Chapters 104 - 116 (Revised) (Patreon)

It's been a long time since I last posted one of these, but yes, the revisions are still ongoing, I didn't quietly let them drop.  I only have the FTX left to revise at this point, and the handful of chapters right after it bridging Leon's time in the Academy and his time at Fort 127, plus a few other chapters later on that need to be brought in line with the changes made so far, and a rewritten clash between Jason Keraunos and the Grave Warden.

In other words, I'm not exactly *almost* done, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  And what a long tunnel it's been so far.  Embarrassingly long.  Honestly, this shouldn't have taken as long as it has, and that's a source of great shame and embarrassment for me.  I'm hoping to have these revisions finally done within the next month or two and then I can finally sit back and relax for a little while, content in what has been done, before I start revising the first 30-40 chaps.

I'm not going to go on for too long about the changes made to these chapters; suffice it to say, cuts were the name of the game.  Many of the things cut were fairly important (to Gaius, especially) but the information revealed within them is being moved to those few chapters directly following the FTX.  For now, I thought it best to just slim the arc down as much as I could, cut as much fat as I could find.

I hope you enjoy what's been done, and as always, be sure to leave a comment if you notice anything wrong!  I'll get it fixed as soon as I possibly can!  These revisions have taken long enough and I'm so in my own head about them that I'm not 100% certain they flow well, so I'm leaning on all of you a bit to make sure that all of this isn't just a massive dumpster fire.  If you see something iffy, please sound off down below!

=)

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Chapters 104 - 106, Enemy in Plain Sight

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After Marcus’ ambush, the Snow Lions changed their policies a little. They had made it through the event without suffering any casualties, but Castor thought that it would be better to be safe than sorry and stopped allowing those few second-tier mages who were still going to class to continue. They’d stay at camp in the gorge and train.

Leon was another story, though. Castor had absolute faith in his abilities in the forest, so he didn’t attempt to restrict Leon’s freedom. And, perhaps it was also because Castor realized that Leon probably wouldn’t listen to him anyway if he did try to stop him from going to his enchantment classes.

Regardless, no other unit would be able to repeat what Marcus had attempted, to catch a small group of Snow Lions out in the open far away from any reinforcements and try to force the location of the rest of the unit out of them. In fact, he thought it was fortunate that Marcus had made his ambush attempt so needlessly complicated; if he and the other five third-tier mages had simply attacked the group in the forest rather than trying to lure Leon into an ambush, they probably would have succeeded in capturing most of them.

Leon was happy with the new policy, as it freed him from having to worry about the group on the way back to the camp. Plus, both Castor and Alphonsus started accompanying him to fetch the daily supplies from where the Academy staff left them in their tower, just in case anyone tried to ambush them in the mornings or evenings.

So, Leon went to class the very next day after the ambush. When he walked through the door of the enchantment classroom, Valeria was sitting at their table in the back and looked a little surprised at his appearance.

Leon walked right over to his seat and sat down, a subtle smile tugging at the corners of his lips. The two sat in silence about a minute before Valeria’s curiosity got the best of her stoicism.

“So, how did you pull off that counter-attack?” she asked.

Leon’s smile grew. He rarely allowed himself to indulge in bragging, but this time, he reallywanted to. “That trail I left was deliberate. I doubled back and got reinforcements while you all were following it,” Leon responded.

“But how did you find us in that maze?  Were you leading us on then as well?”

“Didn’t have to. I figured you four wouldn’t stop in the face of some mountains after chasing me so far, so I doubled back at the entrance to the maze.”

“But what about finding us? We didn’t see that much, yet I got the impression that the maze was quite extensive…”

“It very much is, but my unit was able to find a way to the top. Running along the top of the cliffs made locating your party a piece of cake.”

“Hmm,” Valeria said, amusedly grinning at Leon. “Well, you no longer have to worry about me or Asiya. We won’t be participating in something like that again. At least, not until the FTX…”

“That sounds fairly ominous,” Leon observed. “Aren’t you concerned that we’ll retaliate?”

Valeria leaned forward, her grin sharpening. “You’re welcome to try,” she whispered challengingly, and Leon immediately wished that they were still taking Basic Combat classes. He wanted to fight Valeria again. At the very least, he began to seriously consider trying to convince Castor to make a play against the Crimson Tigresses, just for an excuse to pit himself against her. He didn’t think he could just let this invitation go unanswered…

Leon ended up chatting with Valeria until the enchantment instructor arrived and began class. The two went quiet as they focused on their lessons, but soon enough, they were given some free time to work on their skills in writing the runes.

“Hey,” Valeria began as the class split off into their usual cliques, “I’d like to ask you something.”

“Go for it,” Leon said, turning his attention to her while he finished drawing one nearly-perfect rune.

“I…” she said, her cheeks slightly reddening. “Would it be alright if I called you a friend?”

Leon was completely taken aback. They had fought more than a dozen times, so they knew each other well enough from a certain perspective, but they’d rarely spoken more than a few sentences at a time to each other since. Still, he certainly liked her well enough.

“… Sure,” Leon replied after a moment of thought. Valeria’s face, normally so impassive that it could’ve been carved from marble, immediately lit up with a breathtaking smile.

“Friends it is!” she beamed.

Leon, too, started grinning like an idiot once what he had just said sank in. There weren’t many people he would consider friends, and he felt good saying that Valeria was one of them.

“So then, as friends, how about we spar again?” Valeria asked with shining eyes.

Without hesitation, Leon responded, “Sure!”

“Then how about this weekend, Asiya and I are going to her family’s estate in the city where they have a private training arena. How about we meet up on the training field on Saturday and head over there in the morning?”

Leon felt like his Ancestors were answering his silent prayers, there was no way he could say no even if he wanted to. To spar with Valeria was one of the few things he’d enjoyed unashamedly since coming south. The two made a few more plans about when and where to meet on Saturday morning, then, when the class ended, went their separate ways.

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When Leon returned to the Snow Lions’ camp, he was greeted by Castor and a large group of Snow Lions ready to venture out and fight if anyone tried another ambush.

But there wasn’t another ambush; Leon made it back without incident. Castor and Leon spoke a few words of greeting and went back inside the caves for a meeting. They had to decide where to hold the next morning’s training, to continue their campaign to learn everything they could about the terrain of the Knight Academy.

Everyone else was split off for individual training. The first-tier trainees meditated and the second-tier trainees practiced their archery or sparred amongst each other. However, there was one man who wasn’t training: Alphonsus.

Alphonsus had barely filled his role as one of the men in charge of the Snow Lions since the training cycle began. It had gotten to the point that there wasn’t a single trainee that wasn’t already loyal to his family that took him even the slightest bit seriously. Most of the time, he was ignored except for the few unlucky individuals who were assigned to his squad for morning training.

When Leon came back to the camp and met up with Castor, Alphonsus was in his room wishing he could swap the stone slab he had to sleep on for a real bed. His back ached and the humid chill made his skin crawl. For the more than three months they had been there, Alphonsus had barely been able to sleep. Try as he might, finding any comfort in the caves was impossible for the young nobleman.

But Castor, his long-time friend, had repeatedly told him that there were no plans to return to the tower. After a while, Alphonsus had stopped asking and secluded himself where he didn’t have to pretend to be happy with the living arrangements. However, even this wasn’t enough for him. At the same time as Leon and Castor were debating where next to train, Alphonsus walked out of his room into the adjacent cavern, which had been used as the third-tier trainee’s meeting room.

“Al!” said a surprised yet happy Castor, a smile appearing on his face due to his friend finally showing himself. “I didn’t expect to see you!”

Alphonsus took a seat on one of the three stone stools around their stone table, though he tried to touch as little of the slightly damp stone as he could.

“What’s up, my friend?” Castor asked.

“… I was thinking,” Alphonsus began, “we should return to our tower.”

Castor’s smile flickered, but he managed to keep it up. He didn’t say a word, letting Alphonsus speak without interruption.

“I think it would not only boost morale to sleep in proper beds again, but we’d be able to participate in the inter-unit battles. Such participation is expected of us, but instead we hide out here in the mountains like rats. I want us to return to the tower, as a challenge to any who might wish to fight. I want us to be propertrainees of the Academy, rather than a unit that isolates itself from the troubles of its world.”

“You… make some fair points,” Castor said once he was sure that Alphonsus was finished. “Indeed, the inter-unit battles are a large part of the training we receive in the Academy, and I agree that we can’t truly be a part of them if we are this far removed.”

“Not like we can’t have this place as a secret refuge if need be,” added Leon, to Alphonsus’ shock and quiet appreciation.

“Then it’s agreed? We can return to the tower?” Alphonsus asked, hardly believing his brief venting of frustrations actually achieved his goal.

“Yes, I think it’s about time. I was actually considering it, myself,” said Castor.

“I’m fine with it. Would be nice to sleep in a good bed again,” Leon softly muttered just loud enough for the other two to hear.

“Then it’s unanimous! We’ll return to the tower!” Castor nearly shouted. Alphonsus couldn’t believe his ears, but his mouth curved into an enormous smile anyway.

“But first,” Castor continued, dampening Alphonsus’ joy a little, “we should have a conversation about how and exactly when we should move. Probably not tomorrow, but maybe Saturday or Sunday…”

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It was with both boiling excitement and deep apprehension that Leon awoke the morning that he was to meet with Valeria and Asiya. He wasn’t quite sure how the day was going to go, he was afraid that he’d make an absolute fool of himself, but he was looking forward to the day regardless.

[So eager, are you?] Xaphan teased as Leon got himself ready for the day.

Leon paused, sensing that Xaphan was about to try and undercut his excitement. [Don’t ruin this for me, demon,] he silently growled.

[All I’m saying is that that redhead might have a little something to say about you going off with these ladies, I’d be a little more circumspect if I were you…]

[What would you know about it?] Leon countered. [I’m not going to try and sleep with either Valeria or Asiya, they’re just friends. Besides, they’re her friends, too, and I can’t imagine that Elise would be upset if I were to spend some time with them. What’s more, demon, why should I listen to you about human affairs?]

[All right, all right little fuckboy, no need to try and shove yourself down my throat.]

[I’m glad you’re giving me permission not to do so,] Leon quipped. [There’re few things I want to do less than get anywhere near your throat.]

[You have nothing to worry about, I doubt you’re even long enough…]

Leon tensed for a long moment, needing to summon a titanic amount of mental strength not to try and figure out a way he could strangle his demonic partner right that very second. But summon that strength he did, and it was in silence that he finished getting ready, neither him nor Xaphan saying anything more.

