Two weeks or so after the showcase, combat training began. And before, it had worried him the most. The idea of getting beaten by other novices wasn't the most appealing idea or experience. Besides, his athletic abilities weren't the best. Kanrel wasn't dexterous or strong, and the only real physical activity other than walking in strides to the next lecture hall that he had participated in was partner dancing. Not a great basis for a warrior, even if one who used magic as his weapon.
But after a couple of weeks of training, he knew that he could probably win against most, and only Yirn was someone he considered to be difficult competition, to the point that he found himself losing to him more often than winning.
Together, they had had many conversations, not just about combat and dueling, but also coding and magic in general, and even the reasons why they had originally chosen to become priests.
For Kanrel, it had been a duty for knowledge, but Yirn had a dream of becoming an inquisitor. A fierce warrior priest whose primary job would be law enforcement and hunting loose priests. Said priests found themselves led astray by misunderstanding and often misconstruing the word of the Angels for their own benefit, and so inquisitors were sent after them to be rid of those who dared sully the good name and the wise teachings of the Angels.
Yirn had spent much of his time working out his body, which one could easily see, and reading books from inquisitors to inquisitors; these books often held information and thoughts about combat, strategy, and what kind of things one could quickly and easily interact with within their own surroundings—all this in preparation.
He had also shown Kanrel one of the codes that he learned recently: he conjured multiple small balls of fire, and then he'd rapidly shoot them forward. It was within the basics of magical combat, but Kanrel found it impressive anyway.
But even if one wasn't aiming to become an inquisitor, combat remained an important skill for all priests, and they had to learn it at the Academy for the sake of self-defense whilst traveling the vast lands of the Kingdom, be it to fend off bandits or wolves and other predators, or said loose priests.
And whether one was or wasn't interested in actual combat, there was much to learn from its theory, which was at times rather simple, but in the end useful for coding and understanding magic in general.
Combat with magic honed and rewarded one's ability to think and execute codes quickly and precisely, without failure. In combat, one had to be creative in the ways one might use one's surroundings. For example, they could freeze the ground, thus making it slippery to stand on.
Preparation was also emphasized. If one knows beforehand that there might be a possibility of a physical or otherwise violent encounter, being prepared for such a possibility can save lives—not just your own, but the lives of others.
One might think that combat with magic is all about two or more people throwing fireballs at each other, but in actuality, it is much more mobile and quick, and a lot of fights are decided in close quarters. A priest has to be in constant motion, as there might at any moment be a spell that makes the place where you just were a place where you'll be buried.
Combat against non-priests is, of course, a lot simpler. For that, preparation, awareness, and reaction are key. A volley of arrows is easily turned around with a strong gust of wind; a sword strike can be countered by making the sword itself suddenly too heavy or adjusting its properties; what if a sword were suddenly soft?
And now, like the days before that, Kanrel, Yirn, Yviev, and the rest of the novices found themselves in a hall designed for practice duels. For the past two weeks, a visiting inquisitor known as Sirius had served as their teacher. His style of teaching was very much on the practical side of things, and from the beginning, his intention was to force all of them to fight each other until they collapsed and could not move even an inch. He had showcased many elaborate codes. During one session, in mere seconds, he summoned balls of fire that exploded on impact, followed by a blinding flash of light directed at the imagined enemy that he was fiercely attacking, in this case, a target dummy constructed from metal. The poor thing had gone through a lot, and after every class, it stood battered and stained from the heavy attacks it had suffered throughout the day.
Usually, after such a showcase, they'd practice hurling different spells at their dedicated target dummies as a warm-up, and after some time, the novices were divided into pairs for the sake of practice duels by Sirius and Oidus.
Now Yirn stood across from Kanrel, and they eyed each other, waiting for the command to start. It was certain that both of them had already begun coming up with different codes to alter the environment, maybe even form an attacking spell.
