The following morning Alan woke alone in his bed. The lingering memories of a sweaty night brought a cheshire grin to his face. Harper and Alan hadn’t spent any more time on mana that night, but he certainly felt like they had made some magic. She was right, he felt better this morning than he had in months. He hoped she felt the same way, but she must have snuck out in the middle of the night so he couldn’t ask her.

  Alan could tell by the light coming through his tiny window that he had slept in later than normal, but that the sun had yet to truly rise. He made his way downstairs and was greeted with the sight of Simon still doing some stretches, so he couldn’t be too late.

  “Slept in today did you? What were you up to last night?” He asked with a smirk.

  “Oh, you know. Stuff. And things.” Alan had never been good when it came to talking about intimate affairs. He found it difficult to keep another smile from spreading across his face.

  “Smooth bro. What would you like to do this morning?”

  “Let’s do weights, I don’t really want to spar.” After wrestling with the beautiful brunette he didn’t want to do the same with the sweaty giant.

  Simon took out several of his rock weights and they worked through a series of exercises. Neither of them knew if this was actually beneficial since they had an actual stat for strength and it hadn’t increased despite their many workouts. It only seemed to increase with their class, but they both felt better after one of their workouts so they did it anyway. Alan also could have sworn that the weight was getting easier, suggesting his strength was growing.

  A half hour later they were both glistening in a layer of funky sweat. They hurried upstairs to the washroom to get cleaned up before the morning meal. One day during breakfast the Master had complained about their body odor and told them they needed to take regular baths. Then he was surprised when the group told him that no one had found the baths.

  “They are on the floor above the workrooms. Have none of you been exploring?”

  Ezra had a furtive look but the rest of the group just felt foolish. In the washroom there were four tubs spread out around the open space with curtains on rods that could be drawn around them for privacy. Each tub was a grand porcelain masterpiece that was easily capable of allowing even the massive Simon to stretch out.

  Filling the tubs was an exercise in energy control. You would have to channel your mana into a red stone on the rim. The others had initially struggled with it, but Alan had demonstrated how to push their mana out of their hands and into the control gem. The excitement they demonstrated after getting it to work made their recent disregard of his teaching efforts sting all the more.

  Ever since he had mastered his conjure water spell a few days ago Alan had used that exclusively to fill his tub. He didn’t seem to be getting any experience or leveling in his spell, but he was definitely feeling more comfortable with its nuances. The water he created was unfortunately cold, unlike the luxurious hot water that came from using the built in stone. However, just yesterday he had finally found a way to fix that. His first attempt to heat the water was by using a fire bolt. Alan summoned the ball of fire in his hand and lowered it into the water. It turned out it was very effective at heating some of the water, but it also caused an explosion of steam.

  Simon had laughed at him as Alan fell back onto his backside. It was less funny after his training partner saw the state of Alan’s hand. It was burned and blistered with cracks in his skin exposing the fat and muscle underneath. Alan grimaced in pain and cast minor healing. He felt a soothing energy flow through his cooked and broken epidermis. The relief was almost instantaneous. Simon had given an inquisitive look at his ability to heal himself but made no comment.

  Alan’s second attempt had ended in another glorious failure. This time he tried to cast an actual bolt of fire into the bath water while standing a few meters away. This resulted in even more steam and most of the water ended up blasted out of the tub. Simon wasn’t as amused that time since the steam soaked the clean clothes he had set out for himself. The large man had managed to acquire a second set of clothes he could wear in addition to those he trained in.

  Yesterday Alan tried yet again.. Instead of using a spell to create fire, he tried to use the mana itself. He placed his hand into the water and then channeled pure mana into it. He didn’t notice any change in the temperature, but he could tell that the water had absorbed the energy somehow. Next he tried separating the mana. Instead of sending a solid stream of combined energy he grabbed for just the fire mana. He gave it a path into the water and felt it rush out of him and into the tub.

  It took a few moments before Alan noticed any more heat in the water. His mana pool was plummeting as the temperature slowly rose. By the time he ran out of mana the water was at room temperature. It wasn’t hot, but it was better than the cold baths he had taken the last few days. The process was expensive and much of the energy was wasted as water still steamed around his hand, but it wasn’t a danger to him this time and the experience was helping with his control.

  Today he filled the tub again with conjure water and then waited a minute to recover the mana spent. While he did he was inspecting the fire mana inside himself. The more he studied it the more Alan could almost sense smaller strands woven together to make the fire mana. There was a sense of all devouring hunger, another feeling of freedom and growth, and also an element of heat.

  To warm his water he didn’t need the consumptive nature of fire, he just needed the heat. As he channeled in his fire mana he tried to suppress the other elements and just let the feeling of heat flow through. That wasn’t how to control fire though, it just burned through his resistance.

