“Dude, seriously, cut it out!” John yelled, but it was to no avail.
The tip of Lupin’s blade immediately drew blood, nicking John’s cheek. This wasn’t intentional. The blade had truly been aimed to kill, and it was only John’s instinctive reaction that had allowed him to even survive in the first place.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“This is a test. There will be no more talking.”
The blade shrunk back as Lupin’s arm curled up, reminiscent of a spring. John knew what was coming next. There wouldn’t be time to dodge to the side, not with his physical capabilities. He leapt back, but it would be more apt to say he fell back, his arms flailing as he barely regained his balance. The tip of the sword stopped mere hairs from his nose, John’s eyes crossing as a beat of sweat dripped down, flowing onto the razor sharp metal. Lupin’s sword came back, then thrust forward once more, once again barely missin.
“Hey, I’m going to die! You’re going to kill me, fuck, stop it! Hey, stop, stop!” John yelled, his voice practically turning into a screech as he barely dodged attack after attack.
It seemed Lupin’s words of “no more talking” were quite serious. The Mystic wasn’t even responding to John’s words, let alone saying anything. It was as if he wasn’t even a living being, just a robot pre-programmed to kill its opponent.
“Seriously, fuck off!”
John dove forward, pulling the blade Lupin had tossed earlier along with him, spinning around just in time to parry the rapier streaking toward him. His eyes went wide as he deflected the attack. He’d known the rapier was solid, but what he hadn’t expected was the raw force Lupin was exerting. The metal in John’s hand shook, sending shock waves up his arm and across his body, forcing him to drop the weapon.
The tiny rapier was being driven with the force of a pile driver, capable of smashing through rock like it was nothing. If anything, this attack just confirmed John’s suspicions. Guns would have no effect from this point on, not if attacks like this existed.
Despite John’s survival of the first onslaught, Lupin didn’t react. He simply stepped back, taking up a different stance. John grit his teeth, eyes narrowing as he picked up the blade once again.
With a blur, Lupin vanished. John’s eyes narrowed even further, trying to track Lupin’s movement, but it wasn’t possible. He knew what was happening. The professor was moving too quickly for him to see. While this didn’t make any sense, considering this meant one would have to move around the speed of light, it was something that happened all the time in [Stories]. The laws of physics didn’t always apply.
This didn’t mean that the movement was any less effective. John’s hand was beginning to grip the handle so tightly his palms began to bleed. He could see dust kicking off the ground every few seconds, but that wasn’t enough to go off of.
“Damn,” he cursed under his breath. “I really have to… ah, it’s fine.”
John wasn’t so bright that he could just come up with the concept of applying mana reinforcement to individual body parts just by seeing it happen once. He’d only come up with the theory as it was simply an extension of his own abilities.
The application of [Infinity] was a raw increase in power. The specifics of the ability were mainly up in the air. Even the multiplier was simply meant to indicate how much power John received. Things like magic, energy, and even cheat abilities like time or space manipulation had no set boundaries. The ability could be considered rather “broken” for the most part. Very simple usage, easy to meet conditions, and it helped that John had been given an ability that paired perfectly with [Infinity’s] only drawback.
That was, after all, what John was. A cheat character. Like a self-insert that existed to run free and stomp all over the [Story] however they pleased. However, he hadn’t always been like this. In his previous world, he’d had a time when he’d severely lacked power. [Infinity] had still existed, but in a binding of sorts, he’d been constrained to a maximum multiplier that slowly increased over time.
It was during this time that he’d been forced to think in strategize in ways that didn’t involve the [Story]. And that was when he’d learned to assign power to certain attributes.
While [Infinity] was normally a raw increase in power, this was overall power. Reaction time, speed, and strength, with the only thing not receiving a buff being defence. However, what if John were to apply [Infinity] to only one aspect of him? After all, it was an ability that defied common sense.
So he’d tried it. And the results were interesting. Every bit of power that normally went into balancing his attributes went entirely into one specific strength. His strength could go from a mild increase to superhuman, hulking levels of strength. Speed could go from faster than average to supersonic, just like that.
But it wasn’t as helpful as it seemed. After all, what use was enormous amounts of strength if you couldn’t hit your opponent? Sure, It was occasionally helpful against large, slow enemies with lots of defence, but when did John run into those? Speed was nice, but what was the point when you didn’t have the reaction time to control yourself?
However, while experimenting, he’d found the most useful combination of all.
