Chương 134: Chapter 131: A Brief Examination.

"What do you know of the North Bairam campaign?" I thought about the question for some time. The truth was that I didn't know much at all, and it was a struggle to recall even that.

"North Bairam was under threat from barbarian tribes. They were ravaging their country, and so they asked our Kingdom for help. We helped them in what's called the North Bairam campaign, and then they became a vassal state." It was almost word for word a summary I had read on the issue some time ago. The First Sword said nothing. I looked to the Princess for an answer, but she looked away. The girl named Sharon slowly stepped forward.

The examiner in the center of the ring stood where he had for the last two examinations, though I saw a thin trickle of sweat run down the side of his neck. The crowd was watching her closely. Whatever contempt they had shown the boy did not extend to someone so obviously cut from the same cloth. Not after that earlier display.

"Hmm. No need to do anything fancy with someone like you, is there?" the girl asked, almost to herself. She stretched her arms out above her and sighed.

"Let's just do something simple, then." Then there were pinpricks of light. A thousand of them, covering the girl's entire front half, twinkling like tiny stars. The girl traced her fingers over those points, and where they passed, the pinpricks joined together in thin white lines. She pulled her hand back, and I saw what she had drawn over herself. It was the shape of a hammer. The girl raised her right arm in the air, and the arm changed. It swelled and grew. There was the cracking of bone, the splitting of skin.

The girl winced, but she did not scream. Many in the crowd gasped. Sere pressed closer to me.

"What an unappealing power," Katarina murmured, almost to herself. I glanced at her. The Princess's face had twisted into disgust. I had assumed that a girl born without a Gift would look at any Gift at all with envy. It seemed I was wrong. Even to someone without one, maybe some powers were simply too much. When the skin had settled, the girl had a large hammer in her hand. Though perhaps it was far more accurate to say that the girl's arm had become a hammer.

It was half again as big as she was, and when she carried its weight, she did it without effort.

"What the fuck is that?" I think that was Violet, though it could have easily been someone else. I was thinking the same thing, in only slightly less crude words. The girl raised that fleshy hammer in the air in front of the examiner.

"You don't mind, do you?" she said, head tilted towards the other examiner.

"Having to replace this one, I mean. Don't think he'll be examining much soon." The hammer itself was larger than the man it faced. The girl pulled her arm back, and then she swung down. There was a great clash, and a cloud of dust followed. The crowd's muttering swelled into scattered whispers. When the dust finally settled, Sharon still stood in the ring. There was a small hole where her hammer now lay. The examiner himself was several steps back. He was sweating. It seemed that he had dodged.

"How disappointing," the girl said with a sigh.

"And here I thought you would at least take it like a man." She shrugged. With her left hand she drew on herself again, tracing back the lines of the hammer until they were just shapeless pinpricks of light once more. Her right arm morphed in turn. It twisted, shuddered and sank back to her side, and within moments, it was just a normal hand. All flesh and bone. The silence was far deeper now than it had been before. The girl turned to the man at the side.

"I take it that counts as passing your little test?" The man slowly nodded. Perhaps he tried to speak. To give the same announcement he had before. I didn't hear it if he did. The girl shrugged and made to step out of the ring. At its threshold, she stopped. Her eyes searched the crowd, and found me.

"Hey, Hero," the girl said.

"You have Illiana Casper's sword, don't you?" Every gaze in the hall turned towards me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Violet step forward. She glanced at me first, and I shook my head. Thankfully, that was enough to get her to stand down.

"I do," I said. The girl nodded once, and then she snarled, and there was something almost bestial in her eyes.

"Hope you don't just have her fancy sword then." Then the girl turned away, and stepped out of the ring. She joined her companion. The two made their way to the exit without a look back. Their steps were overly loud in the silence.

"What the hell was wrong with those kids?" someone awkwardly laughed, and then another joined in, and then another still.

"You know how those damned Bairamese are. Ungrateful bastards…."

