----------------------------------------
<01/20/1972 – 11:00 | Lennith Training Academy, Junon Region, Sprawn Valley>
"I'm telling you! They're both about to battle."
When did this happen? Alyssa struggled to make her way to the front of the kids before of her, watching Jane following Claudia to an arena pit, but this came a while after hearing them argue about something over at the lone desk. Something felt strange about the way Jane and Claudia were talking to each other moments ago. Do they know one another? What was that outburst earlier? Why would she battle the new student in the first place?
Claudia could hear the whispers of her students climbing in volume as they all surrounded the area. She and Jane were standing only twenty meters apart from each other, but the standoff had that familiar formation of an impending Leray match. In the sectioned area with lines drawn on the metal floor, it was obvious that excitement would soon spark. Claudia glanced around before proceeding. Apparently it became rumored already that she was about to battle against her new student. Everybody was eagerly watching, naturally more excited to see what the unfamiliar could do in this instance. "This isn't a battle children!" Claudia cleared her throat, firmly establishing that this set up wasn't what it seemed. She would have preferred not to make it anybody's business, but that was far out of her end at the moment. "It's a simple training exercise."
Jane had others surrounding her from the side too, only to remain far back for their own safety. Apparently, Claudia wasn't going to create a dome shield for this little test of hers. It wasn't necessary to do so anyway. Jane felt she understood what was going on partially. Claudia told her that the best way to perform a test on her is to have an exchange of attacks and see how her health and stamina reacts to taking the damages on the energy scope. Though as far as the class was concerned, they were still interested enough to hover around at a safe distance. Though without any walls or shields in place, any stray magic would surely hit someone. "Ready when you are." Jane had no idea exactly what this was supposed to tell her mentor, but she seemed so certain this was going to work. Claudia seemed so certain right now, it gave Jane the vain hope that this test may reveal something new to her.
Claudia changed her stance, proving that she really does have a specific fighting style. Some relax their body, while others have specific stances used to prepare themselves either for attacking or dodging in very specific ways. "Good Jane. You may now engage your energy scope. I'll do the same my end."
Jane nodded and sent a micron percent of her MP energy to engage her scope. The orange holographic text appeared above her head, immediately reminding her of the things Dr. Ashly told her earlier. Energy scopes are not always orange; they're color coded to detect various stats that are important to know during battles, with red being the color to watch out for.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/02dvNLgy/S2-Jane-N-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/qMgVxgSW-/S2-Claudi-N-000.png]
They say that people can control the name that shows up as their identity on an energy scope, provided they are in control of its invocation. Because of this, the name that appears for one's energy scope can be faked, hidden, or changed. In this case, it appeared that Claudia really did love her nickname that was only a syllable less than her legal name. As common as it seemed, most people hide their last name from that roster in the energy scope. Jane never understood why this was necessary.
Now it was Jane versus Claudi, or so it may have seemed. "I'll go first," Claudi shouted. She was used to raising her voice in a combat situation, since it helped her focus. All she needed to do was carefully monitor the stats of Jane's variables as she takes damage. Electro-Ball is a good idea for a first spell. It consumes little MP, has a very low power level, and still is not easy to dodge. On the plus side, electric attacks cannot be blocked either. If Jane is hit by one, it will register the full damage amount as such.
Claudia has her own unique fighting style, which applies to every single ability she knows. When firing low powered unguided projectiles, her training states that the best offensive technique to launch such an attack is to use it in a barrage. Three Electro-Balls should do the trick, assuming Jane may try to dodge at least one of them. Jane shouldn't dodge anything, but her instincts foretold otherwise even in this situation. The damage from one Electro-Ball against someone of Jane's skill level should take off about six or seven percent of her health. So that means Jane's HP should head down towards 88% if she is hit by two, and 82% if she gets hit by all three. It's the standard damage level proportion for what will be happening soon. Jane also doesn't have any other outfit on right now. Common dress spheres like hers don't offer any specific damage protection either, so the calculations should be precise. "Electro-Ball!" Claudia twirled into a full spin, charging the energy into her hands while creating the ball of electricity during her spin. The idea made her sequence less predictable, despite the fact that she shouted the name of her own spell. Claudia had two jade colored glyphrings, one for each wrist. By the time she was facing Jane again, she threw her arms outward, shooting out two electric balls of magical energy towards Jane.
