“Welcome, students,” the Erudite, Henry, said.

  All of the members of the class were in our usual meeting spot on the campus greens, a little distance from shadesilk forest, and we’d clustered up into our normal teams. I’d introduced Seren to the team, and Jackson had immediately stolen the little fire elemental from my shoulder and started babying it.

  “I’m sure several of you have been waiting for your practical final for some time now,” the Erudite continued. “Throughout the semester, you’ve taken on a variety of different threats, as well as studied battle theory. Well, no sense in dragging this out. Each team is going to be fighting a hydra.”

  Before that was even able to sink in, he continued.

  “Next semester, you’ll only have a few delves into the library, some combat against overwhelming opponents like Emir or Alydia, and free time to apply to combat training as you see fit. That’s because for your end of year final, each of your teams will be sent to kill a mature ember-roc. Alright, cast your preparatory spells and line up by teams, let’s get this going.”

  I stared at the Erudite in abject horror. I knew what an ember-roc was, too well.

  Born in the volcanoes around the Isle of Dreki, or maybe from the planes the volcanoes tied to, behind my family, were the strongest natural monsters on the island by far. A fully mature one wasn’t that much weaker than Gerhard, who was an adult dragon. They’d be able to swallow up a young dragon like Greta in an instant. My mother, and members of the first few generations, liked to raise them as war beasts.

  Since coming to the Citadel of Ether, I’d seen a much broader assortment of powers, and I thought that a mature ember-roc would only fall a little short of someone like Shé Rui. Expecting Salem, Jackson, Yushin, and I to kill one?

  Well, I didn’t want to say that it was impossible. If I burned all the spellglyphs I’d been preparing for my fight against Gerhard, I was confident the four of us could win. But without it…

  There was a long moment of silence, before Jackson started laughing.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “I’m perfectly serious, Mister Uyer,” the Erudite said. “Now, please line up. The spells we’ve placed on the hydras to keep them placid won’t remain foreve–”

  He was interrupted as he yawned.

  “Forever. So we should be going,” he finished. “So do your prep, line up, and I’ll paint the marks on you, then you can teleport to the spaces.”

  With some reluctance, we lined up, and I started whispering a plan with the team.

  “Alright, what do we know about hydras? Obviously, we want to burn any injuries that we cause, so that it doesn’t just heal itself, or worse, grow extra limbs. Jackson, that will be your job.”

  “Their fangs hold a potent poison,” Yushin said. “One bite contains enough to easily kill five unenforced bodies, a single body purgation cultivator, or injure one in the energy drawing stage. They can also spew it out as a breath weapon, but it is much weaker in that form.”

  I made a mental note to gently tell her the difference between the words for poison and venom in Ceyish, but that was for another time. I didn’t know too much about the stages of life enforcement, but it probably meant that even I’d be better off avoiding the venom than relying on burning it out of my body.

  “They’re slow, but their heads move fast,” Salem said. “It’s like a nest’a snakes tied together. If we can stay out’a the way of the heads, it’ll take a bit ta’ catch us.”

  “They’re stupid,” I offered. “They’re a type of lesser dragon, but they’re completely non-sapient. Most of their brainpower goes to just coordinating the movements of all those heads.”

  “Oh, now ‘at is good to know,” Salem said brightly. He drew his wand, which was made of a smooth walnut wood and set with the amethyst he’d taken from the crystal caverns. “I can mess wit’ their heads usin’ mental magic.”

  “Yushin, does your bloodline allow you to absorb toxins?” I asked.

  “Some, yes,” she said.

  “Then Yushin should hang back to defend Jackson,” I said. “I’ll draw its attention and wear it down. Salem can mess with its minds, while Jackson builds up for big hits of fire to kill it. Aim for the heart.”

  “Good plan,” Jackson agreed. Yushin nodded, as did Salem, so I picked up my staff from where I’d been leaning it against a tree and began the incantations for arcane armor, shield, and energy barrier, attuning the last to defend against the venom of a hydra, layering them.

  It took me a long time, since the staff slowed my casting even further, but when I poured my fire into all three of the spells, the cumulative effect of all three boosts made the armor that formed around me stronger than I’d ever seen before.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I picked up three stones and began the rolling incantation for telekinetic volley, allowing them to orbit around my head like some sort of strange dwarven crown. I took Seren from Jackson, placing him on my shoulder, and summoned Orla next to me, then shifted my stance and began dumping ether into summoning spells.

  I conjured up what I felt was an impressive menagerie when I finished. A pair of greymalkin paced behind me, with an air elemental buzzing over the shoulder opposite to Seren, and a pair of earth elementals marching in front of me.

  I didn’t want to be left completely without ether, so I hadn’t used as many summoning spells as I could, and didn’t layer or infuse any of them, but summoning so many things had left me with only enough magic left over for a few spells. I put the staff back against the tree, since bringing it with me would be more of a liability than anything, and drew my wand. Salem whistled, shaking his head.

