*** Patrick ***

  Dot hemmed and hawed for a while before asking, “Is there one competition that you have your heart set on, or do you want to do well in all three?”

  “They are all the same to me. I did ok in the shield and club event earlier, and I’ll probably stick to that for the melee.”

  Dot grumbled “Clubs” followed by a spit to the side, “Alright, the main thing to remember is that our edge is based on magic, and managing your mana pool is what keeps a soldier alive. If you want to compete in all three, then you need to be aware of how that impacts your mana pool from one event to the next. How much mana did you spend in the club fight?”

  “ummm, not much I am about full.”

  Dot: “In other words you forgot about your boosting skills, right?”

  Patrick looked at Dot and gave a guilty smirk.

  Dot: “Let me guess, none of you dum-dums remembered. There’s your hint, don’t forget about your boosting skills.“

  “You’re right, I should have remembered. What is the best way to use them for the competitions?”

  Dot: “For the fights, increasing your Reaction time is the way to go. Boosting your Strength won’t help score points too much, and you shouldn’t have to worry about taking any serious hits. Pop quiz time, how is boosting Reaction different than boosting Strength?”

  “The costs scale different. Strength scales linearly, to push something twice as hard it takes twice as much mana. To double my Reaction though if I double the boost then the costs quadruple.” Patrick replied, then added “Both of them draw on Personal mana.”

  Dot: “Good enough, what are your Reaction and Mana Pool stats?”

  “My Mana Pool is at tier 1 rank 1, my Reaction time is at rank 2.”

  Dot muttered to herself for a couple of minutes working through a calculation. “With your Reaction stat so low you will only be able to have it active at your full strength for about 20 seconds, or at half strength for a minute and a half. You will have plenty of mana, your skill strength is just too low to sustain the boost for long. So you’ll need to pick your moments. One thing we haven’t gotten to in training yet is that the strain on your Reaction skill differs based on how much moving around you are doing. Think about that for a minute and tell me how that changes your strategy.”

  Patrick pondered it and replied, “It is cheapest to use while at the start of an exchange before someone makes a move. So I could use it for defense, or to catch an opening at the very beginning.”

  Dot: “Right, if you just use it to increase your perception and thinking then it only costs about a quarter as much as usual. The trick is learning how to adjust it quickly.”

  Dot: “There isn’t much to say about the channeling competition. As far as gathering, if you empty both your Elemental and Personal mana then you will absorb energy faster. The lack of Personal mana will create some suction on your Elemental mana. At your level maybe about a five percent difference. The thing is that if you bottom out your Personal mana then you won’t be able to use your boosting skills in the melee.”

  “Thanks Dot, I appreciate the help, you really know your stuff.”

  Dot: “You bet I do. This reminds me of a duel of honor I fought on that desert world near the end of my first season there. Now their culture detested Reaction boosting, so duels used magic items that would block quick attacks. It took me no time ….”

  Dot continued her tale through the end of the Patrol shift. Patrick listened a little, but mostly tried practicing a little with his Reaction boosting, turning it on and off quickly. He didn’t make any breakthroughs, but the practice gave him a confidence boost.

  —

  The mana control competition was already in progress by the time Patrick arrived. Luckily the competition consisted of a number of mini-games in which the recruits channeled mana into various magical items. At each station recruits would earn tickets based on their performance, and whoever had the most tickets at the end won.

  Patrick huffed a little, ‘Still no Fireball or Lightning Bolt.’ One of the first questions the recruits had asked the trainers was when they could learn traditional movie magic. The good news was that it was possible, the bad news was that it was far beyond their grasp. ‘A spell like Fireball is like playing the Imperial March, and we’re just learning how to play the kazoo.’

  Patrick chuckled to himself, ‘hmmm, talk about first world problems. Here I am, in a world of magic, more physically powerful than anybody back on Earth, learning a bunch of different magic, fighting monsters, and I am disappointed that after a few weeks I can’t rend the heavens and split the earth.’

  Patrick went to the closest booth, the goal was to light up the magic item and feed a constant stream of mana into it as long as possible. After three minutes his concentration faltered and he moved on to the next station, seven tickets richer. After a half hour Patrick had emptied his pool of water mana and had accumulated a total of 43 tickets. He headed over to turn in his tickets and get started on the gathering contest. He joined Kayla at the back of the line.

