Chronicles of the True Wizard

Although it took Felix the rest of the day along with the next in his Soul Garden, Soul Space and Blood Ring, he finally managed to get as much as he thought currently possible from the Dragon corpse.

While alive the dragon hadn’t had any specialty-it was a natural born-so it was rather well rounded overall. Unfortunately, some aspects were more applicable than others.

The muscles were the biggest benefit in Felix’s opinion. They weren’t exactly what he had been looking for but they were incredibly impressive in their own right. He didn’t really feel like he could accurately call them efficient solely because of how much energy they used but the actual ratio of power to input energy was higher than anything he had ever seen. So technically, they were the most efficient muscles he had tested, they just didn’t quite feel like it.

Damoth’s and the Leviathan’s muscles he had used in his Persona paled in comparison. The only downside was that the Dragon muscles weren’t particularly efficient on the low end of the scale. With tiny movements, he still had to supply a large amount of energy making the efficiency curve, pretty bad on the low end hence, why he didn’t feel like he could call them generally efficient.

On top of the muscles, he also managed to adapt and integrate some of the cells from the bones, nerves and many of the internal systems to massively upgrade his own.

The hardest part was the skin which didn’t seem applicable at first but became essential after upgrading everything else. His old skin was just too frail and didn’t fit fit well so he spent some time dissecting the cellular structure of the scales and the flesh beneath it.

He was hindered somewhat by his unwillingness to alter his skin too drastically but that restriction also caused him to gain a deeper understanding of the cells rather than simply replacing his own. What he ended up changing the most, was the density of his cells and the structure that interconnected them.

Overall, it was a massive upgrade and completely cured him of his current bodily hinderances. No longer did he watch as the world passed by in slow motion and for the first time in a long time, Felix felt like his body reacted just as quickly as he commanded it.

Looking at the stats, he had also brought them all much more in line with each-other.

Name: Felix Kade FREE 0

Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 220,034

Class: [D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778) DEX 161,809

Race: [D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 885) AGI 229,074

Profession: [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 992) PER 129,715

Health: 2,435,970 / 2,435,970 VIT 243,597

Mana: 120,000,000 / 120,000,000 INT 358,658

Energy: 2,500,000 / 2,500,000 END 228,255

In the end, Felix felt immense satisfaction with having his high Intelligence not hinder him any longer. He also copied over many of the modifications to his Persona body making it almost a mirror of his own body. The only real differences were that his Persona was stronger and faster at the expense of not having access to his full Intelligence. It also didn’t convert mana into energy nearly as quickly but it did have mana channels, which he still hadn’t quite figured out for his real body.

He didn’t have any more time to delve into the internals of his body though as he had an upcoming deadline.

Though he didn’t feel nervous about the duel necessarily-the consequences just weren’t dire enough for him to-he also hated the idea of losing for so many reasons. Now that his body was much closer to being fast enough to keep up with his mind, all Felix had to do was find a way to win without cheating.

It wouldn’t be trivial for Felix to disable all mana coming out of Tanryel, he still had to catch up to him, but it also wouldn’t have been very difficult.

Although it made it much harder, Felix’s goal was to win without revealing any of his truly unique abilities, at least none that he hadn’t already revealed to the public. That meant fighting Tanryel without dominating his mana control or manipulating his spells as they were being cast.

He wasn’t entirely lacking in hope though, he still had the ability to cast multiple spells simultaneously and without verbal or somatic materials. He could also cast spells anywhere within his mana control range so they didn’t have to originate from his body or hands.

Those abilities had already been revealed in the placement tournaments and Tanryel would no doubt know about them, simply by asking anyone. They also weren’t necessarily unique to him, according to Melody at least, so it wouldn’t seem too ridiculous when he used them in the duel.

He was hoping that by dissecting, examining and constructing his own versions of the spells, he would have another trick to play with. Even if he didn’t come up with anything, examining and becoming familiar with the nodes and patterns alone would be hugely beneficial if he ended up having to create new spells in the middle of combat.

Felix worked on understanding the spells and trying to create new spells right up until Group Combat class on the second.

Walking into the new class, the one he and Peace had been switched into, Felix took his usual seat at the back. A few minutes passed as the rest of the class filed in, Peace being the very last one and sitting next to Felix.

He nodded in acknowledgement to Felix as he sat but neither of them said anything to each-other.

“Welcome back class 9 and welcome anew to our four new faces. Today, you will be splitting up into teams of 4 and competing in a game of point defense. We’ll flip a coin to determine who is defending and who is attacking. The attackers goal is to get into the fort and claim an object being defended in the center. All you have to do as the defenders, is protect the item for 15 minutes.”

Just 15 minutes? That seems so… short?

“Figure out the teams yourselves, you have 5 minutes then we’ll open a portal to the grounds and we’ll go over the rest of the rules.”

There was only one person Felix actually knew in the class so he turned to Peace who was already looking at him and smiled. Not only was Peace the only one he knew in the class but having seen his abilities, he was the only one Felix actually trusted to be useful. He logically knew everyone else in the school were experienced and smart but he just couldn’t get past his own mental block that most people weren’t very strong, smart or useful.

They both wordlessly nodded then looked around the room. Neither of them seemed to be willing to approach anyone and almost everyone else in the room already seemed to know each-other. Seeing how everyone else was forming teams, Felix was willing to wait for whoever was left over because either way, he didn’t know anything about anyone other than Peace. He had no idea who he should or shouldn’t be asking.

Luckily, he didn’t have to.

Just a few moments after silently grouping up with Peace, a happy looking individual with very oddly normal features approached. They were just too average to be a coincidence, or at least that’s how they stood out to Felix.

[C] Elias (Lvl 1073)

“Any chance you guys have room for one more?” Elias’ smile was extremely friendly and warm and Felix didn’t feel anything to indicate they were anything but completely genuine.

Looking over, Peace just shrugged, communicating his indifference and indicating it was Felix’s decision.

Felix looked back at Elias, “Sure. It’s just us two.”

Elias nodded and smiled even wider, “Great. Want me to go see if I can find someone else?”

“Sure.”

Elias nodded then wandered into the crowd of people, returning just a few minutes later with what looked like a gnome in tow.

