"Just give the stone to me!" The apprentice stood with a flaming sword in his hand, approaching Vega closer and closer.
Vega held his burning stomach, gritting his teeth in pain. His hand clenched, holding the stone with him. With a slight focus, he put the stone inside his spatial ring.
"No," With a sleight of hand, he kept his hand in his pouch while taking out a sigil out of his spatial ring. "If you really want it, take it yourself!"
The apprentice noticed the movement but sneered and walked closer to him. Vega took his hand out, activated the sigil.
The apprentice grew worry and threw his flamming sword toward him. But a sigil made by an adept reacted quicker. Several thick vines shot out from the ground between him and his opponent. Even the fire element had a better chance to burn plants, they block the sword and doused the fire.
The combination of a vibrational sequence around the vines stopped the sword from advancing and it stayed there. Quickly, he stepped forward, took the sword from the ground, and pointed the blade toward the apprentice. The swords were quite heavy, but the material must be nice to keep the flame from melting the metal.
"Give it back!"
The apprentice didn't know that the boy facing him was that cunning. He twisted his hand, summoning the boy facing him was that cunning. He turned his hand, daring the boy to advance closer. But with a scoff, his opponent snapped his fingers, and the metal's friction caused a spark. From the spark, a fireball grew bigger and shot toward him. But to his surprise, the ball sizzled and died.
The apprentice threw several volleys but got a similar result. He grew desperate and summoned a massive pillar of spinning fire, taunting Vega. "Stop hiding behind your strange spell. Come out if you're a real man and fight!"
But Vega was not a noble; he was only a street urchin before he went to the academy and didn't mind being considered a coward. While keeping the sigil activated, he used his air blades to slash toward the apprentice, who masterfully dodged the blade. He noticed that the movements were something that Dion had taught him. The apprentice before him was a knight.
He condensed the air around him into a small bullet and dropped the vines.
While the apprentice raised his hand, covering his face to stop any ice needles from aiming at his eyes. He felt something touch his stomach, creating a tiny hole.
The condensed air bullet froze the wound right away, but having a bullet-size wound was still painful. Vega twisted his body, grimacing from the burning pain in his stomach, and crouched down and stretched his arms.
Several blades shot toward the apprentice. When the apprentice dodged, he turned the ice blade into water and trapped his opponent in the freezing water. When his opponent summoned two flaming balls toward him, he threw something toward the boy's crotch but missed.
The apprentice finally melted the ice trapping him, looked down at the pebble, which almost took his family jewel, and screamed. He summoned his powerful spells, creating a huge vortex of fire surrounding them. With some more focus, the vortex spits several balls of fire toward the boy, who starred at the spinning fire with his mouth agape.
Vega didn't have the chance to activate his sigil, but he used his mana to create a water barrier around him, hoping to extinguish most of the fireballs coming toward him. While he held the barrier on, Vega slowly moved his fingers, divided his focus, and reached toward the pebble he just threw toward his opponent.
Luckily, his plan worked, and the opponent didn't notice that Vega had thrown his sigil toward him. Taking his last source of mana, Vega activated the sigil, making vines shoot from the ground right toward where the apprentice stood.
The apprentice stopped moving, and the fire vortex disappeared. He slowly looked down, noticing the vines piercing his body. Coughing blood, the apprentice died standing.
Vega lost all of his mana, the sigils stopped working, creating gaping holes in his opponent's body, and the boy fell to the ground.
After taking out his potion and smearing some on his burning stomach, he drank the rest of the potion to heal faster.
Tired, he stumbled around, approached the apprentice, and took his sigil back. Groping the body, he found a bulging pouch on the apprentice's waist and took the whole pouch inside his ring. After he finished, he ran deeper into the forest to find a place to recover his mana.
####
Vega woke up to find the forest had turned dark. He hid inside a hollow trunk while keeping the hidden sigil activated. The soft melody brought him to rest easily, and he found his source had recovered half.
Holding the trunk to prop him up, he felt his fingers get sticky from the blood from the previous fights. He opened the stopper from the pouch in his waist and used it to pour the inexhaustible water from the magic pouch. After cleaning all the traces of the dried blood around his arms, he went deeper inside the forest.
At night, the forest grew quiet. The usual daytime creatures had gone to sleep, and the ones ruling the night awoke and started their hunt.
