Chapter 453: A Display of Skill

“Sentinel Dawn. Do you require any special equipment or a team member to perform a small demonstration?” Katerina asked.

I shook my head.

“No. Batteries are ideal for large-scale extended engagements, but I can let you know when I’m running low on mana.” I said. “In a twist, I’m suboptimal under ashes and related cloud cover. I perform better when under sunlight or moonlight. Has to be moonlight, I can’t do anything under a clear night with no moons.”

Katerina snorted her amusement.

“A different twist from the rest of the War Sentinels. Right. No time like the present. Get Centurion Decimus and Centurion Opal to form up their soldiers, full gear, ready for a fight outside the camp. Go!” Legata Katerina ordered one of the [Runners], who nodded and took off at a sprint.

We watched the [Runner] leave, then Katerina pushed herself away from the table and stood up.

“Leonidus, you’re in command.” She ordered as she walked out of the room at a more sedate pace. The man saluted his understanding, and took Katerina’s spot as the rest of her staff fell in around her.

“Reed, what’s your thinking on preparedness?” Katerina asked as we walked out of the house, gathering up a number of the soldiers who immediately fell in and started following the woman.

“Ma’am. Part of this trip was billed as a chance to see and explore Sanguino, for morale purposes. Springing an exercise on them, in a place they believe is safe and restful, might not only impact the centuries in question, but the rest of the Legion.”

Katerina gave a small nod.

“Correct. At the same time, I believe it’s a strong reminder that this is not a vacation, that we’re here in our formal capacity as the Sixth, and that we now have a War Sentinel working with us. Keep people on their toes.”

Maybe a reminder like this was overall good for the Legion. Maybe it was bad.

I was glad I wasn’t the one needing to manage and think about all this. I hadn’t gotten this scope of command stuffed into my head, and I was sending a couple of fervent prayers up to the gods, praying for Katerina and Reed’s good health.

“Make way! Make way!” The soldiers yelled as we moved through the crowds. People parted before the armed soldiers, and we were able to walk through the city completely unimpeded.

Heck, some of them cheered us, no matter how we were disrupting their day. I did catch a few sour looks thrown in our direction, but all in all Exterreri’s propaganda engine was doing its job, keeping the legions beloved.

Katerina and her staff talked about any number of administrative issues, people they needed to meet, dissecting letters they’d gotten and what they meant, and what different Senators wanted and needed. The job sounded endlessly more political than I’d ever imagined… although I suppose that wasn’t too much of a surprise.

Emperor Augustus had basically held Katerina’s job before marching his legions home and seizing power. At a given social level, at a certain command of a large enough army, the job was almost as much politics as it was waging war.

Aw fuck.

I was probably going to get involved in that one way or another. If I didn’t do anything, Katerina would be able to seamlessly imply my support on various things, wouldn’t she? I’d basically be subsumed into the identity of the Sixth Legion, moved on the chessboard without any input.

Fortunately, blessedly, I wasn’t alone.

I was going to sic Iona on the problem, and she’d love that. Let her push her own agenda with minimal input from me, keep some vague sense of independence, and completely remove that headache from my life.

The gate guards didn’t even bother us, simply saluting as we were let out.

Huh.

I wonder if someone could dress up like a soldier and just have the guards ignore them. Seemed like a bit of a hole. Then again, they’d need quite a few people all in agreement, and armor was expensive.

The Sixth Legion didn’t have their fort in Sanguino. It was much further west, and they’d marched all the way down here simply for my promotion ceremony, which was a bit mind-boggling to think about. Almost ten thousand people moving hundreds of miles just to say hi?

I suppose it was decent experience and practice moving around, making sure logistics and supply trains worked. Exterreri wasn’t in a forever expanding mindset. The Legions were closer to a deterrent than an expansionary force these days.

‘We have an army, and we know how to use it, so don’t invade us’ more than ‘who’s next?’ That was the basics I assumed… the reality was way, way, way more complicated than that.

