《The hero gets scammed》 Scene of the crime ¡°Johanne Karim, you are being called upon,¡± an Angel said while descending from the skies, holding a rolled up sheet of papyrus along with a quill and ink. ¡°Holy fuck, finally. I was getting so bored, you can¡¯t even imagine. Training and training until they finally realize I exist. So, what is it this time?¡± The man asked. ¡°I shall now read the divine writings of the gods, as well as their request,¡± The angel cleared his throat. ¡°Johanne Karim, as per the decree of the great gods, you are being sent to the mortal realm once again. Our divinations have predicted a great war, and it is your task to ensure the safety of our greatest believers, the demonic race. You shall-¡± The angel couldn¡¯t finish the sentence, as he was interrupted. ¡°Yeah, yeah, this isn¡¯t my first mission, what, do they think I¡¯m dumb? Skip the boring stuff and get to the interesting part, hurry!¡± Johanne said excitedly. ¡°Ehm ehm, alright..¡± The angel cleared his throat. ¡°You shall be born into an ordinary human family in the outskirts of Eidwin. You will be given a genetically superior body, and an affinity for mana.¡± The angel said the last part suspiciously quietly and muttered it, making it difficult to head. A bead of sweat ran down the angel¡¯s face as Johanne made a suspicious expression. The angel turned around, beginning to leave, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. ¡°Hey, hey, hey, wait a second,¡± Johanne made a serious expression. ¡°If I¡¯m supposed to protect the demons, why am I being born into a human family? And an ordinary one, not even a noble family. And what exactly do you mean by ¡°an affinity for mana¡±, huh? Everyone has some affinity for mana. I don¡¯t think those words are there on accident. Why did you mutter them so quietly? Are you scamming me? Am I being fooled right now? I want to speak to HR.¡± ¡°W-well¡­¡± The angel stuttered. ¡°We ran out of budget.¡± The angel said, ignoring Johanne¡¯s last sentence completely. ¡°You ran out of budget?¡± ¡°The people are ceasing to believe in us so we are running a little low on holy power. This is the best we could do.¡± He managed to stammer out. ¡°Oh, and when were you planning on telling me that exactly? Have I lost my mind or have you? What you seem to be insinuating is that I have to play on hard mode because you can¡¯t gather believers. You do realize it has been almost 200 years since you last wanted something of me, right? Does no one here care about worker''s rights?¡± Johanne sighed. ¡°And I suppose there¡¯s an order to gather believers for them somewhere in the contract?¡± Johanne questioned the angel, knowing that the angel quite literally could not utter a lie otherwise they would be smitten right then and there. Though, this one rule had made the angels absolute masters of clever wordplay and manipulation, such as changing the topic and ignoring questions. ¡°I-It¡¯s written in tiny letters on page 3¡­¡± ¡°Okay, so, let me summarize. You want me to somehow, in some way, stop some great war, all the while I am handicapped with a subpar physical body AND you somehow want me to become friends with the demons as a HUMAN?!? Have you never poured oil into water?¡± ¡°Y-yes, that is about accurate.¡± The angel looked down at the floor, ashamed. Johanne snatched a quill out of the angel¡¯s hand with a sigh, and proceeded to sign the document. As he did, the angel¡¯s entire demeanor changed. ¡°Alright, you will now be briefed about culture and about what happened in the past 200 years. Please follow me!¡± The angel beamed, almost as if his ashamed self from a few seconds prior never existed. ¡°Hey, was the leaving and all an act? Are you trying to fool me for a second time? You¡¯re a cunning dude. Anyways, I don¡¯t want any briefing, just send me and I¡¯ll figure it out.¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid this briefing is mandatory, it is written in tiny letters on page 2 of the contract.¡± ¡°AAAAAARGH!¡± The briefing was finally finished and the reincarnation ritual began. As usual in every one of his ventures, Johanne woke up in his crib, being spared of watching the moment he was born and when he was a complete toddler. He was now 3 years old, and he got to work. He cast all manner of analysis spells on his own body, his tiny fingers moving at lightning speed. By now, he was a veteran at being a baby. Or at least he tried to, because after only the 3rd spell, he was suddenly hit with a burst of nausea. ¡°WHAT THE HELL IS THIS MANA CAPACITY?????????¡± Due to Johanne¡¯s admittedly amazing physical constitution, the mana flowed along his mana paths very smoothly, but his mana vessel was vastly undersized. ¡°Hey, fuckers! I want a refund! What the hell is this? Genetically superior body my ass!¡± He yelled, or at least he tried to. His cries came out as exactly that, simple cries. He could only curse the gods in his mind as his mother entered the room. His mother, Rina, had black hair as dark as the night. Even in the dark, Johanne¡¯s eyes could clearly see her blue eyes, which contrasted well with her hair. She was tall and packed some muscle, but was also very delicate as she lifted Johanne from his crib. His first impression of his family was that it was alright, at least deriving from what the angels told him. He wasn¡¯t used to this, however, as before he would always get reincarnated into very rich and powerful families. If it wasn¡¯t for his love of novel experiences, he might have refused signing the contract at all. In his mother¡¯s arms, he immediately began brainstorming ideas on what to do about his very limited mana capacity. His swordsmanship and martial arts were already honed well, so he needed to learn how to minimize the mana usage of all his spells through researching modern magic theory, and the greatest place to do this was the Eidwin royal academy. The second issue was body augmentation. With such limited mana, swordsmanship was largely out of the question as there simply was too much of a physical gap between an augmented and an unaugmented body, that could be lessened through skill, but only to a certain extent. Johanne did not know what to do about this issue, but he decided to press on regardless. He was even excited at the prospect, telling himself, ¡°finally, a challenge¡±. And thus, his plan was formulated. At the age of 13, he would enroll into the Eidwin royal academy as a student and go on from there. As he finished his train of thought, his young body had finally given in to his mother¡¯s lullaby, and fell asleep. Ingenuity Repurposing the leg of an old chair in their attic, I began carving various glyphs and symbols on the soft wood. I had never dabbled much in artificing, because I had never needed it. Whatever artifact I needed, I just paid a professional or got my family to gift it to me. However, with the scarcity of money, I was now forced to learn. These professionals cost hundreds of gold, which, even though my family was by no means poor, was too much. I didn¡¯t really mind - it was the only thing I could realistically do to keep my mind occupied until I was old enough to participate in hunting with my father, Adam Henderson, who was the leader of a hunting group. Our home was near the center of the capital city of Alderast, Eidwin. Mother had taken me sightseeing to the city center several times, and during these trips I had gathered more intel about the current state of affairs as well as important materials for artificing. My mother¡¯s occupation was a diplomat focused on public safety and war prevention, and she had a tendency to ramble on about politics and whatnot during our carriage rides. I had learned some crucial information. There were great political tensions between the various noble houses as they desperately scrambled to win the royal family¡¯s attention. The royal princess had just passed the age of 16, and the royal couple declared a search for a suitable marriage partner. The tensions between the demonic kingdom and Alderast were also rising as not long after I was born, scouts sent from the demonic kingdom were spotted around Alderast¡¯s borders. 200 years ago, the diplomatic relations between all the races were somewhat good, but then I came along. Back then, the demon kind had renounced the human¡¯s gods and began their own religion, which my petty contractors apparently disliked heavily. I was sent to the human realm, and the rest is history. I seemingly did a good enough job that I was now supposed to protect the demons as they were ¡°the gods greatest believers¡±. But it seemed that there were too many demons who remembered left in high enough positions, who now resented humanity for what I had done to them and were preparing until the demon race regains its strength to show their hatred. My mother had not spoken about the other races whatsoever, so it seems I would have to find someone higher up to pump for information regarding that issue. But for now, this amount of information was enough. I finally finished carving runes into the wood by creating a miniscule scalpel out of mana. The upkeep of this tiny mana blade for a mere hour took half my mana reserves, but it did its job. I shot a tiny pulse of mana through the wood, now shaped into a small knife, and the runes lit up dimly as they started draining mana from the tiny mana crystal embedded in the handle. The edge lit up dimly as mana flowed along it, creating a sharp edge of mana. With another pulse of mana, my creation deactivated itself. I finally had a knife which I could use for carving and other utilities, freeing me to use my tiny amount of mana on more important tasks. With nothing else to do and my parents firmly asleep, I picked up another part of the table and started anew. 8 years later ¡°I can¡¯t believe my son is already 12 years old!