Nick obtained all his blood samples of rank 2 magic beasts a few hours later and immediately got to work. First, he used his soul path methods to refine the blood of a stalwart porcupine which is a blade path magic beast. The stalwart porcupine's blood was a mix of dull-red and grey but Nick's refined blood was dull-orange.
Nick dipped his right index finger tip into a sample of the orange blood. He quickly moved to cast Manifest Soul on the latter portion of blood. The orange blood glowed white and rose off Nick's fingertip, quickly forming a marble size, glowing orb.
Nick went ahead and cast Read Soul on this pseudo-soul and his vision once again became dark before light entered his eyes again. Nick observed his surroundings, then his body. It was day time with two bright, seemingly yellow suns overhead. Nick's humongous body now stood in a vast sea with nothing else around him for any measure of distance that he could see.
He had four legs that were all mostly submerged in water and a torso covered in grey and orange striped quills made of an unknown material; those quills partly covered his head. Nick did seem to appear to be a very large porcupine with unusually tall legs. His total size seemed to be bigger than a small island or even a large one, Nick just knew that currently, he was absolutely massive, his height probably approaching over seventy meters.
His body suddenly began moving on its own and walked through the surrounding sea with mighty steps that forced the water around it to ripple. The magic beast growled occasionally and each growl was enough to make the air around it vibrate madly.
(It doesn't seem like I can control this body at all. I guess I'll just watch for now.)
Nick watched as the magic beast walked for kilometers into the distance and he felt like hours went by before anything else happened. By that time, the two suns were no longer positioned directly above the magic beast and were now positioned at the western end of the sky.
The magic beast soon came upon a rock that jut up out of the sea. The dark-brown rock had a rough texture and was even larger than the magic beast itself by about four times. The magic beast did not stop moving and the quills on its back lit up with a bright-grey luster.
What seemed to Nick like blade light immediately shone on the rock which cut through it vertically, dividing the rock into ten pieces, then cut it through horizontally in ten places. The rocked crumbled into the sea with a splash that created massive waves that beat against the magic beast's body but it kept on moving anyway. It walked past the site where the gigantic rock had stood by walking over its submerged pieces.
The magic beast continued walking for hours until it finally came to a vast trench that seemed to split the sea, creating a gap in the sea's surface for a many kilometers. The magic beast stood at the edge of the trench, its cold, dark eyes staring down into the darkness below. Soon, a harrowing screech echoed from the trench below that shook the sea bed.
The magic beast growled at the darkness of the trench in response and then dove into it, its body radiating the same bright-grey luster as before. Nick's vision became completely enveloped in darkness after that until the light within his underground parking lot came into view. Nick found himself currently lying on his back on the floor with his stool turned over.
(I must have fell over while having my vision.)
Nick slowly got up while he felt information inundate his mind but he was so weary that he did not bother trying to go through it at this time. Nick sat on his stool again and summoned a bag of butter bread which he had subsisted on for months at this point. Nick ate the entire bag before he felt like he was ready to examine the results of his experiment.
Nick thought about his blade path spell, Mystic Blade, and suddenly all sorts of inspiration on how to improve it appeared within his thoughts. It felt so natural and comfortable that considering that his previous knowledge of blade path was only superficial, only magic could be the explanation for where the information came from.
Nick spent a few hours looking over his blade path spells and the blade path inheritance that he received from the military before he was finally able to confirm that he was now a blade path master. Nick stood up onto his feet and rejoiced:
"It worked! So my increase in earth path attainment was not a fluke. Manifest Soul seems to create the pseudo-soul containing the true meaning of whatever magic beast that the blood belongs to but the spell's effect ultimately fails when used on low level magic beast blood. The refined blood of the stalwart porcupine definitely belonged to a magic beast that was at least at the regular ranks or that's what my experience indicates."
Nick sat back down and after his joy came confusion:
(I still don't get it. If its true meaning that Manifest Soul is reconstructing, then what are those visions? It seems that the true meaning is gained by experiencing the visions all the way through.)
Nick decided to do another test before he started to take another look at Manifest Soul's laws to inspect them for peculiarities. Nick summoned another portion of rank 2 magic beast blood from his space band and began to refine it with his soul path method.
