Jun braced herself behind her shield, bolstering the defenses of the mundane slab of wood and steel with layers of barriers. Her arm buckled as another explosion ripped into her defenses, shattering several barriers and pressing her back with the force of the attack. Splitting her mana off, Jun counter attacked with a few missiles, the bright white spells coming into being and speeding at her opponent.

With a wave of his hand, Morrel conjured a bright white ball. As her missiles rushed towards him, the ball shot sparks of lightning out that intercepted and destroyed her spells before they could get close enough to threaten him. "Initiate tier Arcane Missile variant. Impressive," she heard the Professor named Wendel mutter.

"Pathetic, more like," Morrel sneered as he shot down the last of her missiles, his spell fading as the last of her missiles shattered into pure mana. "Just some trash common spell for a trash commoner."

Jun tamped down her anger at the boy's words. His attitude was something many of the nobles she'd met shared, but she rarely had to deal directly with them. Her other classes with the Sergeant usually found her fighting against other Bronze medallion students. Whether it was luck or something else, she'd rarely sparred against the nobles, and then those fights were simple with the restrictions still in place. She never thought there might be those hiding powerful magic like this.

Jun felt Morrel's mana move again moments before another lightning bolt slammed into her defenses. Conjuring her snares, Jun counter attacked. Controlling the individual strands had gotten easier with practice and she moved over a dozen to lash out at Morrel like darting snakes, trying to overwhelm him with volume and confusing movements. It didn't. Again, the boy conjured a ball of lightning that seemed to unerringly target her snares with small bolts, destroying her spells before they could cross more than half the distance between them.

Conjuring more snares, Jun used them to launch herself around the edge of the ring as she peppered the boy with missiles and small barriers, only for her constructs to shatter to the strange ball lightning constructs that intercepted her attacks. Her shaped barriers had more success, taking two or three bolts apiece before failing, but none of her attacks made it close. Still, as long as she kept up the attacks, he couldn't— Jun's arm moved instinctively, barely covering herself with her barrier empowered shield as another lightning bolt slammed into her, the force launching her off her feat to bounce against the arena barrier. Fighting through the pain of backlash and electricity locking up her muscles, Jun dumped all of her mana into her barriers, repairing and conjuring more layers as attacks slammed into them while she curled up behind her shield and sunk her snares into the arena sand. The barrage lightened a bit as a small swarm of speeding barriers aimed for the boy's head, but one by one she felt them shatter to his lightning defense, the final barrier only making it within a couple feet of him before it shattered into ambient mana.

"Weak," he sneered, summoning more sparks with an artful flourish. "Can't even offer anything interesting besides some basic commoner spells. Path—aaah!" The boy screamed as Jun's last snares erupted from the sand at his feet and wrapped around his arms and legs. Before he could finish casting his spell, Jun dragged him across the sand of the arena, whipping him about to confuse him. Flashes of light and booms of sound filled their small ring as the boy screamed and shot out lightning bolts randomly, a few coming alarmingly close and one even striking the barriers she still held up, but she was able to replenish her defenses with the mana she ripped out of the boy with her snares.

Pushing herself up, Jun carefully drew the struggling boy in, his spells far easier to dodge once she finally gained control over his arms and began to point them far away from her. As powerful as his magic was, there was a key weakness she noticed early on. He was incapable of casting from anywhere except his hands. With her snares snuggly wrapped around his wrists and painfully dragging his arms into positions where he couldn't point his palms at her, it seemed he was toothless. Jun silently washed as the boy thrashed and screamed, looking less and less like a self-important noble and powerful mage, and more like an entitled and spoiled brat.

"Damn you wench, let me go this instant!" Morrel screamed as Jun's snares siphoned more of his mana away, but she just stared blankly at him. Part of her wanted to apologize, part of her wanted to scream right back, but instead, she chose to say nothing. It wasn't worth making even more enemies trying to defend herself verbally. It wasn't long before she felt the final dregs of his mana flow into her, and the boy immediately slumped in her grasp, his breathing heavy.

The fight was over and she won, but the professor hadn't told her to stop. Curious, Jun turned to look at the professor overseeing the fight, only to frown as he seemed to be muttering furiously as he scribbled in a journal, the man only occasionally glancing up at her and her snare-wrapped opponent.

