During Saturday he didn’t watch training, instead opting for solo training on his sky walking, and general mana manipulation. He had found that he could create the platforms before he even reached the spot, allowing for his run to be without stutters. It took a lot of practise, and he fell a lot, but he slowly got the hang of it. Other than that he attempted to pressurize mana into as small and powerful of a ball as he could, then slowly unpressurized and released it back into the air. This training allowed him to maintain his control over mana as well as possible.

When Sunday rolled around, everyone met at the secret training ground as soon as they woke up. Chris would dome this area with illusion and sound magic using a device he made in the Magical Engineering lab, and then they could get to work.

Chris began, “Alright, you all have been working on some interesting magic and I’m really excited to see it. By this point you should know not to hold back, if you want your score to be good. I have a lot of faith in you guys, so don’t worry. Let’s get to it,” They all cheered.

Haven stepped up, “What I’ve been working on isn’t an attack, so I figured I should be tested a bit different from normal.” Chris raised his eyebrow, “Cool, show me what you got bud!” Chris smiled. Haven closed his eyes and focused. Slowly small mana barriers began to encircle him, similar to the footpads Chris makes, and he stacked them, and stacked them, and suddenly, he was entirely encaged by a thick circular barrier. Haven opened his eyes, “This is what I’ve been working on, I realized most of us have only been practising attack, so I wanted to do something a bit different,” Haven seemed a bit unconfident.

Chris didn’t hesitate, he sprinted towards the barrier and hit it as hard as he could with his mana protected hand. One of the barrier pieces shattered, but Haven immediately replaced it. Chris punched faster and faster, ramping up the pressure, but Haven’s use of many small barriers made it easier to maintain the barrier. Chris leaped back, and quickly fired a mana-bolt from his fingertip. He aimed it slightly to Haven’s left, and it blasted through all but one layer of the front shield. Haven was able to prop a few other barriers up just before the shot was launched.

Chris stopped, “Now that is amazing, it's so easy to replace and add barriers, your design is absolutely genius bud.” Chris was smiling wide, and Haven was pumped that it stood up so well. Chris continued, “I’m going to wait until the end to give everyone a score as to not dishearten anyone.”

Edwin approached next, “Prepare yourself for this. I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a little kid!” Edwin began by forming a small ball of air, encased it in a small layer of mana, then formed a fireball around it. The fireball grew larger and larger and larger, and then suddenly he launched it. Chris had an inkling of what Edwin was doing, and placed up several layers of barriers in front of his hand. The fireball connected with the shield, only to then explode outward, breaking through Chris’ shield and launching him backwards. Edwin had stored pure hydrogen inside of a mana barrier, inside of a fireball, and released it the moment he needed an explosion.

Chris picked himself up and brushed himself off, “That was fantastic. I thought I had prepared enough to stop it, but it was far stronger than I expected.” Edwin smiled, “I told you I wouldn’t go easy on you.”

Jenny was next, “I don’t think mine is super flashy, but I think I can do something good.” Jenny smirked after saying that. Chris was a bit worried and immediately began putting up shields. She began to collect air, and compressed it, she continued to compress it, all the while more and more air was being collected. The air all around them was being sucked into the palm of her hand, making it difficult to breathe.

Then it began to get hot in the area. Really really hot. Suddenly the ball began to glow violet-blue. It wasn’t large, but it was so hot that Jenny was also creating a wind wall in front of her as she created it. The heat made everyone begin to sweat, as she built up this mini-star. She encased it in mana, and then launched it at Chris with no hesitation.

The mana casing stopped some of the heat, but quickly the mana dissipated and the heat returned. Chris braced himself and suddenly the ball melted through his mana barriers. He couldn’t stop it, and had to dodge. As the ball flew past him, he noticed trees going aflame one after the other.

Chris began to panic, “Lily, help me extinguish these trees, we can’t let anyone know there was anything close to a forest fire.” Lily and him scrambled to create rain, and splash water wherever it was needed. It was a thirty minute diversion, but when they returned Chris took a deep breath.

“Jenny, unless you are in danger, never use that against a person. We saw where it landed. It melted about two meters into the ground. It burned through my mana shields, and I think the only person who could extinguish it is me or Lily,” Jenny looked a bit upset, “Jenny, you should be proud. I didn’t even think of that as a possibility, and it was super effective. You did amazing!” Chris smiled and Jenny returned one as well.

“Lily, It’s your turn now. Show me what you got!” Chris gave her a thumbs up. Lily focused, and suddenly storm clouds gathered above. The rainstorm she had started began to get stronger, and Chris readied his shield. Water poured down, pummeling the land. The rain was almost sharp. The wind blew so hard that it was difficult to stand, and there was water pooling at his feet. He decided to guard there as well, not standing directly in a wet puddle on the ground.

He researched lightning a year back, and he knew if that hit and went through him, he would probably die. He needed to separate himself from the ground.

Suddenly from the sky, a lightning bolt slammed down. Then another, and another, and another. The soundwaves almost knocked them over, but none of the bolts connected with Chris. Lily fell to her knees, upset at her failure.

Chris walked over, “Lily, I understand you’re frustrated, but if there was an army here, you would’ve destroyed the lot of them. You may not have the accuracy you want yet, but as it stands now, you are a threat to any men wearing metal suits, or any large groups. Be proud of yourself.” Chris put out his hand, “It’s just, I didn’t break a single one of your shields. I did worse than everyone else,” She held out her hand and Chris hoisted her up, “That wasn’t the metric I was judging off of. You all passed with flying colors!”

“Alright, if that’s all you're giving us for a grade, then what about that special gift?” Jenny questioned, pressing a finger against Chris’ chest. Chris put his hands up in defense, “Alright, alright I get it,” He pulled out a few metal wristbands with etching and what looks like a solid wring of mana crystal within the decorative metal.

“What kind of spell did you put on these?” Haven asked, excited to see what Chris has been up to. Chris smiled, “I didn’t put a spell on these, I want you to put your own spells on these. All of you took a large amount of time and thought to do those spells. I also have spells with that problem. If you program these items with your spell, you just need to apply the appropriate mana to do the task, and the gem will handle the rest,” Chris took a breath, “Basically I made a device that could handle your strongest magical attacks. In a battle you will be much better off with something like this.”

Edwin spoke up, “We have no experience with how to do this, what happens if we do it wrong?” Chris set his hand on Edwin’s shoulders, “With yours, you might blow up,” he walked away and faced the rest of the group, “But the basics is just calling upon the spell you just crafted, but instead of releasing it within the air, you focus all your mana into your bracelet. Once you do that, you can simply fill it with mana, just like your invisi-clothes.”

Jenny facepalmed, “We told you not to call them that, the name is terrible.” Edwin chimed in, “Also why are we ignoring he said I might blow up? Does that not matter?” Chris began, “Buddy, you’ll be fine, just focus on the exact same process as you did before and you’ll be alright. Just don’t start the fire until the mana bubble is done.”

They then spent the next few minutes enchanting their new gear, and then they headed back to school to eat lunch. On the trip back they noticed a few school security staff heading their way, so they turned invisible. Chris noticed that they went to where they were practising. ‘Someone can also detect spikes in magic, which seems good until you remember that no one but me reacted when Edwin was being targeted. I guess I really do need to keep an eye out on things.’