Supreme Magus novel Chapter 133

"You’ll not regret your choice, Lith." Professor Marth patted his back, with a proud look on his face.

"Once you graduate, you’ll discover that A ranked mages, like you and me, are treasured almost as rank S, if not more." He chuckled. _{freeweɓnovēl.coɱ}

"What? Why?" Lith didn’t know if to consider it a good or bad news.

"Because as you have seen, geniuses like Manohar aren’t just brilliant. They are also wilful, fickle and unpredictable. We may not be as productive, but are much more level headed and easy to handle."

***

After the accident in the training hall, Professor Rudd had lost much of his nastiness. He now replied when someone asked him explanations, and whenever he saw Quylla or Lith, he would sigh deeply shaking his head.

In the following weeks, Lith put his heart and soul in Forgemastering, relentlessly pestering Professor Wanemyre with questions. He was researching both the runes that kept the boxes locked and a construct that was able to feel like a human.

The library helped him greatly on his first task. Even if the exact sequence of runes wasn’t to be find anywhere, Lith was able to determine their power and purpose. He came to the conclusion that opening at least one of the boxes was feasible, if he had Wanemyre level of mastery and a proper research team.

Since that was impossible, he decided to take a roundabout route. Instead of attacking the lock from the outside, like a normal Forgemaster, he would destroy its pseudo core like only an Awakened one could.

The lock and the box had a pseudo core each, both held in place by the respective mana pathways their maker had surrounded them with, thanks to the rune patterns. The main difference between a pseudo core and a real mana core, was that the former had no way to replenish its energies without the mage that had imprinted it.

Hence, if somehow Lith managed to damage the pathways, the energy stored in the pseudo core was supposed to leak without triggering the explosion, and the lock spell would be undone.

Before doing this kind of experiments, Lith would always use his Hush spell and several barriers, to prevent a resulting explosion to destroy his room or be noticed from the outside.

After a month since the beginning of the second semester, Lith had already lost three boxes. All of them had exploded without leaving any trace behind, but he still considered it a success.

Neither he or his belongings had suffered any damage, and with each box the explosion was getting weaker. It was only a matter of time before Lith could find the right way to puncture the runic pathways without the pseudo core becoming instable.

- "Now I get why the vision wanted me to save Nok and get to meet Kalla. (AN: the small Byk and its mother.) With only the box from Rodimas, I would have never managed to open it.

I could either give it to the Marchioness or Linjos, leaving me empty handed, or try and fail on my own." He sighed.

"Well, for being self-taught you are doing great. Marth and Wanemyre always praise you for your talent and achievements. I think Wanemyre already considers you the best student of the fourth year."

"Yeah." He sighed again.

"Someone is bound to get angry at me, again. Not to mention that I am falling behind in dimensional magic. Without the all-nighters, even Yurial is slowly catching up with me, and I have yet to learn the Restoration spell, that Quylla already knows. I must work harder!"

"Maybe it’s because Quylla has only one specialization, while Yurial just two, and they are hardworking too. You, instead, are such a slacker." Solus’ voice was oozing sarcasm.

"Top of both your official specializations, learning other specializations on your own and converting them into true magic. All this while working on that lock, researching a body for me and refining your mana core during your spare time.

Which usually means when you are forced to use a bathroom or during theoretical lessons. You don’t sleep from almost a month. Honestly, I’m amazed you achieved so much with only twenty-four hours a day.