it is a pleasure to get to instruct someone with such a rare talent." Eric is more formal and gives me a fist bump instead.

The two figures definitely seem to have more physically tough builds, especially Eric who is carrying what appears to be his phantasm weapon over his shoulder even though it looks like the size of a tree trunk and shaped like a metal drill head. Connor is holding a more normal sized sword. It is a golden sword with some kind of blue jewel in the hilt of the blade, which in my opinion would make trying to incapacitate or disarm someone a lot harder but that is very irrelevant right now.

"Athenox are you okay? How did your training go?" Devin asks me.

"There was a few unexpected discoveries, but considering I nearly learned a new type of magic in one day, I think it went pretty well. I wouldn't be here otherwise. Enough about me though, I never got to meet the other 2 members of our team. I as you heard yesterday, I am Athenox Emiya. It will be a pleasure to work with you. I bow graciously.

"My name is Alexander Ryuudou and I am a Lancer mage."

"My name is Adam Fujimara and I am a Caster mage." They introduce themselves, respectively.

"Ok now that we all know who we are. We were in the middle of explaining the combat tests that you are going to have tomorrow. Which as Mrs. said will be a one versus one match against a randomly selected opponent. However, while the opponent will be random I can almost guarantee that the class of enemy you will be facing will be whatever your lowest skilled class is, starting with the Saber mages." Connor says.

"What do you mean?"

"Well they go through each of the Saber mages and match them up with whatever will be the class that they themselves have the least skill, and therefore the least chance of success with. Then they work their way up until everyone is paired against something that they have relatively low skill in."

"Why would they use Saber mages?"

"Saber mages are typically more capable of taking on things that are positioned lower on their list with a greater chance of success, and because there are so many of them. They are the second most common type of mage, only with Caster having more. This way it covers most of the student base and allows for a fairer fight."

"It would be a fairer fight if they were just using normal weapons from their class, but it would be impossible to come up with counters for everyone's phantasm weapon. So it isn't the most fair and will just come down to skill to take down your opponent." Eric states.

"Which is why we are going to ask the Saber mages in the group what their lowest class is and have them go up against it. So Devin, what is your weakest class?"

"Assassin." Devin admits unwillingly.

"Great, because as you know Miraldes is an Assassin mage. So you will be sparring against her."

"Athenox, what about you?"

"Lancer is my lowest because of reasons."

"Well Alexander here is a Lancer mage so you will be sparring with him."

"And Adam since you are a Caster mage, we will spar against you so that you can try to be prepared for Monday. Even though we are both Saber mages, we have a little experience in some of the other classes and can give you a few pointers."The third combat group starts their sparring in order to be more prepared for their first real assignment.

*End of episode 4.*