I was on my feet with my bag and my notebook before anyone else had moved.
“Come on!” I tugged Jennie’s arm.
We stumbled through the portal into a huge training room, Hera and her team close on our heels.
Valant stood in the center, her sword absently tracing lazy circles in the air, sheath nowhere to be seen.
Slowly, the rest of the class filtered through the portal, looking like they’d just woken up from a nap.
Our training room was much bigger than the one I had been in earlier, and also came equipped with windows near the top that showed some bleachers, like a sports arena.
“You will attack me, with full force.” Said Valant, when we’d all arrived. “Class will be dismissed when you have taken one one-thousandth of my durability. The exercise has begun.”
We stared dumbly.
Oh shit.
I summoned Lucy and Lorna. They appeared in circles of sparks. Their tattoos on my arm started drinking up mana, slowing my regeneration to a mere trickle.
Valant took a dueling stance, sword tip down and out. Her eyes focused softly out into the middle distance. Her whole body radiated a deadly kind of relaxation.
It was extremely off-putting.
A girl conjured a bow and shot a glittering arrow of light directly at professor Valant.
There were some gasps at the sudden violence.
Valant looked like she hadn’t even noticed the attack until the very last moment, when she swayed and let the arrow pass a hair’s breadth from her exposed neck.
We paused. Then chaos broke loose.
Mages and ranged physical attackers launched an onslaught of mismatched magical and mundane violence.
Most of it struck our own classmates, as melee fighters dashed into Valant to attack.
Several students went down, our few healers suddenly scrambling to provide aid.
“Stop, stop!” Yelled Jennie at the room at large. “We have to coordinate!”
It had absolutely no effect.
Melee DPS yelled at ranged ones.
Ranged yelled at tanks.
Tanks pestered our healers for more dedicated support.
“HEY!” Hera bounded up to our sides and bellowed at our classmates. “GREENBEANS, FORM UP ON ME!”
She was the picture of heroic beach volleyball glory.
Her leather reinforced battle dress was… very short. And her legs….
I would have followed her into a volcano.
In a matter of moments, we were surrounded by disgruntled classmates.
Valant watched us, silently. She’d barely moved a foot from her starting position. I didn’t think she’d even used her long sword yet.
“This is even worse than group projects in regular school.” I groaned to Jennie.
“One one-thousandth of her health!” Growled Jennie. “Like what the fuck?! How are we supposed to even touch her? She’s like a bazillion levels above us.”
Our classmates were rapidly coming around to similar thoughts as most of them desperately expended all of their attacking resources to little or no effect. At least not on Valant. We were still managing to hurt each other a good bit.
I ducked with a squeak, as a fireball streaked over my head.
“We need to coordinate.” I yelped, waving my arms to get a few stragglers to stop attacking randomly and come join Jennie’s and my little band.
“Your mentor is not preventing non-damaging effects.” Lorna observed, floating to my side.
“Doesn’t help us much.” I whispered back. “We have to damage her to end class.”
“What happens if we don’t get her by the time the class period ends?!” Asked a scared looking archer.
“She can’t keep us from attending the rest of our classes.” Insisted an uncertain girl with green hair.
“I wouldn’t be so sure….” I muttered.
Professor Valant was watching curiously, fending off her remaining attackers with casual flicks of her blade.
“Cast every non-damaging curse or condition that you have between you.” Lorna instructed. “When they reach their apex, ranged attackers volley together, then the melees will roll in after. Ranged will switch to any support options they have.
The students blanched at being ordered around.
“Who the is this ghost looking—“
“Do you know who I am?!”
“My father would never—“
In the din of six different people trying to take charge with no plan, Jennie muttered in my ear.
"Is your new girl... how do I ask this gently." Jennie waffled. "Is her plan secretly a way to get in your pants, or is this a real strategy?"
"Lorna," I called. "Jennie would like to see your headshot and resume."
Lorna drifted over, "I have been a general in twelve campaigns, across dozens of worlds, and thousands of years. However, my Summoners have primarily been Wayfinders, so I have done a great deal of small group tactics such as this. I fear I do not have any photographs of myself at this time. I tend not to appear in them."
Jennie stared at the regal, transparent little woman floating patiently before her.
"Ooook! Nice to meet you General Lorna!" She made a little salute that I found extremely adorable with her body suit and her big dumb glasses.
Jennie wheeled on our bickering classmates and cut off the noise.
“We tried attacking randomly and only hit each other!!” She yelled. “We need to try something new! If Lorna’s plan doesn’t work, you can go right back to hitting your head against the wall.”
“I don’t take orders from familiars.” A tall, pretty girl sneered.
“Lorna has more real combat experience than the rest of us combined.” I snarled.
I did not like the tone the pretty girl had said ‘familiars’ in.
“Do you have a better plan?” Demanded Jennie, putting the other girl on the spot.
All eyes turned to her and she hesitated for a fraction before scoffing irritably.
“It’s not my job to carry all of you losers.” She sneered.
She walked away and in a minute had rejoined the small group attacking independently.
“Wrong!” Hera announced, “It’s each of our jobs to carry one another! Together we climb, Greenbeans! Together!!”
There was a ragged cheer.
“Ok, everyone.” I said, trying not to give anyone else time to leave. “We can still do this. Count us off, Lorna?”
Lorna started barking orders and we scurried into a loose formation.
Lucy sidled up to me and nuzzled into my side.
“I like when you bring people together, like this.” She whispered.
“Then I think you’re going to love Lorna.” I laughed, watching my frost specter directing traffic.