Jane saw the projectiles incoming already, but she wasn't expecting more than one to fly towards her. By total instinct of seeing a familiar projectile flying at her face, she immediately jumped out of the way, but in doing so, the other Electro-Ball that previously wasn't on a path to hit her suddenly was. Against her better judgment, Jane took the impact before she could even brace herself. The ball of electricity slammed into her body, immediately forcing her to freeze up in an electric shock that lasted for a full second. Just after it ended, a third Electro-Ball hit Jane again, zapping her in place for another second.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/ydBX7g0d/S2-Jane-N-041.png]
If there was anything Jane hated more than getting herself wiped by an opponent in a Leray match, it was taking on damage from an electric type attack. The sensation after the shock left her entire body tingling in a painful sensation that all her nerves were shot, but this time she didn't feel as drained by it. Her MP was unchanged, and her health stats were pretty high. Despite this, Jane was surprised at herself once again. Electro-Ball is a weak spell for advanced trainers, and yet Jane's health took a serious dive.
Claudia immediately noticed the change on Jane's energy scope. It went down to 82% instead of 88%, and she watched moments earlier as Jane hopped her body out of the way. It was predictable, yet surprising to say the least that her HP stats really did not follow the standard rules. Claudia knew of her specific power levels for each spell. Though she had much practice with a simple Electro-Ball attack, she also knew how to control its average power level cap, and used that to calculate the average expected damage per projectile, but if Jane's endurance was cut in half, the HP would have dropped even more than what was just now reported. She couldn't call this conclusive just yet. What Jane was talking about wasn't really confirmed, but now it was time to see how Jane's attacks go. "You're turn Jane."
"Right." Jane didn't know she was going to be attacking as well, but her teacher did say something about a two way system. It didn't make sense to her, but that was the response she got for asking if she was supposed to return fire. So without further ado, Jane quickly go over her previous pain to prepare for her counterattack. Jane went with her own style as well, pulling out her daggers from the pockets in her dress. Jane began charging her MP energy into each blade.
Jane already knew this, but her next choice of attack wasn't much stronger than Claudia's spell at all. It still did the job while conserving a lot of her own MP levels. "Mako Beam!" Releasing that energy with her daggers aimed at Claudia's body, Jane fired the two narrow blue beams of energy, striking as quickly as lightning and hitting Claudia because of it. Jane fired a third Mako Beam just to make the damage seem a little higher, but then she stopped and put her daggers back where she found them. Claudia took all of the beams head on, but she hardly seemed fazed by their effects. They make one feel drained of their energy more than they do any real damage.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/CLtyPSV5/S2-Claudi-N-001.png]
Claudia didn't feel all that hurt from the attack, but at the same time, Jane's MP levels barely faltered from it either. Mako Beam? She had never in all her life heard of such a skill. How interesting to see that Jane could do something like that! Unfortunately, because of her poor choice in a good magical attack, the test was still inconclusive. If Jane was ever going to really push herself for the results she needed, Claudia was going to have to turn up the heat, quite literally. "I need to see more Jane. We need to increase the pressure! Fiery Plume!" Claudia's hand lifted up from below her knee, a body movement that was required to activate the spell, along with releasing a ton of her own energy.
The result manifested itself before Jane's eyes. The metal ground below them shifted violently, like that of an earthquake, and then blasts of shooting rocks, air, and hot lava via fiery streams began blasting up from the ground in narrow beams. Interestingly, the magic of the fire and shooting rock formed from phase as it was incapable of harming the metallic floor below, though the power level was just as effective regardless. More of them followed all over the place, shooting up fire plumes in various randomized locations in the form of an area attack. It wasn't long at all before Jane was hit by just one of them, a fiery hot plume of lava mist blasting from below all over her body. Because of the strange room design, the floor itself remained unchanged, creating only the illusion that the floor had been breached.
Jane flew backwards from the force of the attack itself, but the sensation of having her skin set to fire became so real. She uncontrollably screamed in the pain it provided her, a crazy and powerful area attack that left a massive burn everywhere. Claudia had singlehandedly scorched the battlefield and dealt a massive amount of fire-based damage to her character. Yes, it did hurt, but she needed Jane to react with more violent attacks too, which gave her reason of choice more validity.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/cHm7Cxcc/S2-Jane-N-042.png]
Jane's entire body was still smoking from the after effect of the dormant attack. The ground ceased its quaking, but the lingering pain swelled tears into Jane's eyes, embarrassing her since it would show. Fiery Plume was something new to Jane's mind. It has to be a strong and wicked spell to deal this much damage. That fiery air was hotter than anything she ever felt before. The only force in the world that prevented her skin from actually catching fire and burning down to bone was the veil of magical protection in Sprawn Valley.
Claudia was still processing the results. Jane did take a massive amount of damage from an incredibly strong attack, but it was still a lot of damage even then. Fiery Plume has a power level of eight, therefore, the test still didn't help all that much to match her suspicions. Claudia went too harsh on Jane that time. Still, the only possible way that Jane could have received this much damage intake was to assume she was a rookie at all of this. It was too soon to make the assumption.
