[Day 54 {week 6}] - Sunday - February 13, 0000 A.A

20 people were going on the expedition to the library. That included 5 Wizards, Mr.Valko, Josiah, Harry, Halima, and K. As for the rest of the team, they were mainly the more disciplined people like Neo, Niko, Zane, Ranzer, Callie, Ria, Richy, Luise, Emilia, Troy, Zainab, Irene, Coach McConnel, Officer Wheeler, and the like. Surprisingly, Leo had made his way on the team as well.

Their goal was the library, but as it was situated on the completely opposite side of the school, close to the main foyer, from them, it was going to be a long and beetle packed journey.

Getting past the barricade that morning, the group made their way through the unharvested corpses of beetles that had been left to decay there, a curse on their sorry noses but worth it as another layer of protection from beetle tides.

In their crude beetle armor, the group marched towards their destination quietly, most of them hoping to get through with it with as little confrontation as possible. For that to happen though all of them had to be smeared with beetle blood, so as long as they didn't run across a mega or higher, the smaller ones would ignore them.

The more the group spent their time outside of their Velysium hall the more they came to realize just how fast they needed to start toward their goal of eliminating the beetle hive before they eliminated them. There seemed to be a lot more crawling about the hallway to god only knows what.

Not to mention the state of the school. Whatever the beetle had been doing, there were holes everywhere, holes leading outside from which beetle after beetle came in carrying food into holes in the floor of hallways of classrooms. Not to mention the busted pipe from which water was spilling into some of the halls. It explained why some of the sinks had stopped working.

The Cafeteria was by far the worst. They had decided to come here to grab Neo’s backpack for the Nail Gun blueprints while they were outside so they could start modifying the nail guns they had.

Upon entering the cafeteria crouching so the mega’s would not see them, they were shocked by what they were seeing. On the floor of the cafeteria, a massive hole surrounded by excavated dirt, concrete and the chairs and table of the cafeteria could be seen with dozens of beetles crawling in and out of it by the second. Some rushed out of the broken glass wall of the cafeteria to deposit dirt outside, while others rushed into the hole holding some poor creature or occasionally the corpse of a person.

However, none of that mattered as all eyes were on the beetle standing guard of the entrance. It was huge, big enough to fill up the school's hallway and dwarf the already large Mega beetles. Those beetles had much bigger teeth and much larger blades on the feelers.

“Oh hell no.” Whispered Leo,” we're gonna have to fight that thing one day? That looks terrifying as heck. The Megas were already a problem but these guys…hell no.”

“I’m guessing that must be a Giga.” Said Officer Wheeler,” Certainly fits the description Hyram gave us.”

“Yeah.” Said Coach McConnel,” Let not stay here longer than we have to, Noe get your backpack, and let's go before we are spotted. I’d rather not fight that thing today.”

The group had few fights here and there, but that was because they were careful on which group to take one, as well as not prolonging the fight more than it had to. Any Loud noise would have every beetle in the surrounding swarming to their position and none of them were particularly thrilled with the idea.

When they arrived at the main foyer, they found another one of those holes being excavated with hundreds of beetles working. They had to find another way in, thankfully the sound of beetle skittering allowed them to break a window and get through into the library from another hall.

They had no time to waste and gathered as many relevant books of nonfiction they could find into their empty backpacks. The coach also allowed them to take a few interesting story titles to keep as entertainment.

The body of the librarian had been found in her office. They were unsure what killed her and gave her silent prayer before they had to move one. Some other students began to feel sick upon seeing the bodies of the dead once more. The Librarian's office also held the walkie-talkie wrack on which 7 walkie-talkies were still left since Armageddon began. These were the walkie-talkies with a private line the school's staff was required to have on at all times. 7 of the teachers hadn’t been there that day, thus why 7 walkie-talkies still remained. Coach McConnel took them as they would prove useful later on.

Coach McConnel decided to scout for more of these holes. Later on, before they got back at night they found 5 places in which they were building burrows. They were, the cafeteria, the main foyer, in the middle of the central hallway, the auditorium, and finally in the school parking lot.

Bring back the news of their destroyed school, everyone in the survival group now strove to move quicker. Time was running out, and they were still not ready to fight the beetles head-on.

[Day 55 {week 7}] - Monday - February 14, 0000 A.A

Through the application of the knowledge of how iron was formed, the Magisterium cut down the cost in conjuring a chunk of iron by about ⅔, allowing someone to calmly hold onto it alone, even if it put a lot of strain on the person.

From that experiment, the Magisterium concluded that mana cost was high because mana would do things to fill in the gaps created by the imagination of creating something. Thus the less knowledge one has the greater the mana cost. It essentially meant the mana was a kind of equalizing force, forming the will of the wielder into something that followed the laws of the universe….even if those laws might be much different from what they knew.

The Magisterium took the rest of that day messing around with iron, shaping it to their will.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing crew had gotten on with modifying the nail guns into usable weapons. The process would be slow, however, it was still progressing.

[Day 56 {week 7}] - Tuesday - February 15, 0000 A.A

Everyone in the Magisterium was busy working with elemental magic and doing their own stuff under the watchful eyes of Malcolm while Mr.Valko practiced with his mana as well. Most of them work with the easier-to-use basic element, with a few working on hard-to-control magic like Iron.

