Losing balance, he fell off the tree branch, and was now hanging from the tree branch by his feet, upside down.
“I really hope Elaine and the others will be okay…”
Gust calmly used his core strength to raise his body enough to raise himself back onto the tree branch, then untied himself from the tree branch.
Standing up, he surveyed the area around him. From his vantage point, he could over the tops of the forest trees for miles and miles. Then, looking down, he scratched his head.
“I really just can’t get used to sleeping so high up.”
After stretching his limbs, Gust slowly began his descent from his tree branch - which had been over a hundred feet high. After hitting the ground, however, another message came through his communication stone.
After listening to it, Gust groaned. “Aish, those old asshats are really pushing us hard…”
“Excuse me, Gust?”
“Ah. Sorry. How do you turn this thing off?”
...
A few days later, the Reiniad Elementary Institute’s representative team was woken up in the same manner by Headmaster Farhir - this time, however, they didn’t even wait for him to tell them what to do before rushing towards him with seals drawn.
In this short period of time, they’d already been trained to instantly be ready for combat as soon as they woke up. However, Headmaster Farhir had increasingly used more and more of his abilities, so that if they beat him one day, he would pressure them harder the next.
Today, though, was a special one, and as for why, the students found as as soon as they exited the house.
Today, Headmaster Farhir was not alone. Behind him, stood nine individuals in mage robes.
“Have fun~!” Headmaster Farhir only gave these two words, before those mages began to take action.
Each of the newcomers headed for one of the students.
Wesley himself was met with a young man nearly twice his height - however, Wesley’s eyes focused on the two seals his opponent was drawing.
He sensed that they were both ice spells!
‘Oh?’
Wesley spared a glance at the other students, and noticed that their opponents seemed to all be matched with them - that is to say, each of their opponents specialized in the same form of magic as the student to which they were assigned.
‘Headmaster Farhir has really put some effort into this, hmm.’
Putting his focus back on his opponent, he quickly rifled through his possibilities while starting to draw his first seal - although he’d been practicing of late, he still didn’t have the mana control and multi-tasking abilities to draw two seals at once.
Just before he finished his seal, however, Wesley suddenly paused. Wait. For the entire last week, Headmaster Farhir had repeatedly forced the team to reevaluate and improve their teamwork.
In that case, why were the newcomers trying to split them apart into nine one on one battles?
‘Ah.’
Luckily, just as Wesley realized this, Cassandra herself shouted.
“Group on me! Ryu, Kate, shields!”
“Understood!” A chorus of acknowledgements sounded as the students immediately changed their original routes and grouped together to face their foes.
On the sidelines, Headmaster Farhir cracked a smile.
His efforts over the last week had been useful after all.
“Tony, raise us up!” Cassandra continued to shout out commands, all while continuing to cast her own spells.
After a moment, with spells raining on the shields surrounding them, the earth under the group rumbled, and a pillar rose into the air, with them on top.
From their new vantage point, it would be much easier to
Although they had a space mage in Luke, the other side had a space mage as well…
With a quick spell, the enemy space mage simply took out a large chunk of the earth pillar, leaving the students to fall to the ground over twenty feet below.
“Create!”
Wesley had been meaning to shoot their opponents with icicles, but with some quick thinking, Wesley quickly modified his seal to create a ramp made out of ice, catching them in their fall and allowing them to slide their way to the ground.
However, once they’d slid to the bottom of the ramp, they raised their heads only to see that they’d been all surrounded by their opponents, with seals at the ready.
“You’ve lost~!” Headmaster Farhir slowly walked up, clapping. “However, you haven’t failed my expectations. Not bad, not bad. Now, split into groups and try again!”
The two sides continued to fight until their mana pools finally ran dry.
That night, the nine students had to be carried back to their rooms, before they slowly crawled out of their clothes and into their prepared baths.
Soaking in the nourishing “soup”, some of them were so exhausted that surrounded by the warm, calming liquid, they actually fell asleep in the bath.
The next morning, these few could be identified by their raisin-y skin.
While the students de-stressed after a long day of hard work, Headmaster Farhir sat in his room, staring at a few sheets of paper.
The first, was a training schedule he had put together for the team - on it, each day had been marked with planned activities, along with comments regarding how each day had went, along with who had performed the best.
