Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

[*ding!* You’ve unlocked the Class Skill [Searing Slap]. Would you like to replace a skill with [Searing Slap]?]

I dismissed the notification, mentally cursing my second class. It was supposed to be easy to pick up new skills - which it was, I could barely get out of bed without being offered something new - but apparently merging two skills wasn’t quite that easy, even though they had significant overlap.

Then again, it’d be a fairly large boost to my overall power once I got them merged and opened myself up for yet another skill.

The School could probably help me with that problem.

First things first.

Getting a scholarship, so I could actually attend.

I jogged over to the nearby woods, and started to work on some camouflage.

Mormerilhawn’s mind was split over a dozen different ways, [Parallel Thoughts] allowing for the processing of multiple threads at the same time. It let him track numerous fights that were going on, permitting him to keep tabs on not only the chaotic free-for-all that he was running, but also the individual tournament. It helped him find the most interesting fights and promising combatants to display for the rest of the judges, coaches, and trainers that the School of Sorcery and Spellcraft had.

Running arenas was difficult, but rewarding work, and the Black Rose found great satisfaction in his job. There was something about displaying curated fights for others to enjoy, about creating a safe environment that let others train and level that was just right.

The School had convinced him to take a small, 500-year tenure with them, promising easier levels and improved skills. Thus far, they had delivered, Mormerilhawn quickly leveling from the new challenges and environment.

There was an additional layer of satisfaction helping the poor mortals along. Their lives were so quick, so fleeting, and they hadn’t been born elves. It wasn’t their fault they’d been born lesser, and it was Mormerilhawn’s - and all elves, really - obligation to try and raise them up, help them to strive to become better in what little time they had on the planet.

“Mormerilhawn. Somebody wants to see you. They’ve got an accusation of cheating. Honor demands that we investigate.” Sir Fulgrim told Mormerilhawn.

The poor mortal knight considered himself the equal of the peerless elf, which irked him to no end. They were not equal. The School didn’t even have them at equal rankings!

Still. An accusation of cheating was serious. Nothing could besmirch the [Arena Master’s] good name.

“Bring him in.” The Black Rose ordered, and a cultivator from one of the minor sects entered the judge’s room.

The mortal stared in awe at the dozens and dozens of mirages around the room, each one displaying a different fight, another battle that was going on somewhere within Mormerilhawn’s domain. He refrained from smiling.

He did so love impressing people, no matter how easily impressed the poor mortals were. Even a low level illusionist could emulate what Mormerilhawn was doing!

“Speak.” He ordered the cultivator after giving him enough time to be properly awed.

The cultivator straightened up, showing the arrogance ingrained in every so-called young master of the mortal sects.

Even in arrogance he couldn’t compare to an elf.

“Honored senior. Some lowly commoner trash blatantly cheated, improperly removing me from the event. I could not let such a stain on your honor come to pass. Could you please give the Grand Dao Temple some face, hand the impudent cheater over to us, and rightfully restore me to the event?”

Even Mormerilhawn thought the cultivators had a few screws loose. He didn’t care about the sect’s face, nor could they do anything to him or the School if they disliked it, and he had a mental chuckle at the sheer preposterousness of the name of the temple. Grand Dao indeed.

An accusation of cheating, no matter how poorly delivered, did need to be investigated.

“Fulgrim. A second pair of eyes?” Mormerilhawn generously offered the knight. He didn’t need the second pair of eyes, but the more people that confirmed there was no cheating going on, the better.

“There is no other honorable course.” The man agreed.

Some more details were given, and Mormerilhawn mentally juggled through his various thought processes, letting the one dedicated to remembering how everyone was eliminated take the forefront, recreating an illusion of the events that transpired.

“Name, Healer. Class, healer. Admitted for… this will be a surprise, healing. Couldn’t afford tuition, decided to try her luck in the free for all. One of the Desperates.” Sir Fulgrim summarized for Mormerilhawn, who couldn’t be bothered to look up the details of every single contestant. He used a slightly derogatory word for those who came to the School penniless, were admitted, then tried to use any means necessary to gain a scholarship. The free-for-all fight was a popular one, the poor fools not realizing that winning the event wasn’t nearly enough to get a Ruby ticket.

