Chapter 53: A Lifelong Decision Has Been Made!
“I want Combo Magji.” Zoey decided.
Alexander and Lindsay looked up at her, surprised she found time to come to the student council room after becoming super popular. Lindsay wasn’t as surprised as Alexander was. Since the Annual Meeting of Young Talents was coming next Monday, she must be excited to prepare herself to fight against magjistars. Out of all the learned magji that Zoey could learn, Lindsay was rather happy that she expected Zoey to choose one of the unusual ones.
Since Zoey was a monster, Lindsay had a feeling that she would choose something that would complement her already absurd strength even further. Some of her predictions were earth magji, fire magji, combo magji, or pain magji. By combining their money together, Alexander and Lindsay were able to purchase the first volumes of each of the magji they believed that Zoey would be interested in. It put a sizable dent in their funds, but both of them believed it was worth the purchase. The stronger that Zoey became, the easier it would be for them to make even more money.
“Here you go.” Lindsay pulled out a small thin brown book from her bookbag.
“You already have it?” Zoey was surprised.
“We had a feeling you might choose this one...” Alexander spoke up for them.
“You did?” Zoey really was predictable...
“It's a type of magji that we’ve never heard of anyone practicing in our generation or our parent’s but that’s because magjistars don’t typically fight in a way that this branch of magji would be useful for them,” Lindsay explained.
“So, how’d you know I'd pick it?” Zoey grabbed the book.
“Because it fits perfectly with the way you fight.” Lindsay smiled.
“We also bought this!” Alexander gave her a ring. “With the remainder of our money.” He made sure to add.
Zoey put the plain-looking silver ring on her pinkie finger before looking at the two.
“Follow us. We need to teach you how to integrate with your chosen magji branch and use your new magji tool.” Alexander grinned.
“We recently received a case in the main part of the city. There’s a couple of D-grade daemons causing trouble at an abandoned building that’s scheduled to be demolished soon.” Lindsay explained.
The trio of high school students left the school together with many eyes on them as they left. This wasn’t anything out of the usual for Alexander and Lindsay. Being the handsome and beautiful pair they were, it wasn’t a shock that they were also very popular within the school. As far as the other students could see, they were the perfect example of model students. Always at the top of the year in tests, excelling in gym class, and very attractive.
It has now come to the attention that the perfect student council president and vice president had some sort of relationship with the Boxing Queen, Zoey, somehow! Rumors spread quickly across the school and social media among the high school students about what kind of relationship could someone like Zoey have with them.
“Maybe it’s a love triangle 😍!!!!!”
“Between Lindsay and Zoey over Alexander?”
“No! Between Lindsay and Alexander over Zoey 😁!”
“I think they’re just normal friends... I saw them get on the city bus together after school. It can’t be anything like what you guys are talking about.”
“Maybe the student council is keeping an eye out on Zoey because of how good of a fighter she is.”
“What if other schools come to ours to challenge her?”
“Isn’t Zoey on the track team?”
“Is she?”
“She is! I remember now! She helped us win one of our meets last Friday!”
As the social media circle of Zoey’s school exploded about her, Zoey was sitting on the bus with Lindsay and Alexander. She was being instructed on how to properly and safely imprint combo magji within her soul. Lindsay and Alexander were sending her text messages on what to do since there were normal people on the bus with them. They’d be breaking the rules if they explained the process of learning magji with normal humans not associated with the magji world.
Zoey closed her eyes after reading the very long texts from the magjistar duo. Using her Lv1 Mahna Manipulation to the best of her abilities, Zoey began to explore the inside of her body. She located all nine of her currently locked magji gates inside her body. According to Lindsay and Alexander, over the course of her life as a magjistar, she’ll be doing training her control over her magji to get stronger. However, for now, her only goal was to locate her soul and imprint the Combo Magji into it. It kind of reminded her of the symbol for infinity.
[Combo Magji Lv1]
[Mahna Manipulation Lv2]
It took around three hours before Zoey could successfully imprint the symbol onto her soul. She messed up so many times that they actually missed their stop. Neither Lindsay nor Alexander could intervene lest they wanted to harm Zoey’s soul. Inwardly, Zoey wanted to explode because of how annoying her soul was.
