[Gideon POV]
"That might be of some use, let's see if our mana core reacts well." That extremely smart brat said, as I handed him the prototype artificial mana core we created a few weeks ago.
He took and put the artifact inside our prototype hoverboard, an item that had magnetizing stones underneath, these stones reacted with large amounts of mana, causing the hoverboard to float a few centimeters off the ground. Today we were going to test some slight modifications that we made to the structure of this item. For this, we asked permission from our colleague, Vanesy Glory, to use the open field of her classes as a testing ground. But of course, she only allowed us to do that if she could see what we were testing. Next to her was Himes, my butler, whose job was to help make quick notes of things I might have missed.
"I still can't believe you two have developed such an item. If it really works the way you plan, this will be revolutionary in the adventurer market. I mean... It's perfect if you travel alone and don't carry too many things out of a dimensional ring." Vanesy said as he saw the artifact floating 3 centimeters above the lawn.
Luz put one foot on top and then the other, finding a balance point to stand up, then observing our colleague. "Yeah, I know that well, Vanny, but for now this will only be seen by the Dicathen Council. And speaking of which, please don't mention anything about it to anyone, after all, I want Gideon to take full credit for my invention, so the kings and queens don't keep asking me for more."
"Vanny? Where did you get that audacity, boy?" Vanesy commented, causing me to give a little laugh.
"Once he's put on the same level as us, he's all talkative that way. Better get used to it." I answered her, reminding me of the way he'd spoken to me since we'd met in my lab almost a year ago.
This brat soon started doing a movement test with our prototype, he started making very light and weak movements going forwards, backwards, doing some long curves, short curves, turns and then he seemed to test to see if he could move to the side without the item turning over. The result of this was excellent, with the exception of the last move, everything else seemed to work excellently.
"Himes, write it down, we need to repair the side drive system without turning off." I commented and my butler kept writing in a notebook I had given him earlier.
"Okay, now it's time for the acceleration test." the Wonder brat said as he went to one of the edges of that immense field.
He climbed back onto the hoverboard and began testing acceleration, heading in a straight line towards the other side of the field. We started with minimum acceleration tests, and then we went to the maximum acceleration we had at the moment. As expected, the prototype still had a maximum speed of 30 meters per second, without the aid of other external items, and it managed to reach that speed almost instantly, which was good, very good.
"Apparently the true acceleration that our prototype can achieve is being limited by the maximum speed that the prototype itself can transfer. We need new ways of structuring the magnetic stones... Maybe changing the angle they are positioned." He commented when he came to us.
"....I really don't understand these more technical things." Vanesy commented, looking confused at him
"Anyway. Can you create stone obstacles or launch attacks in my direction? I want to test to see if with that speed, my deflections are already good." He commented so they went to do that.
With Glory climbing on top of her bond, while Luz was getting ready with the hoverboard on. "Come on, Torch!" She ordered her bond, which began to flap its wings hard, releasing gusts of super heated wind.
The boy soon begins to dodge the attacks of that mana beast, using wind spells to propel himself even more. That way the hoverboard will gain a little more height at times.
"Okay, now we're going to fight, got it?" He said that, making us all confused, but soon he seemed to create a powerful gust of wind, making some kind of turbulence throughout the aerial part of the field and he started to slide through these turbulences using the magic item.
"Amazing! It's creating its own wind floor, so it floats 7 meters high!" I exclaimed and Himes was frantically writing some things.
I was incredibly interested in seeing it, but as soon as an artifact that shows the time beeped, it was already my time to leave. This was hugely disappointing, the worst part was that I couldn't be late, as I set the whistle now so I would pack up and head to the Dicathen Council's floating castle.
"Damn it! Guys, I need to go. Wonder Brat, Glory! I want you two to hand over the notes from this experiment to me when I arrive!" I said as I ran as fast as I could from there, with Himes following me.
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After a carriage ride in a hidden portal connected to the appropriate place, I was inside the floating castle of the Council of Dicathen. My arrival was welcomed, with two guards and a dwarf Lance leading me into the meeting room.
"Good afternoon, my great leaders! I'm here to show you some possible inventions that you might like." I commented, with Himes at my side opening some scrolls and handing them to the representatives.