  “An’ now I feel underprepared,” he said, his own arcane armor shimmering ever so slightly with green light. “We ready?”

  I glanced at Yushin and Jackson, both of whom had conjured up arcane armor of their own. They nodded, and we walked up to the Erudite, who drew the brush from his pocket and quickly painted the contingency runes on us, before tapping his staff on the ground. Blue light swallowed us, and we appeared in Tall Mesa.

  The sun’s light beat down on us, reflecting against the red and brown rocks all around us, as the dust shifted under our feet. I squinted against the sun and looked around. Sure enough, there was a glowing white orb nestled among some rocks, only a few dozen feet away from us. Above the orb floated professor Emir, a broad grin on his face.

  “Hey there kids!” he called out, his teacher’s cloak billowing out behind him. “You’ve got ten seconds left until it opens, so if you’ve got any last minute preparations, now’s the time.”

  “You three get back,” I snapped, then urged my summons into place. At the same moment, I began building up a curse spell, trying to make it as specific as possible to empower it, and waiting for the perfect moment to unleash the spell.

  The greymalkins blurred, their gray coats fading into the brownest parts of the stone as they loped around to either side, while the air elemental shot out to hover over its next of heads, and both of the crablike stone elementals began lumbering directly at the orb.

  “Annnnddddd. Go!”

  The white light vanished, and the hydra exploded from the rocks. It had four heads, each one with a neck easily fifteen feet long, and the heads another three feet in size. Its body was huge, with four legs that were low to the ground, and it looked incredibly heavy, probably to act as a counterweight to the heads. Each of the heads had four eyes, and mouths shimmering with sharp fangs, easily big enough to be the blade of a good knife. It had a long tail, at least ten feet long, and so thick it could have been an oak tree.

  Its scales were markedly different than most dragons that I’d seen. Dreki scales were thick and heavy, like plates of armor, and the Nraig dragon breed had incredibly smooth, polished white scales, like opals, pearls, or moonstone. The drakes that the Golden Emperor used to guard his palace had plated scales similar to a Dreki’s, and the one full Lindwyrm I’d seen in its beast form had scales somewhere between the plated effect and rough granite.

  The hydra, on the other hand, had scales that were more like a fish, each one smaller than my pinkie nail, and even more flexible than the unnatural suppleness that Dreki scales had. They didn’t look all that defensive to me, but it made up for it in being quite light. The scales had a pale greenish-white tint, and its underbelly faded to pure white.

  It let out a defiant roar when it saw us, and all four of the heads whipped out. Two of them went for the earth elementals, one for the air elemental, and one right at me. I threw myself to the side, relying solely on my above-human reflexes, rather than drawing actively on my fire. The mouth flicked slightly to the side, and I threw myself over the thick trunk of its head in a smooth motion, landing on the opposite side even as it whipped toward where I’d been standing a moment before. It had a moment of confusion, so I unleashed one of my stones, driving right at one of the hydra’s eyes.

  The massive head let out a screech of pain and shot toward me, but I was already moving backwards and surveying the rest of the battle. The greymalkins had pounced on the heads that were fighting the earth elementals, using their bloodline empowered sneak attack to leave huge gashes, but the hydra was already recovering. Its venom had coated both earth elementals, but they were completely immune, not having any sort of flesh or blood for the venom to sink into. The fourth and final head was running through the air in a wild pattern, trying to chomp down on the quick little air elemental.

  The one I was fighting opened its mouth, and unleashed a spray of venom. It was too fast for me to be able to dodge, and the bright green toxin rushed through my energy barrier…

  Which robbed it of most of its potency.

  I flicked my shield in front of me to take the much-diminished spray of venom, and the effect wasn’t even potent enough to crack the dragonfire infused shield.

  The hydra shut its mouth, then blinked stupidly at the fact that I was still standing there. If I’d been alone, I’d have taken the moment to fire off both of my remaining stones, and probably unleash one of the dragonfire infused arcane missiles to try and pierce the thing’s heart. But that wasn’t my role in this fight.

  A head whipped down at me from above, and I only had a moment to toss myself to the side, rolling out of the way as the head that had been chasing the air elemental crashed into the ground where I’d been with a massive thump. It rose back up and both the heads focused on me, causing me to curse under my breath. At least the earth elementals and greymalkins were keeping the other two occupied.

  As if on cue, there was a loud crunching noise, and I glanced over to see one of the greymalkin sliding down the gullet of the rightmost head. Orla was already diving in, unleashing her defensive barks to assist, but that meant she couldn’t stay in reserve for me if my shields fell. The head was trying to ignore her, and focus back on me, but Salem’s magic was redirecting its focus, keeping two of the heads focused onto my summons.

  I drew on my fire, just a trickle, and began spinning across the ground like a dancer, dodging to the side of the snapping bite attacks the hydra unleashed at me, and blocking the energy barrier weakened sprays of venom with my shield. Seren poured his fire into me, helping me maintain the weak draw.

  Then I heard Jackson’s voice boom the last syllable of a spell, and fire descended from the sky.

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