Kevin shifted his weight from foot to foot as Elder Fischer approached. A raised hand had been enough to attract her attention, and she was now striding over with purpose.

  “Finished, Mr. Blake?” Fischer asked with a raised eyebrow. While she was as difficult to read as always, Kevin felt like there was a hint of approval on her face.

  Approval that would be sure to vanish if he’d misjudged his readiness.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Kevin nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  He’d already made his decision, and he wasn’t going to back down now.

  “Well then, let’s see how you did,” Fischer smirked, turning toward the clay figure surrounded by flags. With a mere glance at his efforts, she flicked her hand at the target.

  Her Qi bolt surged through the air, striking the Qi Rejection barrier formed by his flags. His formation flickered with energy discharges, then shattered.

  The attack struck his figure with a dull thud, denting the front of it and sending it rocking back on its feet.

  Kevin’s breath caught as he watched it teetering, waiting for Fischer’s verdict.

  After a moment, she turned and gave him a firm nod. “Decent work, Mr. Blake. Your friend there will need to see a doctor but should live. Your deviations from the placement pattern cost half the formation’s potency, but you maintained enough for the formation to work.”

  With a deep sigh, Kevin released his breath and relaxed. He’d done it.

  Sure, he might have been a little worse than Karlene’s attempt, but he did about as well as the two who came after her. There was still a solid gap, but one he might close with enough practice.

  “You’ve earned one of these,” Fischer continued, pulling a long tube from nowhere and tossing it to him.

  Kevin snatched the object out of the air and looked it over. It was the same quiver-like object he’d seen the other successful students using.

  “Keeping your extra flags stuck in the ground works while standing still but is useless if you need to keep moving. That formation quiver,” Fischer pointed to the tube, “is a basic solution to the problem.”

  “It can hold up to eight flags at once, allowing you to keep a full copy of most formations in it. Drawing from it requires a minor change to your technique; get your next set of flags ready, and I’ll return to show you.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Kevin nodded, turning towards the Still Water’s formation. His arm was already starting to ache from the continued lobbing movement, but he ignored it for now.

  There was still plenty of time before the lesson ended, and he needed all the practice he could get.

  “That’s it, we’re done,” Fischer shouted from the other end of the line. “Gather your flags and return them to the correct piles.”

  Kevin let his throwing arm flop to his side with a groan. The full lesson had been grueling, but he’d managed to construct all three formations with a little time to spare.

  The Still Waters formation slowed the flow of Qi within an area, significantly decreasing the power of ranged Qi techniques within it. When Fischer used her Qi Bolt attack within, it's speed and power were both reduced by almost half.

  His third formation, Matter/Qi Containment, trapped a fellow student who Fischer sent to test it. That was his biggest success, as it took the disciple several minutes to shatter the formation matrix.

  Through all that, he’d maintained his fourth-place class ranking. While he was improving with each attempt, so were his fellow students, and so far, everyone seemed to be improving at about the same rate.

  When he’d finally finished all three, Fischer had set him to keep practicing until the end of the lesson. While the additional experience and the odd tip she gave out helped him improve, keeping it up had been a trial.

  Shaking his arm out, Kevin gathered each formation into its own pile, retied the twine, and joined his fellow students in stacking them back together.

  Once everyone had finished, Fischer addressed the group once more. “We had a decent start today, with most of you getting the basic technique down. You should each practice before our next practical. I expect to see progress.”

  Walking down the line, she handed a fourth pamphlet out to each disciple. “Besides the lob technique, it would be worth your while to practice righting a flag from a distance.”

  “I have assigned each of you a technique based on your aspect. Some of you will have an easier time than others, but don’t let that be an excuse for failure. Along with the formation patterns, this technique is yours to keep.

  “The formation quivers are also yours. I recommend you get used to carrying one around. Until you can afford a better option, it’s the easiest way to keep a formation on you.”

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  Karlene held up a hand to Kevin’s left, and Fischer gave her a moment’s consideration before nodding.

  “What would those options be, Ma’am? I’ve got some merit stocked up, so I might be able to afford one.”

  The elder held up her right hand. “A storage ring is ideal, as it provides a vast amount of space and the ability to selectively retrieve whichever flags you need. However,” she shook her head with a chuckle. “A ring is far beyond your means.”

  “The next best option would be robes enchanted with a restricted storage array,” Fischer continued, pointing to the wide sleeves of her robe. “It is simpler to create an extra-dimensional space within an area that already exists, so robe sleeves work well.”

  “Further, limiting what can be placed in that storage area further reduces the difficulty. As students of this class, you can purchase flag-specific versions of such robes at a discount."

  “For five hundred merit, you can carry around several dozen formations and pull the flags out as you need them.”

  There was a round of groans as the elder finished, though at least a couple of the students looked contemplative. Kevin simply shook his head; five hundred merit was far more than he’d earned in total so far.

