"False expectations appearing real. That should be what fear really is. I once heard a pundit say that once you become fearless, life becomes limitless. Based on my own experience, I know that is true."
Nick then reminisced on his experiences within Never Ending Battlefield, Forgotten Peril and even his fight with Harvey Nefari. If he had given in to his fear during those periods, he would have faltered in his steps that led to his current power level today.
"Now that I understand what fear is, I should work on applying that to my spell. Hmmm...is this sudden inspiration because of my Limitless Path talent?"
Nick had a talent called, Limitless Path, that was supposed to give him inspiration based on his affinity with the 'rules', whatever that meant. Nick quickly took a look inside his mindscape and discovered the new symbols that were imprinted onto the golden figure's forehead and he knew then for sure that his inspiration was indeed probably related to his talent.
(Gaining benefits from something I don't really understand feels weird but I won't knock it just yet...)
Nick immediately got to work on designing his spell while considering his new line of thought. The process of working through the concepts and exploring the wisdom path implications somehow became easier once Nick's rule path principles were clear enough and that clarity spilled over into his understanding of the way blade path would fit into his knew spell.
Although Nick could not directly make use of wisdom path while creating his spell, by his estimations, the combined rule and blade path effects of his spell should strongly mimic a wisdom path outcome.
By making use of Eyes of the Fated, Limitless Path, Vision Of the Blade, his blade and rule path masteries and his spell making knowledge and experience, Nick finished his knew spell after another one and a half days.
(Making rank 2 spells is relatively easy at this point but that is because their complexity relative to my high attainments isn't much of an obstacle. Based on my assessment of the rank 3 spells, Gravity Shift and Replace Soul, when I get to rank 3, designing spells won't be so fast paced anymore.)
Rank 3 Magicians were largely unstoppable from the perspective of rank 2 Magicians because rank 3 spells were simply on another level in terms of complexity, robustness, profundity and the way that rank 3 spells made use of magic energy fundamentally changed how a Magician could control reality; rank 2 and rank 3 spells simply could not be compared on equal footing, it would be like comparing a raft to a steam boat.
The latter fact meant that they both helped their riders to get where they needed to go but the speed, safety and power involved in the transport was just too different in fundamental quality for one mode of transportation not to be clearly superior.
Nick then proceeded to make notes on is new spell:
______________________________________________________________
Fear The Blade: a rank 2 rule path and blade path advanced grade spell that projects false scenes of reality into a target's mind; ideally, the scenes will seem entirely real to the target for their duration as if they were, in fact, reality. The spell is cast by revealing the blade of the caster's held weapon to a target and only one target can be affected at a time. The caster will have no control over how the spell manifests within the target's mind or for how long the target's reality will be distorted or how many times the target's reality will be distorted for the duration of the spell's activation and the caster will only be able to vaguely sense the target's distorted perception. The duration of the spell will last until the caster actively cancels it, the bladed weapon used to cast the spell is destroyed or the blade of the weapon is concealed for any amount of time. The base consumption involved in activation is approximately 15,000 magical units, after which, the spell's effects are self-perpetuated by the target's own mind and will only cease when the previously mentioned circumstances arise. This spell's power will largely depend on the quality of the bladed weapon used to cast it.
_____________________________________________________________
Nick looked at his notes and sighed bitterly:
(Although the spell is advanced grade, which is good, the estimated cost of activation is admittedly too much but I can't do any better considering its complexity and effect. Its saving grace is that once the spell is successfully cast, it is self-perpetuated by my target's own mind until the spell is cancelled, therefore, the spell could theoretically remain active for hours. Some other cons are that I won't have much control over how the spell manifests or how many times it manifests but I will need to test it before I know whether those are significant flaws or not.)
Fear The Blade consisted of over four hundred and fifty thousand symbols both drawn in Nickel and Valteese so it is no doubt complex but with Nick's masteries and developed mindscape, he reasoned that he should be able to cast it in reasonable time, which is usually a defining quality of blade path spells.
