The Third Party - Chapter 70

3rd Person’s POV (12 yrs., 8 months and 1 week old)

Nonetheless, the other masters didn’t voice out their question as they saw no problem in the matter, who would when technically Klein asked them who would like to teach the kids first.

They all waited in the sidelines as they watched the kids do their thing. Physical exercise wasn’t really that exciting in the least, except for when the students picked up the weights, but with the repeated motion executed, they quickly lost interest.

But their interest was piqued again when the kids started cultivating, for this was their first time watching all the students engage in mana manipulation exercise, they watched as if the scenery before them started to fill in different colors.

For as magical beasts, they were extremely sensitive to magic and mana, sometimes able to perceive it with their naked eye, the mana having a distinct color of blue, with different subtle shades of blue along the way.

But what they are seeing made their breaths stuck in their throat, watching as the blue mana from the world entered the students and slowly turned to their respective color representing the individual’s mana.

Particularly Dawn, who cannot only see the color of mana, she could also interact with it, an ability that came with her being an Oracle.

Even though the field could be comparable to four football fields, the colors seemed like they could just envelop it if they deemed so.

The three other masters smiled at their friend’s reactions, for it was priceless at how they almost seemed gawking at the situation before them, even though it looked like a normal situation for them as they had learned to shrug off the different colors assaulting their eyes.

They didn’t point out the reactions of their fellow masters though, as it didn’t really concern them that much, they returned to watching their students and slowly, they also got themselves immersed as they too subconsciously cultivated.

An hour later, there were still some hours left before lunch, the students finished their cultivation and slowly lined themselves up for magic class.

Mira who was watching at the side stood up and walked to the side of the field, her mind constructing ways she could approach the group, seeing as they were calm, a thought struck her mind, she smirked to herself.

Icarus who was waiting in front of the group as the commander, watched as the others slowly walked to the formation, all dressed in their battle clothing, of course he had worn his too.

Mind clouded of nothing but wanting to just go and get to magic class, he wanted to show the others a new spell he created, inspired by his last trip to Ken’s sleeping disorder.

The calm exterior of the surroundings suddenly turned violent as spikes thrust forth from the ground, immediately, the group dispersed from their location as spikes also appeared, almost hitting them.

Once they had jumped a distance away, they frantically checked the surroundings feeling around for anyone who used their mana so they can trace it back to them.

There was nothing… but the calmness of the surroundings, wait, the ground didn’t seem normal.

“Everyone, FLY!!” shouted Ken, as he got ahead of everyone and jumped into the air and levitated, followed suit by his friends.

The ground below them suddenly deformed, as if some form of land monster appeared below the ground as the ground resembled that of a quick sand.

“Great reflexes.” The group stared in front at Mira. “To actually notice my spell before it activated, I must applaud you.” She said, with a small smile on her face, the group did not know whether it was genuine or not as they were far away from her location.

How was master Mira’s voice able to reach them? A silent thought in the back of their head, right now, their minds were occupied of why they were being attacked.

“I’ll be you’re instructor for the day, but first, let’s do some warm up.” She took out on her blades from her back. “Prepare yourselves.”

She rushed forward appearing in front of Ken in an instant, her blade striking the boy head first, sending Ken to the ground.

The group who were caught off guard immediately dispersed again, rushing to catch their bearings and patiently wait at the side for Master Mira to attack them.

“Why aren’t you attacking?” asked Mira, in mid-air, her red armor almost blinding the students around her, even the other masters didn’t miss the glint of her armor, as well as her scrutinizing gaze, albeit covered underneath that calm face.

“Considering that we have the numbers advantage, I don’t think it would be fair to fight you head on, would it not?” said Saber, a katana gripped by both hands, Mira smirked.

“Oh really, too bad, Earth Magic: Sunder.” The spell executed itself immediately, but this time, instead of a wave, the spell burst forth around her, again catching the students off guard, as they all stared wide eyed at the sudden area of effects spell.

An area of effect spell that summons dozens of debris around her. She had modified her spell.

Smoke rose from the countless debris everywhere on the ground as she felt disappointment from the swift defeat of the students. She almost clicked her tongue, almost.

For as she was about to turn around, eight purple translucent orbs formed in the air, dashed forward aiming for her.

Mira calmly intercepted the orbs with her sword, but what happened next, shocked her, as she not only sliced through all eight orbs, but got herself struck from eight sides.

The blows weren’t deep as they were shallow, but nonetheless it pushed her away from the final blow, she could not quite comprehend how that was possible.

“Got you.” Said someone behind her, she turned around, and there all eleven of the children were flying. She gathered herself before any of the students noticed the moment of disbelief on her face.

Which was replaced by curiosity, mainly on how the kids survived that ordeal.

“Do we continue Master Mira?” asked Allen in the middle, his companions, whose weapons were brandished, ready for a fight.

“I suppose, but like what your companion said, I can’t take you all in one go, Earth Magic: Clay dummies.” Ten clay dummies formed below her, but the shape of the dummies surprised the group as it took the shape and form of their Master Mira.

Even dawning the same armor and color, almost as if they were carbon copies of her. They tried peering into the mana reserves on the dummies but were also dumbfounded as the power level all felt and looked familiar to Master Mira’s.

The dummies even flied and surrounded Mira, weapons ready. Different ones.

“Well, this should be fun.” said Lila softly beside her brother, Saber turned to her, but shrugged the next as he recognize that glint in her eyes, the one that wants to experiment on something, mainly on her skills.