[C] Thomaex (Lvl 1108)

“Thomaex and I actually met a few decapochs back when I was studying material properties and magical alloys. They’re a smith of exceptional talent along with a very impressive depth of knowledge.”

Thomaex grumbled under his breath, audibly but only barely comprehensible “Not that any o’ that helps much in group combat.”

Peace smiled politely in Thomaex’ direction then turned back to Elias, “If you already knew someone in the class, why not partner with them from the start?”

He shrugged and smiled as he looked over his shoulder at the rest of the class, “I know just about everyone in our cycle at Eramith. Not necessarily well but, I’ve met just about everyone.”

“That’s why you approached us so quickly.” Felix nodded in realization.

“Exactly.” Elias smiled as he sat on the backrest of the chair in front of Peace. Looking at each of them in turn, Elias smiled and casually examined them, “So in terms of specialties, abilities and style, how do you guys fight?”

Peace tilted his head in Felix’s direction, “I’m stealthy and don’t fight, he’s a mage. What about you two?”

Elias nodded in respect, “I can work with that. I’m actually a… rogue. I don’t fight much either but I’m stealthy and I have a few tricks I can make use of.”

Peace nodded, knowingly but without a hint of judgement whatsoever, “You’re a thief?”

Elias shrugged as his seemingly ever present wide smile morphed into a slight smirk, “More or less.”

“I uh… fight with a sword.” Thomaex nodded then looked to all of them, clearly uncomfortable with his own answer.

“It’ll be great.” Elias cheerfully hopped off the back of the chair he was sitting on as the Adept started to open the portal at the front of the room.

Felix sighed, “Let’s just hope to whatever god you worship that we’re on attack as much as possible.”

Elias stopped, turned to Felix then nodded with a very uncharacteristically serious expression then closed his eyes and mumbled, “In Edras’s great name, keeper of knowledge and disseminator of secrets, please give us attack side as much as possible?”

Felix almost snorted at the odd transition from serious to ridiculous but managed to hold himself back. Elias’ wide smile returned to his face with a playful mirth leaving Felix unsure whether or not the prayer was serious or intended to mess with him.

Thomaex-seemingly unsure of what to do with himself-followed after Elias and into the portal. Peace was next, hopping out of his chair and gently patting Felix on the shoulder once before leaping down and through in one almost a single, light hop.

Felix was amongst the last ones in the class only because he was seated at the back of the room and he was unwilling to approach and push through the rest of the class as they filtered in. Once he finally stepped through the portal, the last one of the class to do so, Felix walked over and joined Peace, Elias and Thomaex over on the far side of the sparsely gathered students.

The Adept who had stepped through first stood at the front of the group and snapped their fingers, closing the portal, once they saw Felix finally step through.

Gesturing over their shoulder with their thumb at the simple structure behind them, “This is the structure you’ll be defending. It’s pretty sturdy and the planet will regenerate it between rounds so don’t worry about damaging it. Your only task is to retrieve the object without harming it.” With a flick of their wrist, the Adept produced what appeared to be a palm sized metal ball.

He quickly pointed out two teams, “You and you.” One of which was, unluckily, Felix’s team.

Approaching the Adept, Felix’s team along with the other team each stood on one of their sides. The Adept nodded to the other team then nodded at Felix’s team as he handed the ball to Elias, the one standing the closest to them. “There’s a pedestal in the middle of the building. Put the ball on it and it isn’t allowed to move. You lose if the ball is removed from the pedestal for more than 5 seconds but-” He turned to the other team, the now obviously attacking team, “-you don’t win unless you actually have the ball. You can’t just knock it off. If you both lose, we’ll switch sides and restart.”

Both teams nodded in understanding then the Adept jerked their head towards the structure indicating Felix’s team should start setting themselves up.

The other team stood there and waited as Felix, Peace, Elias and Thomaex rushed towards the circular stone wall that stood in the middle of an otherwise empty field. Peeking out over the top of the wall was a comparatively small block of a building.

They all easily hopped over the wall, giving them little hope for its value as a protective structure.

Felix however-as he hopped over the wall-immediately felt the ward finely engraved within it, rebolstering his hopes that it might be of value. Turning around right as he landed, he spotted the faint glisten of the inlay material that formed the ward on the inside of the wall.

The rest of the group headed right for the structure in the middle which was really just a small block of a building, about a 10 meter cube. It was big enough for a fight but not for Felix to keep his distance as a mage by any means.

There were four doorways on the building, none of which held a door and peering in, they saw an empty pedestal in the middle of the room.

Elias immediately started walking over but Felix stopped him, “Hold it. They might start as soon as we put the ball in place. Let’s look around a little first.”

Stopping mid step, Elias spun around and nodded, pocketing the ball for the time being.

Felix’s first instinct was to examine the ward inscribed into the inside of the surrounding wall. The others all diverged to examine other areas of the structure they were defending.

The ward itself was actually well thought out and efficient, which surprised Felix considering how poorly the rest of the defensive structure was organized.

Physically, the wall was useless and four doorless doorways were annoying to work around. Having the pedestal in the middle of the open structure also made things more difficult than they needed to be.

The ward on the other hand was structured in such a way that there were no shaping nodes mucking up the channels and lowering the efficiency. The ward utilized the natural shape of the wall, which Felix now realized was actually slightly curved inwards, to project out a barrier that naturally formed a dome.

On top of that, the barrier that was projected was only barely capable of preventing something from passing through it unless it detected force, mass, energy or mana approaching it. The detection pattern was a little over Felix’s head at the moment but he memorized it so he could examine it later.

In the meantime, he was fairly confident that, even without his charm buffing his mana capacity, which was banned in all combat classes, the ward would be their most effective form of defense.

Before he sat himself down and acted like a battery for the ward though, he decided to find the others and plan out their defense as well as set some things up ahead of time.

Turning back towards the building, Felix immediately noticed Thomaex setting up a metallic shell around the pedestal from materials he had in a spatial storage. Elias was nowhere to be found and Peace was leaning against the main structure, watching and waiting for Felix to finish his examination of the ward.

Peace followed Felix into the building as he approached Thomaex, “Nice work. Where’s Elias?”

Thomaex gestured behind himself with a nod as he fused various metal plates into one uniform structure, “Setting up traps just outside the wall.”