Here were the royal families of Sapin and Elenoir, the Glayders and the Eraliths. For some reason Darv's royal family, the Greysunders, were not present. I was going to ask about missing them, but they seem to have noticed my doubt.
"The Greysunders are busy with a problem that occurred in Darv, apparently involves an internal situation with some rebels. Who still don't accept the idea of the three races uniting. They left only Lance Ohmwrecker, so that she can listen and then inform them." The Elven King, Alduin Eralith, commented, thus answering my thought.
"Okay, in that case... Himes! Give the copy of the scrolls to Lance Ohmwrecker." I ordered my butler, who handed the scrolls to the short dark haired girl.
"Everyone having the scrolls, I'll start to explain things. In your hands, you have blueprints of magical artifacts that can be used for combat. But we can say that if they are successful, they will be the basis for things that will become most common on our continent." I said, taking a projection artifact and putting it behind me, with a small stick in hand, I was pointing to the important parts of the subject.
"Gideon, could you start with this weird cube that's on one of the scrolls? It has no name, just an acronym, 'AMC'. What would that mean?" King Blaine asked me to talk about that, I planned to comment on this item last to give more importance to the plans Luz and I were having, but I can't show disobedience, especially to him.
"I was going to explain about that later, but as you want to know so much. AMC stands for Artificial Mana Core. It will serve to recharge the other items that I will comment on yet." When I said that, everyone's eyes, including the Lances, widened.
"What? But why would items need that? If they need mana, it's only necessary for the mage to inject mana into them. Besides, you've heard of projects like this in the past, but the vast majority went wrong." Merial Eralith, Queen of Elenoir, asked.
"Well, I'll explain more about that when I'm done talking about all the other projects. Is it okay for me to do it this way? That way you'll understand much better the situation I'm trying to present to you, my leaders." They nodded in agreement when I said that.
"Great. In addition to AMC, among the projects I came to show you, there are 5 other items. The initial codenames of these prototypes are, Magic Guitar, Shotgun, Precision Rifle, Hoverboard and Power Armor. Maybe I'll change the official names when they are finished or not." I said pointing to their desks and then to the projector.
"Let's start with the 'Shotgun' and 'Precision Rifle'. Both are sorts of mana concentrators, after injecting enough mana into them, they will be able to shoot ranged attacks. For a Conjurer this is very common, but for an Augmenter it would be revolutionary. In them there are compartments for AMCs, that way the mage could store mana inside the item to use the equipment without spending time concentrating for the attack." I started by talking about the two items that are easier to understand.
"You mean that would allow elite Augmenters to use ranged attacks, even if they don't have the necessary amount of mana to do so?" The queen of Sapin asked and I nodded in agreement.
"If it's two items that do the same thing. They clearly actually have some difference, don't they?" the King of Elenoir asked.
"Yes. The 'Shotgun' can be used for short and medium attacks. According to the tests I did with a prototype version in development, a point-blank attack of this item is equivalent to 5 times the power of a physical attack that uses the same amount of mana. Regarding the distance that the Shotgun can reach, it is a maximum of 6 meters. Unless the user forces some external enchantment that allows the shots to travel farther." I commented while pointing to its blueprint.
"The 'Precision Rifle', on the other hand, allows mages to fire mana projectiles from an incredible distance. With the use of runes for artifacts and the shape of the structure of this item, I can say with 70% certainty that the maximum distance of an attack made by an Augmenter can reach 1.5 kilometers. While if that same attack is made by a Conjurer, it can reach up to 2 kilometers away." I kept pointing at the blueprints of the other item, but as soon as I heard a loud thump, looking in the Glayders' direction, I noticed Lance Thunderlord with a serious look.
"I'm sorry for intruding on the conversation. But something like this could be incredibly destructible if it fell into the wrong hands." He said looking straight at his king.
"If I may say so, I was actually planning that the Precision Rifles in particular would be delivered only to you, The Six Lances. Of course, that's if you accept the idea of having something like that in your arsenal." Then I answered him the same way Luz had answered me when I made the same remark.
"So there would only be six of these Precision Rifles. Correct?" The former King of Elenoir, Virion Eralith, asked.
"Of course, but if more of these objects were needed to be created, if the amount of Lances increases... I would be willing to help." I commented and bowed slightly.
