The soulscape was a reflection of the Soul.
That was what I had read and what everyone said about it since my childhood, of course, I never understood it, or not till I finally got my first taste of [Wild Magic].
It occurred one summer when I was five, we were playing at the park, and as normal unruly kids someone decided that throwing ourselves down a hill with only skateboards as a way to move forward was the best way to spend that afternoon. I of course decided that I should go first.
"HEED MY CALL FROM THE VOID AND GUIDE MY DESCENT UPON THE MORTAL WORLD!" I still regret with all my being past me.
Of course in my childish mind, I was some kind of hidden demon lord that inhabited the body of a human, and as such plenty of delusions were screamed here and there. It was...fun, at least till my skateboard hit a pebble and sent me flying towards a tree at high speed with no way to steer myself.
"[Rend, Reality]!" And in my childish mind, I said the first thing it occurred to me to try and save myself.
Only...that time, it worked.
A magic circle materialized at the tip of my fingers and suddenly the tree turned into dust allowing quite a comfortable landing. "HAH!" And in the same type of thing a child who managed to turn its delusions into reality... "I TOLD YOU HEATHENS THAT I WAS THE DEMON LORD!" Young me was delighted.
"MICHAEL SHEPHERD!" At least till my mother found me in the middle of the sawdust of the previous tree, "WHAT DID I TOLD YOU ABOUT PLAYING WITH THE SKATEBOARD?"
"But moooom, look I managed to awaken my demonic inheritance..." Of course, my mother didn't believe me, and as a kid who just managed to awaken its magic, I couldn't command magic as easily as I can now.
It took me quite a few years to find the right mindset (When not about to die) and to finally be able to sink into the [Soulscape], but at that time I had moved from delusions of being a demon lord into being a [Sage] from another world.
And I thank the gods for that, since my soulscape turned to be a [Mage Tower], "My Eye it seeks vengeance!" Sadly it took me another couple of years to fix those delusions.
And in the same vein, "Mister Shepherd? We will get a transfer student in a few days; care to give her the [Test]?" It took me till I joined the MPI to act...civilized.
"A transfer student? I wasn't aware such a thing was possible." Lately no one knew my [Dark Past], and they all thought of me as a [Cool] and [Intelligent] student.
"It isn't, not unless the student is talented enough, this one should be. Miss Singh claims she is more talented than her even." Miss Agatha said.
The [Young Witch] that taught Magic Skills and Magic Circle theory. The [Witch] closer to becoming the pupil of [Odyssey], and one of the rivals that could take that title from me.
"More talented than Singh? I find that, doubtful. But sure, I shall test her mettle." Even if it hurt my pride to admit, Rossaline Singh was talented.
She weaved complex compound spells as if nothing, and her mastery over multiple schools of magic was second to none, even if all those masteries revolved around the same concept of [Healing]. I could weave spells from any school of magic too, but not even I could claim mastery over S & A - Tier magic at my current mana level.
At best, I could maybe skip a tier in magic, but that girl not only could skip tiers till S & A, but she knew overly complex magic from the [Biomancy], [Holy], [Divine], [Mind], and [Emotion] type.
And I suspect that she dabbled in [Soul], [Void] and [Necromancy] too, even if I didn't have proof of such types, the first one I could understand, she already had shown mastery over [Mind] Healing type of magic, so [Soul] healing wasn't that far away.
But [Void] and [Necromancy]... Yeah, can't really excuse those types of magic, but since I didn't have proof and she wasn't a [Villain] (yet) I had no way to do anything about it.
What could I do? Go to the Student Council and say 'Hey, my [Sage’s Intuition] Skill and my [Magic Eyes: Analyze] say that Rossaline Singh is a practitioner of very dangerous Magic types, though I have no further evidence tho.'
No, I would not do that, they would require a full scan of my [Status] and there were plenty of things there that I wouldn't share with anyone, not even my parent knew of those things.
That brought me to the next thing, the [Status] screen and my new [Skills]; I used to mock the [Powered] because they depended on the [Skills] instead of building their [Spells] as we [Mages] did before.
