The shopping district was yet again buzzing with life. I had no idea what I was looking for so looking around and observing Misha was all I could do. Figuring out what those in my situation would do was quite the task. Most of these probably will also start following lectures tomorrow but most seemed more concerned with… cosmetics and sweet food. Can these Misha focus?! I’m planning an infiltration here!

This was getting me nowhere, the academy it is! The academy was easy to reach, the most important roads naturally went into that direction. The building was imposing but it didn't scare me, and I could easily enter the campus. It was as if it was a small village. It seemed relatively peaceful but I saw some Misha duelling not too far. There was a small crowd and I joined them.

They were standing still and flinging spells and blocking those that flew at them. It looked very similar to magic fights in video games. Then again Misha aren't gifted in physical attributes so evading will probably tire them out faster than throwing mana left and right. I already know that I won't fit in here. I have a lot of mana but most of it is inaccessible if I don't have my tails out. I will have to rely on Nilah to give me the mana. I’m actually very similar to a Misha right now. Without Nilah, my hat, I will get owned by these Misha because they will have way more mana than I have. Did Nilah steal all that mana in preparation for this? Impossible!

A blonde-haired Misha won but it seemed she had to work for it. I wanted to continue watching but I had the feeling I would get into trouble if I did that. I quietly separated from the group and continued walking around the campus. I noticed a crucial mistake that I had made and I had no time to correct it.

“You there! Where is your uniform!” Uhhm, I messed up a potion so it's in the wash.

“Excuses! Come here with me missy!” I got grabbed and dragged inside. “You should eat more or is this the potion that you messed up?” Let's go with that, yeah.

I got dragged through poorly lit corridors into a large bright room.

“Olivia, get this one a uniform, she had the gall to appear on the campus without one.”

“Ooh a gutsy newcomer, give me a moment. Hmm some nice proportions you have, the others might get jealous of you if you walk around like that.” Sorry, I messed up.

The nosy teacher dropped me off and was left alone with a tired looking Misha. “You seem quite young, what is your subject of interest?” Runic construction and destruction and magic skill synthesis.

“Hmm, there is not much material about that here, you might have to study by yourself a lot, don't forget to make friends! There I got your measurements, here is your uniform” She did a short incantation and my uniform appeared. It was ehh quite witchy.

Thanks. I swapped my clothes with the uniform and was about to put my old clothes into my dimensional pocket when I hesitated, how normal is this for Misha?

“Ooh, you have some very fast casting there, I didn't see the magic circle.”

Right, let's try to avoid doing this in the open.

It is the only one I can do that fast. I thanked her and left the room. I put the clothes in my dimensional pocket now nobody was looking and wandered through the halls. I snuck into an area that probably wasn't meant for students. This area seemed to lead toward where magic getting researched. Azu’s lab might be down here somewhere.

Some weird labs were down here. At least entrances to them. Every lab seemed to be locked with some strange barrier or locks and these decided how the front of the labs looked like. These locks gave a hint to the specialties and personalities of the ones owning them. The corridor ended but nothing that seemed reminiscent of Azu. It was time for Elgards eyes to shine!

There seemed to be 4 floors dedicated to personal labs and the deepest floors seem to have the biggest labs and one had a pool in front of it. It would be hard to use [Tsunami] without some water present so this might be it. I went into stealth and tried to find my way down. This whole academy had a convoluted floorplan. What's wrong with just some stairs on logical spots? This is a maze!

I was careful as Misha can't use stealth so getting detected would cause a lot of trouble.

2 hours is how long it took to get to Azu’s lab. Nobody was down here but wouldn't there be anything to monitor this place? Or do they just not care? I decided that it was a bad idea to blow my cover on the second day that I was here. I remembered how to get here and headed back home. I petted Nilah and ate some food I bought on the first day I got here.

----------------------------------------

The next morning was the day when I would find out. I put on my uniform and headed to the academy. There was a very clear system, the first half of the day were general lectures while the latter was specialized. The first one was a refresher on the basics of magic. It sounded boring as hell but there was no alternative. Next up is a lecture on how to deal with races that fight up close, humans included. It was just basic stuff but many Misha seemed as if this wasn't logical and paid a lot of attention.

“You there! You seem bored, what will you do when a fast beast kin rushes at you!”

You nuke the whole area or just teleport away.

“Not everyone can teleport, another solution please.”

Well, we have way more mana so I don't see why keeping pressure on him wouldn't work, it is not as if he can get through that without taking any damage. Then you blast him away with either wind magic, or an explosion, or block his path with earth magic and take some distance and then repeat it until he drops dead.