All the Lances looked to each other for that idea, until one of the Lances, a white-haired elf, raised her hand as if asking permission to speak. And all the Eralith allowed it.
"I would like to know, in the case of a person like me who is a Plant Augmenter, how would that work?" She asked in a sweet, curious voice.
"Well, in your case, you would need to use the AMC in a mandatory way, because then you would shoot a large concentration of plant mana, which would hit a surface and thus create several vines, plants or whatever you wanted to, in your case would be slightly limited to hitting the ground, walls or any surface that would allow the use of your magic, which is close to the target. So, of those two items, you would use a Shotgun more than a Precision Rifle." I kept scratching my own chin as I answered her, and she just shook her head, showing that she understood.
"But how do you know it would work that way?" the dark-haired elven Lance asked.
"Because one of the people helping me test these items is a plant mage." I answered her, but that answer was not correct, Luz who told me to answer that way in case someone asked about plant magic in the items.
I still can't understand why the brat wants me to lie like this. Of course, according to him, that's how these items work for Plant Mages, but we never actually tested them, or at least he never told me that he tested them with a student who is a plant mage. But anyway, even without this information 100% proven in my eyes, I have to believe him. After all, he's the one who developed most of these projects, I'm just here to guide him and to take all the responsibility, which a 13-year-old boy should never have.
Good thing he also told me in advance how to respond to them if several other deviants were put into practice with these artifacts. But luckily, it seems that was the only question related to it.
I gave a slight cough and now pointed to the hoverboard blueprint that was in the projection behind me. "This one is the Hoverboard. It's a piece of equipment that uses magic stones in conjunction with some runes to make it float. These runes were reverse-engineered in some ancient artifacts that... Well, what I did might be It's considered stupid, after all, I destroy some magic items found in deep dungeons in Beast Glades, but at least it's showing incredible results."
"Wait.. Did you make an item that floats...?" King Alduin said confused.
"Exactly, as it's a very initial thing, I'm planning on being a mobility item for a person to use. The principle is the following, with the use of a mage's mana or that is inside an AMC, the user can slightly tilt in different directions and so this artifact will float and move, with mana boosted. So far, it can reach a speed that can already be considerably difficult for a non-mage, at peak physical, to observe. And that same speed can be reached almost instantly." I said proudly.
"Interesting, how high can that float?" Former King Virion questioned.
"The prototype for now goes up to 20 centimeters max above the ground. But I think that, when the final version is finished, this will be an amazing replacement for mounts. I could even give an example of the maximum power I want it to reach, but I wouldn't want to scare you, you'd better see it for yourself when the prototype is presentable." I spoke, and everyone looked at me strangely.
"Wow! Do you think the final result at full power would scare us? Mica would love to see you prove it!" the Dwarf Lance said extremely excitedly, eyes glued to the projection behind me. All of her classmates seemed to have an expression on their faces that really doubted this was possible.
"Okay, with a wind mage with extreme agility and mobility, having the final item I'm planning. I'd say it would be possible for this mage to be faster than sound." At my words, everyone's brows rose and the dark-haired elven Lance flashed a wide smile that made me shiver. "But like I said, that's only if things go according to plan and there aren't any completely unforeseen difficulties."
"Actually, so far what you've said has been amazing. Could you tell me what these last two projects are?" Queen Priscilla ordered.
"But of course. Power Armor is a kind of accessory that further enhances the protection power of a mage. Being able to inject elemental mana or pure mana in this armor, I would say that the mana expenditure for these protections is lower compared to the expenditure if a person didn't have that item." They didn't seem to question this artifact as much, so I went straight to explain the last one.
"Magic Guitar is an item that allows you to cast spells through musical notes, in the same way that there are people who can't use spells without speaking their name. Like the Shotgun, this item would serve as an optional spell channeler replacement, I got the idea for this item after hearing about how irritating and stressful an adventurer's life can be, and that these factors can make a party's performance worse. That way a conjurer can decide to cheer up their own party and at the same time have a powerful weapon, without having to carry a lot of things."