  Thinking of how he normally controlled his fire mana he instead encouraged the heat. Alan didn’t try blocking the other elements, he just provided an easier path for the one he wanted. His mana pool plummeted as before but by the end the water felt like a hot tub. Simon arched his eyebrow and Alan shrugged an offer. Their relationship had reached the man level of non-verbal. Simon stuck his hand in and pulled it out quickly.

  “That is hot! What did you do this time? I didn’t even see any fire or steam.”

  “It was something I did by channeling mana,” Alan explained.

  When Simon expressed his curiosity with the process, Alan was eager to go into details. This was the first time in over a week that anyone other than Harper was willing to talk magic with him. Unfortunately Simon had yet to learn how to separate and control his fire mana so he was unable to replicate the feat. Even with the lack of results for his companion, Alan had an extra spring in his step as he made his way down for breakfast. Not only had he had a wonderful night but he was again able to talk to Simon about more than working out.

  For once Harper was not the last to arrive for breakfast. It was Ezra who came slinking up the stairs with dark circles under his eyes. He must have been up late trying to get ready for today’s testing. Ezra wasn’t the one who concerned him though. All through breakfast Alan could sense Harper’s eyes lingering on him. He occasionally met her stare, but he was growing uncomfortable.

  Last night had been wonderful and if they were both still here tonight he would gladly do it again. However, it was still not anything serious for him. Like she had said, it was just for fun. It seemed that she may have not been entirely honest about her feelings. If he was being honest with himself, he had a suspicion that would be the case last night but had ignored it.

  Breakfast today was an oddity because the Master did not join them. One moment they were looking around and waiting for him to arrive and the next there was food on the table but no Master. Simon was the first to reach for something to eat and then all of them dug in.

  As the last of the group was finishing up, Valori was a real bacon hog and refused to allow that platter to be anything but empty, the Master’s voice summoned their attention.

  “Today will be the last that one of you spends with us. Everyone join me on the observation level and I will explain how this will work.”

  After they had been given the green light to explore they had all spent time seeing what else the tower contained. Above the workspace and the washroom levels was a library. There were hundreds of books contained on the many shelves, but the group was prevented from accessing them by a glass door. This was the first locked door they had found, but it was not the last.

  They had all pressed their faces to the door looking in at the treasure contained within, but the see through door provided no entry. There was not even a lock to try and pick. When they tried turning the handle it refused to budge. The floor above that was where they were all headed now.

  It was a floor with no walls, only windows. From floor to ceiling, 360 degrees around was an unobstructed view of the land surrounding the tower. The strange thing was that there was no glass. It simply appeared as if there was nothing there, but if you pressed your hand to where the wall should be there was a firm substance preventing you from falling out.

  When the group tromped their way up the stairs they found the master standing in the middle of the room. He didn’t move as they assembled behind him. None of them wanted to disrupt his view. Alan found it interesting how quickly all of them had become subservient to this man. He wasn’t shocked by his own behavior because he was used to a chain of command, but none of the others had any military experience, and at times during their training discussions, Simon sounded downright hostile towards authority. There was just something about the Master that made you obey.

  When Ezra finally found his place at the end of the line, their master turned and spoke.

  “Today you will demonstrate how much you’ve learned. If you look outside you will see wooden signs with the glyphs written on them. You will be provided with a list of the names of all 100 glyphs in galactic standard. You must visit each of these glyphs in order. You will find a stone on each board, channel your mana into it and then continue on.”

  Alan thought this was an interesting way of testing their memorization. Using his high perception he was still having trouble seeing the signs clearly from here, but he could just barely make out the glyphs drawn on them. But memorization wasn’t the end of the challenge. Alan could tell that there was something different at a few of the signs.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “At the glyphs for Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Light, and Dark you will find an additional test. At each of these you will demonstrate that you have learned the appropriate spell. The one of you with the worst performance will be sent away. In addition, the one who completes the course in the shortest amount of time will receive a reward. There will be a penalty for any spells you fail to demonstrate or glyphs you misidentify.”

  It was nice to know there would be a carrot to go along with the stick. Alan and the others shared glances trying to determine which of them was nervous and who was excited. They all looked nervous to Alan. His was the only face with clear excitement on it as he thrived on competition.

  The Master gave the final instructions. “When I call your name you will descend to the bottom floor and exit the tower. You will find a poster hanging by the door with the list of glyphs in order. Your time will start as soon as your name is called.”

  After a brief pause he called out “Holli!”

  There was a moment of confusion as the group looked around. Finally Simon spoke up, “who?”

  The master pointed at Valori. “Isn’t your name Holli? No? I could have sworn it was…oh well. You, your time is going!”