(The overall effect should mimic wisdom path but my lack of knowledge and experience in that path is probably why this spell has so great a consumption and its laws are so verbose. Well...it's a start. The not so funny thing about this spell is that most other rank 2 Magicians would not dare to cast it because of the high magic energy consumption but with my special mindscape, I can barely afford the cost during battle.)
Nick soon creased his brows in realization:
"The high magic energy consumption of this spell makes me realize that I need a reliable way to restore consumed magical units during battle that is not related to active meditation. I have my Courage In Sacrifice spell but it requires me to take damage to effect the latter result. My work isn't done but I've run out of time for creating spells so I will have to solve my magic energy consumption problem later."
The problem with not adopting the spells from a complete inheritance is that there were gaps within Nick's skill set that he only realized through experience. He knew that developing that skillset, however, could not be rushed since he was on his own and basically working from ground zero.
(Now that I think about it, no wonder Victoria Nelson lasted so long in battle with me during our fight in Never Ending Battlefield. She probably had a method to effectively restore her magic energy reserves during battle. I should expect that the same goes for William, Pearl, Jessica and others from legacy families. Sigh, anyway, I have to be at the competition venue in a few hours so I might as well get some sleep.)
Nick had long since been tired from all his thinking for the past few days so he went to the bedroom, removed his work boots from his feet and jumped into the bed. Nick fell asleep and did not plan to wake up until near the start of the competition.
******************************************************
Thompson Varrow sat at the dining table within his room and slowly looked through correspondences using his laptop. He was feeling slightly annoyed because of all the messages from various stake holders, telling him to make sure that Richter Order Academy's competitors were ready for the task at hand. He complained:
"Hmph! These buzzards only sit behind desks and collect money and give orders but have never even appeared once to encourage the students. Based on this kind of enthusiasm from the suits, the academy must be earning much from its participation in the competition and their interest might not just be about the glory from winning the competition. In any case, although I demanded victory from the students, I am well aware that they are unlikely to win. There are simple too much privileged people competing in this competition."
Suddenly, Varrow heard a knock on his room door and using his magic sense, he easily discerned the person's identity since they made no effort to hide their magic power. He yelled in response:
"Just come in, Rebecca, the door is unlocked."
The door immediately opened and a woman, who was wearing a light-blue Magician's robe and whose long, blonde hair flowed all the way down to the middle of her back, entered the room. She quickly moved to sit opposite to Varrow and spoke familiarly with him:
"How are the competitors, Varrow?"
Varrow squinted his eyes and snickered:
"Since when does Rebecca Jones care about the well-being of strangers? Hmph! What you really mean is, how is your sister doing, right? If you're so concerned, why don't you go ask her yourself?"
Rebecca lightly smiled and replied:
"I don't want to disturb Jessica while she is preparing herself for the competition. This is a big deal for her, you know. For the past few years, she's been obsessed about what she'd do after graduating the academy and even after I told her that our family could use its contacts to get her a position anywhere she'd like, she rejected the notion. She wants to make a way for herself on her own and she thinks that this competition is the way to do it or at least a start."
Varrow wasn't much interested in Rebecca's family drama but since they had known each other for a long time and had been through some difficulties together, he assured her:
"Jessica will be fine. I had her spar with Pearl Wiles and she stood her ground. You and your family seemed to have trained her well enough."
Rebecca's smile brightened when she heard her sister's strength being acknowledged by Varrow, who Rebecca admired greatly. She said:
"Yeah, we didn't let her grow complacent despite all her advantages but she mostly pushed herself. For some reason, she has a goal to defeat Nick Capitol. Do you have any idea why? Is that man actually that impressive?"
Varrow turned his attention away from his computer and thought about how he should answer Rebecca's questions:
(Honestly, I don't really understand Nick's growth. It seems unnatural to say the least but he does seem to be one of the stronger students. He should be capable of rivalling William Rollins at the very least. Even though I taught him for a time, I am not sure how he is so well equipped with powerful methods considering his background and I am not even aware of him being anyone's disciple.)
