[116] An Unexpected Guest (1)
The first semester at Alpheas School of Magic had ended.
There had been a lot of noise and trouble, but as the term closed the atmosphere felt warm.
Teachers traded jokes with their students, waiting to go home.
At the sword school, where physical training dominated, rest was taught to be just as important as practice. The Magic Academy didn't neglect that fact just because it trained the mind.
The mind, though invisible, was still a part of a person. Even the most persistent student needed time to cool an overheated head.
Still, because they couldn't let their guard drop completely, Alpheas required students who hadn't given presentations to submit papers on free topics.
Of course that didn't apply to Shirone. He'd taken top marks at the "Invisible Things" presentation hosted by the Paranormal Psychoscience Research Society, so he could head into vacation with a light heart.
On the day most students left for break, Shirone went to the empty Third Training Ground.
Where there had been daily chants and the detonations of magic, now only a hushed silence remained.
The Third Training Ground was one of the larger yards. A 1,600-meter track circled the outer edge, and each of its eight sections held devices for testing various magical effects.
Shirone entered the movement magic section. Teleportation, Fly, Darkport, Air Walk—there were countless movement magics a mage could use. The best environment to train them all was simply a barren open space.
He used the time to review the past six months' progress.
"First of all, movement magic."
Shirone's main movement magic was teleportation. From there he'd developed Rainbow Drop for curved motion and a Patrol technique for high-speed lateral shifts.
Among his achievements, photon output couldn't be overlooked.
At first it had been just a magic for transmitting information, but upon realizing the god particle it transformed into a powerful offensive spell—the Photon Cannon.
Thanks to that, he'd easily learned a flash spell that maintained light for long durations.
Not satisfied, Shirone kept evolving it. He mathematically inverted the Photon Cannon to develop a laser.
A single hit from the Photon Cannon packed more force, but a laser's cumulative damage approached infinity. Unless a material was immune to the laser's waveform, even very hard substances would be destroyed—an awful magic.
"Come to think of it, I really worked hard."
Shirone smiled with satisfaction. Above all, he was pleased his mastery of his major magic had leapt forward.
At present, Shirone's theory of photonization had gone beyond near-photonic speeds into the a-photonic domain. The reason he'd come to the training ground was to try casting a spatial transfer that only someone at a-photonic level could perform.
"What will it feel like, I wonder?"
He'd heard it was on a different level from teleportation. With spatial transfer, you could distinctly experience the peculiarities of light where space-time folded.
He opened his Spirit Zone and, through synesthetic perception, the surrounding scenery sharpened. Focusing his consciousness on a single point, Shirone cast photonization at the a-photonic level.
The moment he combined Omniscience and Omnipotence and shifted his center, his body evaporated into light. A flare shot high into the sky, then in an instant plunged back to the ground.
Arriving at his destination, Shirone exhaled roughly, his face drained of color.
"Huff! D-done!"
His heart pounded at a sensation he'd never experienced. The view itself was different from teleportation.
Teleportation felt like the world was being crumpled and pushed in. Spatial transfer, however, felt like the world folded—sky and ground spinning as if flipped.
"So this is spatial transfer. My head's a mess. I couldn't use this in battle like this."
Even Etella, a certified sixth-rank mage, relied mainly on teleportation in fights against Arkein. That was proof spatial transfer wasn't effective in combat.
Spatial transfer truly shone not in combat but in situations of movement.
If you had to cover a long distance with teleportation, you risked colliding with cover. So no matter how wide a Spirit Zone was, most mages used it for intervals under ten meters.
But spatial transfer could leap across space regardless of obstacles.
Of course, to see its practical benefits the Spirit Zone's radius needed to be far wider than Shirone's current one.
His Spirit Zone's diameter was about fifty meters. For students, that was above average, but it felt insufficient for handling advanced magics like spatial transfer.
In short, the level of his magic had outpaced his Spirit Zone. Usually the Spirit Zone dictated the magic's level, but as an unlocker Shirone's insight had let him leap over theoretical barriers.
"Balance is skewed. Should I be happy about that?"
The Spirit Zone hadn't stagnated—its durability had improved since he'd enrolled.
If he opened the Zone to its level from six months ago, a hundred-meter diameter wouldn't be a problem.
But casting high-level magic in that state would break the Zone. So it made sense to consider the current radius fifty meters.
"Haha—people would laugh if I said I was doing spatial transfer with a Zone this size."
Rough calculation showed that to make spatial transfer effective in the field, the Zone's diameter needed to be at least two hundred meters.
If a mage had to move ten kilometers in an emergency, using teleportation would require about a thousand casts. A mage with a two-hundred-meter-diameter Zone could cross the same distance with only fifty spatial transfers.
Cutting down nine hundred and fifty cast times in a life-or-death situation was enormous efficiency.
