It’s finally February. One month has passed ever since I step inside this school since the school break. A lot of things happened in January but the most memorable one was probably when I finally get my magic. According to my friend Haz, my ability was called Time Manipulation. But I'm not quite sure if that was what it's real name was. It was really amazing. Able to manipulate time without any repercussion at all. But there’s one problem about it. I can only stop and slow the time. Okay, I can't really slow the time without some augmentation. But still, I can only stop for a mere 2 seconds. Additionally, the range was too small. It was about 7 metres in diameter from me. But with a lot of training, those numbers will increase. Slowly but surely. We were also able to get into the Group Stage of The Magic Duel after passing the qualifier. It ended in an anti-climatic way though. But even so, we did it in the end.

And here I was, sitting at my desk inside my classroom wondering how bored I am. I expected to at least have something to do that day but it looks like nothing was in mind at the moment. The only thing I could do was observe my surroundings. I can’t look out at the window because my desk was not at the corner of the classroom like some stupid cliché protagonist from most cartoons these days. What do you think I am?

I realise that the members of Team Brilliance, which was all from my classroom were discussing something. Not that I mind but in a way, those guys are my enemy now. I felt an urge of wanting to listen to their conversation. I couldn’t help but notice that only the boys were discussing with each other. The other two girls were minding their own business.

Nanjo Sojiro, Aizen Ascree, and Adam Rift. Those three were the infamous Magnificent Three. The three of them will always stay close with each other. I never saw them separated at all. The only situation they could be separated was probably when they were heading home of course.

The other two boys, Meme Elementz and Zayn Mayan. Those two are interesting because one of them was a member of a local dancing group while the other one was the basketball player in our school. My pal, Sonozaki Wakana was also one of the basketball players. Additionally, Wakana was also a prefect at our school. He had a lot of things to handle at the school.

Enough about him. I would rather talk about someone else like Rin Zeelint, who fashioned an auburn brown red short braid. She also had a hairpin that looks like the number 7 in the roman numerals. She’s actually the last students among the top 7 students in our school. I guess that was why she was wearing a hairpin with the number 7, or in this case, VII. If I’m not mistaken, her A ranked magic was called, Summoning Card.

As the name suggest, she uses a deck of magical cards to summon an aid. Her summons can be ranged from mythical beast to legendary warriors in the past. She was a very dependable co-leader in Team Brilliance. The side problem with her magic was that she can only summon one being at a single time. But with her adaptability, she was able to change her summons as quick as shuffling a deck. This was the reason why she was in the top 7. She had a very wide range of summons she can choose when fighting an opponent.

One of her accomplishment was leading a task force during the Seven Month War. I also lead a task force back then as well. But her performance back then was brilliant. Her squad managed to eliminate 300 demons and captured 2 demon into her deck in a single day. Her demon kill count throughout the war was more than a 1000. Same goes for the rest of the top 7 students. Including Haz.

Most of the great warriors during The Seven Month War are now in the 7 top students in our school excluding number 1. Number 1 in the top 7 had a different reason to be joining the others. If only I know what it was. Maybe I could try asking about it at one of the 7 students later.

In any case, I decided to turn my direction to the last member of Team Brilliance who was actually playing a handheld game at her desk. That’s totally her alright. That short pink hair of hers along with her signature switchblade. The Eternal Fantasy, Izzy Nova Crystallia. A B ranked student who was also an avid gamer. Her hairstyle seemed a bit boisterous for her but she can actually act very feminine at times. Now that was my kind of girl. If only I had the confidence to ask her out.

Izzy was best friend to Asia Mercury who were also my classmate and Rika’s cousin. She was one of the wizard in this world to be lucky enough to have the ability called, Fantasy Spellsword.

In Izzy’s case, Fantasy Spellsword allows her to create and unleash any type of elemental attacks while wielding her switchblade. If she ran out of Infinitum, she will still be able to fight given that she still has the energy to do so. But there was at times, where she could reach a very rare state called Limit Break.

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Limit Break is a very rare phenomenon where when a wizard who already ran out their Infinitum energy suddenly had a burst of Infinitum flowing in their body. No one was able to figure out how to activate a Limit Break but all they know was that when a Limit Break happens, the wizards magic will be very powerful for a short period. It breaks the limit of what we could normally do momentarily.