But when the [System] came and it turned my [Knowledge] into [Skills]... Well, yeah, I was quite happy. My status was quite the thing to see, and to be honest, I don't think I even lost points, while I wasn't able to see them before, I know that I didn't need to recondition my body to this new world we now lived in.
| Status | |
| Name: Michael Shepherd Title: [Hero Trainee] Passive Titles: [The Promised Sage] [Awakened - Champion] Level: 25 | Health: 100% Mana: 100% Stamina: 100% Age: Body 17 |
| Strength: 10 Constitution: 10 Agility: 10 Dexterity: 40 Intelligence: 153 Wisdom: 153 Charisma: 10 | Job: [Sage Apprentice] Job Skills[9]: General Skills: -Identify: 15 -Privacy: 10
|
The skills, however, they would haunt me beyond reason. Things I had forgotten came back in strength, and I couldn't even complain about them, how could I?
| Skills | ||
| Job | General | Titles |
| Aegis’s Shield: X Sage’s Intuition:X Ritual Magic: X -Rend, Reality! -Shatter, Synapses! -Banishment This World! Mana Manipulation: 5 Magic Circle Manipulation: 5 Soulscape Perception: 3 Spell Skill - Mana Bolt: 9 Spell Skill: Shift [N/A] Magic Eyes: Analyze [N/A] | Identify:15 Privacy: 10
|
|
How do you complain to the [Goddess of Magic] herself showed in front of you and gifts you your new [Skills], and she was [Odyssey], there was no doubt of it in his mind.
I couldn't see her face, her body was made of a more pure form of mana, she was dressed in what seemed to be a sailor uniform like one a [Magical Girl] would use, but unlike those, hers seemed to dance with colors as stars flowed from them, the very fabric of it seemed as infinity as a galaxy.
During the [Advent] of the [System] she showed in my mind and granted me the very [Skills] that made me what I was today, refined from within my own [Soul].
[Magic Eyes], [Soulscape Perception], [Sage’s Intuition] and...[Ritual Magic].
How could I complain about it when she made sure I could [Feel] my [Soulscape] again when no one seemed to be able to, that allowed me to nudge fragments of my previous spells and enabled me to cast freely as if nothing.
I wondered if Rossaline had some similarities to me, but unlike me, she didn't seem to even look at [Odyssey] church, besides the first day it was inaugured when she went to search for a priest and exited with a scowl on her face and a priest stuck to one of her legs.
The only other one that was a suspect for a blessing like mine was Akira, since he could cast magic too, but he focused mostly on [Magic Skills], unlike me or Rossaline who casted [True Magic].
Besides that the only similarity between the three of us... Was our [Mana], my [Eyes] allowed me to see [Mana] more clearly than anyone else, it was the reason I could cast [Spells] with such grace.
My younger self was right on that, and my [Eyes] really were something a [Demon] would have...
I of course hadn't been able to use them to see the [Status] of anyone else, not till a few weeks ago when I managed to evolve the skill to include [Analyze] on it, but even then I could only see parts of the hidden information. And that made me find something quite... concerning.
We shared a [Title], or more specifically, Rossaline and Akira shared the [Theme] of a title with me. Both Rossaline and Akira shared a [Theme] with my [The Promised Sage], and we shared the same series of [Titles] with the [Awakened] one.
That was concerning as it implied that both were part of the [Four] that had been chosen by [The World] for some kind of mission that I had no memory of accepting. And that was a problem, in the first place I held no memory of accepting that, and I didn't feel any feeling of wanting to work with either.
Rossaline was indifferent at the best of cases and straight-up hostile in the worst, she showed a calm demeanor when treating people. And even seemed to smile at the patients... For as long as her work demanded of her, outside of work hours in clinics she wouldn't even give a second glance to you. I know it since I tried to get close to her, to see if my [Title] would stir something within me or her.
It didn't.
The first year held some vague recollections of her going around with someone, but the second year after the [Advent] she only came a few days and then left on vacation, barely saying the class she needed to take care of someone full time. The school didn't want to let her leave, of course, she was one of three people in our generation who could still use magic. But she asked for a leave or a dismissal, so leave it was.