(This is the blood of a sorrow leopard and it is a curse path magic beast. Hopefully, this will allow me to increase my rule path attainment. Curse path is a sub-branch of rule path but its laws are derived from alternately applied principles of rule path which make them mostly different from the laws of main stream rule path. I suspect that the differences are more extreme than those that exist between wisdom path and its sub-branches, emotion path or charm path. Curse path is rule path but to people not familiar with main stream rule path, they appear different in form but I realized the truth long ago with Slade's help. It feels strange that main stream rule path does not have any sort of literature on Grand Earth, basically making it non-existent, even though curse path is a commonly used path but I am sure that there is likely a reason for it.)
The sorrow leopard's blood was a smelly, dark-red liquid but the refined blood had no odor and was metallic-silver in color like mercury. Nick dipped his right index finger tip into the refined sample of blood, then cast Manifest Soul at his finger tip. The silver blood glowed with white light and rose up to form a floating white orb. Nick cast Read Soul on the floating orb and his vision immediately went dark.
When light returned to his vision, Nick found himself walking with shackles around his hands and feet as a line of strange looking people walked in connecting shackles in front of and behind him. These people seemed to have human like figures but their features were beast like. Nick saw many with paws and claws for hands, many who had fur or discolored leathery skin all over their body, many who had the head of magical and non-magical beasts like lions, bulls, Cyclopes, Gorgons and others.
The underlying theme, however, is that they looked similar to humans despite their beastly features. Nick himself had black fur all over his body and his hands were human like but had long, sharp claws attached to his fingers; his feet were similar but clearly designed for bipedal movement. Nick could tell that his ears weren't normal human ears and neither were his eyes nor nose, the latter seeming to be covered in something besides bare skin, something rubbery and pale.
Nick voiced his uncertainty about the situation:
"What is going on?"
Nick received no answer but soon, a 'beast man' who was not chained and wore a clean, brown magician's robe in contrast to Nick's rags appeared at his left side from seemingly out of the darkness of the night. The robed beast man who had a head similar to a wolf's slapped Nick on the back of the head and spoke in Valteese:
"Keep your mouth shut and don't speak gibberish. The awesome one likes his food quiet."
The robed magic beast man then seemed to disappear into the surrounding darkness. Nick just kept moving forward with the rest of the captives and silently observed his surroundings. The line of beast men seemed to be walking on a dirt road that was artificially created amidst many surrounding cedar-like trees. The night sky shone with many stars with a full, red moon looming from above.
Nick walked with the group of beast men for hours until they left the area filled with trees to approach the edge of a dark pit that had no grass or landmarks around it. The pit was filled with darkness and nothing within it could be seen. Three similarly dressed brown robed Magicians appeared at the front of the line and unshackled the front most beast man. He had the likeness of a bipedal tiger with feathers going down his back. The robed beast men dragged the 'tiger man' to the edge of the pit while he screamed in Valteese:
"Spare me, spare me. I will never practise forbidden arts again!"
The robed beast men ignored him and shoved him into the dark pit, screaming. His screams soon ceased and the robed beast men followed the same procedure of unshackling the beast men and shoving them down into the pit. Soon, it was Nick's turn and he was unshackled but helpless to resist the superior physical strength of the robed beast men.
He was then thrown into the dark pit and offered no resistance nor did he utter a word.
(I won't give these bastards the satisfaction.)
Nick fell to a great depth but his fall was cushioned by a pile of beast man corpses piled up at the bottom of the pit. Nick survived the fall but both his legs were broken from the impact involved in hitting against the corpses. Nick somehow endured the pain and crawled to the bottom of the pit in the dark.
The pile of corpses rose over fifteen meters into the air and their stench was foul but Nick managed to crawl to the bottom of the pit as soon as he could. When he reached the bottom, he heard crunching sounds in the distance and he weakly muttered in Valteese:
"Hello."
The crunching sounds immediately stopped and footsteps followed. Out of the darkness, three glowing purple eyes appeared looming over two meters above Nick, looking down on him. Nick could see nothing else but those eyes and he would never forget them so long as he lived; they were filled with malice and scorn.
He then heard a deep voice sound from within the darkness, uttering words in Valteese:
"You survived to witness this awesome one's presence. You are chosen. You are cursed just like this awesome one. Come, you will be my student and I will be your life long curse."