As soon as the Senior Instructor dismissed them, Leon wasted no time saying goodbye to his friends and jogging through the mountains and forest to meet up with Valeria and Asiya.

Both were already waiting for Leon right where Valeria said they were going to be, at the training field where the road that led to their tower began. And as soon as he saw them, any lingering anger, frustration, and resentment at his partner faded in the light of their welcome.

“Hey there! Good to see ya!” shouted Asiya in her usual chipper attitude, accompanied by an energetic wave. Valeria didn’t greet Leon out loud, but she faintly smiled and nodded to him.

Leon silently responded with a wave and nod of his own, and like that, they were off to the city with barely a second wasted. Leon credited Asiya the most for that, because he sure as hells didn’t know what to say after the terse greeting, but Asiya practically attached herself to his and Valeria’s arms and almost dragged them toward the city, bubbling the whole way.

“Ooooh this is going to be sooo much fun! I’m so happy you’re coming with us!” Asiya exclaimed.

“Uh… Thanks for inviting me. I’m looking forward to some friendly training, myself,” Leon said, responding with as much politeness as he could muster.

“Drop that formality! We’re all friends here, right?” Asiya said with a look of mock indignation.

“We are…” Leon murmured as an embarrassed smile slowly crept across his face in complete disregard for his attempts to restrain it. Somehow, even though he’d said the exact same thing to Valeria not too long ago, it was harder to repeat it to Asiya.

‘Probably because she’s just so upfront and in-your-face about it…’ Leon thought, but he could appreciate the ice-breaking.

“Good! Now, since we’re friends, maybe you could answer a question of mine?” Asiya asked, her eyes narrowing mischievously.

“… Go for it.” Leon hesitantly said.

Asiya’s expression turned sly and her eyes darted to Valeria before continuing with her question. “I think you know a friend of ours: Elise, the daughter of the Heaven’s Eye Tower Lord here in the capital. I was wondering what your relationship is with her?”

Valeria instinctively turned to look at Leon, but she just as quickly looked away.

“I… We… Um…” was all he was able to get out for a few seconds, unprepared as he was for such a blunt question. After Asiya continued to stare at him he realized that there was no getting out of offering at least some kind of answer, so he took a deep breath both to steady his own elevated heart rate and to find his tongue.

When he was ready to speak, he looked Asiya dead in the eyes and said completely honestly, “I don’t really know what we are. We haven’t met that many times, and neither have we really clarified between us. However, I like her. And I’m… reasonably certain that she likes me as well.”

[Only ‘reasonably’?] Xaphan asked rhetorically.

Asiya remained silent for a moment after Leon said his piece, the sly look not leaving her face.

“I see, you and Elise like each other but aren’t actually going out yet…” she finally said. “Well, that’s good to know!”

After all that was said, she changed the subject to the classes they were all taking. She had chosen dancing as her elective, and she had quite the passion for it.

Leon and Valeria were largely silent while she talked, but after some frustration, she was able to get them to loosen up and talk a bit by bringing up how Leon managed to escape from Marcus’ ambush.

About half an hour after leaving the Knight Academy, they arrived at the estate of the Samarid family in the central districts of the capital. Out of the myriad palaces in the capital, the one built by Asiya’s parents was one of the most eye-catching, if only due to its radically different architectural style and building materials.

Most of the Samar Kingdom was covered by a harsh, sandy desert. It lacked the stone quarries and vast forests of many of their neighbors, which meant they had to build with the only material they had in abundance: sand. The common people lived in and occupied buildings of tan sandstone, but the rich and noble lived in sprawling palaces made of shimmering black glass, made by melting the sand into huge blocks. The glass imported by Asiya’s parents was of the highest quality, with an uneven surface designed to appear like rippling liquid in the light.

Leon didn’t get that good of a look at the inside of the estate as the group immediately made for a separate building which Asiya told him was their dedicated training gym. Within were a wide variety of weights and training weapons arranged around the walls, with a large open space in the center for sparing. Additionally, Leon was able to sense that the magic density in the air increased by roughly half thanks to enchantments in the walls and floor.

“This is where you two are going to have get down and dirty,” Asiya said with a suggestive wink.

Leon frowned a little at her phrasing and ignored her provocation. “Are you not going to join us?” he asked.

“Oh! No I won’t. I prefer to watch…” she responded, giving him an odd smile.

Valeria wasted little time with words and immediately took a glaive from the racks on the wall.  After glancing once more at Asiya, Leon followed suit, a smile blooming on his face as he set aside his family’s sword that was nearly always at his hip and took a training sword of about the same size from the racks. As he took a position in the center of the padded sparring ring about five steps from Valeria, Asiya took a seat a few steps from the edge of the ring to eagerly watch.

Without warning, Valeria lunged forward, bringing her glaive down in a powerful overhead strike. Leon nimbly dodged with a quick side-step and answered her with a horizontal slash at the side of her ribs. Almost faster than he could see, the end of her glaive appeared just in time to block his blade, the clang from the collision of the two weapons echoing throughout the gym.

Neither took a single moment for breath. Valeria pulled the end of her glaive inward, slashing the blade of her weapon out at one of Leon’s legs. Leon just barely managed to lift the leg in time to avoid falling on his ass and used it to take a step forward, increasing the pressure he was putting on Valeria’s glaive. But, Valeria took a step back and spun on her back foot, deflecting Leon’s blade into the air and gaining some distance.

Leon had no intention of letting her keep that distance, so he lunged forward, stabbing at one of her shoulders. Valeria responded by stabbing towards him in kind, trusting that her longer weapon would reach him first. Leon, thinking that her assumption was correct, changed the direction of his lunge as best he could to deflect her counter.

Their duel proceeded like this for about ten more minutes, with each constantly trading blows and neither achieving any sort of advantage for more than the space of a single attack. Their duel ended in yet another draw, with each landing hits that paralyzed the other’s primary arms at the same time, bringing the fight to an inconclusive ending.

Still, Leon and Valeria both left the ring with big smiles on their faces—and covered in sweat and with a few fresh bruises starting to appear.

“That was amazing!” admired Asiya. “Where did you learn to fight like that, Leon?”

“My father taught me,” Leon answered.

“Ohhh, he must be an incredible warrior if he raised you to be so strong!”

“He… was.”

Asiya seemed to pick up on Leon’s implication, and she diplomatically changed subjects, and led them onward to her private wing of the glass palace.

Along the way, she encouraged Leon to talk more than he typically did, asking him a few questions about the Northern Vales that he did his best to answer.  Leon got into the conversation as much as he could, but he was constantly aware of the fact that Valeria wasn’t participating nearly as much in their conversation as even he was, let alone Asiya.

“… and I feel like I’ve been talking for so long!” Asiya exclaimed as she collapsed into an armchair in her central living room.

All around them, the glass walls rippled with light, the enchantments and natural properties of the material bringing in light from the outside and dying the walls in vibrant colors. The hallways leading to Asiya’s private wing had glowed a deep sea green, but the walls in Asiya’s chambers were a bright red that darkened as it reached the ceiling, giving the impression of soft, indirect light shining on her walls.

Her furniture was more in the style of the Bull Kingdom, though, but without marble and white stone, it looked just a little out of place within.

As Leon and Valeria each took seats on lounges around a central table with Asiya, she gave them both slightly reproachful looks. “Sooo, Leon, do you have any questions for us? You have tow beautiful girls here with you, surely there’s something you want to ask us about?”

Leon wasn’t quite sure what she might be implying, but he did have some questions for them. “I suppose that are some things that I’m curious about,” he admitted. “You’re foreign to this land, aren’t you, Asiya?”

“Yes, I am,” Asiya replied. “Looking for some kinship with a fellow ‘marked’ foreigner?”

Leon shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. In truth, he was just curious, and felt like talking about Asiya first would make talking to Valeria a little easier, even though the silver-haired girl had barely spoken more than a few words following their duel, though she was clearly paying close attention to the conversation.

“Well,” Asiya began, “as my name might imply, I’m from the Samar Kingdom.”

“Samar, Samarid?” Leon said. As far as he knew, Samarid wasn’t just her name, it was also the word that the people native to the Samar Kingdom used for themselves.

“Yep!” Asiya confirmed. “Names up here are important, only select people get more than one: nobles and foreigners…”

Leon nodded, understanding that idea quite well. Commoners all received one name only, while nobles and foreigners all had two. For nobles, those second names identified their families, while for foreigners, it identified their place of origin. Some nobles also received third names between their given and family names if they were named after ancestors, and if those ancestors were still alive, the nobles were typically known by those third names. Foreigners, on the other hand, were typically given names that reflected their place of origin, such as Leon’s ‘Ursus’ and Asiya’s ‘Samarid’.

It was a remarkably simple system, and one that was specifically designed so that everyone knew exactly what class someone belonged to just from their name alone.

“It’s a bit aggravating,” Valeria whispered. “Some people can get weird about it, and think that they’re doing you a favor if they deign to speak with you…”

Leon frowned, thinking that she was talking about someone specific. ‘Gaius, maybe?’ he wondered, but he didn’t speculate aloud, letting her choose whether or not to clarify these things. However, it seemed that she wasn’t of a mind to do so, and remained rather quiet.

“Are you foreign?” Leon asked her after that moment of silence. He’d thought that she was a Bull Kingdom native—she certainly had the same general skin tone as others around the Kingdom, but now that he was thinking about it, he didn’t recall ever seeing anyone but aged elders with silver hair since coming south.

“I am,” Valeria replied. “My father moved our entire family from our home in Isynos, far to the southeast…”

Valeria continued to explain her family’s short history, but Leon had stopped paying attention at ‘Isynos’.

‘… Isynos?’ he thought to himself in stunned disbelief as his blood ran cold and his heart jumped into his throat. ‘If she’s from Isynos, does that mean she’s connected to Adrianos Isynos?’

Leon tuned back into the conversation a second or two after Valeria stopped talking, and it appeared that his attitude had been noticed because both ladies were staring at him with curious expressions.

“… Sorry, my mind went somewhere else for a moment,” Leon said, trying to play it off as lightly as he could, but Asiya and Valeria continued to look at him strangely. Realizing that he couldn’t get out of this without giving some kind of explanation for his sudden behavior, he took several painfully long seconds to compose himself, to banish as much of the anger and grief that was welling up from within as he could and regain a more neutral expression. He considered himself only partially successful, but he moved on anyway, asking Valeria, “You said you’re from a place called Isynos… did your family have to take that name like Asiya’s did with Samar?”

