The guild building was loud, but Ashara barely noticed it this time.
She was sitting at a table near the back of the main hall, hunched over a piece of paper, trying to write a mission report.
The form was simple enough. Date, party members, contract details, outcome. But every time she got to the part about the shaman, she'd stop and stare at the page for a minute before writing another sentence.
Encountered a Goblin Shaman (estimated C-rank) performing a mana-draining ritual on captured adventurers. Party engaged. Shaman was killed by one of the captive adventurers, Greta Hollis, who delivered the finishing blow while wounded.
She stared at that last line for a while. Then she signed her name at the bottom and handed it in.
The interview took longer.
Two guild officials, a bald man with a clipboard and an elf woman who didn't introduce herself, sat across from her in a small side room and asked her to walk through the whole thing from start to finish. They asked follow-up questions, too. How many goblins, how many captives survived, what spells the shaman used, whether anyone in her party had dealt the killing blow.
"No," Ashara said. "That was Greta. She stabbed it through the neck while Daniela and I had it distracted."
The bald man wrote that down.
"You're aware of the guild's rank advancement policy?"
"Not really."
"If an adventurer, or in your case, a student on a registered contract, kills a monster above their current rank, they're eligible for immediate advancement to that monster's rank." He looked up from his clipboard. "A C-rank kill would bump your entire party to C-rank, if you'd landed it."
"We didn't, though."
"No. But your wounded adventurer did." He made another note. "We'll be interviewing her as well. If her account matches yours, she'll be advanced."
"Good. She earned it."
The elf woman studied Ashara for a moment, then looked at her colleague, and they let her go.
Ashara left the guild building and headed back toward the academy.
---
She found Celeste in the east wing hallway, coming out of what looked like a staff meeting.
"Hey."
Celeste looked at her. Looked at the bruises, the bandaged arms, the dried blood she hadn't fully scrubbed off yet.
"Valoryn. Seems you had an eventful mission."
"That's one word for it. Can we talk?"
Celeste nodded and led her down the hall to the training room. Celeste closed the door behind them and leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"Talk."
So Ashara talked.
She told her about the cave. The goblins, way more than the contract listed. The dead adventurer in the tunnel. The cavern, the shaman, the captives being drained. Daniela wanting to leave. Ashara deciding to stay. The fight, Daniela's lance getting deflected by the shaman's magic, the thing being physically strong on top of being a mage.
Celeste listened without interrupting. Her expression stayed neutral, but her eyes got sharper as the story went on.
"Then it fired everything it had at Daniela," Ashara said. "All the mana it had drained from the captives. One big blast. And I, I stepped in front of it."
Celeste's eyebrows went up.
"You stepped in front of a C-rank monster's spell?"
"Yeah."
"On purpose?"
[... In retrospect, that may not have been the best idea.]
"I didn't really think about it. Daniela was going to get hit and I was closer."
"..."
"But, but, BUT! But here's the thing." Ashara held up her hands. "It didn't kill me. It hit me and I... I don't know how to explain this. I absorbed it. My mana pool just opened up and drank the whole thing. And then after that, I could see this, like, smoke? Around everyone."
Celeste straightened up.
"Smoke?"
"Like a haze. Hanging around people's bodies. The goblins had it, thin and grey. Mira had it, silver. Daniela's was bright, white-blue, tight around her body. The shaman's was thick, dark green. And when it was about to cast a spell, I could see the mana building up before it fired."
Celeste was staring at her now.
"I used it to call out the shaman's attacks," Ashara continued. "Every time it was about to cast, I could see it coming and I'd yell at Daniela to dodge. That's how we kept up with it."
Celeste didn't say anything for a long moment.
"That..." She paused. "That sounds like Mana Sense."
"Mana Sense?"
"It's rare. Very rare." Celeste pushed off the wall and walked to the center of the room. "Most martial artists learn to feel mana. Pressure changes, temperature shifts, that gut instinct that tells you an attack is coming. But actually seeing it? Visually perceiving mana flow in real time? That's a different thing entirely. Most people who develop it are A-rank or higher, and even then it's not guaranteed."
[A-rank or higher.]
"I'm F-rank."
"I know." Celeste stopped in the middle of the room. "Stand there. Watch me."
Ashara watched.
Celeste closed her eyes. Took a breath. And then, slowly, she released her aura.
It wasn't like Ashara's aura, or Daniela's, or any of the students'. It filled the room. The haze poured off Celeste's body in waves, thick and golden, and it kept expanding until the entire training room was swimming in it. The air got heavier. Ashara's skin tingled. Her ears popped.
[Holy shit.]
"What do you see?" Celeste asked, eyes still closed.
"Smoke. Gold. It's everywhere." Ashara looked around the room. The haze was so thick she could barely see the walls through it. "It's filling the whole room. It's coming off you."
Celeste opened her eyes. She pulled her aura back in and the golden haze contracted, thinning out, shrinking back into her body until the room was clear again.
She looked at Ashara.
"That's Mana Sense."
"..."
"Taking that blast from the shaman, absorbing all that raw mana at once, it forced your pool open wider than it's ever been. And in the process, it cracked open a latent ability." Celeste shook her head. "You're full of surprises, Valoryn."
"Is that a good thing?"
"It's a very good thing." Celeste walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Mana Sense means you can read opponents before they act. You can see spell construction, reinforcement levels, aura density. In a fight, that's an enormous advantage."
[So I can see punches before they come. Spells before they fire. How strong someone is before they hit me.]
"We'll train it," Celeste said. "But not tonight. You look like you're about to fall over."
"I feel like I'm about to fall over."
"Go get some rest. Bath, food, sleep. We'll start working on this tomorrow."
Ashara nodded. She turned toward the door, stopped, and looked back.
"Celeste."
"Hm?"
"Thanks."
Celeste smiled.
"Go."
The evening air was cool on Ashara's skin as she walked across the courtyard toward the bathhouse.
Mira was sitting on the low wall outside, her legs dangling, her tail hanging limp behind her. She looked as beat up as Ashara felt. Scratches on her arms, a bruise on her jaw, her black hair messy and matted.
Their eyes met.
Mira gave her a nod.
Ashara nodded back.
Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to.
Ashara pushed open the bathhouse door and went inside.