"Begin!" Sirius's command echoed in the hall, and in an instant, Yirn's gentle nature disappeared, replaced by the warrior he was training to become as he began running at Kanrel; at the same time, he threw exploding balls of fire at him, who had to alter all his own plans and block the coming attacks. Powerful gusts of wind made the balls of fire useless; he then tried to stop Yirn by freezing square meters of ground around him.
Then Kanrel began retreating, but something was off. He turned around and could do nothing; the floor trembled in anticipation of the forthcoming strike; Kanrel's heart was beating. Was it because of fear? Excitement? Or was he just so caught up in the fight that his heart had to keep up with his mind?
An icy whip, in a glittering arch beneath the light of the hall, baptized the floor with a streak of blood. Kanrel fell to his knees, his face bleeding and half of it missing as his face felt first numb, then engulfed by the ripping pain, but he would survive.
No one screamed. Maybe a few must have winced. Most just watched like they were taking notes. This was magical combat in practice, after all.
Even this wound would serve as a valuable moment to learn, and he executed a number of codes he had been practicing on the side of magical combat. He had learned them from books regarding magic in medicine. He first stopped the bleeding and then began regenerating the missing side of his face. The sensation of regenerating wasn't a pleasant sensation either; the numbness further dissipated, only to be replaced by further pain.
He did this all while terrible pain ran through his face over and over again; he still got up as his newly formed code was still working on his face.
Yirn had stopped for a moment in shock; he had not expected what had happened, even when he had been the cause of it.
Kanrel then used this shock to his own advantage and began forming multiple spikes of ice in the air around him, all aimed at Yirn. The young man then woke up from his shock, just in time to dodge the coming spikes. He then slipped on the icy ground and had to roll out of it as quickly as he could.
"Stop!" A loud voice demanded; the duel was over, and all the just conjured spells were made void, except the one fixing Kanrel's face.
"Well done. You two will make fantastic Inquisitors in the future. You've got the right attitude for training—actually attacking using all the things that you know how to use, and not just standing still when attacked or when half of your face is missing," Sirius said. He always spoke with little to no intonation.
"These are exactly the things that I look for in an inquisitor while training."
"You, Yirn, was it? Next time, don't get shocked by the sight of blood, and go for the kill. And you, don't ever turn your back on the enemy; you deserved to lose more than half of your face for that."
"Next!"
And so the practice duels continued; everyone got a chance to impress the visiting inquisitor, but not many of them got any compliments. This went on for hours, and those who had showcased their prowess in combat got to continue practicing against the metallic target dummies. And those who had suffered some harm, like Kanrel, had their wounds tended to by Sirius, but mostly by Oidus. None of them would be allowed to die from such things, and if a duel was heading towards a point of 'no return,' then Sirius would step in and end the duel, usually with his overwhelming magics.
Yirn sheepishly apologized and explained how he had thought that Kanrel would be able to dodge or somehow block the coming strike, as he himself could have done so. Kanrel, on the other hand, thanked Yirn for the valuable lesson in medicine.
And when today's lecture was finally over, Kanrel agreed to meet up with Yirn and Yviev at the laboratory in an hour. He wanted to visit the library to find further books about medical magic. He wanted to make sure that he could better and more quickly heal future wounds.
The arenas were located just behind the laboratory in the northern parts of the academy. It was an area of the campus that was most frequently restored, for obvious reasons. And according to rumors, Oidus had, apparently, as a novice herself, blown half of it into smithereens. And funnily enough, that moment had also been the moment she became obsessed with explosions.
While walking in the corridor, massaging the side of his face that had been regenerated, Kanrel saw something on the wall. In bright white and red, there were words written: The Herald is heretical; death to the heretics! And on the wall across from it was another phrase: The new passages are forgeries; death to the Herald!
First, he blinked, not sure how to react, but soon he felt how his fingers had curled into fists, and his face wore a frown.
He stood there for a long time before another person went by; they also stopped near the graffiti. She then commented, "The coming of the Otherkind does seem a bit absurd, but I wouldn't go as far as to call the Herald heretical. Maybe daft instead." She had a smile on her face, which froze after she recognized who she was talking to.
