65 Self Study?

The next day, they all appeared in class normally.

『Morning!』[Nova]

『Hey! What's up?』[Thomas]

『Good morning.』[Anastasia]

『Hi Nova!』[Katherin]

『Morning!』[Jenny]

『Hello.』[Jade]

『...』[Sophia]

Marn sat with his face down in the corner of the room silently.

Nova knew why he was sitting there.

He felt sorry for Marn, but just went to his desk.

Moments later, Reagan walked into the class.

『Hey there. Today we're gonna be picking up new spells. Do you all know mana shield yet? Raise your hand if you do.』[Reagan]

Nova, Anastasia, Thomas and Jade raised their hands.

『Oh. More than I expected. Okay. 』[Reagan]

He began to draw on the board.

『So, most of you have some type of low mana cost attack spell, right? Please raise your hand if you do.』[Reagan]

This time, everyone but those who raised their hands previously raised their hands.

『...Okay. So this basically means that the physical attackers have no low cost, high range attack. And the casters don't have any defense...』[Reagan]

He sighed and shook his head.

『Okay. We're gonna build on those weaknesses.』[Reagan]

He drew a complicated magical circle with a scale in the middle.

『...Isn't this a bit too complicated, Reagan?』[Thomas]

Reagan nodded his head.

『...You aren't even gonna lie about it?』[Thomas]

『This is a first circle spell. So far, you've only learned Bind and Weapon Formation. Those are zero circle spells, spells that have easy circles, low mana cost, and fast if not instant speed.』[Reagan]

Marn pried his face off of the desk and was back to normal.

『So.. How long do we have to finish this?』[Marn]

『Hmm… A month?』[Reagan]

『Really?! Then, isn't this gonna be a cinch?!』[Jenny]

Reagan let out a sound.

『Pfft.』[Reagan]

This shut down any trace of excitement in the class.

『Do you see how complicated this circle is?』[Reagan]

Upon further inspection, the circle had small details inside of the lining.

『What the?! Do we need to draw those too?』[Jenny]

『Yeah. You can start off without them.』[Reagan]

He then drew another magical circle with a shield on the inside.

『There's also this one. The casters will follow instruction from me to form a mana shield before we apply this augment.』[Reagan]

『Augment?』[Marn]

Reagan nodded.

『Some spells have something called an augment or a modifier. These apply different effects and more to the spell. For example, Nova's main modifier on his shield is a flinging one, with a sub mana dispersion effect.』[Reagan]

『So, what does that mean?』[Sophia]

『If you hit him, he can use a portion of the shield to fling you away. If you damage his shield too much, it'll break and he can't fling you, however. His sub effect just makes the mana disperse when in contact with his shield.』[Reagan]

『Are any of those first circle?』[Nova]

『No. Didn't they teach you that?』[Reagan]

Nova shook his head.

Oswald and Sarena had covered practical information he wouldn't learn in school first, except for when he needed information on something.

『Eh. So, the reason why you have a month is because you have to learn to master this technique while training all the other things I've taught you.』[Reagan]

『Huh?!』[Nova]

Nova suddenly thought of the bind spell that he and the others barely use.

『...You have been practicing, right?』[Reagan]

….

They were in the middle of the training field again.

『Okay. This first spell is called "Wave".』[Reagan]

He formed a circle almost instantly.

『The effect of the spell is force transmission. This essentially means that whatever damage you inflict upon this spell will be fired as a projectile.』[Reagan]

『So this spell is really good for physical attackers, right?』[Jenny]

Reagan nodded his head and continued talking.

『This spell can also be used with other spells. That is why the mages will have to learn this spell as well.』[Reagan]

Reagan then clapped his hands together.

The imprint of the magical circle brightly appeared in the ground.

『Anyone who cannot form a proper mana shield, follow me.』[Reagan]

He walked them off into the distance.

『Okay! Let's do this, guys!』[Thomas]

『Wait… Reagan never demonstrated the spell!』[Nova]

Jade walked up to the floating magic circle and punched it.

『Huh?!』[Thomas]

Jade made contact with the circle, and it slowly began to shake.

『Boom.』[Jade]

A moment later, it shattered and a trail of mana streaked out and caused an explosion a distance away.

『Woah! Jade! How'd you know?!』[Thomas]

Jade raised her eyebrow at him.

『...Transfers force?���[Jade]

Thomas shut himself up.

Nova tried to replicate the shape of the mana.

After a few minutes of watching him, he had finally formed the circle, causing it to glow a bright blue.

Upon further inspection, it was a little shoddy and sloppy.

The lines for the circle were very messy, the intricate parts were either not present or drawn well, and the circle seemed as if it could fall apart at any moment.

『...This took you like 10 minutes to make.』[Thomas]

Nova thought he did a pretty good job.

『And you can do better?』[Nova]

Nova hit the floating circle, and it shook before shattering and shooting out a much weaker projectile than Jade's.

The projectile flew out feebly before it sank from gravity and made a small cloud of dust.

『...Yeah. Okay. This is a lot harder than it looks.』[Nova]

Thomas took the next shot.

『Haha! Check this out, guys! I'm gonna do it first try!』[Thomas]

He began to form a circle with his fingers at a breakneck pace.

The circle was extremely detailed, almost resembling Reagan's circle at a 1 to 1 scaling.

『..What?! There's no way! Thomas, shouldn't you be a caster with this kind of talent?!』[Nova]

Jade nodded her head.

『..Agreed.』[Jade]

『Hah! What's the fun of sitting in the back and casting?!』[Thomas]

He finished up the circle in a few seconds in total.

However…

When he finished the drawing stage of the circle, he took a few steps away from it.

The moment he did this, it began to fall apart before it dissolved.

It was a dull grayish blue color, and it hadn't shined like Nova's did.

『Huh?!』[Thomas]

Thomas stared in disbelief, but Nova could instantly tell the problem.

『...Your mana was unable to keep up.』[Nova]

The 3 of them looked at Nova, not expecting any answer for Thomas' circle breaking so suddenly.

However, since the start, Nova had kept that in mind.

One of the many ways you can improve your mana is improving the speed at which it circulates throughout your body.

『Do you remember how to check your stats on the student ID?』[Nova]

Thomas nodded and took out his student ID to check.

A few second later, he started to read off the information in there.

『450 units of mana. 0.8 mana speed and 1.2 mana density.』[Thomas]

The class had been catching up to Nova and Anastasia's huge amount of mana slowly.

『That means that the speed of your mana wasn't able to keep up, so the minimum amount of mana hadn't flowed into the circle.』[Nova]

Thomas had a semi-confused face.

『So, I need to do it more slowly?』[Thomas]

Nova shook his head.

『You need to either make your mana flow faster or just wait and fill the circle with more mana.』[Nova]

Thomas tried to form the circle again, then put his hand out to it, pouring out his mana into the circle.

After some time, it began to shine a brilliant blue.

He moved his hand away, and it didn't shatter.

Then, he hit it, causing a projectile similar to Jade's to come flying out.

They stared at it, dumbfounded at how well it worked.

『Wait. Why do you know this? Shouldn't you be learning the same material as us?』[Thomas]

Nova thought of Reischneid teaching him all of the basics of this.

However… he just shrugged and gave them a strange look.

『Self study?』[Nova]