"You must be Mei Mahau, first and last warning. Never show up late again." Balthazar commands, glaring at Mei then focuses his attention on the group once more.

"I'm going to pair you guys up, Dark, Kyo and Jade will be training partners, this will benefit you three very well, that lazy kid Kyo isn't here today, so make sure you tell him about this later on Dark.

Dark gives a nod understanding his instructions and looks over at Jade.

"Ashlynn and Aphrodite will be partners, then finally Mei and Jacob."

"You will train your hardest with your partner, get to know their strengths, weaknesses, their personalities. I paired you up cause you each have a flaw that the other one covers up, from your elementals in black magic, to how you use your telekinesis and telepathy, now then I'll give you each your training assignments."

Several hours have passed as the group practiced training, Dark and Jade were assigned only concentrating on using their dark magic for the first hour, then one would go on the offensive and the other on the defense. Reinforcing their barriers, and creating more options they can use with dark magic. The training seem to go pretty well, until they had to use their fire and water elements against one another. It seemed to be a stalemate at first, until Balthazar explained that they are missing the point of the training, that they are only using one stage of their magic, if they want a stronger attack they'll need to form than just a wave of water or a stream of fire, but to increase the pressure if they want to pierce through objects. There will be times where their dark magic will be ineffective and they can't always rely on it, he pointed that out when Ivy got defeated by Bastet, or when Dark's attack in the warehouse had no effect to Ozymandias, Realizing what they did wrong, they try again and nail it. Jade's water magic piercing through the wall of the gym, and Dark melting through the other side with his fire magic.

Aphrodite and Ashlynn were assigned to use their telepathy to sharpen their senses, and realize their surrounding. To do this, they were blindfolded, and for reinforcement masked with dark magic.They were sent outside in the Gardens to find one another, and to see if they can figure out if anyone else is around them without bumping into them.

"Damn it, where is she?"

Mei and Jacob were assigned white magic training, Mei explained that she hardly uses it, and Balthazar responding with "No shit." explained that it's important to use all style of magic you were inherited with, regardless of it not being your primary, and for Jacob's case he needs to show a better a defense with his magic, he's in the military and he only hid his magic, instead of using it cleverly to help reflect the bullets that came at his squad, and make it seem like divine intervention happen among them, if he had thought about that, he would still have both legs.

"Never be ashamed of who you are, even if their is a point of hiding it, you loss more than they did. You got a purple heart and discharged, where is the honor in hiding and trying to be one of them? The way I see it, they covered their asses for allowing a wanderer in their unit. This isn't the first time something like has happened, talk with Mortar in the Slums he has many war stories."

With that, Balthazar brought in students from the hospital wing that injured themselves in black mage classes.

"Focus on healing them in a large group, Jacob, Mei, go to the other group and heal them one by one. Focus on speed and precision."

Ashlynn stood in the Gardens with her arms folded. The task was to use the mind in order to find a target, in this case, her partner. It was starting to give her a headache as she had to open up all mental channels and receive everyone's thoughts- some of which she really wished she could unhear.

After a while she could feel other people's presence by using the 'volume' of their thoughts as a starting point to their location, but she did not find Aphrodite just yet. Actually, she didn't know. This wasn't her strong suit.

Mei tried to stick closer to the lower classmen. She would never hear the end of it if one of her classmates knew she was using white magic. If there was one thing senior black mage students knew about Mei Mahau, she hated her white magic background. Another bonus of sticking to younger mages was that the injuries were fairly minor. Those in her group mostly had minor burns, cuts, and scrapes. The most difficult were patches of skin that had been severely iced and a few of the deeper gashes. These were likely from the more reckless of the class.

As she moved from student to student, she looked back at the ward door. How the hell was that Balthazar guy allowed to teach? Speaking to students the way he did, wasting their time on skills they weren't trying to master....she'd taken some abuse during Cardan's classes, yeah, but at least it was related to black magic study. Here she felt useless. She even doubted that she would have been able to heal some of the more severe wounds on the other side of the ward. So why waste her time on something she wasn't good at. Mei sighed, cleaning up a gash she had just sealed. She looked to her right, greeted by a window overlooking the Gardens, no other students needing her treatment. She looked up at the clock over the exit of the ward. It had only been ten minutes. She had treated over a dozen students on that end of the ward, and she did not feel the normal fatigue from healing that she did. Even if she wouldn't admit it, maybe the drill sergeant who threw her in here wasn't completely crazy.

Aphrodite starts to get use to her surrounding, picturing the students and area around her, although they look like grayish blobs it's a start. Usually she just sends a signal to whomever she wants to make contact to, but since she couldn't tell which direction Ashlynn went it was impossible to do right away, as she wanders around the Garden she hears a loud ring in her head which startles her.

"Times up!" bellows Balthazar to Ashlynn and Aphrodite, he appears near Aphrodite and takes off the blindfold and dark magic, then heads towards Ashlynn and does the same thing. They were 50 paces away from each other, Aphrodite feels defeated and embarrassed that this happened.

"We'll work on this next time, come you two. You'll be working with Dark and Jade this time around."

Jacob stood still, silent, as Balthazar gave everybody their assignments. The things he'd told him were things he'd told himself every day, but he was sure the man knew that. It couldn't hurt to have somebody else drill it into him. Not only did Jacob lose a huge chunk of his life, he lost his peace of mind, part of his leg, and all of the friends he'd made in the military. He was a bit surprised to hear that there was another military Wanderer nearby, but that wasn't the focus right now.