The last item was what made some of them have curious looks, and I knew well what they were thinking, it was the same thing I thought when Luz told me about this project... "A musical instrument turned into a magic weapon...? This is complete nonsense!?!" But I still accepted his idea, in fact, I just accepted to do it because if not, he wouldn't give me the blueprints of the other items, with the exception of the Shotgun.
"Okay... Uh... You said it would be better to explain AMC after talking about all the other items, didn't you? Could you tell me now?" Queen Merial asked, as if she really wanted to change the subject for some reason.
"Fine. With everything shown here, the main reason I wanted to create an Artificial Mana Core was so that... These artifacts can be used by non-mages!"
"...." An absurd silence invaded the Council room, making me wonder if that idea that the boy convinced me was really bad or not.
"To all artifacts....?" Lance Zero asked.
"Yes. All these artifacts could be used by non-mages, if they had an AMC and a way to recharge it. Following the same logic, fire mages could attack with ice or earth spells if those elements were inserted into AMCs." I answered her.
"And what's the capacity of these AMCs?" King Blaine asked, he was in a surprised voice.
"For now, the maximum capacity of the prototype I have is the same amount of mana that a solid red mana core can support, but if I manage to create several types of AMCs, I would make them colored to represent what stage of mana core it has capacity, and in the same logic, the ones painted in darker colors would be cheaper, and the lighter ones would be more expensive." I tried to answer already putting the commercial and category scheme in the middle, to show them that some things were already fixed in theory.
They fell silent again, soon I noticed Virion, he was talking to the dark haired elf Lance. That made me have a raised eyebrow, but I took a deep breath and continued with my usual proud expression.
"We find your ideas very interesting. We'll talk a bit about the situation when the Greysunders arrive. You will be informed if we decide to approve the creation of these items. There is a possibility that some will be approved and some will not. You can withdraw." King Blaine ordered and Himes started helping me put away the projection artifact.
"Phantasm, I want you to get Gideon and his assistant safely to Xyrus. Of course, if it's not a problem for our official scientist." Virion commented, a slight smile on his face.
"I don't mind, thank you very much for thinking about my safety." I bowed slightly and walked out of the meeting room with Himes and now being led by another Lance.
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We walked a little through the corridors and went down five floors of stairs to reach the entrance area of the floating castle. Himes was the first to go through the portal, and soon after me and Lance Phantasm went together. On the other side of the portal, we were in a hidden safe area, just waiting for our carriage to depart back to Xyrus.
"Mr. Gideon... I really found your ideas interesting, especially that Board and that musical instrument." She spoke softly while seeming to look at nothing of relevance.
"Oh! Thank you! These ideas of mine are really amazing! It's not by chance that I'm the greatest scientist!" I said, still bragging about this taking the glory of those projects, and I didn't feel at all guilty, as the creator himself gave me permission to do so.
"Yes... Hm... Tell me, do you know someone called... Luz Leywin?" With her voice getting softer and softer as she asked that, I felt a chill running through my entire body.
"Who...? Ooh! He... He's a student at Xyrus Academy who managed to become a professor. He works with me in the artifacts department there, but I still see him as just a brat with silly ideas. Why? Some problem?"
"No big deal... It's just that I'm known to him~" when she said that, my body returned to that state of complete internal agony, as if I was really stuck here.
I felt fingers touching my shoulders, neck and cheeks, but there was nothing there, it felt like some kind of advanced wind spell that felt like a touch. "And what does all this have to do with him?" I asked, still pretending to be ignorant of the matter.
"Well, it's just that kid to come up with ideas so out of the box... He easily breaks common sense and such.. So tell me... These projects... All of them... They were his idea, huh? It's no use lying, Lance Aureate, the one who asked about Plant Spells... She's extremely sensitive and can tell when someone lies. And you lied about a little thing... And that little thing, makes it logical that it's Luz, the real creator of these projects~" Her voice was sweet, and at the same time frightening, complete torture.
"Huh...? But I just lied about the fact that I've never seen a plant mage testing the artifacts. What does that have to do with it?" I thought, I was extremely confused, but I sighed and gave up.
"My goodness, does that brat really know you?" I said, looking at where she was, but she wasn't there, suddenly she was in front of me.
"Actually he is one of the few humans extremely close to the Eralith royal family. He was once a disciple of us Elf Lances and the Former King, Virion Eralith." My eyes widened at that information. I knew the boy was special and could easily get along with people who weren't greedy, but that was extreme!!!