Akira... He is more problematic even, the kid has problems, serious problems. He looks down at everyone else and since no one ever managed to get even a tie against him, no one can do anything about it. He wasn't ever defeated in first grade (Even if some of the first fights in the year seemed to be blurry in everyone's mind) and in the second year, he defeated all.
He only got behind in the arena test by some technicalities (His words) as that test was made with finesse in mind so I held first place, some girl called Watanabe Rena held second place, and finally Akira and Rossaline in third and fourth.
Akira held by the fact that he had enough firepower to obliterate everything in the place, and Rossaline by the fact that she could incapacitate everyone in the testing arena. Both for the same reason, both using different means to achieve their goal.
So having to test someone and having first-row seating to someone's evaluation was interesting, if it was true that this new student had more [Talent] than Rossaline, she may be the fourth [Hero] to our cohort.
And perhaps she would be a kindred soul. As such, seeing the girl on the day of the testing was... Different.
Unlike everyone else around her mana was so...Soothing, it was calm beyond reason, as if she had full control over every aspect of her [Soul], such a thing wasn't possible unless one knew how their mana moved and had a full understanding of what made one what it was.
Using the sayings of the pre-system magic teaching... It was only possible when one mastered their [Soulscape] the reflection of what we are. But here it was, a girl of my age with full control over her mana, as if mocking my understanding of the world of magic.
She finished the written test in record time too, and if that wasn't enough... Her demonstration of the testing in the arena was eye-opening too, in a different meaning.
She started easily enough by spreading the mana over the arena floor, at first I had thought that she was a former [Powered] with a [Earth Manipulation] skill of some type, but then when the shadows of everything in the arena spread and formed a web that seemed to be alive, well. I knew better.
The former [Tainted] weren't ostracized anymore, and as such they had started to become [Heroes] and [Magical Girls] more easily, since their powers weren't kept in check anymore, not many decided to join a career to better the world. Even if most [Shadow] users were more powerful on average than anyone else, so seeing this girl manipulate the [Shadows] with such finesse I could understand why they had accepted to get her an examination.
Even if some teachers had implied that she would get accepted even if she failed, and that I needed to make sure she did fail. But then she went and made her presentation more impressive.
How? She weaved magic like no one ever had done before, and his eyes didn't allow him to miss a single moment, her shadows helped the mana move and settle in a complex mandala that allowed her to prepare complex compound spells.
That made him stop and look again, and laugh, laugh, and laugh again, as he understood what Rossaline had said before, this girl was talented, way more talented than Rossaline, and he understood that now. The style she was using was one similar to what Rossaline used, but more refined, more complex, and developed.
This girl was the reason Rossaline used magic the way she did, so he prepared himself to see for the first time [Shadow Magic]. Only to be surprised yet again as the magic circle finalized its build up, and showed a variation of the [Earth Needle] spell.
This girl was one surprise after another, especially since her version wasn't the [System] one, so that meant that the girl had build the spell from scratch and customize it to the situation at hand, she saved on mana by using the same earth that her shadows had covered.
Her test moved on like that using multiple complex compound spells to restrain the test dummies, and she went one step ahead and neutralized the top four dummies too.
The version of Rossaline and Watanabe Rena were restrained by shadows, while his version and Akira were incapacitated, he winced when Akira's one was incapacitated as she had misjudged the resistance of those dummies and that dummy ended quite pitiful.
His fight against her... Well, that one was an eye-opener too, as he was forced to use two of his three [Ritual Spells], and even after that he was defeated.
So he followed after the girl (Elizabeth Starbright she was called) in his registration, of course, he pretended to ignore the glares he was getting from Rossaline... And would update the defensive wards and artifacts on his apartment to make sure no 'Weird diseases' or 'Weird accidents' occurred to him too.
And all the time he had with her was spent trying to use his [Mage Eyes] and [Sage's Intuition] to find out if she was or not a comrade.
She wasn't.
