“Space isn’t a stable thing, though it might seem as such at a glance. It warps and shifts, twisting under the influence of that which fills the fabric around us. Mana and magic influences it further, taming it when controlled by the most talented of us, or simply existing and warping it in various ways.”

The students surrounding us in the lecture all listen attentively, some take down notes, while others whisper to themselves as if to memorize the words. Not one of them seems to be bored, they don’t waste a second of their time here, hanging off of every word the teacher says. Compared to my first visit to this classroom, the atmosphere is rather intense.

A good half of what the teacher is trying to explain is going over my head, not because I can’t understand the words, but because the concepts are too alien to properly fit in my mind. Einstein and the other crazy scientists that came after him have ensured that I’m not entirely lost here. I know that there’s such a thing as space-time, and that gravity can make it a little strange but the details just don’t make any sense.

Vii is listening carefully leaning forwards on her desk and nodding her head in apparent understanding while her eyes flicker back and forth beneath her closed eye lids. I’m sure she’s focusing on each word and trying to imagine the concepts in a way that can fit inside her worldview, she isn’t completely lost as much as I thought she’d be, but then time is one of her talents.

“Question time.” The teacher says, as the lecture comes to an end. “Nearly any manipulation of space is done through an enchantment, why is this?”

“To funnel the magic through a catalyst more efficiently?” suggests a student up the back of the class.

“It could be argued that there is an advantage to that.” The teacher admits, “But that isn’t the primary reason, catalysts can be used with normal casting as well.”

“Obviously, it’s to better ground the targeted fabric of space which the magic is affecting.” The sole elf in the class says, lifting his chin up and practically sneering at the answer the other student gave. “Enchantments will only affect regions that have been directly scripted, while spell casting relies too much on the will power of the caster. Any slip could mean death and destruction to whatever fills the affected space.”

“That is correct.” The teacher replies, nodding his head at the answer. “Anyone here looking to learn applicable space magic needs to learn enchantments as well.”

A few desperate groans escape the students around us as they hear this. I’m sure it’s not new information, but I get the feeling it’s something that they need to have reiterated a few times before it settles into their minds.

“Now that will be all for class today, please continue to study. A breakthrough is a long way off, but it is closer for every day’s effort you invest.” He leaves quickly, but the snobbish elf follows right at his heels, ignoring the rest of the class.

In their absence everyone remaining gathers together, an air of comradery quickly filling the classroom, not completely overwhelming the scent of desperation that glows out from them.

“I think I get it.” Vii says, though there isn’t the confidence in her voice to make it convincing.

“It might take me a little while longer.” I admit, glancing through the Skills that I pilfered off of the teacher before class began. They’re nothing I can use without breaking through with this particular flavour of magic, I simply can’t produce the mana type that would allow for the casting of the spells that I steal, but even more than that, I can’t access the enchantments that the Skills are tied to.

Then there’s the pure knowledge I stole in the form of Skills, books upon books worth of words piled together into ephemeral tomes within my mind. That’s a whole other kettle of fish to fry… Is that a saying? Did class just break my brain?

“Hey there, are you two new students?” A young man approaches, his skin is dark and his body well-muscled, from the points of his horns to the edges of his hooves. He’s akin to a minotaur, but with an elvish head. He has the sort of handsome features that would be popular in magazines or television, and it seems he’s well liked among the rest of our classmates. The elf excepting of course.

“We’re new to the space magic classes.” I say. “We’re taking these voluntarily, are you guys in the space magic course because of that talent reading stuff?”

It’s been a while, but I do remember that strange system they implemented on our arrival.

“Us? No. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with even a minor talent in space magic. We’re all trying to break ourselves out of our apparent ‘talents’ and the lifetime that we’ll be spending working in careers that we’re not fond of.” He says. “I don’t know what went wrong with the evaluation, but I’m not going to be spending every day of my life copying books.”

“So instead of a printing press, you’re trying to become a successful space mage?” I ask.

