First to land a succesful blow on their opponent was the winner. That was the only rule, which probably meant that their mentors would step in if something too dangerous would happen. Samuel drew his sword waiting for the first blow to come, charging recklessly forward would surely end in defeat.
Erica stood there no weapon, but she looked like she was weaving a spell. 'Oh Shit' Samuel inwardly thought instantly, she was weaving a spell not a cantrip after all. Which meant she had to know first level spells. Samuel who had taken the careful approach was too far away at that point to close the gap quickly, but he had to try.
Rushing forward as fast as he could, Erica's spell formed in the air. A small sized fire blast about the size of a large watermelon. Seeing him rush forward she knew to have won the battle already as her spell formed and with a snap the fire blast rushed forward in a straight line toward him.
'Shit' Samuel instantly thought, he had been at a disadvantage from the beginning. If he had not run straight there was no telling what other type of spell she might have cast, but he had no idea if she even knew any spells good for that yet. But a fire blast when he was rushing straight forward was too hard to dodge without getting hit.
Samuel inwardly sighed and thought this to be just another of his failures. But he soon realized that the fire blast was travelling way slower suddenly. Slow-vision had activated, giving him the extra time he needed. Samuel instantly went into a sliding motion on the floor, seeing the fire passing over his face at finger length almost singing his face.
It was not too graceful of a last minute motion, but he somehow managed to slide and get back up into a running motion with just a few seconds, slow vision had faded but he kept running toward her. Unfortunately Erica had decided not to underestimate him, and a second fire blast was already forming.
She was only a second away from being within his sword length when she released the second fire blast. Slow vision or not there was no way he would dodge this one he quickly realized, but slow vision activated regardless which made his vision all blurry as all his muscles completely froze up and the fire blast hit him in the middle of his chest sending him flying across the floor and hitting it with a heavy thud.
Samuel could barely hear yelling over the ringing in his eyes and just before everything went black he could see a shadowy silhouette. When Samuel next tried to open his eyes everything was so blurry he had to close them again before slowly opening them again. He realized he was still in the training hall, but he had been put in a simple bed close to the wall.
He slowly sat up and realized there was no one else around at the moment, he moved his feet so they would touch the floor and felt like there was something wrong with his eyes, things blurred a lot when he was looking around too fast. He also realized to be really hungry and tired. The blurry vision gave him headache after headache so he slowly lifted his hand to look at it and realized it moved in slow motion when he was inspecting it.
He blinked a few times and then it disappeared. He realized it to be sunrise and inwardly thought to have been knocked out for the rest of the day. Samuel took several minutes to breathe and soon the pains faded and he felt like he could get up. Someone had taken off his shirt, probably because it got hit with fire was the only conclusion he could think off, since thankfully they had left him with his pants on.
The moment Samuel tried to stand up his legs failed him and he fell over on the floor. "Ow fuck!" He cursed loudly as he hit the floor and the world started spinning. He slowly started crawling a bit, before attempting to sit back up again. "What the fuck happened to me?" Samuel asked out loud hoping someone would respond. His body felt like it belonged to someone else, everything felt weird and weak.
Samuel tried standing again slowly, this time he did not fall over but he still felt weak on his legs. He struggled his way back to the bed to sit down and slowly get used to these new sensations. It wasn't too long before he heard talking, it sounded like the mentors and Erica had returned finally.
Indeed it was the three that had returned, with all three of them wearing tired faces. Samuel slowly started standing up when they entered the hall making them all drop their belongings. Bregane instantly ran over to his apprentice while holding out a hand. "Woah there kiddo sit back down!" He almost yelled with a worried expression.
While Tere and Erica slowly approached and stopped short giving some distance, with Erica looking terrified. "What is the last thing you remember?" Bregane quickly asked while looking Samuel in the eyes. Samuel started recalling it to himself before opening his mouth and replying, "Muscles tensed up, I got hit by fire and sent flying before everything went black." He slowly retold the story.
Making Bregane sigh in relief, it seemed like the kid had experienced no memory loss. "Well I am glad that he is finally up and about! That means I can finally go back to my own work!" Another familiar female voice resounded. Samuel looked up and saw Zor the devilkin woman. It took him several moments of thinking before remembering that she was his personal healer.
She quickly walked forward and had Samuel do simple tests and tell her about everything he was feeling. "Well its interesting that you are so weak considering you have been in bed for two weeks." She shrugged, making Samuel open his mouth and look at Bregane.
"Two weeks?" He asked and Bregane nodded to confirm it. "We were not really sure what happend to you." Tere was the next to speak. "We saw you tense up as if you were in immense pain before the fire hit you, and we were unable to act in time. So you took quite the critical hit, we had to put a whole lotta healing in you!" She waved in the air to emphasize her point.