He managed to feel some kind of weird mana loop between the blonde girl and Rossaline, for some reason, Rossaline fed mana into the girl, and the girl circled it and sent it back to Rossaline. He wasn't sure what the deal was with that but when he tried to tie a mana tread to that connection Rossaline straight up glared at him and not only felt, but saw a magic circle with the [Soul] and [Death] node on it start to form under the table.
So he retracted his mana thread and ignored the smug look Rossaline sported the rest of their day. He would get plenty of opportunities to try and talk to Elizabeth, maybe he could try and find out what was the deal?
Or perhaps was Elizabeth still sick? Was Rossaline applying continuous [Heal]? He didn't see any residual magic circle...Was she using [Ritual Magic]?
That would explain the sudden interest Elizabeth had for that type of magic...
His doubts weren't answered that day, but the next day was interesting enough. As the classes moved forward he managed to see Elizabeth in his classroom, they had started to share the classrooms with former [Powereds], and as the classes would benefit everyone the teachers divided the material among themselves as ones had better skillsets for certain classes than others.
Miss Agatha had the best skillset to teach about mana manipulation and skill manipulation, even if she had been a [Magical Girl] turned [Witch], and sure enough the class was interesting.
At least till Elizabeth asked about her former [Skill], that had been surprising, by her mastery over [Spellcraft] he had assumed she was a [Magical Girl], but then again from what he could glimpse from her [Status] she was a [Magical...*something*], he wasn't sure why he hadn't been able to read the second half, but perhaps she was a rare variation of the [Magical Girl] job?
Either way that wasn't the problem, the problem was one of the students that had been demoted from the graduation class to their class complained about Elizabeth, surprisingly enough it had been both Akira and Watanabe Rena the ones to come to Elizabeth's aid.
Followed by Rossaline, and since that was the case he joined in too, in the end, the one that made troubles had sagely decided to not keep making troubles, not that it would help him, if the glint he was seeing in Rossaline's eye was something to go by, he wouldn't be staying too long in the school.
It was an open secret that if you annoyed too much Rossaline, bad things happened to you. Nothing had been proven, and no evidence incriminating the girl was ever found, but from the first roommate she had, to the second...To the third, before she left for her vacation, no one ever found them.
The first didn't leave any single indication of where she had gone, and that was the one on the first day of classes the first year, the second...Straight up didn't exist on any record, the third one that tried to settle in her apartment declared she didn't want to stay in school and would kill herself if they didn't allow her to leave.
After that, the school stopped trying to get someone to room with her and even offered a single apartment, but she said she had a roommate and would take her of someone during her vacations.
...Oh...Was she speaking of Elizabeth? But then the memories he had lost...Had she been in his group?
She had said as much, but he still found it hard to believe, [Odyssey]'s ascension had wiped memories of plenty of things, but how close had she been to be this affected.
Maybe she was the fourth [Hero] and [Odyssey]'s ascension had messed her [Titles]?
That could be a reason, yes.
His title said there were four [Heroes], and so far with Rossaline, Akira, and himself they had three...Two males one female, then that meant that the fourth should be a female right?
Akira and Rossaline were crazy, so he hoped the fourth wasn't as crazy as them, was it much to ask for a sane fourth person?
Elizabeth seemed sane enough, he would try to make a friendship with her. Maybe he could steer her away from bad influences such as Rossaline and Akira?
She didn't seem too impressed with Akira, but that guy had a way of getting into the girl's mind, he had seen him with a different girl each weekend, and most of the time those girls ended up missing half a week before returning to classes as if nothing.
He had gone after most [Healer]'s at some point too, but the school made sure to assign him only to very specific(male) healers after the fifth healer decided to leave school.
He stopped taking [Healers] after that, actually the only one that managed to stay with him was that girl Watanabe Rena. Maybe she was his girlfriend?
He didn't care to be honest, she seemed good enough to stay with Akira's power, but she wasn't a [Mage] nor used [Magic Skills] like Akira, so she couldn't be the fourth hero.
If at least three of the four used some degree of [Magic], the fourth should also use magic. Right?
