Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 7

After thirty minutes of the class have passed by, the instructor finally claps his hands, prompting me – along with several other cadets who had finished their programs – to look up from whatever we were doing and focus on him.

“That’s enough,” he declares, looking at a few students in particular out of the nineteen or so in the classroom that hadn’t finished or tried to do the program, “if you haven’t finished the program by now then it means you need more practice before I can let you start doing magic circles. Even if you already have some experience.”

The three students that he singled out with his gaze all lower their heads slightly at his words before he continues, “Those of you who have completed your program and have been checked, follow me. Everyone else, stay here and work on the tutorial.”

I get up from my chair, along with both Cyria and Sophia before walking down the row towards the aisle, leaving Aidan by himself with a pitiful look on his face.

No pity for you. It’s your own fault for not learning how to program before coming here.

Once the three of us get to the door, along with the other eight students who had completed the program, Instructor Leo opens the door and stands to the side of the portal that appears within its frame.

“Go on in,” he says with a faint nod of his head towards the door, “I have a few words I would like to share with the rest of the class after you enter.”

I look from him to the door before walking through and finding myself in some sort of training facility. It has several different areas, including a shooting range, an area with some training dummies, some sandy pits – likely meant for close combat spells – and another magi-tech board in the back of the training facility.

We all spill into the training facility before splitting off into four groups, with me, Sophia, and Cyria being one of the four.

Soft chatter begins to fill the room as we all wait for the instructor before – after only about a minute’s wait – he strides through the portal and closes the door behind him.

Which honestly makes me wonder if that closes the door on the other side as well, but before I can focus on that thought, he begins speaking, “To make things clear, you will be learning how to form your magic circles. I will not be having any of you attempt to form a spell with the circle.”

He pauses for a second as one of the students – the member of the Wolf family guy from earlier – raises his hand and asks, “Why not?”

Instructor Leo just looks at the guy with a scowl for a few seconds before stepping towards the magi-tech board as he continues speaking, “For your own safety. Now, to begin, I will teach you all what exactly a magic circle is.”

The guy – who I’m just going to nickname Muscles, considering the body-builder body most enhancement magic users, like him, have – clenches his fist in irritation while a couple of the members of his group start snickering behind his back. Meanwhile, the instructor waves his hand at the board, causing the design of a scriptless magic circle to appear on it, along with several sentences with arrows pointing towards parts of the circle.

“A magic circle in and of itself is just a manifestation of your mana in a controlled form outside of your body in the form of a spell,” Instructor Leo says before pointing at the outer circle on the diagram. “The outer circle of the magic circle is there to confine your mana into the magic circle, blocking it from getting out and causing a mess, or backfiring at you.”

His hand moves to the star inside of the magic circle as he continues speaking, “Next is the star within the circle. This part is there to help guide the mana placed in the circle along the instructions inputted into it. Or the code, as some of you might say.”

He then turns to look at us with a serious expression on his face and says, “Now, mana backfiring can be extremely dangerous, which,” he turns his head to look at Muscles with an eyebrow slightly raised, “is why it's best to work on practicing the magic circle before you try to give it any mana or instructions.”

The man turns his gaze away from Muscles again as he snaps his fingers and points at the board, which quickly changes to show several pictures, including one of someone in a military uniform with his hand melting off. None of the other pictures look any prettier, with some of them having the magician’s hand completely inverted, with their flesh facing outwards with no skin on it.

“This is what might happen if your spell backfires,” he says, his gaze once again turning serious as many of the students gulp audibly in fear, “so don’t fucking let it happen.”

He doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds, letting us stew in what he had just told us, before snapping his fingers again and creating a magic circle in front of his hand as the board once again changes to show the inner workings of a human arm, along with a magic circle next to it.

“Now, when it comes to making a magic circle in the first place, you must either have an S Class magician guide you through the process over and over again – which I highly doubt any would be willing to do,” he says before making eleven different devices fall from little, flaming red portals in the air into each of our hands, “or you can use these devices created by S Class magicians to simulate their construction of magic circles.”

Another one of the cadets – someone who I actually haven’t seen before, or at least don’t remember – raises their hand. The cadet is a boy who looks to be older than I am – which isn’t really saying much, considering how my aging froze at about mid-way between sixteen and seventeen years old – and he is wearing the usual academy uniform for boys. A simple black and red blazer with black pants.

He has black hair, with… pink eyes? Or are they red? Huh. Kind of hard to tell.

Does he have partial albinism in his eyes or something?

Anyways, the instructor points towards him and says, “Name, then speak your mind.”

Hmm, so he asked his name and not Muscles’ name. That’s interesting.

“Arthur Loris,” the boy declares in a straightforward manner before asking, “if I’m understanding it correctly, you have to be able to free-cast to be able to create a magic circle without the help of devices or others teaching you how?”

Instructor Leo nods his head and says, “Correct. One of the requirements to be categorized as an S Class magician is to be able to free-cast, which means that they have a perfect understanding of their element, and have perfect mana manipulation, allowing them to cast spells outside of magic circles. However, since a magic circle is technically also a spell, just one for casting other spells with a handicap, it requires us to be able to cast it.”

