The night was quiet, everyone was exhausted, drifting into sleep immediately.
The next morning came. Valak stood in the center of the yard, giving the first lesson.
"In Draemir, we don't hide behind staves or chant long-winded prayers," Valak barked, his eyes scanning the survivors. "There are two paths for the legion. The first is for the front line, close range combat. You take the pace of the mana circling your heart and you mimic it outside your skin."
As he spoke, Valak’s body was suddenly encased in a vibrating sheath of mana. It hummed steady like a beat of a war drum.
"The second path," he continued, "is Conjuration." He swept his arms in a wide, fluid arc. Lines of red flame tongues trailed his fingers, weaving into the shapes of four flickering swords that hovered in the air around him.
With a sharp snap of his fist, the fire swords vanished into the air. "You can make almost anything, provided your reservoir is deep enough."
He looked at the recruits with a sneer. "Listen well. If you have fewer than three circles, do not attempt to conjure. You’ll drain your well in minutes and collapse before you even touch the enemy. Those of you with three or more... you can explore that path on your own or wait for an Arcanist to pick you from the mud. But for today, we learn to be Battle Mages."
He signaled for the veterans to bring out the equipment.
He had the recruits stand in two lines. "I want you to bring your mana to the surface of your skin. Keep it tight, like a second layer of leather. If it’s not vibrating at the same frequency as your heart-ring, it’s useless."
As the recruits struggled to coat themselves in their respective glows, the veterans began to swing heavy, padded logs from ropes, like pendulums.
"If your resonance is correct, the log will bounce," Valak explained, pacing the line. "If it’s weak, the log will break your ribs. Focus on the heartbeat! Let the circle in your chest dictate the flow!"
The Wanderer closed his eyes. He reached for that diagonal ring piercing his heart. It felt like a high-tension wire. When he pushed the mana to his skin, it hissed.
He stretched his arm forward as the log swung, the friction of his "razor-like" energy shredded the heavy log, sending a spray of sawdust into the air.
"Watch your output, Wanderer!" Valak shouted, though his eyes lingered on the ruined log.
As for Kuma, he circled multiple layers of mana around his body, each circle turning in opposition to the other.
The log exploded on contact, flying away. Valak said, “show off”
By noon, Valak had them draw their black steel swords. "A sword is just a piece of cold iron until you give it a soul. Transfer the resonance from your hand into the steel. You aren't coating the sword; you are making the sword an extension of your own mana circuit."
Kuma, standing a few feet away, was a natural. His five circles allowed him to coat his blade in a steady, golden radiance. He looked effortless, his sword singing as he cut through the air.
The Wanderer gripped his hilt. He tried to thread his jagged energy into the black steel. The blade groaned under the pressure. The black metal began to vibrate so violently it became a blur in his hand. It was a vibrating saw of dark energy.
"Steady it!" Valak commanded, walking behind him. "If you can't control the frequency, the sword will shatter in your grip. It’s a dance, not a cage match!"
The final exercise of the day was Synchronized Bursts. They were to sprint across the muddy yard while maintaining their external resonance, then unleash a single, concentrated burst of mana from their palms to knock over a row of heavy iron targets.
The recruits stumbled, their mana flickering and dying as they focused on the physical exertion of the sprint. But the Wanderer didn't struggle with the movement. As he reached the end of the line, his raging blue eyes fixed on the iron target.
A thought popped into his mind, to use the void he had created during his fight with Valak. He thrust his palm forward.
The heavy iron slab was sucked forward, its heavy base ripping out of the dirt, before it crumpled inward as if crushed by a giant's fist, then kneeled vomiting right after.
Valak walked over, kicking the crumpled target with his boot. He looked at the sick looking Wanderer.
"I said 'Battle Mage Style,' recruit," Valak said, his voice unusually quiet. "Not 'End of the World' style. Get back in line and do it again. And this time... try not to break my equipment."
Kuma sat on the edge of the barracks roof, silhouetted against a bruised orange sky. He looked bored, lazily flipping three spheres of condensed mana between his fingers like a street performer with coins. Each ball glowed with a different soft hue, rotating in a perfect, silent orbit around his knuckles.
The Wanderer used a burst of mana to reinforce his legs, leaping the tall building in a single bound.
"You are really good with this," the Wanderer noted, watching the spheres.