“If we can prove that we’re capable of it, we’ll be pretty much guaranteed to live as space mages instead.” He says. “It’s one of the few magics that is always needed. Anyway, you’re joining us so you must be trying to run from your talent too, right?”

“I guess.” I say, half-heartedly. It’s no question that I’m going to avoiding working as a soldier for the Unified States, but I have other plans in motion. Space magic is just one of the many tools that I’ll eventually need as my situation gets more and more messed up.

“Study with us, then. We can do better together than apart.” He says, waving us closer to the group that’s gathered in the back rows of the classroom. There are all sorts of people here, speaking all sorts of languages, but they don’t seem to mind focusing on the intricacies of the lesson instead, and trying to explain just how to identify a section of space.

That’s the biggest issue that we’ve encountered today, and it’s caught pretty much everyone out. Trying to mark out a section of space-time fabric so that we can manipulate it, it’s not a simple thing and I still don’t quite get how we’re meant to do it.

Vii quickly dives into the discussion, her perspective illuminating to about half of the remaining classmates, while the rest are left even more confused. Seeing that I’m not the only one struggling helps my bruised ego a little bit, but it doesn’t solve any of my issues.

After a while Vii and I leave and prepare for the next step in our plans.

The rebels are due to show up any time in the next few days with their ship, and we’re likely, but not certain, to get a ride back to Earth. If everything goes well, I’ll get a week to work things out back home, and gather together some immigrants that want to join my grand little empire.

Before that however, I need to go and break a leg.

No, more like mangle my legs. Plural.

Adler suggested that anything less and I might be encouraged to go on the combat course exercise anyway, but it seems that both of my legs getting mangled beyond belief might be enough to get me a sick note.

“Ready?” Vii asks, standing with me. We’re out in the training fields, getting ourselves ready to stage the incident that’ll take us both out of commission.

I tried talking Vii out of it, but she was insistent that she’ll come with me and record everything that I do on Earth. I think she just wants to see what my little blue marble looks like.

“Ready.” I say, steadying my mind.

As Red once told me, there are many different means of flying, some more costly than others. Vii’s talent makes it easy on her to practice flight, as her talent eats up most of the cost, everyone else needs to work on a trick, or pay an exorbitant price tag. Red is the latter category, but even the high cost isn’t that much compared to my spending habits.

We explored what options I could use to reasonably explain my flight mishap, but it was Red’s suggestion that really kicked us off the ground.

“Why don’t you just annihilate gravity?” Her suggestion would only give our space teacher a headache, and it’s something of a headache even now wondering how such a thing would work, but it has lead me to a conclusion that… somewhat works.

Technically my magic should be capable of destroying even the fabric of spacetime but annihilating my own mass doesn’t seem very healthy, unless I want to live my life as a balloon from here on out.

I can however, target the gravitational energy that is causing the phenomenon of being pulled towards a planet. The breakthrough was… surprising, and I still don’t know how to target my annihilation magic properly, but what works, works.

Exploring the ability led me to looking into a few different adaptions, but all of them were too permanent for my liking.

I did manage to limitedly succeed in my goal however, and through refinement, I’m no longer melting my limbs when I try to put it into practice.

My control is… still in development, however.

“I’ll be with you.” Vii says.

“Yep.” My voice squeaks out as I let the annihilation magic run wild through my body, somehow consuming the energy that pulls me down towards the ground. I still don’t quite understand how that even works, but now’s not the time to be getting lost down that rabbit hole.

“How is it? Are you in control?” She asks.

“Sort of.” I say, waving my arms about to try and maintain a balance that doesn’t even exist anymore. “I only have up and down controls. If I start spinning, or floating away, it’s up to you to help me out, remember?”

Vii chuckles at the sight of my flailing, flying close but controlling the wind around us such that she keeps us in control. We push through the thin canopy of trees that are spread through the training area and start floating higher and higher. My guts twist as I’m reminded of my first day off world and my surprise sky diving experience.

