Supreme Magus novel Chapter 97

After the end of the lesson, the group went to lunch, finding Phloria waiting for them at their usual table.

- "I seriously think I have overestimated myself, thinking to be able keeping my nice guy façade for two whole years. If it wasn’t for my big brother instinct, I don’t know how many times I would have snapped already.

I really don’t get these guys at all. To make things worse, no matter how much I force myself, I keep feeling I don’t belong with them." – Lith inwardly sighed.

Solus had no idea what to say to make him feel better. Returning to the academy, right after spending some time with the people he loved, had made Lith depressed.

"Hey guys, how was your lesson?" Phloria asked.

"Same old, same old." Yurial shrugged. "Vastor keeps pushing forward those who are good, and spreads salt on the wounds of those who aren’t. And while the class struggles with each task, these two monsters keep running circles around us mortals."

"How did your morning go?" Lith tried changing topic. Ever since his encounter with the Scorpicore, every time someone called him monster, he could not help but shudder.

He had realized that calling what happened to him ’reincarnation’, was far from correct. He was more like an evil spirit from a horror movie, possessing the bodies of the recently deceased.

"Depressingly so. After Professor Rudd’s speech, I was eager to check if his subject is really as hard as he says. Well, he lied. It’s much worse than that. I spent the last two hours trying the ’parlour trick’ we are supposed to perform tomorrow.

I read his book over and over, but I didn’t succeed, not even once." She sighed.

"Are you serious?" Friya asked. "We have passed the first part of Professor Nalear’s course. Could it be that the spell requires something she has yet to cover in her lessons?"

Everyone at the table turned gloomy. Two hours were the regular duration of a class, Phloria failing so badly was unprecedented, not to mention a bad omen. If she wasn’t able to, it was unlikely that any of them could succeed.

Even Lith was on the same boat. Without true magic or Invigoration as crutches, he wasn’t much better than them.

- "Solus, what is the average time for succeeding in the pebble trick?"

"More bad news." She replied. "The school records are not helping this time. The only thing reported is the number of lessons for opening a Gate."

"Lessons, not hours? This is worse than I thought. How many for geniuses, and how many for regular students?"

"Geniuses usually need around three lessons, the others around twenty." –

Lith almost chocked himself on bread when he heard that piece of news.

"Normally, I’d propose to gobble our lunch fast and go practice dimensional magic, to not let that old coot embarrass us." Friya said.

"But Phloria and I have yet to take our Mage Knight class for today."

"Same, I have Forgemastering later."

"What about we meet at Quylla’s place after the end of the lessons?" Yurial proposed. "I bet that with her learning speed, by the time we get there, she will be able to teach us the basics."

That afternoon, much to Lith disappointment, Professor Wanemyre went back to theory lessons. In the first trimester, they had learned how to infuse a single enchantment in an object.

The topic of the new lesson was how to mix two enchantments together, introducing a new set of runes and magic circles whose complexity was on all another level. He was eager to get back in the lab and put them to test.

Because of Soluspedia, when it wasn’t involved fine mana control or a particular timing in manipulating volatile energies, such lessons were just redundant for him.

He already knew every rune and circle, so he spent most of the lesson practicing how to draw them perfectly, instead of listening. The second forgemastering tome was a gold mine of inspiration for Lith.

Meanwhile, Yurial was diligently taking notes about the arrays Professor Tinnam was introducing. A Warden had a supportive role, he couldn’t cast random spells like most mages.

It was important to understand in what circumstances a magic formation would do more good than harm. Since the Griffon Kingdom was at peace, Yurial had chosen such specialization hoping to help the development of his family’s fief.

His wish was to become able to build dams, bridges and roads almost by himself, saving the money to hire more healers and teachers. One of his great-grandmother teachings, was that without its people, a Country was just a piece of land.

The new arrays were even more difficult to perform and hard to control than those of the first trimester, but at least the casting speed was the same. The biggest flaw of a Warden, was the long time necessary for a single spell.

After the lesson, he was about to leave, when he was approached by an old acquaintance. It was Lyam Lukart, the military looking guy that Lith humiliated during Trasque’s second lesson.

Yurial knew him because he was the son of archmage Lukart. They had started the academy together, three years prior, but had quickly parted ways. The Lukart family was one of the oldest magician bloodlines, and were pretty stuck up about that.

Despite their fathers held the same status, Lyam had never treated Yurial as a peer, let alone as a friend. Following his family’s teachings, he considered the Deirus household a branch family at best.