Nick's vision immediately went dark after the creature finished speaking and soon, the light of his underground parking lot entered his vision. Nick and his stool had fallen over once again. Nick raised himself and the stool up and immediately began going through the new information that now flooded his mind.
Nick's rule path knowledge had evidently increased but by how much was still uncertain. Nick took up a set of blank papers on his work table and began drawing the laws for his rule path spell, Growth, on it. When he was done drawing the laws for the spell, Nick then examined them for a long time using Eyes of the Fated.
Nick's intuition kicked in almost immediately and after a while he became aware as to how the spell worked; its mechanism for producing its effect became as familiar to Nick as the back of his own right hand.
(Growth works by adapting the most useful characteristics of the laws on the flesh or tissues that I consumed to myself. Laws found on magic beast flesh and organs can encode many kinds of magical information that is beneficial to me whether it is laws related to purely magical enhancement or memories. Growth takes these laws, whichever ones that would seemingly benefit me the most and imprints it onto my own body or in the case of laws related to memories, into my own mind for my use.)
The concepts behind the spell were more complicated than that but that was the gist of the spell's effect. With that, Nick basically confirmed that he was now a rule path master. Nick then summoned his notes on the design for Manifest Soul and read through them. Nick had drawn the laws in D-Soul but found no problems with them. They perfectly described his process of reconstructing a soul from DNA.
(Let me try to rewrite this in Valteese and see if there is any difference. Valteese is the universal mystical language for a reason. It should make the wording and intentions clearer.)
Nick spent the next few hours translating Manifest Soul from D-Soul to Valteese and when he was done and examined the translation, he found something peculiar.
(The symbols for 'soul' in D-Soul seem to have two possible meanings in Valteese depending on the context. The symbols can either mean 'soul' or 'dream'. Based on just that, it means that my spell could be creating a dream fragment rather than a soul fragment but what the hell do dreams have to do with true meaning or with souls? My spell, Read Soul, clearly reads the memories of souls, unless...)
Nick's eyes opened wide in realization.
(I had redesigned Read Soul using D-Soul in order to benefit from the mystical language's greater potency but I ended up creating the same problem present in the laws for Manifest Soul in that the laws for 'soul' can also mean 'dream'. That means that I possibly read dreams, not souls. No wonder that reading the supposed soul fragments of magic beasts with low potential ended up in failure - those magic beasts' intelligences are too low for them to have dreams. Their high ranked ancestors on the other hand are a different story.)
Nick felt a headache coming on. This was a whole new discovery that would require more research because he still did not know what a 'dream' really meant in magical terms and he did not know how dreams were related to true meanings which was how attainment levels could be gained quickly. He decided that he needed to take the time to digest his current gains before doing any additional research.
(That is for the best.)
Nick left the underground parking lot and went to take a shower. When he came out, he got dressed in a blue and white striped polo shirt, a pair of light-blue jeans pants and a pair of laceless dress shoes. Nick went to the ground floor and called Dewy to have him prepare a meal of Chinese sweet and sour chicken, fried rice and cornmeal dumplings. Dewy was a little surprised that Nick had finally left the underground parking lot to have a meal on the ground floor; it had literally been years since he sat on the ground floor.
Dewy prepared the meal while Nick sat at one of the tables and mused:
(All in all, I now have master path attainment in rule path, space path, blade path, formation path and earth path, all gained through obtaining true meaning. Add my scholar path attainment in soul path to that and I might be one of the most well learnt Magicians in the world, that is, below the regular and world class ranks. My earth path attainment isn't of much help now but I'll find use for it later. As for my rule path attainment...with my spell, Battle Armor, in recent times I've found that if I improved it in certain aspects, it could be twice as useful but using only soul path to improve it in the way that I want seemed difficult if not unlikely while it remains a rank 2 spell even with my high soul path attainment. By making use of rule path, I actually see an easier way...)
Nick summoned some blank papers from his space band and began working on Battle Armor's design at his table. One hour later, when Dewy had brought out his meal, Nick's new spell design was ready.