“The remarkably durable one.” She’d gotten the highest trigger threshold shield he could provide on her body, and one of the lowest ones he could justify on her head. An appropriate trade-off.

“Level… 513!?” Sir Fulgrim cried out.

Mormerilhawn glared at the man, noting the cultivator had gotten an ugly look.

“We will discuss your lapse later.” He coldly stated. The Black Rose was about fair arena fights. A healer of that level, in these lands, would be unfairly attacked, and Sir Fulgrim had just handed one of her enemies a perfect excuse to attack her outside the boundaries of the event he ran.

Unacceptable. The elf didn’t think Fulgrim had deliberately let it leak, the man simply being careless. It was inappropriate regardless.

Mormerilhawn used his Mirage skills to replay the event. Healer Healer - Healer Elaine, as bizarre as the combination was - started the event at her assigned spot, a solid omen. The event began, dozens of the contestants took to the skies, and she almost immediately launched a multi-projectile skill at three of them, immediately moving out of the way to avoid a counter-attack that she had no way of knowing was coming. Her attack directly eliminated two competitors, and the three of them got to watch her blur around the aggrieved cultivator, directly slapping him out of the event.

No, not quite - there was a burst of light from her hand right before she removed him.

Mormerilhawn ended the replay of the event, locking eyes with Sir Fulgrim. The knight knew what Mormerilhawn wanted.

“No cheating. You were deceived and outclassed by another contestant, and there is no rule against deception. You should go and reflect upon the fight and your actions.” He decreed.

Mormerilhawn turned away as the cultivator left, spinning off another fragment of mind to watch this competitor, and have her exploits be among the ones displayed in the judge’s station.

Another part of his mind clamored, and let him know that she had been next in line to be displayed anyways.

Interesting.

Elaine’s exploits were on full display in the judge’s room, and as time passed and competitors were eliminated, fewer and fewer displays were running.

Part of Mormerilhawn’s mind was fully dedicated to watching Elaine.

She disguised herself in mediocre camouflage, although it was quite good for a mortal. He had a brief moment of concern that she’d simply spend the rest of the event hiding, like most of the Desperates, but ended up pleasantly surprised.

Her next move was to find one of the fortified encampments, and slowly, methodically take it apart. She started off by sniping the scouts with powerful lances of Radiance, then slowly whittled away at the forces until they broke and ran. Elaine didn’t bother chasing them all down, instead piling the camp’s supplies together, and lighting them all on fire.

Mormerilhawn’s right eyebrow went up.

That wasn’t a move of a show fighter.

That wasn’t a move of a knight, or most people trained in the country they were currently in.

That was a soldier’s move.

Combined with confidently tackling an entire encampment, and winning?

“Somebody has misplaced one of their commandos.” Mormerilhawn said to himself, knowing perfectly well that he’d said it loudly enough to draw the attention of the other judges to the fighter in question. Shirayuki split her attention, her eyes flitting between Elaine and two other contestants.

The Black Rose mentally congratulated himself on achieving a sort of fairness once again. Sir Fulgrim had brought Elaine to the attention of an enemy, giving him the perfect excuse to retaliate against her. Now Mormerilhawn had evened the scales by bringing Elaine to Shirayuki’s attention, the kitsune one of the key deciders if she would be granted a scholarship or not. He hadn’t placed any words in her ear, made no recommendations, but now she knew, and that was enough for him.

They watched Elaine duel with an archer, the woman slowly walking through a storm of arrows to casually dispatch her opponent with another one of her now-signature slaps.

They watched Elaine try to pull the same stunt against one of the School’s wizards - not a member of the School’s combat team, simply a hopeful who hoped the event would let him join the team - but changed plans halfway through when the School’s student kept throwing skill after skill at Elaine, the maybe-commando eventually showing that the entire thing had been a farce when she simply blasted the opposing wizard with one of her Radiance lances from a distance.

She found another camp, much better fortified, and her old set of siege tricks didn’t work. When taking out individuals failed, she simply resorted to sending wave after wave of her colorful, explosive Radiance butterflies at the shields, eventually overwhelming them.