Jane pulled her daggers out again, charging energy in them with a different wave form this time. She knew how to use more powerful spells than her first feeble strike, and now was the time to let loose everything she had. Jane slightly jumped up in the air, giving her arms a jump boost when they threw her daggers forward in a spinning cross formation. "Flying Guillotine!"
The daggers spinning in the air formed another red circle of light, nearly flat and horizontally aligned as it jammed through the space coursing for Claudia. She wanted to dodge, but Flying Guillotine strikes two times instead of one like a boomerang. As Claudia got caught up in the strategy to dodge the attack, she simply left herself vulnerable to the cutting strike. The Flying Guillotine slammed into Claudia, drilling its way through her body as if she were a ghost, though damage was being done in a high amount for sure.
Claudia took significant damage over and over for each micro-second that her body was strapped inside of the damage aura, the daggers slicing and cutting in as many places as possible midair. Eventually, Jane's daggers flew in the direction of which they came, defusing the red circle of damage and allowing her to catch her small blades.
Shortly after catching her daggers, Jane released even more energy, throwing another magical skill to the ground with her arms. "Shadow Wave!" Jane cast a Shadow Wave on the metal floor, now making its way towards the teacher again.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/x1bwBh0R/S2-Claudi-N-002.png]
Claudia had no time to read the amount of damage Jane's last attack inflicted, because another one was heading her way now. Though in an amazing shock of development, the Shadow Wave heading her way suddenly grew wider and taller, spanning out to trap its target and increase damage potential. Actually, that's what all Shadow Waves are designed to do, bound to the earth and growing by distance until the attack time is finally upon the darkened slashing winds, but this manifestation was different. The proportions were much more epic than anything Claudia had ever seen before. Jane's Shadow Wave was about three times the maximum size of any other Shadow Wave. Once it slammed into her body, Claudia held her arms over her head, hoping it would not harm her too badly.
Jane knew about her enhanced Shadow Wave spell a long time ago, the fact that it miraculously became much stronger overnight. It wasn't a surprise for her, but even right now, Jane was expecting a little less even from her own magical potential. The Shadow Wave increased in speed sliding on the ground until it finally collided into her target. Claudia was suddenly forced frozen in place, the damage combination and aura striking her multiple times per partial-second and preventing Claudia from getting out of the attack. At the end of any Shadow Wave, the aura explodes into a cloudy mist, only throwing out little invisible force. This time, the aura exploded into a dark shadowy mist that faded almost as quickly as it appeared. The blast from it didn't really cause any extra damage, but it was enough force to throw Claudia backwards and off her balance. When it was finally over, both of them checked to see how effective the hit was.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/TPMzx01X/S2-Claudi-N-003.png]
It did 21% damage. It couldn't be! A Shadow Wave doesn't become that powerful in such short of a time. Even elites who use Shadow Wave can't normally master that much power into a simple attack spell! Claudia was impressed, but furthermore satisfied that something finally revealed itself. Jane really is using more powerful attacks, without actually doing so. In particular, her amplified power level obviously shows up more with magical aura abilities. Shadow Wave derives energy from a buildup of magic generated by a person's aura. Perhaps Jane can naturally amplify her aura in some way. In any case, this means that her defense and offense are quite opposites of each other. If the exchange proves this to be true once again, then the prediction that Jane's mysterious spell bomb is actually the Amahar or Aggressor Spell bomb would be confirmed.
It's not like one more variable will hurt the results. Jane did follow up Flying Guillotine with Shadow Wave too, so that may have been the cause of so much damage. Claudia released some more of the energy she was charging, giving Jane another harmful spell. "Rotation!" Claudia quickly released all of her energy to form a powerful tornado of visible spinning winds in front of her. Her invocation was nearly instant this time, and the vortex of wind was almost the entire height of the ceiling. As Claudia pushed forward with her hands, the twister responded and slid towards Jane at an incredible speed.