  “Hey Soup, how many tickets did you get?”

  Kayla replied, “45, how about you?”

  “Ahhh, you beat me, I got 43.”

  Kayla: “Awesome, I think we got this event cornered.”

  “How did you do in the Spear events?”

  Kayla smiled and said, “Great, I took first in the Shield and Spear, and second in just Spears, Ace won that one. I told you I was going to dominate the events, Blaze just got lucky.”

  They turned in their tickets and chose what element they were using to demonstrate the absorption event. Since the recruits couldn’t have more than one element in the mana pool at a time they had to register what element they used during the channeling event, and then had to choose a different one for absorption. The absorption contest was to see who could gather the most ambient mana in an hour.

  Patrick’s favorite element was wind, so that is what he chose. He considered Dot’s advice about emptying out his Personal mana to make the elemental absorption faster, but he was looking forward to the melee event.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Chairs and mats were arrayed around the yard for people to sit and meditate to absorb the mana. Patrick chose an isolated mat, sat down and focused on drawing in Wind mana. He lasted 10 minutes before his anticipation about the melee event caused him to get up. Patrick went over to the practice gear, grabbed a club and shield and practiced. Patrick was more skilled with a spear, but everyone had less practice fighting against shields. His plan was to take advantage of their inexperience fighting against a shield. He focused on the drills they had done with the shield, working through how different spear movements could be countered. Ace, Kayla, and Blaze were the opponents he was most worried about, so he pretended he was fighting against them. Ace with just a spear, Kayla with a shield and spear, and Blaze with shield and club. The rest of the hour flew by and one of the trainers came to him to let him know it was time to demonstrate how much he had absorbed.

  ‘Ooops, I guess I bombed this event because I couldn’t sit still.’

  He was pleasantly surprised though that he had absorbed the equivalent of a rank 4 crystal during the hour. Patrick ended up third in the event out of nine, coming in ahead of several of the meditators.

  Outside of the sparring ring recruits were busy, each in their own way, preparing for the upcoming fights. Patrick found a relatively open location and started some light stretching.

  —

  It was time for Patrick’s first match. Maria had just defeated Lefty and now Patrick was up against Kayla. From their match it was apparent that he wasn’t the only one who had been reminded about the boosting skills. One of Maria’s spear thrusts had knocked Lefty out of the ring. As far as he could tell neither of them had used Reaction boosting though, just Strength.

  There was a rare break in the precipitation, though the marshy grass of the ring was still wet. The corps’ standard issue boots were studded, providing good traction. Footwork was a little plodding though since your feet sunk into the ground a half inch with every step. Patrick went to the starting location, Kayla was already there with a confident smirk, “Good luck Spoons, you’re going to need it.”

  Patrick thought, ‘No kidding I need good luck. Not only did I get stuck with an extra match, but it looks like I am going to be facing all of the people I worried about.’

  “Thanks, good luck to you too! I’ll do my best.”

  Kayla had an eight foot spear, and no shield against Patrck’s club and spear. ‘I need to deflect the spear, especially if she is going to use Strength boosting. I’ll just use a little bit of Reaction boosting while defending, and once she attacks, use the shield to hold her spear out.’

  Kayla won the point on the first exchange, Patrick deflected her strike, but she was able to back-up, reset her spear into position, and then strike again before Patrick closed the distance.

  Getting ready for the next exchange Patrick thought, ‘ok, I will use a little Strength boosting when to move closer.’

  Patrick’s rapid dash forward allowed him to get the next point. The following exchange Kayla attempted to dash backwards but tripped. Patrick won the match on the fourth exchange when Kayla attempted to start with an attack and dash forward. Patrick’s Reaction boosting allowed him to side step and defend against the attack, followed by a counter attack.

  Kayla was frustrated, but said “Good match, you handled the shield well.”

  Patrick was proud of his strategy, but wanted to be a good sport, “Thanks, I feel like I had a couple of lucky breaks.”