[Infinity: Reaction Time. x1000]
Reaction time. His brain and visual senses were heightened to the max, slowing time down around him. He hadn’t realized something like this would overwhelm Prota since his ability balanced it to a useable degree for him, but it was the reason he’d been so interested in it in the first place.
With this, he could see Lupin’s movements. He couldn’t quite see Lupin himself, but it was good enough. The Mystic was bouncing around like crazy, his legs like human springs as he sprung right toward John, who was able to lift his sword just in time.
The weapon was knocked right out of his hand, clattering to the ground as it landed a solid ten metres behind him. He himself fell back from the sheer force of the attack, unable to stand his ground, his arms practically vibrating from the shock of the impact.
“...I see.”
“You see? That’s all you have to say?! You see?!” John yelled, wiping his face as he scrambled to his feet. “Seriously, you nearly killed me! What would’ve happened if I hadn’t been able to keep up, huh? What, are you racist against ■■■■■■■■ or something?”
“What did you just say?”
“Hold on, let’s be serious! What would’ve happened if you hit me, huh? Chat, is this guy for real?”
“...this is the second time you have mentioned this “chat.” To what are you referring? Are you suggesting we have a casual conversation?”
“What? No, I- hey, stop dodging the question!”
“Ah. Yes. I would have expelled you.”
“Expelled me? For what, being average?!”
“No. I would’ve expelled you because you would’ve been a corpse. And since a corpse cannot argue, no one would stand against my decision.”
That shut John right up. The Mystic spun around, eyes dark.
“You yourself admitted you do not have mana. That enough would be grounds to expel you. Knowing this, you barged into my office, demanded something of me, and challenged me directly. You may be arrogant, but you are definitely not an idiot. You would not die from something like this. And if you did, well, even if I had not killed you, someone else would have.”
John opened his mouth, but no words came out. Right. In the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten that he’d done something quite ridiculous, and even he was willing to admit it.
“Either way, you aren’t entirely useless. That is enough for me. I will teach your friend. To be frank with you, I was planning on personally tutoring him anyway, but it is good to know he himself wants it.”
“He- ah, shit.”
Lupin frowned in confusion.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, the thing is, I don’t know if he wants it or not. I should… probably ask him. Yeah, that would be a good idea…”
“You do not know?”
“No. I was gonna, um… ask him later?”
Lupin burst out laughing, displaying such emotion that he dropped his sword, clutching his stomach as he doubled over, gasping for air.
“You did all this without even knowing if the one you were doing it for would accept your gift? You risked your status as a student, your life, for something you were not even sure of?”
He wiped his eyes, forcing himself to sober up.
“You truly are an interesting boy. May I offer a piece of advice?”
“...what is it?”
“Have you ever considered taking a fight seriously? It might just help you improve.”
John fell to his back, exhausted.
“Considered taking a fight seriously? I really hope I’ll never have to do that any time soon.”
~~~
“I can’t believe that bitch laughed at me,” John grumbled as he dug into his lunch.
The very next day, he’d been complaining to Prota about what he’d had to go through despite the fact that it was entirely his fault. She’d been a little upset at his going off and doing something stupid again, but in the end, he had barely been harmed, so she’d let him off with a slight pout and nothing more.
“He laughed! That mother fucker almost killed me, and he thinks it’s funny! It’s in his blood!”
He was so distracted in his rant that he didn’t even notice Destiny sit beside him with a grin.
“I could hear you complaining from across the hall. Seriously, do you not have any shame?”
“Listen, you weren’t there for it. Seriously, if that son of a bitch wasn’t a…”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Is this about the nobles you faced off against?”
“What? No. I haven’t been bothered by those idiots since I last fucked them up. It’s just- ah, whatever.”
“Did John do something stupid again?” Danjo said as he sat down. His movements were a bit wobbly, since the steam from his soup was fogging up his glasses.
“Did you get into another fight?”
A slim girl with flaming red hair grinned as she sat down, her freckles rippling across her cheeks. Briar Wren had a mischievous smile that made you make sure your wallet was still in your pocket. Being in the blacksmithing class, she’d developed an interest in Danjo a few weeks back, and then somehow integrated herself into the group.
There’d likely been some kind of event that had caused the dwarf and the human to grow such a friendship, but John hadn’t been around to witness it. Regardless, he wasn’t uncomfortable with her, and neither was Prota, so it seemed to work out in the end.