“Yes, we had to,” Valeria answered with an inquiring tone, not saying the words but asking all the same why Leon was curious about her name.

Responding to that unspoken question, Leon steadied himself and said, “When I was back in the Vales, I ran into someone with that name. A man named Adrianos…”

As he finished his explanation, he subtly held his breath, hoping that this was just a coincidence, that Valeria, someone he’d just recently confirmed was a friend, and for whom he held feelings that he didn’t quite understand, wasn’t connected to those who’d murdered his father. He didn’t know how he could take that. He didn’t want Valeria as his enemy, he wanted as his friend, and maybe…

‘Just my friend,’ he declared to himself as he fixed Valeria in his golden gaze, waiting for her response.

“Oh?” Valeria replied a moment later. “You knew Adrianos? He came with my family to this Kingdom. He eventually left our service and signed on with the Paladin Roland, though…”

Leon’s heart sank into his feet, his fears confirmed. He had to fight to hold back his scowl, and his cheeks felt like they were burning. His heart raced, his arms and legs almost shivered from the adrenaline coursing through his veins, and all he could think of was that he had to get the hells out of here.

He felt like his world was about to crash in around him, and he needed time to deal with this. Valeria, a woman he’d been growing close to over the past few months, was affiliated with his enemies.

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Chapter 107 - Return of the Snow Lions

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Leon was in utter shock as he got away from Asiya’s estate as fast as he could without drawing attention. As he walked through the streets of the capital, he alternated between moments of shocked numbness, to anger, to abject sorrow, and back again. He didn’t know how he should feel, and his body was giving him no clues, either. Adrenaline continued to pump through his body, causing his limbs to feel jittery and weak, and his mind was clouded and unable to focus.

Ever since he’d come to the Knight Academy, he’d been sparring with Valeria. At this point, she was one of the people he most respected and liked in the whole Academy, but now…

Now, he knew that she was in some fashion related to the man who’d led the assassins to his home in the Northern Vales. She’d been right there in front of him for months, and he’d been unknowingly growing closer and closer to her.

He didn’t know what to do. Once he returned to the Knight Academy, he didn’t immediately return to the gorge even though the Snow Lions were preparing to return to their tower, but instead wandered the forest. His composure was gone, and he was sure that the excuses he’d made to get out of Asiya and Valeria’s presence had left them feeling insulted and suspicious. He couldn’t help it, though, and he wandered the forest trying and failing to regain some semblance of his usual stoicism. After an hour of fruitless wandering, he just found a secluded grove in the western hills where he wouldn’t be found and sat down in the shade, trying to work through his feelings.

He didn’t get far before the sun started to set, though he at least managed to calm down. So, with some apprehension, he finally started making his way back to the gorge.

As for the revelation about Valeria, he wasn’t sure what he should do about it—or even what he could do about it. For the moment, at least, he made his peace with not doing anything. But once he had the means and the will to start looking into his father’s killers, he now knew where to start.

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When Leon returned to the gorge, he found that both Castor and Alphonsus had stayed behind instead of heading into the city for the weekend, as did about two dozen Snow Lions. They had taken the day to pack up much of what they needed to bring back to the tower, while also making sure to lock up the caves as tightly as they could so they could be used again if the need arose.

Leon, feeling quite grateful for the opportunity to occupy his mind with something other than Valeria, jumped at the chance to help out, mostly by using what he had learned in the enchantment classes to help seal up the other entrances to the cave system. First, rocks and wood boards were used to block the entrances, then Leon carved enchantments into the boards that were similar to those used to fortify Legion camps and bases. When he was done, it should take any other unit several hours to open one of the cave entrances, but the Snow Lions would be able to do it in minutes.

Later that evening, the entire unit started to ferry some of their things back to the tower after returning from the city, with all one hundred and four Snow Lions heading back to their tower for dinner, rather than Leon leading a group to pick up the delivered food and bring it back to the gorge. They were accompanied by their Instructors, who spoke a little about what they ought to expect during the following weeks.

After all, Small Unit Tactics was over, and it was time to move on to one of if not the single most important class on the Knight Academy’s schedule: Heavy Infantry Training. This class was longer than the three-month Small Unit Tactics, coming in at just over four months. For the first week, the trainees would receive classes that taught basic unit formations, the flag signals, magical flares, whistles, and other such signals used in battle, as well as get issued their final piece of training gear: their shields.

After that, most of the rest of the four months would be spent out on the training field, practicing forming up and moving as an entire unit. There would also be other classes that would teach the trainees exactly what they would have to do if they were in larger units than a one-hundred-man company, but the time on the training field would take up the lion’s share of the time allotted to Heavy Infantry Training.

Following Heavy Infantry Training, there would be another month of classes dealing with the myriad creatures and monsters they might be deployed to hunt and fight—almost exclusively vampires, werewolves, and stone giants since practically all the rest of the dangerous creatures that once called the Bull Kingdom home had long been exterminated.

After the Senior Instructor finished laying out a road map that covered the majority of their remaining time in the Knight Academy, he left the Snow Lions to their business—that business beingto finish the move back into their tower.

First, Castor ensured that both of their banners went into the ground floor shrine and were properly secured. It took him and a couple other second-tier nobles almost an hour to figure out the various mechanisms that locked the banners in place, but figure it out they did. No one was going to allow themselves to get complacent and leave an opening for a rival unit to steal their banner again.

Second, Alphonsus made sure the front door was as secured as it could be. It was boring work, simply testing the various locks that would buy the Snow Lions the time they needed to get armed and armored in the event of an attack, but Alphonsus took to this duty with an enormous smile on his face. It didn’t matter to him what his job was, he was just happy to be back in the tower and out of the dark dank cave he had been forced to sleep in for the past three months.

Lastly, Leon took charge of the nightly combat training that the third-tier trainees made the rest of the unit take part in. He had them focus on simple motions repeated ad nauseum to build up the first-tier trainees’ combat muscles. This would not only help them become stronger fighters but also aid them in their ascension to the second-tier, something which five more Snow Lions had accomplished since their first trainee had ascended several months before.

The next morning, the Snow Lions woke up after having one the best nights of sleep in their entire lives. Their happiness at coming back to soft, warm beds after resting their heads in a cave for months was truly profound. They were so motivated from the night’s rest that they finished moving the last of their things out of the cave by lunch, none of them having gone into the capital for the day.

The following week’s classes were taught by the Senior Instructor in the first-tier common room rather than with the rest of the training cycle’s units. He drew crude diagrams on large sheets of paper for the entire unit to see showing exactly where they had to be and what they had to do when in formation and had the other Instructors demonstrating the signals they needed to memorize to move properly on the battlefield.

The most basic formation that the Senior Instructor focused on was a layered shield wall, with five rows of two squads—twenty men—each. This formation could be modified on the fly for more depth or width, but the Instructors wanted the trainees to get the basics down first before they started letting them modify their formations, so they stuck with the basics for that first week.

In the center of the first row was the Centurion who commanded the company and one of their Prefects; in the Snow Lions’ case, this was Castor as Centurion and Leon as the accompanying Prefect. The rest of the first row was made up of their personal squads, with the second-tier members posted on the flanks of the formation.

The other eight squads of the company made up the next four rows, with the squad commanders taking the flanks and their other second-tier mages directly behind the Centurion and leading Prefect. The second Prefect—Alphonsus for the Snow Lions—was in the last row, keeping an eye on the formation and making sure no one ran away while the other Prefect and the Centurion were leading the company into battle. As most other units had four third-tier trainees, they would have one more Prefect in the last row as well.

In a normal company, the Centurion would be of the fourth-tier, but that wasn’t much of an option for the ten training units in the Knight Academy, which was why it was up to the third-tier trainees to decide amongst themselves who would lead their respective units.

The Snow Lions’ Instructors almost literally drilled this information into their skulls, while Leon, Castor, and Alphonsus arranged where each individual squad would be in the formation. By the next weekend, every Snow Lion knew exactly where they had to be when in their standard company formation.

While these classes were being taught, the Snow Lions continued to have their food delivered to their tower instead of going to the dining hall. Consequently, none of the other units had any idea that they had returned, given that they had long since stopped watching the Snow Lions’ tower.

And so, when the other nine units gathered on the training field the following Monday to begin practical training, nearly all of them were frozen in shock when the Snow Lions came running out from the forest, Aemilius proudly waving both of their banners in front of the unit as they arrived on the field. After a few seconds, the others recovered enough to not simply stand slack-jawedat the unexpected development, but none had a stronger reaction than the Deathbringers. Many of the more hot-blooded first-tier trainees struggled to stay with the unit and not charge the Snow Lions. Fortunately, the second-tier trainees had far more self-control and kept them in line.

“They’re back?” Linus asked rhetorically.

“We can get out banner back! Let’s g—" started Actaeon, but he was silenced by a rebuke from Gaius.

“Not here,” he growled. “Save it for later, when there’s better opportunity.”

“But we still lack a banner! If we can seize ours again…” Actaeon tried to argue, but when Gaius glanced over at him, he stopped talking and left his argument unfinished. It was clear enough that Gaius had made his decision, and he wasn’t going to change it.

“Not like we can do anything now,” added Linus as the Snow Lions placed their banners on the wooden platform that held the other eight banners. The units weren’t allowed to seize banners if they were on that platform. This was a strictly enforced rule, as the Instructors wanted everyone’s minds focused on training rather than on stealing banners when they were on the training field.

“Later then…” muttered Actaeon as he stole another glance at the Deathbringers’ banner, waving just below the Snow Lions’ own.

The other units weren’t so in need of restraint as they didn’t share the Deathbringers’ recent history with the Snow Lions. The most ‘antagonistic’ unit apart from Gaius’ was Marcus’, and that was simply due to the ambush he had tried to spring on Leon. Given that it didn’t work and they hadn’t tried again, the relationship between the units remained largely unchanged, with none of the leaders of either unit harboring bad feelings about the other.

As a matter of fact, the opposite was true. Marcus had had absolute confidence in his ambush plan, and when Leon not only escaped but managed to turn the tables on him, he felt an enormous amount of respect blossom for the other man. So when the Snow Lions appeared out of the trees, Marcus smiled wide, greatly anticipating testing himself again against an opponent who had beaten him once before.

His reaction was mirrored in slightly different ways in both Alcander and Valeria, with both smiling but the former reaching for his weapon while the latter merely reverted back to her normal cold and emotionless exterior barely a second after the smile appeared.