The girl quickly apologized and ran off before Kanrel could rebuke her. She must have thought that he would tell on her to his mother.
Anger still churned within him, but soon questions birthed by the graffiti loosened his fists and changed the meaning of his frown.
Otherkind and heretics? The Herald, new passages and forgeries? Kanrel did not know what to think; there was just this urge to figure out the truth. He would have to first visit the cathedral, as every temple and cathedral would always have an updated copy of the Book of the Heralds. He had not read it for a while now, so many new passages might have been shared.
He formed a code and removed the graffiti; such doubt shouldn't be instilled in the heads of the youth.
Kanrel almost ran the rest of the way, at first, passing novices and professors leaving and entering, and then regular students on their way to or from class. He entered the cloister, rushing through and past students who stepped out of his way, not bothered by his hurry; they must've assumed that he was late to a lecture.
A few minutes later, he reached the tallest structure in the academy as well as in the whole of Atarkan. The cathedral reached toward the sky before him, dressed in shades of gray and black stone. Along its pointed arches and flying buttresses, statues of angels stood and sat, not hiding away their grotesque faces. They were too high for most to say whether they glared with disgust or gleamed with amusement as they observed the approach of the faithful, in this case Kanrel, who paid them no heed and instead entered through the tall, ornate double doors.
The cathedral was as empty as ever, and to be fair, it was only full during certain days of the year and during the ritual. By now, all had opened their eyes and were taking part in the lectures. Those who had taken longer to awaken were somehow more used to their newfound emotional state, and they seemed far more apathetic in Kanrel's eyes.
When he walked once again into the grand hall of the cathedral, he was reminded of how small and insignificant he was to the world around him. How he meant nothing before the eyes of the Angels, who would emotionlessly judge all those who found themselves within.
He knew that the angels within all looked down on him. All of the angels, small and large, on the columns, the paintings, the carvings, and the mosaics. All of them. Each time Kanrel took a step, he felt his skin crawl. They followed him; those eyes... filled with judgment.
Here, it felt that everything watched him, but outside, he was the one who was watching everyone, looking down and judging them as the other or people who didn't belong. The little interactions he had with them had become too difficult to manage, and it would've been much easier to have the academy be a place meant for only the priests and the novices. Maybe then there would be no need for pretense.
Within the cathedral, there was a library in the south-eastern wing of the building. Hundreds of tall bookshelves filled the whole room; this was the place where most of the religious texts were held. And even more literature about magic. The reasons for its lack of popularity with the rest of the students, other than the novices, were its inherent lack of erotic novels. Such smut, or art depending on who you asked, was apparently too 'indecent' and 'antithetical' to what the Priesthood represented.
Had he been asked a year ago, he would not have agreed. There were... some pleasures to be found in such literature. Though now he figured that reading them would be a waste of time.
In the very middle of the library, there was a pedestal on top of which there was a large tome; its dimensions were about 30 centimeters in width and 35 centimeters in height, and there were thousands of pages, half of which were filled with small scripture.
This had been the first time he saw the Book of the Herald after his awakening, and by the Angels, it felt so very different now. Seeing this very tome was the first time in weeks that he felt anything other than different shades of despair.
He felt touched, and he felt so blessed, and oh, how he wanted to cry from this feeling that something as usual as seeing a book gave him. But this wasn't like any other book; there were only ten or so of its type in the world.
Magically connected tomes that all updated when a new passage was written on the original one. The one that his mother had.
He pushed through the tears, swallowing them, and went closer. His hands trembled as he turned pages to the one that held the last few passages that he had read. He didn't need to be careful, as the book would survive any damage done to it. The pages couldn't be ripped or burned; moisture wouldn't ruin them. Nothing would.