The soulscape was a reflection of the Soul.
That was what I had read and what everyone said about it since my childhood, of course, I never understood it, or not till I finally got my first taste of [Wild Magic].
It occurred one summer when I was five, we were playing at the park, and as normal unruly kids someone decided that throwing ourselves down a hill with only skateboards as a way to move forward was the best way to spend that afternoon. I of course decided that I should go first.
"HEED MY CALL FROM THE VOID AND GUIDE MY DESCENT UPON THE MORTAL WORLD!" I still regret with all my being past me.
Of course in my childish mind, I was some kind of hidden demon lord that inhabited the body of a human, and as such plenty of delusions were screamed here and there. It was...fun, at least till my skateboard hit a pebble and sent me flying towards a tree at high speed with no way to steer myself.
"[Rend, Reality]!" And in my childish mind, I said the first thing it occurred to me to try and save myself.
Only...that time, it worked.
A magic circle materialized at the tip of my fingers and suddenly the tree turned into dust allowing quite a comfortable landing. "HAH!" And in the same type of thing a child who managed to turn its delusions into reality... "I TOLD YOU HEATHENS THAT I WAS THE DEMON LORD!" Young me was delighted.
"MICHAEL SHEPHERD!" At least till my mother found me in the middle of the sawdust of the previous tree, "WHAT DID I TOLD YOU ABOUT PLAYING WITH THE SKATEBOARD?"
"But moooom, look I managed to awaken my demonic inheritance..." Of course, my mother didn't believe me, and as a kid who just managed to awaken its magic, I couldn't command magic as easily as I can now.
It took me quite a few years to find the right mindset (When not about to die) and to finally be able to sink into the [Soulscape], but at that time I had moved from delusions of being a demon lord into being a [Sage] from another world.
And I thank the gods for that, since my soulscape turned to be a [Mage Tower], "My Eye it seeks vengeance!" Sadly it took me another couple of years to fix those delusions.
And in the same vein, "Mister Shepherd? We will get a transfer student in a few days; care to give her the [Test]?" It took me till I joined the MPI to act...civilized.
"A transfer student? I wasn't aware such a thing was possible." Lately no one knew my [Dark Past], and they all thought of me as a [Cool] and [Intelligent] student.
"It isn't, not unless the student is talented enough, this one should be. Miss Singh claims she is more talented than her even." Miss Agatha said.
The [Young Witch] that taught Magic Skills and Magic Circle theory. The [Witch] closer to becoming the pupil of [Odyssey], and one of the rivals that could take that title from me.
"More talented than Singh? I find that, doubtful. But sure, I shall test her mettle." Even if it hurt my pride to admit, Rossaline Singh was talented.
She weaved complex compound spells as if nothing, and her mastery over multiple schools of magic was second to none, even if all those masteries revolved around the same concept of [Healing]. I could weave spells from any school of magic too, but not even I could claim mastery over S & A - Tier magic at my current mana level.
At best, I could maybe skip a tier in magic, but that girl not only could skip tiers till S & A, but she knew overly complex magic from the [Biomancy], [Holy], [Divine], [Mind], and [Emotion] type.
And I suspect that she dabbled in [Soul], [Void] and [Necromancy] too, even if I didn't have proof of such types, the first one I could understand, she already had shown mastery over [Mind] Healing type of magic, so [Soul] healing wasn't that far away.
But [Void] and [Necromancy]... Yeah, can't really excuse those types of magic, but since I didn't have proof and she wasn't a [Villain] (yet) I had no way to do anything about it.
What could I do? Go to the Student Council and say 'Hey, my [Sage’s Intuition] Skill and my [Magic Eyes: Analyze] say that Rossaline Singh is a practitioner of very dangerous Magic types, though I have no further evidence tho.'
No, I would not do that, they would require a full scan of my [Status] and there were plenty of things there that I wouldn't share with anyone, not even my parent knew of those things.
That brought me to the next thing, the [Status] screen and my new [Skills]; I used to mock the [Powered] because they depended on the [Skills] instead of building their [Spells] as we [Mages] did before.
