After the bizarre scene that unfolded, the students in the room were left with a judgemental and pitying silence as they looked on to the visitor’s unmoving body.

“Is she alright?” Some of the women gasped.

“How about someone poke her with a stick or something.” Some guys at the back jokingly blabbered. Those comments got them the ire of some female students who were sitting in the front.

There were a few students who got up from their seats to check, then suddenly, the woman who was lying unconscious on the floor got up in a flash.

“Where am I?!” She shouted and then looked around her.

“Oh yeah right! I’m teaching a class today aren’t I!” She shouted aloud as if no one was watching. Suffice to say it was painful to watch a grown woman act like that, especially during the first day.

“Is this really our lecturer? She seems unreliable.” Some of the students whispered in low voices as they expectedly judged this ditzy figure.

Meanwhile Sylvester looked on in amusement as always.

As if regaining her wits and realizing that she was already inside a lecture hall, the woman quickly gathered her composure, dusted herself with her hands and stood up.

“Ahem!” She exclaimed, trying to save face and make herself formal.

“Good day to you my dear students!” She then started her introduction.

“My name is Bridget Bishop, and I will be your lecturer on the subject of basic spell combination techniques 101.” She openly declared while adjusting her glasses and puffing her chest.

All of a sudden the room went silent.

“Bridget Bishop?” Sylvester asked himself inwardly as that name was familiar to him. Suddenly he remembered where he heard that name before.

“It can’t be can it?” Sylvester’s mind was suddenly in shock, something the rest of the room seems to be experiencing.

“Naaaaah, it can’t be. Just because Leonardo Da Vinci is out headmaster doesn’t mean that everyone with a similar name from someone in the past is the same person! Ha-haha.” Sylvester then pushed the thought off his head as he continued to observe the klutzy actions of the supposed teacher.

“And I doubt the real Bridget Bishop would be acting like that anyways.” He continued.

The woman who introduced herself as Bridget Bishop managed to calm herself down and collect herself after her rather awkward introduction.

“I’m so sorry about being late!” She suddenly declared.

“I forgot to set my alarm last night because I had forgotten that the classes started today. And I was busy reading that new-mpphh!” She explained and stopped herself all of a sudden by covering her own mouth.

At his point everyone in the class was silently judging her every action.

“Ahieeee!” She suddenly shrieked as if sensing the gaze of her students.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She said over and over as she repeatedly bowed her head, looking like a chicken feeding on grains scattered on the floor.

“Umm Professor?” A female student at the front row suddenly raised her hand.

She had brown flaxen hair and wore rather sophisticated looking glasses while sporting a tiny red beret on her head.

She looked to be the overly serious type of person.

“Can we get on with the lesson now?” She asked.

“Oh-oh yeah right. Sorry.” The ditzy woman at the front apologized for the nth time in just a few short minutes.

“That’s gotta be a new record.” Sylvester joked in his head while Rossa seemed uninterested in the strange developments unfolding right before her.

“Ahem!” Bridget then put on a serious face as she faced her class one more time.

“Before we get to the namesake of our lecture, we should start with something a little bit more basic.” She began her lecture, but this time her voice was more focused and mature. Sounding more reliable and mentor-like.

“Right now, all of you still manually cast your spells individually correct?” She asked the class to which they nodded in return.

“As you might have experienced, this method is rather tedious and no matter how fast you gather mana it still feels slow and clunky, especially if you are using 2 line spells consecutively.” She continued.

“Spell chants are used, after all, to command your mana to perform an action. But in reality the chants are there for your mind and spirit to visualize the intended effect therefore shaping your mana accordingly.” She clarified.

“Ooooh. I didn’t know that.” Sylvester was not a little more invested in the topic.

He was also amused at the change in Miss Bishop’s demeanor after she started her lecture. One minute she was a stuttering mess, the next she sounds like someone speaking in a FED talk.

“Now comes the part where I need a bit of demonstration to show you before I explain any further.” She stopped and took out her ID card.

“Now class, brace yourselves.” She smiled as she pressed on her ID like a remote control, making a beeping sound.

Her ID then morphed into a strange multicolored rubik’s cube like appearance. She then held one side on each hand and pulled the cube apart causing the smaller cubes to separate from each other.

Suddenly, the classroom itself suddenly shifted and expanded mirroring that of the cube. Each student was suddenly moved farther apart from one another, a white void spanning the gap between them and splitting the floor apart.

“Whooa what the!?” Sylvester could mutter as he was suddenly thrown a few meters away from his seat neighbor Rossa. Suffice to say Sylvester wasn’t alone in this reaction.

The room was thrown in turmoil for a while as the students were trying to get a grip on what just happened.

The lecture hall was now mostly a white void with the seats and positions spread far apart. The students sat on an island made from the table and chair they sat on and the floor tiles beneath them. The ceiling itself seemed to have disappeared as there was nothing but a white void above them.

“Ahem!” Bridget grabbing everyone’s attention and subduing the incoming murmurs from the students.

“Now that we have the space, let me show you a little demonstration of what you will be learning to do in this class.” Bridget then raised her hand into the air and gathered mana into it. So far nothing seems unusual.