"You can't just learn powerful magic. If the Spirit Zone can't support it, you can't be a great mage."
And training the Spirit Zone wasn't only about expanding radius.
You had to raise its durability so it could sustain your primary magics while growing it. To increase accuracy you also had to manage density.
"My goodness…"
Shirone gaped, feeling as if the road ahead stretched to the horizon.
Radius and durability of the Zone, Omniscience and Omnipotence, adaptability and proficiency, field experience and judgment—there was no end to what a mage had to master.
What chilled him most was that all those qualities had to rise in balance, simultaneously.
Realizing that, he began to glimpse the path he sought and the nature of magic itself.
Pleasure surged through him.
To have even a faint sense of substance in a magical world close to infinity was proof of growth.
Shiina, Etella, Arkein—they'd done the same. They'd reached those places through tremendous training. The road would be harsh, but it wasn't impassable.
"I can do it. I can go higher."
Having succeeded in promotion to Class Four, he could apply for the graduation class as soon as next term. When he finally graduated, he would become the mage he'd always dreamed of.
"Me—a mage..."
Shirone's chest fluttered at the thought. There had been a time he'd believed he might live out his life in the mountains. Now it was different. The dream he'd longed for was becoming real.
"Come to think of it, a lot has happened."
When he first arrived, classmates had teased him for not being able to cast a single spell. In return, he'd even taken that extraordinary teleportation exam, hadn't he?
"Haha! Looking back, that was pathetic."
Shirone left the movement yard and entered the cutting magic section in Sector Four.
It was a place to test magical cutting force. A viscous cylindrical target floated above the magic circle.
Shirone stepped up and reached his hand out.
"Wind Cutter."
As he chanted, a gale rushed in. Sharp wind clawed at the target and, with a slapping sound, the cylinder split in two.
Air specialists trained with maximum viscosity, but for a first try Shirone was satisfied the spell had worked.
"Hehe, this is easy."
His Omniscience had strengthened far beyond the level when he'd enrolled.
Having passed every subject with over eighty points, basic spells like Wind Cutter posed no problem.
Of course, knowledge alone didn't guarantee Omnipotence. The reason he could manifest a newly attempted spell immediately was that Shirone's tendency leaned toward insight rather than analysis.
Mages broadly divided into theory types and sensation types. Each had strengths, but when attempting something new, sensation types inevitably learned faster.
Shirone clearly leaned that way. That was why Arkein had said Shirone learned by doing in real combat.
Reviewing his half-year's achievements, Shirone smiled with satisfaction. Even he thought he'd begun to look more like a mage.
"Hey, Shirone!"
"Huh?"
Turning toward the track, he saw Nade and Iruki waving.
Pleased to see them, Shirone almost ran. Then a silly idea popped into his head and he stopped.
He reshaped his Spirit Zone into a targeting form, gauged the distance to his friends, and performed spatial transfer.
With a screech like metal scraping, Shirone's body dropped in front of them in an instant.
"Jeez! What the—what did you just do?"
Nade jumped back in surprise. Iruki's eyes widened.
"Could it be spatial transfer? You've been practicing until the last day of term?"
Shirone smiled sheepishly and answered, "No. I won't be able to train at the yard for a while. I just stopped by for a final review."
"But you just succeeded with spatial transfer today, right? That's amazing. Do it again."
Nade fussed while Iruki clicked her tongue.
"What's so amazing? You've seen it before."
"No, I think it's the first time someone our age has cast it. When teachers do it it's no big deal, but Shirone doing it feels different."
"True, spatial transfer is a tough magic even for seniors in the graduation class."
No wonder it was considered a major skill. Teleportation was a mage's basic, but spatial transfer belonged more to the specialty track.
Of course, like teleportation, spatial transfer was classified as overpowered, so a certified sixth-rank mage was expected to learn it.
Still, even for a specialty student, wielding a-photonic power at a student level was far harder than expected.
"But it's not very useful yet. The movement distance is too short."
"Why would it be useless? At least you startled Nade."
"What? When did I ever look startled? I can do plasma too. Want me to show you?"
Nade bristled, but the act had already been revealed. Iruki waved a hand as if bored and said to Shirone, "Okay. To sum up: you were in an empty place casting incredible magic and basking in your own glory, right?"
Shirone's face flushed. He'd only reviewed six months' progress, but in a way Iruki wasn't wrong.
"No, it's not like that—"
"Well, you can behave like that. You made the biggest leap this semester, after all. Anyway, if you're satisfied, let's go pay our respects."
"Ah, right. It's already that late."
Most students had gone home, but a few stayed at the school like Shirone's group to thank their teachers for their work during the term.
The three left the training ground and headed for the building where the faculty stayed. Dormitory doors stood open and cleaners were tidying rooms.
Shirone found the meeting hall. As expected, many teachers were chatting over teacups before leaving for their hometowns.