My peers seemed impressed and the lecturer approved. I don't know why this isn't common sense. So, this lecture was useless.

Next up was mastering your catalyst and hat efficiency. I’m not a Misha so this was completely useless to me. The last standard lecture was how to conduct research and put this down in writing. It was boring but I saw the merit in this so I paid attention. It would help me understand how the witches do research and understand Azu’s research and possibly other research better.

We had a break. The Misha tried to bond and form friends. I decided to stick to the last 2 lectures I had. Catalyst mastery and hat efficiency are useless to me but it does give me a lot of information about Misha and their strengths and weaknesses. It is just a matter of time before I piss one off so it would be wise to learn how to counter them. I tried to avoid contact with others because I will skip most lectures anyways.

There were more duels on campus. I observed from a distance. A magic attack got deflected and flew in my direction. I canceled it on reflex and this seemed to have gotten a lot of attention. I tried to pretend as if nothing happened.

“Hey, how did you do that?”

Hmm? What might you be referring to?

4 Misha gathered around me.

Uhh is this the part where I get ganged up on and beaten to a pulp?

“Huh, what are you talking about?”

I forgot that they have no sense of humor. My bad, how can I help?

“That attack just now, you didn't block it but it disappeared right? What did you do?!”

I desperately tried to think of something, dispelling magic attacks after they have been cast is quite uncommon because identifying its structure and upsetting its structure is needed to do this, and this is quite difficult to do without Elgards eyes.

I’m sorry that was just a fluke, I do not know either how I did that. The 4 seemed to buy into that lie but the Misha who cast the deflected spell approached me and didn't buy it.

“I recently perfected that spell, how would you ‘accidentally’ cancel a custom spell?” It looked a bit different from a normal [Fireball] but I wouldn't call it a custom skill. I could continue to feign ignorance, tell the truth or school them. What would cause the least trouble? I cast the same [Fireball] that I just canceled.

“What?! How!”

I started to dynamically change the runic structure to kick out some flaws. It took quite some effort to do it like this but it’s also good practice for me. Everyone took distance because my simple [Fireball] turned into some monstrous fireball that was generating a lot of heat.

Well, there you have it.

I stopped feeding the fireball mana and it went out. All I did was using concepts I had learned from Azu's book.

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“That was amazing! I thought my [Fireball] was special but you’ve shown me how ignorant I was! What are you studying?!” I didn't expect this reaction… Everyone seemed to be interested.

Runic construction, destruction and magic skill synthesis.

“Ooh, that makes a lot of sense! We’re from dynamic combat!”

Ah…

“You have no idea what that is eh? I don’t blame you! It’s fairly new! We Misha aren’t that great physically but the other races are and they tend to move around a lot which is something we can't really do; this is an adaptation to it for us.” Ah, so it’s just using magic as any other race does.

Ah, I see.

“How about a duel to demonstrate?” Uhm, I don’t think that's a good idea, I don't want to get hurt…

“Come it will be educational! My name is Shelly Manarune by the way, what is yours?” Agnès Oures, wait are you related to Beatrice Manarune?

“Yup! That is my mother, I want to surpass her one day but first our duel!”

Ugh, I don't want to. Can’t these Misha leave me alone? The crowd started to cheer me on. Let's see, I can't move a lot and I can't dispel stuff. Wait I will lose with those restrictions! I can’t use frost magic and my defensive skills are absolutely garbage. Uh oh, this is bad. Wait! That thing I did with Raishin! Just hit it with something of equal strength! I can do that!

The duel started and I started cancelling her [Fireballs] with mine. I wasn't moving but she wasn't moving much either. She started throwing other fire attacks around and I cancelled them with stronger [Fireballs].

“Is [Fireball] the only attack you know?” The answer is no but my fire skills are a bit too potent. “Heh! How about I force you to use your strongest fire spell? Take a [Taunt]!”

Nono, bad Idea! Get this [Taunt] off me!

The magic circle of [Meteor] started to form but it was way too fast for anyone to get a good read on it.

“I couldn’t see what skill that was the magic circle disappeared too fast, hit me with your best shot!” For the first time ever, I had to sabotage my own magic skill and managed to cancel [Meteor].

Phew, that ended almost badly.

“Hey! Are you taking me seriously?! Did you just cancel your own skill?!” I concede I can’t win this.

“Hey! You weren't even trying!”

I’m sorry, cancelling that took a lot out of me, excuse me. I walked away and started running after I turned around the corner. Duels are bad ideas. I need to stay low during the breaks.