The group engaged in a one on one with the dummies, trading blow after blow, but mostly were blocked by each other’s respective swords, shields or barriers.

Some had difficulty on handling the dummies as the weapon of their choice does not necessarily go well in close combat.

Mainly Celine who was carrying a bow, Flin who was using a flute, and Riyah who was carrying a staff, the others mainly used swords, in the case of Wilbert, Icarus, Princess Lang and Allen, and daggers, in the case of Saber, and Lila.

And we all know what Ken is using, while Glen’s using an axe. The fight continued on till minutes to lunch, as the group saw that the villagers were slowly setting up the table.

With a shout, Mira -the real one-, pushed Ken a few distance away on the ground, scythe in front of him to block the attack from her sword.

After fighting Ken for about an hour, she was further amazed at how this kid fights, not only did he utilized any opportunity to his advantage, he also went and used an unorthodox fighting style that she herself got to witness.

Ken blocked her flurry of thrusts, jabs, and slashes with a wave of his scythe, as if it was a staff, for every turn, Ken would counter attack with a thrust or a wide arc swing, which thoroughly impressed Mira as no one could pull off something that complicated in a fight that fast.

But Ken was able to do so, and for that, her respect for this little man, rose up.

“You’re quite strange, human Ken, did you know that?” she said, Ken’s attention perked up, and he assumed a casual position, his scythe at his side.

“Yes master.” He said with a smile.

“Peculiar.” Mira said to no one in particular, she glanced at the others fighting her dummies and at the corner of her eye, she noticed Klein approaching.

“Mira, do pause the exercise for now, lunch is ready.” Klein said, Mira nodded and with a thought, her dummies seized their actions and returned to the soil.

Glen stumbled forward from the wide swing he did as the dummy in front of him suddenly collapsed, making the others who noticed, chuckle at their expense, fortunately, Glen didn’t seem to notice, freeing him from the embarrassment.

“Come join us for lunch as well.” said Klein, directing the message to Ken.

“Yes Master.” Ken bowed and called for his companions for lunch, the group immediately obliged as cheers rang from the field, clearly happy for the food that they will be partaking.

“Oh wait, we weren’t able to do magic class.” said Ken to no one in particular, his group stared at him and chuckled at the pout plastered on his face, but a certain someone was a relieved that he wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Icarus stared into the distance with the thought that he will show his new spell to his friends, later.

After lunch the group along with the masters returned to their session and this time, everyone was just beside their lunch table as they listened intently on Mira, discussing to them.

“You have skills that are commendable and impressive especially at such a young age.” She said. “Coupled with the part that you have good teamwork and cooperation makes this all the more easy to teach.”

The group nodded at the compliment, for that was what they clearly heard.

“Are you familiar with being a commander?” she asked, the group nodded. “Then explain it to me, Allen.” Allen rose from his seat and said…

“Someone who takes the reigns in commanding their group towards a certain goal.” Mira nodded in confirmation, Allen sat back down.

“Now, being a commander is not just someone who commands their troop, he or she must also tactfully analyze and familiarize themselves with the objective at hand.” She said. “I’m sure you already know this so I won’t be going in any deeper.”

“Now, is anyone familiar with the word I said, ‘troop’.” She said, scanning her gaze on the group, the students stared at one another then back at her, slowly shrugging, depicting that they do not know.

“Well, based from the things I mentioned, I will be teaching you all in the art of commanding.” The group only stared at her, she smirked to herself, of course these children already know how to command, just look at earlier.

“But not just on your activities, I’ll teach you different methods in approaching certain types of objectives and missions you lot will be facing in the future.” Now the group were confused, what other missions are they to do?

“Don’t be confused, I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’m talking about this kind of topic, as a commander myself, I’d like you all to learn of the commands I do in my own troop, of the ant beasts.” She said.

The group nodded, imagining to themselves what the string of commands they do as ant beasts. Ken’s imagination went awry though, as he thought of small ants listening to Master Mira’s commands.

Then he remembered the big sturdy forms of the different ant beasts they encountered before, black lines appeared on his head as he thought that if those ant beasts would have read his mind at that moment, he would be so screwed.

He shook the thought away and focused back on the discussion. Throughout the whole afternoon, they learned new things that they can use whenever in command.

Others thought about the different things they can do with those strings of command as they thought that they were cool to do such as certain key words connotes action from the group, and if they could connect it from one another, they could create some type of performance.

Ken was the only one thinking about it though. The others, were more focused on the simple parts, thinking about stringing different commands confuses them.

Later about mid afternoon, the group returned to magic training, this time with a little bit of help from Master Mira, as she gave them further knowledge of earth magic regarding to the way they ant beasts use them.

Finally, Icarus was able to showcase to everyone the new spell he made, a combination of him covered in flames and fire, but as some kind of weapon, the flames that surrounded him did not touch a single strand of hair from his friends,

Causing them to exclaim in awe at what Icarus had done, but that was not the best part, he condensed the flames into a sphere in front of him and pushed in front to a debri of the earth wall from earlier.

In an instant, bright light surged forth to the sky as the flames that burst forth were so intense that it made the group cover their eyes, or risk getting blinded.

What was left of the earth wall was nothing but a smoldering ground. Sun strike, was what he called it, with the initial phase being called, Sun Cape.

Everyone were further mesmerized, but Ken says otherwise, as the names used sounded familiar in his head, like it came from a game or something.

“Onwards!” said someone from behind the group. They all turned around to see a smoke from a distance, and when they closely inspected it, figures of wolves could be seen.

They were all confused, what where-

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