“Three hours is pretty good for your first time.” Alexander tried to console her as they walked back into the city.
“Some people take weeks or months before they can accurately imprint the symbol on their soul.” Lindsay nodded.
“Is it normal for my soul to move around and try to avoid me putting the symbol on it?” Zoey soon asked with an irritated tone.
Both Lindsay and Alexander gave subtly looks to one another. They’ve never heard of anything like that before. While most people don’t usually talk about imprinting magji on their souls, it wasn’t like it was a taboo topic or anything. If there was something to know about it, the two of them definitely knew about it. Or at least a solid amount of knowledge regarding it.
“We wouldn’t know specifically... Both of us are connate magjistars.” Alexander gave an embarrassed smile.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter since I got the symbol on it in the end.” Zoey shrugged.
“That’s right! Do you feel like you can use any of the spells in the book?” Alexander soon asked.
“There’s only one spell.” Zoey informed.
“One spell...?” Alexander repeated.
“Yeah. Is there supposed to be more?” Zoey asked.
“Most learned magji branches have at least three spells in the first volume...” Lindsay shared.
“Well, I guess I have my work cut out for me, huh?” Zoey wasn’t particularly upset about finding out she only had one spell.
Her first and only spell was very simple to use and understand: Combo Volume I: Combo Time! Zoey’s power slowly increases every time she attacks without interruption. Each time her attack is interrupted, her boost in power is reset back to zero. As far as she could tell, there was no limit to how far her power could grow, but that was something that obviously needed to be tested before stupidly claiming without evidence. A spell like this fits perfectly for her, who loved fighting aggressively.
Zoey’s excitement about learning this new spell was quickly rising to her head. She wanted to test it out right now! Sadly, she wasn’t able to sate her cravings, even after they arrived at the daemon-infested building. When walking into the building, the three of them were immediately attacked by a group of tiny black gremlins. An unusual occurrence since daemons don’t normally attack magjistars without preparing an ambush.
Zoey didn’t even get the chance to try and use her first spell, while Lindsay and Alexander coolly killed the daemons that came at them with spells. Zoey had to use her fists and punch the little daemons. Forget about not getting the chance to cast her spell, she couldn’t even put on her boxing gloves! They had to move forward while being ambushed throughout the building.
Eventually, Zoey forgot all about those two things as she had a little fun trying to sense when the daemons would attack and where from. It only took one full-strength punch for Zoey to kill or severely injure a daemon, so even if she used her combo magic, it wouldn’t make that much of an impact. Alexander had a machete wrapped up in some sort of strange paper to deal with the daemons. Lindsay used her crocodile plushie to protect herself and deal with the daemons.
It wasn’t until they reached the daemon controlling all of the little daemons that Lindsay and Alexander decided to explain what Zoey’s new ring was able to do.
“Use your mahna and flow it into the ring. Then---” Alexander was about to explain.
Zoey wasted no time following Alexander’s instructions. As the ring lit up, Zoey suddenly found herself right underneath the strongest daemon in the building. It was an obese, disgusting, drippy, and stanky daemon. Unconsciously, she found herself balling up her fist and swinging it straight into the large stomach of the daemon with mahna covering her fist.
“Bo! Bo! Bo!” It cried out, its slimy grubby hands reaching down towards Zoey.
“Zoey! I wasn’t finished talking yet!” Alexander started chanting a lightning spell to try and save Zoey only to hear a bloodcurdling roar coming from her direction.
A mass of black sludge blew to the wall behind the daemon. Zoey’s fist went completely through the stomach of the sludge-like daemon, and she wasn’t sure if it was dead or not, with a portion of its torso missing. Thankfully, she didn’t have to worry as a ray of ice struck the daemon’s head and quickly froze it into an ice cube. Three relieved sighs happened at the same time as Zoey slowly backed away from the daemon before smashing it to pieces with multiple rapid-fire punches.
‘Couldn’t forget the experience for my skills.’ She smiled before turning to Lindsay and Alexander.
[Boxing Lv5]
[Abnormal Conditions Lv8]
[Endurance Lv5]