"I think that Nick is promising, a bit arrogant and closed off but promising. If your sister has a goal to defeat him, based on what I've seen him do so far, it is a worthy goal, probably more difficult than she realizes."
Jessica was surprised that Varrow thought so highly of Nick. She asked:
"It sounds like you rate Nick Capitol more highly than the legacy Apprentice Magicians. Are you sure that your opinion is not biased because Nick uses the sword like you?"
Varrow's brows creased in response to hearing Rebecca's doubt. He replied emphatically:
"I, Thompson Varrow, do not speak nonsense. If it seems that I rate Nick highly, it is because he has earned my commendation. I'll have you know that during his spar with Jessie Auburn, Nick defeated the man with one punch while Jessie was maintaining one of the transformations from his family's elemental transformation inheritance."
Rebecca lightly chuckled; she loved to see the great Thompson Varrow defend his words. She then spoke cheekily:
"I was just making sure that you weren't showing teacher's bias; relax, old boy. Anyway, the competition begins in a few hours. I happen to have gotten some information on the first event."
Varrow grew slightly interested in Rebecca's information since even he did not have any way of finding out the specific details of the competition's events beforehand.
(It looks like this woman has somehow made intimate contact with the royal family or their close associates. That's women for you. I can't beat them when it comes to making connections.)
Varrow asked plainly:
"What form is the first event going to take?"
Rebecca's expression became neutral as she declared:
"It will be a race."
**********************************************************
Nick woke up at 5 am on the day that the inter-academy competition was set to begin. He took a cold shower and then got dressed in a white and orange, striped polo shirt, a pair of fitting, light-blue jeans pants and a pair of black work boots.
Nick then summoned a meal of roasted chicken and cheese pasta from his space band and ate it before leaving his room. Nick took the elevator to the ground floor and soon arrived in the lobby. Once there, he saw many students that were seemingly intending to go to the competition venue like himself; he did not recognize any of them, though.
Nick cast Grey Room not far away from the elevator and left the hotel discreetly. He made his way to the arena where the inter-academy competition would be held and cancelled Grey Room as soon as he got to the pedestrian gate. The time was now 6:53 am. Nick went through the gate and passed the dark haze that shadowed it to end up in a hallway where he immediately discovered to a booth where four persons that Nick assumed to be event staff were stationed.
Nick made the latter assumption because they were all wearing matching red t-shirts that had the word, 'Staff', printed on them in white color and bold font.
Nick walked up to one of the male event staff, who seemed to be in his early thirties, having a white complexion, dark eyes and short, brown hair; the man also wore a pair of blue jeans pants along with a pair of white running shoes. Nick asked him:
"I need to get to the section assigned to Richter Order Academy. Can you help me out?"
The man observed Nick and seeing the two swords sheathed at his sides, he immediately assumed that Nick was a Magician and his disposition became very respectful, replying:
"Follow me, sir. I will take you there personally."
Nick followed the man from behind and walked through the hallway that seemed to be curved to some degree. While Nick walked along, he noticed that the event staff member that was walking in front of him was not a Magician; he thought:
(What kind of connections does this guy have that allowed him to get stationed within this realm to work this particular job?)
In the past, Nick would have assumed that this man was hired through an equal opportunity, thorough process but he now knew that was not likely the reality. The world seemed to function on more cronyism and favoritism than he was comfortable admitting.
(Considering that the royal family must be administrating this event, I doubt that just anyone could get a job as event staff even if they are a non-magician.)
Nick couldn't help but inquire:
"Hey mister, how did you get a job like this, if you don't mind me asking?"
The man was a little caught off guard by Nick's seemingly random question but answered honestly since it wasn't something that he needed to keep a secret; in fact, it might make him seem more connected in the eyes of others.
"Oh, my sister knows a very important Magician so she helped me get the job."
Nick nodded his head once and replied:
"Good for you."