Heading into the hospital wing, Jacob winced at some of the injuries he was being told to heal. This was a bit beyond his experience, but he could probably handle it if he took his time. The most important part was fixing whatever damage had been done to nerves, muscles and tendons. Thankfully, most of the injuries weren't extremely harsh, but he had been given the group with the more extensive wounds. Bones were relatively simple, and flesh wounds could be saved for last. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Jacob braced himself as tendrils of white light expanded from his body, gently piercing the wounds of the other students. Every second of the healing was starting to drain him more and more, until he felt his legs weakening. This amount of training after what happened the day before might have been a bit rough, but he was used to this sort of thing. Training in the Rangers wasn't easy, after all.

Maintaining his pose, he turned to survey his work. Admittedly, he'd done a sloppy job on one or two of the students, but some scarring and aching would probably be the most evidence of this. The worst problem was the toll it had taken on Jacob. He wasn't efficient with his healing, which was the problem. That kid he'd seen last night was able to do more with less fatigue, and that bothered him. In a perverse way, he was looking forward to more of this training. No pain, no gain, right?

Jade sighed as she ran her hand through her hair. She lifted a finger, motioning to Dark that she needed a minute. She felt drained, but at the same time, excited and pumped since she had seen what she could really do with water. "Alright, I'm good." She turned around and grinned, a small vortex of water forming in her palm. "How long did it take you to get to where you're at now?"

Dark wipes the sweat from his forehead, as he waits for Aphrodite and Ashlynn to arrive. He hears Jade's question and is relieved she wants to take a quick break as well.

"Been at it for awhile, I learned a lot from my friend Snake, and the Guardians but a lot of has been free lance. Honestly I can't remember how long it's been, time seems like a blur to me when it came to training."

The doors open as Aphrodite and Ashlynn make their way through the entrance with Balthazar beside him, and then Mei and Jacob entering last. Everyone seems to show a lot of fatigue and Balthazar has a smirk on his face. Dark lets out a groan as he knows what next. They're going to practice defensive magic now.

Ashlynn laughed slightly at Dark's groan. "Aww, is Dark tired?", Ashlynn asked in a mocking baby voice.

Jade nodded as Dark spoke, her head turning when she heard the group walk in. She laughed a bit as she heard Ashlynn but stopped herself almost immediately.

"Ah I see we have the next volunteer after Dark." Balthazar says looking at Ashlynn, Dark trots over to Balthazar as he gets in position.

"Now then for your next lesson, you're going to work on barriers, seeing how some of you are psions, black magic and or white mage you're able to form a barrier. It's time to strengthen them however. Dark is going to do his best to not budge as I attack him with variety of attacks."

Dark raises his eyebrows seeing how he never got past one attack from Balthazar without flying. Never the less he forms a powerful barrier with his dark magic, and what seem like a wasted effort in his part he goes flying towards the ceiling and stopping within inches of impact with the help of Balthazar.

"Ashlynn your turn."

Aphrodite stares in awe and fear as Dark lazily floats down to the ground.

Ashlynn's narrowed behind her helmet as she clapped her hands together once; only to thrust and hold her palm outwards and produce a frontal telekinetic barrier. She mentally prepared herself for the worst, aka Balthazar's attacks easily resulting in her being flung across the gym.

Balthazar swipes his right hand in the air, and immediately a shockwave of telekinesis shatters Ashlynn's barrier. Her body spinning in the air and hurtling away, only to be stopped before hitting the wall like what happened to Dark.

"Jade is next."

Ashlynn floated down to the group. She was determined. Eventually, there had to be a point where Balthazar can't fling her around like a ragdoll. Just how long did Dark and Kyo have to train with this guy?

"What?" Jade bit her lip and cracked her knuckles, bracing herself for the impact. The small vortex of water that she had formed in her palm, now growing. She let it go around her, placing her right in the middle of it, and then formed a barrier of black magic within the raging water.

Dark nods his head in approval of Jade's barrier, but then frowns as she is flung across the room, and everyone in front of Balthazar gets sprayed by water.

Aphrodite steps up, she puts everything she has in her barrier but it's useless as she first starts to slide then goes flying towards the ceiling. This went on for about an hour until Balthazar finally gave them some pointers on what he expects from them. They nod and follow his new instructions, this time Dark using more of his dark magic to pierce into the ground and creates a cocoon. Balthazar creates a wave of telekinesis, and his cocoon holds it's own for a second, thinking that he finally did it, Balthazar adds in dark magic, making Dark feel hopeless as he goes crashing hard into the ground coughing up blood.

Building off of Jade's idea to use a multiple tier shield, Ashlynn flung her hand in the air, building several layers of telekinetic shields comprised of smaller geometric shapes.

Jade managed to stop herself right before hitting a wall, landing softly on her tip of her feet before walking closer. "This is impossible." She muttered under her breath as she paid attention to what the others were doing, trying to see exactly what they were doing wrong.

Seeing the determination on their faces as they do their best to not move amuses Balthazar, he respects their effort and character. He ends training for today with the students meditating, so they can clear their minds and recover from the intense training they receive. As they begin to leave, he reminds them of the next day of training and to show up at 5 am sharp.

Dark and Aphrodite are the first out the door, realizing it's in the middle of the afternoon and their stomachs begin to growl, they snicker and try to see who's stomach growled the loudest, and look over to the group and ask if they want to go grab a bite to eat in Ceteris later on, after they had some time to rest.

5 A.M. training? Great. Jacob had come here to try to salvage whatever remnants of a normal life he could as a Wanderer, but of course he wound up getting himself right back into the thick of the shit. Sighing, he nodded to Balthazar and looked at Dark and Aphrodite. This had been his first time since coming to Ceteris that somebody had invited him to do something, even if it was part of a group invitation. "Sure, I'm up for it."

Ashlynn groaned. "I might pass. Every time we go to the city, we get really unlucky and shit happens. But I'm not above tempting Lady Luck."