[Deep within the humanoid territory]
Standing at the edge of one of the training fields, Alicia carefully hid her trembling hands. In a few minutes, she would be asked to demonstrate her current progress, a test that normally shouldn't be anything to worry about and that she would now do the fifth ti. As summoned otherworldler, even the seats were reserved to even criticize her progress, not to ntion thinking about throwing her out like the other trainees.
But that wasn't the source of her fears. No, instead she dreaded what their reaction would be once her innate ability would be revealed, or at least what she thought it to be. Generally, otherworldler would awaken it anywhere from instantly after their arrival to up to a year after, though she had never shown any signs of possessing one.
This lead the seats to theorize that she may not have an innate ability, sothing that was rare, but not unheard of. And with her affinities that surpassed even most higher ranked mages, she would still have an advantage over the people of this world.
Internally they were also sowhat glad at this developnt, with otherworldler that possess powerful abilities often causing more trouble than good. That was especially the case if these abilities take the form of powers, inflexible spell-like effects that were similar to a beast's innate ability. In rare cases, they have slightly more range in the scope of their application, again akin to beasts but this ti their elental manipulation.
But in both cases, it holds true that the power's strength varies greatly, whether in output or mana cost. Even the relation between the two has no consistency, with so powerful abilities using less mana than even the simplest of spells, while the reverse is just as possible.
Innate traits on the other hand were less troubleso, even if only slightly. These abilities take the form of special characteristics instead of singular power, whether it be a mutated elent with special characteristics or physical bodies far above the norm. And while their strength can vary just as greatly as that of powers, they are considerably more common, with even the native population of a rather small world like this one having multiple known individuals that possess one.
Alicia counts herself among them, as since the awakening of her innate ability she has found that her body was constantly growing stronger. In addition, and the initial indicator for her, she noticed that her skin turned leathery while scales started to grow on it.
It started just between her shoulder blades, a spot where she didn't directly notice it, but slowly spread to cover more and more of her back. Initially, she was elated by this discovery, though when Alorick talked about the treatnt of mutated humanoids with her, this quickly turned to dread.
Especially when these changes started spreading down her arms, by now having reached below her elbow. On her upper body, it was still easy to hide and unlikely to be noticed, but the long, tight-fitting sleeves she was using to hide her arms could easily be damaged, intensifying her fear.
Doing her best to hide this state, sothing that was rather easy by overplaying it with her still persisting anger over her situation. By now she felt emboldened enough to voice these out loud, leading to her unfriendly deanor being accepted.
Soon she was called forward and she walked into the large magic circle that was burned into the earth. Ignoring the murmurs from the other trainees, consisting of aura, magic, and bloodline users, she waited for her opponent to be called.
A mont later a young man, roughly twenty years old, stepped into the arena, passing through the protective barrier with a smirk. Seeing the orange-red colored suit-like attire, she recognized him as a bloodline sorcerer, the most talented youth of that departnt.
Their group had always been the one that hated her the most, being envious that they no longer remained the sole focus of attention and misunderstanding her dismissive attitude as arrogance, sothing she herself found rather ironic. And while the magic circle would protect not just the spectators but also kept the combatants from suffering serious harm, she knew she was in for so pain.
That alone wouldn't have been too bad, having already experienced it in her third evaluation, it also ant a higher chance for her secret to be exposed. Preparing herself, she cast a space elent shield around her before casting another spell to get an estimate of his power.
Estimating his mana pool to be larger than hers with their mana having a similar quality, she didn't have high hopes. Nonetheless, she didn't despair and instead cast a fate spell on her opponent.
To her surprise the man didn't resist it, actively keeping his mana from automatically pushing against the effect. A mont later a partially transparent copy of the manifested itself in his position, leading his movents by a bit over a second, the maximum she could manage due to her only being an advanced second rank mage.
“Surprised?” He asked with a laugh, “I'll show you that all these tricks are worthless before the power of a phoenix.”
With those words, he stretched out his arm and sent a torrent of fire her way. Knowing that the man's phoenix bloodline was far too thin to use the offensive form of phoenix fire, she trusted her ability to block it instead of dodging it.
Moving right hand in front of her body with the palm pointed to the left, she used it to aim a gravity spell. About a ter before her, this took effect, with the local gravity changing to push everything to the sides.
When the flas reached this thin line they were instantly split in two, with the two halves being pushed further apart with each centiter. Passing harmlessly by Alicia, she didn't wait for the attack to end before casting the next spell.