“Which is where the devices or guidance from a S Class magician comes in,” Arthur says, nodding his head.

The instructor looks at the kid with a faint grin and nods, “Correct again, young Arthur. In regard to free-casting in general, creating a magic circle is extremely easy. It’s the basics of the basics. So one of the S Class magicians a while back created a device that would simulate how they do it, allowing the magicians without free-casting to make a magic circle on their own with the devices help. And it even allows them to learn how to do it themselves without the help of the device, after a lot of practice.”

“Which,” the instructor continues after a brief pause with a single eyebrow raised and a rather intimidating looking grin on his face, “is exactly what you will be doing, seeing as you’re all high course students. And learning how to create magic circles without a device is required of you in this course.”

A wave of whispers sweeps through the room at this statement before he claps his hands together again and says, “Now then! To begin, attach the device to your wrists!”

At his words, I look down at the device. It has a point on one end of it, which – based off of the shape of the device – looks to be the part pointing further up your arm when you put it on, along with two blade-like tips pointing out of the other end, and a red jewel encrusted on the center of it. The device itself – excluding the jewel – is black, with a more obsidian-like feel to the sides, and two small red points on the tips of the blades.

I place the device on the back of my wrist, with the blades going out over the back of my hand, and the other point pointing towards my forearm before feeling a strange buzzing sensation enter my arm. One that makes the mana in my arm instantly want to join together with.

“After you attach it, you should feel an unfamiliar buzzing sensation crawl into your arm,” I briefly look up as the instructor continues speaking before looking back down at the device on my arm, “it should feel alien at first, likely making you want to stop your mana from entering it and rip the device off, never to put back on again-”

As he says this, many of the other students begin making weird faces at their arms.

“-but don’t do that. Instead, focus on the strange sensation and freely let your mana flow into it.” The instructor finishes as I’m still looking around confused.

What’s this about making me want to rip the device off of my arm? It feels strange, sure, but it isn’t that bad.

Maybe I’m just used to having an unfamiliar mana flow through my body? Considering the space and time natural mana that was infused into me due to the accident.

Although at this point, that mana isn’t unfamiliar anymore. It’s become a part of me, and I think I even naturally generate a small amount of it myself now.

According to the doctor that is.

Deciding that it’s best not to act weird, I focus on the strange sensation before allowing my mana to enter inside of it instead of blocking it like I had been doing. As soon as my mana begins to enter the device, I feel the device gain some sort of minimal control as it pushes my mana.

“After your mana enters the device, it will gain some control over it, so don’t freak out,” the instructor continues, “the device will then guide your mana through a layer around your skin that we magicians call the magical membrane, which is what keeps your mana inside of your body when you aren’t directly controlling it. It will then guide you into creating a magical circle outside of your body, with your will as the input for where you wish it to be made.”

I half-listen to the instructor as I focus on the process going on in my wrist. My sensations become a little bit blurred once my mana enters what I’m assuming is the magical membrane, only to become clear as day once it exits my body again out the two blade-like points on the device and begins the process of creating a red magical circle that slowly enters creation at the spot I’m focusing on. Which is right above the palm of my hand, facing upwards.

The instructor continues speaking as I watch the process of the magic circle’s creation, “After the circle is made, you will have to touch the jewel on the top of the device twice to signal that you would like to safely dismantle the circle and have your mana guided back into your body through the magical membrane. Make absolutely sure that you do not tap it once, because that will make it try to activate whatever instructions you mentally placed into the circle. And if you don’t have any instructions at-”

Before he can finish speaking, a scream can be heard along with a strange fleshy sound from one of the cadets. But I’m too busy focusing on the magic circle as it completes itself and something attaches itself to my mind, letting me understand that I simply have to think of the instructions, and they will automatically be entered by the circle into it without me doing anything else. Then – still ignoring the screaming coming from behind me – I tap on the jewel twice before watching the magic circle slowly dismantle itself and move back through my magical membrane into my body with the help of the device.

I close my eyes trying to remember the sensations of my mana moving through the motions – vaguely remembering that it seemed to have only taken about a one-hundredth of an arc to form the circle – before finally opening them and turning to the commotion.

As soon as I see what caused all of the screaming, I raise both of my eyebrows.

How did I manage to ignore all of that…?

In the middle of the room is Muscles, screaming his heart out as some random magician who I had never seen before guides the flesh of his hand through some sort of flesh magic – which I’m guessing is either of the Water affinity or is a Special affinity magic – to return to normal from the rather grotesque form it had taken. Meanwhile, Instructor Leo just looks on with a rather livid expression at the cadet.

Whether the look is for interrupting him, for interrupting him by doing the exact thing he was warning us not to do, or just because he seems to dislike the boy, I’m not really sure. Either way, Muscles is probably in for a scolding after the flesh magician finishes returning his hand to normal.

“And this,” Instructor Leo says, his tone fully expressing his livid mood as he glares at Muscles, “is why you should listen to the instructor when learning magic.”