The man's steps became a little more prideful after hearing Nick's reply but Nick internally sighed:
(There are also people like this that think that having some faint connection to someone that they think is important is some sort of glory. Rather, being the important person would be the actual glory but such people would never put in the work to be important so they curry favor and make use of their family and friends to put them on. I'm not knocking it, everyone's got to eat but I'd rather be the sun than its reflection in the water.)
Nick and the staff member soon arrived at a metal door that had a sign bolted onto the wall, at the left side of the door, that read, 'Richter Order Academy'. The staff member left as soon as they found the door and Nick thanked him for his help.
Nick then proceeded to go through the door, following which, he came to a seating arrangement that had clearly been segmented from other resting areas on the same level by metal structures along the section's side limits. there were two rows of seats, each row had fifteen plastic padded blue and white chairs that were bolted to the ground and were spaced apart by about one foot.
Every other competitor of Richter Order Academy was present and waiting for the competition to begin. They were all wearing some kind of leather or cloth combat suit; Nick seemed out of place because of his casual attire but he didn't care.
Varrow noticed Nick as soon as he arrived. Varrow sat at the right-most seat in the front row. He quickly asked Nick:
"Did you prepare adequately during the past few days?"
Nick replied to Varrow:
"Hold on, let me confirm something."
Nick then exaggeratedly looked himself over and then focused on Varrow again, saying:
"It looks like I remembered to bring my awesomeness. Check; I'm ready to go."
Varrow's stern expression became funny as his right eyelid rapidly twitched in response to Nick's answer to his question. Varrow then soon openly sighed and said:
"Just take a seat; the first event will begin soon."
Nick did exactly that and moved to take the far left seat in the second row. At that point, William Rollins, who sat in the front row beside Victoria Nelson, turned around and greeted Nick:
"Good to see you, Nick. Let's do well for the sake of our academy, okay."
Nick raised his right brow and asked in response:
"Is that why you're here, for the sake of the academy?"
William's expression became blank for a moment before it sharpened and he replied:
"Sure...among other things."
William turned around without saying anything else and Victoria only glanced at Nick, giving him a brief nod before returning her gaze to the rest of the arena. Nick looked around their section for a while and one after the other, Pearl and Jessica nodded their heads at him in greeting from their front row seats, which were a few chairs away from each other, and Nick returned their greetings without saying anything.
Patrice Suez simply closed her eyes while sitting in her chair in the middle of the second row, seemingly not paying attention to anyone around her. Calder Wright sat two chairs to the left of Patrice and seemed to be waiting on something. Jet Kawasaki and Edward Keslow sat in the front row and seemed to be wrapped up in their own thoughts.
Nick then turned his focus to the rest of the arena. The arena seemed to be designed with the sections assigned to the different academies built a few meters above ground level with metal partitions on both side of each and a steel railing lining their front-most edge, overlooking the wide field below; the academy sections seemed to consist of two storeys with the section that was reserved for Richter Order Academy being on the lowest storey.
Situated above the areas that were reserved for academies, were areas where stands circled around the arena that consisted of over a dozen rows of seats and gradually rose over a dozen meters beginning from the first row. This was presumably where spectators were expected to gather and Nick soon realized that a few hundred spectators had already taken their seats.
(This arena is definitely bigger than the size of its exterior would suggest. There is probably some space magic at work here. Most of the academys' sections seem to have their competitors in place already. The field where I assume that we will be competing is as big as two football fields.)
The field that was surrounded by the arena's structures was entirely lined with short, uniform, green grass and currently did not have anything resting on it. After observing the environment for a while, Nick decided to think about the Cross Stream sword technique while he waited for the events to begin.
About an hour later, at 8 am, when the stands became filled with various spectators, a bright flash of silver light appeared at the center of the field and a grey robed Magician appeared standing upright and giving off an air of unshakable confidence. The man had a chiseled jaw line, short, blonde hair and bright-blue eyes. He spoke with authority:
"Welcome all to the inter-academy competition hosted by our royal family. My name is Ralph Eltshire and I will be the master of ceremonies for the duration of the competition..."