¡± Said my mother as she hugged me, handing me a present. She said this every year, but I agreed with her this time. The time passed quickly, with no noble responsibilities annoying me. ¡°Thanks, mom. Can I open it?¡± My mother nodded excitedly as father entered the room with a cake. It must have cost quite a bit as it had intricate chocolate decorations and whatnot, but I couldn¡¯t wait to dig in. ¡°Johanne, as my gift, I¡¯ll take you hunting! You¡¯ve been asking me to take you for months now, so I got together with the guys and we¡¯ll make it happen. It¡¯s in 3 days.¡± ¡°Hey, how come I wasn¡¯t told about this plan?¡± Mother spoke out angrily. ¡°Well because you would be against it and wouldn¡¯t allow it. But you know how much he¡¯s been wanting this, are you reeeally going to ruin it now?¡± Replied my father with a slight smug smirk. His cunningness reminded me of one heavenly asshole I talked to 12 years ago. My mother was left speechless, dragging father into the study, probably due to the bookshelves insulating the sound of her yelling. Finally, I would go into the wild. I had many gadgets I created over the years that I wanted to try, and I haven¡¯t been slacking on the physical side either. In terms of raw physical strength, I was already much stronger than the usual teenager. I could definitely keep up with the hunt, so much so that I hoped I would be allowed to go again after showcasing a spectacular performance. If you¡¯re good at something, profit off it. But today wasn¡¯t a day where I could afford to care about such things. I opened the gift, finding a bunch of toys which I had specifically picked for their useful materials, mostly a bunch of metal components. Nowadays, raw metal and other artificing materials had become much more expensive as the big movers started preparing for an upcoming war behind the scenes. Sometimes, it was actually more cost efficient to buy products containing whatever you wanted and disassembling them yourself. My parents knew about my interest in it, as it took up many hours of each day for me, although I hadn¡¯t revealed everything. As one kept using mana, the capacity would grow. Due to the fact I had been practicing magic every single day, my mana capacity had doubled over the years, but It would hit its apex and plateau soon. This growth was theoretically infinite, but the realistic and practical cap was around 2.5x. Even great archmages and mercenaries were able to triple it at most because of the diminishing returns. The increases were so astronomically small it wasn¡¯t worth even mentioning. Even if i got 4x the mana I have now, I would be merely average in terms of the capacity. ¡­ ¡°So, how¡¯s work?¡± I asked my mother while we were strolling through the city. She sighed. ¡°Stressful. We recently sat down with a bunch of demon nobles but they kept blowing us off, making outrageous demands and even threatening us. They¡¯ve always been a little snarky, but I¡¯ve never seen them this aggressive. Makes me want to punch them in the face sometimes - not that I would do it, of course. Anyways, It¡¯s all left up to us because the nobles of our country are currently all unavailable as they¡¯re infighting, of course. The late prince who married the princess 7 years ago just died last month, so now they¡¯re all scrambling to suck up to her again. Ugh, poor girl. Her husband, which probably didn¡¯t even love her anyway, dies, and they try to marry her off again instantly. Savages, I swear. They say he died of unknown causes, but if you ask me, he probably got assassinated. Although I shouldn¡¯t say that in front of my 12 year old son and on the streets.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Why not? I¡¯d give those bastards a beating. Also, yeah, assassination is pretty likely. With how competitive and vindictive they are, I wouldn¡¯t rule it out at all. Just flip the presumption of innocence around when dealing with that scum,¡± I replied. My mother gave me quite a funny look before speaking. ¡°First of all - language. And second of all, you can¡¯t just go around beating people up. You would be wise to remember that.¡± ¡°Yeah, yeah, I was just kidding. Anyway, why are we here?¡± ¡°You need some new clothes, equipment and supplies for the hunt. And also¡­¡± I ignored the rest. Every time we went shopping, mother ended up dragging me to various different stores and by the end of the day I ended up carrying 10 different bags of miscellaneous stuff and 2 bags of stuff we actually came in for. After finishing shopping, I did my evening training. Well, more like midnight training, because we returned home very late. Simple magic exercises for precision, such as manipulating mana into certain shapes or causing objects to spin. Then, strength training and calisthenics, and afterwards I swung around an iron sword I had crafted, and then went to sleep. ¡­ It was the day of the hunt. My father introduced me to two other people who would be hunting with us. My father was tall and in his mid 40s, with straight brown hair down to his neck. He lacked a beard, and the only thing giving away his age were some wrinkles on his face. Without them, just by the look of his body, one would take him for a young adult who worked out a lot. It seems I got most of my genetics from my mother, as my hair was a midnight black and my body was slimmer, with blue eyes to boot. ¡°Johanne, this is Blake and Jacob. Everyone, this is Johanne, my son. I promised him we¡¯ll go on a hunt behind his mother¡¯s back, she found out and well.. I slept on the couch for a few nights, but here we are!¡± Blake, a shorter man with glasses, immediately offered a handshake, which I accepted. ¡°Ohh, another sprout of the Henderson family, huh?¡± Father shot Blake almost a poisonous glare. Another? ¡°Pleasure to meet you, young man. Your father here talks about you more than you¡¯d expect. Let¡¯s see if you live up to the legend!¡± He laughed heartily. Uhm.. What the hell has father told them? Jacob on the other hand was even taller than my father, and had short hair. He only said one word, ¡°Pleasure,¡± before grabbing his hunting gear and walking out. ¡°Don¡¯t mind him, he¡¯s a little grumpy,¡± My father patted me on the back. Jacob turned around with a frown. ¡°I¡¯m just kidding, just kidding.¡± Those two personalities should never mix. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m Johanne. Thanks for letting me hunt with you, what will we be hunting?¡± Blake pointed out his index finger at me. ¡°A panther!¡± He said with a grin. My father was rather proficient in mana manipulation, and according to him, his teammates were as well. The beasts which used mana did not roam the woods we were at right now, as they were deeper in the forest or hidden deeper underground, where the mana was richer. Even then, mother would freak if she knew this. ¡°I told her we went to hunt deer!¡± My father grinned. Oh god. We were walking around the forest, following the tracks of this panther. Apparently they had been hunting this thing for a few days, but as it had been very elusive they still didn¡¯t catch it. I honestly regretted bringing such a large backpack filled to the brim with my creations, not because it was heavy, but because the items were poking through the back and making it really uncomfortable to wear. Maybe I should invest in a subspace pocket, or better yet, learn to create one. ¡°Hey, kid, come here! Look, there¡¯s a little bit of blood here and the bark on this tree is a little scratched. The bushes are also weirdly disturbed. What do you think this means?¡± Blake pointed at the scene. The bushes looked as if someone, or multiple someones, had walked through them. The blood was darker than one would expect from a human and the scratch on the tree bark were clearly claws. ¡°There was a fight, someone was chasing the panther,¡± I replied. ¡°The moss on the ground over there has also been uprooted. The attacker probably went that way.¡± ¡°Hey, maybe your son¡¯s a prodigy hunter or something. Took me months before I was that quick at figuring out the situation. Hell, I didn¡¯t even notice the moss.¡± My father simply smiled. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s go. I like that idea, we¡¯ll follow the disturbed moss.¡± We were approaching a small, open area where the trees let some sunlight in. As we snuck in, we saw the panther, heavily wounded and bleeding, surrounded by a group of what seemed to be around 10 bandits. ¡°Be very quiet. Johanne, bandits got here first. I know for a fact they are bandits due to the symbol on their shoulder. That symbol represents Horr, one of the three bandit kings.¡± I looked over, noticing a symbol of some sort of wolf and fox fighting. ¡°We generally don¡¯t fight bandits as we don¡¯t want to grab any attention or get in danger,¡± my father whispered. ¡°Don¡¯t make any noise and we will retreat!