I hadn’t brought up my [Butterfly Mystic] or [Ancient Loremaster of Legend] class because, frankly, I didn’t think they were that relevant to the introductions. [Butterfly Mystic] had quite a lot of personal utility and self-defense, but that was more along the lines of ‘I know how to protect myself’ than anything special. [Vault of Ages] promised to eventually become important, but right now my ratio on being able to move things in and out of it was horrible. I could teleport a few dozen kilograms each time, but the cost to move me was significant.

If I wanted to move in 20 kilograms of supplies, I needed to teleport myself and the supplies in, at a cost of around 200k mana, then teleport myself out for another 160k mana. That was just to store the items, retrieval was just as bad.

The skill had stupid potential, especially as I leveled it up and generally got stronger - the overhead on teleporting myself in and out stayed constant, as long as I didn’t get fat - but right now it was almost there.

It was good enough now that I wanted to start planning out what I was sticking in it, and slowly start to acquire and move supplies, but it wasn’t at the stage where it was anything close to a strategic asset.

Maybe in a few hundred levels I could solve all of a legion’s logistical issues. Right now, it was confined to me and my team.

We followed one of the main roads out of Sanguino, eventually finding the camp about sixteen miles away from the city. A brutal walk for a low level, a solid evening stroll for people with significant speed.

[*ding!* [Ancient Loremaster of Legend] has leveled up! 181-> 182. +100 Dexterity, +100 Vitality, +800 Mana, +800 Mana Regen, +1600 Magic Power, +1600 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Magic Power from your Element per level!]

I guess the levels were spaced far enough apart to only be of minimal concern. That, and I hadn’t seen half the city on fire.

It was far away enough from the city and the ashen umbra that at this time of day, we were just getting the edges of the setting sun gracing the campgrounds.

The boundary of the Legion’s camp was abrupt. A field filled with nodosaurus was next to rows upon rows of neatly packed and organized tents. There was no spilling out, there were no tents out of position - it was like a perfectly designed grid.

Nodosauruses were the standard pack beast for the Legions. They were a bit like an ankylosaurus, if an ankylosaurus had long legs and no club at the end of their tail. Their broad, hardened back made them ideal for packing and carrying tons of weight, and their long legs let them move fast enough to be useful. The dinosaurs could pull a cart or wagon just as easily as they could carry supplies on their back. They weren’t used in fighting or combat at all - one legion had a specialty of training and unleashing beasts - it wasn’t the Sixth - but every army needed their beasts of burden.

That was the camp prefect’s job, and she was doing her job well.

We walked through the camp, getting a feel for it. Soldiers diced and wrestled, stirred cooking pots or had small circles where they told stories. Katerina’s passing didn’t cause major interruptions, although most soldiers stopped what they were doing to give her a respectful greeting.

“Legata.”

“Legata.”

“Commander.”

Now and then, some people were unhappy with the state of things, as soldiers tended to be.

“This whole thing is stupid!” One soldier animatedly told her friends, gesticulating and waving her arms. “Why, if I was in charge here, things would be better! We wouldn’t be bedded in the mud! We wouldn’t be marching around for stupid fucking ceremonies! We - fuck, she’s right behind me, isn’t she?”

The soldier developed self-awareness as her friends plastered on polite smiles, nodding respectfully to Katerina as she loomed up behind the complaining soldier in question.

She spun on a heel and saluted.

“Legata.” She politely said, bowing her head.

Katerina studied her for a minute, the situation rapidly getting more awkward for the poor soldier. I could see the edges of Katerina’s lips twitching with barely-contained mirth.

“Eight lashes, and report to Leonidus tonight. I want a detailed list of all the things I’m doing wrong, and your proposed solutions. Extra punishment detail if it’s poor, promotion opportunity if it’s good.”

The nameless soldier suddenly looked quite nervous at that, and I couldn’t blame her. Marching around for stupid ceremonies? They’d gotten orders from the top to be in a given place at a given time, nobody here could do a thing about that. The field was slightly muddy? I was willing to bet this was the best place near the city to hunker down, and that every other place was significantly worse.

At the same time, it was a chance to be heard, and I suspected if the soldier had figured out genuine issues and their solution, Katerina would want to hear about it and know. I was starting to get a picture of the woman. A strict disciplinarian who could listen and take feedback, who could play the political game just as easily as the military one.