"That account that you have just recited to me," the First Sword said, "is certainly the official one." Aziah Storm was a woman of few words, and these few words were more than enough. An official account and a true account were not the same thing, especially from what I had just seen. Was it that much of a surprise? I was under no illusion that our Kingdom was some haven of virtue and goodness, not when I could take a look outside Aelheim's great walls and see death and loss as far as the eye could see.

What any of this had to do with me, and Illiana Casper's blade however, was a mystery. I looked to the First Sword for more, and found her gaze fixed on the exit those two had left through. It seemed she had said all she meant to say here. Fine. I would ask again, eventually.

"Next up," the announcer said, clearing his throat.

"We have Damian Everstand. Please, step into the ring, young man." Damian shook himself, as if coming out of a trance. He looked around, met my gaze. I gave him a small nod. He stepped inside the arena.

"Beat him good!" Violet cheered. Out of everyone in the hall, it seemed she had actually gotten all of her energy back.

"Don't let those little brats show us up! How about you just kill him!" Quite a few people were giving her strange looks at that. Even the two examiners were just staring at her, even though it was Damian in the ring now. I reached over and swatted Violet in the side. She looked at me and grinned.

"Hey! I'm just kidding!"

"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled to myself. I might have given Violet some lecture about having to mind her manners a little, especially given that she was about to become a Duchess soon, but that would be wasting my time. Damian stood a dozen feet away from the examiner. The examiner crossed his arms and regarded him.

"You have three strikes. Begin!" Damian nodded slowly and put his palm flat against the earth. Two lances of stone erupted from the ground in front of his hand and shot forward toward the examiner. One slammed into his side, the other right into his collarbone. Both shattered on impact, and the man beneath was unharmed. The examiner raised two fingers. He didn't need to say anything to indicate what that meant.

"-ain't that kid a little lordling? Lord Everstand's son, ain't he-""What? You mean that's his little brother?!" The murmurs were spreading through the crowd now. I was getting used to ignoring whispers when they concerned me. I doubted I would ever get used to ignoring them when they were about my friends. I was about to say something when Damian caught my eyes. He shook his head once, then pressed his palms flat against the ground again.

We all watched as a single spear of stone erupted from the ground in front of his hands. It started to spin, and spin, and spin. It spun so fast I could hardly even see it moving anymore.

"I did want an occasion to try this," Damian murmured. I just barely caught it. The examiner watched. Without warning, Damian fired. If I had to name this attack, perhaps the term 'stone cannon' would come close to doing it justice. It whirled through the air, aimed right for the examiner's side. The man twisted away, and the fragment of rock shot past. It hit the edge of the ring and tore right through it. It met a wall at the far side of the hall, and tore through that too.

Perhaps it had kept going and torn through something else. It was hard to say. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The examiner stared after it for a long moment before he turned back to Damian.

"That was a strong attack, kid. You were meant to make me take a step back, not fear for my life!" Damian grinned at him sheepishly. The examiner on the side wrote something down on his ledger before he called out.

"Damian Everstand - passed!" The crowd was silent for a few moments, and then there were scattered claps, and soon those scattered claps became a single consistent sound.

"That's a lord's son for ya," one man said.

"Never seen someone use an Earth Gift like that. Reckon I could do something like that?" another said. Damian stood in the center, and I thought I saw him stand taller. Out of all the voices, Violet's was the loudest.

"Holy shit, rockboy, you could do that?!" Violet called out.

"You were holding out on me, what the hell!?" Damian waved at her, and then moved to exit the ring. He came to stand a few spots away from me.

"That was impressive," I said with a smile. He looked at me and nodded sheepishly.

"Thanks... didn't know how it'd work. I'm just glad I didn't mess it up."

"You wouldn't be you if you did," I told him. Sere was poking Damian in the side. He turned to her, and she was holding out her notepad. I leaned over to sneak a peek. Show me. Want to draw. Perhaps this was one praise too many, because this time Damian blushed.

"Uh... sure. When I have the chance to."

"Next, Violet Indri. Please, step onto the stage!" I saw Violet start to make her way there. I caught her arm.

"Want me to wish you luck?" She grinned back at me.

"You think I need luck for this?" I answered that with a smile.

"Hey, hey!" The Princess leaned in.