There had been three new passages since he had last visited. They read as though they were a prophecy, and as he read, his sudden feelings of normalcy dissipated, returning to the abhorrent despair which he might never get used to:
Locked, imprisoned, those you know as the other. Waiting for the lock to open; waiting for their ascension; to breach the surface; to usurp those above.
Punished for betrayal; conquered and then enslaved by the shadows; by those within, around, and above.
Bloodshed, famine, death. An ending from and for below.
By the time he had finished, he was nothing again. It had felt like he had been allowed a moment of clarity, a piece of candy, only to have it ripped away from him just a moment later. Kanrel gritted his teeth and read through the words again and again.
What did they mean? The end of humanity? To the 'other'? Or to the Angels? Whose betrayal? What shadows? What lock? Whose ascension?
He took out his notebook and copied the new passages; he would have to read back on the other things that his mother had written, and then he would have to go even further back in time to find out what had been said about the Otherkind before.
With a lot on his mind and all these new passages of shadows within, around, and above, and the coming bloodshed, famine, and more, he then decided to finally go meet up with the others at the laboratory. But tonight, there would be a lot to read about.
He walked the whole way back, reviewing in his mind what he had just learned. Again, students made way for him, or went around him, though this time annoyance was clearly present on their faces, but none dared to say a thing; he was a novice after all, and no one wanted to butt heads with one.
He arrived at the laboratory an hour late. Only Yviev was there; she sat by a table and reviewed her notes. She lifted her head at the sound of Kanrel walking in, and scoffed at the sight of him. "You're late," she remarked.
"Sorry... I had to finish the thing I was reading," Kanrel apologized.
Yviev sighed. "At least this is just your first time; as you can see, Yirn is not here either, and he is late every time; he probably has to finish the set of pushups he is doing."
"Push-ups?"
"Well, what else would he be doing?"
Kanrel thought for a moment and found himself nodding. "Now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense," he muttered. Then, he began sharing the observations that he had made during the combat lecture; he also shared the code that he had used to fix his face.
Yviev also helped him figure out if his face was the same as it had been before. "You're as ugly as ever, so don't you worry."
"And if there is any actual difference, you can always get the other side chopped off as well; just ask Yirn, and he'd be happy to help you."
Kanrel rolled his eyes and was about to rebuke her, but Yviev suddenly grinned a humorless, yet natural-looking smile. She nodded toward the door. "Speaking of the devil."
Kanrel turned toward the door just as Yirn entered. The tall man had his hands behind his back as if he were trying to hide something. "This time, I have a very good reason for being late!" he announced when he reached them.
"Oh? And what could that be?" Yviev asked.
"I had to buy something to properly apologize for what I had done," Yirn said with a grin. He brought his hands from behind his back, revealing a mirror that could be hung on the wall.
"Oh, wonderful!" Yviev said, then patted Kanrel on the shoulder. "Our cynical friend here has barely believed any opposite of a compliment I have offered about the condition of his face, that is, before and after the incident."
"They aren't flowers paired with a 'get better card,' but I do believe a mirror will serve you much better than something you would surely let die in a fortnight. Besides, you've really got to practice that smile of yours…" Yirn said and offered the mirror to Kanrel, who accepted it with a smile that soon turned into a frown.
He lifted the mirror and kept it just far enough that he could see himself properly. A young man stared back at him, with dark, almost raven-black hair. It was rather unkempt but short enough to not get in his way. A large pointy nose, that most would perhaps first see when coming face-to-face with his skinny face, but then there were his eyes. Amber in color and bright, once they were lively and filled with emotion; now they had become dull and empty. His once beautiful eyes had grown so tired.
But it wasn't really that bad at all.
"Yviev, it really isn't bad at all; I reckon that I look quite handsome to at least some," Kanrel said while staring his face up and down from different angles.
Yviev scoffed. "Now, try smiling…"
He did as he was told. "Oh." An extremely awkward expression that tried to pretend to be a smile had met his gaze. "I think you might have had a point after all…"
Yirn patted Kanrel on the back. "There, there. All hope isn't lost."