Dewy placed the dishes containing the food onto the table and left Nick alone. During that time, Nick noticed that Dewy seemed visibly older than before. Nick then shook his head to rid himself of those unnecessary thoughts and looked at the laws for his new spell. It was similar to Battle Armor since it still made use of its soul path laws drawn in D-Soul but there were now rule path laws drawn in Nickel mixed into it, the two kinds of laws joined together to make up a finished spell.
Nick didn't waste his time and decided to test out the spell before his meal became cold. Nick formed the laws for the new spell within his mindscape, then cast it:
(Warrior Armor.)
Nick's entire body and clothes sparked with feint flashes of red and silver light which dissipated within a few seconds but then a very feint, almost unnoticeable red aura began radiating from every part of Nick's body, even his white hair. The aura was so thin that one had to stand right beside him and focus their eyes to see it clearly and much of the spell's persistent, discomforting and colorless magic power discreetly bathed the room in slight pressure.
Nick was satisfied with the spell's evident quality which was obvious just judging from its profound magic power. Nick then flexed his right arm and his skin instantly gained a metallic-silver color and steel like texture that made it seem like it was made out of real steel. Nick then willed and the metallic-silver color spread to cover his entire body within a moment. Feeling satisfied, Nick made the metallic-silver color retract into being imperceptible and then he sat down to have his meal.
Even with the silver armor not being visible, the silk thread thin, red aura enveloping his body still remained and the magic power that it emitted still pressured the room. Nick mused as he ate:
(This is Warrior Armor. It is a significant improvement on Battle Armor which is a purely soul path spell. Warrior's Armor is a soul path and rule path spell that has the same effects as Battle Armor except that the spell's rule path laws make the laws that form the armor remain persistently on or within my body without me having to actively maintain the spell. I can bring out or retract the silver armor at will without having to recast the spell. The magic energy consumption when the armor isn't visible is very little, not even exceeding my passive recovery because the spell's laws are simply being maintained within my body, waiting to be called upon. The red aura and the magical pressure caused by Warrior Armor are simply the phenomena brought about by the physical manifestation of the spell's laws outside of my mindscape. I can't hide the latter two at my current level, not with this advanced grade spell.)
Nick finished creating the spell after about an hour but that did not lessen its value. This spell was now as powerful and complex as Nick's Jupiter, in his estimation, without the need for Nick to consume most of his mental energy in using it. Nick's high attainment levels were already showering him with benefits and he knew that this was just the beginning; his research was bound to rocket him to rank 3.
(My years of effort were worth it.)
When Nick was almost finished eating, an announcement was made all over campus using a sound path method that projected a voice to seemingly every third year student.
"All third years are to report to the academy's main assembly hall for briefing. Your attendance is mandatory and nonattendance will be punished. That is all."
Nick heard the announcement but still went ahead to finish his meal, thinking:
(They won't mind if I'm late.)
***********************************************************
Within the academy's main assembly hall...
Over three hundred students gathered within the football arena sized hall where the seats were raised gradually into the air as they approached the walls, similar to university lecture hall seating or stadium stands.
A stage constructed of wood and brick that was eight by six by one meters cubed in dimensions was erected at the center of the hall where Richter Order Academy's dean, Xavier Gecko stood behind of a wooden podium, waiting for the students to settle down. The dean was dressed in a black and gold patterned magician's robe, his head and face were completely shaven and his ears drooped by a few centimeters; he seemed to be middle aged.
Eight teachers that were known to the students stood side-by-side, facing them, all dressed in magician's robes. Two of the teachers were more well known that the others for various reasons. They were Thompson Varrow and Rebecca Jones; Thompson Varrow wore a light-green robe and Rebecca Jones wore a dark blue and red robe. Thompson was a tall, burly, white man with short, wavy, black hair who maintained a carefree expression and Rebecca was a slim, tall, white woman who had long, blonde hair that reached down to the middle of her back who maintained a plain, unbothered expression.
All eight teachers remained silent, waiting for the dean to begin his address. Many of the oldest and most prominent third years sat at the last row of seats, waiting for the show to begin, many obviously annoyed. One man seemed excited by the lively gathering of all the third years since the occurrence was not common.
The white young man had bright-green eyes and dark brown, short, well styled hair; he wore a pair of light-blue jeans pants, a white t-shirt, a thin, black leather jacket and a pair of black Kickers shoes. He spoke to the woman beside him with excitement plastered on his face:
"Hey Victoria, since we haven't seen each other for a while. Why don't we have a spar after this. Your lightning path spells are great in terms of competing with the speed of my light path spells."