She was like a wolf among sheep once the wards went down.

A sniper - one of the top contestants - almost got her, a perfect heart-shot streaking over three kilometers, shattering the shield the healer had cast on herself.

It wasn’t enough to trigger Mormerilhawn’s shield though, and with the knowledge that an assassin was after her, the two played a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse, hunting each other down.

Elaine won.

The few judges that had been nearly exclusively watching the sniper’s actions moved over to watching Elaine, and Shirayuki had nobody else that was catching her interest.

“I want her.” Shirayuki stated.

“She needs a full scholarship.” Another judge reminded her.

“Look at that talent.”

“It’s training. Don’t belittle people’s hard work by calling it talent.”

“Somebody is using child soldiers again.”

“Who doesn’t start training their soldiers young?”

Elaine squared off against a Mirror [Knight], her Radiance simply bouncing off of his skill-infused armor. After trading a few blows, she showed good judgment and fled, not getting sucked into a long, drawn-out fight against somebody who could ignore most of what she did.

She took to the skies after that, dueling with a few of the other aerial combatants while avoiding incoming fire from the ground. After establishing her zone of control, she spent some time using her aerial superiority to take out opponents - and eliminate a number of sneaky combatants who thought they were clever by hiding.

After proving her prowess at both fighting in the air, and fighting people on the ground from the air, Elaine went after one of the few remaining encampments. After eliminating a few of their warriors and wizards, they set out a truce banner, which the healer cautiously approached. Their leader, the daughter of some petty Rolland noble that Mormerilhawn couldn’t be bothered to remember, was seated primly, making offers to the woman.

Elaine waited for the right moment, and in a blinding blaze of Radiance mixed in with the darker Celestial shroud of stars she used as her shield, eliminated the bulk of her competition in a single fell swoop.

“Unsporting! Unfair! Dishonorable!” Sir Fulgrim cried out.

Mormerilhawn gave a slow grin of joy.

“A perfectly fine backstab. She’s waging war here. A true, proper war, where the only thing that matters is victory.”

The camp’s supplies going up in flames once more proved the truth in Mormerilhawn’s words.

She was trained to wage war. Pretty duels and sporting events were not her bread and butter.

Elaine wasn’t the only interesting contestant, a half-dozen others getting high marks from the judges. Ragini Salah, a Pyronox-Celestial Rabbitkin from Ankhelt, was fighting everyone she could find, entirely eschewing weapons and armor in the process. She’d already gained admittance on combat, war, and logistics, and had earned a full scholarship already. She was simply participating in the event because she wanted to.

Rin Jou from the low-key Fa Ram sect was lying on a hill, stalk of grass in his mouth. He hadn’t moved since the event started, but his chicken was perched on his head, nobly dueling all who approached. The man had professed no interest in joining the School, he just wanted to participate in the festivities.

Given his degree of participation, it looked more like his bonded companion wanted to participate. Establish a pecking order.

Obli claimed to be from Rolland, but the School didn’t discriminate. In private, he admitted that he was a member of the Ekada Ruh, the secretive society of changelings. He wasn’t a particularly powerful fighter, but Mormerilhawn had calibrated his shield to prevent everything except Lightning from triggering a loss. His method of fighting was crude and clumsy, but it was endlessly entertaining to watch his opponents flail on him until he managed to land a counterblow.

The staff had instructions about the man already. Anyone complaining about him would simply be told that it was correct.

The judges had already decided that he was unsuitable for admission to the School on combat prowess, but it didn’t stop them from having a good laugh when his fights were displayed.

Tristan. Nissa. Xatir. Elaine. Their names rang out, fleeing the judge’s lips as they performed feat after feat.

An Earth sorcerer managed to drive Elaine back, only for the healer to tactically retreat, circle around, take to the skies, and once she was high enough, simply dismissed her wings and dropped onto the [Mage], letting the blinding sun behind her hide her descent. A burst of magic, a flaring of her wings, and she ended up an inch away from the ground, her competitor defeated and teleported away.