"Unusual flexibility… mana siphon… self strengthening…" she heard him mutter. He looked up at her, his eyes making contact with hers, and she felt a chill creep down her spine. The look in his eyes was feverish. Obsessive. The aura around him seemed to reach out and wrap around her and her magic like it wanted nothing more than to tie her down and analyze everything about her. She'd never felt less like a person and more like an object in that moment.

"Professor?" she said, steeling herself. She didn't like the attention, but there wasn't much of a choice. The ring's barrier was still active. She couldn't leave until it was disabled. No response. "Professor Wendel? The fight's over." Nothing. Jun walked over, dragging Morrel's limp form behind her until she was just a few feet away from Wendel, stopped only by the ring's barrier. "Wendel!" she yelled, slamming her sword against her shield as hard as she could. A loud, metallic crash filled the ring and the sound finally seemed to shake him out of whatever trance he was in.

The strange professor looked up at her curiously, his eyes flicking between Jun and the weakly struggling Morrel still securely restrained by her snares. "Huh what? Oh right. Jun wins. Let Mr. Morrel go please." With a casual wave, the man disabled the barrier and took an aggressive step towards her. Before she could even release her spell, he started to question her. "Tell me about your spells." With every word, Wendel took another step towards her, his eyes taking on that creepy, obsessive glint she noticed earlier.

Jun recoiled back, releasing Morrel to fall unceremoniously to the sand with a meaty thump and loud groan as she pulled her snares back to her. But she didn't release her magic. Instead, she started to weigh the consequences of attacking a professor.

"The missiles were ineffective but they were surprisingly well designed. Not the work of an amateur. Your barriers were equally well made and unusually efficient. Lightning magic is considered the most effective at disrupting magical protections and costing more mana to defend against than to cast, but your barriers seemed to be the reverse, costing more mana to damage than you spent maintaining them. The snares are even more fascinating. Draining mana to reinforce themselves and recover your own is a fascinating utility. It's unheard of outside of a few high level spells and certain monster species. Would you be willing to share the spellform with me?"

The man spoke so quickly that Jun didn't have a chance to respond, even if she wanted to, and she definitely didn't. Her magic was personal. Gifts from her mother that were a part of her now, and no one had ever asked for such detailed information from her before. Not her friends, not any of her professors, not even Shiori. She wanted nothing more than to run away from this weird professor. "No," she said flatly, pulling her snares in until they hovered over her shoulders.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Wendel's eyes seemed to snap towards her magic. "Flexible crystalline mana structure. Micro fractal glyphs using the Signore system rather than the modern Fibner method…" Wendel furiously wrote a few notes down as he stared at her magic.

Jun felt dirty and nauseous. She hated this man who seemed obsessed with her magic. With a simple command, Jun released her spell, pulling the mana out of the structure to make it rapidly unravel. It might leave her down a weapon if the man got aggressive, but the spiteful side of her didn't want him to keep staring at her magic even if it killed her. "The fight's over, I'm leaving now professor," she said, stepping to the side and turning to leave.

Before she made it more than a step she felt a hand land on her shoulder and she whirled around, ready to strike with her sword as she grabbed for her mana, only to stop her attack as she realized it was Wendel. She didn't know the penalty for attacking a professor, but she had a feeling it wasn't better than attacking another student outside of a sparring match.

"Wait. Summon your magic again," Wendel said, his hand on her shoulder like an iron vise.

"No. Let me go," she said firmly, moving her shoulder obviously. In any other situation she would be worried about being rude, but the professor's attitude combined with that of the opponent she'd just fought had her on edge. Whatever the strange aura around Wendel was only cemented her desire to get as far away from him as possible.

The feverish glint in the professor's eyes seemed to vanish. "Oh right. Carry on student," he said, letting go of her shoulder and jotting something else down in his book.

Jun took a few quick steps backward, her eyes locked on the strange man as she retreated. He didn't move and seemed to forget where he was as he furiously wrote, his lips moving as he muttered incoherently. Once she got far enough away, she turned and ran, not stopping until she made it back to Keira and Michael.

"Nice fight Juju," Keira said once she got back to her seat. Michael was gone, instead replaced with Cian. Keira's quiet twin looked up and nodded at her in approval before he turned back to look at the fights going on.

