Rune mage

Chaoter 29: final exam

I was told to show up with the first group of mages. We all were.

The music mages, emotion mages, and others that were deemed important but unlikely to live through a proper fight.

I wasn't fighting this round. We all had to observe while these so called lesser mages used their magic to safe guard themselves.

I might have helped a few by activating runes close to them for strength or wellness and then deactivating it again before their attacker reached them.

No one had to be carried out. No one needed healers.

Though if anyone mistook this for a pleasant fight, the row of healers standing at the ready would change that.

The next round of fighting began the real fights. There were 127 final year students, and all of us were given a spot to start. It would be our starting spot for the next two days. Assuming of course we didn't get killed or so badly injured we could not continue. The final three left standing would be given top placements within the army. The rest could only hope for positions that showcased their magic. Everyone wanted to have a good showing so they didn't end up in some frozen wasteland or in the front line of a losing battle.

The audience consisted mostly of professors but also members of the army, the healers of course, and the students from earlier. The army members would decide who was placed where based on their observations of skill.

Everyone wanted to impress them.

I took off my boots.

It wasn't necessary but it would help me be as closely connected to my web design as possible. At the far end I saw Fredric. Not terribly far from him was Isa. Upon my web, their places were wonderfully empty. Their runes of protection made it so my web and magic treated them as not being there.

Everyone else was already feeding power to my web, and I had not even activated the active collection design. This was just lose power, emotions and spells openly expressed and waiting.

A bell rang and fights broke out. No one came near me.

It wasn't because they didn't want to. Evan and Henry both made a straight line towards me and both stepped back before they were within reach, their power noticeably less. I smiled fiercely at them.

I held no weapon.

I wore No armor, no boots, no shield.

My attackers all would look at me for a moment, then turn and attack others.

When I saw a blade headed for Isa's back, I directed my power to take from the attacker too cowardly to face her directly. He dropped.

When I saw someone else about to lose their fight from a deadly strike, I did the same to their attacker. If I could help it, no one would die.

I didn't interfere with balanced fights. Fredric was a monster and was ruthlessly taking out opponents with both magic and physical attacks.

But he never picked on someone whose skill didn't challenge him. Similar was Isa's tactics. It would look favorable to the army, that they fought smart rather than reckless.

It took a while, as the weaker fighters began to stop panicky and start thinking. But after a some time I had a lose ring of weaker fighters around me. I stopped pulling power from them, allowing them rest, while pulling more aggressively from others.

When the seventh student dropped with no sign as to how it was done, a man in the uniform of general stood and shouted, "Hold!"

The fighting paused.

"There is a mage who is attacking unseen. Who moves about this arena invisible?"

No one answered.

The general walked down from the audience and looked at the fallen students, each awake and aware and unharmed by their loss, but drained enough of power to be weak and unstable. Nothing deadly.

Because Steph had been right. If I killed them the army would kill me.

The general visited with all seven of the drained students.

"We will stop now for lunch, healing, and rest. Return in two hours."

Isa and Fredric met with me. Everyone else fled to other places. I didn't want to risk leaving the arena and getting ambushed, which I had heard of happening before.

"How are you managing this?" Fredric asked. "Everyone knows know your power is as low as it has ever been."

I raised a brow at him, then held out my hand. He grasped it and then sat down abruptly. To his credit he didn't say anything about what he felt.

Isa sat next next to him.

I sat. "Do you not want to eat?" I asked them.

They shook their head.

"When we break for the day, yes," Fredric said. He unhooked a canteen from his belt and drank. He offered it to me. I sniffed, and smelling only water, took a sip. I took more when he gestured me to do so, then passed the canteen to Isa.

"I saw what you did," Fredric said.

I tilted my head.

"Craig was about to put a sword in Isa's back. I could see it and do nothing about it, so far away we are located. Then Craig dropped."

"Huh," I said and left it at that.

For a while we spoke of inconsequential things, our topic more on gossip than anything else.

We were eventually called back to our places and the general walked out to speak with the group.

"Every student is accounted for, so there is no one fighting unseen. You may continue."

He left the dirt floor, pausing at the edge.

I watched him as he stepped back and forth off of the dirt.

Could he feel the difference between the area I had webs and not? It was possible.

Immediately, I felt an air attack and pulled the power to me, yanking without finesse. It wasn't possible to see all the students fighting, so I kept pulling until the attacker's power was nearly gone, then stopped.

And so it went. This round was much more about magical prowess, with students trying to show the audience how powerful their mage powers were. There was still physical fighting, but it was clear from the number of magic attacks I experienced that the students were focused on showing off mage skills.

I couldn't tell as easily when others were being attacked with magic, or more frustratingly where the attack was coming from. But I could absorb power, so I did that. I looked for those struggling and pulled power away from them. I couldn't tell the difference between attacker power and victim, so sometimes the victim was impacted.

Henry and Evan returned, trying their hand again at attacking me.

I felt a simultaneous air attack, stronger than before. This was an experienced mage, not a student. I shifted my feet to each touch a line of web design, unseen under the layers of dirt. And then I sent power through the web, pulling the attacking magic into the design so quickly that the attack snapped like a frayed rope.

In the audience, there was some gasps and a pair of healers moved to provide help.

Meanwhile Evan and Henry were caught in the web. If you looked just right you would see the bits of light that represented the sticky strands of web.

I let them stay there.

I was going to survive this test.