Jane had no idea how to avoid this. It resembled a Whirlwind attack, though with every element exaggerated. The visible vortex of wind had a higher traveling speed, sliding at Jane while throwing every bit of air into the wind with it. The overall size was nearly doubled that of Whirlwind, and it was heading towards Jane, trapping her near the center of the twister. Jane tried to block out any potential damage, but she really just wanted to avoid taking any hits to her face. Suddenly, she was taking on random invisible slashes in the vortex, while the wind blew everything around, making it hard to see. The rotation of wind lasted only for four seconds more, but it continuously dealt slashing damage to Jane by combination of hits in its duration. They felt like lesser versions of dagger strikes against her skin, but once it was over, Jane felt a bit more drained than she was before.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/Wz1GJBWc/S2-Jane-N-043.png]
Claudia's jaw nearly dropped at the sight of the damage. Her earlier attacks left a question mark in her mind regarding Jane's natural endurance, but this time, it was for certain as Jane said before. Rotation is a complete and total upgrade form of a mobile Whirlwind attack known as Twister. Damage is doubled, range is improved, as well as speed and invocation time. Even so, it's not powerful enough to deal more than about 16% of damage on an unarmored target. Instead, Jane took in about twice that amount. So she really is defenseless!
There wasn't much time though to acknowledge this and tell Jane that the test was over. No, Jane was already moving in for a counterattack of her own. Claudia would just have to sit there and take it head on, or dodge if possible.
Jane released her energy, forming a rotating red glyphring around her wrist. "Tri-Fire!" Jane's invocation of the glyphring took a lot longer than it took to actually shoot three Fire Bolts from that same glyphring. Her timing became improved already, but it was noticeable to others how new she was to the spell cast. Jane fired one Fire Bolt after the other, creating shooting projectiles of explosive fire balls towards her target. Jane would always have to twist her arm each time after the first Fire Bolt in order to launch the next two, but it was something she was used to by now.
Just before Claudia was hit by the first Fire Bolt, she noticed the subtle changes in Jane's MP status as she shot them out more and more. Triple Fire drains MP levels gradually, depleting a certain amount just as one of the three Fire Bolts is launched. As an advantage, this means that if she get interrupted, she doesn't end up wasting the total MP cost of the spell itself.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Claudia took the first hit near her face, using her arms to shield that part of her body. Then the second one slammed into her torso, making the third one hit her upper chest. She could already feel the blasting burns of the intense fire-based spell, and almost felt bad about using Fiery Plume against Jane earlier. It might not have been necessary to choose a powerful attack based on how painful it was at the same time.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/bvxKwnSS/S2-Claudi-N-004.png]
Claudia tried to recover quickly, taking a peek again at Jane's energy scope.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/PJVmbS9p/S2-Jane-N-044.png]
Just as she thought. The actual MP consumption from Jane's side was somehow reduced overall. It doesn't matter how well anyone has mastered Triple Fire. The MP cost will never drop below 16% collectively, and that's selling it at best. Jane only used 12% of her MP to invoke the spell. Which begs the question "why?" Claudia didn't want this to continue anymore. Now that there was a third unexpected result found, it was time to give it a rest. She waved her arm up high, signaling to Jane. "That's enough Jane. Test over."
Jane was preparing to use another ability, but now it was over. Claudia was done with... Come to think of it, what did this even do? What could a half-felt battle possibly tell anyone about the effects of a spell bomb?
----------------------------------------
Chapter Theme Shift: Peril ~ Halo 2 OST
----------------------------------------
Claudia still felt uneasy about trying to provoke Jane to use better spells with such a harsh skill. The Fiery Plume attack Jane took earlier left visible burn scars on her skin, normally not possible with protection from the veil. Though it could still be instantly healed with items on the count of maintaining Leray type damage. "Come here. I'll give you a med kit orb for that." Jane followed her instructions already, still a bit winded by the Fiery Plume she took on earlier. That and her HP status were much too low for the test to be inconclusive.
Jane took the healing orb from Claudia's hands. "Thanks." Then she activated the unit, making it glow brightly until it disintegrated into her own body, immediately healing the HP and MP levels on her energy scope. Claudia already disabled her scope, and Jane did the same shortly after. "So what did this tell you?"
Claudia had to ignore the prying eyes and ears of the other students. They were supposed to be training, but all of them had to be curious as to what she was doing with the new student. Luckily for her, explanations were not required, and by the end of that battle, some returned to their stations out of boredom. Claudia was still in thought about what all of it meant for sure, but as Jane was demanding answers of what was currently known, Claudia had to pause between some of her sentences. "As we battled, I took note of every variance and change that occurred on both of our energy scopes. I already contain a lot of knowledge based on how much damage and MP cost a normal spell being used by a normal person should hold at average as well as the maximum deviations."
Jane already felt lost, but one thing was for sure. Claudia wasn't lying to her before about teaching school for two decades, considering she knows this much already.
"It took some time for any results to actually show themself in a conclusive way, but I can safely say that your defensive endurance is much less than what it should be set to."