"If he knew you, then it doesn't make sense that he would have sent me here instead of him." I commented and soon noticed that Himes seemed to be ignoring our conversation, the elf in front of me was known to be a Sound Deviant, so maybe I was inside a sound barrier, which I only now noticed.
"Well, it's just that Sapin's royal family had a weird relationship with him and his brother. So the less special the boys are acting, the less chance King Blaine will try to use them. And I say this, because even my leaders know that the problem with the Glayders is Blaine himself, not the queen or their children." She said crossing her arms and I gave a sigh, completely agreeing with that.
"Yeah, I heard about this strange relationship... I still can't believe it, saving royalty against a Yellow Stage attack, being only 9 years old..." I didn't really know what to say, after all, all I knew was the rumors and his confirmation that this event actually happened.
"Fine. You can tell him then that at least the Eralith royal family knows that he owns the designs, and that we trust his creations completely."
"Really? Even that... 'Magic Guitar'?" I asked confused and she giggled.
"That was another thing that gave away that he was the creator of these artifacts. In the days when I trained him in wind spells. He always came up with ideas for spells that involved vibrations and musical notes. This kid loves to animate a battle, it's like... I can't explain it, it's something you just feel..." She said with a smile and looking at the ceiling of the safe place we were.
"Well, I'll warn him then to stop with ideas of magical instruments. What does he need to invent more? A flute with enchanted music?" I ended up laughing a little and strangely she also started laughing at my comment.
The carriage arrived and Himes got in first, keeping the door open for me, before entering, the elf mage called my attention with one more question. With a more serious expression now.
"What about that 'hoverboard'... That theoretical example of the most efficient way possible to use that artifact... What you said is taking into account if Luz is using it. Isn't it?" I agreed with her, making her smile wider. I was confused and we shook hands, and soon after I got into the carriage, starting to leave.
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[Vanesy Glory POV]
I really didn't expect my Sunday to turn into something this interesting. And I also didn't expect this to happen after they simply asked me "Can we use your class field?"
Now I was with the Torch, just watching the grumpy scientist, Gideon, along with one of the new teachers and my student, Luz Leywin. It seemed that even though it wasn't the middle of this semester, they were already working together on artifact projects that are incredibly interesting, but complex, to say the least. Gideon's crafting knowledge, coupled with Luz's incredibly fast learning of runes, these two factors, in my opinion, made this duo the smartest of the entire academy's staff.
Initially they took some kind of strange artifact that looked like a stylized board, but soon that item started floating in front of me, which made me extremely excited. They asked me not to comment on the things they were doing, as it was something that would be delivered to the Council firsthand, which got me thinking.
"I know Gideon is a scientist respected by our leaders, but this kid really has the guts to step into such a project."
He was floating around the field using that artifact, it seemed fun to control, but soon I noticed my bond get a look of envy, forcing me to caress him next to his beak. "Relax Torch, you are irreplaceable."
After the young boy finished the basic test, he asked me to test him by launching attacks in his direction. With that, I climbed on top of my Flare Hawk.
"Come on, Torch!" my bond started to spread its wings and beat them hard, causing a gust of super heated wind.
He started to dodge those blasts, seemed to use wind spells to propel the artifact that was allowing him to float, thus giving him greater mobility. This thing will really be a complete revolution in the way adventurers move around.
"Okay, now we're going to fight, got it?" The boy said, using a kind of more complex wind spell, creating gusts of wind that were constant in different directions, but all seemed to connect in one, it was like an invisible labyrinth, formed by pure wind.
He kept moving through those wind paths fluidly, but soon he heard Gideon's voice exclaiming. "Amazing! It's creating its own wind floor! So it floats 7 meters high!" That's how I noticed, the boy was flying at the same height as me.
We started to move, Torch was flying around him, while I grabbed one of my giant swords, this one filling up with fire mana around it. My gaze was extremely focused on him, but I could clearly hear Gideon's voice when he said he had to leave.
"Looks like it will just be the two of us..." the Leywin boy smirked while taking out of his dimensional ring a.... Sword?