“As you command, Legata.” The soldier saluted again, and we were off.

It was like an invisible line was drawn through part of the camp, and off to the side I noticed that the clean rows of the Legion’s tents were replaced with what could only be described as an utter mess. It was clear at a glance that those were the camp followers, enterprising individuals following the army around for all the coins spilling out of their pockets. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The camp could’ve been directly lifted from the camp followers from the Formorian war. From [Cooks] offering to make the Legion’s standard rations tasty, to washerwomen offering to clean clothes, to traveling bards and troubadours offering entertainment, prostitutes to gambling dens, childcare to scribes writing letters home, barbers to sutlers, a small mobile city came with the Legion, offering all the amenities of home away from home.

Someone had turned a tent into a full service sauna! Steam was the element obviously in use, and the fabric of the tent looked too soft to normally handle such moisture and heat. Skills did amazing things.

Couldn’t get rid of them either - there’d be a literal mutiny. Remus had even leaned into their existence with the Formorian war, where they’d built an entire section just for them.

There was an interesting question I was faced with, one I hadn’t expected to grapple right this moment.

I was Dawn, War Sentinel of the Sixth. My area of expertise was healing. The camp followers had a few medics, people plying their trade in the mobile city, often to other camp followers, and occasionally to legionnaires.

Was it ethical for me to sweep through the camp, and heal every single man, woman, and child in there?

On one hand, they were my responsibility. Pseudo-members of the Sixth. There were possibly a few people there who needed my service.

On the other, I’d be muscling every other healer out, knocking the legs out under their livelihood in one fell swoop. Oh, sure, if I just did it once then never again, they’d barely even notice I’d been by, but what about doing it regularly? Would people stop visiting them entirely? Would their funds dry up, and they’d leave for greener pastures? What about all the levels I’d be denying?

What would happen if I drove the healers off as an incidental to my presence, then we really needed them one day? Like, if there was a relatively minor disease outbreak while I was out on a trip or just taking a few days between visits or something. Then what would happen?

As much as I’d hated the [Guild Mistress] of Osengard, she’d found a way to stomp on a single person driving all the other healers out of business, making sure there wasn’t a single point of failure for an entire city. I wasn’t always going to be around. I wasn’t always going to be traveling with the Sixth. I’d have other duties now and then, other stuff I wanted to do. Books to read, mangos to eat.

Heck, I had an enforced vacation for eight years coming up! What would the Legion do if they had to start from no healers every time it was mandated I take a rest?

Tricky, tricky… there wasn’t a good, clean answer. There wasn’t an obviously right answer, not when I didn’t have a patient in front of me begging to be healed.

For lack of a proper sounding board - I wasn’t going to bounce this off Katerina, not when I barely knew her - I decided to sweep through once a month or so on my own. Not so often that I’d drive all the other healer’s out of business, but not so rarely that a deep, lingering cancer would get a chance to grow and strangle someone from within, or a heart disease would progress to a fatal attack or anything similar.

Yeah.

That sounded like a decent balance to start with. I’d probably tell Katerina that’s what I was doing, and see if she could get an adjunct to track the healer population and levels.

As we got closer to the end of the tent city, more soldiers came sprinting past us in full gear, holding their tower shields and spears close to them.

Hey, they weren’t late until Katerina got to the field! The utter lack of a delay between the Legata sending off the runner, and her leaving to the field meant the soldiers didn’t have much time, if any, to prepare.

That was part of the point.

“Here we are.” Katerina said. She looked over her shoulder as a few more troops came sprinting by.

Katerina took a deep breath.

“Centurion Opal! Centurion Linus! Report!”

The two centurions in question hurried over, their helmets having fancier plumes than the average soldier. Their own command staff continued overseeing the legionnaires falling into formation.

“I am getting a firsthand look of Sentinel Dawn’s abilities, to properly manage her integration with the Legion.” Katerina said. “The two of you will clash. No strangulation or choking abilities, and don’t get fancy with interception and deception orders. Let’s skip the potions, damn things are too expensive for a spar, and will interfere with Sentinel Dawn’s baseline. Apart from that, full skills, tools, and abilities. Try to kill each other. Maintain lines and discipline. When disengagement is ordered, I expect it to be promptly obeyed. Understood?”