The woman wore a pair of brown cargo pants, a pair of brown combat boots and a sleeveless white blouse; she had long, black hair that was tied up in a ponytail, dark eyes and a pale, white complexion. She replied:
"Stop pestering me, William. Rumor is that you've somehow succeeded in becoming a light path master. There is no way that I can compete with you in terms of speed. Why don't you go and battle with Patrice again if you're feeling itchy?"
William Rollins sighed and complained:
"Patrice keeps shrugging me off when I call her to make a challenge. I think that she might be scared that I will beat her. Anyway, the back row here has a pretty interesting lineup. In recent years, there have been a few rising stars that have reached high in the third year rankings based on their completion of academy missions. I see Jessica Jones, Jessie Auburn, Pearl Wiles, Jacob Argant, Marsha Cassidy, Greg North and more. They're young but they have potential, they'll probably replace people like you and me given time."
Victoria Nelson nodded her head and replied:
"I agree with you. Although in the third year, student ranking is based solely on academy mission completion rates, it is a fair indicator of skill and power. I plan to leave the academy as soon as I become rank 3 so knowing that there are decent seeds here to honor my legacy is comforting."
William laughed in response to Victoria's arrogance:
"You know, I also only plan to leave after becoming rank 3. I've been at rank 2 for a long time and now that my light path attainment has reached a new apex, I think that it's time for me to push directly for it. These younger students probably don't know what they're in for if they decide to graduate at rank 2. It's not exactly pleasant having to move around important realms with the constant threat of rank 3 magic beasts swooping down on you. What they experienced within Never Ending Battlefield is nothing in comparison."
William and Victoria had first become acquainted with each other during a fight within Never Ending Battlefield some years ago and they managed to become good friends after, each helping to push the other. Being a productive Magician tended to be lonely so finding someone who wanted you to advance as much as you did was rare if not improbable. William never said it but he valued Victoria's friendship greatly.
Spending time with her helped to ease the pressure that William's family put on him to get to rank 3 which William had refused to do until he had become a light path master. Victoria soon creased her brows as she vaguely remembered a person and asked:
"What ever happened to Nick Capitol? I have not seen or heard of him since he and I battled within Never Ending Battlefield. I know that he is still in the academy but his student rank is at the bottom because he does not take part in missions"
William thought for a while and the memory of a white haired, brown complexioned young man entered his mind. William shrugged his shoulders and replied:
"He might of fell off. It wouldn't be the first time that happened to a promising Magician. Too bad, since he managed to beat you, he must have been good."
Victoria spoke to Nick's credit:
"He was better than good, his unique spells of multiple paths made him very troublesome to deal with and he seemed to have a very large magic energy reserve. I thought that he would have been hailed as one of the strongest third years by this time."
William wasn't so sure. He thought that Victoria was just talking Nick up because he managed to kill her within Never Ending Battlefield. Whatever Nick's strengths were, he was not likely to be much of an opponent now since he didn't even bother completing academy missions.
(How strong could he be without using those missions to train his magic?)
When most of the students had apparently taken their seats and were now waiting on the dean to begin speaking, Xavier Gecko's voice was projected out loudly as he began his address:
"Hello, my aspiring licensed Magicians. For those of you who may not be certain, I am Xavier Gecko, dean of Richter Order Academy. I have gathered you all here to discuss a very important matter. In recent years, tensions have been high among various academies due to conflicts and duels between and among students of different academies. Even this academy had a slight conflict with Grim Lord Academy a few years ago over a duel between two students. The general situation being the way it is, cooperation among academies as a whole is being harmed which is unacceptable from an administrative point of view since we usually rely on each other for information and resources. The royal family and parliament has therefore moved to launch a large inter-academy tournament aimed at fostering friendships and good relations among the students and faculty of the different academies. This competition will require the participation of ten third years from all 83 academies nationwide. It will be a truly grand spectacle."
