Nick left room 4 with a feeling of satisfaction and decided to head to his dorm for a meal. When Nick got to his dorm's cafeteria, there was not much activity to be seen as many first year students had decided to spend their two month break away from the academy. Nick would of liked to try out the restaurants on campus but their food was relatively expensive and he was running out of money so the cafeteria was his best choice. Nick ordered a meal of fried chicken, brown rice and chicken soup; he chose a table and ate quietly in the cafeteria, thinking about the battle he had experienced:

(My spells are really good but I still require practice using them. The most powerful of them cost a lot of magic energy to use and I even ran out of magic energy twice during the battle even with my large store of magic energy. If that was a real battle, such a circumstance might prove fatal so I should learn how to pace my use of magic energy better.)

(Usually, spells that can be purchased on Grand Earth are graded in the same manner as Magicians, starting at apprentice grade 1, 2, 3 and so on but many of the spells in my inheritance are generally graded as either apprentice, regular or world class, which should mean that the quality of their power adjusts according to the quality of magic energy that I use to activate them up to a certain rank. I am not so sure, however, that Big is that kind of spell; I don't have any proof of that but I have an intuitive feeling that that is the case...)

Nick finished his meal in twenty minutes and got up from his table and went to his dorm room. He took off his vest and went to the bathroom to take a shower. When Nick finished showering, he sat at his desk, planning out his daily routine for the next two weeks.

"Each morning, I should head to the battle simulation building to have at least one battle and most of the time afterwards I'll spend working on my spell and studying space and soul magic."

Nick nodded in affirmation and turned on his laptop to practice math questions, then he began a four hour session of meditation; when he was finished, it was already night and despite his tiredness, Nick spent the next few hours working on his new spell before going to bed.

...................

One week later, Nick exited room 13 of the battle simulation building, feeling exhausted. Nick had spent the last week doing a few battle simulations everyday in order to become accustomed to casting his new spells in battle situations.

"I've won more than I've lost but the fact that these are simulations means that I'm still uncertain as to how I'd do against real, skilled human beings. Sigh, Carla's tournament is next week and I'm not so sure that I can cancel on her at this point..."

Nick exited the the battle simulation building while talking to himself. The clerk who had been interacting with Nick for the last week looked up from his counter towards Nick's direction, thinking:

(Thank god that weird guy is gone, he's always talking to himself and he smells really strange...)

Nick went back to his dorm room at which point he threw his vest onto his bed and rubbed his shoulders.

"My throwing knives are finished and I don't have the cash to buy another large set so this vest has pretty much lost its value. Well...its no big deal since I'm getting the feeling that I'm not cut out for using throwing knives anyway. Come to think of it, I've pretty much been using them like swords up until now."

Nick shook his head.

"I should get some proper weapons training later since I'm so prone to running out of magic energy."

The irony was not lost on Nick that somehow, although he had almost five times the magic energy holding capacity of a Magician at his level, he always found himself running out of magic energy during the battle simulations.

"I still need to work on pacing my magic energy consumption."

Nick took one of his transport briefcases and placed his combat vest inside, locking it away.

"The vest actually smells really bad but the tag on it warns not to wash it so I didn't try to clean it. Now that I think about it, there are probably cleaning spells that could have cleaned the vest so I didn't have to walk around the simulation building smelling like a spoiled fruit. Hmmm...a note for next time."

Nick sat at his desk looking at the version of his new spell, Copy, that he had managed to create up to this point. In his eyes the spell was far from complete and many of the laws that he had already written seemed a little incoherent but Nick wasn't frustrated at how long it was taking to create the spell since he had learnt much since he started trying to create it.

Nick spent the next few hours working on the spell without much progress. At 7 pm Nick went to the cafeteria to obtain a meal as well as to give his mind some rest. As Nick was eating, he thought:

(Getting to rank 2 Apprentice Magician is taking a long time despite my efforts. Slade do you have any shortcuts to get to rank 2?)

Slade replied as if he was annoyed:

[You should know better than that, kid. There are hardly any shortcuts when it comes to cultivating Magic and any shortcut would definitely require a disastrous price to be paid so just continue meditating silently and you'll eventually get there.]

(Yeah, you're right.)

When Nick got back to his room, he sat at his desk and reviewed a portion of his space magic inheritance, thinking:

(There are a four magic formations in this space magic inheritance. Two having to do with passing through solid defenses, one having to do with defending against large scale attacks and an incomplete one that has to do with teleporting to another realm.)

Since the end of year exam, Nick had become very interested in the exploration of different realms, so much so that he requested entry to a another realm as a reward from Carla. Nick looked closely at the formation design of 'Lost Star Formation' which had a description that stated:

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

'This magic formation was obtained from the records of Thanos The Great, a rank 9 World Class Magician and has been spread widely in this incomplete form which has been proven to be modifiable and can be completed to result in a partly original space magic formation. Depending on how this formation is modified, a Magician can be transported to an unknown realm at a suitable cost of magic energy.'

Nick looked at this description for a while and shook his head.

"There is no way that I could complete this formation with my current knowledge and even if I could, would I even dare to use it? What if I was transported to a realm with nothing but lava in it or a realm where I could not freely use magic. Wouldn't I just be asking for trouble?"

Nick pondered for a while more and decided.

"I can't attempt to complete this formation yet but learning about them is probably a wise thing to do since they seem so useful."

Nick remembered the formation that he had used to calm his soul while he was devouring beast souls at the General Beast Store and knew that they had high value.

"Tomorrow, I will go to the library to pick up a book on magic formations."

....................