Opal looked nervous.

“Legata. With all due respect. We’re going to actively try to kill each other? No holding back? No sparring protocols?”

Katerina nodded.

“Yes. Wait for my signal to begin. Also, mark anyone not currently in formation as of now. They are late, and I expect you to properly investigate why they were not in the proper state of readiness.”

The centurions didn’t look happy about that, but both of them saluted and returned to their respective groups.

“Dawn. Let me know when you’re ready, I don’t want this to become a disaster.” Katerina quietly murmured to me.

I nodded.

“I’m going to start off with my strongest healing.” I quietly told the Legata. “With time and experience, I’m hoping to slowly dial in on the proper amounts.”

Katerina nodded her understanding. I snapped my skills to readiness.

First was splitting my mind into five. Four to track everything that was happening in the battle, processing what I was seeing through [The World Around Me], and a fifth to pay attention to everything else going on.

Good habits started now, and I wasn’t going to let tunnel vision be the end of me.

It was easy. With the setting sun framing the field, [Wheel of Sun and Moon], [Persistent Casting], [Dance with the Heavens], and [Astral Archives] all came together to create the most potent healing field I could manage.

High on my to-do list was to figure out a more practical image for wartime medicine. My image would restore people to the perfect picture of health, but frankly?

In a fight, people didn’t need to be perfect. People needed to be good enough. If I could get a solid good enough picture, I might be able to save, say, 30% of my mana. That would let me heal an additional 42% more people, or heal for that much longer. It would also give [Cosmic Presence] a chance to properly shine.

If I managed to make it a longer heal, my strong regeneration would kick in, extending the healing time even further. It was a virtuous cycle, made possible with my strong images and knowledge of medicine.

One meta skill I didn’t have, and was unlikely to pick up anytime soon, was [Cyclical Casting]. It was a variant on [Persistent Casting], where I could set skills to flicker on and off at various intervals. There was an argument to be made that I should flicker my healing on and off, to better extend the time even further, and give [Cosmic Presence] even more to do, which would relieve the direct mana burden on me. That would again stack things favorably towards keeping lots of people alive for a long time.

Wasn’t thinking of taking the skill, and I was ready with my magic.

“Ready.” I told Katerina, mere seconds after she’d asked. My companion bond with Auri let me do a lot of thinking quite quickly.

“Begin!” She roared with a voice that threatened to blow out my eardrums.

If she didn’t have a Sound class, I’d eat my hat.

128 people sounded like a lot, but seeing them square up against each other brought home just how few people it was in reality. How easy it was to pack them in one spot.

It wasn’t actually 128 people. That was simply the number of [Legionnaires] in formation, eight wide, eight deep, two centuries. The centurions commanding the groups were off to the side, with a standard-bearer, trumpeter, and five soldiers with varying degrees of fancy plumes on their helmets.

Around three-fourths of the soldiers were firmly at level 256. The ones who weren’t were either the career soldiers who figured they were in the legions for life, the centurion and his staff, or hadn’t quite made it to 256 yet. The rest were waiting for better achievements, or waiting to see what life held for them after soldiering to perform the last class up many of them would ever see.

The centurions barked orders, and in an interesting twist I could see their mouths moving, but couldn’t hear anything. My enhanced eyes were able to pick out that none of them had the Sound element manifestation visible in their eyes - but the trumpeters did.

The two teams formed up in mirror-image testudo formations. The shield wall came down hard in the front, two spears poking out from every gap, and the soldiers behind them lifted their shields up and over their heads.

I’d never considered the axis of warfare that was communications, but Katerina’s orders regarding interception and deception orders suddenly made sense. Being able to fake an order to your enemy was a powerful tool.

Another set of orders were silently barked, and standards moved as the trumpeter’s cheeks swelled, blowing silent horns.

Enchantments flared to life and magic swirled as runes etched into the shields, armor, and weapons were activated. A few skills had obvious effects. Stone, bark, and all manner of other materials coated and covered shields, giving an extra layer of physical protection to the soldiers holding them. A few spears glowed with heat, others turned various colors from Acid to Wood enhancing their weapons. A couple of the soldiers grew in size and stature, gaining an extra six inches of height, and the corresponding muscle mass. It was rare that two soldiers had the same spells going.

