Chapter 54 – Unleashing Potential

Petra's pit fight had been as decisive as Jordan's had been, though in truth, she had two great advantages that she always seemed to lean upon: one, she was faster than most of the opponents she faced, and two, nothing she'd fought around her own level seemed to have any innate resistance to the poison that her Stiletto inflicted. What this meant was that while Jordan's tactics were usually block and counter, Petra's were more like stab and run. This, combined with her Active Camouflage and Blink Step skills, meant that Titus didn't see any way she could be beaten, unless something truly powerful stood opposite her.

Both of Titus's friends had made it to five opponents beaten, and neither had been really hurt, though they could all see that constant fighting was taking its toll, even with a short gap between bouts. Their Stamina recovered slowly, but their bodies were clearly complaining.

When the three decided that enough was enough, Jordan gave Petra a devious smile, which she returned.

"Uh, guys?" Titus said, noticing the exchange. "Anything I've got to worry about?"

Petra turned her head slowly and deliberately in Titus's direction before letting her smile fall into a definite scowl.

"If you think that this giant buffoon is someone I'd be interested in then you'd better think again, little Capacitor," her words were harsh and deliberately so, which Titus understood weren't meant to be harmful. It looked like Jordan understood that fact too. "What the great and powerful Defender of our party and I are smiling at, is the fact that after our fourth rounds in the pits, we were both awarded our third levels, unless I'm very much mistaken?"

Jordan, who was still smiling, nodded his head.

"And that means we have stats to allocate, as well as a choice of new abilities."

Jordan nodded again.

"Oh," Titus said. "OH!" he repeated as the realisation of what she was saying dawned on him. He hadn't even been thinking about levelling up, but there they were, his two friends already outstripping him. At least he didn't feel jealous about it. Well, not much anyway.

"But don't worry," Jordan said. "We've already talked about it. We don't want to leave you in the dust right from the off, so we've decided to wait until you get your level up to allocate anything – you know, so we can all do it together."

"Way to make him feel better about it," Petra mumbled. Then in a louder voice, "But don't go thinking this is every time; it's a one-off thing. If you can't catch up to us for the next level, then that's up to you. Not to say we won't still be a team. I mean, we can carry you through the fights and all; we'll probably be rewarded for it," then she smiled, "but you'd better not wait too long to become the world's strongest Contestant, and then remember us when you're there."

Titus knew there was nothing he could say to change their minds. It actually made him feel bad that they'd already spoken about it without including him, but at least he knew it came from a place of kindness.

"No promises," he said while raising his hands in a submissive gesture. "Once I'm up there, if you two don't pull your weight then you're getting dropped quicker than Jordan eats toast."

Petra gave a half-grin at that, and Jordan raised his eyebrows.

"So what abilities did you…"

"Oh no," Petra said. "We're not doing any of that until you're right there with us. For this time at least. We do this one together, and we talk about our best options this time; I don't want to miss out on something like last time. I still don't really know what happened back there in the bakery but… well, yeah."

That was something Titus didn't want to talk about anyway, so he left it.

"So give it what, like five hours and come back here?" Petra asked. "It'll give us all the chance to recover, and we'll coach you through a fight to bring you up to scratch."

"If I needed your coaching, I'd have asked for it a week ago," Titus said.

"Wait… you did ask for it, didn't you?" Jordan asked.

"He's back," Petra cooed. "I knew you couldn't keep it together forever."

"Ah, shut up," Jordan replied. "Anyway, I think I'm going to head over to the Defender's training. It'll be good to be amongst Contestants with the same frame of mind as me, you know? Uh, no offence," he added quickly.

"I was going to head over to the Rogues class too actually," Petra said. "But we both know it's because we want to see if there's any last-minute advice we can get on our stats and ability points. You going to see the Tornado?" She asked Titus.

"Yeah, I think so," Titus said, dreading seeing Ferran Torres in the spellcasting class again. The Instructor had taken more than a little offence to Titus not taking his first spell, though perhaps now that he had his fireball, maybe things would be different.

"I'm hoping I can ask him about my fireball spell. Maybe he'll know how to fix it? Or tell me what I'm doing wrong?"

"Then God forbid you'll actually be useful to our team," Petra said.

"Fingers crossed!" Titus replied.