Vega kept his sigil activated and felt the air ripple around him, but the hidden sigil kept him hidden, even from the bats using echolocation to try to find their prey.
He was grateful to wake up around these hours and didn't waste his time getting some rest in the unforgiving wilderness.
After walking further and further, the huge pressure from some mana rippled around on his right. Approaching the source, Vega hid behind the tree, observing the fight between the two apprentices.
One wielded a hammer, but instead of using the earth element, he hit the flaming fireballs toward his opponents. Vega felt the silhouette was familiar. Even in the darkness, the fire lit up the muscles on his arms as he tried to defend himself from the five apprentices surrounding him.
Vega approached his friend and noted where the apprentices were. Gripping his hidden sigil closer, Vega created ice spears and killed the first apprentice, who flopped down on the ground, not knowing what hit him. The other apprentice looked around but couldn't find the source of the attack.
Vega did the same with the other apprentice, splitting the waist into two. Another one died, and three apprentices stood dumbfounded by the weird hidden attacks that killed their friends.
Philip looked around and stopped his own attack, wary that the killer would also attack him from wherever the attacker hid.
Vega smiled, looking at the burly guy, and compressed the air around him, creating a hole in the head of another apprentice. The other two looked around and nodded, and they retreated back, running away from the scene.
The flaming barrier surrounding Philip was still there. Vega stopped his spells and waved toward his friend. "It's okay. It's just me. Don't burn me, okay?"
Philip stopped the spells and sighed. "Thankfully, it's only you. I'm too tired to keep the apprentices who have grouped against me."
While taking the pouches from the three apprentices he just killed, Vega asked, "Why are they chasing you in particular?"
"I don't know. I haven't gotten any magic stones in me, but the fives have chased me until now. I'm almost running out of my mana."
Being an inner apprentice longer than him, Philip had a higher level compared to him. He didn't know what level the burly guy was at, but based on his stories, he still had his mana, even though it had been a whole day since he used it.
"Here, for you," Vega offered the three pouched to Philip, who rejected his offer.
"Keep it; you are the one who killed them. I don't know that you're that ruthless. I thought you were just some innocent kid who was lucky enough to gain the attention of Professor Addilyn."
Vega just smiled. "Let's go; we can't stay here for too long."
Knowing the forest better after being here twice, Vega led his friend, avoiding any ripples in the mana around him.
Being high-level apprentices, everyone knew not to rest in the forest, especially at night. It was even better for them to focus more on their surroundings. With their limited vision, most of the apprentices stumbled into the middle of the forest without even knowing where to go.
Vega was different. His vibrational sequence helped him figure out the way, even though it was limited to a small area around him. He held Philip's wrist and brought him around the jungle while keeping his sigil activated.
He stepped on toward the clearing, where the forest grew quieter, and after hiding behind a huge rock, Vega whispered, "Recover your mana first. I'll guard you."
Philip nodded and sat cross-legged on the forest ground, absorbing the pure ambient mana around him. Vega still had a bit of mana to keep his sigil active while occasionally aiming his vibrational sequence around to ensure they were alone.
The night grew darker. Without his vibrational sequence, he couldn't see anything around him. Only a silhouette of the moon shines on the edges of the leaves around the forest. The clearing was the best way to hide from any creatures, especially when his hidden sigil was active. He was grateful for his mentor's foresight to give him the sigil so early before the competition.
The second-level sigil was too powerful even for high-level apprentices in the flawless stage. Even adepts would have a hard time finding him if he kept the sigil active.
After spending his time sitting cross-legged, Philip finally moved around and tapped the boy's shoulder while sitting in front of him. "Hey, I'm done."
Vega looked back. "You're done? How's your mana?"
"It's okay. I recovered some of it. But we couldn't stay here long enough; the forest was unsafe at night."
"It's okay; this sigil was special; we can rest here until the sun comes. You keep recovering your mana. I hope you have enough mana in the morning to guard both of us from any attackers."
Philip didn't ask further. After noticing the complex sigil written on the pebble in Vega's hand, he was sure that the boy was really lucky. Even as inner apprentices, no one ever got anything from their mentors. The only thing they got was a little secret about being inner apprentices. It was weird knowing the most reclusive elder took on an apprentice, gave him a sigil, and brought him around like a trophy.
Shaking his head, he went back to meditate and felt the rich, pure mana around him replenish his source.