But when the [System] came and it turned my [Knowledge] into [Skills]... Well, yeah, I was quite happy. My status was quite the thing to see, and to be honest, I don't think I even lost points, while I wasn't able to see them before, I know that I didn't need to recondition my body to this new world we now lived in.
| Status | |
| Name: Michael Shepherd Title: [Hero Trainee] Passive Titles: [The Promised Sage] [Awakened - Champion] Level: 25 | Health: 100% Mana: 100% Stamina: 100% Age: Body 17 |
| Strength: 10 Constitution: 10 Agility: 10 Dexterity: 40 Intelligence: 153 Wisdom: 153 Charisma: 10 | Job: [Sage Apprentice] Job Skills[9]: General Skills: -Identify: 15 -Privacy: 10
|
The skills, however, they would haunt me beyond reason. Things I had forgotten came back in strength, and I couldn't even complain about them, how could I?
| Skills | ||
| Job | General | Titles |
| Aegis’s Shield: X Sage’s Intuition:X Ritual Magic: X -Rend, Reality! -Shatter, Synapses! -Banishment This World! Mana Manipulation: 5 Magic Circle Manipulation: 5 Soulscape Perception: 3 Spell Skill - Mana Bolt: 9 Spell Skill: Shift [N/A] Magic Eyes: Analyze [N/A] | Identify:15 Privacy: 10
|
|
How do you complain to the [Goddess of Magic] herself showed in front of you and gifts you your new [Skills], and she was [Odyssey], there was no doubt of it in his mind.
I couldn't see her face, her body was made of a more pure form of mana, she was dressed in what seemed to be a sailor uniform like one a [Magical Girl] would use, but unlike those, hers seemed to dance with colors as stars flowed from them, the very fabric of it seemed as infinity as a galaxy.
During the [Advent] of the [System] she showed in my mind and granted me the very [Skills] that made me what I was today, refined from within my own [Soul].
[Magic Eyes], [Soulscape Perception], [Sage’s Intuition] and...[Ritual Magic].
How could I complain about it when she made sure I could [Feel] my [Soulscape] again when no one seemed to be able to, that allowed me to nudge fragments of my previous spells and enabled me to cast freely as if nothing.
I wondered if Rossaline had some similarities to me, but unlike me, she didn't seem to even look at [Odyssey] church, besides the first day it was inaugured when she went to search for a priest and exited with a scowl on her face and a priest stuck to one of her legs.
The only other one that was a suspect for a blessing like mine was Akira, since he could cast magic too, but he focused mostly on [Magic Skills], unlike me or Rossaline who casted [True Magic].
Besides that the only similarity between the three of us... Was our [Mana], my [Eyes] allowed me to see [Mana] more clearly than anyone else, it was the reason I could cast [Spells] with such grace.
My younger self was right on that, and my [Eyes] really were something a [Demon] would have...
I of course hadn't been able to use them to see the [Status] of anyone else, not till a few weeks ago when I managed to evolve the skill to include [Analyze] on it, but even then I could only see parts of the hidden information. And that made me find something quite... concerning.
We shared a [Title], or more specifically, Rossaline and Akira shared the [Theme] of a title with me. Both Rossaline and Akira shared a [Theme] with my [The Promised Sage], and we shared the same series of [Titles] with the [Awakened] one.
That was concerning as it implied that both were part of the [Four] that had been chosen by [The World] for some kind of mission that I had no memory of accepting. And that was a problem, in the first place I held no memory of accepting that, and I didn't feel any feeling of wanting to work with either.
Rossaline was indifferent at the best of cases and straight-up hostile in the worst, she showed a calm demeanor when treating people. And even seemed to smile at the patients... For as long as her work demanded of her, outside of work hours in clinics she wouldn't even give a second glance to you. I know it since I tried to get close to her, to see if my [Title] would stir something within me or her.
It didn't.
The first year held some vague recollections of her going around with someone, but the second year after the [Advent] she only came a few days and then left on vacation, barely saying the class she needed to take care of someone full time. The school didn't want to let her leave, of course, she was one of three people in our generation who could still use magic. But she asked for a leave or a dismissal, so leave it was.
