I met with Damian almost every evening as he guided me on the principles of learning a spell. He really thought I would not learn the dimensional pocket spell but instead utilize my innate ability to create a simple spell formation to create the pocket space. He assured me that as long as my affinity score was over 10, I could eventually create a spell form. Very few people with aether could actually learn the intricacies of memorizing and casting spells. It was also going to be a few weeks before a copy of the spell could be transported from the mage academy to him. He assured me he had sent the request.
As my training progressed with Damian, I missed spending my evenings with Helena and getting in some staff practice. Helena was very rough around the edges, but as I felt more and more comfortable in my new world, my human desires started to rise. The scarred and muscular woman that was Helena was looking better and better to me as she was the only woman I got to see on a regular basis. Her bed in the barracks was right next to mine as well.
Damian was a patient teacher. I think he was also very bored in his assignment as a healer to the training legion. His assistance was invaluable as, at my next testing, I had substantial gains in my magical development. My gains were so significant that the fort’s commander was informed and called me before him.
Physical
Mental
Magical
Strength (+1/+0)
45/79
Intellect (+2/+0)
28/54
Aether Pool (+2/+0)
12/22
Power (+2/+0)
42/82
Reasoning (+2/+0)
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42/59
Channeling (+2/+0)
9/55
Quickness (+1/+0)
27/49
Perception (+0/+0)
52/60
Aether Shaping (+6/+0)
6/8
Dexterity (+2/+0)
27/56
Insight (+2/+0)
30/49
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21/50
Endurance (+0/+0)
56/87
Resilience (+1/+0)
45/71
Aether Resistance (+1/+0)
4/19
Constitution (+2/+0)
36/65
Empathy (+0/+0)
10/21
Prime Aether Affinity
Space
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Coordination (+2/+0)
37/61
Fortitude (+1/+0)
45/89
Minor Aether Affinity
Time
He looked over the transcribed numbers on a piece of paper while I stood at attention. Then he spoke, “Soldier, how did you make such significant gains in three weeks?” His icy blue eyes focused on me from the sheet.
“During our free time after dinner, the healing mage had been helping me, sir.” The commander was a very large man and shifted in his chair and pulled some more paperwork to him and read it.
“Do you think you can learn to create a dimensional space soldier before you graduate?” He asked sternly. I had absolutely no idea. I didn’t even know if I was close. I was hoping my ridiculous score in space magic would have helped by now.
“Yes, sir!” I said with confidence, even though it was faked. He nodded and looked at some more papers.
“Ok, you can work with the healing mage. Is it Damian?” I nodded. “Work with him in the morning as well as the evening. You can have the second daily conditioning phase off. There are three requests for a soldier with a dimensional storage ability or spell. One is from the first prince himself.” He looked at me again and focused on my amulet.
“I no longer require the amulet, sir. I have a basic understanding of the language.” I answered his question before it was asked. It would have been embarrassing for him to send someone who couldn’t communicate with his commander.
“You are dismissed. Damian will keep me updated on your progress.” I left the intimidating gaze of the man.
I didn’t see Damian for the two days of testing. I did much better than I anticipated. I finished 12th in sword ranking, 15th in sword and shield, 20th in the dagger, 9th in hand-to-hand, 4th in the spear. Although my rankings didn’t improve much, I thought my level of ability had closed the gap with those I had previously deemed far superior to me. I also had a feeling that the commander had tested us in the spear to reward me since it was my best weapon. I still missed out on an essence reward, though.
Damian still had not shown and I asked one of the other mages about it. He said Damian had been sent by the commander to retrieve a spell. He should be back soon. I immediately guessed it was my dimensional space spell. As training resumed, there were only 43 of us left. I had been preoccupied with my own problems that I didn’t notice the cuts from the tablet testing and the combat rankings. We were quickly zeroing in on the desired 30 graduates.
Getting the second half of conditioning off did not endear me to my fellow legionnaires. The special treatment actually meant I had to deal with more aggression from multiple directions during combat training. In the four days before Damian returned I suffered just as many broken bones and lacerations as I had in the previous nine weeks.
Damian appeared after dinner one night while I was working on my exercises by the lake. It was quiet up here and the other soldiers rarely came up here. He waived a pamphlet as he approached. “I got the spell and a more recent copy at that!” He said excitedly. We spent the evening going over the spell, and Damian explained things as best he could.
The best way to describe a spell was math. The aether wrote out the formula, and when you funneled your aether stores into it, you got the result. It meant magic had a massive range based on changing a few variables. During the rest of the interim testing, we worked on the spell, and I was actually starting to get an understanding of magic. It was an obscure understanding, but at least that was something. My progression was not good when the testing rolled around compared to my prior efforts.