A powerful knight, who’d been forced to flee from the first camp Elaine had attacked, got the drop on her. He grabbed her by the hair and shoved her head into the river she was drinking from. Her arms and legs flailed as magic exploded around the pair, and Mormerilhawn was about to step in - drowning an opponent was one of the few ways somebody could actually die in these events - when the warrior in question was teleported out by his other skill.

The judges roared, half in approval at Elaine’s victory, half in outrage at the terrible behavior of the knight. He hadn’t tried to fight her, he’d tried to murder her.

Mormerilhawn was keeping a close eye on his mana, and so noted that the man was moderately over the teleportation limit he had set for the event. It was a good thing he had significant padding in his estimations, and the entire grounds were part of his domain.

He teleported the man a second time to the holding cells, intent on making sure that he properly faced justice, and not the utter farce that was ‘justice’ among the nobility in Rolland.

The event was winding down, only a few participants left. Elaine squared off against the last [Knight] on the field. The knight would attend the School one way or another, being the 7th princess of Rolland’s closest companion and bodyguard. She was hoping that the School would reduce her tuition, keeping the Crown’s expenses low.

She charged Elaine, who immediately took flight, her signature Radiance beams landing on the knight's helmet. The [Knight] raised her shield, protecting her head, but Elaine simply repositioned her beam, hitting another part of the [Knight’s] armor. The two darted around, Elaine keeping her distance while trying to melt through the warrior’s armor enough to trigger a loss, while the warrior tried to get in physical range to defeat Elaine.

The fight was brought to a sudden close as bolts of red Lightning rained down on the two of them, the Classer who swung through the air on electricity finding an opportunity to take out two of her competitors.

Both of them vanished as Mormerilhawn’s teleport took them back to the waiting room.

There was a mix of cheering and cries of dismay from the judges, depending on who they’d been rooting for. Three fights later, and the event was finished, the finalists determined.

“... Next up is Healer. Class: Healer. Admitted for healing. Would it have killed her to give us her real name?” Sir Fulgrim joked to a round of laughter.

“Wait, she was already admitted for healing!?” One of the judges squeaked. No fault of hers, gnomes didn’t exactly get the low end of the vocal spectrum. “Did the standards fall that low?”

Fulgrim passed the examiner’s results over.

“She’s 22.” The judge said. “She’s 22, competent enough in healing to get admitted on that basis - granted, with medium marks - but after what we just saw? Has anyone checked that her age is correct, and she’s not secretly an Immortal having fun?”

“That can be arranged.” Mormerilhawn said. “I last saw movements like that with highly trained commandos, and if I had stumbled upon the scene, not knowing that an event was going on, I would’ve believed there to be a true war going on, not one of the minor honorbound spats most mortals call ‘war’.”

Sir Fulgrim sputtered at that, but Mormerilhawn ignored him.

“What strikes me as well is that she had no interest in being admitted for combat, nor did she express a desire to learn more about fighting.” One of the judges chimed in.

“When was the last time we had someone that good not want to learn how to fight better?”

“Forget that. When was the last time we saw somebody that good?”

“She didn’t win.”

“Oh pshaw, winning the free-for-all is all about luck in the end. Remember three years ago somebody won the entire thing after going for a nap?”

“Was that the mutual knockout?”

“No, with the misplaced trap rune.”

“Elaine has repeatedly stated that she is only able to attend if she has a scholarship. I don’t know which army she wandered out of, but it's not every day that we are able to snatch up a highly trained and competent individual for our teams. Any objections?”

“She defeated an opponent under a truce banner.” Sir Fulgrim said. “The lack of honor is intolerable.”

“That is what war is.” Mormerilhawn objected. Alas, the damn School rules prevented him from simply declaring that Elaine was to obtain a full scholarship. The rules governing the School were in place for a reason, and it did stop other Immortals at the School from ordering him around.

“I want her.” Shirayuki stated again, swaying a number of the judges’s minds. She was in charge of the School’s combat team.

“A vote.” Another judge said.

It had been a long day, and there were more candidates to evaluate. Votes were quickly tallied with a majority in favor of the healer, and the next candidate was soon discussed.

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