“Hey, he’s baaack,” Asiya said, nudging her silver-haired friend with her elbow, being not satisfied seeing only a tiny smile on Valeria’s face.

“I-I can see that!” Valeria said, her slight stutter the only sign that her haughty and unconcerned tone wasn’t nearly as honest as it seemed.

For all the shock their return brought, though, the Snow Lions were remarkably calm, only taking a spot slightly apart from the others to wait for their morning training to begin. Though to say they were calm would be to remark solely on their outer appearance; many Snow Lions were relishing being the center of attention, though Castor, Leon, and Alphonsus had all given them incredibly strict orders to maintain their composure. They wanted to make a good impression, after all.

---

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Chapters 108 - 110, The Arena

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The Snow Lions made one hell of an impression upon their unexpected appearance, but not even five minutes after they placed their banners upon the banner platform, perhaps the only thing that could distract the rest of the trainees from the new arrivals happened: their issued shields arrived.

From the Administration Building came forty horse-drawn carts on air plates—wooden tablets with robust, high-quality air enchantments that lifted the carts about three or four feet into the air, making them trivial for the horses to pull. These air plates were a similar concept to the air rune that Artorias had carved into his fur sled, but far more refined.

Within the carts were the shields the trainees were waiting for, the final piece of standard equipment that every person in the Royal Legions was issued. Unlike the defective enchantment-less armor they had received earlier in the cycle that wouldn’t stop a battle-ready weapon and barely did the job blocking their training weapons, these shields were the real deal. The shields were rectangular and long enough to cover an average man from shoulder to knee and wide enough to slightly curve around the body. They were primarily made of thick wood planks, but their front was a quarter inch layer of steel and painted a deep crimson.

On the inside of every shield was an enchantment carved with an ingenious fractal pattern that made the shield both sturdy and reliable. The shield’s true strength, however, was shown when used in conjunction with other shields. The fractal enchantments carved into them would connect with and amplify each other, turning even the smallest Legion unit into a mobile fortress once they had gotten into a shield wall.

The issued armor for the Royal Legions was strong but not of unusual quality for a nation as powerful as the Bull Kingdom. Similarly, their weapons and even cavalry weren’t anything special. But with these shields, no one in the Legion would ever stand alone, linked as they were through their shield’s enchantments. It would not be hyperbole to say that the Bull Kingdom had been built upon the strength of these shields.

When Leon was passed his shield, he found himself captivated by the enchantment, to the point of completely ignoring everything else around him. It took a nudge from Castor to bring Leon back to reality and follow the rest of the unit to their practice area.

“Take this. You reviewed the calls for each formation, right?” asked the Senior Instructor to Castor after handing him a whistle.

“Yes, Sir,” Castor answered.

“Good. Then let’s get started. Form everyone up into a standard battle line.”

Castor immediately whistled three times in quick succession, causing the Snow Lions to spring into action. There was a little confusion as the trainees weren’t used to handling their brand-new shields, but they got into their lines in short order. Castor and Leon were in their place at the front and Alphonsus watched the back. None of them had to say anything to the trainees as they had done some informal practice the week before to make sure the unit could form up at a moment’s notice.

“Keep going!” shouted the Senior Instructor once the Snow Lions had gotten into place.

Castor whistled again, this time two short blasts and one long blast.

“Shields up!” shouted Leon and Alphonsus in response. The entire unit raised their shields forming a long shield wall. With their enchantments helping to stabilize them, even the weaker first-tier mages appeared formidable despite the weight of their shields.

But appearances can be deceiving. The Senior Instructor made a subtle hand gesture behind him and the two other Instructors sprinted forward and threw themselves against the points where the shield wall was weakest: right in the middle of the first-tier trainees on the front line. They grabbed, kicked, and shoved at the shield wall, even ripping the shield away from a few overwhelmed first-tier trainees, utterly shattering the formation.

“That was a miserable showing!” shouted the Senior Instructor. “Get yourselves back into formation!”

Castor immediately blew his whistle three times again, with both Leon and Alphonsus shouting at the Snow Lions to get back into their shield wall.

“Brace yourselves this time!” Leon added.

“Make sure to channel your magic into your shields! Let the enchantments connect and overlap with the shields to your right and left!” Alphonsus shouted further.

It took the Snow Lions a few seconds to get back into formation, but the Instructors didn’t give them the time they needed to solidify their position. They charged again at the shield wall before every shield enchantment had been activated, causing the formation to crumble again.

“These are only twomen! They may be fourth-tier mages, but your shields should be able to resist their charge with ease if you form up properly!” The Senior Instructor made a great show of scowling at the Snow Lions picking themselves up off the ground. “Again!” he shouted as the other two Instructors pulled back.

“Get back on your feet!” Leon shouted. Alphonsus and Castor added their voices to his, which along with a few whistles from Castor, galvanized the Snow Lions into getting back to their feet and into their formation.

And they just barely got back into line when the Instructors charged again, throwing themselves against the shield wall and knocking back the Snow Lions who tried to hold firm. It didn’t matter that the line was five men deep, it still broke apart with almost a dozen Snow Lions on each side falling to the ground like dominos.

This pattern repeated itself another half dozen times, with the Snow Lions failing to hold their shield wall. That being said, they managed to reform quicker every time. Leon could see that while that as important, not breaking formation at all was the far better outcome.

So, he was happy to see that after having had their fun with the inexperienced Snow Lions, the Instructors stopped gleefully tearing apart their formation and started to instruct their trainees in the proper stances for those in the back to support those at the front, and to allow their shield enchantments to connect with each other.

When the time for morning training was over, the Snow Lions joined the other units in the dining hall for lunch. Afterward, though, they returned to the training field to continue practicing forming and moving in the shield wall. Leon was the only exception, as he refused to miss a single enchantment class even though it left the Snow Lions down a third-tier trainee. They were able to compensate by having Leon’s spot taken by Obellius, one of the unit’s more promising second-tier trainees and de facto second in command for Leon’s squad.

A few hours later, Leon returned from his enchantment class and took his position again, which was also the same time that the Instructors once more took to shattering the Snow Lions’ formation after having given them some time to fix their problems. Of course, that one day of practice wasn’t enough and the Instructors had little trouble getting through the shield wall, but there had been some noticeable improvement.

By the end of the week, the Instructors found that it was much harder to break through the Snow Lions’ formation than it had been. Those five days of hard training had clearly not been wasted on the Lions, as they had become proficient enough to maintain their formation even in the face of the fourth-tier Instructors. This stood in stark contrast to the rest of the units, as without the same amount of time spent training, they struggled to do the same.

In the following weeks, the Instructors had them incorporate their fighting techniques into this training as well, mostly consisting of shield bashes and stabbing with their arming swords. Leon had a small amount of trouble with this given that his longsword wasn’t particularly suited for fighting in as confined a space as the shield wall, but he was able to make it work.

By the third week, the Instructors were having them shift their lines. Essentially, the front line would only fight for about five minutes, at which point the second rank would push past them and take their place as the front line, while those in the first rank would retreat all the way to the back. Five minutes later, the third rank would push forward and take over as the front line, letting the second rank fall back just as the first had done. This pattern of brief bursts of fighting, punctuated by much longer stretches of rest, would help the unit pace itself and keep the trainees in the front lines always at the top of their game.

A month of hard training flew by like this, and the Snow Lions almost lived and breathed this one formation. But finally, the Instructors finally began to teach the trainees other formations they would need.

---

Two months passed, and the Snow Lions trained and drilled with almost every waking breath. Archery, personal combat, and especially fighting in their formations, they drilled and trained and drilled and trained until these things started to become second-nature.

It was hardly eventful in the rest of the Academy during this time, with all the other units falling back into the old routine of probing other units’ strength, constantly testing each other to see if any of them left an opening for another unit to steal a banner.

There were a few other major assaults on towers during these months, but none targeted or perpetrated by the Snow Lions. Under Leon and Castor, they were content to sit on their two banners and watch the rest of the units, biding their time and training for the FTX, the month-long ‘war’ that would be waged amongst all the units that would serve as the last test of their skills. The other units kept an eye on the Snow Lions, and even sent a few probing attacks at their tower, but the Snow Lions kept their discipline, determined as they were not to lose their banner again.

None of the other units attacked their tower in this time, though there was one moment where things could’ve gone terribly for the Snow Lions, a moment when Leon was almost ambushed, leaving the rest of the unit vulnerable.

It happened during a rainstorm—the first one that affected him as deeply as the one that had him uncontrollably running into the mountains. There had been a little rain during these two months, but nothing that compelled Leon to head out into the mountains again until he felt the familiar itch in the back of his skull one late afternoon. He’d made his excuses with Castor and left the tower, but he kept his head enough this time to realize he was being followed after leaving.

In the end, he had to lose a small group of four trainees from the Obsidian Cataphracts, and two from the Steel Century before he could relax enough to revel in the storm, and when he returned to the tower, he noticed quite a few more scouts checking the place out. Scouts that, for the most part, promptly vanished back into the forest as soon as he returned.

---

Leon was nervous as all the hells as he made his way to the Heaven’s Eye Tower. Visiting Elise at the tower was the only reason he left the Knight Academy during the past two months, but those meet-ups were fairly short, with the two of them catching up with each other and just spending some time in each other’s company.

This time was going to be a little different. This time, they were going to a series of games in the capital’s arena on something that strongly resembled a date, and Leon couldn’t be happier about it. However, they wouldn’t be alone: Valeria and Asiya would be joining them, and that gave Leon no small amount of anxiety.

He and Valeria hadn’t spoken much since her reveal that she was connected to Adrianos Isynos. The knowledge that she was related in some way to those who’d orchestrated the death of his father, and potentially the fall of his House, had him full of anger and sadness, each emotion working to paralyze him when it came to how to deal with her. So, he acted mostly out of inertia, treating her about the same as he had before the reveal.

But it wasn’t until he and Elise decided to go out with Valeria and Asiya that he finally managed to decide on a strategy for dealing with Valeria: he’d maintain the status quo as much as he was able. He’d try not to grow too close with her, but he’d also try and maintain what relationship they had with each other. When he was stronger, he might be able to use that connection to find who was responsible for the attack on his home in the Northern Vales, and it was a little foolish, he thought, to throw that connection away just because he’d learned her last name. If he did destroy their relationship, it might even only serve to arouse her suspicion, and his enemies learning where he was the last thing he wanted.