“O wrath of the heavens, Soaring through the sky up high!” She declared in a loud and thunderous voice as streaks and sparks started to form from her outstretched hand.

“Dragon lightning!” A large dragon that was vaguely shaped like a dragon surged from her body. It was merely a two line spell and yet it emmanated a lot of power. Suddenly she lowered her hand and aimed it towards the onlooking students.

“I’m not done yet!” She declares.

“Spatial mirror!” She suddenly exclaimed and soon a large spectral mirror appeared in front of the professor.

Without warning the lightning dragon that she casted suddenly appeared within the mirror and bursted out, shards of spectral glass scattered everywhere as it soared in between the students who were now experiencing quite the shock.

Not only did such a terrifying spell flew by them at a very uncomfortable distance, the professor somehow managed to chant two spells simultaneously without them sensing any sort of gradual gathering of mana.

However, Sylvester also realized that the second spell “spatial mirror” was similar to his spell “trap door” but seemed to be a far more advanced version of it.

Trap door can only let the user of the spell pass through the illusory doors it conjures and requires a flat surface like the floor or Sylvester’s “invisible platforms” to materialize. While Spatial mirror doesn’t seem to have these restrictions and was able to redirect a spell.

He knows for a fact that it was at least a two line spell.

At this point Sylvester was quiet and was trying to analyze what just happened. Rossa too had a serious look on her face suggesting that her mood was affected by that sudden demonstration. Bridget then looked around the room and saw many stern faces, seemingly lost in thought as they were gathering the pieces inside their heads.

With a satisfied smile on her face, she once again spoke.

“Now class, what you just saw is called a spell chain but in technical terms it’s often referred to as Chain casting.” She began explaining.

Upon hearing her words, Sylvester was taken from his stupor and his attention was immediately directed towards the once clumsy looking woman.

It was quite amusing how fast their opinion on Bridget changed.

“As I said earlier, spell chants are used to mold mana into the result or action we want. Mana, prior to being “commanded” by a spell, is unreactive and solid.” She continued.

“It is why gathering mana takes quite a bit of time, and is also the reason why stronger spells that consume more mana require longer chants. Think of mana as a solid mass of clay and your words as the tools you use to shape it. Well since this is still just chanting it’s more of beating the clay into submission but that’s besides the point.”

“Now I know that a few seconds don’t seem much. But sometimes those few seconds could mean the difference between life or death. Wait oh no! That was a little too grim!” She suddenly grabbed her cheeks, acting like she was flustered, but unlike before she was easily able to recover.

“And to add to the fact that you need to chant the entire spell on top of gathering just the right amount, then you have potentially put yourself in a vulnerable position. Sure it may not be a problem right now since most of you can only use two line spells at best.” With these words the class suddenly realized where their professor was getting to.

“But once you get to three line spells or even higher, suddenly chanting a spell becomes a fatal weakness.” She said as she adjusted her glasses.

The students can only nod in agreement.

“Also, this is the very foundation of a technique called chantless casting. So, better listen up!” She said in a cheerful tone.

“Chantless casting?” Everyone in the area suddenly gasped. Suddenly, the crowd erupted as they began talking to themselves, realizing the importance of this first step.

“Okay back to the topic.” Bridget then segued back into what she was supposed to be teaching.

“Now, after casting an initial spell, there is a very, very small window where your mana is extremely malleable and easy to manipulate.” Bridget explained.

“It is during this brief moment that you grab your chance and immediately visualize the next spell and shout its name. Upon doing so your mana will obey the command and manifest the result. As long as you have the mana capacity you should be able to continue casting one spell after the other as one continuous chain.” She continued.

“I see, but that sounds simple. Too simple.” Sylvester thought to himself.

“But there is a small, but very important catch to all this.” Bridget said as she raised her index finger.

“Because mana at that point is extremely malleable, your spell will often take more mana than what it needs and if you are not careful, the next spell can completely drain you.” She added a fair bit of warning.

“Ah, there it is!” Sylvester was quite pleased with himself for expecting some kind of twist.

“Now then, I would recommend you all to first try this out with one cast spells, as these only use up a small amount of mana.” She instructed.

“Now remember. Visualize and then cast it immediately.” Bridget reminded her students as she let them to their own devices.

Sylvester immediately knew what spells he wanted to try to combine to achieve even faster mobility and randomness to his movements.

“Okay let’s try this!” Sylvester then gathered mana and aimed it towards the space in front of him.

“Invisible platform!” He declared and just like that, he successfully conjured his spell. Without missing a beat he envisioned his next spell, trap door to immediately connect it to his invisible platform.

“Trap door!” Sylvester declared and a door was slowly forming underneath and in front of him, but something was different.

As soon as he summoned the trap door, he could feel all of his mana was draining at an alarming rate, easily surpassing the regeneration through capacity refresh.

With his mana suddenly being drained, he felt weak and almost fell to the floor.

Unfortunately he was not able to keep this up and the trap door quickly disappeared, failing to completely materialize. Sylvester was immediately able to recover from the sudden drain thanks to capacity refresh, but this experience made him realize something as he saw his classmates easily able to chain their spells.

“So it seems I found myself a roadblock.” He said as a crooked smile formed on his face.