Rosemary Gomez was busy doing her own thing. She was an avid player of DnD, so she had her own ideas she wanted to try and see was possible with magic. One of them was things like magic missiles or just spells that took magic alone and no elemental energy.

And she was indeed making progress. RoseMary had managed to harden her magic into a sheet and floated in front of her. Essentially she had made a shield. It was transparent with only a slight purplish-blue hue to it, but there was undoubtedly something there.

“Hey what's that?” shouted someone, as all the attention turned towards her. It didn’t take long for the starry-eyed wizards in the room to come rushing over to her to see what she had done.

“I think I made a shield.” Said Rosemary as people started repeatedly hitting the solid wall of energy.

“How’d you do that?” asked Mr.Valko placing his hands on the shield.

“Well, I just compressed my mana into a sheet and kept on expanding it. I think the more mana I pour into it the stronger it gets.” She said.

“Can you move it?” asked one of the Wizards, to which Rosemary nodded moring a bit closer to her.

The magisterium that took turns messing with the shields RoseMaty had made, throwing a few of their spells at it, or punching it with Sev-infused fists. Soon enough they decided to go down to Velysium hall and have some of the kids there try to damage it.

“We need y’alls help!” Said Josiah as he rushed down the stairs followed by the rest of the magisterium members,” it's important.”

“Better be damn good to interrupt my training session.” Said Coach McConnel as he waited for them to explain themselves.

“Ok so we can make shields now, and we want y'all to try and break them.” Said Rosemary.

“Hold on, did you say Shields?” asked a very sweaty Leo.

“Yeah!’ Said Rosemary forming another shield of energy in front of her. She moved it to the side so that everyone could see.

“We want to see how it fair against stronger Sev, and were more in the magic department, so can you’ll give it a try?” Asked Harry.

Zane was first to hit the shield, needless to say, the shield did not move from the spot RoseMary had put it, however, it did crack, one quickly fixed with some magic.

Student after Student made their way to test the integrity of the Shield. Mr.Valko and a few other Wizards made a few as well, each with different inputs of mana.

RoseMary had something else to show everyone as well.

Looking at the pieces of concrete that had been broken from Zane's furious night 2 weeks or so before, she willed a small piece up into the air. It was hard and took a lot of will to keep it afloat, moving towards here took even more so. Once it was close enough she let it drop again and had a prideful look on her face as everyone looked on with shock at what she had done.

“I think Josiah might have missed something and skipped straight to Elemental magic without realizing what can be done with just the mana alone.” Said Rosemary holding her head a little.

“Yeah, I might have Rushed that. But are you ok?” he asked with Concern.

“Looks like levitating that rock took a lot out of you, I think you need some rest.” Said Mr.Valko as he took her away, back to the room to rest.

“I’m gonna say this once.'' Said Coach McConnel as the Wizard turned to go back to their room,” you all better get strong enough to make some big barriers or shields. That will most definitely come in handy.”

[Day 57 {week 7}] - Wednesday - February 16, 0000 A.A

The morning started off with a bang in the Magisterium as they kept on testing the integrity of the magic shields. The shield would more than just allow them to protect themselves from danger, but also help them with testing out the spells and magic that would have otherwise destroyed the room they were staying in. Thus it was crucial that they became more proficient with the magic shields.

The way they were doing it was very simple, they would put an object on the floor and cover that same floor and the walls in a barrier. Their goal was to have some target practice while at the same time testing the integrity of the barrier.

A ball of fire sailed fast from the designated target and landed straight on the carpeted floor. Although the fire was just a clump of magic, it still reacted with the environment, even a fake fire that would soon dissipate would still start an actual one.

Not a second later multiple streams of water went crashing to that very spot, leaving one a charred portion of the carpet…..one of the dozens all over the Magisterium's room.

“Ok.” Said Mr.Valko, looking at a very embarrassed Maya,” We really did have to work on aiming because this is getting ridiculous.”

“Sorry….” Said Maya as her cheeks reddened

“That's alright, try again, but this time, that’s the target.” Said Mr.Valko pointing at the styrofoam cup encased in a barrier.

“Ok,” said Maya, rubbing her hands together before extending them, one finger pointing at the cup on the floor about a classroom away from her. Allowing her magic to flow, there was a bit of leakage as her mana could be seen leaking out a bit, but a ball of fire formed steadily. Taking aim she let the fireball sail towards the cup, this time actually landing a hit.

The fire incinerated the styrofoam cup after a little while, but the floor beneath was fine. The barrier had done its job and kept the floor perfectly fine.

“Good, work on your mana flow and your aiming but I think your fireballs are doing great so far.” Said Mr.Valko with a nod, allowing her to leave,” Next person please”

Being done with what could only be described as a test, Maya walked away and joined some of the other Magisterium members.

“When Armageddon started, I thought I was done with the test, but then Mr.Valko slapped a magic one on us.” Said, Harry.

“I don’t really mind, as long as it's not math, I’m cool. Plus Its magic, I don’t even care if it’s a test.” Replied Josiah.