Physical
Mental
Magical
Strength (+1/+0)
46/79
Intellect (+0/+0)
28/54
Aether Pool (+0/+0)
12/22
Power (+1/+0)
43/82
Reasoning (+2/+0)
44/59
Channeling (+1/+0)
10/55
Quickness (+2/+0)
29/49
Perception (+0/+0)
52/60
Aether Shaping (+0/+0)
6/8
Dexterity (+0/+0)
27/56
Insight (+1/+0)
31/49
Aether Tolerance (+0/+0)
21/50
Endurance (+0/+0)
56/87
Resilience (+0/+0)
45/71
Aether Resistance (+0/+0)
4/19
Constitution (+1/+0)
37/65
Empathy (+0/+0)
10/21
Prime Aether Affinity
Space
Coordination (+1/+0)
38/61
Fortitude (+1/+0)
46/89
Minor Aether Affinity
Time
At our next tutoring session, Damian revealed my scores put me at 28th in my training group. He told me I had dropped four positions from three weeks ago. The good news was the commander was very interested in seeing me learn a storage space spell. He would be in line for a reward if he produced such a soldier.
The weapons ranking went terribly. I was essentially gained up upon as my barracks shared information about my habits and weaknesses. I finished 22nd in sword ranking, 25th in sword and shield, 34th in the dagger, 14th in hand-to-hand, and 11th in dual wield. They made no secret of sharing my deficiencies among themselves, so much for building camaraderie.
Between the two tests, we only lost three, bringing us down to 37. If it was true only 30 could graduate, then it was going to be fairly brutal to avoid being one of the last seven cuts. I actually wished I had made an effort to make friends. The problem I had was everyone was kind of an asshole. They were here because they had either committed brutal crimes or wanted to be at the top of the food chain. Even Helena had her own air of superiority to her.
Fortunately, things finally worked out for me a week after we dropped our numbers down to 37. My space spell form initiated. I had obtained my dimensional space, and it was far more powerful than I could have imagined. A translucent cube would appear visible only to me and oriented to my person. Inside the cube, there was no gravity and no passage of time. If I choose to, I could cancel the space, and anything caught on the edge would be sheared off. Even if the space was active, I could actively allow objects to pass through so they wouldn’t be aware of the space.
There were negatives. Keeping the space open cost two aether every thirty seconds, and that was the minimum I needed to spend on using the ability. So my pathetic aether pool of 12 made it somewhat limiting. When I ran out of aether the space closed no matter what.
I excitedly found Damian, “It works. I got my pocket space!” Damian’s face showed surprise, followed by joy.
“How large is the space?” He asked. My space was large, about a 10 foot cube. I knew he would be impressed.
“How big do you think it is? What is a good size?” I prompted a response.
“A cubic foot would be exceptional! But six cubic inches should be enough to get you a messenger position.” He said anxiously awaiting my response. I paused. The spell created a space of about a cubic foot so my space was about 1000 times that volume. I guessed it had to do with my 98 space magic stat. If I revealed this would I end up married to some princess? Or would I end up being enslaved to a king transporting illicit items for him. I decided to go for the middle ground.
“It is just over a cubic foot maybe one and half to a side.” I said.
“We should go to the commander immediately! He will want to hear this! And he will probably test you to confirm what you are saying is true.” Damian was bouncing all the way to the manor and kept telling me to hurry up.
In front of the commander, it was as he said. I was tested to confirm that I did in fact, have a space the size I mentioned. His smile grew as everything was confirmed. I also found out that I was even more fortunate. Because the space was formed as a spell form ability and not a spell, it was permanent. If I had used a spell, then my link to the space could be broken and the contents lost. Now, the only way to destroy the items in my space was to kill me.
The commander spoke, “The prince’s request has already been fulfilled. The other two requests in the kingdom are still open. I will send word of your potential and wait to hear back.” He seemed giddy as he started writing the letters. I imagined he was in line for a sizable bonus. “There is great news for you. Once your assignment is approved, you will be promoted to full legionnaire under the Lion’s banner. You will start receiving payments. Of course, we should get you fitted for your legionnaire’s gear. You were probably not told, but your salary will be withheld to pay for the gear. Seventeen gold in total.” My jaw dropped. The was astronomical compared to the 20 silver I owed the farmers. “Don’t worry about it. You are gifted a full set of gear on your 5th anniversary. So if your gear is intact, you will get the coin back. You will probably earn more than 5 silver, 40 copper as you will be a specialist as well.”
I did the rough math in my head. That 17 gold was over 310 weeks of pay! I didn’t know if I should be angry or not. As we left, the commander and Damian tried to soothe me. “Don’t worry. You are allowed to take loans out against future pay up to 5 silver a week. The equipment payment is just to let you know that it is owned by the kingdom and not yours until you complete five years of service.” That did make me feel slightly better. “So keep it in good order and don’t borrow too heavily. The interest rate is small over five years it does add up.” He finished.
Great, I was in a kingdom that was aware of how to use compounding interest against you!
The next day, during training, the commander came out and watched. It was the first time he did, and everyone was trying hard to impress him. When my opponent got a head strike on me, causing a bleed and conclusion, the instructor rushed and reprimanded him. This left our group stunned. This had never happened before. I was now valuable to the commander. Damaging his little piggy bank was off-limits.
Four days later, Damian found me after breakfast. “Word just came down. You are going to be assigned to Master Mage Castille.” He didn’t seem too enthused by this.
“So what is the problem?” I asked, sounding worried.
“She is a bit of a problem solver. She takes on the most difficult assignments. Her legionnaires are top tier, but their mortality is somewhat high due to the dangers of the missions they undertake.” He finished.
God fucking damn it! I was assigned to the suicide squad!