Briar was friendly enough, but if you weren’t looking closely enough, you might get a firecracker in your pants. Interestingly enough, she was a human, not a dwarf, a common stereotype in these kinds of [Stories], but maybe the [Author] wasn’t as much of a loser as John had initially thought.
“Why blacksmithing?” John had asked out of curiosity. “Why not anything else?”
“Well, I’m not too hot with fighting, right? But I’ve got some pretty good mana reinforcement and a fair affinity with fire.”
“You could just punch people-”
He’d been hit in the head by Prota for that comment.
“Well, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, but I’d rather it be with dust and smoke than blood and all that crap. I love fiddling around with random trash, but engineering’s a little too much for my brain, ya know? But blacksmithing… that’s real nice. The feeling of metal in your hands, moulding just right, perfectly into the shape in your mind, that’s the stuff. It’s just a little interest of mine.”
She was incredibly casual about it, but the fact that she was in Scholaris meant that her “casual interest” in metals went way beyond a casual hobby. She was good. Good enough to get in. And John could see the synergy between her and Danjo. After all, surely blacksmithing and engineering went hand in hand, right?
“Wha- no, I didn’t- well, actually, yeah, I guess,” John mumbled, looking down into his food.
“What, did you lose?” Destiny grinned. He seemed to be enjoying it.
“...yeah, sure, something like that. Anyway, moving on.”
“Hey, you can’t just-”
“Destiny. Do you remember that thing I was telling you about? Back when Lupin did that weird thing during his aura demonstration a couple of months back?”
“Well, yeah, but we haven’t even learned anything remotely close to that in class. Well, you said you knew, but-”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Anyway.”
The Fighting class, unlike the Casting class, had not progressed toward Lupin’s initial lesson as of yet. All they’d been working on were fighting techniques and mana control, both of which were incredibly important, but not what Destiny was trying to learn. His growth had been quite explosive, with one foot already in the realm of an expert, but he wanted more. John, of course, hadn’t bothered to learn anything, but that wasn’t important.
“What if Lupin personally taught you? I mean, it’d probably be after school hours or something but-”
“What? What did you just say?!”
Destiny’s eyes shone with excitement.
“Wha- I said Lupin would tutor you. Seriously, is it that big of a-”
“Thank you!”
Destiny wrapped John in a hug in his excitement before awkwardly letting go after seeing John in such an uncomfortable state. It was almost as if it were Prota and not John who’d been hugged.
“Anyway, yeah. You go get your lessons or whatever.”
“Not you?”
John grimaced as he cast a quick look at Ambrose, who was somewhat oblivious to the conversation as she dug into her food. He looked at Destiny with a “really?” kind of expression, and the boy soon remembered John’s unique condition.
“Oh. Right.”
~~~
“Is he really that impressive?”
Leora sat calmly, cup of tea in hand as she watched Lupin pace back and forth.
“Not in the way we might think, Leora. There are still many students who are far more exceptional. Students who are stronger, hold more potential, more talent, and yet… he is such an anomaly.”
“But that would match the description she gave us perfectly. Do you not trust her?”
“Would you?”
Lupin stopped pacing, turning to look his colleague dead in the eyes.
“Someone with no mana. With no magic, not the slightest hint of magical power in his body, and yet he was someone who could do what others couldn’t. Manaless beings are rare in the first place. Since when could one of them make such an impression on her, of all people?”
“I understand, Lupin, but-”
“And for that one to know something we don’t! To be aware of something we aren’t, and for it to be this youngling of a human child!”
Lupin’s words turned into a snarl, his animalistic side coming out in his emotional outburst.
“And yet this was a boy who could track your movement and stop your attack, something the other first years would likely be unable to do. Is that not proof enough?”
“But doesn’t that make him all the more dangerous? To wield a power we don’t understand. We are not just fighters, Leora, we are scholars. Those in pursuit of knowledge. And in comes this boy, flaunting his abilities as if we were the children!”
Leora sighed, taking a long sip of her tea before putting her cup to rest with a quiet clink. The only other sound was Lupin panting as he regained his breath after his rant. The phoenix waited until the wolf was calmed down before speaking.
“In a way, we are still children, Lupin. Isn’t that the whole point? Of all of this?”
Lupin sighed, hanging his head in resignation.
“I- yes. You’re right, as you always are. I just- he is a strange boy. And it has been so long since someone like him has come along that I- ah, there’s no point to this.”
