It had been a struggle, at first. Toeing the line between justice for all and glory for one. And just when I grew accustomed to it, the struggle changed.
Duty and purpose.
Good and evil.
Educator and subordinate.
Even now, I struggled with them.
Deciding what was right and just was something I left to those brighter than me. For decades, I had been contempt with smiting those who were deserving. But even I could see some things for what they were.
A vampire killing a ghast? That was fitting.
A triton felling a Marid. That was natural.
An Amazonian Warrior slaying a Fomorian. That was impressive.
Tasking a young knight to slay a mere magical beast? It was a spit in the face to someone with as high a potential as Toril O'Connell. It was a decision made by those too weak to fend it off themselves.
But tasking the prodigious son of the Nox to kill the Bairn was admittedly ingenious. And dangerous even more so.
"What's on your mind, Titus?"
"Which one?" I grunted out of habit. I didn't even need to turn to see the perpetually uncaring smile smeared across Mack's face. He was a paladin of many years like me and had adopted a crude humor that held no regard for authority. A humor that everyone from the lowest candle to the brightest light couldn't help but laugh in its face.
"All of them." Mack Ronald barked out the words as quickly as I did and silently chuckled on his way to the closest seat. He was one of the few who understood me without words. But it was more than that. More than family or comrades or lovers even. We had a bond forged through decades of war. A bond created by stepping through the veil of madness and looking around to see that others much different from ourselves had made the journey as well.
"The most important mind is forever at peace, old friend." I smiled at him. "My faith is absolute."
"You don't have to cover yourself." He snickered. After all these years, his face was still boyish. Rich brown and shaved smooth, even after days in the field. Despite it being tougher than old leather and aged like great whiskey.
"As I was saying. Another mind is curious," I said. "The Tree seemed too eager to offer up the Bairn to Amun. Despite the damned rules and the problems doing nothing could cause us down the line, I can't help but feel like they wanted this."
"A lot of us feel the same way. If he raises it for himself-"
"That's an unknown." I spat. "What is known is that the Bairn will kill thousands if it reaches our borders and thousands more if it lives to see adulthood. Our borders lie within the Scourge's territory, mind you. Either case would see our forces moved away from the front. You know what happens next."
"The City of Light cannot take a battle between the Scourge and the Protector. "So we send the Young Bairn of a Scourge to find the Young Bairn of another Scourge and hope for the best?" He rolled his hands like a rebellious teenager. Then flicked his eyes back to me with a smile that made it impossible for me to feel anything other than amusement.
"You know the Necro King is a scourge only to his enemies. We would have only a fraction of our power if not for him and the Iron Magus." I flicked his head with a boisterous laugh. "Has the front has turned your mind simple?"
"Enemy and ally are two sides of the same coin." Mack chided back. "And the actions of the great grandfather have naught to do with the credibility of the grandson. Or has the rear turned your heart naive and warm?"
"Perhaps that's the third mind speaking." I sighed. "It has grown tired of this place, old friend. Tired of blurring the line between just and unjust in the pursuit of knowledge. This Class." I gestured to the screen. "Will be my last."
"Why this one?" he asked. "Why not 998?"
"For whatever reason. What everyone says is true." I tossed my hand at the screens. "Class 999 is the greatest seen in centuries. Since the Tree's inception, even."
"Yeah. I heard that." Mack sighed in objective wonder. "I'm curious as to why that is."
"That's for the light to unveil. My focus is on what comes next."
He followed my eyes to the screen. To a young man who blurred the lines between lean and stocky. He had dark brown skin and black hair that'd been shaved on the sides to leave a cluster of locks dangling from his brow. Toril O'Connell.
"Not much armor for a future Paladin." Mack snorted. Though it was true. Only his head, left arm, and right leg were armored in bronze and black metals that I recognized at a glance.
"Leiptr alloy," I grunted. "And adamantine."
Mack whistled low. "The whole suit?"
"The weapon too."
The head was bronze and black like his armor and unremarkable other than the pair of enchantments set between the leafed blade and the round hammer on its opposing end. The handle, however, was objectively long for a one-handed axe and had been carved of the strange black wood that grew in only one place.
"Doyle, old friend. What can you tell us of this one?"
"Toril O'Connell is a knight from the Odissian Empire in Maru."
"Amun's?"
"Yes." He reluctantly sighed. "Toril was born with lightning magic. And was given gas, combustion, and weight magic."
"Four affinities." Mack whistled and a slew of others whistled low.
"Yes." Doyle nodded again. "However, Toril is one of the hardest students to gauge. First, he's the only non-royal with a Diamond Well. From what I've observed, he's been known to sit most fights out. Only acting to protect himself and his closest allies. Which leads me to presume that Toril fights for one reason and one reason only.
