AN: Hello, your lazy author here → :D present you chapter 43. Enjoy!!

Sorry for the delay, many nice summer things happening last week.

From now on, like in most fictions of RR, I will use “...” for speech and '…' for thoughts. I had tried to change the writing language from French to English, but it stubbornly stayed in French, then I made a new file for writing Aenthar and surprise, it was in English (well, I noticed it when I started my second side project. I made a new file and found out).

PR by Bboybrian

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Magic lessons weren't just about manipulating mana and learning spells, they was also about the application of spells in battle. Each month there were 3 battle simulations which could be either duels or team battles. Present at the battles simulations was Miss Natasha Harwoon, the lady who measured my magic ability during the entrance exams.

As the assistant teacher for magic-battles, she was ever-ready to cast wards in case the students went too far, or provide healing in case of accidents. People nicknamed her “Angel Natasha”, as she was always trying to keep people out of serious harm during the sparring, while healing injuries with a gentle smile. Even her scoldings were gentle.

Duels were simple matches where 2 people fight each other with magic; no physical attacks were allowed. When I first heard about it, I was very excited. After all, I didn't have many opportunities to fight against other magic users. At the same time, I was also a bit disappointed as it hadn't been long since the start of the term, and hence I would not be able to use anything new yet.

For the first magic battle simulation session, each student was required to have 2 duels against other students. Most people from the intermediate magic classes were nervous about having to fight against me. They were mages, and could feel the amount of magic within me, and that alone was enough to make them nervous as no other student could hold a candle to my massive amounts of innate energy.

They also could not forget the fact that I had excellent magic control for most of my elements, especially the students taking compound magic classes with me. That I was behind in water and darkness magic was irrelevant since I could use 5 other elements. They also knew that I had very good senses and defense since a certain incident that occurred during one of the water magic lessons, a day before the magic battle.

A day before, as I was struggling during the practical part of the lesson, an arrogant noble guy, Nicholas Bauwing, tried to bully me. I was known as the talented 7 elements user, so seeing me struggling with basic water spells, he must have thought that I was just a cocky commoner with only bark but no real bite. Unfortunately for him, I had been training my magic sense for years, feeling the mana inside living and non-living things, trying to differentiate and identify them.

It was something I practiced and used so much it had almost become a passive ability. When I tried to cast a spell, I would subconsciously focus on the mana in my surroundings as well. I felt it when, in the middle of all the gathering of water mana by most of the students, someone was gathering air mana instead, someone whose attention was completely fixated on me.

Air magic attacks were very hard to perceive with the normal senses, and it was even harder in a place where numerous mages were casting spells. The bastard must have though his action would go unnoticed. I decided to use this opportunity to try something I had been thinking about for a while. I didn't have any good opportunities to test it before.

Just like I had tried to imitate martial arts move from movies and anime, I had also tried to imitate magic moves. In this case, a counter-magic move inspired from a light novel with a genius sis-con altered mage and his queenly bro-con sister. (P.N: See Mahouka Koukou no Rettoussei) It was a move that could forcefully break the patterns that made up a spell, thus effectively dissipating said spell. In that novel it was called Gram something, there were 2 kinds but I didn't really get the differences.

As Nicholas was gathering and weaving air mana for his spell, I gathered earth mana in my free hand. Still unaware, he finished his spell and promptly launched it. However, I was quite adept at gathering mana, and my speed was even faster since I didn't have to weave it into a spell. Since I was in the midst of casting a spell, the teacher and the other students, including the arrogant Nicholas Bauwing, did not notice the abnormal amount of mana I had gathered until too late.

As the wind blast was hurling my way, I discharged the earth mana I had gathered towards it in a concentrated beam. The high amount and pressure of earth mana shattered the structure of the wind spell, and the gathered air exploded harmlessly 3 meters away from me. I had picked earth mana because it was not very compatible with weaved air mana. All this time I didn't stop weaving my water spell, nor did I turn my head toward the attack.

Aenthar: 'Hoho, looks like it worked like a charm. I think I used more power than necessary.'

The nearby students and the teacher quickly realized that I had defended against an attack and turned towards Nicholas, whose face was livid. They were clearly impressed to see me defend while barely moving and still casting the first spell I was working on, but more surprised at the fact that someone dared to try to use attack magic on me in the middle of class.

Aenthar: “Nicholas Bauwing, you raised your hand against a member of the student council without prior provocation and outside of a regulated duel. Since it was mostly a harmless attack, your punishment will just be to clean the restrooms of the magic department buildings at the end of the day.”

Nicholas: “!!! What? You can-”

Aenthar: “If you're not satisfied with your punishment it can be extended to 1 week” I added in a cold voice.

Nicholas: “Ugh... Damn it...”