Pushing her free left palm forward, a gravitational push erupted from it. Catching small bits of the flas, it quickly reached the young man and impacted his right chest.
“Argh.” Crying out from the impact, his shoulder was forced back which caused his entire body to spin in the air as he was flung back.
Crashing to the ground, he rolled to the side right as Alicia increased the gravity in the area he had been lying previously. Also using this roll to lift himself back to his feet, the man barely managed to react in ti to dodge the small sphere of gravitational attraction that Alicia shot at him, or rather his future position.
During its flight, it gathered earth from the ground below into its orbit and left a small ditch in its wake. These small clumps of earth were flung into all directions when Alicia caused the projectile to explode with just a thought.
While they weren't all that dangerous, they still flew at high speeds. This forced her opponent to lift his arms defensively, protecting his face but also limiting his sight.
Alicia used this opportunity to swing the edge of her hand through the air, leaving a crescent blade made from gravity magic traveling through the air. Functioning a bit like a weak copy of a black hole, it would attract everything within a centiter or two towards it to leave a wound far wider than its profile.
But before this attack could reach her opponent, he exploded with anger. This caused flas to flare to life all over his body, their power overwhelming her attack and quickly destroying it.
The sight of these flas made Alicia take a step back in wariness, with the spectators all reacting in surprise over this developnt.
“A phoenixes coat.” Isaiah whispered in surprise, words that were clearly audible in the silence that followed the fla's ergence.
For a mont after nothing happened, then the other bloodline sorcerer trainees started cheering for the man. And despite this going against the tradition of neutral spectators under which the quarterly evaluation was held, these quickly spread to most other trainees.
““Marvin! Marvin”” Chanting his na, Alicia's opponent straightened his back with a confident smile that didn't fit his previous situation.
Seeing the obnoxious smirk on his lips, sothing in her wanted to just show off the strength she gained from her innate trait and puml him to the ground. Pushing that thought to the side, she held her palm to the ground and cast another spell.
Instantly the ground below her hand started fracturing, with earth and soon also stone rising to circle around under her palm.
“Is that all? I heard the teachers marveling over your ability with using gravity magic, that it could bend space and ti. And instead, I am faced with a coward that just throws earth and stone at , what a letdown.” Marvin mocked her.
Gnashing her teeth at his words, Alicia didn't refute them. For one, she wasn't interested in a verbal battle with him and secondly, she herself was feeling similarly over her main elent. But she was also well aware that she would have the potential to said feats in the fourth rank and that she would have to make do with her current applications until then.
Upon noticing this lack of reaction to his taunt, he doubled down and said, “Breaking you will be fun, don't hold back on the screams.”
Licking his lips at those words, Alicia shuddered in disgust. Laughing at that, Marvin shot towards her without care.
Sending out the attack she had been gathering, Alicia wasted no ti and dodged to the side by forming a gravitational pull toward her target.
But instead of just slowing Marving down as she had hoped, her attack barely even made it past the flas covering his body. The few wounds that he did receive were instantly healed by the phoenix fire covering him.
This allowed him to continue on without being slowed down for even a mont, pursuing her despite having to abruptly change direction. This sudden change surprised Alicia but the forewarning her fate spell provided her allowed her to still react.
Stopping, she swung both her arms to the side and ford two origins of gravitational force about ten ters from her. Secretly casting a spell on herself to negate their effects on herself, she prepared herself to dodge to one side.
But before she could do so, Marvin suddenly sped up even further. This ti even the forewarning the ethereal copy provided didn't help Alicia and she could only stare with wide eyes at his rapidly approaching form.
Seeing a flaming talon forming around his drawn-back right hand, she already saw the target of the phoenix-like claw that would swing her way a mont later. Canceling one of the two gravitational pulls, she threw herself to her left.
The flaming talon nonetheless managed to hit her, though instead of drawing a vicious wound on her chest it only struck her right shoulder. There she had already grown scales, sothing that made caused the attack to slip off without leaving a serious wound.
Marvin was anwhile caught in the gravitational pull, dragging him a few ters toward its source before he managed to dig his feet into the ground. In the sa movent he opened his mouth and with a high-pitched shriek, a concentrated beam of flas shot out of it and towards Alicia.
As she had barely gotten off the ground after catching her hurried jump with a roll, she had no choice but to sohow defend herself from them. But before she could think about which spell to use, her instincts took over.
From deep within her her bloodline bellowed out, enraged that a re phoenix-blooded human dared to oppose her. Yanking back her hands that were defensively before her, she leaned her head forward along with a booming roar that exploded from the depth of her throat.
