“Ahhh crap.”

Noticing the red spears accelerating towards the distracted Rossa, Sylvester immediately used mana fortification on his legs to boost himself forward and cover as much distance as possible, but he knew this wasn’t enough for him to reach her in time.

“Come on, come on! Just a little bit mo- YES!”

Extending his hand forward he focused a small bit of mana on it and aimed it towards the space behind Rossa and perpendicular to the golem’s line of sight.

“Invisible platform!” He said in a rushed tone and with no time to spare, Sylvester gathered mana all around his body as fast as he could so he could in preparation for another spell.

“Gravity shift!” After shouting the spell Slvester’s body then came flying towards Rossa's position with speeds similar to a falling body, barely able to make it in time to grab her by the collar of her cloak dragging her along with him.

He then let go of Rossa as he stopped mid-air bending his ankles and knees like he jumped from a height while being perpendicular to the ground.

Rossa immediately regained her bearings and landed gracefully on her feet sliding a few feet from her landing point due to the momentum.

Upon touching down, she used that same momentum to turn her body around focusing her sight on the floating geometric shapes, not even caring about who or what saved her from her previous predicament.

As she charged forward she felt another tug, this time on her left hand. It was a hand with a grip so tight that it forcibly stopped her in her tracks. Turning around to see who it was she saw that it was her partner.

“How dare you! Let go of me!” She screamed and demanded that he unhand her but all of a sudden she was splashed by cold water before she could even speak any word of complaint.

Rossa was then stunned, at a loss for words as she stared blankly at the man who doused her in cold water. It seemed that Sylvester conjured water into his cap. Her thoughts were all over the place, not being able to keep up with what was happening around her.

Staring into his sky blue eyes her hazy thoughts went from bafflement to frustration. Frustration aimed at the rude man still clutching her hand.

“You… Crude.. Little!” She screamed in anger. “Unhand me you barbaric man!” She pulled her hand away from his, a motion that Sylvester didn’t seem to object.

She then glared at the young man, her crimson eyes flaying with rage as his blue eyes stared back with nothing but amusement. Before she could throw more undesirable words his way, Sylvester suddenly spoke.

“You cooled off yet, young mistress?” Sylvester asked, flashing a smug and self satisfied grin, at this point Rossa completely lost her cool.

“Is this some kind of joke to you!? Are you mocking me!?” She retorded, her brows furrowed and meeting at the center.

“Well to be honest, just a little bit.” Sylvester cheekily replied, eagerly trying to get a reaction from her.

“You-!” Rossa was about to reply when he immediately interrupted her.

“Buuuut splashing someone with ice cold water is a good way to wake someone up, no? Oh and it’s a good way to stop a child that’s throwing a tantrum, or at least that’s how mom used to stop me.” He said while leaning in closer to her, his cheeky grin still plastered on his face.

“You- Y-YOU!” Choking on her words, Rossa was unable to reply. She obviously knew what he meant with his words. She was letting her frustrations get the better of her, making her act reckless and stupid.

Upon realizing this she began to calm down and relax.

Seeing Rossa’s eyebrows retract and her face adopt a more neutral expression, Sylvester knew that he managed to get through to her with just one simple act.

“Thank goodness she’s at least a sensible person. Scolding people really isn’t my thing.” he thought to himself.

“Wel now, you seem to have regained a bit of clarity.” He said in a more relieved tone while turning his back towards her. “Buuut-” all of a sudden, he returned to a more mischievous demeanor.

“I don’t think it’s fair that you got to poke it with a stick while I was stuck here taking notes.” He then turned his head towards her, revealing a scheming grin.

“What do you mean by that?” Rossa replied as she unconsciously stepped back.

Ignoring her question Sylvester then looked up and asked in a loud voice.

“Oh dear Mr. Headmaster! I would like to have a turn to fight that thing one on one please!” He said in a cheerful tone reminiscent of a child.

“Huh?” Rossa was baffled by such a juvenile request.

“This isn’t the time for thi-!” As she raised her voice in protest, a transparent upright rectangular prism surrounded and encased Rossa.

“What’s going on?” She said as she banged her fists on the prism cage. “Let me out!” She cried out.

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to defeat that thing on my own!” He proudly declared.

“That’s not it!” Rossa exclaimed.

“What do you think you can accomplish with that meager amount of mana you have?”

When Rossa met Sylvester again she was surprised to see him selected for the S-rank trials. In fact she was surprised he was even accepted into the academy at all when she encountered him during her arrival at Inanis orbis.

This is why her attitude towards him was so dismissive.

“It doesn’t make sense!” She added. “You barely have enough mana to cast a three line spell once!” To which Sylvester looked back and gestured a thumbs up before walking off to face the golem.