Varrow quickly informed the students:
"For those of you that might be unaware, Eltshire, is generally the last name of members of the royal family. Although a small minority of its members have other last names, Eltshire is the most common."
The students from legacy families were already aware of that fact but to, Nick, Calder and Edward, it was new information. Ralph continued:
"...To all the people watching this competition from Grand Earth, I hope that it will be an enlightening contest as I know that many private companies and other interest are always on the lookout for promising Magicians to join their ranks. To all the students present, I hope that you will do your best during the competition and let me remind you, the Magician world is not fun and games and in that spirit, you are mostly responsible for your own lives during the individual events; do not be frivolous."
Ralph stopped speaking and slowly turned around to eye all the academy sections, as if he was trying to send a subtle message with his actions. Somehow all the students felt as if his gaze had washed over them, carrying with it a magic power that gave them a slight discomfort.
Jet stood up in response and directed a question at Varrow:
"What was that?"
Varrow gave a carefree answer:
"That was a regular level, advanced grade spell; its effects were subtle, though. If I were to take a guess, he used it to find the gold coins associated with Might Eye on all of your persons in order to make sure that only people that were chosen by the royal family's own magic tool are the ones competing."
Victoria raised her right eyebrow, asking:
"What if we left our coins back on Grand Earth?"
Varrow shook his head, saying:
"You might not have noticed but once the coin chooses you, it will remain in close proximity to you at all times, with the only exception being if it is stored within your space band that you carry but that also counts as the gold coin being on your person."
Nick sensed the magic power radiating from Ralph just now and knew that it involved an element of space magic or rather, that was what his intuition indicated to him. After Ralph had a thorough look around, he nodded his head once and said:
"Okay, since everyone seems to be ready, let me clue you in on the first event. The initial event will be a sort of race where a certain number of participating students will be disqualified based on their sequential order upon completing the race. The race will take place within an artificial realm created by our royal family's best Space Magicians so don't worry, you are in good hands. Oh, the race will be about one thousand kilometers long with a time limit of twelve hours. At the end of that time, if you have not moved past the end point of the race, your position will be determined and assigned by the administrators of the competition."
Ralph suddenly raised and snapped his right fingers and an orb, seemingly made from space magic was formed in midair, over twelve meters above the ground. The orb was about four meters in radius and its surface depicted the terrain of a place unknown to the students. Ralph continued:
"What you see here is the gateway to the artificial realm as well as its spy-glass. The spectators just have to focus on it for a little while before they will be able to gain a bird's eye view of the students' progress during the event. There will be a way-marker that indicates to the students where they should be moving towards and the only rule is that students will be ranked absolutely based on the order in which they finish the race during its duration and nothing else. Now that my explanation has covered just about everything, all students are now required to raise an arm towards the space orb and you will be teleported to the artificial realm. When there, you have to wait for instructions as to when to start the race."
Everyone within Richter Order Academy's section looked at Varrow and in response, Varrow spoked sternly:
"You heard the man, just raise your hand towards the space orb. Don't worry, the royal family won't dare purposely harm you with so many outsiders watching."
William was the first of the competitors from Richter Order Academy to stretch his right arm out and focus on the space orb, following which, William disappeared without a trace from his spot soon thereafter. The other eight followed William's example soon after and disappeared without a trace. After that, Nick was the only competitor left within Richter Order Academy's section.
Nick watched the other academys' sections and observed as many students disappeared after focusing on the space orb. Varrow slightly turned to Nick and said:
"You should get going. I don't know anything about the possible obstacles that you will experience during the race and neither do the other students, so they will all be in a frenzy to start. You don't want them to get ahead of you, do you?"
Nick stayed silent for a while before raising his right arm forward and placing his focus on the space orb. Nick's view in front of himself changed almost immediately. Nick looked around and realized that he was surrounded by a large group of people that were just standing around and discussing the impending race.