Felix nodded and flew out the building and up into the air, spotting Elias just a dozen meters outside the wall, tinkering with some object in the ground. Finishing up just a few minutes later, Elias spotted Felix, nodded to him then hopped over the wall and headed in to join them.

Before Felix dropped back down to the ground, he marveled at the fact that he couldn’t tell Elias’ traps existed at all. The ground outside the wall looked exactly as he remembered it. Considering he had perfect memory, he was thoroughly impressed. No blade of grass was moved more than could be attributed to the wind and the field looked to be completely undisturbed.

“I set up some traps outside the walls. They won’t hold anyone back for long but they’re annoying and should slow them down.” Elias nodded to the others.

“This shell should hold most back for a few minutes at least.” Thomaex smiled as he slapped the shell he had been working on, producing a low and dull sound.

Felix gestured outwards with a slight tilt of his head, “There’s a ward inscribed on the inside of the wall that I can keep powered up for a bit. I think I should also set up some wards and arcane traps between the wall and the building.”

Thomaex grimaced, “Won’t they just… fuck us too?”

“I picked up a trick from a job I was on a little bit ago. I can give you each keys so they won’t go off as long as you have one.”

Elias nodded excitedly with a wide smile, “Perfect. They’ll have to be pretty localized but if we know where they are, we can try to lead people into them too.”

Felix nodded, “I’ll start designing them. Any idea how long they’re gonna let us stall?”

Elias shrugged, “I think this is an intended part of the task. I saw the Adept summon a barrier to hide our actions from the class when I was setting up the traps.”

Peace snorted, “Would have been nice if they had told us that.”

“When it actually comes time to defend, what’s the plan?” Elias looked at each of them in turn.

Felix shrugged, “I figure I power the ward while we fight them off as long as we can. Once they get through it, we fall back and hope the spell traps and metal shell buy us enough time to win.”

They all nodded in agreement even though Felix knew Peace had no intention of fighting. He also knew Peace would be plenty annoying with his, so far, undetectable stealth. Felix had no doubts in his ability to stall them, even if all he did was annoy and distract them.

With the plan in place, Felix sat down so he could design the spell traps in his Soul Garden. Once he had traps he was happy with, he got to work on setting them up and making keys. Finally, he meditated to manually regenerate his mana back to full then told the others he was ready.

Peace darted off to notify the Adept as the others set themselves and readied for combat just outside the wall.

Felix set himself up next to the wall, just outside of it. From some initial testing, he was pretty sure he could keep mana flowing into the ward from up to 10 meters outside of it so long as any part of the inscription was within his mana control range.

He planned on staying within a couple meters or so anyways, just to be safe, but it was good to know his limit. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to fly into the air much as the wall itself was only a few meters high. Being restricted to the ground meant he was more susceptible to getting hit which meant he would have to waste mana defending himself.

Felix had thought about being inside the wall instead but decided he wanted to fight and cast spells. Sitting around being a battery was too boring and left too much up to everyone else on his team who, admittedly, he didn’t entire trust.

Thomaex pulled out a simple looking longsword and had a full set of matching plate armor appear on his body from a spatial storage item. Elias’ simple clothes were swapped out for a set of light grey leather that consisted of many strips sewn together. Peace changed nothing as he was already wearing his signature, entirely inky black outfit that he seemed to wear for everything.

A few moments of silence passed as Felix’s team stood, readied, waiting for something to happen.

They spent a minute and a half waiting at which point Felix began to wonder if the match had actually started or not. If it had started when Peace notified the Adept as they had expected, the other team had just wasted 10% of their time seemingly doing nothing.

Luckily, the maintenance cost of the ward was slightly below Felix’s mana regeneration rate so, after filling the buffer, he was actually able to completely refill his mana pool, passively, while they waited.

Suddenly, Peace appeared next to Felix and tapped him on the shoulder. Felix jumped a little in surprise as he hadn’t noticed Peace at all before now but quickly collected himself and looked over at Peace.

Peace was pointing over at a seemingly empty spot on the field next to the wall, about a hundred meters to Felix’s left.

“You got a Fire Ball or something big like that?”

Felix just nodded and fired, figuring it was a fairly low risk ask.

Constructing Fire Balls was very fast for Felix at this point and it only took him tens of milliseconds for the spell form to construct and fully cast. He even adjusted the spell to have a larger explosion and overpowered it by a factor of 3.

Looking over in the direction Peace pointed, right as Felix was ready to release the spell, he saw a red circle on the ground that was evidently an illusion of some kind.

He didn’t waste time questioning things and simply released the Fire Ball directly at the circle.

Felix wasn’t sure what he was expecting but when the Fire Ball struck the ground and the explosion of flames outlined the shapes of their opponents, he was ready. The rest of his team were all aware of what was happening and responded almost instantly.

Thomaex leapt forwards, crossing a huge distance in almost an instant, creating a crater where he landed. Elias simply ran and didn’t arrive nearly as quickly but he threw a dagger at one of the outlines which vanished, leaving Felix to believe it had to have hit and turned invisible.

Peace simply waited and watched, standing next to Felix.

Though they remained invisible for a few moments, once the attacking team realized they had been spotted, the invisibility was quickly dropped. The one that had been hit with a dagger instantly vanished and reappeared a hundred meters away making Felix very jealous. They proceeded to release a barrage of Force Bombs, Force Beams and other simple spells to slow Thomaex down.

The one wearing a tightly fit set of plate armor and wielding two swords rushed to meet Thomaex but stalled their approach so their caster could soften him up.

The last two, one remained invisible while the other, with no apparent weapon equipped, rushed Elias.

Okay nicknames: Two-Swords, Empty-Hand, Blinky and Unseen.

Felix started preparing a series of his own spells and released them towards Blinky to try and distract them from hitting Thomaex. They easily saw them coming and got out of the way but it was enough for Thomaex to close the distance and engage Two-Swords.

Blinky quickly switched things up and started pelting Felix and the barrier he was powering but they were more of a nuisance than anything actually threatening.

Elias’ fight with Empty-Hand quickly moved them far outside of Felix’s field of vision so he couldn’t track them. He was almost completely focused on avoiding Blinky’s spells and keeping them occupied so they couldn’t mess with Thomaex’s fight.