More orders in near-perfect unison, and the two centuries started to slowly march towards each other.

The two groups started to differentiate themselves as one group manifested a shimmering aurora over them, looking like it was binding the group all together as one. Century Aurora, I mentally dubbed them.

The second one picked up quite a lot of speed, an invisible wind practically giving the sandals of the legionnaires wings. Century Wind.

Banners twisted and furled, trumpets were silently blown, and Century Aurora paused and dropped the upper shields of their testudo. Their frontline slammed the bottom of their shield into the ground, and the remaining seven lines launched their short throwing spears at Century Wind. A small smattering of rocks, darts, metal shards, and all manner of other skill-based attacks were also launched, skills mixing seamlessly with physical weapons to create a deadly barrage.

They weren’t holding back. The weapons weren’t padded, the rocks whizzed with lethal intent, and a few of the darts were coated in poison.

My heart caught in my throat at the assault.

This was it.

This was where I ended up being as good as I claimed, as good as I hoped, or people would die.

People would die in a pointless, stupid training exercise, just to show how good I was - or wasn’t, as the case may be.

My healing was up and running, and I watched with nervous anticipation as Century Wind angled their upper shields to better catch the ‘rain’.

The shields mostly held. Rocks smashed and dented shields, while darts quivered harmlessly in wood. The javelins were the biggest issue.

The few that were poorly thrown, or had soldiers with strong skills defending themself clattered harmlessly against the shields, but then rolled off them. They had to go somewhere, and while a number of them ended up rolling off to the sides, a few of them dropped into the century, uncontrolled flashing blades attached to a shaft trying to trip and stab people. Mostly harmless, and the few soldiers that stumbled over the javelins were quickly grabbed by their fellows and straightened back up, before they could get trampled.

Those were the gentlest ones.

The moderate ones punched through the shield but ended up stuck there, some going through thick arms or delicate hands, causing the soldiers to grimace or scream in pain. Those that ripped the javelins out of their arms found a hefty toll of flesh was taken by the barbs on the end… which was immediately restored to them by my healing.

The word spread basically instantly, and the few who’d stoically taken the hit and kept running, kept their shield up, quickly and efficiently ripped their arms out of the barbs, grinning savagely as they saw their flesh knit back together.

Then there were the killer javelins. Those thrown by soldiers with strong skills, or simply had a high strength stat, finding those weaker targets among the century. Those blasted enormous holes through shields, continuing unimpeded to skewer the two poor souls front to back. Their armor wasn’t enough, and they were pinned like a butterfly to a collector’s board.

Alive, of course.

That was where my healing shone. That was where I brought them back from the clutches of Black Crow. Practically as quickly as they were skewered and mauled, their flesh was reknit, their blood restored, and instead of leaving two bodies behind to slowly scream themselves to death, a savagely grinning century reintegrated them into their ranks.

The two soldiers dropped their destroyed shields and took cover under their neighbor's shield, helping hold it up and layering their skills over.

All this happened in seconds, from the first rock hitting a shield, to the last soldier finding their feet and carrying on with the rest of the troops.

Then Century Wind struck back. With more orders I couldn’t hear, the soldiers readied one of a half-dozen stone spheres from each of their belts, placing them in slings. I wasn’t super familiar with alchemy. Were they just rocks, soaked in a potion? An easy container for some concoction? A fancy skill making things work?

Didn’t matter too much how it was done, end of the day.

At another shout, the soldiers drifted apart a bit, making small cracks in their shields, and started to spin. At the third order, they lobbed the rocks at Century Aurora’s frontline.

They formed back up and charged as quickly as they could, spears pointing out from the gaps as the rocks landed against the driven shields of Century Aurora, scattering in front of the formidable shield wall.

Then the rocks exploded in a cascading ripple, throwing shrapnel every which way. The front line shields held through the first explosion, but the second, third, and fourth wave of explosives tore through the shields, destroying them so utterly as to become useless, then the explosives ripped through the vulnerable soldiers.

