- Another Familiar (unedited)

After a long night of sword practice with Laori, the sun finally broke the horizon, marking the end of our training and the beginning of a new day.

"You said you go to the Institute as well right?" I asked as we changed into our uniforms, behind seperate trees of course. Laori was really up tight when it comes to privacy.

"Yup, I'm a 1st year in a sword class." He responded while stepping out behind the tree. "What's it like in your class?" I asked while we started making our way to the city, quite curious how the institute would handle a sword class compared to a mage class.

"Well the first couple weeks we learned pretty much everything we could about all the different types of melee weapons and fighting styles. Now we just physically train ourselves." Laori said while sliding his sword on it's hook on his back. It was too big to put in any kind of sheathe.

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We finally arrived at the Institute and went our seperate ways. The day went by as usual, until the end of class, when Teacher Brolin called for everyone's attention.

"Tomorrow we are going to be meditating and learning how to channel our mana through our bodies again. Meditating is how mages increase their mana pool without constantly using their skills, it's a very important practice to know." He said while erasing everything on the board.

This didn't surprise anyone though, as most students had already been practicing this outside of school hours. 'I guess he just wants to make sure everyone is making progress with their free time.' I thought as he dismissed class once again.

"I can't wait until this phase of the year ends and we finally start having some fun." I said to Corey and Lily. "Same here. By the way, will you be joining us in our quest today?" Lily asked.

"Well of course- AH WAIT! I FORGOT I HAVE SCYTHE TRAINING EVERY AFTERNOON NOW!" I exclaimed. It had completely slipped my mind as I had been so focused on Introducing Laori to our party.

"That's a shame" Corey mumbled. "I wanted to introduce you to a new party member but I can't now." I said while getting up.

"Well we can take them with us on our adventures while you're training. Can you tell us about them?" Lily said while following suit.

"It was that guy we saved in the Dungeon, he actually lives with me now and wanted to join us. He has trust issues so its been hard for him to find a party to adventure with." I replied before adding the final part that he should be waiting at the adventurers guild.

"Sure, we'll introduce ourselves and tell him you're training!" Corey said, probably louder than he meant to. 'He must be excited to get a swordsman on the front lines of the party.' I thought to myself while trying not to smile.

"Alright, good luck you two, I'll be praying you three stay safe out there." I added that last part as assurance for them, hopefully giving them a confidence boost.

They left not too ling after that to go meet up with Laori and go questing. 'I'll have to start making my money at night. Laori want to join me thank goodness.' I thought. With him on the team we were much stronger.

His swordsmanship was nothing to scoff at, though I'm sure I could beat him in a 1v1 with my magic. 'Wait, I don't even know all of his skills. Our strength might be closer than I originally thought.'

I left the class and walked to the principle's office. I asked the principal where the teacher was and he told me she was in the training yard. He also added not to be cocky around her or she would quickly put me in my place.

'I wonder how strong she is. The Principal said she was an old friend so if she's anything like him, she'll be extremely powerful!' My thoughts were all over the place.

I finally walked into the training grounds and saw a lady sitting on top of the dull side of a huge scythe, the handle was pushed deep in the ground. 'Its...huge!' I thought before examining the person on top of it.

She had extremely long blue hair she pulled back into curly pig tails. She was quite short even though she wielded such a huge weapon. She was also wearing a blue cloak, much like my grey one. She looked familiar somehow, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I had changed into my gear on the way just for the added stats. I finally approached her to introduce myself. "Hey, my na-" She quickly cut me off.

"Sphar, I know. Show me what I'm working with before we start." She said while still sitting on her scythe. 'She hasn't even opened her eyes yet and she's already asking me to attack her?' I thought.

"Can I use my skills?" I asked while taking out my dual scythes. This made her finally open her eyes as she looked at my weapons.

"Those aren't going to last long in your adventure. The main advantage of using a scythe is it's capability to perform unusual maneuvers, those small things can't hook around a thing" She said.

"You didn't answer my question, so im just going to take that as a yes." I said before gripping my weapons.

I cast electric field, dark cloak, extreme speed, and coated my scythes in dark slash mana as I flew in the air. I then cast after image and my clone appeared beside me. I flew up so I could blind her with the sun for a moment.

'Oh yeah, her eyes are closed again.' I thought, immediately feeling stupid. I charged at her at full speed but when I slashed my scythe at her she caught it in her hand.

"Coat your body in mana idiot." She said before letting go. I had completely forgotten to do that. 'Damn, she can keep up with my extreme speed?!?' I thought before jumping back.

I coated my body with mana then darted to her left, making my double stand in front of me just in case she attacked. I slung two dark slashes at her but suddenly a shield of ice blocked both of my attacks.

'They didn't even scratch it.' I thought before charging at the shield in hopes to shatter it with my mana coated weapons. I sliced and swung many times before my extreme speed wore off, finally destroying it.

"It only cost me 100 mana to cast that shield. I can cast so many of them you'd spend the rest of your life trying to destroy them. How much mana do you have left?" She asked.

I sighed and canceled my dark cloak as well as my after image. I left my electric field up just in case though."If I wasn't wearing these earrings, I'd have a bit less than half." I said while feeling ashamed.

She sighed before getting up. "Thankfully I'm not here to teach you magic. Now first things first, we're changing your weapon. Those things are useless, what were you thinking getting those?" She said while looking at me with a disappointed expression.

"They just felt nice to use." I responded while feeling even more stupid than before. I looked down, not daring to make eye contact. She sighed again before reaching into the air and a scythe quite similar to hers appeared in her hand.

"This one is on the house, it's the first scythe I ever used and it was passed down from my teacher. It's yours now." She said while handing it to me.

the handle was taller than me and the blade itself was probably 6 feet long if it was straightened out. It looked really bad ass with the black and yellow markings all over it in zig zag patterns.

I quickly examined it, as I was quite curious to its stats and abilities.

[Zorak's Scythe D-]

A scythe made from an adventurer long gone, it's properties are made from foreign materials. Durability 41/50

Strength +15

Dexterity +15

Mana +50

[Moon's Grace]

An ability that boosts the speed of everyone that is considered an ally as well as the caster by 5%. Costs 50 mana to cast.