¡± Ahh, good old bandits. The nostalgia almost brought a tear to my eye. No matter how much society progresses, there will always be scum. But bandit kings? It seems the bandits have unionized. I figure it¡¯s because I wiped out most of them 200 years ago and they thought that would give them a better chance of survival as well as more manpower. I have no idea how they managed to work together enough to form factions, but I suppose the bandit kings rule with force. I¡¯ll have to give them a visit one day. But right now, I wasn¡¯t sure if I could defeat these bandits. I still had no clue about my limits as a practically manaless person. I estimated that I could kill 3 or 4, but that¡¯s all my mana would allow. We started retreating, but we heard a loud voice scream out behind us. ¡°We have some rats! Kill them!¡± ¡°Damn it!¡± My father scowled. ¡°Johanne, run. Blake, go along with Johanne in case some follow him. Jacob, with me!¡± My father took out a shortsword from his back, and Jacob took out 2 daggers. He never struck me as the dagger type, moreso the mace or hammer type. Their battle stances were decent. They were at least at the level of a squire, but the bandits weren¡¯t bad either. 5 bandits went after us, while the leader and 4 other bandits faced my father and Jacob. This wasn¡¯t looking very good. ¡°We have no choice but to fight,¡± I said as I turned around and brandished my masterpiece, a dark blue longsword. By professional artificer standards, this was quite laughable, but I was very happy with it. An iron sword which could lengthen itself by creating a long, sharp mana blade on its tip. This made it at least 3 meters long, giving me the range advantage even when facing a lance or a spear. Using my study of efficient mana usage, the elongated blade was almost transparent as very little mana was wasted. It would serve as a great surprise attack. ¡°Kid, you know how to fight? Why do you carry a sword?¡± Blake sounded panicked, but he pulled out a fold-up spear in a practiced motion. He had his priorities straight - first survive, questions come later. ¡°That isn¡¯t all I carry!¡± I yelled as I pulled out a spear myself. Its sheer purpose was to amplify any force exerted on it. This made it incredibly hard to control in an actual exchange, but this downside could be mitigated. One could throw it at a speed fast enough that even with magic-amplified reaction speed, anyone below a knight could not react fast enough to dodge. Without speaking, I fully extended the spear and threw it at the closest bandit before they had any chance to react. The mana stone lit up and the strike successfully hit its mark, blood flowing out from the massive gash as the spear continued on, creating spear-shaped holes through multiple trees before it finally stopped. With no time to be surprised, Blake ran toward the closest bandit, exchanging blows with two at once. If he took on two, I would take on two as well. I could not afford to waste mana here, so I rummaged through my backpack. Finally snapping out of their daze, the two remaining bandits sprinted towards me so I could not bring any other item out, but they were too late. I pulled out three metal disks. I put one in front of me and quickly threw two to the left and right respectively. With a tiny pulse of mana, the disks established a tiny thread of mana as a connection relay and the ground up mana crystal inside each disk glowed, creating a very thin sheet of water in a triangle shape between them. Then, the water froze and the bandits hilariously fell to the floor and slid on the ice, bringing them directly to me. My blade successfully slit their throats as they writhed on the ground, as they were still struggling to figure out what the fuck was even going on. Blake successfully took down one of the two bandits, and was now in an exchange of blows with the second one, who was smirking smugly. ¡°As soon as my brothers dispatch that fucking kid, you¡¯re dead meat!¡± That¡¯s when a sword pierced his chest from behind, causing the bandit to ragdoll on the floor, as limp as a rag. I guess I nicked the spine. ¡°H-how? To just a fucking kid?¡± The bandit looked at me and uttered with his dying breath. ¡°Ingenuity.¡± Entrance exam pt. 1 With no time to spare, I booked it towards the direction where my father was fighting. On the way, I picked up my spear and readied it for yet another throw. I calculated that the mana crystal inside should last for another two uses. The battle wasn¡¯t far, so I made it back in a matter of minutes and surveyed the state of the battlefield. Two bandits lay on the ground, bleeding. Jacob had a gash on his shoulder but was otherwise unscathed, but my father was bleeding quite profusely from a horizontal wound stretching across his abdomen. Jacob was busy holding back two bandits by himself while my father faced their leader. He turned around, hearing my footsteps as I sprinted towards him. ¡°Fuck, why did you come back! I told you to run!¡± He roared, but I ignored him, instead choosing to focus on the bandit leader preparing to slash him with his machete. I wound back, about to throw the spear, when the leader suddenly halted his attack and raised his machete in a defensive stance. It seemed his sixth sense was well developed, and he was above the level of a mere squire as dense mana quickly filled his entire body, augmenting it to even greater heights. I positioned my left, non-dominant hand at the very front of the spear, and positioned my dominant hand at the very back. A pulse of mana reverberated through the spear and at the same time my right hand¡¯s palm pushed on the back of the spear with as much strength as I could muster, while my left hand kept the whole contraption stable and aimed at the leader. At the very last moment, I rotated my right palm slightly. The spear immediately reacted and amplified this movement, causing it to spin at a rapid pace. The spear shot out of my hands, burning my left hand via friction. The rotation kept it completely stable as it barrelled towards the center of mass of the bandit leader, his chest, its speed almost too fast for me to perceive without using any mana. I willed my mana, which immediately flowed into my eyes and brain. The world slowed and I could track the spear as it moved towards its target, but it appears I had misjudged the bandit leader¡¯s power. With my senses enhanced by mana, I felt the flow of dense and pure mana bursting out from the bandit leader¡¯s mana vessel and flooding his entire body to the maximum. The denser and purer one¡¯s mana was, the stronger the augmented body would end up being. This, coupled with his already good physical constitution gave him enough of an edge to just barely move the machete in the spear¡¯s path and intercept it. With an ear-splitting sound, the bandit leader flew backwards, crashing through a few trees. The machete couldn¡¯t withstand the force of the spear which, despite it being quite the high quality steel, tore a hole directly through it and lodged a small part of its tip into the bandit leader¡¯s chest, breaking off. Although it did not create a large wound, every little bit counted. With the leader weakened, I should have a shot at victory. The quality of my mana, representing both density and purity, was below the bandit leader, but it was acceptable. There wasn¡¯t much I could do to speed up the quality improvements other than continuously using my mana, which slowly purified it. Three tiny balls of fire rotated around my hand as a quarter of my mana drained from my body. I had about 3 minutes worth of mana for full body augmentation left, during which time I would have to dispatch the leader, who finally stopped rolling on the ground and got up. ¡°Oh, you bastard. I¡¯ll sell you to the filthiest bidder at the filthiest black market in town! Fuck money, I¡¯ll make you suffer!¡± He roared as he charged towards me at full speed. There was no time to spare. I immediately reinforced my body with mana and got into an appropriate stance. The bandit leader pulled a tree stump from the ground, throwing it at me like a cannonball. I dodged, but he had used the time to grab a weapon from one of his dead comrades - another machete, this time longer and with a sharp hook on top to take control of the opponent''s weapon. I took the initiative and took a swing at him. Our weapons clashed mightily, but he was at a large strength and speed advantage. I unleashed one of the three fireballs, exploding it right in front of his face while creating a simple barrier in front of myself to block the impact. ¡°A little mage, eh? Well now, that changes everything! I¡¯ll give you the privilege of paying for a mansion for me and my boys!