Akira... He is more problematic even, the kid has problems, serious problems. He looks down at everyone else and since no one ever managed to get even a tie against him, no one can do anything about it. He wasn't ever defeated in first grade (Even if some of the first fights in the year seemed to be blurry in everyone's mind) and in the second year, he defeated all.
He only got behind in the arena test by some technicalities (His words) as that test was made with finesse in mind so I held first place, some girl called Watanabe Rena held second place, and finally Akira and Rossaline in third and fourth.
Akira held by the fact that he had enough firepower to obliterate everything in the place, and Rossaline by the fact that she could incapacitate everyone in the testing arena. Both for the same reason, both using different means to achieve their goal.
So having to test someone and having first-row seating to someone's evaluation was interesting, if it was true that this new student had more [Talent] than Rossaline, she may be the fourth [Hero] to our cohort.
And perhaps she would be a kindred soul. As such, seeing the girl on the day of the testing was... Different.
Unlike everyone else around her mana was so...Soothing, it was calm beyond reason, as if she had full control over every aspect of her [Soul], such a thing wasn't possible unless one knew how their mana moved and had a full understanding of what made one what it was.
Using the sayings of the pre-system magic teaching... It was only possible when one mastered their [Soulscape] the reflection of what we are. But here it was, a girl of my age with full control over her mana, as if mocking my understanding of the world of magic.
She finished the written test in record time too, and if that wasn't enough... Her demonstration of the testing in the arena was eye-opening too, in a different meaning.
She started easily enough by spreading the mana over the arena floor, at first I had thought that she was a former [Powered] with a [Earth Manipulation] skill of some type, but then when the shadows of everything in the arena spread and formed a web that seemed to be alive, well. I knew better.
The former [Tainted] weren't ostracized anymore, and as such they had started to become [Heroes] and [Magical Girls] more easily, since their powers weren't kept in check anymore, not many decided to join a career to better the world. Even if most [Shadow] users were more powerful on average than anyone else, so seeing this girl manipulate the [Shadows] with such finesse I could understand why they had accepted to get her an examination.
Even if some teachers had implied that she would get accepted even if she failed, and that I needed to make sure she did fail. But then she went and made her presentation more impressive.
How? She weaved magic like no one ever had done before, and his eyes didn't allow him to miss a single moment, her shadows helped the mana move and settle in a complex mandala that allowed her to prepare complex compound spells.
That made him stop and look again, and laugh, laugh, and laugh again, as he understood what Rossaline had said before, this girl was talented, way more talented than Rossaline, and he understood that now. The style she was using was one similar to what Rossaline used, but more refined, more complex, and developed.
This girl was the reason Rossaline used magic the way she did, so he prepared himself to see for the first time [Shadow Magic]. Only to be surprised yet again as the magic circle finalized its build up, and showed a variation of the [Earth Needle] spell.
This girl was one surprise after another, especially since her version wasn't the [System] one, so that meant that the girl had build the spell from scratch and customize it to the situation at hand, she saved on mana by using the same earth that her shadows had covered.
Her test moved on like that using multiple complex compound spells to restrain the test dummies, and she went one step ahead and neutralized the top four dummies too.
The version of Rossaline and Watanabe Rena were restrained by shadows, while his version and Akira were incapacitated, he winced when Akira's one was incapacitated as she had misjudged the resistance of those dummies and that dummy ended quite pitiful.
His fight against her... Well, that one was an eye-opener too, as he was forced to use two of his three [Ritual Spells], and even after that he was defeated.
So he followed after the girl (Elizabeth Starbright she was called) in his registration, of course, he pretended to ignore the glares he was getting from Rossaline... And would update the defensive wards and artifacts on his apartment to make sure no 'Weird diseases' or 'Weird accidents' occurred to him too.
And all the time he had with her was spent trying to use his [Mage Eyes] and [Sage's Intuition] to find out if she was or not a comrade.
She wasn't.