I suspected there was more than one type of alchemical the soldiers could throw, and someone had grabbed the wrong one. A spurt of green flames roared up in a lonely pillar, before quickly dying down and out under the cascading explosions.

Was probably more useful when massed together.

Exterreri military doctrine went heavy on the upper armor, while sticking to loose skirts that were easy to move in and light shin guards and sandals for the lower. Properly protecting the areas most often hit with heavy gear, while sticking to lighter armor for flexibility, speed, mobility, and cost.

The issue was - most often hit.

The alchemical explosives detonated from the ground up, and more than one soldier went cross-eyed as their family jewels turned into pulp. My healing aura was on full blast, and replacements were swiftly obtained, future generations saved, but I had nothing for the mental echo.

Century Wind had made their hole, and they were trying to rush in before Century Aurora could recover.

And they succeeded. The soldiers in the Century Aurora front took a moment too long to realize that they were completely alright from the devastating assault, that the worst that had happened was their shields were destroyed, and hadn’t properly adapted to managing what happened next. Wind was on them like a fox on a rabbit, viciously thrusting spears, savaging the Aurora soldiers.

Each stab hit home, a spurt of blood spraying every which way, painting the soldiers as crimson as the banners they fought under. The soldiers fought back, their fellows stepping forward and forcing them back, bringing a new set of shields to bear and protect.

The half-destroyed, half-saved line got sent to the back, and things got complicated as the centuries got down to the grisly business of trying to off each other.

Of trying to murder their fellow legionnaires, when they were functionally immortal, when they just wouldn’t die.

I kept a steady eye on my mana.

[Mana: 1,377,364/1,381,780]

I’d barely touched any, my regeneration almost keeping pace with the exchanged blows. The hardest had been the javelins that broke through, followed by the explosives.

Now the two shield walls were poking at each other, the defenses a little stronger than the offenses, Exterreri doctrine looked more towards a defensive wear-down of their enemies, rather than brutal, aggressive swings.

I kept an eye out on everything, noting how the magics got subtler, smaller, and arguably deadlier. One [Mage] was making the ground rise up and grab ankles, while a different one was pouring water in around the opponent’s feet, making the ground soggy and wet, preventing people from getting good footing. A nearly invisible knife was flitting around inside Century Wind, cutting throats that immediately healed themselves back. Smoke blew from Century Wind into Century Aurora, causing hacking coughing fits.

Katerina narrowed her eyes at that, but said nothing. I suppose it technically wasn’t choking people, but it was pushing the line.

Acid sprayed, melting through a shield, the poor soldier behind it screaming and dropping his weapons as he got a faceful. The spears came fast and thick at him, but the Century’s discipline held, the fellows behind him dragging him out of the way as a new soldier stepped up.

Lightning crackled, jumping from soldier to soldier. Mist was blown away by Gale. Rocks and blades swerved as Gravity forced them in new directions. Lights flashed in peoples eyes, and one soldier seemed to have infinite pocket sand. Ice met Void, Fossil met Gemstone, and Radiance was scattered by Ocean. Disintegration beams of Decay briefly flashed around, destroying armor and failing utterly to do anything to flesh.

Thanks to my healing.

I wasn’t going to say it out loud and jinx it, but the soldiers were invincible. A severed hand was an inconvenience, a spear through the breast an annoyance.

[Mana: 1,379,951/1,381,780]

I was netting mana. After the initial assault and engagement, the damage had slowed down. Only two lines of the soldiers - 16 legionnaires in total - were stabbing at each other at any given moment, the rest firing skills, holding shields, and generally being backup. Since the first line wasn’t falling, there was less for the people behind them to do.

It was starting to speed back up again, as the soldiers started to realize in their bones that they were unkillable. That they could take insane risks, and suffer no punishment for it.

That, and their gear was steadily disintegrating around them. I had nothing for that.

“Sentinel Dawn! Look alive, non-lethal.” Katerina barked. She gave a quick nod to two of her escorts, who drew weapons and advanced on me.

Oooooh, that was a dick move, but I could see her thinking. How good was I at healing when under pressure. Could I take care of myself?

