It seemed that the ability to separate one's mana from the body in a projectile was the minimum required for people to pass the 1st year mana manipulation course, but if even that wasn't enough to develop the passive skill [mana manipulation] within me, I didn't know what it would take.
Either way, I decided it wasn't worth staying fixated on such little things and just waited for the instructor to beat me up again.
"30 minutes of stretching! Well be back shortly."
Gerd and all the assistants left without saying another word and I was left standing there speechless.
"Was this scheduled or they just go with the flow?"
"Well, this is the first day that's full body, but his lessons usually end with stretching." -Yom
Fine.
I took a look around and decided to copy what the other were doing, not that I knew the utility of such exercises, but staying still was equally useless.
Even after all the healing I received I was still sore and exhausted. Auriel's spells used stamina as payment for the healing, still better than food, but equally imposing for the body.
My spell was clearly better, if I had infinite mirrors to use.
I also came to the realisation that at least at our level, even divine magic couldn't perform miracles.
Just when I was about to perform [Mirror's mercy] on myself to get rid of the exhaustion and soreness, I felt a weird fluctuation in the mana around us.
It started subtly, but it continued steadily.
"Yom! We need to leave, now!"
"What? Why?"
But it was already too late.
The next moment, the stadium like room we all were was enveloped by a weird mana that gave nothing but bad feelings.
The room was sealed. And I fucking knew something was coming, what I didn't have a clue about was what to do in these situations.
I took out my phone: no signal, communication were cut.
I looked at the heirs, none of them were showing any sign of anxiety, like they were trained for such moments, but the other kids? The were already scrambling.
"ATTENTION, EVERY STUDENT THAT DOESNT FEEL READY TO FIGHT OR IS SPECIALISING IN SUPPORT GO TO THE CENTER, WE FIGHTERS WILL FORM A RING AROUND YOU!" -Rovan
Was that the right thing to do? I didn't know, what I did know, was that I left a doppelgänger with my jian to form a circle with the others, while I myself weaved illusions to disappear from sight.
At the same time each heir was positioned at a good distance from one another trying to cover the entire circle of protection, but there simply were too many students that didn't feel like they could fight.
Everything seemed stilled in time. The heirs held their weapons in their hands, clearly trained for such moments of needs, only my figure was out of place.
The stillness didn't last long.
A rift in the space right above the kids that didn't want to fight appeared, but it seemed only I noticed, well I was in a vantage position up in the seating area.
But I really didn't know what to do about it, so I did the only thing I could think of: I threw a charm.
The charm was really just a card for poker that I had enchanted with the runes: [fire], [sound] and [amplify]; I would have loved to create explosive cards, but it was simply impossible at my level.
However that was enough. As soon as the card was thrown, it caught fire and the sound amplification runes attracted everyone's attention.
When the impromptu flare signal reached his destination, I heard a round of screams and barked orders.
"DUNGEON BREAK!"
"REGROUP TOWARDS THE EXIST!"
And a cacophony of spells hurled towards the gate to, I guess, delay its breaking.
But this was all completely foolish. Even if there's a dungeon break, had they all forgotten that te room was sealed?
"I guess it's time to start playing."
I created 8 doppelgänger and send them out in pairs to search for clues on the seal and what was going on. My real body instead joined my other doppelgänger.
"Crow…S?" -Caelum
"Yeah, that flare was me. Yeah I had momentarily left you all because there was something bothering me. Yeah, you are complete idiots."
This time it was Rovan that took offence, the orders everyone was following were his, with the highest military experience, it was a given to follow him.
Just as he was about to rebuke I raised a hand.
"Please Lord Rovan, order us to fight the break. Someone else is already taking care of the sealing of the room. We need a strong and brave captain to guide us."
My tongue was so much far up his ass I could almost taste his intestines, but if flattery worked, it worked. And sure enough, the effects were clear.
"WE FIGHT THE MONSTERS! I ALREADY ORDERED MY SPECIALIST TO TAKE CARE OF THE SEAL! THIS WILL BE A GREAT EXERCISE !!"
"The fuck? Since when did he order me? And since when was I his specialist? Should I get paid?"
"It's standard military procedure, the figure that inspires the more trust in your allies takes all the credit. Don't be bothered by it." -Aurelia
I scoffed and focused on the teams Rovan was arranging on the fly.
He took me and Caelum in his highest priority strike team and let the other 10 heirs each lead a team.
"Does any of you two have a spare sword? I never bothered to by weapons."
Rovan scoffed and threw me a jian it was exactly the same my doppelgänger was holding.
"A magician through and through, always be prepared to help your allies in battle Crow."
The man actually had made copies of all our weapons to support us and my respect for him actually soared to the skies.
The monsters didn't take long to come out once we stopped delaying the dungeon break.
But monsters they were not. At least, not in the beginning.
12 blobs of runes and mana exited the dungeon and each started to morph.
"Ahahah oh god, should we let them morph?"
I asked with genuine mirth in my voice, but Rovan and Caelum seemed to be paralysed.
Their runes deep writhing their being was reacting to those monsters. I didn't know why they were not acting, but I would never let something like that happen.
I stepped forward with my doppelgänger and we launched ourselves towards the blobs. But just as we were about to slash the first one, a shiver run down my very soul and I leaped back.
Right there, strangling my doppelgänger was a man with blonde short hair, beautiful blue eyes, a body so perfect it put mine to shame, but something from him was deeply wrong. I felt like this being shouldn't exist at all.
I retrieved my jian from the clone into my inventory and dismissed him without missing a beat.
After all, I even felt their pain, there was no need to suffer uselessly.
The beautiful man turned towards me with an unreadable expression, it was eerie, this for sure wasn't a human being.
He stepped towards me, but everything was so perfect it didn't make sense in my brain, this was unnatural, perfection shouldn't be able to exist.
Flaws were the real pillar of reality, if perfection really existed, there shouldn't be a need for the livings in itself.
"You are a mistake. All errors must be corrected."
Even his voice was perfect, but what he said really made me smile.
I started laughing so hard I needed to take a few steps back.
[FoxFire]
Nothing, even my illusions couldn't work on such a perfect being, there was no way I could have I'm make a mistake.
My laughter intensified.
"You think a mere mistake like you could ever be able to defeat me? Fool. Let me correct you."
"Oh this is going to be funny."
I launched another couple illusion just to test that things reaction, but there was no feedback whatsoever and my laughter kept growing in intensity.
"It seems the young high human is naive, let me correct you."
"How terrifying, an editor of reality walking on my same ground, do you correct illusions before the can take hold in your mind or are you just that strong?"
I didn't wait for him to answer me and just launched towards him.
"Either way, I don't care, you die today."
[Emergency quest: kill the spawn of Correction (beast of Beyond).
Reward: requirements and ritual to become a Runner.]