Blinky had tried to cast some sort of large field spell directly on top of the fight but Felix had sensed it and interrupted them with a series of Lightning Bolts.

Their spells mostly seemed to be trying to move Felix around, throw him into the wall, away from the wall and so on. Luckily, he could sense the mana flowing into the spells making them predictable and when he couldn’t dodge, his cloak completely neutralized the effect.

That all changed when Unseen finally reappeared just a meter from Felix right as he tossed a dagger at Felix’s neck.

The dagger was aimed high enough that it would hit just over his cloak and for a brief moment, Felix panicked. The dagger was moving far too fast for him to dodge or block it in any way.

Almost as quickly as Felix froze, the dagger vanished in a flash of black. Peace’s arm moved so quickly, Felix just saw a smear of black across his vision almost as if the light wasn’t fast enough to catch up to his arm.

Unseen tried to follow that up with a lunging stab aimed at the exposed part of Felix’s neck but once again, his strike was knocked aside by a blur of black.

It quickly became obvious to Felix that Unseen was never going to be able to hit him so he did his best to ignore them as he retaliated against Blinky and kept the ward behind him powered up.

Peace was easily able to deflect everything out of Unseen, even when he went invisible again and started using skills. Felix didn’t really see much himself as he was thoroughly focused elsewhere but from what he did see, Unseen tried to use some kind of smoke cloud ability followed by spectral chains.

None of his ability got anywhere though. Even the ones that shouldn’t really have been possible to block, Peace deflected. The chains didn’t even look physical and yet he slapped them aside just as he had a smoke cloud. All of this while seemingly not having moved his feet at all. His position was exactly the same as it had been at the start of the fight and after every ability he stopped, his posture returned to casual and bored.

Unfortunately, as well as Peace was doing, Elias had evidently lost his duel because Empty-Hand ran around the corner just half a minute after disappearing, with Elias nowhere to be found.

After quickly taking stock of the battle-field, Empty-Hand quickly rushed towards Unseen and Felix to help him finally get through Peace. Unseen quickly backed off a bit to provide support to Empty-Hand as he leapt towards Peace, keeping himself just a few inches off the ground the entire time.

Peace didn’t move himself at all, remaining about a meter to Felix’s side and standing perfectly still.

Empty-Hand closed the distance and slammed his legs into the ground, using the momentum to drive his fist into Peace’s chin. The entirety of the next movement was too fast for Felix to see and so, a moment later when Empty-Hand was lying prone on the ground, Felix had no idea how or why. He assumed it had been Peace but his completely uncaring, casual demeanor remained so, he was left wondering.

Empty-Hand quickly flipped up back onto his feet and lunged forwards with Unseen reappearing to Peace’s side with his hand blurring towards Felix’s stomach. Once again Felix panicked but, as before, he didn’t actually have anything to worry about as a moment later, faster than Felix could see, both of them were left prone on the ground, actually piled up on top of each-other.

Felix couldn’t help but chuckle which he was pretty sure made them angrier and more insistent on taking him out. Luckily, it didn’t actually seem possible for them to do so with Peace standing there next to him.

They tried both attacking Felix, using a whole slew of skills, both attacking Peace and even trying to feint their attacks and switch targets at the last second. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix watched and was thoroughly entertained for a minute or so as they were repelled.

Unfortunately, even with Felix holding off Blinky and keeping them entirely focused elsewhere, Thomaex was eliminated by Two-Swords, his body vanishing right before succumbing to his wounds.

That left just Felix and Peace against all four of the enemies.

Two-Swords quickly joined the rest of his team, using some kind of movement ability with his swords that let him quickly dash across the field and strike at Felix.

Despite the fact that Unseen and Empty-Hand coordinated their attacks-Empty-Hand’s too fast for Felix to follow-none of them even got close.

Rather than prone on the ground though, Peace had somehow spun Two-Swords around so they were facing the opposite direction where they looked around, like they were lost. The other two in similar situations, facing away from everyone else a few meters away on either side.

They tried, repeatedly, to coordinate their strikes, get through Peace and stop Felix.

It only took them just over a minute to realize they were simply wasting their own time. They had already wasted just over 4 minutes of their allotted 15 minutes and though they had eliminated half of Felix’s team already, they clearly weren’t getting anywhere doing what they were doing.

Once they realized that, they quickly spread out and stopped aiming for Felix. Instead, they started trying to get through the ward Felix was powering. Peace remained where he was, standing next to Felix, as Unseen, Empty-Hand and Two-Sword each took a different cardinal direction around the wall.

Blinky on the other hand, switched over from assisting his teammates with cover fire spells, pestering Felix and hitting the ward to just pestering Felix.

Instead of trying to eliminate Felix though, Blinky seemed to be trying to move him around. Specifically, once Blinky realized Peace had no intention of doing anything against spells targeting Felix, Blinky cast a series of spells to try and pull Felix away from the wall.

At first it was simple Force Bombs to try and knock him around. After that Blinky moved on to much more complicated spells.

Using a quarter of a million mana, by Felix’s estimate, Blinky summoned a massive Force Storm.

All around Felix, the ground began to rumble then suddenly, explode. As if hundreds of land mines had been triggered all over the field, grass and soil filled the air around him. The storm wasn’t limited just to the ground though as massive explosions sounded out from every direction. Made of pure Force, the sound and slight ripple in the air was the only indication that they even existed at all.

Felix’s cloak handled the majority of the explosions, resisting their effect but it was draining his mana far faster than necessary as they were diffused across its surface. On top of that, his cloak didn’t cover his entire body so the explosions hit him in the legs, hands and head, knocking him aside. It wasn’t enough to break any of his bones but it was annoying having his head knocked repeatedly from side to side.

With his cloak pulling as much mana as it could from his body along with the ward behind him requiring mana to hold the enemy team back, Felix realized he was quickly reaching his limit.

While he still had just over 80% of his mana left, he wouldn’t be able to maintain the rate of mana expenditure if it increased by another 10% or so, by his estimation. Luckily, he had managed to stall them by another 3 minutes meaning they were quickly approaching half of their time.

Leaping out of the Force Storm, tangential to the wall behind him, Felix called out to Peace as he followed, “I can’t maintain this much longer. We’re going to have to fall back to the main building.”