Jack Macy, the academy's librarian, placed an introductory book on magic formations on the counter and said to Nick:

"Your interested in formations now, huh? I've been hearing a fair amount of rumors about a first year who does nothing but study, doesn't interact with his peers and hardly goes to class and that that person is ranked 9th within the year."

Nick replied disinterestedly while looking at the book on the counter:

"Oh yeah, people like to talk. I don't care about rumors"

Jacked looked at Nick silently for a few seconds before saying:

"Good to know. Well, you have your book so take it and go. Oh, remember that when you officially become a second year, you will be able to borrow more than one book each time so keep that in mind."

Nick nodded his head, took the book on magic formations from the counter and left the library. Nick was planning to go back to his dorm room and look over an space magic spell that he had come across in his inheritance recently.

As soon as Nick entered his room and closed the door, he threw his backpack onto his bed and sat at his desk with his note book opened in case he needed to make notes.

"Plunder Grasp. The inheritance states that this is a space spell but also says that it is a theft magic spell. What the hell is theft magic?"

Slade chimed in at this moment:

[I'm not surprised that you are unaware of it, kid. Even I only know of this type of magic because I traveled to a few worlds where there were Magicians who practiced it. This type of magic is very obscure in that not many Magicians practice its spells or even have a high affinity for it, even among the many realms that exist.]

[The story is that in a certain world, there existed a rank 10 Cursed Magician that pioneered this type of magic and he was also a space Magician. Theft magic, just like its name suggests, is mainly used to steal things in a sense and although that sounds plain, it is actually a very practical and troublesome type of magic. I once dealt with a Magician that stole almost all of my magic energy and used it for his own purposes, he almost killed me but it was fortunate for me that I was still a rank above him and had superior magic energy recovery.]

"Okay, its just another obscure kind of magic, right, like rule magic? How comes this description says that the spell is both a space spell and a theft spell?"

[No, not like rule magic, rule magic is actually very common outside of Grand Earth. The spell has two classifications because it probably uses both space and theft magic. It looks like you've never experienced a dual natured spell before but there are spells that use more than one type of magic. Although, they are difficult to create for someone who is not a scholar in a certain field, those kinds of spells are common place among high level Magicians.]

Nick felt excited at the possibilities that this new information opened up.

"That's really interesting, the theory behind combining more than one type of magic must be complex. That just proves how right I was to make a habit out of studying so much. Things will definitely not get easier going forward."

"Now, this Plunder Grasp spell is supposed to be able to allow me to take a random item off of a target's body from up to fifteen meters away so long as the target does not have adequate defenses. Its description also says that it is a rank 2 apprentice level spell so it is an entire rank above mine. It seems interesting so I am going to practice it in addition to the other spells that I plan to use in my arsenal."

Slade seemed uninterested.

[Learn whatever spell that you like but remember that your second highest affinity is with soul magic and that is what my inheritance is based on. You better not overdo it with the space magic!]

Nick gave a mischievous grin and replied:

"Understood, uncle Slade."

[Hmph.]

Nick spent the next few hours looking over the spell and surprisingly had an easy time understanding many of it laws.

(With my increased meditation for the past few weeks, my mind has gotten stronger which allows me to learn spells faster. It's good to know that even though I'm still some distance away from becoming rank 2, there is some benefit to the meditation and I guess my affinity with space magic also helps too.)

At around 10 pm, Nick decided that he had studied the spell enough and wanted to try it out. He got up from his desk and walked to the edge of his bedroom and took a grasping stance. As he held out his hand as if holding something, Nick concentrated on forming the laws for Plunder Grasp within his mindscape. Nick's consciousness looked on as laws made of dull grey light were being formed above his magic sea; Nick carefully created the laws and after twelve minutes, they were complete and giving a ghost white glow. Nick's magic sea decreased by about 3000 magical units as the notebook that had been on his desk appeared within his grasp.

"3000 magical units to grab a notebook from six meters across the room. That's not very impressive."

[I told you before that space magic has generally high magic energy consumption so you should not be surprised. In addition, you are using a rank 2 spell while you are a rank 1 Apprentice Magician so the fact that it cost so little is a testament to the spell's quality.]

"If you say so."

Nick looked at the notebook in his hand, feeling that he did not test the spell sufficiently. Nick looked out of his window and saw the darkness of the night and wondered:

(Do I need to have a specific target in mind to use this spell?)

Nick walked up to the glass window and slid it open to look onto the well lit street that had no pedestrians on it at this time of night; there were, however, a group of trees lining the base of Nick's dorm. He placed his hand out of the window and made a grasping motion at the trees but without a specific target in mind.

Nick spend the next ten minutes forming the laws for plunder grasp and it activated, surprisingly requiring 13,000 magical units before the spell gave a result.

(Why did casting the spell cost so much this time.)

Nick eased his grasp to reveal a piece of pink colored fabric nestled in his palm.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Nick suddenly heard a loud, girly scream come from below him, originating from among the group of trees that lined the base of his dorm building. A few seconds later, a woman with blonde short hair ran onto the street away from the cover of the trees and looked up at Nick's window with an angry expression, staring at Nick's right hand that was grasping the piece of fabric.

(What is she yelling about, this piece of cloth? I get that I took it unexpectedly but her reaction is a bit much.)

Nick decided to throw it back to the enraged woman so he loosened his grip slightly and let the fabric unfurl. What Nick saw was not just a piece of fabric but a pair of thong panties held in his palm.

"..."

(Oh...so that's why she was screaming.)

Nick quickly threw the panties towards the woman and yelled:

"Sorry for the trouble."

He locked his window and turned of the light before going to bed.

(Out of sight, out of mind.)