¡± Children deemed as ¡®gifted¡¯ were sold on black markets at large, and their life force was harvested. There were quite a few very useful ways of utilizing said life force, but I would rather not think about them. His skin and clothes were a little red, slightly burnt, but the mana reinforcement almost perfectly shielded him. My fireball was simply far too weak. In my previous lives, one of these fireballs would be enough to completely incinerate him, because I would already have near perfectly pure mana at this stage as I could use dozens of times more mana every day, thus progressing quicker. This was one of the many advantages a huge mana pool held. Through countless years of experience, I could perfectly predict his moves, but my counter attacks were blocked due to a sheer speed advantage. Metal clashed against metal tens of times each second as we were at a standstill. My arms and legs ached as I barely blocked and dodged the monstrous blows, but I wasn¡¯t in much danger as long as I could keep my reinforcement up. The seconds ticked by, but I suddenly spotted a larger, more exploitable mistake. The bandit leader had stepped too far forward due to a lack of patience, causing his center of gravity to be shifted too far towards me. I quickly launched the two fireballs between his legs, causing them to explode behind him. He ignored them, as he thought they weren¡¯t a threat, but this was a mistake. The force the small explosions created was just enough to tip the bandit leader over, causing him to stumble forward. I created a large pulse of mana within myself, which overloaded my augmentation for just a second, strengthening my body and speeding up my perception. This move was, however, dangerous, and could have lasting aftereffects if done for prolonged periods of time, which is why I had kept it short. It was also exactly what the bandit leader had used to deflect my spear, but unlike me, he had never stopped pumping out more mana and his body was already suffering the aftereffects. I launched myself to the left at a frightening speed, comparable to my spear, and extended my right leg which he promptly tripped over. My sword¡¯s runes glowed as its ability activated, sharpening and lengthening itself as I firmly planted my left foot on the ground and slashed down just before my augmentation overload finished. The bandit leader, who was in the midst of falling over, had no means to defend himself. The head flew off the torso and the battle was finished, with a mere tenth of my mana remaining. The rest of the bandits were dispatched with a stunning display of teamwork between Blake and Jacob, who were now tending to the wounds of my father. The panther we were originally after approached, but he merely dragged away the corpse of the leader and did not bother us. It was said that beasts have an innate sense for mana, and his corpse was the densest of them all. All of us were out of mana, so it did not target us. Why take a generic, store-bought meal when there is a delicacy right in front of you. Slowly, we departed from the forest, where I left my spear behind as it was turned into scrap metal, and reusing materials from already created artifacts was a huge headache. I made sure to pick up the intact weapons from the bandits. This encounter gave me a great deal of ideas.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Father finally woke up, and I already knew I would be in for a long questioning. Or at least I thought I did. ¡°Johanne, I won¡¯t ask how or why you know how to fight and use magic to such an extent, because you saved all of our lives. However, please do not keep such secrets from me. If I¡¯m not taking it well, then you can probably guess what a disaster it will be once your mother finds out.¡± He put a hand on my shoulder. ¡°But promise me you won¡¯t keep any more such secrets from me.¡± It was his unusual serious demeanor that really drove in how much he meant his words. I gulped as I thought about what mother¡¯s reaction would be. ¡°Alright, I won¡¯t. But.. I would like to ask you something in return. Blake called me ¡°another offspring¡±. I know what he meant by it, and by the look on your face at that moment, it wasn¡¯t a mere slip of the tongue. Could you tell me?¡± Father looked away for a few seconds with a sad expression and sighed. ¡°Okay. Yes, I will tell you, but I don¡¯t want to burden a child as young as you with any family drama. All you need to know is - you had a brother.¡± As much as my father was carefree, he was also stubborn. Getting any answer from him would be next to impossible. I left the situation at that. Everyone was a little tense at this moment, so I just decided to go work on some artificing and get some rest. ¡­ Night fell and I still couldn¡¯t sleep. Too many thoughts and ideas were coursing through my mind. I picked up my artificing gear as well as the weapons of the bandits and started working on recreating and improving my spear. The concept was definitely worth exploring. I first picked up the various steel machetes and a large piece of oak wood. Into the wood, I carved a mold for an iron spearhead and then some fire and heat resistance runes. I chopped off the excess, which I was going to carve the spear¡¯s shaft out of. Here came my first idea. I released ultra thin, almost imperceptible strings of mana from the tips of my fingers, attempting to slice the wood with them. At first, they broke or I was commanding them too imprecisely, but with each minute I improved upon them until they carved through the wood like a hot knife through butter. The spear¡¯s handle was quickly complete, but now came the difficult part. The spear I had used had two major downfalls which I wished to correct. First disadvantage - I would have to pick it up each time. While this problem could now be alleviated with the aforementioned mana threads, the difficulty of controlling them and the mana waste increased exponentially with distance. It was like trying to suck water from a 5 meter long straw. It would, at first, feel really easy, but it would be harder and harder to suck the water up the further in the straw it was. Second disadvantage - The durability. After impacting a simple, magicless steel machete, the spear turned into a pile of scrap despite the quite large and complex array of reinforcement runes. I already had a solution for this, albeit an incredibly complex one. It was called ¡®Layering¡¯. Layering multiple layers of steel on top of itself was quite simple - it was the whole purpose of damascus steel. However, carving runes on each individual layer while not overloading the whole item with mana or triggering one of the other million failure points was the truly difficult part. A rune¡¯s size, depth, and every other aspect influenced the way it would guide mana along the correct path, causing the correct effect to occur. A rune too large and deep would waste too much mana and possibly cause unintended effects as the mana leaked out, while a rune too small would cause the effect to be barely noticeable. Adding layers of material on top of this already difficult concept would be insane, but I knew that eventually, I would get it. The artificers of old, with very little to go off of, had managed it, and in a world with more modernized magic theory, I sure could too. And once I did, I could even carve runes into my own body. I opened up my notepad and started furiously scribbling ideas. Combining multiple runes into one, theories on layering, various concepts of the spear¡¯s looks and more. The moon, already midway through the night sky, shone brightly through the small triangle shaped window of the attic I was sleeping in. It was going to be a long night. ¡­ And like this, almost 12 months had gone by almost instantly. Tomorrow was the day of the entrance exam. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I hadn¡¯t actually bothered to check what level of magic was common within the average 13 year old. The only measure I had was the level of the bandit leader, who was in his mid 20s, and wasn¡¯t very impressive at all. With his mana capacity, he could have been at the level of a knight or possibly even a swordmaster if he so wished. But on the other hand, he was probably a bandit for a reason. There were three rounds to the exams happening over two days. The first round consisted of two duels to root out 3/4 of the entrants. The second tested one''s spellcasting abilities and control over mana. However, what seemed the most problematic was the third round. It happened on a different day because it was different for each participant. Customized, targeting their biggest weaknesses. Mine would of course be mana capacity, which is why I spent the last 9 years artificing many useful gadgets for this exact purpose. My artificing skill wasn¡¯t on the level of an expert yet, but it wasn¡¯t at the level of a novice or even an intermediate either. I slotted the ridiculously expensive mana stone into its rightful place. It was finally finished. My longest and most arduous project, and the item which would allow me to swiftly make my way through the exam. ¡­ It was finally time. I filled up my backpack and waltzed through the front gates and directly up to the exam hall receptionist. The receptionist looked like someone sucked out her soul. It was a given, as there were at least a few hundred young children around, and as young children tend to be, they were loud. Very loud. My head felt like it was about to burst just from a minute of standing there, so I could only imagine what the receptionist felt. Let¡¯s get some peace and quiet, shall we? I snapped my fingers and a simple spell sprung to life around me. It was a noise suppressant spell, which worked on the basis of an extremely thin veil of mana calming the air around oneself, disturbing the air vibrations which carried sound. ¡°Good morning, my name is Johanne Henderson and I¡¯m here to take the entrance exam. I also need some of my creations authorized for use.¡± I grabbed my comically large backpack and plopped it on the table. The receptionist looked at me, wide eyed. ¡°Oh, this spell. You looked like you desperately needed some peace and quiet, and, well, me too. My head hurts after a minute of standing here, my god, how can you last the whole day?