"What did you want from me, General?", asked the man.
"Are there any matter mages at the camp currently?"
"There should be... Let me look for him!", he said and ran away.
"So, how strong was the Emperor?"
"I don't know, he just helped me hold something in place with his magic, he didn't actually fight in front of me."
"Hmm... Maybe he isn't really good at fighting then?"
"I also heard he got rid of most of the enemy mages in the last war... so, I don't think he is that weak."
"Ugh... This is going to be a headache...", said Noah and noticed the captain come back with another young man with him. "Well, train hard. Good luck dealing with it. I am going to check the others.", he said and left.
The captain and the young mage walked towards Corvin.
"Here, you should train with this guy. I know he looks unassuming but he is actually kind of talented in his magic."
"Hey, what do you mean 'kind of'? I am talented!"
"Oh? That's a nice confidence you have. I wonder if it will still be around after you fight with him?", said the captain while pointing towards Corvin.
"Who is he anyways? He looks like a pampered noble kid."
"Even though he is a noble, he earned it, you know? He was a villager before, even less pampered than you. Isn't your father a well off craftsman?"
"Huh? He did?... Wait, is he-"
"Yeah, this is Corvin Mundy. One of the generals."
"Ah! Why didn't you tell me?!"
"Uhmmm...", Corvin tried to ask something to the two guys talking as if they forgot about him. "What do you mean by 'general'?"
"You don't know? You are a general, aren't you?"
"Eh? Since when?"
"I don't know... But aren't you friends with General Noah? He basically started all this, so you probably were one from the start."
After the captain spoke, the mage took a step towards Corvin and pointed his middle fingers towards Corvin to apologize.
"I-I am sorry, General! I will accept punishment for my wr-"
"Wait wait wait wait. Don't worry about it, I don't care about what you said, I would probably do the same thing anyways. Also, what's with the finger? Are you from the north?"
"Y-Yes. In the north, if you want to apologize most sincerely, you present your middle finger like this. I don't know how it is done in the south, I am sorry."
"Don't worry about it, I don't think we actually have a way to sincerely apologize here."
"Actually we bring our two fists together to apologize in the southeast where I am from, but the general is from the southwest so I don't think it is like that there.", said the captain.
"Oh, I saw that a couple of times from some merchants whenever I was in the city, I never thought it was an apology...", said Corvin.
"Anyways, I have stuff to do, the last recruits still need to learn the rifles properly, so I am leaving you two alone.", said the captain and left after saluting to Corvin waiting for his permission to leave.
Corvin and the mage stared at each other for a few seconds before the mage spoke.
"Wh-What did you want to train with me, General?"
"I will go after the Emperor once the battles start and he is a matter mage. I want you to teach me everything a matter mage can do during combat and tell me their weaknesses and strengths, everything pretty much."
"E-Emperor... I see... First of all, let's start with the basics then."
"That's what I am the best at."
"There are three common ways a matter mage can use magic. Change the size and shape of something, change the structure of something and create matter temporarily. The most common one in combat is changing the size of something."
A spike made out of dirt suddenly appeared in front of Corvin, startling him.
"Woah, that surprised me."
"Sorry."
"No problem. Continue."
"Please inspect the spike, General."
Corvin touched the dirt spike. It was smooth like a glass pane, and it reflected the sunlight if you looked at it from an angle. Corvin tried to push it slightly, and it was surprisingly light, it almost had no weight.
"Hmm... It is sharp, smooth and very light."
"Correct. Now watch the spike as I slowly pull my magic away from it."
The spike got smaller and smaller. The spike shape was lost after a few seconds as the spike shrunk into a small crumb of dirt.
"Huh..."
"As you can see, that whole spike was made out of that small crumble of dirt. Since I only used my magic to change it's size, it was as heavy as that small thing, which isn't much as you can imagine. It is also brittle because the more I make it bigger, the more I stretch the material thin. If I stretch it too much, it will get increasingly brittle and lose opacity, and basically turn into a transparent sand castle after a certain point. That's why, when a matter mage uses something like this, we almost always also use our magic to temporarily create more material to make that spike and also change it's internal structure to be more durable."
"I see...."
"But, that uses more energy than just making it bigger, so we also bluff sometimes. There really is no way to know if the enemy is bluffing unless you are also a matter mage, so I am sorry but I have nothing to teach you about that, General."
"No problems. I am not that weak to need that much. I just need a general understanding."
"That's great then, as expected of you, General."
"Spare me the flattery and start with the next usage."
"Okay. The next usage is to change the internal structure of a material. You can use it to make something more durable, make the ground under your opponent slippery or even make the air around your enemy harder to walk through. I can't give a good example of it's usage since it is really broad, giving you examples would limit your imagination more than helping you."
"I see... That's okay. Tell me about the next one."
"The last one is simple. A matter mage can create anything they want. It takes much more energy than the others and also you can't create matter permanently. It will keep pulling mana from you and will drain your body. What you create is also limited by your knowledge and you can't create matter enhanced by other magic like a metal created by an alchemist. Also it is harder to create heavier stuff so creating ingots of gold or lead is much harder than creating some water."
"It has a lot of limitations, huh?"
"Yeah. But, it is also really powerful. Though creating something inside someone else's body through their natural magic resistance is really hard, you still can create anything you want and it will act like how you would expect whatever you created."
Natural magic resistance is a phenomenon that makes it harder to use your magic near other people. It is somehow tied to the person so it reacts stronger to enemies and can be trained to make it stronger. It is the reason why Corvin finds it more efficient to use a sword rather than just pulling his enemies apart using his magic from afar.
"I see... I think I understand most of it... Now, do you want to train physically? It's been a while since I fought with a mage."