The three friends then said their goodbyes and moved along the dark, torchlit hallways to their respective classes. Titus felt a little better about the fact that he had a spell to show Instructor Torres and also that he had a question relating to the craft. Perhaps the Spellcaster would take a new liking to him.

When Titus reached the classroom where Ferran Torres gave his lectures, he could see that the Instructor was already in full flow. He did his best to enter the room as quietly as he could to take a seat near the back of the class.

Ferran Torres, as usual when it was something Titus did that he didn't agree with, called him out.

"You do know that it is rude to interrupt an Instructor when they are giving a lesson, do you not?" he asked, then without pause added, "And not to mention it is rude to appear at a lesson late, one that may very well save your life one day."

"I'm sorry," Titus mumbled as he sat down on the stone bench a few rows behind the other fifteen or so Contestants in the class. "I was training in the pits…"

"Then you should not have come to this class and simply attended the next lesson once your training in the pits was complete. I do not need my classroom interrupted by the likes of a Spellcaster who does not wish to cast any spells."

Titus shut his mouth with a click. But knowing that there was nothing he could say to make the Instructor like him any less at this point, he did what his father had told him to do in situations like this: he apologised and shut up.

The class that Titus sat in on wasn't particularly useful to him right now, and he found himself zoning in and out of the Instructor's teachings as Torres spoke. It wasn't useful right now, but one day it very well could be.

The topic of the day was Mana usage, conservation, and replenishment, and as Titus only had a small Mana pool and one single spell that basically cost him nothing to cast, it was easy to see how the topic was boring to him.

Ferran Torres throughout the course of the lesson, explained that Mana management was one of the most important things for any Spellcaster to keep in mind. He'd even let his gaze linger on Titus a few times as he said the word 'Spellcaster,' which Titus didn't particularly enjoy, but neither did he react to it.

Titus learned that even the greatest Spellcasters with Mana pools that boggled the mind needed to keep on top of their Mana usage, and they could do this in a number of ways.

Spellcasters could increase their Mana pools not only through allocating stat points to their Wisdom, but also through items that carried effects, much like his stamina ring, through potions that granted additional Mana, or in a rarer occasion, through spells cast by other Spellcasters.

Mana regeneration was a similar thing, though Titus had never really stopped to think about it too much. One could increase the rate at which Mana regenerated by using special equipment with the right effects, or through potions and again, rarely, through the spells of others who happened to be able to do it.

The last thing that he learned in the lesson was the fact that some equipment, like staffs or wands, could reduce the amount of Mana needed to cast a given spell – or any spell – greatly. It was usually by a percentage amount, though Instructor Torres alluded to the fact that he'd seen some single-use equipment that reduced the Mana cost for casting one spell and one spell only, to virtually nothing.

All in all the lesson was kind of useful, though throughout his time in the classroom Titus was half-wondering how he was going to ask the one question he had burning away inside him. He knew that he wouldn't ask it in front of the others at least, so that meant he had to sit and wait until it was over.

Eventually, the time came when Torres decided that the Contestants – who were all either Blue or Purple-ranked and all above Titus's level – left the room. Titus sat there quietly and waited for them all to leave, and when the door closed he cleared his throat and stood up.

"Instructor?" he asked as politely as he could.

Instructor Torres started a little, assuming that everyone had left the room, and turned to look at Titus. When he saw who was left, his mouth dropped into an almost sneer.

"Are you going to tell me that you don't see the point in learning about Mana management now?" the Instructor asked. "Perhaps it is another thing you would like to figure out for yourself or wait for the right opportunity to come along?"

"No, it's not that," Titus said almost casually. "It's just that I took your advice and learned the fireball spell…" Torres's expression somewhat softened at that revelation. "… but it isn't working properly. I think I'm doing something wrong?"

"What do you mean it isn't working properly?" Torres asked. "You either know the spell or you don't; there is no 'not working properly.'" Then he pointed across the room to a practice dummy that Titus had seen the Instructor target with his spells on occasion. "Show me," he ordered.

Titus shrugged knowing that there was nothing else for it, and raised his hands, pointing towards his intended target.

From deep within, Titus willed the spell to activate, to spend the Mana that he knew was in ample supply to account for the weak spell and in a fraction of a second, he felt his Mana pool drop by two single points and watched as the tiny fireball materialised before him.