"Told ya so!" Jane let that blurt without much thought, confusing her teacher on the spot. This evident moment was really meant for Danny and Taylor for doubting her earlier. It does seem crazy to say at first, but Jane knew her own body and talents. Something really wasn't right after all, and now the local expert was saying as much. Still, it was surprising that such a simple test was able to tell Claudia this much. So the Amahar spell bomb really did affect her! "Sorry." Jane had to apologize for interrupting with that outburst, allowing her teacher to continue.
Claudia continued after Jane's apology. "And when I was taking some of your attacks, I noticed that my own health dropped a lot further down than it should have. One might say that you also possess heightened magical strength and power levels, particularly on the side of attack auras."
"Half the defense and double the power," Jane rehearsed. "It's exactly like the aggressor spell bomb, but online it said that those things are not permanent effects in battle."
Claudia put her hand out in front of Jane to get her to stop talking. "Something's not right though. I'm no longer convinced that you're the victim of a prototype Amahar spell bomb, and I think it is also safe to say that your power levels are actually not elevated at all."
"But..." Jane didn't understand. What did that even mean? Didn't Claudia just claim the opposite a second ago? "You just said..."
She nodded left and right, calling up another change she noticed when fighting against Jane. "I said it seems like it is higher, but there are actually two ways to increase an attack's power level, one of which does not involve doubled strength or spell boosting statuses... Jane. When you used the spell Tri-Fire against me, did you note the drop in your MP levels?"
"Um, no. I don't check my scope until—"
"Well I did." Claudia hated interrupting people like that, but she already knew what Jane was going to say. Jane isn't the person to check her energy scope until after taking additional damage, never right after using a costly ability. "How much MP do you believe it would cost to use Triple Fire, even for an expert who has mastered the ability?"
Jane stuttered, "I don't know, maybe sixteen percent?"
"Have you mastered Triple Fire?"
Jane pointed to herself, surprised Claudia would even ask her. Where was this going? "Uh, not really. I only learned it two days ago."
"Exactly!" Claudia pointed out. "I saw the drop of MP on your scope the minute you used that ability, and then checked it again after I finished taking the damage. For someone who has just learned a brand new ability, it should have drained about 21% of your MP levels. But for you, it only cost twelve percent."
"Wh - what?" No way! Twelve percent? That's underpowered! Jane only noticed now - that for quite a long time after leaving Monoc Port, she had not been paying any direct attention to the amount of MP she put into each of her spells, only stopping the charge when she could feel them ready, but if she was technically undercharging spells, they shouldn't have triggered at all. Was it true? Did Jane only use half the amount of energy per spell?
"And despite how little it is costing you, the result is somehow leading you to overpower your normal spells without you realizing it, thus increasing the damage by a certain threshold."
"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Hold on a sec." Jane needed to hear this as clear as she could, because it wasn't believable as it was now. "Are you saying that, my doubled magical strength is actually the result of me overpowering all of my skills subconsciously, yet somehow using a lot less MP than what is actually needed to get the job done? It doesn't make any sense. That would be a double negative."
"Not exactly," Claudia denied. It was only now that she realized that in the middle of their conversation, all of her nosey students became too confused or bored to keep up, and they all went back to practicing on their own again. The more open space gave her the closure she was previously lacking. "No, it's not just overpowering. You're conserving MP energy somehow. You're actually meeting the necessary MP cost requirements to trigger the effects of your spells, yet somehow you've managed to compress your reserves. It's a strange form of MP conservation. I've never seen something like it before, but it explains why your spells are more powerful, even if you are appearing to give them less MP. The proportions are all different, and it only makes it seem like you are saving MP energy."
"I still don't understand." Jane forgot to consider that Claudia would have a hard time dumbing down her statement even if she could figure this out.
"Think about it like this then. Let's say that you have exactly twelve thousand magical points stored in your body right now, the maximum you can carry at this time. In battle, that number is condensed into a percent of the maximum fraction by the reports. If you use Fire Bolt, it has a general MP cost of a specific magical point threshold, not a percent of total capacity. It's just that we're so used to seeing fractions in battle that we choose to represent the values as such." Claudia knew where she was going with this, but she still had an unanswered question of her own. "It doesn't matter who you are. That Fire Bolt spell will always cost the same amount of actual points, but for someone more trained and therefore carrying more magical points, their percent of usage will decrease in an actual battle, the actual value of energy still the exact same. What I'm saying is, the only possible way you can be conserving MP energy in the process of reducing overall costs is if you have a very high magical essence level. In other words, you've somehow increased your maximum MP capacity beyond limits even I have seen."
Jane recalled it quickly; Claudia was talking about the difference between the ratio of MP percentage and Magical Essence points (ME). "So, you're saying I've got the most amount of magical points around here? But I thought that requires years of practice and experience!" Jane felt so frustrated. What is Claudia understanding that she isn't?