When he arrived at the Heaven’s Eye Tower, he found that he was the last to arrive; Asiya and Valeria had evidently hurried over as soon as they were dismissed that morning, whereas he took his time getting ready. Now, all three ladies were waiting for him in the ground floor lounge.

Asiya saw him first. She sprang out of their private booth and hurried over to him waving enthusiastically.

“You’re finally here!” she happily exclaimed.

Valeria’s greeting consisted of only a single nod, but it was obvious that she was happy to see him from the smile on her lips.

Elise, too, didn’t say anything, choosing to instead wrap her arms around Leon’s neck in a loose hug. And she refused to let go until he returned the hug, impishly smiling at him until he did so.

When they let go of each other, Elise wore a smile of victory and satisfaction, but that quickly turned to something a little more business-like. “We should probably get moving. Thanks to someone, we might be late.”

Leon smiled awkwardly at his own late arrival and the group left the Tower. Their destination was the arena in the northern part of the city. It was a monstrously large construct, easily seating over one hundred thousand people. The stands were held aloft by colossal marble arches, beneath which were hundreds of shops selling everything from cheap food and souvenirs to high-end clothing and expensive jewelry. People from every class of society would attend the games showcased in the arena, thus there were shops that catered to those with means as well as to those without.

Their reserved seats were in one of the many private boxes that ringed the arena, separated from the rest of the spectators by thick walls and plenty of privacy wards so that people couldn’t listen into their conversation. If they wanted, they could even project a black screen so they couldn’t be seen in the box. The interior was luxurious, with several cushy seats, a fully-stocked bar, all the snacks they could want, and an attendant just outside ready to fetch anything else they might want.

The group took their seats to watch the opening games which had already started, but while there were enough seats for all of them to have one of their own, Elise decided to sit with Leon, squeezing herself in beside him. The chairs were just large enough for the two of them to sit comfortably, if intimately, and Elise got even more intimate by giving Leon a radiant smile and leaning in closer to him.

“Mind if I sit here? It just looked so comfortable…” she breathed, gazing into his bashful eyes.

“N-No…” he responded after taking a few breaths to calm his racing heart, causing both Elise and the watching Asiya to giggle. Valeria seemed like she wasn’t watching, but the ghost of a smile appeared on her lips, and her eyes repeatedly flickered in their direction.

Fortunately for Leon’s dignity, Elise didn’t continue to flirt, and all four of them were able to turn their attention to the day’s opening games.

The opening games were a series of chariot races between the four professional teams in the capital, the Whites, Reds, Blues, and Greens. Elise favored the Reds and ecstatically hugged Leon when they won the first race. The Reds essentially stopped participating afterward, though, leisurely riding around the outside of the track with the Whites just ahead of them. It seemed to Leon that the Reds and Whites had only shown up for the race in the most token way, almost as if they thought themselves above these races. These two teams left the rest of the day’s races to be decided between the Blues and Greens.

“What’s up with these teams?” Leon asked Elise. “Why aren’t they trying anymore?”

“The Reds and Whites are favored amongst the nobility. The Blues and Greens are the common teams. This event was organized by a merchant for the common people, so the noble teams don’t care about it after winning the first race.”

Leon frowned at their attitude, while Elise, when it became clear that no further questions were going to come from Leon, turned to Asiya and struck up a conversation about what she and Valeria had been doing during the past few weeks.

While the ladies were chatting, Leon found himself becoming fascinated with the races, despite the Reds and Whites barely participating. The Blue and Green charioteers didn’t conduct themselves with anything resembling sportsmanship, loudly insulting and swearing at their rivals. They would even try to ram into and destroy the other chariots if it seemed like they were going to be passed.

“I wonder if your whore mother fucked a turtle to make you!” Leon heard a Blue shout as he passed a Green. “That might explain both your lacking speed and your degrading color!”

The furious Green shouted back, “Well you’d certainly know about whores! I heard you’ve sold yourself so many times that you have to plug your loosened asshole to keep from leaking!” He pulled on the reins of his horses, moving his chariot a little to the right, seemingly giving way to the advancing Blue. As the Blue started passing him, the Green turned back left hard, crashing into the back of the Blue’s chariot and knocking one of his wheels loose, tossing the Blue off his chariot and high into the air.

“VICTORY! VICTORY! VICTORY!” chanted the Green fans as the Green passed the finish line in first place. The Blue fans were none too happy to see their guy injured and his chariot destroyed, and there was some pushback against the celebrating Greens to the point of several small fights breaking out in the more densely packed sections of the arena.

“This place is certainly… lively…” Leon muttered as he saw several of the fighting Greens and Blues struggle to continue their fight even as the arena’s security guards swarmed over them and dragged them away.

“It’s like this at every game,” Elise said, her conversation with Asiya pausing after hearing Leon speak. “The chariot teams are serious business here. Insulting another person’s favorite team is a sure way to start a fight.”

“I guess I won’t say anything about the Reds, then,” Leon said with a faint smile.

“You’d better not,” Elise said back with a sinister chuckle and an ominous look in her eyes.

When the races were over, the real games—gladiator fights—began, and Leon couldn’t hide his fascination. He’d momentarily considered becoming a gladiator after hi father’s death, and even now, he had to admit that the prospect of becoming a professional sports fighter held some appeal.

He intently watched as the first gladiators took to the sand, playing to the crowd and loudly extolling the virtues of the merchant who’d arranged the day’s games. Both gladiators were very lightly armored, with only a helmet and weapon apiece. They didn’t even have shirts, letting the entire arena drink in their perfectly built bodies. One of them was shorter, leaner, and faster, while the other was a slow hulk of a man. Neither was of the fifth-tier or higher, so they weren’t able to show off any elemental magic, but they made up for the lack of spectacle by expertly playing to the crowd. The hurled insults at each other, and many of the moves in the first half of their fight boiled down to knocking the other man down then raising their arms to call the roar of the watching masses.

After several minutes, Leon noticed something odd. At first, the crowd seemed to favor both men. However, the smaller gladiator had managed to endear himself to the crowd better than the other gladiator, with flashier moves and a sharper tongue. The people made more noise when it seemed like he was winning, and when it became clear that they wanted him to win, that’s when the fight turned in his favor. The bigger man seemed to slow down and allow the smaller man to knock him to the ground. He left more openings for the smaller gladiator to exploit and seemed, in Leon’s eyes at least, to throw the fight.

“These fights,” Leon asked, turning to Elise, “are they rigged?”

Elise smiled at him and helpfully explained, “There’s no need to pay attention to these first matches, the crowd decides the victor. All except maybe the last two or three fights are done solely to please the people.”

Leon frowned. He’d heard a few things about gladiators from Artorias, but he’d never heard about that. Then again, he figured that his father probably wouldn’t really remember the opening fights as he’d have been too busy talking with his friends just as Elise, Asiya, and Valeria were doing.

So, Leon turned away from the arena profoundly disappointed. The ladies had moved on from talking about the Knight Academy to talking about a play they had seen the week before that Leon couldn’t be less interested in, so he ended up zoning out for a while.

But, two hours after they had arrived, the preliminary fights were over and it was time for the first of the two main events.

Leon only returned to reality after noticing that the ladies had stopped talking and were staring down into the arena with such expectant looks that Leon couldn’t help but stare as well.

“And now,” shouted the announcer, “here after more than thirty consecutive wins, we have the Golden Man returning from his latest victory in Teira! The Archon of the Arena himself! Antonius Agrippa!”

With these words, the single most beautiful man Leon had ever seen entered the arena. He walked with such grace that he almost seemed to glide across the arena’s sand. His hair and eyes were a brilliant shining gold, as was his spear and plate armor. Upon reaching the center of the arena, he slowly turned to survey the crowd, striking several heroic poses and enjoying every deafening cheer he received—and he received many, from every corner of the stands.

Antonius was so beautiful that even Leon felt himself slightly captivated and felt the urge to join everyone else and cheer for the Golden Man’s victory, despite knowing nothing about his opponent. It wasn’t until he felt Elise next to him inching forward in their seat to get a clearer look at Antonius with a dreamy look on her face that Leon snapped out of the trance. In that instant, any good feeling he had for the gladiator disappeared like heat around an ice wraith. His sword arm instinctively twitched toward the blade at his hip, which Elise noticed as it was the arm she’d taken hold of and was unconsciously gripping even tighter after Antonius’ entrance.

“Oh my,” she said with a smile, “are you getting jealous, Leon?”

Her words drew the attention of Asiya and Valeria, who turned to look at Leon. Valeria was as stoic as usual, but Asiya burst into a fit of giggles.

Elise, meanwhile, pressed herself against Leon’s arm and whispered into his ear, “You don’t have to worry about that pretty boy. He has a nice face, but I prefer the man I’m with right now…”

Her words, whispered so close to his ear that he could feel her breath, caused Leon’s heart to skip a beat, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to maintain anything that resembled dignity. But despite his efforts, a smile still spread across his face. “Careful there,” he replied with as much composure as he could summon, “my ego’s fragile. Best not to play with it like this…”

“Who’s playing?” Elise asked as she leaned in closer, Antonius down in the arena apparently forgotten—at least, until the announcer continued with the introductions.

“Facing our reigning champion is a man who many of you know! He fought and lost to Antonius five years ago and is now here for his revenge! Ladies and gentlemen, I present one of our brightest rising stars, Themistocles Aurelianus!”

From the other side of the arena came a man who seemed like Antonius’ polar opposite. He was clad in spiky black armor and wielded a shield and short sword. The crowd’s reaction to him was far more mixed compared to the near-rapturous response given to Antonius, though still positive on the whole.

The two bantered back and forth for a while, but Leon hardly listened. He was far more captivated by the woman on his arm, and he almost hoped that the gladiators would banter for a while longer, giving him much more time to be with her.

He found himself leaning closer to her, his fingers brushing against hers. Seemingly without hesitation, Elise took his hand, entwining her fingers with his, and when he looked at her, he found her looking right back, the brightest smile on her face that he’d ever seen. He smiled back, all thoughts of gladiators and arena games completely driven from his mind.

---

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Chapters 111 - 113, Burning Pain

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“So,” Elise began as she and Leon exited the arena, “do you have anything else on your schedule for the day?”

“Nothing much,” Leon replied.

Leon and Elise were leaving the arena from a private exit, avoiding the worst of the crowds, but there were still a few people around. Asiya and Valeria, however, had left a little ahead of them, with Asiya not failing to say that she wanted to ‘leave those lovebirds alone’.

Leon hadn’t responded, but he was grateful for the privacy, regardless.