And just as before, the spell did not act like any other he'd seen previously. The fireball was the size of a small chicken egg and sauntered forth like it was going to casually drift in a roundabout way towards the training dummy. It took at least five seconds for the fireball to come to the realisation that it was a spell of destruction and finally impacted the centre mass of the dummy with a dull thud and a puff of smoke.

Titus expected Torres to laugh, or perhaps even shout at him for being such a pathetic Spellcaster, but the man did neither.

Ferran Torres brought his hand to his chin, scratching at it thoughtfully.

Eventually, he spoke. "How did you learn this spell? And are you sure that it is the Fireball spell and nothing more? Are you sure it has no other names?"

Titus answered the Instructor's questions in order. "I learned it the normal way, from a question from the God of Balance. And yes, it's just the normal spell as far as I know; it doesn't seem to have any other names."

"That is curious," Torres said, still scratching his chin. "I have often wondered if in some individuals that spells need to be learned and mastered, though I have never seen it to be the case. You are correct to be worried, though. I have never seen a fireball act in such a way. Perhaps you have been correct all along in that spell-casting is simply not for you?"

"But if that was true, then why would the God of Balance offer me the path? Why would I be stuck with a useless spell?"

"The God of Balance can work in many different ways," Torres replied. "Perhaps it is your destiny to light candles from afar but nothing more? Perhaps you were given the choice as a test and you chose incorrectly?"

It was obvious to Titus that Torres still harboured a great amount of dislike for him, and he could tell that most of the conversation was poorly veiled insults aimed to make Titus feel bad about himself. But he knew better. He knew the God of Balance had something in store for him; he just didn't know how, why, or what.

"Do you think I can learn then? To cast the spell better, I mean?" Titus asked.

Torres stared at the practice dummy again for a long moment and then, without looking back at Titus announced: "Do it again."

Titus didn't need to be asked twice because he'd been waiting for this very instruction. He focused on the skill and then again extended his arms towards his intended target. This time though, he willed with everything in his being for the spell to do some actual damage to the dummy.

Again though, the spell fell short of his expectations and desires, following the course of the first almost exactly.

"Again," Ferran Torres said the single word that was unbeknownst to Titus, going to become the one sound he hated the most over the next short while. It was an hour before Titus realised he'd had enough and wasn't going to be able to cast the spell properly. The Instructor had also plied Titus with Mana potions when he needed them so that he could continue trying to cast the Fireball spell without interruption.

"Again," the Instructor said in exactly the same tone as he had done each and every time Titus had cast the useless spell. The tone had remained the same, but the Instructor had shifted about the classroom to have a look at the spell from every single angle imaginable.

"That's enough!" Titus finally moaned. "It's not happening; I'm not learning, and nothing's changing! I call the spell up, and I spend the two Mana points, and this is what happens over and over!" He spat out a lazy fireball as if to punctuate his point, and it followed the same path and velocity as all the others.

Then something flashed across Torres's eyes and Titus saw it. It was something more than what he'd been doing this entire time, something that didn't add up, and now it had finally slotted neatly into place.

"Did you say two Mana, boy?" he asked.

"Yes," Titus replied. "That's the cost of the spell. It was when I was given it, and it is now."

"Are you sure?" Torres asked again. "Because I have to tell you that although the spells that I have seen do not always have a set Mana cost, with said cost varying from individual to individual, I have never seen the cost for the Fireball spell less than seven Mana. Could it be that you are wearing something that reduces the cost of your spell, or perhaps this spell specifically?"

Titus thought for a moment, but the only thing he could think of that remotely fit the bill was his wooden stamina ring.

"No," Titus said eventually. "I have a ring that gives me a small boost to my Stamina, but I'm not carrying anything else. My chainmail shirt doesn't really do anything other than boost my Defence, and I have a basic sword that my friend gave me."

Torres scratched his chin again. "You are a Spellcaster, and yet you have chosen to boost your Stamina and Defence, and you are using a sword as your main weapon?" Then the Instructor closed his eyes and shook his head. "It does not matter. What does matter is the fact that you seem to have been gifted a common spell with a rather uncommon cost, and I wonder what the reason for this might be."

"Could it be like a punishment, like you said?" Titus asked, still pretty sure that this wasn't the answer. But he was sure that Torres was onto something, and he very much wanted to tug at that thread.

"I don't think so," Torres said. "But I now understand what is happening with your fireball: it simply does not contain enough Mana to act as it should. You see, usually when equipment reduces the Mana cost for spells, said equipment lends some of its own inherent Mana to the spell in question, so the spell itself is not underpowered, rather it has received its total cost from multiple sources. In your case, the Mana that the spell is drawing from your body is powering the spell, but because the cost is so low, what you are seeing is the result of this low cost."

It very much sounded to Titus like the Instructor was talking in circles now. He understood that his spell was weak because the cost was weak, but that wasn't something he had a say in. Was it?

"Can I put more Mana into the spell, to make it stronger?" Titus asked.

"I don't think so," Torres said, shaking his head. "It is not something I have ever seen done, but then again, neither have I seen a Mana cost so low for a spell, and a common one at that."

"But that doesn't mean it's impossible?" Titus asked.

"Nothing is impossible," Torres said, almost absentmindedly. "But I don't know how you would even begin to achieve such a thing. Mana is not a controllable force…"

Titus ignored the end of the Instructor's sentence and turned his attention back to the training dummy. It was like all of a sudden the name of his Class meant something more to him, like this was its true purpose. He was a Capacitor, not a Spellcaster, and that meant he could do this.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He focused his consciousness inward, feeling the flow of Mana within him as he began willing the Fireball spell into existence. It was like a stream of energy, a current that he could sense but had never before thought to even ponder on. He had always just allowed it to follow its natural course into the spell that was to be cast.

But this time Titus reached out with his mind, touching the stream of Mana. He could feel it, a subtle vibration, a thrum of power waiting to be harnessed. He pictured the Mana pooling, gathering strength, building in intensity. And then he willed it to be more. For the stream to be wider, faster and for the Mana within him to grow and swirl before it reached the tips of his fingers. His entire body prickled and vibrated with the awesome feeling of raw power coursing through his very body and out towards his hands.

As he opened his eyes, he extended his hands towards the dummy once more. This time however, he didn't just call upon the spell mechanically. He willed more Mana to power it, pushing beyond the two-point cost and pouring his energy into the incantation.

The air around him seemed to shimmer with heat as he summoned the fireball. It was no longer a tiny, meandering orb but a growing sphere of crackling flames. Titus could feel the Mana flowing from him into the spell making it grow more and more as the fractions of a second passed.

The fireball swelled to the size of a melon, its flames dancing with ferocity and it was a stark contrast to his lacklustre attempts before. Titus could almost hear the hum of energy as the spell reached its peak.

With a flick of his wrists he released the fireball. It shot forward like a comet, a blazing streak of light that hit the dummy with a resounding boom. The impact was explosive sending shards of the dummy flying, leaving a charred and smouldering ruin in its wake.

Titus stood there, slightly out of breath, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. He had done it. He had controlled and amplified his Mana, transforming his one weak and useless spell into something far more real. Far more useful.

Instructor Torres stood speechless as soon as the spell hit the target, his eyes locked on the decimated dummy. Slowly, he turned to Titus with his expression one of disbelief.

"You... you just changed the very nature of how that spell works. How did you...?"

Titus, still catching his breath, managed a half-grin. "I just felt the flow of Mana..." he said slowly. "I'm not really sure how it worked… but it cost ten Mana that time… I only have one left."

Torres approached Titus, his gaze intense and analytical. "Do you realise what this means? You've just demonstrated an ability to manipulate Mana in a way that defies traditional Spellcasting. This is unprecedented. We must do it again!"

Titus nodded, a sense of pride swelling within him. He had discovered something unique about his abilities, something that set him apart and might just be the key to unlocking his real potential and the reason the God of Balance had given him his unusual Class.

"Your training, from this point forward, needs to focus on this ability," Torres said, clearly excited. "You must learn to harness and control this power. It could change everything for us. And you," he added quickly. "We must see if this is something that can be taught and practised for the people!"

Titus nodded again. He had found his path, a way to utilise his Class in a way that no one had expected. He was no longer just a Contestant with a weak spell; he was a Capacitor with the power to shape his Mana and bend spells to his will.

But before all of that, he needed to keep Torres away from the truth of his Class. He was sure that he alone could do what he had just done, but the Instructor was most likely going to need some convincing of that fact.