The break ended and the specialized lectures began. Only 3 Misha sat here beside me and the lecture was some basic stuff I learned back in Hourai. The rest was self-study because this field was wildly unexplored. I headed to the library and was amazed. Apparently, half of this academy is taken up by this library. If I can’t find what I need here I can find it nowhere. I found a whole city block worth of books that were related to imbuing materials with mana-normal or special cases. Yes!!!

“Sssht!” A lot of Misha shushed me but I didn't care. Some seemed to be amused by my enthusiasm for knowledge. I started going through books but I had to keep it to a normal reading speed, unfortunately. This is going to take forever. There were so many interesting ones. But shortly after starting to read, I was about to get kicked out.

“Hey, are you listening? You’ve been studying here for the last 6 hours, take a break and go home, we’re closing for the day." What? 6 hours? That can't be right I came here 20 minutes ago. Oh... it's already that late…

“I also haven't seen you eat missy, take more care of your health, now scram!” I got kicked out of the library and entered empty corridors. I haven't found yet what I was looking for but judging from the information I found it will only be a matter of time. I repeated this routine for a month until one of my worst nightmares came to pass.

“Right, today we will have live duels!” Ugh! I feel sick! Can I go home?!

“Stop messing around Agnès you always do strange things; you can go first! Show us your mastery over your catalyst! Uhm, it’s malfunctioning, I think It needs to get sent to maintenance.

“Get over here!” The lecture hall slowly expanded and created an open space. “I will personally test you!” I concede I will accept a failing mark.

“I have heard that you keep conceding duels, have more confidence in yourself!” Well, someone has to be the biggest loser of the academy, I will sacrifice myself and take that name.

“You are not funny Agnès! Now focus!”

Ugh. I was facing my lecturer who seemed ready to kick my ass. I have to make sure it’s a spectacular ass-kicking else I will get accused of not taking things seriously again.

How about this! If I can’t hit you within 3 spells I concede!

“How about this, if you don't take this seriously you will have to fight everyone in this hall!” Can I use lethal force?

“That’s the spirit!” I used a juiced-up [Fireball] and sent it to the lecturer.

I ran at her to her surprise. I threw my staff at her head which she took directly. She did block the [Fireball] but didn't block the [Staff Throw]. She tried to cast something but I put my hands in the magic circle and manually interfered with it. How about it did I pass?

“Throwing your catalyst?! Are you insane?!” But I used it as you said…

“I feel as if you did this to mock me, You need a disciplinary lecture!” But… I didn't concede…

“Go sit down and watch the others!” So difficult…

I picked up my staff and went to sit down. The other students were divided into being upset and being interested.

A Misha turned around. “Hey, that was an impressive [Fireball]!” I don't think the lecturer agrees.

“Agnès! Shut up!” The lecturer seemed to have it out for me.

I had to sit through boring turret fights. They just stood still casting stuff and blocking them. I survived and got scolded at the end of the lecture and it was finally break time.

“Hey, it's the Fireball Misha!" A rumor seems to be spreading that [Fireball] is the only skill I can use. Water magic is not a good idea, I can't use earth magic and lightning is certainly a bad idea. There is wind left but I don't know many wind spells either. So, there is only fire left and well magic that Misha typically can’t use so I’m stuck with fire. I’m not here to kill people so I’m also limited in what I can use. So, I'm fine with only be known for using [Fireball]. I ate my lunch and a Misha approached me. I forgot her name but she started all this.

“I finally found you! You are like a ghost! I want you to check this out!” She showed me a [Fireball] that looked better than the previous one she showed but it was still quite shit. I cast a [Fireball] that increased the temperature around us by 2 degrees.

“I knew it! You might know only 1 spell but you have perfected it!” Uhh, it’s nowhere near perfect and I can use more but… Some objects near me caught on fire because of the heat and I put them out.

Aren't you wondering what my other fire skills will do if I can do this with a [Fireball]? She got silent and seemed to have come to a realization. Some eavesdropping Misha had this same realization too.

“So, you’re not only using [Fireball] because it's the only spell you know but the only spell you can use?” I will leave that up to your interpretation, I have to study, now please excuse me.

I left an air of mystery behind. Anyways I’m getting too much attention. I’ve almost finished the book city block and it’s soon time to disappear into Azu’s lab. It’s not exactly what I was looking for but I found something that could work. I am planning to read more but this will do for now.

The librarians were getting tired of kicking me out. I was reading when I felt myself getting levitated. I guess it's closing time. Thank you for your services, I won't bother you anymore, goodbye.

“Huh? Wait!”

I returned back home by tugging on my [Dimensional Anchor]. Nilah turned back to her fox form, stretched and curled up to sleep after we arrived at Azu's house. I decided to sleep too, I would break into Azu’s lab tomorrow and lock myself in and study whatever she has discovered.