He fell into his chair, slumping back as his appearance seemed to truly match his age. Deep set wrinkles, white hair, frail bones, tight skin. In short, someone who looked like they would crumble to dust if you sneezed too hard near him.
“Then he may truly be the one we are looking for.”
“I suppose.”
~~~
“Students! As you may know, the midterm exams will be in just one month.”
Time somehow flew by, day after day passing. The weather was getting quite chilly, forcing Destiny, Danjo, Celeste and Briar into coats. Prota still had her cloak, and John would always be wearing the exact same thing no matter the weather.
Their clothing wasn’t the only thing that had changed, though. There were signs of improvement. Even though it’d only been a month, Destiny’s progress was skyrocketing like crazy. He hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the concept John had presented to Prota, but he wanted to work on aura first, anyway. And he was making incredible headway. If he’d had one foot into the field of an expert, he now had a full leg in.
Such was the progress of a genius. Or, well, the progress of a [Protagonist] who needed some kind of powerup for whatever was to come next.
Danjo was working on some kind of project. He wouldn’t tell anyone what it was, but if John had to guess, it was probably going to be something related to the suit of armor he’d suggested. He wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that, but if Danjo was excited about it, then it was fine, right?
Briar seemed to be helping him a lot. From what John knew, the Magical Engineering and Blacksmithing classes often held joint classes to work together, as they were two fields that often intertwined. Even if John didn’t care enough to find out what was going on, the two of them seemed to be doing well which was good enough for John, especially considering what Danjo had been put through.
Prota, too had been working hard. Her goal of achieving greater spells had been accomplished. Granted, it was only an assortment of third circle spells that she’d been forced to practice in secret, but it was something she hadn’t had before.
Her affinity with such a large number of elements was something both she and John had decided to hide. Even the more talented students had at most four elements, and Prota’s dozen types of magic would surely raise some questions. However, she was creative if nothing else. Since the things taught in class were often concepts she was familiar with, she’d spend time watching other students, seeing their spells and flow of mana as they cast spells she’d never seen before. Then, in secret, she’d try to replicate them, working on refining their mana efficiency and power.
Additionally, she’d improved on her mana leakage. It wasn’t perfect, but her natural affinity with mana made her a much faster learner than the average student, even if they were all monsters when it came to magic.
The most incredible improvement, though, was that she’d made a breakthrough with her use of mana reinforcement. It wasn’t much, but through daily training, bit by bit, she’d learned how to feed mana into her nervous system. It’d started with just her eyes. She’d passed out numerous times from the overload of information, but she wanted this badly. It was worth the sacrifice she went through.
Through blood and sweat, she’d simply continued to adjust the amount of mana used until it worked. There was no complicated formula, no efficient method, just raw dedication and effort. But it’d paid off.
For a few seconds at a time, she could effectively slow down time around her. Despite it only being a few seconds, the ability was infinitely more useful to her than it was to John. While her body couldn’t move during that slowed down time, mana still moved at an incredibly quick rate.
And her mind was still running just as fast as always.
It was something she could only do a few times in a battle before passing out, but it was an incredible weapon, something that could almost be called a cheat, as if her abilities weren’t already enough of a cheat. Granted, it was something that took a huge amount of energy out of her, both physically and mentally, but then again, she’d only ever been in fights that could be considered life or death situations, so something like that wasn’t much of a big deal to her.
John, of course, continued to be like stagnant water, refusing to move. That mindset, however, was something that might need changing.
“As you have been told, the midterms for each class will be a little different. This year, you will be going through the same exam you went through upon applying to the very position you are in.”
There were murmurs among the students. The same exam as their entry exam? Most of the reactions were excited. After all, they’d learned quite a lot since coming to the school, and their knowledge regarding their specific classes was greatly expanding. They were eager to display their new skills in an environment they were now familiar with.
On the other hand, some of them were visibly nervous. After all, while they’d been improving, so had everyone else, and this meant that it was possible they would no longer perform as well as they’d done before.
Further details were to be sent to the student dorms, where they could read more on the specifications of their exams. Most of the rules were the same, but there was one rule that left a good portion of the students relieved, and left one student incredibly annoyed.
“...all ranged weapons except for bows, crossbows and spears are banned. For any inquiries, please contact Lupin Wolfhound.”
John frowned at the piece of paper in his hand, visibly annoyed.
“Seriously?”