  Valori gave the Master a sharp look and then sprinted down the stairs. Alan and the others who were left behind moved to the window but were unable to see her until she started moving away from the tower. She must not have spent much time looking at the poster because she was on her way not three minutes later. Valori ran a good distance before touching her first sign.

  She then spent almost a minute scanning around before she found her second sign. She took even longer looking for the third before she ran to the opposite side of the tower. She must have paused at the poster again on the way because they lost sight of her briefly.

  It seemed like Valori’s strategy was to memorize four or five glyphs and then return to the tower to get the next set. It wasn’t until her twelfth glyph that she found one of the six special ones. There was a target and she cast a fire bolt and hit it. Soon after she found another one of the six and there was another target. She spent a minute there but finally left without seeming to do anything.

  Alan heard Harper breathe a sigh of relief. She could only cast two of the spells, but maybe the others were in the same boat. Back on the course, there were a few times where Valorie had to pause her run. She seemed to be searching for the next sign but couldn’t find it. It took Alan a moment to realize that with the signs all facing the tower, you might have a hard time seeing them all when you were out in the field.

  In the end Alan estimated that it took her about 4 hours. She was able to cast fire bolt, shadow bolt, and light bolt.

  “Shamus!” The Master called out.

  “Me?” Simon pointed to himself.

  “Of course!”

  Simon didn’t bother to correct him and took off. He spent much longer at the tower than Valori did. He was obviously trying to memorize more of the glyphs at once. Alan noticed that the first sign he ran to was not the same one as Valori’s. Either one of them had made a mistake, or the order was changing. He decided it could be either one, not enough data to say yet.

  Simon failed his first spell. It was one with a target so it could have been fire bolt, or one of several others. Simon made it through twenty glyphs before he came back to study the poster again. While he was sheltered from their viewing, Alan made his way over to the Master.

  “His name is Simon,” Alan whispered.

  “What was that?” Asked the Master, also in a quiet voice.

  “You called him Shamus, his name is Simon.”

  The Master didn’t respond so Alan made his way back to the window. Simon was at another spell glyph. This time it was stone spear and Simon hit the bullseye. The only other spell he completed was light bolt. He also hit the bullseye on that one. His time came in at just over three hours to Alan’s reckoning. He had saved a lot of time by not having to run back to the tower over and over. He also looked like he was running faster than Valori.

  “Happily!”

  “Do you mean Harper?” she asked shyly.

  “That’s what I said. Get going!”

  She had been standing next to Alan for a while now and he whispered good luck as she took off. Harper took a middle track between Simon and Valori. Simon had only had to return to the tower three times to memorize glyphs and Valori had returned too many times to count. Harper had to come back ten times. She also only managed to cast stone spear and conjure water. For the water test she had to fill a barrel. It took her three casts of the spell to fill it completely.

  While she was running Alan noticed that neither Simon nor Valori had come back up. He and Ezra were alone up here with the master now. Ezra wasn’t paying much attention to Harper’s run and was instead casting surreptitious looks over at Alan. Curious, he finally made his way over to the kid.

  “What’s up Ezra?”

  “Nothing, I’m not doing anything.” Ezra stated guiltily and then shuffled away, not being suspicious at all.

  Alan let it drop and returned to viewing Harper’s test. She managed to finish in maybe three and a half hours. She had the same number of spells as Simon so it would come down to who got the most glyphs correct between those two. Either way it seemed like one of his friends was in trouble.

  “Next up, Dezzi?” The Master seemed much less sure of himself this time. He also pointed to Ezra to make sure.

  “It’s Ezra,” Alan called over after Ezra had run down the stairs.

  “Whatever. He looks like a Dezzi.” Alan thought Dezzi seemed too upbeat of a name for the brooding teenager.

  Ezra only had to return to the glyph poster twice during his run. Alan guessed that Ezra was the most focused on his mage class out of the five of them. If his intelligence was also the highest it would make memorizing the glyphs much easier.

  Ezra had no problem with the fire bolt spell but he failed at stone spear. He also managed to conjure water. It only took him two casts to fill the barrel. The gust test was fairly simple as well. You had to blow a blanket off of a line it was hanging on. Ezra managed this one too and he of course managed the shadow bolt.

  He was not the fastest runner so it took him about the same amount of time as Harper even though he didn’t have to come back as often as she did to memorize glyphs. They had all had to return to the tower occasionally to spot some of the glyphs. Alan hoped his perception would give him an advantage there.

  “And finally…it’s you!”

  Alan called back “It’s Alan!” as he took the stairs three at a time. The poster at the bottom was as advertised. He took about three minutes to memorize as many of the glyphs as possible. The tests he had to take to become a doctor involved a lot of memorization so he knew lots of tricks to help. He had almost half of them memorized before he turned to look for the first.

