After a few days of practice, magic had become almost routine. Granted, directing the elements with pure thought still felt pretty surreal.

    Verna had them lined up for progress demonstrations, but they all knew it was just a formality. They’d caught the hang of it by day 2, and while the practice did get monotonous, at least it was legit magic. Besides, rushing fundamentals never ended well.

    A tea service waited on one of the training room tables. “Right then!” Verna moved to it. “Let’s start with something proper. I’ve various teas for you here. Telsur, steeped at one-hundred sixty degrees Fahrenheit; marreth, best at one-eighty; and lastly,” she set down the last cup, “rennes at two-hundred twenty. Mind the temperatures, for there’s naught worse than ruining a fine tea by carelessness.”

    Cole figured Verna would test them somehow, but this definitely wasn’t what he expected. Tea, of all things. Something about getting judged on proper brewing made all that practice feel inadequate.

    Might as well get on with it. He started with the telsur, amping up the temperature the same way he’d do it on a stove. Of course he had to get stuck with the hardest to discern – trying to hit that sweet spot between warm tap water and a boil was quite a pain in the ass. But he managed.

    Verna lifted the cup and took a careful sip. “Perfect! Sergeant Walker?”

    Ethan crushed the marreth test, like his dormant British genes finally woke up for something. Verna’s nod said it all.

    Miles drew the rennes – lucky bastard just had to crank it up to boiling. No finesse required; just heat till the bubbles hit.

    Verna gathered the cups. “Right then. Let’s move on.”

    Water was next on the menu, and the task was simple enough: manipulate the water in some bowls and show they know how to shift between states of matter. Water to ice, then ice to steam, then everything back to liquid.

    Cole didn’t need a formal test to know he could do this, but here he was, staring down a basin of water. The visualization was pretty easy; just an extension of the temperature exercise they did earlier. The only tricky part would’ve been the manipulation of the water itself, but Verna had probably seen enough of their party tricks the past few days. The liquid spiraled up, freezing into a statue before discombobulating into steam. A little condensation and it rained right back into the basin.

    It wasn’t the most exciting thing, but then again, neither was the important task of loading a magazine.

    The next test was a series of hoops filled with faint smoke drifting through the air. All they had to do was guide the smoke through the hoops without spilling a wisp.

    Cole pictured the air currents like flow lines in a wind tunnel, then pushed with his mana to make them real, and voila. The smoke followed the path he carved, zipping through the obstacle course cleanly.

    “Man,” Miles muttered from somewhere to his right, rueful as shit.

    Cole knew that tone – new toys, old problems. After all those times eating sand in the field, being able to just push particulates around at will almost felt like cheating. And earth magic wasn’t much different.

    Once Verna had approved Miles and Ethan’s attempts, she had them raise a pillar, then dig a ditch.

    Cole crouched, placing a hand on the soil. The pillar rose steadily, stopping just shy of the marker. Without pause, he carved a clean trench alongside it. Easy, but damn if it didn''t leave him jealous. If they’d had magic like this back home, half the shit they did might’ve taken minutes instead of hours. No more shoveling foxholes, stacking sandbags, or waiting on engineers to haul out HESCO.

    It didn’t scream battlefield glamor, but it was the kind of thing that made life a hell of a lot easier. Not that it was any news to him. Shonen fanboys always got hung up on the flashy stuff – fireballs, lightning bolts, et cetera. They’d gobble up fights but call something as great as Frieren boring, like they couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that magic wasn’t just about the explosions and OP shit.

    This, on the other hand, was what made it truly powerful. Hell, Ethan was already getting a hard-on over his new ability to shape terrain at a whim.

    “That will do. Now... offense.” A prideful smirk grew on her face. She sounded like she’d been waiting to get to this part. Well, they all did.

    The earth restored itself without even a lifted finger as Verna walked past, bringing them to a section of yard where someone had set up earthen targets on stone stands. “Offensive magic offers myriad approaches, but we shall begin with the essentials. Given your admirable progress thus far, I suspect we shan''t tarry overlong!” No?v(el)B\\jnn

    A small flame sparked in her palm. Nothing fancy at first – just enough to light a smoke. Then it grew and condensed into a tight sphere: a fireball.