"So you use something besides that staff?.. It doesn't impress me that much, since you used your brother's sword in that game we played in first class. But I would hardly know you have your own sword." I commented, noting the sword he had in his hands.
It was a sword with a firm base so that he could grip it with force, the blade was quite long, with a slight serration on the back, it was like a blade that cuts cleanly in the front, but behind it makes rough cuts. Between the blade and the base, I saw a kind of violet jewel that shone brightly, but inside this jewel there were two small spheres, one black and the other red, which were rotating with each other.
Leaving that aside, I could see him starting to toss aside part of his uniform. Remaining only with a white tank top, long black pants and equally black boots with golden details. He had pretty muscular arms for his age, not that he was completely abnormal, they were up to the limit for acceptable, but the weird part of it was, he's a conjurer, a conjurer with an augmenter body.
I realized he was expecting me to attack him first, so I did. Swinging my greatsword hard at him, causing its flames to be turned into a projectile.
"Fire Wave!" To block, the boy simply maneuvered his artifact, causing a gust of wind towards my fire wave, destroying it completely.
"Fantastic Tornado!" He began to spin on his own axis, with a large amount of wind surrounding him and turning into a kind of tornado with him at the center. Torch instinctively backed away a few meters from it, while I augmented my giant sword again, this time with Fire and Earth mana.
The young man seemed to throw that magic in my direction, with Torch trying to dodge it, but it lost its balance and started to spin along inside that tornado, I held tight to my bond, starting to get a little disoriented with that spin. But I stayed focused on channeling more fire and earth mana into my blade.
When that tornado broke up, I didn't see the boy next to me, until I looked up, he was much higher than I would have expected. Underneath the artifact, there seemed to be small disks of wind and fire mana, which forced the device to stand at that absurd height.
"Let's see if the surprise attack is working! Ready?" he exclaimed to me, making me completely defensive.
"Surprise attack? Wait, the reason he's testing this item today is because he made changes. Could this be one of the changes made?" I thought, as I took my other giant sword out of my dimensional ring, positioning both blades to simulate a shield imbued with fire and earth.
"Wing Smash!!" Soon I saw the elemental disks under the artifact explode, taking it even higher, during the ascent to the skies he was doing, species of wings made of what appeared to be wind mana, appeared on the back of the so-called "hoverboard"
The silhouette of him and the artifact were beginning to be outlined by a dense, bluish light. After doing a flip in the air, with the hoverboard stuck to his feet... He started to descend, descending at full speed towards me, and in his hand there was no longer a sword, but a gauntlet.
"W-what?!? When did he switch weapons?!" I was in shock, still in the defensive position as Torch kept following its instincts. My mana beast was scared and started trying to fly out of wonder boy's sights, but we weren't fast enough.
I braced myself, with not only the blades, but my entire body covered in a dense layer of mana elemental duo. He used the momentum of his attack to land a firm punch on my swords. This caused me to be thrown out of the Torch, and ended up landing on top of one of the observation pillars that are on the edge of the field we were on.
Most impressive of all, it wasn't the fact that I was intact, or my swords were unscratched, but the fact that I landed in a place that is on the edge of the field, when we were fighting in the center. He literally threw me 50 meters with one punch that apparently wasn't meant to destroy a thing.
And if I compare the height I was with the ceiling height of the place I am now, it's almost the same. Seeing this and the angle of attack...
"The punch would have thrown me off that field and possibly beyond the limits of Xyrus Academy if I didn't have a high place to land." I thought, eyes wide as the boy just stood there, floating with the aid of his artifact.
Torch was flying fast to me, my bond was scared. I gave a light caress above his beak area and looked at the boy... Or should I say... "My colleague"?
"I think you overreacted!" I exclaimed and he was approaching us.
"Really? Sorry. Like I said, this is a test. I didn't know I was going to be very fast and I didn't know I could do such a smooth and short vertical turn." he said as he scratched the back of his neck.
"What? But you kept beating hard.. Those wings... Really... Wind Wings on the equipment? What magic is this?" I asked, still not believing what I saw.
"Um... Actually that wasn't my magic... That was one of the things I put on the hoverboard. It's a spell made with runes that allows you to accelerate in the same way that flying mana beasts do. So that's why I'm surprised that on the first try I did something so strong... I honestly thought it was going straight down without turning in your direction." He answered me, leaving me shocked.