“Vii?” I squeak out, I never even knew my voice could go that high.

“I’ve got you.” Vii chuckles, not seeming nervous at all until she shivers, remembering that we’re not here to fly.

We’re here to fall.

“We’re drifting over to the stone path now.”

“Okay,” I nod quickly, my neck hurting from the quick motions. “So, we condense our mana in our internal organs, and let our legs crumble.”

It sounds crazy.

It is crazy.

“Yep.” Vii now seems just as frightened as I am. It feels rather nice to set aside the bluffs for just this once and embracing the terror with her, like enjoying a roller coaster ride, but while knowing that it’s going to fly off the rails.

“We go down together?” I suggest. I lightened my mana form to near parity with Vii’s just so that my legs would break rather than the stone pavement beneath us.

“Together.” Vii chuckles, imitating Shen. That little mind control bug is getting to us both.

“Now?” I ask, unable to keep from shivering.

“Wait for the students to pass.” Vii says, and I only just notice that there’s a small group of students walking beneath us. That would’ve been quite the surprise, for all of us.

“Now.” Vii says, and I let go of my magic. Vii swoops into me, wrapping her wings around me, but instead of catching us in gusts of wind to save us both, she falls right alongside me.

Air rushes past us, the feeling of weightlessness only stirring my guts up more in anticipation. Then the ground finally comes to meet with us.

We slam into the ground together, and I feel the sickening crunch in my legs, but I feel none of the pain.

We flop to the side and bounce a few times, saving ourselves from follow up injuries with carefully built mana shields to lessen the blow.

“Ah, this… is this what you usually feel?” Vii asks, spitting out a mouthful of blood as she looks down over our ruined bodies. Our legs are crumpled messes of flesh and bone. Blood is spilling from where the bone has freed itself from its prison of flesh.

Everything up to my waist is such a mess that I can’t separate my own legs from Vii’s, and even my pelvis hasn’t gone uninjured. It too is twisted and splintered, because I’m an overachiever apparently.

“Usually, I can feel the pain.” I say, trying to even out my breathing in the face of this disturbing, unacceptable, corruption of my flesh. “The numbness is a little different. Better, I guess. Still disturbing. I don’t like it.”

“I mean, it would be strange if you did like this sort of thing.” Vii says, her voice warbling in such notes that my heart trembles. I grit my teeth and hold her tight to try and calm us both.

“We’ll get you two to the healers, then.” Nel says, her face pale as she looks over us. She bravely represses her concerns and gets to work.

Eshya has a much more unaffected expression as she looks over us, shaking her head with a snort.

“That was impressive, you outdid yourselves.” She says, taking me up by the shoulders and pulling me free from Vii’s own twisted limbs. There’s a terrible pulling sensation coming from my legs and hips, but everything else is numb.

My disgust and outrage is doubled seeing Vii in the same condition. I’m meant to protect her, but no, this is protecting her. This is to free ourselves from class. I’ve never had to go this far when calling in sick back on Earth, but I guess someone probably has.

Adler and Nel take care of Vii, while Eshya alone is enough to carry me.

The trip to the healers is remarkably unpleasant, and we make for quite the sight, many of those we pass are stunned with a look of horror painted on their faces. None stop to help us, but we don’t really need anymore help if I’m being honest.

The healer, as Adler had informed us, is loath to fully heal us, and instead moves all the pieces of us back together again before applying a simple salve with rather low mana density. Apparently it’ll heal us completely in a week if we don’t hurt ourselves again.

Sick note obtained.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 1,454 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 722 / 30,266 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,266 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (20,000 mana shards)

-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (8,000 mana shards)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (30,000 mana shards)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)

-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (5,000 mana shards)

-Wide ears (5,000 mana shards)

-Sharp nose (5,000 mana shards)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

-Tag and Film

-Trapping

-Stealth

-Mana surge movement

-Annihilation defence

-Annihilation flame burst

-Annihilation net

-Eyes of an Empire