    She launched it. Unlike the glorious weapons of mass destruction fantasy media always painted these out to be, this fireball started to fizzle out en route to the target. The final product that actually made impact was a shadow of its former self, leaving barely a scorch mark on the clay target.

    He got it by the third attempt, though. Not his best, but at least he could gloat about it to Ethan and Miles who took five each to get it right.

    Adding the barrier was easier. It was just like treating the interior as an engine’s combustion chamber – strong enough to contain the pressure but sized correctly to allow the reactions to take place.

    Suboptimal at first, but still functional. Eyeballing it was tough, but it only took a few tweaks to get the compression right. Within minutes they were launching fireballs that hit just as hard as Verna’s demonstration.

    She clapped her hands. “Defying all precedents again, I see. Though... I suspect I ought not to be astonished any longer.”

    Cole smiled. Hopefully they’d be able to keep this up. “Guess that means we’re ready for what’s next, then?”

    “More than ready,” Verna said. “Though perhaps we ought to start with something properly simple: fog. You might find it rather interesting.”

    The air shimmered around her hand. Steam was familiar territory by now; Cole had done enough practice to recognize that initial gathering of vapor. His usually spread out like bathroom fog, filling whatever space it had – which meant disappearing into the large ass training room or blending into the surrounding atmosphere outside. Hers didn’t. Instead, it engulfed their immediate surroundings without losing consistency.

    The mist drew itself tight, probably dense enough to eat radio signals. It turned into that perfect, unnatural white that made everything past five feet look like an old photograph. Real unsettling, but otherwise fine as long as a pyramid didn’t jump at him.

    It made his work with steam look almost amateur in comparison, but he’d gladly take the blow to his pride. This mist had a ton of utility; it functioned less like the wispy shit from actual smokescreens, and more like Call of Duty smoke that actually blocked line of sight.

    The mist dissipated just seconds after, and she moved on to her next spell. “Now, mud.”

    A patch of ground beside them cracked as she set aside a square for demonstration. Water seemed to well up from within the soil itself, like a spring but everywhere at once. The dry earth turned into mud in just seconds.

    More water pushed up through the mixture, turning it into a slurry before it suddenly subsided, slightly solidifying the mud. This was the type of shit that would make the Vietcong weep with joy. Perfect consistency, on demand, anywhere it was needed. No digging or hoses required.

    Wasn’t as conventionally ‘cool’ as the fireball spectacle earlier, but it sure as hell beat it in utility.

    “Which would you prefer to –” Verna began, but the door beside them crashed open.

    Elina burst out onto the yard, barely dodging the patch of mud. The grin on her face said everything. “He’s awake.”

    Cole’s heart skipped a beat. He damn near broke into a grin himself. Miles and Ethan looked about the same – faces screaming a mix of ‘holy shit’ and ‘no fucking way’. They didn’t need clarification on who ‘he’ was, and they all trusted Elina. But they needed to see with their own eyes first.

    They sprinted through the castle’s halls, leaving Elina and Verna behind. Cole’s heart pounded, and not just from the running. Didn’t Elina say several weeks to a month? They’ve been here just under two weeks and Mack was already awake.

    What, was Celdorne’s medical practices really just that good? Or maybe Mack was too stubborn to stay down as long as they’d thought. Probably both.

    They rounded the final corner. The door was open. And there he was – Mack, propped up against his pillows. He looked like absolute dogshit, but he was very much conscious and awake. Eyes open, and having a conversation with a nurse.

    Mack caught their entrance. “Ay, y’all not gonna believe what they just told me.”

    The words came out rough and raspy as hell, but they were his. Actually his, not just Cole’s memory of them. Fuck, he hadn’t realized how much he’d started to forget what Mack’s voice sounded like.

    “Jesus,” Cole broke out into a grin. “Sleeping Beauty’s finally awake.”

    “The one and only,” Mack said. “Wait, you better not tell me I’ve gotta thank you for the kiss.”