The golem, strangely enough, made no movement during Sylvester and Rossa’s little argument. It simply stood there silently observing them. Even as Sylvester approached within 7 meters of it, the golem made no aggressive movement.

“Aren’t you quite the far sport. I guess I should thank you for giving me a chance to prepare. Invisible platforms!” Sylvester stretched out both his arms sideways in one single motion spreading and planting the “invisible platforms” in many different places.

He then formed the finger gun gesture on his right hand and gathered mana into the end of his index finger. “let’s continue the opening act then, shall we? Burst finger!”

Suddenly a small but bright spark formed in front of Sylvester’s finger and then a beam of light launched from the spark at high speeds while making a loud whooshing sound. The Golem made no effort to block the attack and the beam-like projectile hit the main body bouncing off harmlessly upon impact.

After the successful hit on its body a change began to happen on the pyramids orbiting around it. Their colors suddenly began leaking out like water flowing through any gap it could find. Soon the pyramids turned transparent and assumed an inverted position.

“Interesting!” Sylvester said seemingly in response to the golem’s actions. “Let’s see you handle this then!” He then formed the finger gun gesture on his left hand as well.

“Burst Akimbo!”

Beam projectiles then shot themselves from Sylvester’s finger “guns” everytime Sylvester cocked one of them backwards mimicking the motion of a firing revolver. The Golem then moved one of its pyramids to block the incoming attacks.

Sylvester fired up to twenty shots, ten shots per hand, stopping the assault to see how the pyramids would react to his attacks only to see that it was now glowing blue after surviving the onslaught.

“I think I’m beginning to understand just how this thing works. Let’s see what happens if I spammed “Burst Akimbo” again.” He thought to himself as he re-casted the previous spell and fired away at the golem.

As if on cue, the other floating pyramid blocked the incoming attacks. Once Sylvester’s second offensive strike ended it then began glowing a bright blue.

The pyramids started behaving like they once did when Rossa was facing them. One turned itself into spears, while the other started spinning on its axis and then turned itself on its side. The blue spears then homed in at Sylvester position with deadly accuracy.

Sylvester simply moved his left hand forward, shaping his fingers into a snapping position gathering mana into them. As the blue spears got closer, he another spell of his own.

“Shock snap!” Sylvester exclaimed as a shockwave of mana and air traveled from his finger knocking the spears off course and missing Sylvester by mere centimeters as they pierced the floor around him.

The spinning pyramid pyramid then primed its next attack and aimed it squarely at Sylvester who was standing there motionless, smiling silently as it observed the golem’s attack. Within just a few short moments, a beam of energy then blasted away, releasing a low humming noise.

As the attack neared, Sylvester then gathered mana underneath his feet.

“Trap door!” He said in a confident voice.

The creaking of a door was suddenly heard and Sylvester dropped down into the floor and disappeared completely avoiding the incoming beam.

He suddenly “dropped” out of thin air 1 meter away to the right of his original position and landed on his feet.

The blue spears plucked themselves off the ground and poised to strike Sylvester once more.

Sylvester cheekily grinned as he casted gravity shift causing his body to fly forward in a falling motion. The spears gave chase and when it seemed that they would catch up Sylvester casted trap door again. A brown wooden door appeared out of thin air right in front of Sylvester. The door opened and swallowed up Sylvester’s body.

The spears looked like they were going to follow through the door but the first spear simply passed through the door like nothing. The door itself disappeared but now there were very faint shards, sparkling in the air for a few seconds before they faded into nothing.

Sylvester himself popped out of the floor about 4 meters away from his previous position, reaching quite the height due to the momentum from his “fall”. He shifted himself while still in the air allowing him to land on his feet gracefully.

“Hmm, I think I kind of understand what makes you tick.” He declared as he pointed at the golem.

“But, I’m not fully satisfied yet so let me pull another trick of my own.” Sylvester smiled mischievously as he removed his cap and reached far into it pulling to normal looking cards, the Jack of hearts and spades.

“Now then, let’s see how you deal with this! Come out my assistants!” He then threw the two cards into the floor like shurikens and suddenly the cards poofed into a cloud of grey smoke. In their place were two humanoid looking figures still obscured from view, as Sylvester looked on with a smile.

While Sylvester was busy messing with the training Golem, Rossa was left speechless of his antics. However it was not the spells themselves that left her perplexed.

“How? How does he still have enough mana to keep using his spells like this?” Rossa muttered to herself. Letting her curiosity get the better of her she casted a vision based spell to help her observe Sylvester’s mana levels visually as she was too far out to sense him now.

“Inner sight!” Upon muttering these words her pupils dilated, completely covering her eyes. She casted her gaze towards Sylvester and saw that his mana was constantly refilling itself! She immediately realized why this peculiar man seemed confident despite his lacking mana pool.

“It can’t be, Capacity refresh?”