"It does. However, on the off chance that your mysterious spell bomb is far from the resemblance of the Amahar spell bomb, it could have instead cut your endurance down while boosting your overall MP capacity levels. I can't dare say what the actual growth rate factor is yet, but there's more."
"More?!"
"At first, I thought your ME number was really high, and it might still be, but that isn't all. You've learned Triple Fire as well as many other abilities in just a day's worth of time. I hate to bring this up again, but this rate of experience is not normal either."
First the endurance is lowered, then the ME is raised, and now Claudia thinks that my quick learning ability is also part of the spell bomb too? Jane would do anything to protest the idea, but now that she really thought about it, Jane's hard training never paid off so quickly before her graduation compared to the night at Monoc. "What does it all mean?" How is Claudia piecing this together so quickly?
"It means whatever spell bomb you used on yourself is something incredible, probably worth millions of credits in its early development. You've suddenly gained the power to learn all new abilities at a much faster rate, pick up on energy signals quicker than most people can, and on top of that, you've maximized your total magical potential while earning a passive skill that allows you to conserve or compress the very cost of your magical abilities all at the same time. Though it did cost you defense, that's a really big enhancement you've obtained. I've studied thousands of different spell bomb designs, and I know already that there isn't a spell bomb like that in the world."
"But how do we know that's even real? How can we really tell if you're right?" Jane didn't want to have doubts, but what Claudia was saying now totally trumped Jane's earlier ideas. Whatever the spell bomb is - has suddenly become more of a mystery now than it ever did before. Jane knew that the effects of the spell bomb were crazy in how they affected her, but Claudia just gave that notion a total upgrade.
"I have just the thing." Claudia turned to the unit installed on one of the walls near her desk. "That scanner over there. It's designed to determine all changes that have taken effect on someone's energy scope."
Where did that thing come from? Jane never noticed the strange scanning unit attachment until Claudia pointed it out to her, though the coloration did allow it to blend in better. That's not important. Was Claudia having a moment? "We've already established that my energy scope fails to report all of these little changes."
"True that is," Claudia agreed. "Whether you are plugged into an advanced scanner, or you just run the digitally programmed scanner installed to your energy scope, you would indefinitely get the same results. However, there is one type of change that would not be able to hide from a deep scanner unit. Jane, the average points of magic a person of your level should have is around eight thousand at best. I have about forty thousand on hand because of my own experience and age with practice. I bet people such as the champion of Leray magic might break the scale itself, but I still want to find out for myself Jane. If I am right, then your magical points should far exceed that of what you should have at present. Care to have a look?"
This was all so sudden, but if Claudia could really deduce all of this from a few exchange of spells, then she has to be the expert. Come to think of it, nobody ever thought to check the capacity of her personal ME levels using any equipment like that, since it was never a suspected symptom of this curse. A prototype spell bomb coming from an unknown corporation - possibly illegally built, doing all of this crazy voodoo? Is this what that guy meant by dangerous? He should have used the term experimental; if only it wasn't permanent. Jane took her time to answer, but eventually nodded and followed the teacher down to the deep scanner. What else could she say? Even if this breaks the seal on her inner most secret regarding the spell bomb to the entire class, she has to find out the full truth for herself now.
The machine was an interesting set up. It's some sort of dome looking headwear with a computer terminal on top of the dome, hooked up to an adjustable wall slider. There was a chair under the unit, meaning Jane was supposed to sit down there and put that contraption on her head. The dome thing appeared to look a lot more like a geeky transparent helmet up close, and the computer terminal on top was physically attached to the unit. On the inside of the dome, there were two circular nodes on each ear side, pointing towards each other as the method of the brainwave scanner. At least it didn't have any needles or wires that looked painful. Jane nervously sat down in the seat, while Claudia stood above her, hooking up the device and getting it prepared.
"Hey Claudi?" Jane got her attention, though Claudia was still busy hooking up the device for her. "I... I didn't know what was going to happen when I told you about it - about the spell bomb, but thank you. I didn't expect you to be such an expert."
"Well I did say that I was interested before, didn't I? At first, I thought you had a lot of potential, in the sense that your immediate ability to learn new skills was just a natural talent unique only to you. But now that I know it's a symptom of something else, I just want you to understand what your real talent is, the natural one I mean, and just focus on that from here on."