"Poor Erica here thought she had killed you and was ready to quit magic entirely." Tere said and Samuel could see Erica had tears running down her cheeks. Samuel gave her a small smile knowing that it was not really her fault.
"Well I feel like I could sleep for another week" Samuel said with a small smile as Zor gave the group a small bow and took her leave. But not before making sure he was ok and telling them to contact her if she was needed again.
"Well, it is in the middle of the break time for the school. Its not another 2 weeks before you got your first day of the college!" Bregane said nodding for him that it was okay to rest. They made sure to bring Samuel some breakfast and drink before he went back to resting. For an entire week he just rested and got used to walking and moving around again. By the end of the week he was fully recovered.
Erica in the meantime had kept him company at all times and spent her time training in the hall while he was recovering. She had a hard time speaking to him like before, but at least she was in higher spirits again. Samuel sometimes pretended to sleep just to look at her training, and noticed how timid she had become with magic - which definitely made him feel like it was his fault.
It was the beginning of the last week of semester. That Bregane and Tere had entered the hall together, while Erica was training and Samuel had just barely started training again. "Well Kiddos the two of us are gonna be gone for a few hours, we got a small mission to go on. So you two just make sure you stay here and continue the great work and rest!" Tere said while looking from one to the other.
They both nodded while their mentors took their leave. They trained in silence for quite some time before Samuel spoke first. "You know it wasnt your fault right?" He asked, which made Erica freeze up. "We already knew magic was dangerous but we are still here training so that kind of thing wont happen again right!" Samuel said and Erica turned to him with tears in her eyes.
"But what if you would have died?" She asked really quietly like a mouse. Samuel walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "I would not have blamed you, but maybe I could have haunted you for a bit!" He said with a big smile.
Erica quickly embraced him, "Thats not funny jerk!" She sniffed into his chest. Samuel just smiled and returned the embrace, "Dont hold back because you are afraid! Magic is too amazing of a gift to squander out of fear!" Samuel said while patting her back. It took her a minute or two of silence before looking him in the eyes for the first time, and she saw no hatred or anger which made her inwardly sigh out of pure relief feeling like a chain around her heart had been broken.
"Thank you!" She quietly said and let him go out of embarrasment realizing how long she must have held on to him for. She coughed away the last of the tears and took a deep breath, thanks to Samuels support she found new strength and resolve and together they went back to training.
"By the way, Bregane never taught me any spells at all, while your mentor taught you it seems like?" Samuel asked like a question about her skills, which made her smile. "I have an easy time copying and remembering spells, Its what makes me an interesting candidate for the college I guess?" Erica shrugged. "I can see a spell made one time and after a few tries myself I can recreate it! As long as I have enough magic to do so!" Erica smiled at him with her new conviction.
"Wait seriously!?" Samuel stared at her in shock and awe. "Thats amazing!" He quickly said making her blush. "What about Bregane?" Erica asked. "Bregane?" Samuel asked before understanding what she was asking. "Oh right! Yeah Bregane says that the fundamentals of basic cantrips are essential to become good fast, so he had me train to become a master of cantrips so he never taught me any actual spells. He just had me train on the same things so I would master them early!" Samuel replied with a smile.
"Really? Thats it?" Erica scoffed. Wondering what crazy teacher Samuel had that would not even teach him basic spells. "No wonder you stood still during our match for so long." She said making her feel stupid, she felt like there was no way he could have beaten her without knowing spells. Thinking that the match was unfair from the start.
"Well you win some you lose many!" Samuel said with his first heartful laguhter for months, and the first one Erica had ever heard from him - making her smile widely as well, he was cute when he was happy.
Their training went on for a little bit with a good mood and many jokes before they felt a small tremor, and then another slightly louder. Next they both heard a huge roar from outside. A roar of pure rage! Erica froze up but Samuel quickly walked to retrieve his full gear and walked towards the door while looking about. Erica got scared of being left behind alone so she stuck close to Samuel as he took peeks outside from the door.
"Samuel isn't it safer in here --" Her question died really fast as a large part of the wall opposite of the door they were at got knocked down and something came crashing through it. Rising up from the floor was an at least 3 meter tall humanoid looking thing, the head was that of a bull with angry red eyes, and the legs also resembled a bull except it was standing on two legs only. The only part about it that was humanoid was the torso that had two arms and a humanoid build covered in brown fur.
"Revenge for my clan!" The creature snarled in the common language. This was about to become a match to the death - Samuel instantly realized as he felt the creatures hatred.