Elise explained, “I was wondering if you had the time to head back to the Tower?”

Leon glanced up at the sky and guessed that he had at least an hour before he had to start heading back to the Knight Academy to not be late for trainees’ curfew. “I’ve got some time, I think that’ll be fine,” he said.

“Wonderful!” Elise exclaimed as she took his arm and began leading him back toward the Tower no too far away.

Upon arrival, the two wasted no time heading to one of the private rooms on the upper floors. As soon as they entered the room, Elise turned to Leon and said with a proud look, “Can you wait here for a moment? There’s something I want to show you, but it’s a surprise…”

Throughout the journey back to the Tower, Leon’s heart rate had steadily increased, anxiety about being alone with Elise making him incredibly self-conscious. However, he was still able to choke out a quick acceptance to her request.

“Then I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere!” Elise said excitedly as she almost skipped out the door, leaving Leon alone with his thoughts. But even then, he was nervous enough that he wasn’t able to concentrate his thoughts on anything in particular.

About five minutes later, Elise returned to the room with a small, thin box. She grinned triumphantly when she slid back into the room, closing the door behind her almost as if she were smuggling in something of great value. She practically glided over to the table in the center of the meeting room and laid the box down upon it, facing Leon, and then watched him with great intensity.

“What… is this?” Leon asked, his face, stoic after having several minutes to get control over himself, showing little sign of his inner anxiety.

“It’s a dancing bear. Just open it!” Elise said with a laugh.

Leon undid the latch and opened the box. Whatever was within had been covered with a bolt of red satin, but Leon could sense an incredible amount of wind magic as soon as the lid was cracked.

“Is this…” Leon began, looking at Elise who was smiling and nodding furiously.

Leon pulled the satin out of the way, revealing a pure white feather.

[YEEEEESSSS! FINALLY!!!!] Xaphan roared.

Elise grinned proudly at Leon, and explained, “The final thing you wanted Heavens Eye to find was a feather from a fourth-tier bird who was strong in wind magic, no? Well, I managed to get my hands on the feather of a fourth-tier Eskellion Dove!” She paused a moment—Leon guessed she was waiting for him to say something—and when he didn’t’ immediately respond, she asked with some worry, “Is there something wrong?”

“No, it’s perfect,” Leon replied, a wide smile breaking out over his face. He’d needed a moment to recover from the sheer weight of the joy that had slammed into him through his contract with Xaphan. “How much is this?”

“… It’s a gift!” Elise said with some confusion, her proud smile slipping for only a moment.

“Are you sure? This couldn’t have been cheap…”

[JUST TAKE IT AND FINISH MY POTION DAMN YOU!] Xaphan impatiently bellowed.

“Please take it!” Elise said, with a steely firmness in her voice, a look of determination on her face.

“Thank you!” Leon replied with both excitement and great formality.  Out of both the restlessness that had overcome him from Xaphan’s desire to finish the potion, and simply out of sheer happiness and gratitude at receiving a gift from Elise, he took a few steps forward and threw his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. “This was very important for me. I can’t overstate my gratitude for your help in this matter.”

“Don’t mention it,” Elise said, her face rapidly turning red. Leon’s quickly followed suit as soon as he realized what he was doing, and he just as quickly released her.

“I’m… really sorry,” Leon hurriedly said.

“It’s quite all right,” Elise responded, smiling at him and tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. “I enjoyed being that close to you…”

Leon smiled back widely and completely unabashedly. With this feather, he’d finally be able to restore some of Xaphan’s power, and then the demon would be able to strengthen him, in turn. How he’d be able to Leon didn’t quite know, but he knew that the sooner he could get this potion finished, the sooner that he’d get a potentially huge boost in power.

“I hate to do this,” Leon nervously said, the uncertainty in how Elise might take his sudden departure dampening his joy, “but I should get this back to the Academy… Finish up what I need this feather for…”

“I understand,” Elise replied, looking a little disappointed, but her wide smile soon returned.

“Let’s get together again soon,” Leon whispered, pulling Elise into a gentler, but more deliberate hug than the previous one. His mind was racing with thoughts of Xaphan’s potion, but within those were musings about what kind of gift he might get Elise, in return. As much as he appreciated this, he couldn’t just accept it without some reciprocation.

“Soon,” she agreed, returning his hug.

They stayed embraced like that for a few moments more before Xaphan’s impatience finally boiled over and Leon said his goodbyes.

---

When Leon made it back to the Snow Lions’ tower, he rushed up the stairs straight to his room. Waiting for him in the corner was the tall bowl covered in spell paper. He grabbed it and moved to a table in the center of the room.

[Now, what do we do?] Leon asked.

[First, remove the water-coals. They’re not needed and will only get in the way,] Xaphan immediately replied, though the demon kept his voice calm and measured so he could communicate the right information.

Leon removed the lid of the bowl and, using a pair of thin metal tongs, removed the water-coals and threw them into the sink in his bathroom. They almost immediately stopped burning without water around them, but they were still too hot even for a third-tier mage to handle with his bare hands.

[And then?] Leon continued.

Instantly, a flood of runes forming a complex enchantment entered his mind. [Take as much time as you need to inscribe this enchantment. It must be perfect,] Xaphan said.

Leon didn’t hesitate to get to work. As he wrote each rune, his hand was steady and his penmanship near perfect. His practice in the enchantment classes was truly paying off; although this was the most complex enchantment he had ever written, it only took as many tries as he needed when learning how to make a crude flare spell. He finished in only two hours.

[Hmmm,] Xaphan murmured as he inspected Leon’s work. Once he was satisfied that everything was in order, Leon peeled off the spell paper already on the bowl and replaced all of it with what he had just written.

[So what does that enchantment do?] Leon asked.

[What do you think it does?] Xaphan asked back. He wasn’t trying to be a sarcastic dick, he only wanted to fill some time and distract himself with speech while the enchantment went to work.

[The enchantment’s core was made of more than half a dozen separate runic circles, totaling three light runes, eight wind runes, and more than twenty fire runes. The modifiers had something to do with bodies, though I couldn’t quite parse what they did exactly. So I would have to guess that it fills your body with fire magic that was stoked with the wind magic, plus a little healing from light magic.]

[Not bad, though not very specific either and missing quite a few very big and important details. The enchantment is actually an amalgamation of two different enchantments.  The first creates the potion itself, while the second dictates the potion’s effects.

[The salamander core is going to melt, releasing so much fire magic that it will saturate and feed the Kagu flower. Then, after the flower has had its fill, it will secrete a juice that will combine with the fire magic-rich water, which will form the potion. Lastly, you will need to eat the feather, then wash it down with the potion. And don’t eat the remains of the Kagu flower! You’ll probably be incinerated from the inside if you do…]

[But what will the potion and enchantments do exactly?] Leon asked.

[Once it settles in your stomach, all of its magical energy will be directed into your soul realm, thanks to the second enchantment. From there, the magic power will enter my body and stimulate my recovery. Essentially, the light runes will give the potion the healing properties it needs to enter your body without causing permanent damage, while the fire energy will invigorate my own atrophied demonic core—where my magic is produced, much like your magic comes from your bone marrow. The wind magic will help to feed those flames, prolonging their effect until the job is done.]

[Well, sounds easy enough,] Leon said. He figured that he had finished the hard part, a notion that Xaphan wasn’t in a hurry to dispel. It wouldn’t help anyone if Leon spent the next hour or so while the potion finished being made in a state of dread.

Leon spent his time quietly meditating, while Xaphan used his magic senses to monitor the bowl.

[It’s ready,] the demon finally growled.

Leon’s eyes opened and he opened the box he received from Elise and grabbed the feather. It was only as long as his index finger, making it easy enough to put in his mouth, even if it was less so to swallow. Complicating things was the strength of the wind magic the feather possessed; it vibrated and filled Leon’s mouth with air, making getting it down his throat a difficult task, especially as the air quickly turned sharp. Leon’s mouth was filled with shallow cuts and he spat out blood.

[Ugghh,] he moaned in pain.

[Swallow the potion! There’s not much time! It will hurt, but the injuries and the pain will only be temporary!] Xaphan shouted, spurring Leon onward.

With an awful look of pain on his face, Leon cracked open the bowl and started chugging without even looking at the thick red liquid in the bowl. The potion was scalding hot from the fire magic and it felt like his stomach had been set aflame, but Leon didn’t stop. The pain wasn’t nearly so intense as what he had felt when he had awakened the Thunderbird’s Bloodline.

[How are you doing?] Xaphan asked with a little worry as Leon finished, leaving nothing but a few drops of potion clinging to the side of the bowl and the shriveled Kagu flower at the bottom.

Leon barely managed to say [Alright,] through the burning pain. The potion had settled in the pit of his stomach, growing stronger as the feather kept vibrating.

‘At least the potion is suppressing those tiny wind blades…’ Leon thought, grateful for the small comfort.

Despite his brave face, Leon took a few staggering steps toward his bed before collapsing onto the floor, barely stopping himself from screaming in pain. He could feel the magic of the potion slowly moving through his body, scorching him from within. Eventually, the pain grew too great and he slipped into the comfortable oblivion of unconsciousness.

It took less than fifteen minutes for the potion to wear off. Every last speck of magic power had flowed into Leon’s soul realm, where it was drawn to the fire demon waiting for it. Where before Xaphan was like a bonfire, with the power of the Kagu flower and salamander core—plus the Eskellion Dove’s wind magic fueling his flames—he became like a tornado of fire.

Xaphan himself was in an inordinate amount of pain, but he didn’t have the luxury of passing out as Leon did. He channeled the fire magic into his demonic core and compressed it as far as he could. After five minutes, it felt like his core would explode; after ten, he felt so much pain that for a moment he was sure it had. The fire magic spread throughout his body, feeding his malnourished body but wreaking havoc at the same time. His bones cracked and his hard obsidian skin glowed red hot.

But after five more minutes, the pain faded. The fire tornado died down and the wind stopped blowing. Xaphan took a few minutes to catch his breath and collect himself, then cast his magic senses inward to inspect the state of his body.

Eighty-thousand years of immobility in a prison that sapped his magic power had left his core as dry as a desert. It had been so malnourished that he could barely generate any magic power at all. Leon had taken the demon into his soul realm and Xaphan had tried to use the young man’s own power to feed his core and recover, but Leon was just too weak. He didn’t possess enough magic for Xaphan’s core to heal in any reasonable amount of time. For all intents and purposes, the demon had been forced back to being a third-tier demon, even if the physical foundation he had laid during his rise to demonic Lordship was still there.