Jane tilted her head down a notch. What is it people say about her anyway? If it was something Danny or Taylor told her, she would trust that in a heartbeat, but they never actually spoke of what made Jane special, or for themselves. It was much more of a guessing game instead. Danny is the overconfident one, but it also leaves him with a true sense of where to place his responsibilities. Taylor is... Well... Taylor's not so easy to understand, but she isn't a bad person, and she's willing to go the extra mile to learn anything. It reminds Jane of... Actually, it reminds Jane of herself when she used to train a long time ago.
There's nothing more that I love than Leray magic. It was her motto growing up as a child, and she used that to get all serious about learning the actual abilities and skills people use in school. The dream of becoming a Leray master her drive, reason to train harder than physically possible in the hopes that the dream turns reality. Yet this crazy spell bomb curse still has one thing out to get her; cutting her endurance in half. Would it even be possible to adjust to thais? How can one create a defense using offense, or whatever the hell was happening to her now?
"Here we go," Claudia announced. She finished fine-tuning the scan set parameters, giving the device instructions to begin doing its job. The glass helmet slowly began to descend closer to Jane's head, sliding down from the wall with such a slow and delicate speed. The dome has a proximity sensor inside of it; that way it would not simply continue to descend forever and harm the user. Once it was down far enough, the helmet completely covered Jane's head, but it was transparent too, so she got to see straight through the glass. Jane could see Claudia on the outside, keeping her eyes on the monitor above her. The scan began taking place, using the sensors on each side to pull up the readings.
Jane suddenly seemed nervous and squeamish, but it was to be expected. "Just stay still for this part." Claudia waited as the scan initiated. It began to make a low pitch pulsing noise that carried on a low volume pattern of vibrations for a full minute. Once the scan was almost completed, Jane's energy scope was suddenly forced into real time space, floating in front of her.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/K8G23JFr/S2-Jane-Deepscan-01-HQ.png]
Jane already told Claudia about using two normal MP up and HP up Spell bombs while she traveled Route 96 in the night, but even so, they barely contributed to her real capabilities on the field. After reading the number of magical points, represented on a scale of Magical Essence, Jane and Claudia both lost their marbles.
"Forty-seven thousand three hundred eighty?!" Claudia couldn't control herself or her volume, on the count of how unexpected this was.
"Unbelievable," Jane added. She knew exactly what that number meant and what the unit stood for. It means that Jane is capable of storing an average amount of magical points that nearly equals or surpasses that of a Leray elite who has been training intensely for several years if not decades.
Claudia repeated without much other tone, "Forty-seven thousand three hundred eighty."
It was clear that Claudia was at a loss for any other words, but Jane found it just as surprising. She too knew about the scale and the numbers that slowly incline with physical and magical training given experience. Needless to say, this incline was a bit too fast for comfort. "Is that even safe?" Jane wondered. If shouldn't be normal for a person her age with basic training to house that much capacity, and Jane knew for certain that this was abnormal beyond measure.
"It's not dangerous." Her tone was disrupted by the ongoing surprise. "This number, it's almost as high as my own. How is it possible for a single spell bomb to do that? It couldn't contain that much energy."
"Energy..." Energy is what did this? "Is it possible for spell bombs to charge energy into a person from an outside source?"
"A summoned source maybe, but not one single spell bomb actually exists with this much potential," Claudia reported. "I can't say your prototype did so either. It isn't possible."
Jane regretfully kept the information to herself. She never did tell Claudia about the gigantic and blinding beam of light that shot down from the sky, crashing into her body shortly after an unidentified symbol summoned itself from the spell bomb. Even if she did tell her, Claudia said there wasn't a thing like it at all, and that means this spell bomb really is a prototype, an unknown. If that beam of energy turned out to have been some sort of ME charging sequence that forced its way into Jane's aura, then it explained perfectly why her ME stats were elevated so much. The beam of energy shot down from the moon itself, after it had been summoned by weather changing spells infused into the same spell bomb, turning day into night, possibly via time distortions, or purely perceptual warping magic. If Claudia knew about that at all, Jane would be in a lot of trouble. In her case, the use of any spell bomb at all given the circumstances at that time were illegal for her, and she broke that law anyway.
"Maybe it is," Jane coerced. "Anyway to reverse this spell bomb?"
"Reverse it?!" Claudia nearly choked on Jane's idea of a joke. "You realize how much potential this now gives you? With this much MP conservation going on, there might even be a way to artificially counter your endurance problem." Claudia gave Jane the hope of news she had been waiting for, while turning off the scan and lifting up the helmet.
"There is?!" Jane wanted to jump up in surprise, but she first had to wait for this helmet to raise far enough upwards to get out of her seat. Claudia however didn't seem all that sure of herself, more like she was pondering whether the possibility existed.