"So it wasn't 'your' magic.. It was something pre-established?!" I exclaimed, becoming extremely anxious about it all.
"You can say... yes.. And..." He was opening a compartment and we saw that semi-transparent cube that was supposed to be full of mana, but at the moment, it had one side completely melted.
"Apparently I should either decrease the potency of the magic rune I used... Or we should make a more resistant type of AMC... Gideon will go crazy to hear this...." the boy smiled in embarrassment, while laughing nervously, already imagining the possible ways that mad scientist would react.
After that, we went down from where we were and went back to the center of that area, the boy took an artifact that resembled a crossbow, but modified. He didn't even need to ask, and I already understood that he would test this item too, so I created several earth pillars around us, to be his targets.
"Thanks." he commented, as he took a spare glass cube and started filling it with mana.
It was beautiful to see, runes appeared in the center of each side of the cube, all with a different color. Inside the cube, a white glow began to form, which became more and more intense as the seconds passed, until that artifact was so filled with that light, it looked more like a container 100% filled with a dense, white and shiny liquid.
"Let's see how this little beauty is doing." He put the cube inside a compartment of his other equipment, and aimed it at one of the earth pillars.
"Shotgun Fire!" A dense sphere of fire appeared at the tip of the artifact and was fired, midway it split into several different fire projectiles, which hit one of the earth pillars that was 5 meters away.
Even though it was a fire attack against an earth structure, holes were created in the pillar, as if the element itself couldn't withstand the intense way the fire was released. He made a strange movement with the tip of the artifact and soon after aimed at another earth pillar that was 10 meters away.
"Shotgun Wind!" This time a sphere of wind mana appeared at the tip of the artifact and was soon shooted. Unlike with fire, the wind projectile ended up splitting into several other small projectiles, but all of them were behind the larger projectile between them, as if they were propelling the main shot more.
A few centimeters before hitting the pillar, the wind projectiles seemed to start rotating on their own axis and a large cloud of dust formed around the target. When the dust cleared, we saw that the pillar had been completely drilled through, there were 6 perfectly circular holes that went right through it.
"Vanesy... I'd like to say something to you. The great teacher, who is also one of the best A-Class Adventurers... Would you listen to me?" He said seriously, still looking towards the last target he hit.
I was a little confused by his seriousness "Yes... What would it be about?"
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[Luz Leywin POV]
I would have gone back to the main building where Goodsky's office was, my body still aching a little from the last few testing processes I had done. There were still some shards of glass and ice on my arms.
"Argh... Fighting Vanesy wasn't a good idea..."
I had revealed to Vanesy about the fact that I am also a "water mage"... Actually, she came to that conclusion herself, because the only thing I said was that my records were intentionally incomplete, and that I was also an Ice Deviant.
But why did I tell her that? Simple...
I wish I had one more training buddy, Arthur was getting busy these days because of Tessia and new plans he was having for his classes. Elijah was busy with some new projects he and Emily were working on together. Neither Virion nor my Big Sisters were available on Xyrus, and I wouldn't want to bother them with that.
That way there were only four ways left to improve myself, use the mind realm as terrain, keep training with Claire, use my corrupted slaves as punching bags, or go to Beast Gladers to face Mana Beasts. But the four ways had their drawbacks....
After a while, training in Mind Realm became annoying, before it was working very well, but only because I was testing possible spells, training theoretical things. The strength and stamina in this body aren't really going to increase in there, the only things trainable there were strategic coordination and spell ideas. I even asked the Velvet Residents to find some books on different types of magic in the mental library, Sirius is helping them to see possible magic to be done in this current world.
Using my corrupted slaves as a punching bag would be a bad thing, not only would I incapacitate them, but it would also give away the fact that they had been discovered. It is never known if their group of spies has any artifact that identifies the level of pain received, I have to be careful, after all, Sirius mentioned that on the other continent there are artifacts of this type.
Going to Beast Gladers is out of my league, at least now. Due to school rules, the only way I can go there would be with the school trip I planned, but that will still take some time.
And...Training with Claire...