“Hi.” Said Maya as she joined them in the corner of the room.

“Sup” replied Harry

“Hello.” Said, Josiah.

“Hi, Maya!” Waved RoseMary.

“Hey,” said Lin, busy shaping snowflakes from the ice she had created.

“What are we doing?” Asked Maya, watching the snowflakes floating above Lin’s hands.

“Nothing really.” Replied Harry,” Apart from practicing more magic.”

“Alright. Well, I’ll just try to improve my mana flow for a while. Wake me when we start something.’

After the test, the Magisterium experimented more with the barriers. Using the same principle RoseMary used to make the barrier, they managed to shape spears, arrows, swords, and the like. This would allow them to have access to a weapon at practically any time they needed.

The interesting thing about the Shield and the other shapes it could be molded into was the fact that it took much longer to dissipate on its own. After looking into it the magisterium found another interesting tidbit about magic.

Magic was like weaving. The tighter the weave the slower it dissipates, the looser the weave the faster it dissipates. So without realizing it, some of the wizards were forming fairly tightly woven spells, enough so that they stuck longer than expected.

After that came levitation, it was basically utilizing the regular flow of magic and letting that control the object one wanted to control. As to how it went, well….Let's just say, a lot of people pass out immediately after trying it on a pebble. No one had really flexed their mental muscles before, so it was only understandable that they would all fail on their first try.

The results were funny because the piece of iron they could control was much heavier than the pebble yet the pebble was hard to levitate. However, the answer to this didn’t seem too hard to find. The piece of Iron was created with magic, so it was no question that the person who created it could easily control it. The pebble, on the other hand, was a real matter, so it would take more effort to levitate it, it was worse when doing so with something with a greater weight.

~~~~~~~~(25:00 PM)~~~~~~~~

Before the Wizards knew it, dinner time had come and everyone rushed down to the first floor to get their dinner. When they reached the first floor though, they were met with a shocking surprise.

It took the Wizards of the Magisterium 2 weeks to unlock magic because they had spent most of their time trying to find out why the brain wouldn’t accept Sev, along with the fact that they were stuck on what to do once they reached the wall. But since some of the other people already knew why and how to do it, they had an easier time, leading to 18 people unlocking magic.

These people were Niko, Neo, Ria, Richy, Callie, Ranzer, Zane, Leo, Heather, Luise, Emelia, Von, Mr.Glenn, the principal, the nurse, Mrs.Stillwater, Officer Wheeler, and Coach McConnell

“This is so unfair!” Said Harry, taking a seat next to his friends,” it took us so long to unlock magic, and yall didn’t even take a week!”

“Aye, this is just how life be. You do the hard work and we reap the benefits.” Replied Leo as a bowl of beetle soup was handed to him.

“That says a lot about how hard you work, Leo.” Says Maya

“I’ll have you know I’m ranked 7th out of 534 seniors, So I work pretty damn hard.” Leo counter.

After a bit more random chatter, Neo asked a question that sparked a fairly large debate.

“ You know I’ve been thinking,” He said,” the planet is maybe 10 times its original size right? If so, how the hell are we not crushed by gravity, or how are the buildings even still standing?”

“I’ve been wondering that too.” Said Halima,” either the planet really is that big and the laws of the universe have become wonky, or this is all just an experiment from the government.”

Her words caused some laughter and giggling to go around as people took them in,” Imagine! The government is releasing genetically altered animals and revived dinosaurs. What would even be the benefits of that?” questioned Leo.

“More control or power. If there were monsters running about everywhere, people would be looking towards the government and the military to save them. They would be more willing to comply with the rules they set if that meant they could be safe.” Replied Ranzer.

“That could be, but I doubt the government can pull off the cracking of space which started this whole thing,” Neo said, rolling his eyes.

“Well, what if they spiked our water? Ever heard of that theory?” Asked Leo

“What?”

“Well, some people apparently think the government puts something in our tap water and our drinking water that can make us not perceive some of the shady things they do. They could have done the reverse, making us see floating cracks and pass out.” Continued Leo.

“Why do you even know that?!” Asked Josiah with an eyebrow raised.

Leo eyed him and shrugged, ”I get bored sometime and read some conspiracy theories just to laugh at how dumb some of them sound.”

“That sounds about right,” says Ranzer.

“Anyways,” Said Leo, ignoring Ranzer's statement, “when do I get to learn magic?”

~~~~~~

[Day 61 {week 7}] - Voltday - February 20, 0000 A.A

For 3 days the Magisterium was tasked with teaching the 18 people who unlocked their magic, the basics of what they had learned. There were a few stumbles here and there as they were still very much new at this, with a lot of people passing out and even getting hurt from their own spells. But eventually, they had to let them go back to their original jobs, for the time being, none of them joined the magisterium...at least full time.

Having learned a bit of magic and increased their mana pool, Mr.Glenn, Von, Neo, Niko wanted to try and experiment with something they’ve had an eye on for a while now. They had seen how the people in the Magisterium could mold their conjured elements to their desire and they knew that magic could even affect permanent matter, so they wanted to try and see if they could mold permanent matter as well, starting with concrete.