Peace nodded and followed as Felix quickly dropped the ward and flew towards the main building in the middle of the wall. With a mana key on both him and Peace, neither of them triggered any of the traps they had set up ahead of time.

Landing in the closest doorway, Felix rushed inside so he could position himself in the center. Peace landed next to him, simply jumping across faster than Felix could see rather than flying.

Hopping up onto the metal shell in the middle surrounding the pedestal, Felix had perfect sightlines to each of the doorways around him so he would be able to hit them as they walked through.

Peace joined him, sitting down against the shell.

Before they saw anyone, they heard crackling electricity, metal snapping and chains rattling as various traps Felix and Elias had set up were triggered.

None of them were enough to kill anyone as that would have taken a much larger chunk of Felix’s mana but it was more than enough to slow them down.

After a few seconds of navigating their way through the traps, Felix caught sight of all four of them walking into the the doorway in front of him.

He didn’t question why and simply fired off various spells to stop them because even if they were illusions, he was better off finding out now so they didn’t keep distracting him.

Luckily they seemed to be the real thing as they were tossed backwards one by one by a series of Lightning Bolts to briefly paralyze them followed by Force Blasts to push them back a little. He managed to knock a few of them into some of the remaining traps which helped immensely and once he managed to push all of them out of the doorway once, he sealed it with a Force Barrier.

With that entrance blocked, Felix figured they would proceed to use the other entrances and he was ready to block them as well but instead, they kept trying to push through the one entrance.

Felix was worried they had some kind of plan but Felix was somewhat comforted by how desperate they seemed, both in expression and demeanor.

Empty-Hand took the lead in trying to pierce Felix’s barrier by rushing it with incredible speed but, other than costing Felix a large chunk of mana, they didn’t get any further than they had before.

Felix quickly dropped the barrier to let his own Force Blast through to push them back then resummoned it in the same instant, not giving them any time to wheedle their way inside.

They wasted a total of 5 minutes trying to push into the choke point doorway in front of Felix as he repelled them with spells which was, vastly more efficient than maintaining the ward on the walls.

With only 2 minutes left on the clock, Blinky finally decided to blink inside the main structure, apparently unable to before now either due to mana cost or some other restriction. As soon as they did so, they looked at the other three doors and looked completely shocked. They quickly called out to the others the locations of the doors as they rushed around towards them.

At that point, as much as Felix was willing to maintain barriers on each of the doorways, with Blinky pestering him with spells, it wasn’t realistic. Peace finally rose at that point and tried to help Felix fend them off but it quickly became apparent that they weren’t going to be able to stop everything.

Peace diverted almost every attack they threw at the metal shell but Blinky summoned massive Force Spells, hitting everyone in the room and Felix didn’t have a great way of countering them.

He could chase Blinky around to try and keep them in his Mana Control radius but Blinky was just as fast as he was on top of being far more agile, even without blinking anywhere. His specialty was evidently force spells and his expertise showed.

As time wore on, the attacking team grew increasingly desperate and began throwing themselves at the shell to try and get through it. Luckily, though he had quickly lost his initial duel, Thomaex’s shell over the pedestal in the middle proved incredibly resilient.

It sustained dents and burns but as the time ran out, everyone began to realize they weren’t getting through it with Peace and Felix distracting them.

As the Adept called out the end of the match and Felix’s team as the victors, the attacking team mostly collapsed, having poured everything they had into winning.

They all left the now marred section of the field and rejoined the class as the next two teams were selected. By the time the defending team reached the site, the entire structure and field around it had been completely restored, removing any signs of the battle they had just fought a few moments ago.

Turning to Peace, Felix frowned, “Why did they spend so long going through just one doorway?”

Peace shrugged, “Illusions.”

“You can create illusions?”

“Sometimes.”

Felix opened his mouth but realized he had no idea what to say next and he didn’t get a chance to continue the interrogation as Elias and Thomaex rejoined them.

Elias was evidently the most giddy out of all of them, “We won!?”

Thomaex laughed, “Didn’t think it was possible once I went down so quick. Sorry ’bout that.”

Felix shrugged, “It worked out.”

A loud sound echoed behind Felix as the attacking team of the second bout exploded off the ground and raced towards the main structure.

The barrier that the Adept had summoned to hide the defending team’s preparations, for just a few moments this time, lit up as it displayed the battle from a few different angles. The largest was the above angle where Felix saw the defending team scrambling to hold back the others from the top of the wall.

For whatever reason, they decided not to use the wards on the walls and instead, they fought and tried to push back the attacking team entirely themselves. Unfortunately, they lasted less than a minute as the attacking team maintained all their momentum from rushing towards the building and simply smashed right through the wall. Like a battering ram or a bull, their charge looked unstoppable.

Their momentum remained as they then shattered the building in the center, snatching the ball off the pedestal in just under a minute total.

“Well… Okay then. Next teams!” The Adept, seemingly disappointed more than anything, called out.

He pointed out another two teams as the site reset and repaired itself then turned back to the class as the barrier hiding the preparations became opaque once more.

The next two matches were uneventful with the attackers winning both times.

The first of them tried to use the ward as Felix had but evidently did not have nearly as much mana as he did and they were quickly overpowered. The next team didn’t even bother with the wall and instead, set themselves up, one on each doorway to protect the pedestal. Unfortunately, a stray arrow soared past one of their heads and knocked the ball off the pedestal, sticking to it before being recalled into the archer’s waiting hands.

“Alright, first two winning teams, approach.”

Felix’s team, along with the team that had bulldozed the wall, approached on either side of the Adept. They nodded then turned to Felix’s team and handed them the ball, “Good luck.”

Defending again. Shit.

Elias, Thomaex, Peace and Felix rushed over to the completely restored site to begin preparations.

“Okay, same thing this time?” Elias looked at each of them, lingering on Felix who had largely directed them the first time.

“No. Won’t work. You saw what they did last time. I can’t supply enough mana to the wall fast enough to stop them.” Felix shook his head, “They probably know about Peace’s illusions now and it doesn’t seem like traps will slow them down much.”

“So what do we do?” Thomaex frowned, “We aren’t just giving up, are we?”

Felix chuckled, “Course not. You notice which direction they came from?”