He managed to feel some kind of weird mana loop between the blonde girl and Rossaline, for some reason, Rossaline fed mana into the girl, and the girl circled it and sent it back to Rossaline. He wasn't sure what the deal was with that but when he tried to tie a mana tread to that connection Rossaline straight up glared at him and not only felt, but saw a magic circle with the [Soul] and [Death] node on it start to form under the table.
So he retracted his mana thread and ignored the smug look Rossaline sported the rest of their day. He would get plenty of opportunities to try and talk to Elizabeth, maybe he could try and find out what was the deal?
Or perhaps was Elizabeth still sick? Was Rossaline applying continuous [Heal]? He didn't see any residual magic circle...Was she using [Ritual Magic]?
That would explain the sudden interest Elizabeth had for that type of magic...
His doubts weren't answered that day, but the next day was interesting enough. As the classes moved forward he managed to see Elizabeth in his classroom, they had started to share the classrooms with former [Powereds], and as the classes would benefit everyone the teachers divided the material among themselves as ones had better skillsets for certain classes than others.
Miss Agatha had the best skillset to teach about mana manipulation and skill manipulation, even if she had been a [Magical Girl] turned [Witch], and sure enough the class was interesting.
At least till Elizabeth asked about her former [Skill], that had been surprising, by her mastery over [Spellcraft] he had assumed she was a [Magical Girl], but then again from what he could glimpse from her [Status] she was a [Magical...*something*], he wasn't sure why he hadn't been able to read the second half, but perhaps she was a rare variation of the [Magical Girl] job?
Either way that wasn't the problem, the problem was one of the students that had been demoted from the graduation class to their class complained about Elizabeth, surprisingly enough it had been both Akira and Watanabe Rena the ones to come to Elizabeth's aid.
Followed by Rossaline, and since that was the case he joined in too, in the end, the one that made troubles had sagely decided to not keep making troubles, not that it would help him, if the glint he was seeing in Rossaline's eye was something to go by, he wouldn't be staying too long in the school.
It was an open secret that if you annoyed too much Rossaline, bad things happened to you. Nothing had been proven, and no evidence incriminating the girl was ever found, but from the first roommate she had, to the second...To the third, before she left for her vacation, no one ever found them.
The first didn't leave any single indication of where she had gone, and that was the one on the first day of classes the first year, the second...Straight up didn't exist on any record, the third one that tried to settle in her apartment declared she didn't want to stay in school and would kill herself if they didn't allow her to leave.
After that, the school stopped trying to get someone to room with her and even offered a single apartment, but she said she had a roommate and would take her of someone during her vacations.
...Oh...Was she speaking of Elizabeth? But then the memories he had lost...Had she been in his group?
She had said as much, but he still found it hard to believe, [Odyssey]'s ascension had wiped memories of plenty of things, but how close had she been to be this affected.
Maybe she was the fourth [Hero] and [Odyssey]'s ascension had messed her [Titles]?
That could be a reason, yes.
His title said there were four [Heroes], and so far with Rossaline, Akira, and himself they had three...Two males one female, then that meant that the fourth should be a female right?
Akira and Rossaline were crazy, so he hoped the fourth wasn't as crazy as them, was it much to ask for a sane fourth person?
Elizabeth seemed sane enough, he would try to make a friendship with her. Maybe he could steer her away from bad influences such as Rossaline and Akira?
She didn't seem too impressed with Akira, but that guy had a way of getting into the girl's mind, he had seen him with a different girl each weekend, and most of the time those girls ended up missing half a week before returning to classes as if nothing.
He had gone after most [Healer]'s at some point too, but the school made sure to assign him only to very specific(male) healers after the fifth healer decided to leave school.
He stopped taking [Healers] after that, actually the only one that managed to stay with him was that girl Watanabe Rena. Maybe she was his girlfriend?
He didn't care to be honest, she seemed good enough to stay with Akira's power, but she wasn't a [Mage] nor used [Magic Skills] like Akira, so she couldn't be the fourth hero.
If at least three of the four used some degree of [Magic], the fourth should also use magic. Right?