¡± ¡°N-no.. It¡¯s just that this building is supposed to block unauthorized spell use.. But don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t report you.¡± She sighed. ¡°I also needed some peace and quiet, so thanks for that. Anyways, I¡¯ll get your items appraised and checked. You¡¯ll also need to be there, as you will need to prove that you have created each item.¡± She looked at me vigilantly. There were probably too many rich kids coming in with overpowered items thinking they¡¯ll get a free win only to be smacked by cruel, cold common sense. ¡°You probably derive some pleasure from watching rich brats pulling up with artifacts worth hundreds of gold only to learn they can¡¯t use them, don¡¯t you?¡± She pulled back into a more defensive position. I was correct. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t blame you, I¡¯d do the same. Anyways, I can assure you that everything in that backpack was created by me.¡± She still didn¡¯t seem very convinced, but she handed me a paper slip with a number and told me where to go to get my items appraised. As I was walking through the crowds of children, I felt someone staring at me. I turned around, getting a good look at them. It was a woman sporting long red hair. Her face showed an expression of intrigue, but also a little bit of greed. Could she have been interested because I managed to cast magic? No, it couldn¡¯t have been because of that. It was simply too easy. No matter how good I was, I was familiar with anti-magic fields, and this didn¡¯t feel like one whatsoever. Could she have listened to my conversation? A mix of multiple things? I really didn¡¯t know. I entered the room I had been instructed to with my large bag of stuff. I had to repeatedly assure the employee that I had created these items, as well as give detailed explanations for each one that only the creator could give. This was annoying as all hell, and lasted for 2 whole hours. Luckily, as soon as I got out, my number was called. I was to enter the arena. Here it was, my first duel. I couldn¡¯t wait to see what level the potential students of this school were at. I had to pick my gadgets before the fight instead of taking my backpack. This was logical and expected. I walked into the arena with 4 rings adorning my hand, a spear on my back, and a dark blue cloak I had created. I brandished my spear, and my opponent, a young boy with golden hair, brandished a sword. The sound of a whistle spread throughout the large, circular arena, and our blades instantly moved toward each other''s bodies. Entrance exam pt.2 Neither one of us had imbued ourselves with mana yet, as we were just feeling eachother out. My spear¡¯s brilliant white tip clashed with his sky-blue sword. They were both constructed from high quality materials, creating a satisfying metallic clang as they met. My spear exploded forth, as far as I could reach. My opponent swiftly dodged and counter attacked with an inward slash travelling along the path of the spear¡¯s wooden handle. I quickly pulled the spear back before it even began to fall, and swung it leftwards as if I was using a lever. My opponent quickly reacted, ducking and simultaneously raising his sword. The wood slid smoothly on the edge of his blade, clipping some of his hair in the process. Not bad. Honestly, this was quite good. Only the second duel would confirm whether this kid was an outlier or whether this really was the standard - which if it was, would be very impressive. Mana burst from within my opponent. Great quality and augmentation technique, leaving no gaps while not overloading himself with mana. Naturally, I did the same. My senses expanded and I could feel the instructors watching us from the stands. The spear¡¯s weight became insignificant and my mind sharpened. I inserted threads of mana into their slots inside my cloak, mentally linking with it and activating it. While I was amidst my own thoughts, the tip of a sword suddenly appeared in front of my face. Good technique. It was a sublimely executed stab movement which utilized the whole body, making its strength and speed unparalleled, but also difficult to control once unleashed. I leaned to the left, barely avoiding the tip of the blade. I raised my leg, kicking my opponent on his right side near his ribs to gain some distance. Two items started shining with mana - my spear, and a black ring situated on my middle finger. I launched the spear towards the boy at immense speeds, but he wasn¡¯t sloppy in reacting to it like the bandit leader was. He realized he didn¡¯t need to block it, but simply to redirect the force to another direction. My opponent angled his blade just right and the spear slid along, redirected into the floor where it created multiple huge cracks. This did not mean he was unscathed. The force the spear generated upon its collision with the boy¡¯s sword traveled through his body, causing pain and slight bits of damage here and there. If he had faltered for even a second and let his sword get pushed back even a tiny bit, he would already have lost. Here was where the ring¡¯s purpose was revealed. A string of mana tugged at the spear, sending it flying towards my palm. Like a fishing like, the ring attached itself to any object with a mana string. This required physical contact, but I was fairly certain I could, one day, achieve this without it. With a pulse of mana, the spear¡¯s inner runes lit up as well. This was the very basics of layering - I created two handles and fit them into each other, connecting them through a simple intermediary runic layer on the larger piece. Even then, the runes weren¡¯t far from overloading and cracking the wood. This was the peak my own knowledge could reach - I needed detailed research and knowledge from the academy. The spear was designed to have two modes - one for throwing, which indiscriminately amplified all its velocity to a monstrous degree, and one for close combat. This allowed me to manipulate the velocity with much higher levels of control, but on a lesser scale. My spear split into five, or at least looked like it did due to the speed of my thrusts. Five separate thrusts barrelled at my opponent, who overloaded his amplification and managed to block three. A powerful thrust impacted his shoulder. The academy-issued protective barrier rippled slightly, but survived. The second thrust to his abdomen was stronger, and popped it like a soap bubble. After the match finished, I could faintly hear the instructors muttering amongst themselves. Seems like a difficult job. The boy approached me, offering a handshake, which I took. ¡°I¡¯m Albert. You fought really well, did you make those items yourself?¡± ¡°Johanne, and yeah, of course. Otherwise they wouldn¡¯t have even let me use them. Your performance was also very good, so I¡¯m guessing I¡¯ll be seeing you once classes begin.¡± ¡°Hah, you seem sure you¡¯ll pass. Well, if you do, I¡¯ll be seeing you.¡± ¡®Nice kid.¡¯ We went our separate ways, each preparing for our second battle. Afterwards, the instructors would evaluate the battles of every participant and weed out a large portion of the students based on them. After two hours of recuperating, I was finally called in for my second battle. I stepped into the arena, my opponent being a girl this time. She looked like an ordinary girl, but her blazing red hair stood out like a sore thumb. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m Johanne. Are you perhaps related to a woman with red hair and an unbelievably smug-looking face?¡± ¡°Um.. My mother does have red hair, but I wouldn¡¯t describe her face as ¡®unbelievably smug¡¯.. Why are you asking?¡± ¡°It¡¯s nothing, I just saw someone who looked scarily like you in the reception. Nothing you need to concern yourself with. The fight is about to start, so good luck¡­¡± ¡°Lily,¡± she added. The sound of a whistle once again rang throughout the arena, signifying the beginning of the fight. Suddenly, large spikes of ice exploded out from the ground, quickly moving towards me. Lily was seemingly a magic user who did not indulge in melee combat. I augmented my body, albeit not fully to conserve mana, and moved in a zigzag pattern, but the spikes tracked me perfectly. I jumped up and over the spikes, and at that exact moment each individual spike shot off towards me like a hundred perfectly synchronized archers firing at once. I brandished my spear and swiftly deflected, destroyed or split apart each spike. I let the last spike crash into the flat of my spear and used the spear¡¯s runes to affect it just like the spear, slowing it to a halt. This made it float in mid-air as long as the spear was touching it, and I proceeded to launch myself off the spike directly towards Lily. A turbulent wind started whistling under Lily¡¯s feet, moving her out of the path of my spear. A large wall of fire materialized, quickly approaching me. I extended my hand and dozens of hair-thin mana strings shot out towards the spell. They accurately targeted the points of instability caused by an imperfection in the magic usage and caused them to implode on themselves by disturbing them, collapsing the whole spell from the inside. This was my trump card against mages - Spell Deconstruct. It only worked on spells which had their mana freely floating and not in any form of a solid construct, therefore it was useless against ice spells because I would first have to burrow inside of the ice to disturb its mana with my own, which was both slow and wasteful. The mana strings could also simply be overpowered and fizzle out if the targeted spell was strong enough. My mana strings continued unabated, wrapping around Lily¡¯s leg like a cowboy¡¯s lasso. I then simply sharply tugged, sending her flying towards me. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. An ice wall was formed between us, severing my strings. Lily proceeded to go on the offensive, and as she landed sideways on her ice wall, large parts of it started splitting off and flying towards me. This attack combined her own bodies¡¯ momentum with all the momentum she could generate with magic, making this attack far faster and deadlier than her previous endeavours. I wrapped my cloak around my body. As the ice bullets hit me, I felt painful, but manageable hits all across my body. If my cloak hadn¡¯t been protecting me, those might have broken a few bones. As I was protecting my front, a large, sharp construct of ice burrowed out from underground and targeted an unprotected area. ¡®Hah, multicasting. This girl¡¯s good.¡¯ Multicasting was a skill often developed at the Magus level of magehood. While there were many at this level, they were usually skilled and professional mages or at least almost finished with their studies. Any moron could multicast, but to do it effectively was completely different. I had around 70% of my mana left. I had seen all I needed to see, and now it was time to move on to the next stage. My mana surged as I emerged from within my cloak, gripping my spear in its center. I swung behind me, obliterating the attack coming towards me, and then I quickly spun my spear to get rid of the ice shards flying towards me. The wall had already been reduced to a quarter of its original width, and more ice was chunking off it every second, but I wasn¡¯t willing to sit here for another 30 seconds spinning my spear. I switched my spear to its throwing mode and executed a powerful throw. The spear lodged into the wall, crumbling it to pieces. I quickly jumped through the crumbling wall before Lily had a chance to take control of them, grabbing my spear and executing a second throw, now towards her. A thick wall of ice emerged between us, and the spear burrowed about 80% through. I ran towards the wall, stepping on the back of the spear to give it the momentum it needed to fully pierce through, and pierce through it did. While it wasn¡¯t very accurate, it was enough to graze her arm which caused her to start spinning incredibly quickly and ram into the ground like a drill, breaking her shield. I marveled at the artifact which generated this shield. Not only did it perfectly weather such a powerful blow, it also broke only as soon as Lily was safe and not repeatedly banging her head against rocks. There was no doubt in my mind that it could last much longer, as the most my attacks did was cause it to ripple lightly. I extended my hand to Lily, who was sat on the ground. ¡°Good fight, I can¡¯t believe you can already multicast. Is ice your main element?¡± ¡°Mh.¡± She nodded and took my hand, rising to her feet. She seemed a bit down, but I was sure she would recover. Kids are quite resilient. As I was walking out of the arena, I heard a voice call out to me. ¡°Unbelievably smug? You¡¯re honestly not wrong,¡± the woman laughed. ¡°But it was a little rude, you have to admit.¡± I turned around to see the same red-haired woman from before leaning on the wall just next to the arena exit, her hands folded. ¡°You were listening? Who even are you? You seem to have some interest in me, so out with it.¡± The woman chuckled. ¡°First off, darling, how much do you know about spellcasting?¡± This question caught me off guard. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I guess about as much as anyone else?¡± ¡°Mages usually expel pure mana out of their bodies which then gets formed into a spell, but some can completely skip this step and expel already formed spells. The protections in the academy building only protect against the former, because protections against the latter are extremely difficult to research, ineffective, and expensive to upkeep even by this academy¡¯s standards. All that we do know is that every mage who uses this method is powerful - scarily so. It is also the reason these sorts of protections cannot disable any bloodline magic one might have, because it is embedded into the body and soul.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re basically fucked if someone who can do this becomes your enemy?¡± ¡°You¡¯re partly right, I suppose. But also wrong. The protections are also capable of reacting offensively - firing spells, gas, poison. We simply can¡¯t prevent said person from spellcasting, which makes most said defenses moot anyway, yes.¡± This made no sense. I was clearly familiar with anti-magic fields, I was hit with them a few times in my past lives. Either I acquired this ability in my past life and simply didn¡¯t notice, or somehow acquired it in this life. ¡°Thanks for the info, but you still haven¡¯t told me who you are. How can I trust you?¡± ¡°Fufu, I am the mother of Lily, the girl you just fought. My name is Alice Pyralis, and I am an instructor in this academy as well as the person who orchestrated your duel against my daughter. Pleased to meet your acquaintance.¡± ¡°I¡¯d sort of already guessed that last part, because what are the chances of someone watching me and right after facing a kid who looks just like them. I¡¯m Johanne Anderson.¡± Pyralis? I knew them, they were a noble house focused on fire and were known for their phoenix flame bloodline ability. Why was Lily using ice then? ¡°Anyways, if you¡¯re a Pyralis, why the hell is your daughter using ice magic? Don¡¯t you have a really good bloodline ability and resources relating to fire? She might have actually stood a chance had she used it.¡± ¡°Yes, you are entirely correct, darling. Are you familiar with how bloodline abilities are gained?¡± I simply nodded. ¡°Yeah, well, she is too. I don¡¯t know how she found out, but ever since she did, she refuses to use it. She hates the fire element in general, but I saw her using some fire magic against you so I suppose it isn¡¯t as bad as I thought. She is, of course, very talented, but her talent with ice pales to the talent she had with flames.¡± Honestly, her usage of ice spells felt much better to me. ¡°She was already multicasting, and I think she¡¯ll do fine with ice. She fought intelligently using it, unlike with her flames which she just kind of threw out there haphazardly.¡± ¡°Well, Johanne, I¡¯m afraid another match is beginning and I¡¯m needed in the spectator¡¯s seats. I¡¯ll be seeing you tomorrow after your special exam.¡± ¡°Likewise. Have a good day.¡± I strutted out of the building with a brisk pace. The screams of children got better as time passed and more and more children finished their battles, but it was still unbearable. The receptionist from before looked like she was about to rip her hair out, flashing me a knowing smile as I walked out. Those battles were certainly interesting. If I had to take a guess, Alice Pyralis had doctored both instead of only the one she admitted to. Those kids were certainly out of the ordinary, by any standard. It was already evening, past the time when people would return from their jobs, but I took the long scenic route home, walking through one of the large parks in the city. A bunch of storm clouds gathered in the distant skies, giving the empty park an eerie but calming atmosphere. I brought out my spear, fiddling with it, when I spotted something in the corner of my peripheral vision. I flicked my head back, managing to spot a hooded figure quickly retreating behind the trees, vanishing from sight. I paid it no mind and continued walking, eventually making it home just before sundown. After an annoyingly long questioning by my mother regarding how well I did and other basic questions, I finally sat down and got to tweaking a few of my gadgets. I needed to be prepared for tomorrow. ¡­ I was finally called to participate in the final stage. I stepped into a large silver dome. It was completely empty inside, but as soon as I stepped far enough, the magic inside the dome activated. An overwhelming pulse of mana flowed through the dome like a tsunami, leaving behind an image of a ruined city in its wake. It was a showing of some incredibly advanced illusion and creation magic achieved through masterful artificing and a massive budget. The evening sun shone through the illusory clouds, casting orange rays upon the ruins of Eidwin. An eerie atmosphere spread through the desolate ghost town and fog limited my visibility. I walked through the city, taking in the scenery. I still wasn¡¯t quite sure what I was supposed to do, but I knew it would reveal itself eventually. Suddenly, I heard a woman¡¯s scream. I sprinted towards the direction of the sound, but nothing was there. It was now completely silent, except for the soft sound of raindrops hitting the ground. As I was in the midst of assessing the situation, the shadows suddenly reached out to me. It was only due to my acute sixth sense that I managed to jerk my body backwards, avoiding a shadowy hand reaching out at me from the darkness. A blur shot past my body at a faster speed than I could react to, creating a small cut on my cheek and melding into the shadows right after, disappearing. I immediately augmented my body with mana, which was most likely the attacker¡¯s goal in the first place, as that attack was clearly a taunt. The shadows around me, including my own, started wiggling. Solid spikes of shadow pierced out of them, attempting to embed themselves in me. I quickly swung my spear, attempting to slice through the barrage, but it was slowly overwhelming me. I suddenly felt movement behind me. A person wearing a black cloak was quickly approaching, holding a dagger in their hand. I spun around, trusting my cloak to block or dull whatever attacks came at me from behind, and our two weapons met in a powerful clash. The attacker didn¡¯t engage, however, and slipped into the shadows once again. It was a hit and run tactic to make me waste my mana. As long as I was in the attacker¡¯s sights, I could not let go of my augmentation. I was fairly sure the intent was for me to sneak around, avoiding the attacker and biding my time for a surprise attack, but I had no intention of doing that. If he wasn¡¯t coming for me, I was going to come for him. I took out explosives from my backpack, bathing the city in brilliant light as they went off, decimating the buildings which lacked any sort of magical protection. Fire quickly spread through the city, attaching itself to whatever flammable material was still present within the decimated buildings. I was never a very low-key guy. Entrance exam pt.3 The light from the explosives spread across the area, ridding it of any shadows. The enemy was now completely out in the open, with no shadows to hide within. My spear shot forwards, ripping straight through any flying debris like a sword through wet tissue, but my opponent dodged the throw by skillfully stepping to the side. The ring on my index finger shone, causing threads of mana to attach themselves to nearby debris, which I chucked at the hooded figure as I brought my spear back. I overloaded my augmentation, launching forward and delivering a series of precise strikes. My spear curved like a vicious serpent, but it was skillfully redirected by the opponent¡¯s dagger, eviscerating part of a building by the sheer force of its strike. I called on my mana, watching as nearly a third of it disappeared in the blink of an eye and formed a large greataxe of ice in my hands, the axe head alone being almost as big as me. If skill wasn¡¯t going to cut it, raw force would. Threads of mana attached themselves near the axe head, helping me control the weight of this huge thing. My opponent also let out mana, this time using earth magic to create pillars of rock and chuck large pieces of the pavement at me. His proficiency with earth magic clearly wasn¡¯t on the same level as shadow magic, and I simply cleaved through all the earth with my axe and continued on unabated. Flames raged across the city as I chased my assailant, getting closer and closer to hitting them with every strike of my greataxe. My mana was now at about only a third, so I had to be quick. After a few more literally earth-shattering attacks, a horizontal strike connected, splitting my opponent in half if not for the comparatively tiny dagger in their hands blocking the attack with the flat of the impressively durable blade. Their knees buckled under my powerful blow and the earth under them cracked. My axe¡¯s durability was not as impressive as the dagger¡¯s, as it started to crack, so I poured in almost all the remaining mana I had to strengthen it even further, increasing the weight as well. This was all or nothing. Their hands shook as they tried to push against the sheer weight of my axe, and I continued to apply more and more pressure, causing my assailant to bend backwards, and their body continued to lower itself. Finally, the pressure was too high to manage and my opponent¡¯s body gave out. They fell to the ground and the academy¡¯s shield rippled as my axe drove into them powerfully, cracking the ground below them further. Without the academy shield, they would no doubt be split in half, but the shield merely rippled and didn¡¯t completely break yet. Pulling out my spear, I drove it into the opponent¡¯s chest, finally causing the barrier to crack. ¡°Huff, huff¡­ That¡¯s enough, you pass. Hell, I didn¡¯t expect to be defeated by a student..¡± The teacher said in between sharp breaths. ¡°Was defeating you not the criteria for passing?¡± ¡°No, hell no. I¡¯m not nearly the strongest of the instructors, but I¡¯m still an instructor. For a student to defeat me should under normal circumstances be unthinkable. Usually we just see how good of a fight the student can put up despite their weakness being used against them, and if it¡¯s good enough they pass.¡± ¡°Fair enough, I suppose. Shadow magic is really annoying.¡± ¡°As a shadow mage, I completely agree.¡± He stood up, still breathing hard. ¡°How many of those bombs have you got? Each one of those had the power of a damn superior fireball.¡± In my past lives, in a situation such as this I simply would have cast a few dozen of those and gotten this over with quickly. ¡°I only had about 12, I kept creating new ones in order to improve them, so there¡¯s a bunch of them ranging from weak to the strong ones you saw.¡± Bombs were by far the easiest to create as well as use. Unless they were somehow timed, the user just had to cause the entire thing to combust, which would release a lot of energy from the mana crystal inside. Of course, my idea was to use layering to create multiple layers of explosion runes, fire runes and whatever other rune I wanted. If I had done this on a regular item, it just would have broken in a matter of seconds, melting from the inside or having some other bizarre side effect, but this time the overload was rather favorable because the runes all actually activated before it exploded. There was simply no time for the mechanism to fail as by the time it would have broken the bomb was already detonated. ¡°Well, Johanne, it¡¯s safe to say I¡¯ll be seeing you around. My name is Varrod, my cabinet is on the top floor and I specialize in shadow magic. If you need help with something, make sure to give me a visit.¡± ¡°Quite the unique name. If I need any help with that, I¡¯ll certainly visit you. Have a pleasant day.¡± I left the academy grounds and immediately made my way into a restaurant. That fight really made me hungry for a burger. ¡­ An uneventful month went by. I continued my training, using up every last bit of mana I could to increase its quality at a faster rate. During the latter half, I was officially accepted into the academy¡¯s special class and given an academy library pass. I instantly raided the place, grabbing a huge stack of advanced artificing books and books on advanced mana theory. The library desk clerk looked at me like I was some sort of madman, because the stack was truly about twice my height. I had to assure her multiple times that I¡¯m a fast reader and would have all these books brought back before the deadline, and she eventually allowed me to take them by virtue of the fact I was a student of the special class. The next two months would be spent reading, researching and practicing. After that, school would finally begin. By augmenting my brain I was able to read and think at a much faster pace and got all the books down in just a few weeks. The mana theory books didn¡¯t give me much, but the artificing ones were very interesting. They went over basics and intermediate layering, how various materials responded to mana, rune combinations, offensive vs defensive combinations, and many more topics. I figured books about advanced layering were not available because the noble houses and professionals in the field hoarded the information for themselves, greedy as they were. What I didn¡¯t expect, however, was that a book about advanced artificing would be delivered to my doorstep. It wasn¡¯t signed, but had a note. ¡®I hear you¡¯ve been taking lots of artificing books from the library. This might come in handy. :)¡¯ Ending with a little smiley face drawn on the bottom right corner. I opened the book. It truly had advanced material on the topic, covering topics like layering extensively. But there was also a technique which I didn¡¯t know about - artificial mana channels. This wasn¡¯t gone over with too much detail in the book, but it basically involved drilling small holes, etching runes onto the inside of them which would attract the flow of mana and reinforce the material at that particular point, increasing the flow of mana and decreasing the leakage of it substantially. This technique was, according to the book, leaps and bounds more precise and difficult than simple layering, but paired very well with it. The book didn¡¯t mention which runes precisely should be on the inside of the channels, but I could figure it out with some trial and error.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. This gave me a burst of motivation and I immediately sprinted to my workbench to try this technique, but I failed miserably. The channels were supposed to be extremely thin, comparable to a single hair, and even drilling the tiny holes was extremely difficult. I had no idea how I would etch the runes inside the tiny holes, because there truly needed to be dozens of them lining the inside of each channel. I simply ended up ruining a chunk of rather expensive metal by peppering it with tiny holes which would fill with mana and cause all manner of issues if imbued. There must be some specialized tools for this exact task, and I sure didn¡¯t have them. This, however, didn¡¯t deter me from trying for another few days before I finally admitted it might be a bit too much for me, choosing to save it for later. The political tensions between the demonic lands and Alderast were like a rubber band stretched just a little too tightly, about to snap at any moment. Demon assassins had already attempted to dispose of some key political figures in the country, and Alderast responded in kind. The war was soon upon us, and I wasn¡¯t even close to strong enough. My physical body was improving at a rapid pace, but it was still nowhere near its limit. My mana quality was improving at a decent pace, but only because I made sure to wake up every few hours every night to use up my mana, speeding up its refinement. The best way to do so was fighting, but this was the best way available to me. Two productive months passed by, and it was time to move into the academy-assigned dorms and begin pestering some poor artificing instructor to teach me. The process of moving in was quite mundane, as every special class student was assigned their own small apartment at the higher floors of the huge building. Our uniforms were black with some gold embroidments added in. They were similar to a two piece suit, but were very comfortable to wear and looked fashionable. By noon, I had settled into my room, which housed a large window with a beautiful view over the city, and it was time for the first and only class of the day, which was a simple introductory class outside in the training grounds. When I arrived, about two dozen students stood there, many of them clearly of royal origin. To my delight, I saw two familiar faces. Lily stood idly, away from the other students, while Albert was in the midst of a conversation with a group of them, clearly an extrovert. He was also the first to speak after our match, congratulating me. I approached Lily, as Albert was busy conversing. ¡°Hello Lily, remember me? You were the second person I¡¯d fought in the entrance exam. Glad you made it into the special class.¡± ¡°Oh.. Hello.. Yeah, I remember. I¡¯ve been training.¡± Albert finally noticed me, inserting himself into our conversation. ¡°Johanne, what¡¯s up! Good to see you. I¡¯m not surprised you¡¯re in the special class, you really beat my ass that time. Who¡¯s this?¡± He seemed a little too high-strung. ¡°I-I¡¯m Lily. Nice to meet you.¡± She said quietly. It seems she has some social anxiety, which Albert completely missed as he excitedly extended his hand. ¡°Albert, nice to meet you. I like your red hair, it contrasts well with Johanne¡¯s black.¡± Why would you blurt that out to someone you¡¯ve just met? ¡°Do you two know each other?¡± Lily sheepishly took his hand, but was clearly a little uncomfortable. ¡°Yeah, she was the second person I¡¯ve fought in the entrance exam. She was very good, but she¡¯s purely a long-ranged mage.¡± ¡°Yeah, I tried that. Damn, was I bad, you couldn¡¯t imagine. But when I picked up a sword, it just kind of felt right, you know? Plus my family¡¯s bloodline ability is blade related, so there¡¯s that too. Do you guys have bloodline abilities too?¡± ¡°I.. No, I don¡¯t.¡± Lily just nodded yes, not saying anything. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you use yours during our duel? You would have done better.¡± I asked the slightly hyperactive boy. ¡°Well, because that¡¯s cheating. If you had one and used it, I certainly would have as well, but you would have been kind of a dick in my eyes from then on. Also, you¡¯re one of the few people where It would actually serve some purpose to use it. My second duel was a total snoozefest.¡± ¡°Fair enough. You¡¯re pretty good with a sword, I¡¯m better tho.¡± I probed, trying to see how the boy would respond. ¡°Yeah, you¡¯re probably right. That weird spear move you pulled on me at the end there is still in my mind, I¡¯ve done a lot of image training with just that you know. And, I don¡¯t mean to brag, but as I am now I could block it.¡± He pointed at himself with a large smile. I honestly didn¡¯t expect that, his attitude was very humble. ¡°Haha, sorry for acting arrogant. I can give you a practical example of it anytime you¡¯d like. I¡¯m glad you¡¯ve grown, cause I¡¯ve been growing myself. The three of us should spar, we can learn a lot from each other.¡± ¡°I¡¯m down. My family has quite a large training ground we can spar in. How about Lily, are you fine with that?¡± ¡°Well.. I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ll think about it.¡± ¡°Go with them darling. You will learn a lot, especially from Johanne. Haven¡¯t you wanted to make some friends for a long time? It¡¯s good to go out of your comfort zone once in a while.¡± The sound of boots pressing against stone could be heard. That voice.. of course she¡¯s the instructor of the special class, I sighed. I turned around as Miss Pyralis made her way to our little trio. ¡°Long time no see, Johanne. I trust my gift was appreciated?¡± Yeah, I¡¯d guessed it was from her already, but confirmation is always nice. ¡°Very, thank you, but it seems I have no way to repay such kindness.¡± ¡°You¡¯re repaying it right now, dear.¡± She glanced at Lily, then turned around to the rest of the students, whistling to get their attention. ¡°Hello, my dear students. My name is Alice Pyralis, and I have been bestowed the privilege to be the instructor for the special class for the year 785, exactly 150 years since the academy has been founded. Some of you got here through talent, some through sheer hard work, and some through a mixture of both. It is my job to prepare you for the real world, whether you become a mercenary, a merchant or any specialized profession dealing with magic. As students of the special class, you can choose specialized instructors which will be guiding and teaching you. Even if only one student selects a particular instructor, that class simply will happen as a one on one. This way, your passions can freely be explored and you will get specialized instructions as Alderast¡¯s greatest talent. Any questions?¡± ¡®What an eloquent speech,¡¯ I thought. I raised my hand. ¡°Yes, Johanne?¡± ¡°I have a few questions. Can I arrange multiple sessions with the same instructor? If I¡¯m deemed fit, could I possibly become the instructor for a class or for a particular student? What manner of classes are available to take?¡± ¡°Phew. That¡¯s a lot to take in, so let¡¯s take it from the top. Let¡¯s see.. It is possible to have multiple with the same instructor, but it¡¯s up to the instructor¡¯s discretion. As for your second question - it might be possible, but has never happened before, so I really don¡¯t know about that. And for your last question, there are all manner of classes as there are hundreds of instructors. Some of the most interesting, which I would recommend to everyone are these. Dimensionalism - useful not only for flashy spells. Magic theory with professor Valen - the man has one niche, and it¡¯s magic theory, so he naturally knows a crap ton, excuse my language. Third would be some form of close-ranged combat, even for mages who prefer to fight from a distance. You never want to be helpless when you come up against an opponent who can close the distance on you, which is why we will be covering it in my classes as well, but not to the depth a specialized professor would.¡± Our instructor finished talking and took a large breath as all that was said in one singular breath. No one else had questions, but some were looking at me weird, probably because I mentioned becoming an instructor in one of the questions. ¡°Now - I have a fairly good grasp of your abilities, but you don¡¯t have a grasp of each other¡¯s abilities at all. We¡¯ll be doing a quick exercise so that each of you can see at least a small part of each other¡¯s abilities, as it will be important later for establishing good teamwork. Please line up by the wall, I¡¯ll be calling on you in no particular order.¡± A small bit of magic materialized in front of me, flying to my ear. I could tell it was Miss Pyralis who cast it, so I let it be. Her voice rang out in my ear, coming out of the magical construct next to me. ¡°Testing, testing. Uhh, do something to show me that you can hear me.¡± What the hell did that even mean? I just looked at her with a confused expression, shrugging my shoulders slightly. ¡°I assume this means you can hear me, great! Johanne, I¡¯ll be calling on you first. Some of these noble kids are pretty arrogant, so I really want you to give it your all to knock them down a few notches, alright? Uhh, just nod if you agree.¡± I kind of wanted to see what she¡¯d do if I didn¡¯t nod, so I did exactly that. ¡°You¡¯re not nodding. Does that mean you can¡¯t hear me or that you don¡¯t agree?¡± I shrugged. ¡°Okay, you can hear me. What does a shrug mean?¡± I laughed, probably making the other kids think I was even more of a weirdo than before, before nodding. ¡°Alright, go show them what you¡¯ve got.¡± She said before the construct vanished into thin air. ¡°Johanne Henderson, you¡¯re up.¡± She called on me, then turned to the other students. ¡°In this exercise, you will be launching your most powerful attacks at me, and I will then critique them, mainly the mana-spent-to-power ratio, precision, and more. Understood?¡± ¡®Oh, this will be fun,¡¯ I grinned.