The second, was a military report he’d received from Patriarch Lumient - aside from being the headmaster of the Lumient Intermediate Academy of Magic, he was also in command of the country’s mage corps.
And Headmaster Farhir was one of his chief officers.
“Fort Rosenthal has been overrun, hm? The King of the Kenta Kingdom sends his thanks… and the Pooles Kingdom has begun their attack, as well.”
He leaned back in his chair, then swept his gaze toward the window, and stared at the darkness outside.
“This war…”
Chapter 15
The months passed, the seasons changed, and soon enough, it was almost time for the inter-school competition.
The helpers from the Lumient Intermediate Academy of Magic had left long ago, but their practice had never paused - instead of competing against Headmaster Farhir or their seniors, they instead competed against each other - in smaller groups.
After all, the inter-school competition did not only involve team battles - although each preliminary battle would consist of only nine vs. nine team battles, the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the finals would also include one vs one battles, two vs two, and an all-kill round.
As such, their individual and skirmishing skills had needed to be trained as well.
But after all of their blood, sweat, and tears, today was the day they could finally leave the training camp.
The nine students stood alongside Headmaster Farhir as they gazed at the mansion they’d lived in for the past few months.
The fields and forests surrounding the mansion, they had left so many painful memories there, but at the same time, they couldn’t help but remember these memories in a fond light.
After all, it was through their hardships that they’d all improved by leaps and bounds. But still, they couldn’t help but shiver, thinking back.
Wesley couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief that they were finally leaving. Truthfully, he never wanted to experience that kind of torturous training again.
“Well, let’s get going!”
“...”
Wesley couldn't help but facepalm. He had been foolish to believe that their ordeals had ended. A thirty mile jog back to the school, it was…
This time, however, instead of the blank silence that had enveloped the group on their way to the training campsite, some of the quieter members such as Wesley found it hard to get a word in edgewise.
Regardless, a large smile was plastered on Wesley’s face as he listened to the chatter.
…
Once they reached the school, Wesley and Kate split from the
rest of the group and headed back to the Lumient family estate.
“Ahh… I wonder what gramps will give us.”
“Hm? Give us?”
“Haha, gramps is the kind of person who’ll do anything to “win” competitions such as the inter-school one. He’s… extremely competitive, and now that he’s too old and has too high of a position to let loose, he funnels his competitiveness through the younger generations.
“That is to say, us. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has something special for us.”
Wesley grinned. “I’ll look forward to it.”
As if on cue, as soon as they reached the front entrance of the Lumient family estate, they saw Arthur, Kate’s father and Wesley’s uncle, waiting for them.
“Hey, you two! How was training camp?”
Kate and Wesley glanced at each other. What should they say, that it was hell on earth, that at some points they’d never thought they’d reach the end alive?
They turned toward Arthur simultaneously with large smiles on their face. “It was great!”
“Ah, good, good. Well, the Patriarch is waiting for the two of you. Actually…” Arthur looked into the distance, where the sun was setting. “We thought you would be back quite a bit sooner, so the Patriarch had dinner prepared quite a bit earlier, looks like we’ll have to get the food recooked.”
“AH?” Wesley was astounded. “Where will the food go then?”
“It’ll be thrown out.”
“AHH? Just give me the food, I’ll eat it.”
And so, they found themselves in the Lumient family’s gigantic dining hall, which was capable of seating up to a hundred people in comfort at once. Although only four of them sat on one end of the table, dishes lined the table until nearly the halfway point.
Of course, this was only because every dish was on the table twice - one that had gone cold for Wesley, and newly cooked ones for everyone else.
It wasn’t that Wesley didn’t like fresh, hot food, but he simply couldn’t bear to see so much good food go to waste.
After all, even if it was cold, it was still tasty!
Seeing Wesley devour the cold food that he considered unpalatable, Patriarch Lumient felt that a few of his heart-strings had been tugged.
Why, Patricia, why did you fall in love with that dolt! Do you see how far our family has fallen? Eating leftovers…
Of course, the dolt he was thinking of was Dean, Wesley’s father.
“So, great-grandpa, what are you going to give us?”
“Huh? Who told you I prepared gifts?”
“You do the same thing every time…”
“I...Well, for that, young lady, you don’t get a gift!”
“Ah?”
Kate knew exactly what cards to play.
“Ahh, I’m sorry, great-gramps! But what if I lose in the inter-school competition? Won’t that bring shame to the family?” She pouted and widened her eyes as far as they would go.