The current setting was an arid badland that had no trees and a sparse amount of grass; there seemed to be only dry land for kilometers all around. The ground was hard and the soil rocky; the yellow sun above the students was absolutely scorching and soon left Nick feeling parched. Nick mused:
(This is a supposedly artificial realm created by Magicians. The environment feels and seems real, though. I guess anything is possible with magic. Now, I don't see the others from Richter Order Academy as yet but they could have been sent anywhere within this area. Since this portion of the competition is intended to be a race, I need to decide how I'm going to play this. Most everyone will probably start moving at the same time and although I have some good space path methods, with all these competitors present, that is a thin advantage. I need a method to increase my chances of victory...)
Nick looked around until he found a seemingly perfect spot and then he cast Space Rift in order to open a space gate to that spot. The people around him were momentarily stunned by the appearance of the space gate but within moments, they relaxed and tried to talk to Nick. They figured that since Nick knew space magic, he would likely be very proficient in movement and they wanted to find out whether they could team up with him for the duration of the event.
"Hey there..."
Nick ignored the people trying to talk to him and walked through the space gate, after which, the space gate closed. The person that had spoken out to Nick was left with his words stuck in his throat and his face became slightly flushed from embarrassment. Nick appeared over twenty-eight meters away from his original spot and left the crowd with the closest person being over six meters away.
Nick summoned a metal table, that had a smooth surface, and a metal stool from his space band and then he summoned a large sheet of special canvas paper, that covered the table completely, from his space band as well. Nick began drawing laws for a magic formation on the canvas paper using magic energy that he radiated from his fingertips.
(This special canvas paper can be stained by a certain amount of magic energy that is projected onto it so in order to draw on it, I can just release magic energy from my finger tips and if I want to erase something, I just have to release an excess of magic energy on the markings that I want to erase. Now, I don't plan to move along the ground or manually propel myself all the way to the goal. Those are no doubt what most of these people will think of doing but if I want to do great, I have to think differently. I have masteries in five paths and a large amount of magic materials stored within my space band so I can afford to do something different from the rest.)
After twenty minutes of working, a circular magic formation designed in green pigment was starting to take shape as Nick had already drawn a few thousand symbols in Valteese. As more students appeared, many noticed Nick's actions but they mostly ignored him, thinking that he was just another weirdo and each academy had plenty of those.
Soon, Ralph's voice rang out over the over eight hundred students now present within the artificial realm:
"The way marker will appear during the next thirty seconds. At that point, you may begin the race. Remember, the whole of Grand Earth is watching, so don't look too foolish out there."
Following Ralph's words, the students began discussing:
"What does he mean by 'don't look too foolish'. How do you do anything worthwhile without looking like an idiot during the process?"
"Ha ha. Those are some interesting words. Where'd you get them, the back of a cereal box?"
"No, I got them from your mama's underwear draw."
"You!"
"You two, shut the fuck up. Instead of arguing, we should decide how we're going to be completing this race. We can either work individually or in teams to compete. I'm going to go it alone, though, no one is going to drag me down."
"Who would compete in teams during this event when their own winning position isn't guaranteed?"
"Just shut up and mind your own business. The race is starting soon."
...
Seconds later, a flowing stream of red heat qi appeared in the sky, moving towards the northern direction and the students guessed that this was the way-marker that Ralph spoke about. Almost everyone begun moving in the direction of the way-marker's flow using all kinds of spells and magical tools.
Nick then observed the other students for a little while and saw flying clouds, enslaved wolf like and bull like magic beasts, water currents, light rays, bolts of thunder, ice paths, rocket boots, jetpacks, motorcycles that radiated magic power and other methods. Nick soon turned his attention back to his drawing and kept working. He mused while his hands moved across the canvas paper:
(My most useful magical path for this scenario would be space path but I can add rule path to the magic formation to complement the space path effect. This is one of the times that my Limitless Path talent would also come in handy. Let's see, I need a rule path principle related to speed, something that moves me rapidly without stop but also allows me to remain in control...)
Within Nick's mindscape, the golden figure of light stopped walking on its road and looked up at the sky and the symbols on its forehead decreased in number to one, transforming into a Nickel symbol that meant, 'Engine', in English. The golden figure then began walking on its road once again and information immediately flooded Nick's mind.
