The Undying Magician - Book 1 - Chapter 42 - Barrier

                                                                                  Nathan
                                             Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 29 | Saturday

Fina-fuckin-ly!

My entire body relaxes as I watch the glass-like barrier covering my forearm while moving my arm from side to side.

It’s about time I got the damn spell working.

“Congratulations, young Fox,” Leo says with a real smile on his face, unlike the slightly sadistic or otherwise dark one he usually has as he stands in front of me in the nearly empty Magical Warfare classroom. “You’ve finally finished your first spell!”

I can’t help but smile at the barrier on my arm.

The barrier will certainly come in handy for tomorrow’s duel, that’s for sure.

“Now you just need to finish learning the other two spells and you can begin making your own!” Leo suddenly says, drawing my attention back to his face, which once again has that same sadistic smirk written all over it.

I stare at him for a few seconds before turning my attention back to the barrier on my arm again.

This is my first successful spell. I will not let him ruin this moment for me.

After a few seconds, I hear the instructor begin speaking again with a hint of disappointment in his voice, “You should repeat the spell a few times to speed up your casting time and get more accustomed to it and leave it at that for the day. After all, you’re going to need all of your mana for the duel tomorrow.”

Wait…

I look up at him to find him with a serious look on his face, without the previous smirk.

Is he disappointed that I didn’t give him any sort of reaction?

Actually, putting that aside for now, he has a point.

I look down at the spell again before cutting off my mental link with the spell, causing it to disappear after a second’s hesitation.

“Also, make sure you change the hardcoded portion to cover your entire body instead of just your forearm,” Leo adds right as I’m about to press the button on the device.

Without looking at him, I nod my head before proceeding to press the button.

Just like always, the circle forms with ease and I begin to enter in the script with the only change being that of the hardcoded parts. I then double check it once and activate the device, causing that same barrier to quickly spread out from the palm of my hand throughout my body until I am entirely coated from head to toe in the barrier.

I walk forwards slightly before moving around more to test it. After seeing nothing wrong, I reach for the connection in my mind only to pause as the instructor comments, “You should test the barrier while it’s up.”

At his words, I stop reaching for the connection before drawing the sword that is sheathed on my waist and holding it to my arm.

The blade is Arcadian Metal, which as I’ve learned is especially strong against mana related things such as barriers and attacks, but it’ll still be a good test. At least it’ll show how well it will protect me against this type of metal.

With that thought in mind, I slowly lower the sword onto the barrier before lightly pressing the tip of the blade against it, only for it to not do anything. After that, I proceed to increase the pressure more and more until cracking sounds begin to come from the barrier once I’ve reached the point that I’m putting in about half of the amount of force I can apply onto it.

I frown slightly at that before shaking my head and removing the blade from the spot.

Okay, so that’s not all that good against Arcadian Metal, and it will likely be even worse if it’s a sudden impact, considering the overall structure of the barrier itself.

In order to test that theory, I raise the sword before swinging it at a different part of my shielded arm. The sword cuts through the barrier with little resistance and moves on to passing straight through my arm with even less resistance.

I grunt slightly as I stop right before bisecting my arm to raise the sword back up again.

My attention is quickly drawn away from the reverting wound when I see a flash of steel and feel something impact my shoulder, along with an annoying screeching sound and a very faint cracking noise. When I look towards my shoulder, I find the barrier only lightly cracked with a knife scraping against it while being held in the instructor’s hand.

I look up towards Leo’s innocent-seeming face with a blank one of my own.

That was rude. But a good test all the same.

My face scrunches up slightly at that thought.

Since when did I simply consider someone trying to stab me as ‘rude?’

I shake my head at the thought before looking down at my wound that has already healed by now. However, before I can cut off my connection to the spell, I hear a gunshot echo throughout the room and feel a strong impact on my gut that sends me flying half a meter away.

This time, after landing on my back, I sit up again while looking at the instructor with a frown on my face as he simply puts the safety back onto his pistol and holsters it.

I open my mouth to speak, only to close it again while looking down at the cracks spread through the barrier at my gut. It’s a lot more damage than the knife dealt, but also still less than my sword.

“I don’t think you’ll have any problems in your duel tomorrow,” Leo says, drawing my attention back to his face as I climb back up to my feet.

“I know,” I answer back to him while finally cutting off my connection to the spell.

After all, the cadet doesn’t have any Arcadian Metal equipment, and he’s not exactly a very talented student in our class.

Especially considering how he always seems to be either the first or second member of his group to be taken out in their mock battles.

Oh, and speaking of groups…

This has been bothering me for a while, so I might as well ask.

“Teacher,” I begin, drawing his attention as he looks away from the phone he had pulled out while I was cutting off my connection to the spell, “are we really stuck with the groups we’re in in this class for the rest of our career?”

The man’s eyebrows raise in surprise at my question before he simply shrugs and looks back down at his phone as he answers, “No, that was a lie.”

My eye twitches slightly at the nonchalant way he stated that before I reach for the sword I had dropped when he shot me with the gun and sheathing it into its sheath.

I guess Anabel was right after all.

When she first heard me mention what happened with our groups, she had immediately stated that he was lying.

Because apparently, despite him being a major in the military, he doesn’t actually have the authority to force someone into a group. The only people who could do that are the generals or the council members.

And even then, why the hell would they? For political reasons, maybe? But even with that excuse, they wouldn’t do it to an entire class.

At first I was pretty livid at his actions, but that didn’t last for long after I realized that his lie actually benefited us.

After all, he let us chose our teams for the most part, and his lie about our groups being permanent forced us into reconciling any problems we had and working together as a group.

The instructor glances at me again with an eyebrow raised in question, likely at my silence, before he turns around and says, “Training is over for tonight.”

My eyebrows raise at his declaration, only to lower again as I grab my stuff and begin to make my way out of the room.

I should skip my pre-bed magic circle training. It would just be a waste of mana.

And with that thought in mind, I proceed to walk through the portal of the room and make my way back to the dormitory.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord Invite:

https://discord.gg/R7M6QNRm7y

Top Web Fiction Link:

http://topwebfiction.com/listings/the-undying-magician/