Kuma didn't look up, though a small, proud smile quirked his lips. "My parents were mages. I learned to feel the pull of the world's strings before I could properly hold a spoon. It’s in the blood."
The Wanderer stared at the glowing spheres. "Can you teach me?"
Kuma froze. The spheres flickered and winked out of existence as he turned his head, eyes wide with genuine shock. "Really? The 'Beast of Draemir' wants lessons from me?"
The Wanderer gave a stiff nod.
Kuma scrambled to his feet, a mischievous glint returning to his eyes. He puffed out his chest and waved a hand through the air, drawing a shimmering, golden title in the fading light: *KUMA AND HIS APPRENTICE.* "The ultimate duo! We’ll be unstoppable!"
The Wanderer’s response was a smack to the back of Kuma’s head.
"Ow! Hey!" Kuma yelped, rubbing his skull. "You can't hit your master like that! It’s bad for the student-teacher dynamic!"
"Start teaching," the Wanderer grumbled.
The weeks that followed became a blur of exhaustion and dual-natured growth. By day, Valak broke their bodies and reforged them in the fires of the "Battle Mage" style. By night, under the cold stars, Kuma pushed the Wanderer to find the finesse required for conjuration.
During the day, Valak stood before the soot-stained recruits, his own fists wreathed in a constant, low-burning violet flame.
"Listen up, meat!" Valak barked. "Elemental magic isn't a game of rock-paper-scissors. You don't use water just because the other guy has fire. Every element is a tool for a specific kind of slaughter."
He punched the air, a shockwave of heat singing the eyebrows of the front row. "Fire is the king of the front line. Its nature is consumption. When you engulf yourself in it, you’re adding explosive kinetic energy to every strike."
The Sergeant continued explaining the usage of basic elements and their applications in combat.
The weeks became a grinding routine. Kuma tried to mend the Wanderer’s spirit with the finesse of a craft he had been born into.
Trying to make his casts faster and more controlled, so he doesn't faint every time he conjures. But mostly failed to explain the how, and the Wanderer wasn't on his same level of understanding.
One evening, they sat on the edge of the barracks roof, their usual spot now. Kuma was shooting spheres of condensed mana into the sky. While The Wanderer fired rough bursts exploding the spheres mid-air.
The Wanderer said, “You suck at teaching.”
Kuma replied, “You suck at learning. “
In the mess hall, the dynamic shifted too. When the larger recruits tried to lean on Kuma, the Wanderer simply set his black steel blade on the table, and the air in the room seemed to drop. By now he became part of his pack.
During a particularly brutal rainstorm as part of survival training, they huddled under a rock, sharing a stolen flask from Valak.
"Why do you want to be stronger?" Kuma asked, his voice unusually quiet. "Is it for the Legion? For Valak?"
The Wanderer looked at the rain lashing the mud. "I'm only sure I have to, maybe when I'm strong enough will understand why."
Kuma nodded slowly. "I just want to be fast enough that no one can ever catch me again. If I’m fast enough, I can find the people who took my home. If I’m fast enough, I can stop running."
They sat in silence then, the "Beast" and the "Liar," watching the lightning illuminate the jagged peaks of Draemir. They were both broken in different ways.
By the time the two months were up, the Wanderer was able to conjure longer before falling down, and weave his mana into his strikes with a precision that made even Valak pause. The bond was forged between both of them in the honest dirt of Draemir.
Next morning, the sun rose, a blood red over the Draemiran peaks. Valak stood on the central dais, clad in a full plate of matte-black steel. He looked over the survivors, who had grown to become a true Daemiran steel.
"Two months," Valak’s voice boomed, carrying across the silent yard. "Most of you should be dead. Some of you are dead. But those of you standing here... you’ve stopped being meat."
He snapped his heels together, his gauntlet hitting his chest with a sound like a hammer on an anvil. "Today is your glorious graduation, and your first mission. From this moment on, you are the teeth of the empire. Daemiran Hounds! Salute!"
They returned the salute in guttural howl, rising from the throats of the recruits. It was the cry of the pack.
Valak’s grin was terrifying to behold. He turned on his heel, his heavy cloak snapping in the wind.
"Follow me to the first of many deaths!"
He led them toward the great southern gates of the fortress, prepared for the unlucky bastards facing them.