(Oh, the principle that I'm being inspired with this time is 'engine'. An engine is a mechanism that induces a certain action to be done repeatedly. I want my magic formation to push me towards the goal nonstop so I guess that rule path principle should do the trick. I'll only know if it will work when I try.)
Nick spent the next hour finishing the magic formation. Despite the relatively short time spent on it, only Nick knew how much effort was needed to complete his formation, mostly in the form of mental strain. Nick made use of three of his masteries which allowed him to cycle through millions of related thoughts in only one hour, formulating a magic formation that he estimated would take a normal person months to complete.
(This is an intermediate grade apprentice formation. Its function is relatively simple but the laws that I used to formulate its related concepts were based on the almost full use of my masteries so they are fairly verbose but I did that to ensure better control and maneuverability. In this case, simpler would not have been better; maybe simpler would have sufficed if the laws were drawn in another mystical language but by using Valteese, working out and codifying every detail was the best option.)
Nick looked over every detail on the canvas paper and then stored it as well as the metal table and stool within his space band. He then pointed his finger at the ground beneath him and cast Big Copy to imprint his circular magic formation onto the ground; the magic formation was produced in a red pigment.
Some people that had remained within the area even after an hour noticed Nick's magic formation that was not yet activated and one young man came over to him, curious about what Nick was doing. The young man had a pale-white complexion, short, blonde hair, bright-blue eyes and a slightly muscular body; he wore a grey, leather combat suit with a pair of black leather boots. He got within two meters of Nick before Nick gave him a warning glance; the blonde young man smiled genially and asked:
"Hey friend, are you a Formation Magician? That's so cool. I don't think that I actually know any such Magicians personally. Did you just design that magic formation?"
Based on the fact that Nick had been working on the magic formation for about two hours, it was not a stretch for someone to assume that he had just designed it. Nick squinted his eyes and replied:
"And so what if I did? What's it to you?"
The blonde man replied:
"Nothing, just curious."
Nick became slightly annoyed and said:
"Well, keep your curiosity and your person over there or you and I might have problems."
After saying that, Nick spoke the formation's activation phrase and a small twister made of magic energy that was about two feet tall swiftly appeared. Nick then threw in magic materials one by one that he summoned from his space band. They included many space path and formation path magic materials but no rule path magic materials; that lack in rule path materials was the major reason for the bulk of the rule path laws that made up the formation. Without main stream rule path materials, Nick had to make up for their lack by drawing all the necessary rule path laws himself.
Of course, he could have gotten curse path magic materials but although curse path was a sub-branch of rule path, its magic materials were not strictly equivalent to main stream rule path materials and so using curse path materials would result in him having to do more work rather than less in order to make use of them. Nick tossed in dozens of magic materials before the formation was satisfied and the twister dissipated.
At that point, the magic formation sparked with red and silver light, signifying that it was ready to be used. Because of the lack of rule path materials, a significant amount of the magic energy that would be used to operate the magic formation would have to come from Nick himself, but to him, that was no problem.
The blonde haired man, who was still watching Nick, gasped in response to the magic power that he sensed radiating from the magic formation, thinking:
(A space path magic formation? Hmmm...not just space path, there is also something else mixed in. This guy knows his stuff. Even in my own academy, his skill would be top notch, assuming that he formulated this magic formation himself.)
Nick walked onto the magic formation and it quickly transformed into a space bubble that enveloped him. The space bubble was the shape of a one-meter-radius sphere that had a reflective surface that made Nick indiscernible from the outside. The young man tried to get Nick's attention so that he could speak with him but Nick had no interest in speaking with a stranger right now.
Nick willed and the space bubble rose sixty meters into the air and then moved forward at constant speed in the direction that the red heat qui flowed; its speed was similar to a military jet.
Nick watched as the wind avoided the surface of his space bubble as it sped by while he free floated within its interior. He soon muttered:
"This is really the way to travel."