Thanks to Teacher Xiu's "hands-on" teaching, my magic level has made a qualitative leap in half a year. I can now withstand the devil's attacks for about two hours during the hellish training. Every morning when I arrive at school, it's nothing but defend, defend, and defend again. After I'm exhausted, Teacher Xiu lets me meditate to recover my magic power, and then continues bombarding me with magic in the afternoon.
In these six months, all I've learned are primary light-type defensive magic. I always think Teacher Xiu is a sadist, and I'm just a poor little sandbag being tossed around by him every day.
Standing at the classroom door, I first cast a Light Shield on myself, then added a Light Prism reflection magic outside the shield (Light Prism is my favorite magic learned during this period—it's a reflective defensive magic that I use extremely proficiently). I carefully controlled the two magics and pushed the door open. I'm terrified now. Every time I walk in, it's a barrage of attacks, often leaving me covered in dust. So now I usually cast all my defensive magic on myself before entering the classroom.
"Good morning, Teacher Xiu."
A Light Arrow greets me. I quickly lean to the side and use the inclined surface of the Light Prism to deflect the Light Arrow. Why use the inclined surface? Although the Light Prism can reflect the opponent's magic, it consumes a lot of my magic power. Using the inclined surface can greatly reduce the contact area of the opponent's magic, and the effect is very good. Now my control over these primary magics is already very strong. I usually fuse the Light Shield and Light Prism into a new shield the size of a washbasin, gathering it in my left hand. I named it the Light Prism Shield. Although it's not an all-around defense, the light elements are extremely dense, so its defense is greatly enhanced, and it can reflect magic—very useful. Teacher Xiu once attacked me with a single-point intermediate magic, but couldn't break my Light Prism Shield in a short time.
"Quick reflexes! We'll put defensive magic aside for now. Starting today, we'll begin learning spatial magic—this is my main magic. I hope you'll study hard."
"Wow, spatial magic!, Great! Now I can escape in the future." I won't have to be afraid of this old man anymore. I must learn this well. If he tortures me again, I'll just use a spatial magic to go home. Hehe. (Is it really that simple?)
"First, let me explain the basic principles of spatial magic. Spatial magic is divided into movement magic and attack magic. Movement magic mainly relies on skill, but the level of your magic power determines the distance of your teleportation, and your spiritual power determines the accuracy. Generally speaking, the shorter the teleportation distance, the higher the positional accuracy. The specific operation method of movement spatial magic is to lock onto the place you want to go with your spiritual power, then drive the magic power through a simple spell to teleport your body. It is divided into short-distance instant teleportation, long-distance instant teleportation, and large-scale long-distance instant teleportation. Short-distance instant teleportation is commonly used, mainly to dodge enemy attacks. Long-distance instant teleportation and large-scale long-distance instant teleportation are rarely used, mainly because they have high requirements for spiritual power and low accuracy—you might end up hundreds of kilometers away from the intended target. Moreover, large-scale long-distance instant teleportation requires the support of a magic circle to be realized."
"Teacher, Teacher, so what you said last time about teleporting back from the capital to supervise my studies with long-distance instant magic was a lie, right?"
Oops, I let it slip. Teacher Xiu looked embarrassed. "Focus on learning magic and stop asking so many questions. Today we'll start learning short-distance instant teleportation. With the magic power and spiritual power of a Grand Mage or above, this magic can take you anywhere within 500 meters."
As he spoke, Teacher Xiu suddenly disappeared from my sight. I felt a pat on my back—turns out Teacher Xiu had teleported directly behind me with instant teleportation. Wow, so amazing!
"Teacher, why didn't I hear you recite the spell?"
"That's what I'm about to tell you. The spell for short-distance instant teleportation is very short—just one word. As long as you control your magic power well, lock onto the desired location with your will, and silently recite that word in your heart, it will work."
"What word?"
"Go."
"That's it?"
"Come try it."
"Okay."
I began to concentrate, locked my target on the corner of the classroom, and silently muttered "Go" in my heart. I felt a whoosh and suddenly appeared in a different place.
Why are my feet empty? Ouch, plop! I teleported too far—right into the pool outside the classroom.
I climbed out of the pool in embarrassment, spat out some water. What the hell? It's not good at all; the error is way too big. I returned to the classroom. Seeing my sorry state, a faint smile appeared on Teacher Xiu's serious face.
"Now you know how demanding spatial magic is on spiritual power. You must stay fully focused during teleportation—even the slightest distraction can lead to a huge deviation. Today, practice here and try to teleport exactly where you want to go."
"Yes, Teacher Xiu."
Watching Teacher Xiu leave, I plopped down on the ground. It's still better than the previous days—at least I won't have to endure hellish training. For my "safety first" (escape plan), I must practice hard, I secretly resolved in my heart.
"Go." I set the teleportation distance at 3 meters in front of me. Ah, it worked perfectly this time.
"Go." "Go." "Go." "Go." "Go." "Go." "Go." "Go."
I kept practicing short-distance instant teleportation until my magic power was exhausted.
The effect is great! I'm getting more and more proficient. Within the 30-square-meter room, I can basically go wherever I want. Yes! I'm done practicing. Time to rest and give the old devil a surprise tomorrow. As I thought, I gradually entered a meditative (sleeping) state.
From that day on, I continued practicing short-distance instant teleportation. The hellish training I thought I had escaped didn't leave me. Every morning, I still endured an hour of "torture" before practicing short-distance instant teleportation, gradually expanding the teleportation range from 30 meters to 50 meters, 100 meters, 200 meters... After a year of hard work, I've reached the limit of short-distance instant teleportation—I can teleport freely within 500 meters with extremely high accuracy.
"Elian, come with me to the new training ground."
I followed Teacher Xiu to the backyard of the academy. The entire 300-square-meter backyard was filled with 5-meter-tall wooden frames, each with a large burlap sack tied to it with thick rope.
"Teacher, what are these for?"
"I told you—for practicing short-distance instant teleportation! Watch." Teacher Xiu pushed all over a hundred burlap sacks off the tall frames. All the sacks began swaying back and forth close to the ground, crisscrossing the field. "Watch carefully." With that, Teacher Xiu teleported into the burlap sack formation, continuously using instant teleportation inside. The sacks never touched him. After a minute, Teacher Xiu teleported out of the formation.
"Your turn. From now on, you'll practice in this burlap sack formation. I'll let the Light Tiger help push the sacks."
"Teacher, spare my life!"
"Don't worry, it's fine. The teacher's healing magic is quite good. Or should we replace the burlap sacks with iron balls?"
"Burlap sacks are fine, burlap sacks are fine!" Hearing such a terrifying threat, I didn't dare complain anymore and immediately crawled into the formation. I dodge, I dodge—I was swept out by a sack before I could dodge three times. It hurts like hell! Teacher Xiu immediately cast a primary healing spell on me and pushed me back into the formation. I kept dodging, dodging, and getting knocked flying again and again. My young body was ruthlessly tormented by the devil.
Strangely enough, despite enduring inhuman torture every day, my body grew stronger and stronger. Teacher Xiu told me: "Only by enduring hardships can one achieve greatness. You can only survive if you first protect yourself, and the best way to protect yourself is to run." (This is quite consistent with my philosophy.)
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: learning magic knowledge. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays: burlap sack formation training. The difficulty of the burlap sack formation gradually increased as my abilities improved. (The so-called difficulty wasn't much—Teacher Xiu would just hit me with all-around intermediate magic like Lightning Strike from outside the formation.)