"Don't go easy on him!" Violet just smirked.

"Pay real close attention. I'm gonna show you something cool as hell." The Princess nodded seriously at this, and Violet turned. She stepped inside, and this time there were far more murmurs. Naturally, everyone knew about Violet's father, but it seemed just about nobody knew about Violet herself. That wasn't a massive surprise. Most of the papers had made the entire expedition about me, to the point where everyone else's role was just a footnote.

Without that context, all anyone knew about Violet was that her father was murdered, and she was just a small fourteen-year-old girl. Violet didn't even have Giantsmasher with her, which did make me wonder just how she planned to do this at all. She hadn't seemed worried, so I hadn't brought it up, but now I was more than a little curious.

"Begin!" the man on the side said. Violet crossed her arms as she regarded the examiner in front of her. The examiner regarded her back in silence.

"Alright!" Violet declared, loud enough that perhaps people outside the hall had heard her too. Then Violet did the last thing I expected, which was perhaps the most Violet thing to do. She brought her arm up to her face and bit down on her wrist. She grunted as blood spilled from the wound, and pooled on the floor beneath her. I stared. The hall stared. I, at the very least, had the benefit of knowing why my friend had just made a meal out of her own skin. Nobody else had that benefit.

"Has she gone mad?" I heard one say. And then I heard that same statement repeated a dozen times over in different words. When the small trickle of blood had become a puddle, Violet extended her hand. A cord of blood whipped out towards the examiner. He only had a second to look surprised before he batted it away almost dismissively.

"I admit it's a unique Gift," the man said, "but it is lacking anything resemb-" He paused, and stared. For above his head now hung a large axe of red. A weapon made of blood. It glinted in the light. It made no sense by any law I knew. Violet had bled, but she sure as hell hadn't bled enough to make that. Violet dropped her hand and the axe fell with it. The man raised both arms to block. The axe dug into his arms. His own blood spilled from the flesh wound. The ground beneath him splintered and then cratered.

I saw the problem immediately. He had to take a step back, and while impressive, Violet's attack was not going to manage that. Then the man's own blood started to move. It corded around itself and raced behind him.

"What?" the examiner had time to say, before it caught both his feet from behind, and pulled. The man lost his balance. He let out a startled yelp as he fell on his back. A moment later, the axe of blood collapsed onto the ring in one great puddle. Violet let out a deep breath. At least she didn't look pale like she had when she'd used her Gift against the dragon. Was that the result of training, or something else? I decided I would have to ask her.

"Hey, that good enough or what?" she demanded of the examiner with the ledger. The man nodded slowly.

"Violet Indri - passed!" he called out. There were murmurs this time. A lot of them.

"What the hell is wrong with the junior division this time?!"

"Bunch of gods damned monsters!"

"Makes me feel like I'm fifty!" It seemed people weren't used to children as young as us performing as well as we had. At least some of the reaction was because of the two robed children who had left, but enough of it was for us that I chose to take it as a win. Violet didn't look anywhere but straight ahead as she left the ring and joined my side. She stopped in front of me with her arms folded. I met her gaze.

After a moment, Violet looked away, one hand pulling free to tug her braid, the other still pressed across her chest in a gesture that really didn't make sense with only one arm.

"Well?" she said.

"Didn't I d-""Violet, that was amazing!" I said, pulling her into a hug.

"You didn't tell me you could do that. What the heck. When did you even learn that?! And how did you even-" Violet let out a choked sound, and I realized only a second later that was certainly because of me. I let go, and Violet's face was very red.

"G-good!" she said.

"I am fucking amazing. All it took was a little training, that's all." Katarina chose this time to step forward. She clapped both of her hands. I didn't literally see stars shining in her eyes, but I would not have been surprised to find some anyway.

"Blood manipulation?!" the Princess said.

"Ah, but that makes so much sense. None of the papers had this. I need to see this again. How does it work?! And then you used that man's own blood against him?! How creative. I can tell you have a lot of experience if you can think of something like that on the fl-""Esra Veyne," the examiner called out again. That was, blessedly, enough to force the Princess to take a deep breath of air. She and Violet both looked at me. No, everyone in the hall looked at me.