  Given the reactions from students who’d been here for six months, it was still a lot for them as well. That wasn’t much of a surprise when you considered it was almost a tenth of what you needed to stay in the sect.

  A huge outlay for a single purchase.

  “What’s with all the whining?” Fischer snorted, shaking her head. “Your elder goes to all the trouble of securing a discount, and this is how she’s treated?” With an exaggerated expression of offense, she continued, “Well, fine then. I’ll help you out a little.”

  “In six more weeks, we’ll be at the halfway mark for this class. We’ll use part of that lesson to have a little lobbing competition to gauge your progress. The winner will receive five hundred merit to purchase a set of enchanted robes.”

  Her words were more than enough to perk Kevin up, and he leaned forward eagerly. He was far from the only one. A glance showed the entire class was just as interested; this would be far from an easy competition.

  After a moment, Samuel raised his hand. “What does second place get, Ma’am?”

  Fischer blinked for a moment as if she didn’t quite get the question. Then she burst out laughing. “Second place? There’s no such thing. Second place in a fight is dead,” she snorted, her laughter fading at last.

  “So let me be clear. One among you will get five hundred merit; the others will get nothing. You’d best practice hard if you don’t want to be left out.”

  Kevin winced as the group shifted to staring at each other, with Karlene beside him getting the worst of it. It was obvious that Fischer was playing them off against each other, but that didn’t stop her tactic from being effective.

  Everyone here would be practicing far harder than they would without such a prize on the line, himself included. Even ignoring the usefulness of acquiring such a robe, five hundred merit would go a long way to keeping him in the sect.

  Assuming he could improve his skills enough to beat everyone else.

  The class finished quickly after that. Fischer vanished the moment she finished speaking, and the rest of the students left with few of the normal goodbyes.

  While he doubted it would last forever, the elder’s challenge had banished the growing camaraderie of the class. Even he found himself thinking of the other disciples more as opponents than fellow students.

  Opponents with advantages over him at that.

  Kevin bit his lip, slowing from a jog to a walk as he wandered back to his dorm room. Would he even have a chance against them?

  The natural advantages provided by advancement weren’t everything; he’d have been the worst in class if that was the case. They did, however, significantly affect how well you could perform the technique.

  Someone like Karlene with high advancement and solid talent, felt like an almost impossible obstacle to overcome.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t an opportunity he could afford to ignore. He needed to scrape together every point of merit he could, and five hundred was a solid chunk of the total he needed.

  Impressing Fischer was also a major part of his plans, and winning her little competition would be sure to do that. Even if he didn’t win, a large improvement would help keep her attention.

  That was the answer then. He’d push his flag lobbing practice as hard as he could without crippling his other classes. In the best outcome, he’d win; even if he didn’t, it would be far from wasted time.

  However, he needed at least a few hours to rest his arm before he could even think about more practice. Until then, there was plenty more to keep him occupied.

  Back in his dorm, Kevin spent the time until lunch drawing Fire Qi into his sealed land. His body was still almost full of Fire Qi from his morning Qi Gathering, which had been kept under control by his pill regime.

  By the time he’d finished cultivation and lunch, his arm had recovered enough for light work. Returning to his room, Kevin set up his flag crafting supplies once more

  While he’d completed all three required formations, there was a stark quality difference between his first flags and his recent ones. Fisher might still accept them, but he wanted to do far better than the minimum required.

  Now he had a minimum first draft of the project it was time to go back and perfect it.

  With his improved technique, the early flags were far faster to complete than before, but it still took him most of the afternoon to finish them. It was a significant time sink, but the finished product was worth it.

  This time, a surge of pride flowed through him when Kevin laid all three formations out. Each flag was near-perfect and the best he could achieve without putting days more effort into them.

  There was no longer any doubt they would activate without issue. If not for the elder’s injunction against charging them without supervision, he’d have lept into doing it right now.

  Grinning, Kevin bundled each formation up with care. A few days ago, he’d been worried about finishing in time for his next FORM-101 tutoring session; now, he was looking forward to it.

  A second cultivation session pulled in most of his stored Qi while resting his arm until dinner time. After he’d eaten, Kevin used the last light before dusk to practice his lobbing technique.

  His martial arts tutor had told him to practice those techniques before sleeping, and it seemed sensible to apply the same method here.

  A side benefit of redoing his early work was a decent supply of flags he wasn’t worried about breaking, and Kevin took them all with him to Formation Courtyard One.

  Two other FORM-115 students were already practicing, but he gave them a wide birth. Finding his own spot, Kevin practiced lob after lob until dusk fell. It was a slow process, but after a few hundred throws, the pattern he was forming had significantly improved.

  If they repeated the class again, he’d wager that he was closer to fifty-five percent effectiveness now than the fifty Fischer had graded him on. If he could keep improving like that, he might have a chance of winning.

  For now, he swung by the Earth courtyard to fit in a few easy cultivation cycles before bed.

  Tomorrow he would have time for more practice, along with meeting Amelia for a cultivation session.