"You would have to use your conservation method at three times the power you were using it from before, and the sine waves for the aura would have to be completely re-done. The aura type would have to change into..."
"What are you talking about?"
Claudia turned to Jane, who was now standing and eagerly awaiting her solution to counteract the low defenses she permanently has stuck to her. "I can't put this into words yet. The spell has to be modified first. Take a break for now Jane. I'll be at my desk trying to figure out the conversion sequence."
"Oh. Okay." It sounded a lot more counter-suspenseful than Jane was hoping for. Claudia must have been working a lot of mathematical equations in her head. Jane momentarily got the impression that Claudia could invent new spell bombs if she chose to, but if Claudia really could fix this without even having to reverse Jane's spell bomb, she could skip all worry about the dangers of Alpha Zero before getting to the Den of Purity. Claudia turned away to go to her work, already pulling out strange documents from her metallic desk. So that's what she uses that thing for. Claudia isn't just a teacher after all, but also a researcher too! It's no longer a question why she is an expert on local spell bombs.
"Excuse me?"
"Huh?" Jane heard someone's voice behind her, and turned around to look. It was one of the classmates, and not just any random face. Jane recognized Alyssa from before, during their lesson in the classroom. Jane was surprised in the two pigtails Alyssa threw together, as she didn't expect it. She also didn't know much about Alyssa at all. Alyssa seemed sluggish to move, somewhat limping her left side like she was injured or something.
"I hate to be that person, but what the hell is going on here?" Alyssa sounded firm, getting right to the point and asking Jane the direct question.
It was too bad though that Jane had no idea what was on Alyssa's mind. "What do you mean?"
Alyssa knew her voice was firm and concise, but she did her best to limit her physical body language, less it be difficult to convey anything. "Don't play dumb here," she folded her arms aside in gesture. "Our teacher has never acted this way before. I don't understand what it is you're doing here. And why was she scanning you? Who are you? What exactly are you doing here in our class?"
"Oh. That's what you meant." Jane blushed, being put right on the spot. Though for now it seemed that Alyssa was the only one in class who immediately took interest into her dwellings. Perhaps she noticed the deep scan Claudia was performing on her. After all, the scanning equipment was in open plain sight for those at training stations. "That's..." Where could she even begin? "It's a really long story."
Alyssa shifted her legs, standing as tall as before. "Well we have a couple more hours of training before class ends today, so I'm all ears."
Reverse identifying a mysterious spell bomb was the real short version of the truth, but Alyssa probably wouldn't buy that one bit. Why does it matter anyway? What is her deal with all of this? "Look. I can't tell you everything right now. I don't even fully understand what's going on myself. What I can say is this. Claudi and I are working on a project."
"A secret project?" Alyssa projected. Claudia never said anything about bringing in a new student that she knew personally. Everything is so different today.
Jane nodded. "No, it's not secret, but I don't want to explain to everybody who looks at me, asking 'what's up with you and Claudi? What are you working on?' over and over again."
"I'm the only one who asked," Alyssa clarified. This is without a doubt - Jane dodging her questions. She's hiding something or lying about something else.
Alyssa's single interest wouldn't last for long though. Plenty of people are probably of the same curiosity, and are too shy to ask. "For now you mean. Seriously Alyssa. Once I learn more, I'll tell you all about it, okay?"
"No, not okay," she argued. "If you aren't going to tell me what you're even doing here, then I'll just ask your assistant in crime."
Crap! If she interrupts Claudia at her work now, it could lead to a mistake or calculation error! "Alyssa stop!" Jane blocked the way to Claudia's desk. "We're not doing anything illegal or dangerous, and Claudia's helping me on something right now. You can't just walk up to her and bug her with questions. I can't even do that right now. She'll just ignore me until she's figured out... Whatever it is she's trying to figure out."
"Then I'll just stay close, watch, and listen." For someone willing to hide something, Jane will have her hands tied now, as will Claudia. She can't just be from the local area, enrolling for fun, but Alyssa was relieved that Jane stopped her physical path. It would take so much effort to move over to that desk in risk of learning nothing.
"So you're going to spy on us, even though I said I would tell you everything later? Real mature Alyssa." Jane dissuaded Alyssa as much as possible, but it didn't change her mind.
"Just get out of my way. If you're so innocent, then whatever I learn by spying won't really be all that bad, will it?"
Jane crossed her arms again, getting herself ready to talk to Claudia again. Alyssa was going to be a pain after all. "I guess not. Have fun wasting your time." Jane turned around now. Whether Alyssa was going to stay glued to her trail or not, she needed to find out what Claudia was trying to discover. With so many more hours to go before class even ends, this day could drag on longer than Jane wanted it to.