“Right from the rest of the class, ran the whole way here.” Elias nodded.

Felix nodded, “To build up enough momentum to rip through two walls unimpeded, they probably need a runway. I doubt they can redirect themselves.”

“Right. So we can reinforce the walls and dedicate everything in that direction then?” Thomaex nodded.

“Sort of. I wouldn’t do anything permanent because if they don’t punch through or they see us reinforcing it, they may just run out into the field to try from a different angle.” Felix looked at Thomaex mostly to gauge his response and know if it was possible for him to create mobile reinforcements.

Thomaex scratched the scruff on his chin for a bit then nodded, “Okay, we can do that. I’m gonna need help moving it but I think we can stop them.”

Felix nodded and they all got to work.

Just 15 minutes of prep time later, the match began as Peace placed the ball onto the pedestal and the opposing team rushed towards the building.

From memory, Felix knew that it took them about 10 seconds to cover the distance so that was all they had to move the massive metal plate Thomaex had created, in front of them. Luckily, they knew ahead of time which direction they were coming from so the plate was fitted in place an entire 2 seconds early.

Felix quickly put in place all the spells he needed to and they all watched with anticipation as a group of four students, huddled together in a ball of death, rushed at the wall next to them.

As they collided at full speed, the metal plate clanged out loudly, almost breaking Felix’s eardrums, only the Dragon tissue keeping them in tact. The ground exploded outwards as the wake behind the attacking group suddenly smacked into the wall and the four of them were launched and scattered across the field.

Looking backwards, the front half of the wall that had braced the metal plate had been pulverized and it fell away like sand as the reinforcement rocked forwards. The wall was half as thick as it had been but the ward inside remained undamaged, which was their hope all along anyways.

The bulldozing team recovered quickly and, as expected, rushed off into the field so they could run at the wall again from a different side.

While they did, Elias and Thomaex moved the metal plate while Felix recast and moved the spell he had supporting it. Once they saw the plate being moved, they quickly ran off to target a different side.

It took them far longer to run around the site from a few kilometers out than it did for Felix’s team to move the plate so eventually, they just lined themselves up with the original spot, where the wall was now half as thick and rushed towards them.

This time, they relied more on Felix’s spells and the metal plate only using the wall as a fallback to keep the plate standing.

On top of holding the plate in place, Felix also cast spells to try and slow, divert and worst case, stop the team as they rushed towards them. Though he wasn’t expecting much, it was the best option they had at the moment so Felix ended up pouring over half of his massive mana pool into the spells.

Even with over 40 million mana powering the spells, Felix wasn’t sure they would work and so he watched with gritted teeth as he held the spell forms as tightly as he could with his mana control.

The attacking team rushed through the field, tearing up the ground as they went and smashed right through Felix’s first spell, a slow field. Whether or not it actually had slowed them at all, Felix had no idea but the mana had been expended and the spell triggered so he let go of it and honed his focus.

He had dedicated increasingly more mana to each subsequent spell meaning the most mana was in the final spell designed to try and stop them if they made it all the way to the wall. As he watched them blow through the first spell though, Felix made a split second decision and redirected the mana in the final spell to the second spell, the one designed to redirect them.

Felix also quickly switched its direction which was a gamble but, one he decided was worth the risk.

Barreling through the field at ridiculous speed, leaving a wake of soil behind them, the attacking team activated the second spell Felix was powering, causing a loud boom to echo out over the field.

Felix, and the rest of his team, watched with glee and mounting nerves as the attacking team were launched into the air, towards the one section of wall they had reinforced. They flew far higher than Felix had intended, but because of the speed they were traveling, they only just barely cleared the wall. As they passed over the main building, followed by the wall on the other side, they all released a breath they had been holding.

Guess they can’t actually stop themselves, at least not in the air. That was too close though, if they had clipped the top edge of the wall there, things would have been really bad. I need to hit them with the spell from further out so I don’t need to use as much mana and they gain more height to clear the wall.

A response sounded out from within Felix’s own mind, Using 1,072,836 mana from a distance of 183 meters from the wall would be optimal.

It took him a few moments to recognize the voice as he had only ever talked to them once before.

Mark! Are you certain?

Yes.

If I use 1.25 million at an approximate distance of 200 meters, how much will they clear it by?

Approximately 62.7 meters at the closest point, assuming they maintain a similar velocity.

How close and far can they get where 1.25 will still clear the wall?

From 250 to 175 with a speed variability of +-10%.

Felix nodded to himself as he made slight adjustments to the spell form on the spot, Thanks.

Once again, team wrecking ball ran out into the field at a different location and this time, Felix knew exactly where to place his spell and so, he watched them soar past with much more confidence.

They tried twice more, even trying a feint once before giving up and switching over to a more traditional attack.

Given how long they had spent trying to rush the walls, Felix didn’t think they had much else planned for getting in but their fighting ability alone proved incredibly formidable.

Thomaex managed to hold out for almost two minutes before being eliminated followed by Elias a minute later. Felix and Peace spent the time maintaining the ward and protecting Felix respectively. By the time they were alone though, there was only just over a minute left and so they didn’t bother falling back into the building.

Felix managed to maintain the ward for the rest of the match while deflecting or dodging their caster’s spells and their archer’s arrows while Peace easily handled their two melee fighters.

Rejoining the rest of the class, Elias and Thomaex excitedly joined them to watch the other semifinal match together. They were hoping to catch some hints as to how they played so they would know what they needed to prepare in the next match.

After a brief preparation period, the barrier behind the Adept lit up with various views of the battlefield and the attacking team rushed in.

The defending team had set themselves up in the field, facing the attacking team and the rest of the class. Just from initial impressions, they all seemed to be melee fighters of some kind with large swords, a maul, a shield and sword and finally a dagger wielder.

The attacking team on the other hand, seemed to be a more balanced party with two robed individuals and two wearing plate armor.

The two in plate armor rushed into the defending team, not bothering with kiting around them or trying to attack from a different angle. They also seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that they were essentially 2 on 4 in melee range.

They engaged by fighting all four of them together rather than splitting them up into separate fights. After a few seconds, it became obvious why. Not only could both plate armored students have lasted for quite a while by themselves, seemingly immutable entities on the battlefield, but the robed students behind them made their configuration even more threatening.

