“Duck!” Elicec yelled as the flames rolled over us. It was a little late, but around me, we all still managed to hit the ground, avoiding the brunt of the blast. The moment the fire passed I released my tools from storage as people started scrambling into action, following some of Elicec’s rapid commands.

  “Corey, get on its back. Connie can you give us something to react faster? Rabyn try to pin it down,” Elicec said. He had said more, but in the roar of the creature that followed the blast, those were the only words I managed to catch entirely.

  Taking an educated guess at what he wanted me to do, I sent the tools after the dragon while I started dropping heat resistant shields around everyone. Next to me, Rabyn let loose with a flurry of knives, somehow more than I had ever seen the man throw at once. While the barrage all hit the dragon, the vast majority of them clinked off its scales. Its head pivoted back to us as the roar finally subsided, being replaced by a smile.

  As more fire rained down on us, I felt the mana drain of the the shields quickly reverse. Just as I had hoped with this idea, all the shields held, and my mana pool was back up to full. The fact that the dragon appeared to be fire-based, though made me wish I had had enough material to add another elemental orb or two to the tools. Eventually, I wanted all of them, but for now, I’d settle for just one more. I had some other ideas for the last spot.

  “When did you get so good at shields?” Elicec yelled as his brother swept out an elongate scythe toward the dragon, catching its legs. The dragon howled at the attack.

  “That was how I spent yesterday. I decided I needed to focus on something for the tenth floor, and it just seemed like a good way to really help the squad,” I replied over the dragon’s new screams.

  This battle so far was going easier than I’d have expected. That meant one of two things: Mel had underestimated us, specifically me, again, or there was more coming. I suspected the second option was the most likely, but I wasn’t sure just what.

  “Elicec, I’m going to break off Alpha to scout the area. I have a bad feeling Mel has some surprises in store for us,” I yelled.

  “Good idea,” he replied, in between blasts of ice shooting out of his hands.

  I opened my chat window to let Alpha know the plan.

  I lost focus on the chat window as a giant tail swept into me, knocking me and several others into the air. The shield took the brunt of the hit, but it did nothing to stop the force sending us skyward. It seemed the dragon had switched tactics.

  Connie’s voice shifted from a deep chant into a very bubbly pop sounding song. I swear I had heard the words walking on air. And considering our fall drastically slowed down as she sang, I had a feeling I had heard correctly. The dragon was on the ground waiting for us, the smile back on its face.

  While Elicec continued hitting it with ice, and Elody had unleashed her silver arrows, I tried a different tactic. I channeled both core and soul energy across my aether and life orbs, letting Corey guide the flow the best way they could, hoping the socketing order would add some interesting effects.

  “The weight of the soul is the true gravity of one’s life!” Just as I had hoped, the words only rang out in my head this time, not escaping my lips. With them, I felt a powerful blast of mana rip from my hands before spreading across the dragon below. The creature’s legs gave out below it as its form crashed into the ground under its own weight. I had no idea exactly how the soul mana had interplayed with the mix, but it had clearly strengthened it somehow.

  Moments after I landed, my shield exploded around me. The rush of energy from whatever had hit Alpha channeling back into it had been far too much, too fast for me to absorb at once. I had found the limit I was worried about. The good news was that Corey had managed to correctly direct it without any sort of backlash, but only barely. Had it been any stronger of an attack and I wasn’t sure they would have been able to. I quickly sent a message to Alpha, worried about just what had hit him.

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  That was the only word they managed to get into the chat before I saw the mallet rocket through the sky past me, feeling another blow of damage channeled back into me. I quickly replaced my shield, not wanting to take another hit, and looked around for what had to be Mel’s newest ringer.

  Sure enough, another giant creature was emerging from the woods. My humble companion since the archives, the little pumakey who had kept my energies up so many nights was now beating its chest with its fists, looking all too ready to scale the nearest skyscraper. I understood how the blast had managed to overwhelm my absorption so easily now. Chip was a walking mana factory, and apparently, he could really channel that when he was a rampaging giant coming to fight us.

  “Is that Chip?” Cecile yelled.

  “Yes, and it looks like his attacks are strong enough to overwhelm my shields, so be careful,” I replied

  “We’ve got a second Mel surprise incoming—everyone on their toes. Glorp stay on the dragon. Maud and Elody break off with him. Everyone else, we need to take down Chip before he overtaxes Dave and we lose our shields,” Elicec yelled, his voice cutting across the din of the battle somehow.

  I quickly sent the three cores toward Chip at Elicec’s orders, wondering how Mel had convinced Chip to join the training. Then again, based on how much fun he seemed to be having with his monster routine, it may not have been that hard. I launched several fireballs at him, trying to drain the mana as fast as he was pushing it back into me just as he swiped at each of the flying tools.

  Each connecting hit of his massive fists sent a surge of mana back across the shields into me, and the jolt would have been enough to kill a shield each time if I hadn’t been rapid-firing the fireballs now. I stopped even trying to think about how I was channeling and let Corey do every drop of that work themselves. I was entering a flow state with my fighting. Everything was much faster than when I had to toggle the switches myself.

  Two shields dropped from the force of a swing. My mana pool surged again. I threw them back up, adding more mana than before to reinforce them. Then I fired off another dozen fireballs at him. As long as we kept up this dance, I could handle the backlash.

  That thought was, of course, when I felt Timon’s shadow knife cut deep into my shoulder, managing to somehow slide through the shield directly into my flesh. Once again, I hadn’t even heard him approach. “Timon’s here too,” I yelled before spinning and attacking.

  I figured he had expected me to waste time healing, instead, I reversed gravity under his feet, launching him skyward, and continued releasing my built-up mana into successive fireballs using his twisting form as target practice. Two shots of lightning hit him from another direction as Beta slashed across Timon’s form, eliciting a surprisingly loud scream from the mantis.

  Elody’s silver arrows started finding homes in Chip, as I spotted Glorp’s form charging him. The loud crash from his previous location told me what I had hoped. The dragon was down. Seconds later, as we rained magical effects across the other two, Mel’s whistle called for an end to the battle. This time, we had clearly won the fight.

  “Alright, alright, that was some impressive work, people. Ya, keep that up tomorrow, and we might just clear the tenth floor yet. Everyone, go clean themselves up and meet me back in the dinning room for lunch and a post-fight discussion,” Mel yelled.

  Several people cheered at our success. I walked over to where Timon had landed and reached down a hand to help him up. As I did so, I healed both of our wounds. “You doing okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, glad to see you managed to catch me so fast this time. Looking forward to hearing about Korl’s reaction when we really own this universe. That’s gonna be hilarious. Wish I could see in person,” he responded with a laugh. I just nodded at him, breaking off to go check on Chip, whose giant form had vanished.

  I found him snacking away on some fruit Cecile had already produced from his storage for him. “Well, that was impressive, Chip. Didn’t know you had it in you,” I said as I walked over and scratched his head. He chirped back happily. I was glad that whatever Mel had done seemed to have been under a mutual agreement.

  “Where does he keep getting his supply of growth magic?” Elicec asked, shaking his head and reaching a hand out to pet Chip as well.

  “Who knows, the man has connections. Wait, was the dragon’s size enhanced, too?” I asked, not knowing a lot about them.

  “Possibly. Some dragons can control their size up to a certain degree, though. I imagine we will find out over dinner,” Elicec replied.

  “Always wanted to meet a friendly dragon. You hear a lot of stories about the mean ones, but they clearly can’t all be terrible. I mean, Connie is a dwarf, and I like her,” Cecile said with a smile. I picked up Chip and set him on my shoulder and headed for the dining room. I, too, wanted to meet a dragon.

  Dance, dance so well that they don’t even see the punch coming before it hits their face. That’s real trick to fighting, dancing. Yeah, sure, everyone hates the idea of looking ridiculous in a fight, but you know what I hate? Losing a fight. How I look matters far less to me than walking away from a fight without a broken nose. There’s a reason I still have all my teeth, and it ain’t just a fortune spent on regrowing them.

  Why I Learned to Box by Glorinious Jole

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