"You were watching?" Jun said, surprise momentarily overcoming her discomfort from the interaction with the weird professor.

Keira nodded. "Of course, gotta support my friend right? I liked how you won. Your snares are kind of scary, you know? But what were you talking about with that professor? It must've been interesting since you forgot to return your weapons."

Jun blushed as she realized that she still held her training sword and the shield was still strapped to her arm. She should return them, but the last thing she wanted was to get near that professor again.

"Um… so yeah that professor…" Jun quickly explained what the professor asked of her and how he creeped her out.

"Creepy…" Keira said with a frown.

"What's creepy?" Aya said as she joined them and plopped down next to Cian.

"Jun was just telling us about this weird professor that oversaw her fight. How did yours go?"

"Won of course. After all the training we've done, it seemed harder holding back so I didn't get yelled at for excessive force. What's this about a weird professor?" Aya looked at Jun, a mixture of curiosity and concern on her face and in the aura around her.

Jun shifted awkwardly in her seat, accidentally kicking her stolen training shield and making a loud clatter that drew stares from the students around her and made her blush with embarrassment. After a few seconds, the other students seemed to forget about her and turned back to watching the fights going on. Looking up at Aya, her blush started to fade as an awkward nervousness took over. Talking to Aya felt hard. Their relationship had been rocky for weeks, but it seemed like she was the only one who felt that way. She really needed to talk to Aya about the other thing, to try and fix things, but she didn't know how to broach that subject, and now didn't feel like the right time. Instead, Jun repeated her experience with the strange professor and her discomfort with him.

"That is creepy," Aya finally said after Jun told her story. "You should let the Sergeant know, and maybe avoid him if you can."

The rest of the class flew by, and luckily Jun wasn't called to fight again. Once class ended and the students started to file out of the arena, Jun, backed by her friends, even Aya, tracked down the Sergeant so that Jun could explain what happened with the professor.

"I'll handle it," the Sergeant said with a tone of finality after Jun finished telling him about Professor Wendel. "You're dismissed students, go get some dinner."

The weeks passed by in a blur of training and classes. Jun's Practical Spellcasting class continued to meet with the Sergeant's other section every other class where she sparred against new opponents. She still saw Professor Wendel overseeing fights, but she didn't have him overseeing her again. She wished she didn't have to see the creepy man, but luckily she never got close to him and only ever saw him from afar.

She still hadn't found what felt like the right time to talk to Aya about what she said and how it made her feel, but the awkwardness slowly faded and Jun kept pushing it off. It was in the past, and she didn't want to make things awkward again by dragging it back up. Unresolved or not, the fading awkwardness was progress, and it wasn't the only progress she'd made.

Her stats and levels over the weeks ballooned under all the training and constant fighting, as did her skills. Laying in bed looking over her status page for the first time in what felt like forever, Jun couldn't help but smile. Whatever else happened, at least it was proof that she was growing.

Name:

Jun

Titles:

[COLLAPSED]

Level:

137 (Iron Rank)

Race:

Human (Balance)

Gender:

Female

Mana:

1565/1565

Core Status: (HIDDEN)

Stable (Tier 1)

Stats:

MIND - 185 (+55)

CON - 179 (+42)

STR - 151 (+36)

AGI - 191 (+44)

DEX - 204 (+58)

CHA - 180 (+40)

SPR - 313 (+107)

Traits:

(5/5) [COLLAPSED]

Skills:

[Karma Manipulation] (Novice 12) (+8)

[Body Cleansing] (Apprentice 3) (+2)

[Mental Resistance] (Apprentice 1) (+6)

[Soul Sealing] (Novice 6) (+7)

[Purging Missile] (Initiate 1) (+1)

[Swarming Barrier] (Initiate 19) (+4)

[Multi Casting] (initiate 8) (+3)

[Unarmed Combat] (Novice 10) (+2)

[Pain Resistance] (Apprentice 1) (+4)

[Unarmed Combat] (Novice 14) (+4)

[Basic Sword] (Apprentice 2) (+7)

[Basic Shield] (Apprentice 5) (+5)

[Soul Weapon Formation] (Unique)

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.