Lucy giggled, following my gaze. “She sure is scrumptious.”
“Lucy!” I whispered.
Then I involuntarily took another look at my ghost Familiar.
She was elegant and poised. Her translucent white garb shifted in its private breeze, providing tantalizing glimpses of the shapely, slender body beneath, graced with the subtle feminine curves of….
“Wouldn’t you just love to unwrap her with me?” Whispered Lucy in my ear, as she wrapped her arms over my shoulders.
Images that had nothing to do with the battle before us began a parading through my head.
Lorna’s dignified demeanor breaking down into moans and sighs of pleasure as Lucy and I….
I shook it off.
“We have to work right now.” I insisted, blushing hard, and desperately trying not to get hard. “You are so bad!”
“Then discipline me!” suggested Lucy, eagerly.
“Now!” Cried Lorna, her musical voice rising effortlessly over the crowd.
“Greenbeans!” Hera cried, hurling her javelin.
“GREENBEANS!” we cried, with minimal question marks.
The insane name Hera had saddled us with was catching on, by sheer dint of her enthusiasm for it.
I had little to do, but my familiars added to the collective assault.
First, a dozen students cast a haphazard array of curses on professor Valant.
She examined her hands clinically as if testing their effects, as she allowed the spells to land.
Lorna vanished, and through our nascent bond, I felt her adding a frosty rime to the barrage of conditions.
The students who were attacking randomly suddenly seemed a lot more effective.
Next, a veritable light show of ranged attacks engulfed the professor as every student with a ranged attack sent it her way. Weighed down with our curses, she was battered in a miniature hurricane of magic and steel.
Our stragglers had to leap and dive away to keep from getting toasted by the magical conflagration.
All at once the vortex burst apart.
Valant stood tall, twisting her huge sword through elliptical loops. The wind pressure of its passage was blasting our ranged attacks away with sheer physical force.
My jaw dropped.
Around me, my classmates were having similar reactions.
“What are we even supposed to do against that?”
“We might as well attack the mountains.”
“Not so.” Said Valant, freezing us in our places. “I am far more difficult to break than a mere mountain.”
My knees went wobbly underneath me.
It was one thing to know in theory that Wayfinders were strong. But feeling the wind off of those lazy circles that her sword was tracing spoke of power like nothing I could imagine.
So that was Ascendance, the mysterious echelons of power beyond the Levels.
“Don’t stop!” Lorna cut through our torpor. “Melee! Attack with your full strength!”
Lucy shot away from me towards Valant.
Jennie vanished, appearing behind Valant, along with two other rogue types.
I ran in dutifully, charging up the biggest [Tempest Strike] I could, dumping mana recklessly into the skill until my fist was thrumming with it. I would definitely have to dismiss my Familiars for a while, after using all this mana. But we had to maximize our output, right now.
Brawlers like Lucy crashed in with fists and kicks and various weapons.
Sword based classes dashed and slashed.
Axes and hammers rang like strident bells.
I swung my [Tempest Strike] wildly.
Valant danced through it all. Rather than run us into each other and reduce our efficiency, she seemed to go out of her way to present a target for every attack. She was before everyone, deflecting, redirecting, or countering their blows.
Then, once it seemed everyone had emptied the tank, she whipped her sword around her head like a lasso, and our melee fighters were blasted back.
In a shining moment of epic dumb luck, I was in the middle of [spectral waltz] and ignored the knockback entirely.
I landed alone and petrified in front of Valant, my [Tempest Strike] rumbled against the flat of her blade an inch from her lapel.
“Sorry!” I squeaked, irrationally.
I felt what rabbits feel under the gaze of a hawk.
Valant raised a scar-notched eyebrow.
I found myself sailing through the air to land in a rolling heap in the dust.
Lucy caught me, stopping my roll, and I nodded gratefully before flopping my head back on her chest.
The plush, ample cushions of her breasts pillowed my head perfectly, and she gasped at the intimate contact.
Lorna reappeared over us, bare feet just off the ground, hands clasped behind her thoughtfully.
Something about her intense look really did it for me. Or maybe it was the view I very nearly had up her dress.
Tantalizing.
Lucy was on the same page as me, and I felt her hand clutch mine as we both sloooowly leaned forward!
I nearly drooled.
Valant sheathed her sword with a snap.
“Class has concluded.” She announced.
General relief and joy. Many of the class dropped exhausted into the dirt.
I was mostly fine, except for my mana reserves. I hadn’t even needed to use any healing on Lucy or Lorna. Many others hadn’t been so lucky.
“I will provide you with feedback on both a personal and group level at our next class.” Said Valant.
She was unscathed, her grey suit unblemished, not a hair out of place or a drop of sweat spilled, much less blood.
“I apologize for misleading you, regarding the nature of this evaluation.” Valant went on matter of factly. “I merely wished to motivate you to do your best. And to introduce you to your final exam early.”
We stared. Many students sat up and gawked.
Jennie let out a little outraged squeak.
“To pass this year, you must repeat this exercise and successfully take one thousandth of my health.” Stated Valant, like a judge handing down an execution order. “You have a long way to go.”
She cut a portal in the air and strode through it. When it didn’t close, we meekly followed in a discouraged line, and were returned to the classroom.
“Chins up, Greenbeans.” Hera consoled us. “We will get her next time.”
I nodded, grimly. We would have to, if we wanted to make it to the second year.
At the beginning of the class this had seemed like a tall order.
Now that we’d experienced her power for ourselves?!
I pictured us all trapped forever as first years, never able to overcome Valant.
A long way to go?!
We needed a miracle!