"Survival."
As if on cue, Toril stepped through the gate and immediately halted. Uncaring of the skies above or the potential threat around him, he stared down for seconds at the cracked and caked grounds of the badlands in which he found himself before his eyes turned upward.
It was a sight that made me lean forward. A sight that made Toril squint before he threw himself skyward with a swing of his weapon.
"Smart," I grunted. But allowed Doyle to explain.
"His opponent is a Paragon Spark Badger. A giant version of the lesser creature known to tunnel through the badlands to generate el- lightning through the fur on its coat." Doyle sighed, curiously enough. "As you can see, this variant is known to be able to produce storms. So Toril's lightning will have no effect on this creature."
And yet the same was true for Toril. The lightning bolts the Badger could summon would have no effect on the young knight and he knew it. Or rather, he used to his advantage to pinpoint the creature's location in a fraction of a second and raised his axe overhead to deposit an admirable amount of mana into it before he arced back and threw it.
Like a bolt of lightning, the hammerhead slammed into the ground with tremendous force. Spewing rock and dirt from the ground to reveal a large beast covered in spiky dull-yellow fur pinned beneath Toril's weapon while far above, the clouds toiled.
The winds picked up soon after and evolved into a raging cyclone of storm clouds and lightning spiraling down into Toril's weapon.
As more of the storm fell into the weapon, the axehead began glowing white-hot and the creature began to scream as all beasts did in their last moments. It thrashed and pushed on the weapons with its claws and the weapon pushed back into its ribs to crush them into powder.
The enchantments began glowing soon after and the toiling clouds started to disperse and wane and form into a final bolt of white lightning that cascaded into the weapon.
At that moment, the screens rattled and flashed white before they switched to another perspective, leagues upon leagues away to give us witness to the largest explosion many of us had seen in quite some time.
The sight lingered for a moment and suddenly flickered back to a view of Toril just before the shockwave came; regrettably so. Instead, we watched Toril hold his hand out expectantly and observe his carnage with intent disinterest until the energy from his shockwave cartwheeled his weapon back to his hand.
Then he left with nary a look back. For his opponent had been smitten to nothing.
"I guess you've got a new protege." Mack chuckled after my period of awed silence.
"Oh!" I laughed. "You'll feel the same way about the next one, my friend. They both may have already sworn fealty to another, but I can instill the Light's principles in them yet."
As we would usually do, we debated on the oaths and paths Toril and the other students seen would be privy to in just six months. It was common for those trained like Toril, Issac, and of course, the royals to have a number of Master Classes available to them upon awakening. Even I had four to choose from, one of the being Paladin, of course. Oath of the Storm King.
A Class Toril would be privy too as well, I was sure.
Though I didn't share the potential class of the next participant and waited eagerly until the screens switched to the figure of a doll-like young woman will pale skin and large eyes. At which time I asked Doyle to give a short explanation of her background.
"Lucia Pike is a knight from the Deapou Empire. Yes." He sighed. "That makes her Roheisa Deapou's knight. She was born with Blade Magic and was given Bronze and Wing magic. Initially, she struggled to properly apply her magic in combat. But once she learned how to fuse her magics." Doyle smiled brightly. A rare sight by no small measure. "She quickly rose to the top tier of Alpha Party."
Doyle had no need to explain her opponent this time around. It was a creature familiar to all who roamed Nonus. A Pit Drake. Or rather, a cruel mix between pit vipers and Wyverns. With spiked scales as hard as stone and venom that could be spat over a hundred meters, a swarm of them posed a problem even for us. A single one of them was a problem for a lower-ranked adventurer, let alone a first-year student.
But there Lucia was. Standing tall, unarmed, and unarmored before a coiled-up monster that sat taller than a villa.
All she wore was a strange mix between a long dress and a one-piece suit.
Up until the moment she withdrew her magic.
With my perception, I was able to first see gold, gray, and white lights glow within her body before they mixed and bloomed into life.
From the light first came a skin that grew above her clothes to cover her chest in a bronze plate with magical inlays of whites and grays. Bronze blades grew into pauldrons and loincloths as the armor grew across her shoulders and waist, and then on to bronze-tipped, bladed feathers that sprouted from her back like the wings of a Celestial.
There was utter silence as the skin reached her hands and elongated into a great spear and shield. But when the skin grew across her face, the song of gasps I'd been waiting for rang throughout the Cap at last.
Just like the rest of her armor, Lucia Pike's helmet was formed into a baroque mask of white with bronze curls. Just like the legends of old.
And Mack just couldn't help himself at letting the spectators know what that meant.
"She's a Valkyrie!"