He then shut his mouth, his face crimson due to anger and shame. The teacher didn't bother scolding him since it was already in the hands of the student council, though her gaze did linger on me for a bit. Soon, everyone went back to their practice and the lesson continued as if the earlier incident didn't happen. Nicholas and his gang of friends now looked as if they drank something bitter, and took to sending me the occasional glare. I had trouble keeping myself from smirking, because I knew it would spoil my badass-ness, and I had really wanted to make fun of the arrogant prick.

The opponents for the duels were randomly decided. My first opponent was a 15 year old merchant daughter with great affinity for both wind and earth, Elise Durand. She was a charming girl for whom I had my eyes set on for possible future businesses. As such, I tried to keep on good terms with her, at least for the time being. Her father dealt with many kinds of trades, and I was hoping to make a little bit of profit by working with him.

We were in the middle of the magic training ground wearing the magic combat outfit. This equipment was lent to us by the academy, but it was possible to purchase custom-made ones. It was a grey coat with a high collar, and 4 crests on it. One was below the throat, the second just below the chest, the third at hip level and the fourth in the back below the nape of the neck. There were magic crystals in them and some of the threads of the coat were made of odd materials.

It was obvious that the crests augmented the defensive enchantment coursing through the coat due to the odd threads. Observing it made me eager to finish the year and start the next, as I would then have the qualifications to take the enchanting course. Along with the coat, there were also leather boots reaching below the knees, with one crest around the ankle. The head gear was similar to those used in martial arts training sessions back in my previous world, with the crest on the forehead.

Natasha was the referee for the matches, and after making sure we were ready, gave the signal to fight. The first thing I did was to cast speed enhancement on myself. From my experience in various games, capoeira and fighting in general, I had developed a natural instinct to prioritize mobility. I mainly relied on my magic sense to have a good guess of what the opponent would throw at me. Speed enhancement would not only allow me to dodge better, but would also raise the nervous transmission speed, and the speed of the mind, thus raising the casting speed.

Her first action was to flex her legs and raise 2 small earth walls. She was probably expecting 2 attacks from me from the start and was ready to take cover. However I rushed to the left while launching a big fire ball between the 2 walls she made. I wanted to close that path to keep her from running away as I was about to flank her. Her only options would be to try and attack me, to try and slow me down with earth obstacles, or to completely focus on defense.

She quickly weaved a wide wind cutter and launched it at me. The wind cutter was basically a blade of compressed air. She made one several meters long and threw it at me horizontally. I launched another big fireball from above me toward her and dived under the wind cutter. She used air wall to block the attack while retreating, but I had already poured a large amount of mana into my following spell, earth pit.

The further away the caster is from the intended target, the more mana is needed. And I had a lot of mana to spare. Even if she had felt the fluctuation of mana behind her, it was too late to react and she fell into the 1 meter deep pit behind her. The fall delayed her reaction and she was unable to defend against the 5 earth spikes that painfully struck her back and lifted her out of the pit.

Elise: “AAARGH!!”

Natasha: “Critical strike! The winner is Aenthar.”

The coat did its job, keeping her body from being skewered, but not sparing her the pain of the strike. The crests on her coat glowed red, indicating a lethal strike, which prompted Natasha to announce the end of the duel with me as the winner. Similarly, the enchants on the coat would make the crests glow different colors depending on the amount of damage received, from yellow, to orange, and finally red which indicated a strike that would have been lethal in a real battle with average equipment.

I went to help her back up as she got the wind knocked out of her chest.

Aenthar: “Sorry about that Elise, I got a little rough at the end.”

Elise: “N-no, huff, its fine... huff, huff, I expected it a little...”

Aenthar: “You make it sound like I'm a brute” I said jokingly.

Elise: “Of course not... It's a battle simulation, it's obvious it would hurt. But, you can be quite nasty. Making a lady fall into a pit before skewering her, how merciless of you.”

Aenthar: 'It's true that it was a bit bad' “... It was effective, that's the most important part... Ok, I won't deny that I could be very nasty against certain enemies.”

Elise: “If that's how you are with an acquaintance I feel sorry for the others.”

My second duel was with some other girl I didn't know much, but she was quite nervous to face me. I charged right at her while casting speed enhancement, which made her release a high pitched squeal and fumble while casting water spear in a rush. She must have felt really intimidated because she didn't move from her starting spot. I easily avoided the first one and when she released the second one since I got next to her, my hand raised with a fireball floating around my palm, next to her head.

???: “Kyaaaa!!! I-I give up” she said while falling on her butt.

Aenthar: '… That girl really isn't cut out for battle, or am I just that scary? No, it’s definitely just her, she must be the shy type...'

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AN: By the way, I'm 1 year older!!! ... Slowly getting closer to the 30s... Ugh...