I gave the Legata a one-fingered salute to let her know what I thought of the latest twist on the exercise, then got cracking.

I flipped one of my ‘stare at the fight’ thought processes over to ‘beat the living daylights out of these two soldiers.’

Her guards were ‘only’ level 300, and the call to be non-lethal was entirely unwarranted. Of course I wasn’t going to hurt them!

I ran down my options as they charged at me, and mentally shrugged.

I wasn’t going to beat them in hand to hand combat. Yes, I was faster. I was possibly better trained, although they had classes designed for hand-to-hand combat. I was not stronger, and there were two of them.

Killing them was simple. A [Nova Lance] through the eye would do it.

I had a dozen different wizardry spells loaded into my books that would stop them dead in their tracks.

I wanted to just run literal circles around them, but ugh. Image and all that. This was the first exposure the Legion was getting to me, and I’d gotten the ‘Sentinel Image’ stuff hammered into me often enough. The School had been a nice break, a time where I didn’t have to worry every waking minute, but that was done.

I had a job now, a home, responsibilities. That also came with some unpleasant tasks, such as beating people with style.

Just because I needed to look good, didn’t mean I had to leave the soldiers with any dignity.

My mind raced as I considered and discarded dozens of options, looking for the one with the most style, and the least amount of mana spent.

Sadly, this wasn’t a spot for [Rapid Reshelving] to get a workout. I was willing to bet they both had armor skills, and didn’t feel like blowing a hole in my mana pool.

I could use [Rapid Reshelving] as a delivery system. Summon some noxious mushroom or something, and teleport it to their face. They’d run right into it.

High mana, low style, and no stopping power. I had a few lethal tricks up my sleeve, and a lot of harmless ones, and almost nothing in the middle.

I could wrap them in increasing layers of chains. I could summon a metal stick and trip them. I had a dozen different types of slimes and Oozes with various effects.

Then I hit upon a brilliant idea. I turned to them with a vicious grin as I summoned the right spellbooks out of my [Loremaster’s Library], instantly flipping to the correct pages thanks to [Manuscript Mastery].

I sent my mana into the two spells, a metal bucket appearing a moment before yellow paint splashed into it.

I dipped my finger into the paint, cursing just how stupidly complicated a paintbrush was to write out runically - each bristle on the head needed its own circle, it was absurd! - and got to work.

I wasn’t the strongest. I didn’t have an armor skill.

But I was fucking fast. I was willing to bet I had twice as much speed as they did, even before my biomancy modifications. When I put my mind to it, when I applied myself, it was like they were moving through molasses. I had more than enough dexterity to twist and weave in impossible ways, to contort myself in knots.

I slashed my painted finger against the first legionnaires’s shield, casually dodging the spear thrust from the second one with a laugh. I ducked and weaved through their assault, finger painting both their shield in the front, and armor on the back as I danced circles around them, all the while keeping my healing up, keeping the men and women of the two centuries beating the shit out of each other alive.

I had a brief moment of regret that I didn’t take [Lady of the Dance]. Goddesses, that would’ve been a thing of beauty to witness right now. Dancing under the blades, finger painting while keeping a hundred people alive.

To my untrained eye it looked like discipline was starting to break down, the engagement devolving into an all-out brawl as the heady experience of invincibility was meeting the frustrating reality that their opponents were also entirely unharmed. None of their efforts mattered, and with everyone’s blood up, with so much pain inflicted…

I was glad this was not my issue.

If I was seeing it now, Katerina probably saw it three minutes ago. She also saw what I was painting on her soldier’s backs, making a mockery of their skills while at the same time showing off mine.

She had the good grace to let me finish my finger painting before calling a halt.

“Centurion Opal! Centurion Decimus! Cease, cease, cease!” She roared.

The two soldiers sent to test me stopped as well, and I grinned at my artwork.

The old Sentinel badge, my personal emblem, was slowly dripping in paint on their shields and backs.

[*ding!* Congratulations! [The Dawn Sentinel] has leveled up to level 520->521 +3 Dexterity, +24 Speed, +24 Vitality, +170 Mana, +170 Mana Regen, +48 Magic Power, +48 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]