One of the robed students seemed to be buffing and healing the two tanks with spells. They provided shields, made them faster and distracted the enemy combatants with ease. Never once did they use something offensive-or lethal-though, Felix noted.

This lasted for almost a minute at which point the spell the other robed student had been preparing and casting from the start, finally completed.

Covering a multiple hundred meter radius centered on the six melee fighters, a sudden Lightning Storm appeared. There was no ominous cloud in the sky to forewarn anyone but rather, the sudden appearance of a massive spell form above their heads. It appeared just as instantly as the spell’s effect did.

The Lightning Bolts raining down multiple times a second were obviously targeted, never missing a student in its area but they were also indiscriminate and they hit everyone. Apparently that was the intention though as the two plate armored students were both immensely hard to take down and with the constant heals they received kept them alive while the other team was worn down.

It only took the defending team 30 seconds to realize they stood no chance of outlasting the two tanks they were fighting and scramble. They all ran back towards the wall but with the support caster speeding the two super tanks, they never really stood a chance of outrunning them.

With the tanks constantly right behind them, the defending team never had the chance to regroup and properly defend. Whenever they tried, the two tanks just kept their momentum and barreled through them, pushing ever closer to the center of the point.

The pair of tanks like two unstoppable forces, the defending team crumpled and lost just a minute after starting their retreat.

Elias turned to the rest of them, “So we stay spread out?”

Felix shrugged, “Yeah probably. Let’s see which side we get before we finalize anything though.”

If they do that again, I can easily protect everyone on my team from Lightning. Odds are they have many other spells. Kind of sucks they haven’t been forced to use any other big spells yet.

Approaching the Adept and flanking them along with the winning team from the last fight, they both waited for a few seconds before the Adept handed the ball to the other team. Neither side looked happy about that decision but no one complained, the other team grabbing the ball and rushing off towards the, now hidden, site.

For the first time, Felix’s team was on the attacking side. Theoretically, he wanted to be on the attacking side from the start but at this point, they had already been on the defense twice so they were more comfortable with it.

Felix had no idea which was better for them at this point, attack or defense but there was no use in wondering now so he pushed the thought from his mind.

Turning to his team, Felix had ever intention of using every second possible to plan their attack while the other team prepared their defense, “Spreading out is probably necessary. I think we need to ignore their tanks as much as possible. It’ll be hard with the support caster speeding them up. I don’t have any spells to match that. Best I can do is launch you all around.”

“Ignoring the tanks shouldn’t be an issue for me. Thomaex’ll have more trouble though.” Elias turned to the others.

Thomaex nodded, “I can try and distract them but I don’t know that I’ll be very useful this round. Sorry.”

Peace smiled, “Not sure it will matter. Elias and I can get in so long as we don’t have to deal with the ward, Felix?”

“I can get you through it.” Felix nodded with confidence.

“You sure?” Elias frowned, “Their mana pool is going to be massive considering how many artillery spells they’re casting, they’re almost definitely some kind of artillery casting class. They get a lot of mana.”

Felix smiled, “I almost definitely have more. Either way though, even if they have more mana than I do, I can take the ward down.”

Elias seemed wary but willing to trust his teammate and so he nodded seriously.

The Adept looked over at them, “Your time starts now.”

They all sprinted, flew in Felix’s case, towards the site as soon as they heard that.

Elias, Peace, Thomaex and Felix all positioned themselves around the wall, ninety degrees from each-other to try and split the defender’s focus as much as possible.

As expected, they had the Artillery-Caster on the wall along with the Support-Caster, either one or both of them contributing to the ward which was visible and obviously active. The two tanks were set up in front of Felix and showed no intention of spreading out.

Instead of dealing with them, Felix tried to fly away from them, move side to side and keep his distance but unfortunately, that proved problematic almost immediately. With the speed granted to them by their support caster, they were not only able to keep up with Felix’s flight but they managed to catch up to him completely.

That forced him to fly high up into the air which meant he couldn’t get in range of the ward on the wall with his mana control.

Whatever, I should be able to hit the ward until they run out of mana. Most effective is probably just plain Force. I don’t think the ward even tries to block out heat, just the physical flames, no point. Lightning might work but it could also just redirect the Lightning with the parts of the ward I couldn’t identify. Force it is I guess.

Felix decided his best position on the battlefield was directly in the center of the point, raining spells directly downwards. That should have made it pretty hard for the casters to deal with him properly, being so high up and so far away.

It also, let him see the entire battlefield at once.

As soon as he had flown out of range, the two tanks ran, at a ridiculous speed, towards Thomaex. They caught up to him relatively quickly and immediately started harassing him. With all of them focused on being as unkillable as possible, the fight between them would have lasted forever, had the casters not stepped in.

Once the tanks were in range to keep Thomaex relatively still, the Artillery-Caster released a spell that they had clearly prepared ahead of time and been holding. Much like the Lightning Storm they had previously cast, this spell seemed to be some kind of blizzard with shards formed of mana flying through it. Even from his distance, Felix could tell they weren’t as interesting as solid mana, more like icicle shaped Mana Bolts, just mana constructs.

The difference between the two was visually subtle but in every other way, obvious. A mana construct like a Mana Bolt wasn’t actually a solid at all and more like mana held in a shape. They were relatively fragile but could be bolstered with a bit of added Force.

Having analyzed his Mana Bolt spell form, the very first spell form he had ever cast, Felix realized that was exactly what the core node had done, imbued a bit of Force into a Mana Construct. They were also much less expensive in terms of mana cost.

These icicles though were fairly advanced and created using a combination of real ice, from the moisture in the air, Force and Mana Constructs. On top of that, they seemed to both spin for added penetration and explode in a burst of shrapnel after digging themselves deep enough into a target.

With what appeared to be a defense buff, shields and healing, the two tanks on the defending team were largely unaffected, especially in comparison to Thomaex. He was left completely alone and was thoroughly distracted by the tanks who were battering him from every side.

Despite his dire situation, his plate armor alone allowed Thomaex to last just over a minute before he was eliminated.

That minute had allowed Felix to run through almost 10 million mana worth of Force spells. He didn’t bother with Bombs that exploded outwards in every direction and focused his casting on beams and targeted bursts in the hopes of being as efficient and as fast as possible against the ward.