The third years heard the dean's words clearly but were all dubious as to the real intention behind such a competition. Most of them had not even noticed that relations were so poor between academies that a tournament was warranted. After a slight eruption of chatter, the third years ceased speaking and let the dean continue. The dean, who purposefully paused to let the information sink in, continued:
"Now, regarding the selection of the third years...myself and the rest of the academy's administration feel that a lengthy selection process is unnecessary since we only require the ten strongest among you to participate."
The dean then waved his right hand, throwing ten gold coins into the air above him for all the students to see. The coins floated with one face being visible to the students. The coins were identical and had the image of an eye on one side and the image of a double-edged sword on the other. The dean continued speaking:
"These ten coins are parts of a wisdom path magic tool called, Might Eye. These portions of the magic tool were loaned out by the royal family to this academy in order to find the best rank 2 students to participate in the competition. All other academies were each given ten similar coins for the same purpose. I will let the coins decide the competitors within a few moments. Oh, and about the rewards, those will be given only to the winning academy and to the one student to come out on top during the competition; for obvious reasons, the specific rewards given to that student will be kept hidden from the public but know that the possibilities range from magic tools to spells to inheritances to access to special realms."
The students went into an uproar:
"A competition among the best rank 2 students in the United Kingdom. Now, that's something worth watching."
"Sure, I guess. But their selection process automatically disqualifies most of us. It is not fair."
"Fair? Exactly how long have you been a Magician?"
"The magic tool is of the wisdom path so it likely uses predictive analysis or something even more mystical to determine who the best students are."
"In any case, we will see for ourselves who the so called best are and if we feel that they are not up to the challenge, we can raise a complaint."
...
William Rollins grew excited. An inter-academy tournament meant that he would be able to compete with those people from academies directly supported by the royal family and the old aristocratic class. It would likely be a very popular event in the country, not just among Magicians.
Victoria clenched her right fist in excitement, thinking:
(Competitions like this usually hand out life changing rewards. Even if you weren't interested in the rewards at the end, just the fame you'd garner and the eye opening experiences that you'd get from participating is worth it. After all, the best students participating probably means that the best methods and skills among rank 2 will be involved.)
Dean Gecko waited a while for everyone to come to grips with the situation until eventually he moved to select the candidates for the competition:
(It's time.)
The dean willed for the first gold coin to fly out and soon enough the first person was chosen. The dean immediately commanded:
"Stand and say your name clearly."
Everyone knew that the dean of Richter Order Academy was a renowned rank 6 Soul Magician so even the most privileged and arrogant person within this whole academy would not dare refuse his order or calamity might fall on them when least expected.
A woman that was clearly of Spanish descent that had slightly tanned, white skin, a head full of long, flowing black hair, sharp, dark eyes and an indifferent expression rose up from her seat. The woman wore a purple, sleeveless dress with frills at the lower half and that reached down to her ankles. She spoke her name proudly:
"Patrice Suez."
All the other students turned their attention to her and felt that such a result was expected. Just like that, the students who were doubtful of the coins' ability to choose the best to represent the academy were forced to swallow their doubt.
The dean nodded his head in acceptance. He already had some idea who his best students were so he already knew who would probably be chosen. The dean then sent out the other coins and asked each of the chosen students to stand and declare their names. Each student did so proudly and with no hesitation:
"William Rollins."
"Jet Kawasaki."
"Calder Wright."
"Victoria Nelson."
"Pearl Wiles."
"Jessie Auburn."
"Jessica Jones."
"Edward Keslow."
Just when the dean was about to send out the final coin, a spatial gateway opened up on stage like a curtain being drawn apart and a young man with white hair and strange, spiraling eyes walked out of it, following which the space gate closed. Most students were shocked by this person's audacity, actually using their magic power to go on stage while the dean and other Regular Magicians were present. This person was too bold, too ridiculous.
Nick walked on stage with a faint red aura surrounding his body and while a feint magical pressure bled from him in all directions. The dean remained expressionless as this young man appeared while the other Regular Magicians except Thompson Varrow, who palmed his face with his right hand at this reckless, former student of his.
Nick spoke while maintaining his indifferent expression:
"I'm here to collect my coin, dean."
In contrast to everyone's expectations, the dean said nothing and simply tapped the gold coin, at which point it rapidly flew to his left flank to be caught in Nick's right grip. Nick spoke out plainly once the coin was in his possession:
"Nick Capitol."