But the potion had been like a heavy downpour refilling a dry oasis. His powers hadn’t returned completely, but he could feel his core outputting roughly the same amount of power as he had when he was the equivalent of a fifth-tier mage.

[Good, I can work with this,] Xaphan muttered. He could’ve made due even if his core could only produce the same power as a fourth-tier mage, but he theoretically could’ve risen back to the sixth-tier from the potion so he couldn’t help but feel a modicum of disappointment. Still, with his core now given the kickstart it needed to recover, he was a happy demon.

Leon, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly so happy when he woke up. His entire body was sore and stiff, though the burns and cuts from the feather and potion had been healed.

[Did it work?] he asked, rolling over onto his back and not intending to bother getting off the floor.

[It did,] Xaphan said.

[Good,] Leon whispered before closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths. [So, what now?]

[I’ll need a few days, maybe a week to take stock of my new situation.]

[More waiting, then.]

[These things take time, young mage. Just because the potion worked doesn’t mean everything’s immediately peachy. As I said, a week at most and we’ll know where we stand.]

Leon sighed and struggled to his feet. It was getting close to dinner time, so he made his way down to the first-tier common room. Upon reaching it, he saw the usual group chatting in the corner, so he walked over and joined them.

---

Before his eyes, Leon’s arm turned red from heat as it burned from the inside. Leon’s teeth clenched together so tightly from the pain that he couldn’t speak even if he wanted to. After a few more seconds, Xaphan managed to cut the flow of magic into Leon, but by then the skin on Leon’s arm had started to peel and bubble up; the burns Leon sustained all over and within his left arm were profound.

After a few more minutes of channeling his magic into his arm to dull the pain, which had been so severely burnt that he could barely move it, Leon staggered to his feet and made for the bathroom where his first-aid kit and the healing spells it contained were located.

Leon had ten healing spells in his first-aid kit, all of which he had to use to regain use of his left arm. Even then, his arm was still covered in light burns, but he could move it without pain if he was careful.

[Well, that was certainly enlightening,] Xaphan said flippantly in an attempt to lighten the mood.

[… That’s one word for it, I guess,] Leon muttered sarcastically.

[At the very least, we learned two things,] Xaphan continued, ignoring Leon’s comment. [The first is you need to focus on controlling the magic you borrow as well as only taking what power you need. The second is that the power I gave you was a little wild and outside of my own control. Fortunately, these are very fixable problems.]

[How so?]

[All we need is time and practice. For now, I’ll focus on regaining the proper control of my power; it shouldn’t take more than, say, a week or so.] Xaphan decided to be cautious after Leon’s injury. He estimated that it would only take a day or two to shake off the rust and bring his flames under enough control so as to not burn Leon again, but he wanted the extra time to make sure he had gotten used to the sudden jump in power.

[I think I’ll take that time to make a few new healing spells,] Leon said, looking over at the pile of spells he had just used and then to his burned arm.  It still hurt to move the arm quickly, but the spells had healed him enough that apart from a lot of peeling skin, there weren’t many obvious signs of injury, especially when he wore long-sleeved shirts. He was sure he could heal what the spells hadn’t in a week.

Despite that surety, Leon used the first few healing spells he made that night to clean himself up. His peeling skin had vanished during the night, so while his arm appeared to completely heal, holding a shield during training still caused some discomfort.

The week passed quickly with hardly a single word exchanged between Leon and Xaphan, but finally, it came time for Leon to have some real practice with Xaphan’s power. To make sure he wouldn’t be disturbed, Leon took the huge stack of healing spells he’d drawn up during the week and ventured out into the maze of gorges and cliffs in the north-western part of the Academy.

[So, has this been enough time for you to get a good handle on your power?] Leon asked, with only a tiny hint of sarcasm.

[It has,] Xaphan responded, ignoring Leon’s tone. [Are you ready to see what you can do with it?]

[Of course. Anything I need to know before we start, though?]

[Plenty. I guess the first thing I ought to mention is that part of the reason you were burned so badly last week was that you couldn’t stop the flow of magic out from your soul realm. I’d guess that problem was because you didn’t try until the flow had grown too large for you to properly handle, so keep it slow and ramp it up gradually.]

[Makes sense.]

[Another thing, demon fire is very potent. Just about anything can burn within it, so be careful about what you do with it. Don’t go starting any large fires, keep it in control. Again, go slow until you have a good idea of how much you can handle.]

[Got it.]

[Then let’s do this.]

Leon briefly smiled before his face turned deadly serious. He gently pulled on the connection between him and Xaphan and called forth the demon’s power. He kept it as minimal as he could, letting the heat from the connection trickle out slowly, before channeling it into his arm and out into his palm. There, a small red flame appeared in the center of his palm, no bigger than the flame of a small candle that leisurely roiled and flickered as if it were burning in slow motion.

The first time Leon used Xaphan’s power just after leaving the prison, this was all the power he had been able to call upon, so there was hardly a need for caution. This time, however, he had to hold back the demon’s power that tried to burst free from his soul realm. The longer he held the flame, the more intense the pressure became. He felt like a flimsy dam trying to hold back a raging waterfall after barely a minute, which caused him to extinguish the flame and immediately stop summoning Xaphan’s power.

Leon took a deep breath as the heat from the flame disappeared.

[You didn’t burn yourself this time. Progress,] Xaphan said mockingly.

[Screw you, demon! I may have gotten burned, but at least I’m always in control of my power!]

[If you’re so confident in your strength, how about you go about raising yourself from third-tier power to fifth-tier power in a matter of minutes and see how well you control yourself then!]

Leon grit his teeth in frustration. Xaphan did have a point; the demon had gotten used to his atrophied third-tier strength, so there would understandably be a short period of adaptation to the sudden spike to fifth-tier.

After a few minutes of rest, Leon began again. He kept the flame small, merely testing himself to see how long he could hold it. He made it about a minute and a halfduring his second test, about half again as long as the first try that morning.

[Hmmm. I’m going to try something,] Xaphan said as Leon extinguished the fire again.

[Like what?]

[I might be able to help you call upon only what you can bear. Might. I’ve never had to share my power before, so I’m learning as we go, too. Let’s try again.]

For a third time, Leon summoned the demon’s magic. This time, however, the pressure in his chest that came from his soul realm was greatly diminished.

[Whatever you’re doing… it’s working,] Leon mumbled, trying to concentrate on keeping the flame lit and under control. Xaphan was himself too busy concentrating to reply.

Leon managed to last five minutes that time thanks to Xaphan’s assistance.

[It seems like it will be a collaborative effort if you ever find yourself needing to call upon my power,] Xaphan said after Leon put out the flame in his hand.

[Fine by me,] Leon said. He was starting to get a good handle on calling upon Xaphan’s power and had already started thinking of how to maximize his time holding the fire. On his fourth try, he tried mixing Xaphan’s magic with his own, an idea that wasn’t theoretically terrible, but it left Leon feeling drained after only ten seconds. He guessed this was because he still lacked sufficient control over his own magic due to only being a third-tier mage that it felt so draining.

But, he had made Xaphan’s power a little easier to control, even if it didn’t last nearly so long as the previous attempts.

The two practiced for the remainder of the day. Leon’s final practice run before he returned to the Snow Lions’ tower lasted for almost fifteen minutes.

The next day, the pair changed their focus. Instead of trying to maintain a tiny flame for a long time, Leon tried to conjure a larger, more useful flame. He didn’t try to summon a flame roughly the size of a torch or magic lantern as he had the week previously, but instead only increased the size of the candle-sized flame by about half. He quickly found that such use of Xaphan’s fire was quite inefficient, as such a small increase more than halved the time he could keep the flame lit.

Despite this inefficiency, Leon continued down that road of training. Keeping a fire the size of a candle lit was hardly practical for battle, so he needed to learn to handle greater amounts of Xaphan’s power.

All throughout the next week, Leon would venture off into the western mountains whenever he got the chance. From a certain perspective, this kind of training wasn’t productive for him, as he was merely learning to use borrowed power. His time in the long-run would be better spent working on ascending to the fourth-tier. However, when Xaphan brought this up, Leon responded that there would be hardly any point to making the contract between them if he never learned to use Xaphan’s power. Besides, what Leon wanted was strength, and Xaphan’s demonic fire would certainly give him that, even if it that strength was only temporary. Plus, it wasn’t as if Leon completely neglected his own training; it was a tough decision for him to make, but Leon cut into his sleep time to make some extra room in his schedule for meditation and working to increase his own power.

Fortunately for him, he only had to keep this schedule up for another week. With Xaphan’s help, Leon was able to conjure a small explosion of demonic fire out of his hand that had a range of about three feet, and he had enough control to do so two or three times before the burns accumulated enough to disable his arm. During this time, Xaphan also had to teach Leon how to douse the flames so as to not kill anyone he didn’t mean to or set everything around him on fire.

---

Leon sighed in pain as he slid to the ground with his back against a large boulder. The ground all around the secluded crevice he had been practicing in was scorched and blackened, with the rocky walls not looking much better. It had been hard practice, and the skin on his left arm that was cracked and bleeding from the heat was proof of the intensity with which Leon had taken to his training. In fact, he had gone through more than three-quarters of the healing spells he had written, a total of more than one hundred and fifty that all went to treat his burns.

He had grown so used to the sensation of pain that Leon could barely even feel the fire that ravaged his arm during practice, but he had to force himself to take a break whenever he felt his arm started to grow heavy and lethargic, as he knew that the damage was severe. It got so bad that Xaphan had to intervene.

[You’ve already gotten enough of a handle on my power to fight with, there’s no need to keep pushing yourself. Slow down!]

[I suppose,] Leon muttered, as he pressed more healing spells onto his burned arm. [I just want to learn enough control so that I don’t have to worry about burning myself if I ever need to use your power.]

[No amount of control will lessen that risk right now. What you need to focus on is your own power. If you ascend to the fourth-tier, you’ll probably be able to call upon much more of my power before your arm is burned to the point of disability. Ascension to the fifth-tier, I’d guess, would allow you to use this level of power with relative impunity. You don’t specifically need control, you need to get stronger.]

Leon couldn’t argue with Xaphan when his entire left arm had been covered in healing spells. The demon’s fire was truly potent, but Leon felt that the pain had been worth it to have such a power that no one would ever suspect in his wheelhouse.