And just like with Marvin, an elental breath ford from her mouth. Taking the form of a miniature black hole that was trailed by a line of strong gravitational force, it collided with her opponent's phoenix breath.
Impacting against each other, both attacks struggled for a mont before Alicia's gravity breath utterly overpowered Marvin's flas. Faster than even the seats could react, at least in their current relaxed state, it impacted his body.
As soon as it did, the protective parts of the magic circle below activated, forming a shield around Marvin while pulling him out of the circle. But before he reached the edge of the arena, this protective barrier broke and once more allowed Alicia's full attack to impact his body.
By the ti he crossed the arena's barrier, he was a bloodied ss that was barely kept alive by the dim phoenix fire that tried its best to heal his shredded flesh. But the spectators barely paid any heed to that as their eyes were all fixed on Alicia.
Standing there, she was panting from exhaustion. And compared to before, her appearance had undergone a drastic shift as her hands have beco fully covered in scales with her fingers turning into claws. Additionally, she had a small, draconic tail growing from her tailbone, together with two large, leathery wings growing from in between her shoulders.
Seeing her in black scales-covered form, murmurs started going through the crowd as even the seats stared down at her in shock and confusion. The only one who showed no outward reaction to this was Alorick, though in the chaos no one noticed that.
Soon the fist managed to shake off his confusion, with Isaiah standing up enraged and sending a stream of fire her way.
Noticing it from the corner of her eyes, Alicia instinctively got out of the way by flying up with the help of her wings. And with no better idea, she completely gave up reign to her instincts seeing that they already saved her just now.
As soon as she did, her dragon's authority spread through the courtyard. Instantly it caused the other trainees to buckle under its pressure. As largely first ranks, with a few early and a handful advanced second ranks, they had no chance to resist it.
But despite her dragon's fear preventing even the seats from reacting, even if out of shock rather than inability, Alicia simply turned tail and fled.
Negating the effect that the planet's gravity had on her and using her wings to increase her speed, she quickly managed to leave the building complex. Though following with little delay, right when she passed over the wall that separated the inner city from the rest, the response from Isaiah and the rest ca.
In an instant, the sky was lit afla, with two massive phoenixes made from pure flas shooting after her.
Together with Isaiah and the second's seats pursuit, the city's extensive defense network flared to life. In an instant, the sky around her beca a chaotic sea of projectiles, with only her protective barriers keeping her alive.
Each projectile that ca near her was caught in the warped space near her, with the distance between Alicia and the barrier being artificially widened. Thus only those attacks that would have struck her dead center continued towards her, with the rest just harmlessly sailing past her. And thanks to the lessened density of projectiles offered by this distortion, she had enough space to dodge those that weren't deflected.
But despite this seeming ease, her situation was quite critical. Not just did she use much of her mana in the previous fight, but she was chased by two individuals that could match so early fourth ranks.
Flinging occasional attacks behind her, she was racing for a solution. And she needed it fast, with her mana only supporting such a fast escape for another half minute or so while the two seats would catch up to her in half that ti at best.
With those two constraints, even the rapidly approaching city wall offered her no solace. Daring a quick glance behind her, she saw the two n rapidly encroaching and fired off a gravitational origin towards them.
Having watched where she aid, it flew right at the second seat only to be swallowed by the flaming construct she had created. But it didn’t end there, as it opened its maw for a second ti and shot a stream of fire her way.
Forced to dodge and only barely managing to do so, Alicia did her best to ignore the heat as the flas passed right above her. Instead, she concentrated on increasing her speed even more, as the two phoenixes had closed the gap even more.
With them just shy of catching her, she paled in despair when she saw a portal opening on the city wall under two hundred ters before her. And while it would only take her a second to reach there, that was enough ti for a mage to cast multiple spells.
Seeing the man lifting his arm towards her and feeling the wisps of fire already coming close to her feet, she dreaded the words.
But to her shock, the man before her didn't attack her. Ripping open two fractures in space, one in front of each of the two seats, he lifted his head and smiled at her. Nearly freezing as she recognized Alorick, she didn't even notice him conjuring up a portal in front of her.
Shocked as she had never heard of him being a space user, she barely managed to catch herself before crashing to the ground.
Roughly landing on her feet, she took a look around. No longer seeing the portal, she knew that he had closed it for her own safety. As soon as she realized this, she started looking around the forest she found herself in. Barely a second later she felt and saw a massive flaming inferno flaring up in the distant sky.
Realizing that she was still far closer to the city than she would have liked, Alicia hurriedly ran in the opposite direction.
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