The dean eyed Nick from the corner of his eyes for a while and then turned his attention to the rest of the students to continue his address, ignoring Nick's boldness. Nick observed to gold coin in his hand with some apparent interest but he could not begin to understand on what basis that this coin actually determined the best people to take part in the inter-academy competition.
(Wisdom path is very mysterious in its workings even though it is one of the most well-known paths. It is a good thing that eating my meal did not result in me getting here late or I might have missed this opportunity.)
Nick had been here since the beginning and had simply been hiding within Grey Room. A few months ago he had already figured out how to cast Space Rift within Grey Room which he currently could not do with his other spells. Once Dean Gecko was about to give away the last coin, Nick knew that he had to reveal himself; the opportunity to compete against the best students in the country was just too good.
(I need a whetstone to sharpen my newly gained affinities before I continue my research and move towards rank 3. A competition like this is the perfect chance. The other students are looking at me like I am crazy for being on stage but if they were set to be the greatest of all time like myself, they would be this bold too.)
The dean spoke further:
"The competitors have been chosen and after four days of private preparation, they will be taken to the competition site which will be hosted within the realm, Large Garden. The event will be televised and transmitted all over the country so both Magicians and non-magicians will be able to watch the students compete. If any of the competitors is not willing to participate, speak your mind now so a different competitor can be chosen."
The dean waited patiently so that the chosen competitors could have a chance of refusal to compete but since they all remained standing silently, he was about to move on when one of the students sitting in the audience suddenly stood up and spoke. This person was a man that seemed to be in his mid-twenties; he wore a pair of black, plastic rimmed glasses, he had neatly styled, short, black hair, white skin and wore a plain blue magician's robe. He spoke to the dean clearly:
"Dean Gecko. I can understand and accept the selection of all competitors except one and that person is Nick Capitol. All the other competitors are highly positioned in the student rankings and have demonstrably proven track records but Nick Capitol has been indolent for years and is at the very bottom of the rankings. How could he be among the competitors chosen to represent the academy?"
Dean Gecko internally sneered at the student, thinking:
(Fool. What does superficial rankings and track records have to do with magic power and ability? Besides, these coins are a part of an advanced regular grade magic tool and the power of Might Eye is undeniable. Even I cannot question its judgement lightly, much less merely you. However, since a student has raised a concern, shooting him down without proper reasons will fuel discontent. I will have Nick Capitol give a demonstration.)
The dean turned his head slightly to Nick and commanded:
"Go ahead, silence your doubters. I will not interfere."
Nick knew what the dean meant immediately - talk was cheap, show your worth. Nick quickly mobilized over four hundred ghost-white blades within Blade Works' adjacent space and positioned them within the adjacent space's equivalent position corresponding to the space above the students. Nick willed and the ghost-white blades then appeared within view of the students and faculty like phantoms.
Each blade was radiating the distinct signature of space magic and Nick had its tip pointed at a student below. The man that spoke against Nick looked at the hundreds of blades above him and he gulped unconsciously. He decided to take his seat and remain silent, not daring to look at Nick for the remainder of the assembly.
While Nick's demonstration silenced the young man who raised an objection to his candidacy, it offended many other students, one of them being Jet Kawasaki, one of the ten chosen competitors, who stood at the third row from the front. The man seemed to be in his mid-twenties and of Sino-Japanese descent, he wore a pair of white denim jeans shorts, a grey cotton t-shirt, a pair of white sneakers and a silver chain that extended from the left side of his black belt into his left shorts pocket.
William Rollins observed the blades above him with some amusement while Victoria Nelson merely glanced at them before yawning and turning her attention back to the stage. Patrice Suez did not even look at the blades and kept her dark eyes pinned to the magic tool that was clipped to the right side of Nick's waist.
Calder Wright, Pearl Wiles, Jessie Auburn, Jessica Jones and Edward Keslow were not impressed by Nick's show of strength either but for the people who were familiar with Nick, they were intrigued by his sudden appearance after four years, wondering what he had been doing all this time. This was especially so for Pearl Wiles whose uncle had given her an objective involving Nick Capitol some years ago.
Jet Kawasaki could no longer hold in his annoyance and uttered loudly:
"Hey! What the fuck do you think that you are doing?"