“... Don’t think I can’t see through your act! Although… tch, fine. I’ve prepared for each of you something very special, haha.”
With a grandiose wave of his arm, two small flasks appeared on the dining table.
“Heh…” Kate wasn’t impressed. “Gramps, are you cheaping out on us? What’s this?”
Patriarch Lumient’s brow furrowed. “Cheaping out on you? These are special potions made by the King’s personal apothecary. The main ingredient… dragon’s blood!”
As divine magical beasts, the blood of dragons was extremely precious, expensive, and beneficial to anyone who consumed it… in the proper manner, of course.
If a normal human tried to drink a drop of dragon’s blood directly, upon consumption, they would feel pain as if they were being stabbed by thousands of needles, then would feel as if their organs were on fire.
A few seconds later, their inner organs would dissolve, then the rest of their body. Within a minute, all that would be left of them would be a pool of blood.
However, there were many potions that could be made with dragon’s blood - many could enhance the physical abilities of those that drank it, while some were geared toward mages.
The flasks that Patriarch Lumient had purchased were one of the latter. For these, he’d paid an arm and a leg - in fact, all of the money that Lumient family had gained in the last year had been spent on these two small flasks. But, in Patriarch Lumient’s shining eyes, the price would be well worth it.
“Here, drink it now.”
Now that the two children had just filled themselves to the brim with nourishing food, it was the best time for them to consume the potions.
Kate and Wesley laid on the floor, flasks in their hands, then each downed their potions.
Chapter 16
Although the potions had diluted the dragon’s blood so that it was safe to drink, it was still important that the two children had eaten their fill before consuming the potions.
It could be compared to eating before drinking alcohol, so that you don’t start throwing up everywhere, or eating some food to fill your stomach before eating a very spicy pepper.
It was a way of protecting themselves.
Despite that, however, as soon as they finished pouring the contents of the flasks down their throat, the two of them felt an incredibly intense burning sensation that started in their mouth, their throat… more or less, they could track the potion sliding down into their stomach.
Patriarch Lumient and Arthur glanced at each other, then the former surreptitiously cast a spell - a transparent bubble surrounded the four.
Then, after a few moments of silence, both Kate and Wesley started screaming at the top of their lungs.
Patriarch Lumient and Arthur nodded toward each other. Thank goodness they’d set up the sound barrier in time.
Wesley had felt as if his stomach were on fire, as if he’d eaten an incredibly hot pepper, but suddenly the heat had surged through his body, and pain could be felt from each and every nerve in his body. Soon enough, his senses were overloaded with pain and
As for what happened afterwards, he wasn’t too sure, as he’d lost consciousness.
The next morning, though, Wesley woke up in his comfortable bed at the Lumient family estate, and for the first time, didn’t experience any grogginess.
In fact, he felt incredibly energized, ready to take whatever the day could throw at him.
‘Is this what it’s like to be a morning person?’
After bathing himself, Wesley stood in front of the mirror, then squinted.
He hadn’t had the strength to care about his appearance for the past few months, so hadn’t been sure what to expect… but still, he was shocked at how his appearance had changed.
In the past, he’d always been a little on the chubbier side. After all, he loved to eat, and there are certain consequences that come with one’s love for food. Now, however…
He wasn’t exactly thin, but he wasn’t chubby either. Instead, he just looked...incredibly fit, as all of his body proportions were simply ideal.
His arms and legs were finely toned, and even his stomach had retreated slightly back into his body.
At least, it didn’t poke out like it used to.
Physical examination over, Wesley dressed himself and walked out of the house, headed for the training area where he’d dueled Kate all those months back.
To his surprise, he found that Kate was already there, practicing.
“Hey Wesley! Finally woken up?”
“Yeah, how long you’ve been here?”
“Only just got here myself. How bout it, want to see what the potions did for us?”
“Heh.”
Without another word, the two began drawing seals, with grins on their faces.
After a long while, the two finally came to a halt.
“Is it just me, or are we absorbing mana incredibly quickly now?”
“Yeah, I was confused when I checked my mana pool and mana channels didn’t look like they’d b
een changed, but definitely we definitely have access to more mana now.”
“Ha, won’t that mean we’ll definitely win attrition battles?”
Memory Seal- Volume 2 Page 7