"You got this?" Violet asked. Was that worry in her voice?

"I think so," I said. Sere tugged at my side. I turned towards her, reading what she'd written on an empty page. Do good. That was more than enough to make me smile. I ruffled her hair.

"I was planning on it," I said. Behind her, I saw Damian giving me a thumbs up. And then there was Estovan, looking at me with a surprising amount of seriousness.

"Show them the heir of House Veyne," he said. This was the man who had once set an impossible cube in front of me and fully expected me to walk away from it. He looked at me now, and I saw no doubt at all in his eyes. We really had come a long way.

"I'll try," I said as I made my way inside the arena. I faced off against the examiner, and I was both surprised and unsurprised to see that the wound Violet had made on him was gone. That really was a convenient Gift. Unfortunately, the sparring ring itself could not say the same. And so, he had taken a few steps to the left. It was surprisingly silent. For everyone else, there had been mutters and whispers. For me, there was nothing. It was almost enough to make me use my Gift.

To enhance my hearing and make sure that people were even still breathing.

"Begin!" the examiner said. I took a step forward. It wasn't like I hadn't been thinking about this, even as I'd watched everyone else's assessments. Without Vaelin, I had few options. I could have borrowed a sword, but my swordwork on its own wasn't anything to write home about. I had only just figured out how to use my Edict, but that was supposed to be both impossible and a secret. That left me with just mana. The examiner regarded me. I saw a single bead of sweat run down the side of his face.

Perhaps he thought Heroes had some impossible power they didn't need to draw their blade for. Perhaps my reputation had just grown that far. It was hard to say. I channeled mana into my arms. Then I drained some of it away. I planted my feet, twisted my hips, and punched the man in the chest. My blow connected easily, but something about it felt wrong. I barely even felt the thud. It was like I had just tried to punch a body of water. The man stared down at me. I stared up at him.

"That was your first attempt," he said slowly, as if he himself couldn't even believe it. The silence broke. People started to whisper and point. I heard some of them.

"Just a little girl without that red sword, huh?"

"Must have gone to her head if she thinks she can fight like that!" I took a step back. That had clearly not been enough. I hadn't actually wanted to hurt the man, after all. Next time, I would double the amount of mana use-"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" I winced. I didn't need to turn to know that was Violet.

"YOU BETTER NOT HOLD BACK!" Don't lie. Vaelin added helpfully, as if I needed yet more encouragement. Well, there went the not-showing-off plan. I sighed.

"My apologies," I said to the examiner.

"Apologies for wha-" I took a breath and channeled more mana into my hand. I condensed it once, then twice. As much as my body would allow. Condensing wasn't just about raw mana, it was also about how much mana a body was able to accept. After the thing I had done recently, my capacity had grown quite substantially. And while condensing this much mana took an impractical amount of time in a fight... it wasn't exactly impractical against someone who would just stand there and take it.

I condensed mana until I could condense no more. I looked up at the examiner. He was staring down at me with his eyes wide. I followed his gaze. Ah, so that was why. My right fist was glowing blue. Wisps of light trailed from it. I hadn't thought that would happen, though I hadn't done this before either. I stepped forward. I pulled my hand back.

"Hell no!" the man said, taking several steps back in an instant.

"You passed! You passed!" I blinked and slowly lowered my hand. The examiner on the side slowly nodded his head.

"Esra Veyne - passed." This time, there were no whispers at all. No pointing, no scattered claps. There was only the same deep silence the hall had given the Nox siblings, and I did not quite know what to do with it. Someone finally spoke. I didn't know who.

"Didn't even draw her damn sword. What the hell was that?!" That drew everyone out of their stupor. There was more whispering, and more pointing. Even a few scattered claps. I ignored all of it and turned to my friends. They all looked proud. Violet looked most proud of all. For some reason, she was puffing out her cheeks. Sere was already drawing, and it took no genius to guess her subject. My gaze, for some reason, went to Aziah Storm. The Hero looked at me, and I looked at her. She nodded, just faintly.

Maybe Sere was right. That one nod was worth a hall of cheering applause.