  Alan spotted it near the edge of the clearing to the north and took off running. Once there it was only the work of an instant to touch the stone, quartz he noticed, and send a channel of mana into it. These days Alan was almost always using his aura reading skill. As he was developing a better sense of his mana he was also trying to develop those perceptions on energy external to his body. There was nothing interesting about the sign itself, but there was something off with the stone he had channeled his mana into.

  When his energy had entered the stone he could see an imbalance in the aura of it. It was stronger in the direction of the sign he had spotted as his next target. That whole process only took him ten seconds and he was away again. Each time he touched a stone he would check its aura to tell him which way to go. Even when he couldn’t spot the glyph from his location he would follow the direction until he got closer and could finally pick it out.

  In the end it wasn’t even close. Alan finished in just under two hours. Between his high dexterity allowing him to run fast and being able to instantly get a direction on the next glyph he had a huge advantage to begin with. And then after completing the gust challenge Alan had picked up another advantage when the sight of the blanket blowing away gave him an idea. As he ran he would cast gust on himself. It pushed him along from behind and increased his speed by at least ten percent.

  He was also able to cast all six of the spells, unlike his competitors. He had to spend an extra minute struggling with his shadow bolt but in the end he sent one soaring at the target. His accuracy wasn’t great, but it was good enough to count as a hit. Alan was still having trouble grasping the dark mana, something about the process left him feeling unclean.

  After activating the hundredth glyph sign he didn’t get any kind of signal so he returned to the tower. When he walked into the front door there was a flash and he found himself in the washroom. Three of the curtains were drawn and one tub stood empty. Making his way over he conjured water and then focused on applying heat before he climbed in. After only a few minutes of washing he could hear the Master’s voice coming from the stairwell.

  “When you are all finished come down to the dining table and we will eat dinner.”

  Alan quickly rinsed off and dressed himself. When he opened the curtain there was Simon, Valori, and Ezra also peeking out. His heart sank as he knew who had lost. Alan had to admit he wasn’t surprised after watching the test. Harper and Simon had both cast the fewest spells, but he was faster by a large margin.

  He was going to miss her. Amorous activities aside, she had been the only one who was willing to hang out with him, other than Simon in the mornings. Alan noticed the others didn’t look surprised to see him peeking out of the final curtain, they must have felt that she was the weakest too.

  They made their way downstairs in silence. There were four places set around the table other than the one before the Master. Unlike last time they gathered after a challenge, there was nothing on the plates to greet them.

  “Congratulations on reaching this stage! I must admit I was a little underwhelmed with some of your performances today. Only one of you was able to cast all six spells. That person also had the fastest time so the clear winner is Ezra!”

  The others were confused, especially Ezra, but Alan just shook his head. “I appreciate that you have learned at least one of our names, but could you at least figure out which of us it goes to?”

  The other’s mouths gaped in shock. No one ever spoke so disrespectfully to the Master. To compare his power to ours would be a joke and he also controlled who would win the final spot, so deference had been the default setting for all of them. Tempting his anger just seemed stupid.

  “Your name isn’t Ezra?”

  “My name is Alan, his name is Ezra, the only girl left is Valori, and the big guy is Simon.” Alan had seen his share of CO’s who were idiots or jerks, especially when he switched over to the Space Force project. Not to say that the Space Force was full of idiots, just the project he was assigned to. When your CO was an ass, sometimes you had to call them out on their shit and deal with the consequences. This time it seemed he would get away with it.

  “Um, yes…so as I was saying. The winner is Alan!”

  Quest Update: Becoming an apprentice (200)

  [You demonstrated the most sensitivity to mana and completed the course in the fastest time. You now must survive the next winnowing. Reward: One Mage talent stone and 100 dungeon points.]

  Alan assumed they were all getting a notification because everyone was staring into space. He stored the talent stone away for later and took a seat at the table.

  “Master, how is it that Ezra and I got to complete the challenge before sundown. Shouldn’t it have set during Harper’s run?” Alan asked.

  “Please, call me Master Mazus. Master seems so formal. I have some control of the dungeon here so I was able to prolong the day so that you could all finish while it was light out. Now dig in. We will talk of your next test after dinner.”

  And with that they all had full plates again and Alan stuffed his face with enthusiasm. Even though he ended up getting first easily, it still took a lot of effort. His new body was fast, but it also seemed to burn through his soul energy fast as well. This left him with a kind of aura fatigue which food seemed to help. He put thoughts of his asshole master aside, but his mind kept flashing between three things as he filled his cheeks to bursting. Harper’s golden brown hair running between his fingers, the talent stone in his ring, and a pair of piercing green eyes.