Haz told me that I actually had a Limit Break once. It happened after I ate the Infinitum crystal that Flash gave to me earlier this year. It was when I rewind the universe time. I think I can understand what is a Limit Break after experiencing it. I mean, I couldn’t rewind time right now. I could only stop the time. Plus, I could only do that on anything that is within my 7 metre range.

“White.” Izzy called me.

I walked to her desk, “What do you want?”

“I heard you bought the new Elematrix game.”

“You mean, Elematrix Quest?”

“Yeah, the one where the Elematrix fought the corrupted heroes, right?.”

“I have that.” I nodded.

“Do you have it now?”

“I actually have it in my bagpack.”

“You do?!” Izzy glowed.

Her face was right in front of me. This reminded me when Rika was doing the same thing to me on the first day of school this year. Except this time it was Izzy. I don’t even know if I should feel happy about this or not. I mean, yeah. She is a girl and she is being close to you for some reason. But I’m not really in the mood to have weird feelings on girls. But deep down inside of me, I know my unconscious mind wanted to find love. But that’s just stupid.

“S-sure. I’ll go get it, Izzy.” I headed back to my desk and searched the game inside my backpack.

“Finally! I finally get to play it after waiting for 6 months after they made the announcement.”

“Are you seriously going to play it now?” I gave her the game.

She grabbed the game box and quickly opened the box and grabbed the cartridge and insert it into her handheld console in 5 seconds.

“I’m playing it now, White!” She seemed very excited.

I looked at the desk next to her which was Asia Mercury’s desk. It was empty. I looked around the classroom and noticed that Asia wasn’t in the class at all.

I asked Izzy, “Hey, where is Asia?”

“She’s absent today. Didn’t you know?”

“Why is she absent?”

“I think she was sick. That’s what her mother said when I came to her house this morning.

“I see.”

“But this is too amazing, White. The graphics, the gameplay, everything about it is just so good.” Izzy went into her gaming mode.

I couldn’t help myself since I’m also an avid video gamer as well. I ended up hanging out with her for the rest of the day. I watched her play the new game that I bought. I even gave her some tips along the way. She was fascinated to see what the new game offered to her. Whenever she was stuck on a certain area, I would give her a tip on what she needed to do. I’m not such a jerk to take away her console and do it for her. I’d rather if she do it herself. That’s how she was able to become a B ranked student.

“Well, well, well. You two introverts are very loud today.” A classmate in front of Izzy’s desk turned back to see what the two of us were doing.

“We’re just playing some video games, Bane.” said Izzy as she was still busy playing Elematrix.

“Can you stop wasting time playing video games and instead going out with me on a date?” another classmate which sits next to the other classmate desk joined in.

“Who are you again?” Izzy stopped playing and looked at him with her uninterested face.

“Shot down once again, Zist.” I laughed.

“I hate it when my own ability affects myself as well.” said Zist disappointingly.

Bane Ornstein and Zist Commodore. Bane has always been a talker. He talks a lot. He tells a lot of story whenever he has the chance. He will tell stories to the point where you will probably feel like you want to do something else. It really works with his ability, Loudspeaker where he could relay a message or an announcement to the whole school or any specific people he decided. It’s a utility type magic by the way. It can also be used as a weapon by making his enemy grow tired and annoyed of listening to his never-ending stories. Thankfully he never does that to any of his friends except Zist who always end up listening to it.

Zist will always be the joke of everything ever since his ability started to turn on him. His ability, Unlucky which was originally only affects his enemy by stealing all of the luck from his enemy and made their enemy unlucky. That ability now affects him as well after he abused his power just to steal everyone’s luck. He was very lucky for a whole day back then. But the prefects founded out and punished him for that. He was scarred for life from the punishment to the point that his ability was altered to also affect himself. He can’t freely steal anyone's luck now. He can only steal when he is supposed to.

That was just half of my classmates if you include, Rika, Rulend and Blax. The other classmates also had their own uniqueness in their ability. As much as I was finally able to do something, the school bell rang signalling the end of school. I decided that Izzy should keep the game for a while. At least until she finishes it. I just hope she’s not going to stuck on one area for more than 5 hours. That would be problematic.

Now that everyone was leaving the school. I decided to head back home but then Hosuke invited me to go to the Library. I agreed to go there. But before we go there, we had a few pit stops before reaching our destinations. If we ever reach there by the end of the day, that is…

TO BE CONTINUED