Warrior Training System

Everyone was stunned by Carlo’s spell—not some run-of-the-mill magic. The low-ranked mages especially gawked at the bearded Pyraxis with awe. With the fight over, they waited for the rest of the caravan to catch up, planning to cross the narrow ravine together and camp on the other side for the night.

While waiting, they tended to the wounded and scavenged anything valuable from the hyena corpses. There wasn’t much—just teeth and claws, nothing special about their hides. The teeth and claws, though, could be crafted into arrowheads or spear tips for disposable weapons.

As the group scavenged teeth and claws, a young, nerdy low-ranked mage, about the same age as the other soldiers, approached Carlo. "Might it be rude to ask the mechanism behind your spell, sir?" Most fighters here were young adults—older ones who hadn’t broken through as circle warriors or mages usually retired, using their earnings to start families, hoping their kids would make it big.

And few rare ones who stayed behind without advancing were often given command roles—their battlefield wisdom made them better leaders than fighters. Carlo was the oldest fighter among them, followed closely by Shera, both around thirty. The oldest regular soldier, a seasoned man in his late twenties, led his own team, which included a mage and the bow-wielding circle warrior.

"Don’t be so stiff, kid, of course I can explain the spell’s mechanism," Carlo said, turning to the other mages eyeing him curiously. "To all of ya."

The young mages grinned, crowding around as he went on, "By mechanism, you’re talkin’ about how the fireballs only hit the monsters, right?"

The young mages nodded together, clearly impressed by the spell’s standout feature: targeting only the hyenas. Raining fireballs was simple enough—just needed a ton of mana—but guiding them to hit specific targets, and so many, blew their minds. Carlo, catching their eager looks, felt a swell of pride. "You all studied mana prints of living things?"

The curious mages nodded in unison. "Makes it easier to explain, then," Carlo said. "Everything’s got its own unique mana print from birth. I used that to tell humans apart from those monsters, copied the hyenas’ mana prints, and wove ’em into my spell. That’s it." He glanced at their awestruck faces and added, "But it ain’t easy. You gotta know your spells inside out to mix ’em like that. One slip, and you might blast yourself. So, any of you itching to try it, do it somewhere safe, got it?"

They all nodded, and Carlo grinned. "Alright, get moving. The rest of the caravan’s catching up soon."

The mages scattered, buzzing with ideas about how to tweak their spells to target specific enemies using the new technique they’d learned. Robert caught wanni lost in thought and said, "What’s got you zoned out?" He grabbed her wrist, stopping her from jamming her knife into a dead hyena’s nose instead of prying out its teeth. "It’s dead, doesn’t mean you can poke its face holes," he chuckled, earning an annoyed glare from her. Her teammates, working nearby, couldn’t help but laugh too.

"Nothing," Wanni said, waving it off. "Just that Sir Carlo broke down how his fire rain spell works. It’s simpler than you’d think."