Unfortunately, the casters seemed to be both powering the ward because Felix was pretty sure neither one of them alone should have had the, at least, 15 million mana it would have taken to block his spells.

The other two, Peace and Elias, were either hidden or invisible and not just to Felix’s eye.

After Thomaex was eliminated, the tank pair ran off around the wall but seemed lost as they couldn’t find either of them. That left them with essentially nothing to do.

On the other hand, Felix smiled as he saw the strain on the two caster’s faces. He had completely run out of mana before and he knew it wasn’t a pleasant experience. The two tanks were obviously unsure what to do so they tried to throw whatever they could at Felix. It was evidently not their specialty and he was able to trivially avoid the rocks, earth and eventually swords and shields.

It took the casters longer than Felix expected to realize they were going to run out mana before Felix did. Maybe they just didn’t think it was possible but either way, they eventually gave up on the ward.

The two tanks, with their speed buffed, hopped over the wall to join the casters as they made their last stand in the middle building. Felix dropped down, not bothering to push himself as he already saw Peace waving up to him from below, ball in hand.

As fun as it was pushing his mana against both of their pools, proving them wrong and showing them he was better, dominating them, he already knew they had won. Neither of the casters had seen it but Felix had.

Even before the ward fell, Felix saw Peace sitting against the building at the center. They had already won minutes ago, potentially even in the first few seconds. He didn’t knock the ball off the pedestal though and as soon as Felix saw him, he brought his finger to his lips indicating Felix stay silent.

Felix had no problems with that because he was having tons of fun watching the casters slowly break down.

Landing on the ground, Felix walked with Peace and an ecstatic Elias who was running around and skipping through the field.

Turning to Peace Felix whispered, “Why not just end it?”

Peace tossed the metal ball straight into the air, “I’d rather not give everything away if I can get away with it. On the other hand, if you hadn’t taken down the ward, I’d have stolen the ball at the last second.”

“How’d you get through it?”

Peace chuckled as he caught the ball, “There are other, much more efficient, ways through a ward like that. I know you have more efficient methods yourself and were were forced into the air, where you can’t use your mana control against the inscription, so you were stuck brute forcing it. They didn’t have any way to detect me though.”

Felix frowned, “You don’t have my mana control though.”

“Like I said, other ways.” Peace smiled and left it at that, obviously not willing to explain any further at the moment.

Rejoining the rest of the class, the Adept turned to Felix and Peace just as Thomaex and Elias joined them, “So which of you two are being pushed up to the next class?”

Faster than anyone else could respond, Elias gestured to Felix and Peace, “These two.”

Thomaex nodded with a smile, “They deserve it the most.”

“I… thanks.” Felix nodded.

The Adept nodded, “I agree.” He handed them both a card with the next class’ location then nodded, “You guys work around and with each-other very effectively. Even with these two, in the mix, you made plans, protected and trusted one another to do their jobs. Good work.”

Peace shrugged and they all headed back into the classroom where they debriefed and analyzed all the matches. Other than the artillery caster whining about Felix cheating, which was immediately shot down by the Adept who had scanned and confirmed he wasn’t using a battery, nothing interesting was said.

Constructs and Elementals was a course Felix had recorded and delivered to him so he spent his time in the lab, working on various constructs. He was still tasked with menial work like inscribing enchantment designs, organizing soul gems and validating enchantment designs. As they were still only a few dekads into the first epoch, none of the big projects had started yet.

Walking into Soul Manipulation, earlier than Felix intended, he took his favorite seat at the back, next to the door. A few seconds later, Melody hopped over his head, landing in the seat next to him.

“So Felix. I’ve heard you’ve made a new friend.”

Felix looked at her with genuine confusion, “Who?”

“Peace?”

“Oh. Yeah I guess? He’s just in Group Combat.”

Melody waved him off, “Also this class and also Solo Combat, I know.”

Felix shrugged, “Ok… What about him?”

“Are you actually friends or?”

“What does it matter?”

Melody sighed, “Look, just be careful around him.”

“Why? You know him?”

“No. Just… Speak of the devil.” Melody looked up, over Felix’s head and nodded.

Looking in the same direction, Felix saw Peace smile and nod to both of them then casually step, on the air, over their seats and into the one next to Melody.

She nodded at him politely but obviously wary for some reason. Peace seemed to either not notice or not care and knowing what he knew about Peace, Felix knew he must have just been ignoring her wariness. He was far too perceptive to have missed her obviously pained smile.

As soon as he sat down though, he reached out and offered her what appeared to be a small layered cake topped with colored syrups. Her eyes immediately lit up but just a moment later, turned into a frown. It was obvious she wanted to accept it but something was preventing her from doing so.

Peace shrugged and offered it to Felix. Melody jerked to try and stop him but didn’t move far enough or actually say anything so Felix took it, mostly to be polite and to spite Melody. Taking a bite, he was pleasantly surprised with how good it was. Felix didn’t love pastries in general but he couldn’t deny it tasted fantastic.

Peace made another appear and offered it to Melody who, turned to and looked at Felix warily for almost a minute before sighing and taking it. As she bit into it, she immediately moaned and sank into her seat.

Peace chuckled, “Thanks.”

“You made this?” Felix nodded appreciatively.

“Yup. Taking a baking class.”

After Melody finished the first cake in record time, Peace produced another, different pastry and offered it to her. She gladly accepted it this time, her earlier wariness slowly melting away with each and every pastry he produced out of nowhere.

The class itself was mildly interesting, Professor Fen insisted on showing everyone what various forms of manipulation felt like. None of them had any effect on Felix though so he got to sit and watch as everyone else in the class were tortured one by one. Except Peace and Melody who were also, both unaffected.

Once it became obvious their resistance to the effects were too high, Professor Fen ignored them for the rest of the class while she slowly built up their tolerances to various forms of manipulation.

The three of them spent the class talking about their courses, how Group Combat was going for the both of them and a number of other random things Melody came up with between eating Peace’s pastries.

Felix didn’t manage to figure out why Melody was so wary of Peace as every time she tried to bring it up, Peace would change the subject with a new pastry, completely distracting her. Felix gave up after a few tries and figured he would just have to ask one of them alone, later. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .