- Michael -

Holy shit.

The two of us just listened to Julia explaining Magic Theory for what seemed like hours. I knew the gist of this stuff already but she really knows how to go into detail.

I made a bet with Derrick beforehand: If he could survive her lecture then I’d make sure he’s let off the hook. I barely survived and looking at him, I can’t say he got a passing score.

“Did you guys even hear what I’ve been saying?” Julia complained.

“Of course we did. You were showing us how to use Basic Magic right?” I raised my hand and began attempting to replicate her demonstration. I might have been getting sleepy during her lecture but I still got the idea of the lesson.

Solid… Medium… Control…

I pieced together the concepts of Basic Magic and visualized it in my head, forming a Magic script to align with my understanding. I slowly felt a controlled stream of Shifted Essence flow out of my body and opened my eyes to see the result.

“Your intuition is as crazy as ever.” Julia remarked.

“To do it immediately after only seeing it once… That’s amazing.” said Derrick.

Julia shook her head. “Don’t flatter him. He’ll let it get to his head.”

“Well, I am quite the talented individual.” I claimed haughtily, pointing my nose in the air.

“See?” Julia affirmed.

I glanced at the Magic script in my hand and pointed it off to the side, towards the empty space in the room. I recalled my fight with Aidin and how he was using his Magic. The process of constantly releasing and compressing Shifted Essence, and then firing it off into the distance as a projectile.

I attempted to do this, first by releasing the Shifted Essence. I felt the Essence leaving my body, but it instantly dispersed due to having no form.

“What are you doing?” asked Derrick.

“I’m trying to fire my Essence like a bullet. Julia knows what I’m talking about.”

"Wait, you can’t mean-”

I continued attempting to release my Essence and give it form. When using Vector or Alteration Magic, you only really release your Shifted Essence in a steady, string-like shape in order to guide objects into motion. This technique on the other hand requires a cloud-like shape, with almost no preconceived release pattern or direction. Such a disparate way of releasing Essence is so fundamentally different from conventional Magic that adapting to it is very difficult.

Not to mention…

“This is really draining.” I breathed, dropping my arm.

“I guess even you couldn’t do it on the first try.” Julia said disappointedly. “Since Basic Magic uses an overlapping release system, the amount of Essence required to use it is greatly increased. In the first place, no one besides Aidin has directly weaponized it before so this is uncharted territory.”

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“Wait, wait, wait, who is this Aidin guy? What are you guys talking about?” Derrick questioned.

“He’s a hot-tempered bitch who shoots people.” I answered.

“Hey, you're not much better than him in that regard.” Julia quipped. “His full name is Aidin Wilford, and he’s a second year student at this academy. We’re recruiting him into the student council so we have to somehow convince him to join. Since Michael here has a strange vendetta against him, we’re choosing the nice and straight forward way of persuasion; Victory through combat.”

“Hey, I don’t hate him or anything. He’s just annoying so I can’t help it.” I clarified, crossing my arms.

“Interesting.” Derrick thoughtlessly remarked. We both turned to look at him in disbelief. It took him a moment to notice our baleful gazes.

“I mean, that’s terrible! What a horrible person am I right?” He said, waving his hands around defensively, preparing for some kind of hammer-of-judgement to come his way.

“Yeah, he’s definitely a horrible person.” I agreed. “Arrogant and hot-tempered. Even though he’s irritating, his strength is definitely real.”

“Th-Then the question is how you're gonna beat him right?” Derrick asked, tentatively lowering his guard.

“Yeah. From the way he carried himself, he doesn’t seem to be experienced in close-range combat. He just sat back and fired from a distance after all.”

“From what I could see from the stands, his Magic requires a certain margin of time to charge before being shot.” Julia added. “Coupled with the seemingly weak constitution of his bullets, they should be relatively simple to neutralize if struck properly.”

“So in short, we just gotta get up-and-personal and whack the shit out of him.” I surmised. “That way, he doesn’t have time to charge his attacks and is forced to fight hand-to-hand.”

“No wait a minute, didn’t you try that last time and injure your arm? He’s still able to make barriers to block your attacks and even reflect the damage back at you. We have to find a way to get close and bypass his defense, all while making sure to pace ourselves and conserve our Essential reserves.”

“Hmm…”

So we gotta get close, bypass his defense, and do it all without wasting needless Essential power…

“Do you think I could somehow disperse his impact barrier the same way Arthur cleaved his bullet?”

Julia rubbed her head. “I doubt that’ll work the same way. If I’m correct, the reason Arthur could do that was because Aidin was firing them at him from a distance. As a result, the consistency of the Bullet wavered and dispersed over time, allowing him to disrupt its internal flow with a hyper-condensed vector slash.

“In the first place, the way Arthur was manipulating vectors is nothing like I’ve ever seen. For you to replicate such a technique is not going to be easy.”

His Magic is that strong huh?

“Then can you do something about it with your Magic? Like slapping a cuff on his wrist like you did to Derrick here.”

“Hey, don’t remind me of that, I’m getting flashbacks.” Derrick grumbled.

“Well, I’d have to get close enough to him to latch it on. And in the first place, that only worked on Derrick because he’s so weak.”

“I’m right here you know.”

“It wouldn’t work on Aidin whose attacks are much more powerful in comparison. He could break it in a matter of seconds.” Julia explained.

“So It’d work as a distraction at best.”

There’s no clear cut way that we can get past his defense. There has to be something. Think outside the box. Expand the scope of possibilities and narrow them down to the most effective methods possible.

…God, I haven’t thought this much since our last Math test.

What can I do, can we do, at this moment in time?

After some time thinking, I stood up and walked off to the side.

“What's going on, you got an idea?” Julia asked.

“Yeah. A way we can beat him using the skills we currently have.” I touched the contract ring on my index finger and looked back at the two of them.

“And it’s much simpler than you think.”