"I need to train with everything, using Ice, Lightning and Sound. But for some reason... The idea of training with her at this level seems to me... Bad... I don't want to hurt her." I thought a little about the situation I found myself in, and I took a long breath, opening the doors of the building and walking down the hallway on the first floor.
With all these alternatives on the table, if I'm going to train before my school trip, I just need to train with someone new, strong and reliable. Vanesy is the closest person I would consider to this level, among the rest of the Academy Staff, she is the only one who is considerably powerful, an A-Class Adventurer with unique specialties, being an Earth/Fire Augmenter, with a special control and extremely rare, the use of Sand and Glass as Pseudo-Deviant forms.
Of course, there was also the option of training completely alone. But I've lived long enough to know, that it's good to train with other people, so I can compare the skill level I have with others.
I'm super skilled, but this body still fails in a lot of things. I have my instinctive memory for fluid movement in the midst of battle, but the muscle memory isn't there. Sirius has been through a lot from his birth until he was 7 years old, but the way that his body's muscle memory is, is below my expectations.
And this mana core... Even though I'm on Light Yellow Stage with Cracks...
Why do I feel like I'm being limited in an absurd way?
Sylvia warned me about there being something beyond the White Stage, but she didn't want to develop that argument further. Sirius also seems to know, and he doesn't elaborate on the situation either. Zalgnity seems completely clueless about this, but he told me that there must be some reason the two of them don't want to talk about what's beyond the White Stage.
But no... It's not just that. I feel that it is something far beyond this secret that is limiting me. Something far beyond the foundations of this world's mana... and is obviously not related with my curse and the way it actives when I achieve god-like powers.
"I'd better not think about these things... I'm going back to my old ways... It's not like the entire universe would be in danger if I weren't the almighty... What's in possible danger is just this continent. ...But the main goal I chose, is to protect the people who respect me and show affection to me. And maybe guide these 'newbies'..." I gave a light laugh at all this thought, Arthur and Elijah, both are really newbies comparing themselves to me.
"I'm lucky no one is in the main room of the mind realm listening to me..." I whispered to myself, stopping in front of the disciplinary committee's door.
In the main room of the disciplinary committee, Arthur, Elijah, Claire and Tessia were talking for a while. I walked past them not saying anything, just waving, but then I felt a firm tap on my shoulder.
"What happened to you?!" Claire exclaimed, making me sigh.
"No big deal, I just trained a little with Vanesy Glory. That and I tested out some 'toys' that you'll love having, especially you, Art." I had my back to them, but I knew full well that all four of them were paying attention to me.
"Hold on, there is ice and glass shards in your arm. So she knows about your ability as an Ice Deviant?" I heard Elijah's voice asking that, and I just nodded.
"But relax, I didn't tell her about my plant magic." I felt Claire carefully pulling out some of the fragments that were on my left arm, so I placed my right hand on top of her head, patting her.
"No need for that... I'll take it off myself and then I'll rest. Call me at dinnertime." I pulled away from her a little and opened the door to my room.
"If you say so... But still, brother. You need to at least know when is good to not tell all details and when it's good to do it." Arthur said.
"Hm... And about that 'toys' you said.. What they are exactly?" I heard Tess asking me.
"Just new weapons and help devices that I'm making. I really want to give them to y'all. Maybe as a Birthday Gift?" I chuckled a little and went inside my room, while I could see Claire with a little smile behind me.
My room was full of parchments on the walls, all about my research. Some were about my projects, some were about magic runes, and some had ideas for possible enchantments to put on future equipment I'm planning on getting.
It took a while, but now in my room there was also some sort of sewing machine, so I could prepare and test a theory I'd been having... What would happen if an outfit was made using corrupted threads or threads filled with rune magic ?
It would be nice to make clothes or accessories like that for the disciplinary committee staff. Maybe a cape? Fingerless Gloves? A protective coat? Yeah... It would be a good idea, the lighter the equipment, the faster people can get. At least, that's the obvious logic.
For some reason, I feel quite tired today. Maybe reloading that AMC multiple times quickly used up my mana reserves. So, I just sat on the bed for a while, removing the shards on my arm, and then lay back, looking at the ceiling for a bit. My eyes started to close, and slowly I could hear a familiar voice, a kind voice and at the same time it made me panic.
"Hello~"