[You’re right, I should double down on my own training,] Leon said quietly. [Though I am looking forward to when I can use elemental magic for real, rather than relying on you for it. Throwing even this small amount of fire is rather… intoxicating…]

[I don’t like that tone…] Xaphan replied with a worried tone.

[Relax, I’m not talking about getting reliant on your power. If using only your magic were this fun, though, I can’t wait to see how it feels to use lightning,] Leon said, every word dripping with anticipation.

As soon as his arm was healed, Leon drew his sword and began practicing. He flooded his body with magic, but the thought of learning how to use his own elemental power had made him too restless to meditate.

He’d rarely trained so intently with his father’s sword before. Usually, if he were to practice his sword techniques then that was what he wanted to concentrate on, saving the flooding of his body with magic power for when he would meditate.

But now, he was doing both at the same time, even if the sword movements were only meant to keep him moving. And as he moved, a comforting warmth spread out from the handle of the sword and throughout his entire body, though Leon was so into his training that he didn’t even notice.

---

---

Chapters 114 - 116, Final Classes

---

Castor blew his whistle and the Snow Lions formed up into their layered shield wall in seconds. With another series of whistles, the unit was given the signal to begin marching forward, which they did in near-perfect unison. More blasts on the whistle brought them to a halt.

Turning right, left, backup, tighten the formation, spread out a little, all commands given by Castor via his whistle were carried out quickly and precisely. Various other formations were signaled, and the Snow Lions carried them out with practiced ease and precision.

The three watching Instructors were suitably impressed. The Snow Lions had been in Heavy Infantry Training for four months and were moving with the same confidence and skill as career soldiers.

“Splendid!” said the Senior Instructor. “Go ahead and relax! You third-tier boys come with me!”

The Snow Lions relaxed, letting the formation disperse as the trainees assembled into their usual friend groups. Alphonsus, Castor, and Leon, meanwhile, followed the Senior Instructor about a hundred feet away from the unit.

The Senior Instructor began with some rare praise, “That was a good showing, the time you all have spent training has clearly not been wasted.

“However, there’s always room for improvement. Heavy Infantry Training ends today, but don’t neglect it going forward.”

“We won’t, Sir. We know the importance of this training,” Castor said.

“Good. Moving on, next week begins your study of the common monsters you’ll face as knights. We can’t exactly go out and grab a vampire or werewolf for practical training, so these classes will be almost entirely theoretical. It won’t be as exciting as the more active classes, but the Academy still expects the same effort you’ve been giving in your previous classes, got it?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Good.”

---

Their monster hunting classes began the following Monday. Rather than reporting to the training field in the morning, the entire training battalion made their way to the same huge hall that most of the first-tier trainees had been using for Magical Theory. First thing on their schedule was the most dangerous and insidious of enemies that knights of the Royal Legions would be expected to face: vampires.

For a week, the trainees learned all about how to identify signs of vampiric behavior, how to identify vampires themselves, and the general tips to fighting them. Fighting a vampire was remarkably similar to fighting a mage, only a vampire uses power gained from a demonic contract and augmented that borrowed power with blood. Of course, this blood magic would invariably involve consumption of blood—or more specifically, mana—and the point a blood mage became a vampire was when their bodies adapted to this foreign power and became dependent on blood.

Most of what Leon learned during these classes he had already picked up from Xaphan who, being a demon, already had a robust knowledge of the demonic pacts that granted vampires most of their powers.  Xaphan had never actually forged a contract with a blood mage, but he had been close to a great many other demons that had made extensive use of the practice during his days as a Lord of Flame.

The second week was devoted to werewolves. They were a little easier to learn about since they were only humans who had contracted a communicable curse, but that also made them more dangerous than vampires in certain ways.

The stone giants in the east were the subject of the third week. They were about three to four times the size of an average man and made entirely of stone. They had incredible resistance to most kinds of magical attacks and had a greataffinity for using earth magic. Given their size and nature of their bodies, they were also much physically tougher and stronger than mages of an equivalent magical tier.

Their final week was devoted wrapping up with a few summaries and tests. And with that finished, the trainees were just about ready for their field training exercise—the FTX, the Academy’s final test before they left for their squireships.

---

The weekend after their monster classes finished, Leon decided to make his way back to the capital. He wanted to see Elise, of course, and endured Xaphan’s relentless teasing in good cheer on the way, but the practical reason for heading into the city was to get a set of armor commissioned.

The Royal Legions would issue him a set of standard armor if he needed it, but given what he’d seen of Legion armor so far, while practical enough, he was far from impressed. After the monster classes, he could no longer deny the need for quality armor. If he wanted to live long enough to find the one who’d ordered his father’s death, then he needed better than standard issue.

Fortunately, Elise was more than willing to take him on a leisurely stroll through the capital’s ironworks districts. They did little else but talk as they window shopped, and Leon didn’t make a choice of smith until they returned to the Tower. He needed the armor, but he wanted to spend time with Elise, and the opportunity to do both wasn’t something he could pass up, even though he knew that he wanted Heaven’s Eye’s guarantee of quality right from the get-go.

It was also going to be one of the last times he’d get to spend a day with Elise before the two-month-long FTX, and he relished every second.

---

The last few classes the Knight Academy taught its trainees during their training cycle were a random mash-up of various other aspects of a knight’s job that the trainees would have to know. However, since their squireships would cover much of these areas, the Academy only touched on them lightly.

The first class was camp construction. Leon had an easier time with this class than most of the other trainees, thanks to Artorias’ education. Artorias had used most of the same principles in building their fortified home in the Forest of Black and White as the Instructors were teaching in the Academy, and he had made sure to teach Leon those same principles. As a result, Leon’s squad was able to build their camp wall and tents during their practical exercises faster than anyone else in the battalion.

The second class was horse-riding. This one was much harder for Leon, as he simply couldn’t get the damned beasts to do what he wanted, and the horse he was trying to learn on kept throwing him off. Leon quickly decided that horse riding wasn’t his thing. He could fill in many roles within the Legion just fine, but a cavalryman wasn’t in his future, he didn’t think.

He was mostly fine with this realization, but it didn’t make the embarrassment of having to pick himself out of the dirt every time he was thrown from the saddle any easier to endure.

Fortunately for Leon, the next class was an introduction to the signals used to command Legions on the battlefield—a significantly easier subject than riding horses—and Leon picked up on the signals easily enough.

And, when the last day was over, the training units retired to their towers to rest. They had the next week off, and then it was on to the FTX. Two months out in the field, not allowed to leave to head into the city, putting everything they’d learned in their time at the Academy on display for the Instructors before they were shipped out to serve as squires for established knights. The FTX would involve all ten units fighting against each other with the goal of seizing as many banners as they could.

Practically speaking, the stakes of the FTX were little more than honor and pride, but the results would still have a major unofficial consequence on the trainees: where they would be sent for their squireships. Since most lords and higher-ranked knights kept their former squires on as knights in their own units or retinue, where the trainees would be sent for their squireships was essentially where they would spend the majority of their career in the Royal Legions.

Thus, most trainees considered it of the utmost importance to perform well, so that they could be sent somewhere pleasant. ‘Most’ trainees, of course, meant the commoners; the nobles were confident they’d be sent somewhere befitting of both their nobility and education in the Knight Academy regardless of their performance in the end. But that wasn’t to say that they didn’t take the FTX seriously. For nearly all of the nobles, the honor and pride of winning or losing was motivation enough.

The Snow Lions were no exception to the general state of things in the Academy. Every trainee in the unit wanted to win, a desire that was amplified by the fact that they hadn’t done any fighting since seizing the Deathbringers’ banner; they were ready for a good fight, and the FTX was the perfect opportunity. To that end, Leon, Castor, and Alphonsus convened in the third-tier common room to discuss their strategy going forward.

“We’ve been passive for too long! We need to go on the attack!” Alphonsus said emphatically.

“I agree,” added Leon, “and the sooner the better. The longer we wait, the more chances everyone else will have to not only find us, but also to dig in and fortify their camps. So let’s hit them hard and early.”

“Indeed. Fortunately, we already have a fortified camp…” muttered Castor. “Any idea about who we should attack first?”

“The Black Vipers!” answered Alphonsus immediately. “Tiberias took part in that attack on our tower, and we haven’t gotten our revenge yet!”

After a silent moment of thought, Leon said, “Works for me. The Black Vipers still have their banner, a surprise attack on the first night might work…”

“Hmmm… I was actually hoping to go after the Steel Century for that ambush they pulled on you back then,” Castor said while looking at Leon, “but if the two of you are in agreement, then we can go after the Black Vipers first. Thenthe Steel Century.”

Alphonsus laughed in anticipation, but Leon only nodded stoically.

“Beyond that, how do you two think we should fight?” asked Castor. “I’m thinking we ought to go out as light infantry and archers, attacking at night and disappearing during the day back into our caves. Thoughts?”

“I like it, especially the nighttime raids; however, I think we should also have a couple squads of heavy infantry just in case,” Leon said.

“I can certainly take the heavy infantry in that case,” Alphonsus said eagerly.

“Alright, Al your squad will take that role. Choose another squad to join you. If anything should go wrong, you’ll be our shield wall that’ll buy us time to escape. Hopefully, we won’t need you…” Castor said, to Alphonsus’ glee. Castor continued, turning to Leon, “And you, I’m going to put you in charge of archer contingent. I think you’ll be able to inflict plenty of damage with them.”

“Most definitely…” said Leon with a sinister smile. “I also have a few more ideas about how we should proceed after the attack on the Black Vipers, whether win or lose…”

The three stayed up late that night planning their moves, but for all that they agreed, there was one final detail that they knew wasn’t going to go over well with the rest of their unit.

The trainees were going to be given the final week before the FTX as a break. They’d be out in the field training for two months, so this was going to be their last opportunity to party and relax in the city. But Leon and Castor both agreed that they would rather use that time fortifying the caves they’d stayed in earlier in the cycle. It took Alphonsus quite a bit of persuading to get him on board, but in the end, he caved to their pressure.

The Snow Lions would forgo their week off and prepare for what they were sure was going to be an eventful FTX. They were quite possibly the most notable unit in the entire cycle at this point, and with two banners to their name, they were a juicy target. So, if they wanted to win—and they most certainly did—then they had to play to win.

Many of the other Snow Lions were about as enthusiastic as Alphonsus—which was to say, not all. But eventually, Leon and Castor got them on-board with promises of victory and cushy squireships afterward.

And with that, it was time for them to face the FTX. They were as ready as they would ever be, and they intended to win.

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