  Three more matches and then it was Patrick’s turn again. The contest had started with ten recruits, so Patrick’s first one had been one of two extra to bring the number down to eight. His next match was against Toast; a nice fellow, but one of the weaker contestants. Patrick conserved his mana, skipping his boosting skills. He was able to goad Toast into swinging the spear like an oversized sword instead of thrusting, winning the match 3 to 0.

  The semi-final matches featured Maria versus Ace and Patrick versus Blaze. Ace had dominated his quarter-final match without using any obvious boosting. He was a training fanatic and Moose didn’t have a chance against him. Maria won her match against Zeus 3 to 2, with both of them boosting their Strength. Starting her match against Ace she looked tired. She made several quick attacks against Ace, but he used his own Strength boosting to dodge and then retaliate. As far as Patrick could tell Ace was only using Strength boosting, although he may have been using Reaction boosting at a low level. After the second exchange Maria couldn’t boost her Strength any longer and Ace quickly wrapped up the match 3 to 1.

  Like Patrick, Blaze wielded a shield and club in their semi-final match. Facing a short-range weapon, Patrick's plan was to solely use Reaction boosting at a low level, playing defense until he saw an opening. Patrick thought his skill level was similar to Blaze’s and he wanted to conserve his energy as much as possible for the final match. He wasn’t worried about the Strength boosting since they were both short range and were playing for points.

  By deflecting Blaze’s boosted strikes Patrick was able to put him off-balance and scored the first two points. Patrick fell for a feint in the third exchange, but then dashed in for a lightning strike in the fourth exchange.

  After a short break Patrick was back in the ring for the final match. As usual, Ace had the long spear and was pumped up for the fight. Patrick expected that he would have to dash in to close the distance, but knew that Ace would be expecting it. So he decided to play defense for the first couple of minutes and come up with a better plan after getting a feel for Ace’s strategy. That plan only lasted a few seconds, Ace immediately dashed in with a powerful thrust. Patrick managed to get his shield up, but it knocked him back 15 feet, clear out of the ring.

  ‘I barely saw that coming, he must be boosting both Reaction and Strength. Maybe I can dodge and run his boosts out.’ At the start of the next exchange Patrick led off with a dash to the left of Ace, but Ace was able to easily keep pace with Patrick. Ace made two feints and scored another point. Patrick was able to score on the next exchange by correctly guessing Ace’s opening attack and countering, but lost the match on the fourth exchange.

  “Good game Ace.”

  Ace: “Yeah, good try, you had a good hit there.”

  Patrick felt conflicted about the loss. He was disappointed that he lost against Ace, but proud of having come in second.

  ‘I did have an extra match that he didn’t have, so that was part of why he had more energy. He probably is more skilled, but that handicap cost me at least a point.’ The rationalization felt hollow, and he knew that he needed to work harder, but it was comforting right then. He wasn’t at the top yet, but he was one of the top ones. About two months until the first competition against the other schools. There were a lot of uncertainties about this new world, but personal power seemed to be the key to gaining some control over his life. Every day Patrick became more certain that becoming a Dragon Knight was his best option.

  —

  Soon the recruits gathered for a short meeting where the trainers recognized Ace as the overall winner of the day’s events and described the next day’s mission. They were going to start hunting medium sized monsters as a group. The recruits were dismissed and given their daily assessment sheets.

  Name: Patrick Pear

  Day: 7 -> 15

  Reaction: 0-2 -> 0-4

  Body: 0-2

  Strength: 0-5 -> 0-6

  Absorption: 0-6 -> 0-7

  Mana Pool: 1-1

  Power: 0-5 -> 0-6

  Skills:

  Spear: 0-5 -> 0-9

  Shield: n/a -> 0-6

  Fire: 0-3 -> 0-4

  Wind: 0-5 -> 0-6

  Water: 0-3 -> 0-4

  Earth: 0-2 -> 0-4

  Patrick was pleased to see that his Reaction boosting had improved. The competitions had challenged him, illustrating how boosting could be integrated into the weapon skills they had been learning. He found it slightly amusing that the trainers didn’t consider clubs worthy of assessing. To the trainers clubs were just a placeholder until the recruits could be taught swordsmanship.

  Tomorrow’s hunt sounded interesting, right now though Patrick was mainly interested in getting to his bunk and sleeping.