20 Chapter 20: A Sudden Windfall

Villin clutched his head as he grimaced in pain. He felt like his brain was taken out of his head, thrown onto the floor, stomped on a few times, and then put back inside of his head.

A bit of time passed before he remembered what had happened. He had been careless, he didn't even consider Roland's saved spells at all! Since he had yet to really use that function himself, he had forgotten it at that point when everything was so chaotic.

A minute must have passed before the headache subsided enough for Villin to not fear opening his eyes. When he opened his eyes he saw a familiar room. There were windows not far away from him which the moon was shining through and comfortable seats spread around the class.

Standing next to him was professor Messen, the teacher of 'studies of the web'.

"Professor, what happened?" even though Villin knew what happened before he fainted he didn't know if anything happened after that.

"Welcome back Villin. You were attacked by your fellow student Roland Heartgrieve. He cast a rather powerful spell at you point-blank causing you to nearly die. He has been dealt with for the time being. I know you must be somewhat confused but I wanted to ask you, what did you do when he cast his spell at you? The spell is supposed to have some anti-healing properties yet even the healing spell of a first-grade student managed to help you escape death."

Villin looked confused for a moment before trying to recall that moment, when he remembered properly he simply replied.

"When he stood there with his wand aiming at my forehead I could feel an immense amount of danger. Since there was no time I tried to use wandless magic to stop Roland's spell but I failed. When I expelled my magic power out of my forehead I lost control of it nearly immediately and the spell seemed to go straight through." Villin said trying to get his bearings again.

The professor suddenly seemed enlightened "Right that must be how you know Amelia Blackwood, she must've taught you how to use wandless magic in order to play Cut and Crease." the professor nodded "Then it seemed like she saved your life in more than one way. Even though you are right in that the bit of magic power you could control wasn't sufficient to weaken the actual spell, it was enough to stop its anti-healing property which was added later."

Villin didn't fully understand his words but he still nodded. It was then that he realized his earlier words. "How do you mean Amelia saved my life in more than one way? Did she help me when I was out?"

"Yes Villin, she was on the scene almost immediately, if she wasn't there there is a definite possibility I wouldn't have been on time to save you. Talking about luck, your brain didn't get damaged in any way so there is no need for further treatment. You will be able to go to class as expected. One could even say that this encounter was somewhat fortunate as it made you quite a bit richer."

Villin looked confused for a moment and so the professor pointed at his pocket. When Villin took his crystal holder out he was momentarily stunned by the number displayed. It displayed two-thousand seven-hundred and fifty. This astronomical number instantly stumped Villin, hell it even caused his head to hurt more.

"When a rule is broken half of the fine goes toward the affected person or persons. He had to pay five-thousand and five-hundred magic crystals on his crimes committed against you, this concludes the maximum of two-thousand that parents can give to their children and his savings from the last year. It is unlikely that he will bother you again since he is now penniless."

Villin's eyes widened at this revelation. These magic crystals were actually his! Even though he knew it wouldn't be smart to get ten spell blueprints now and study them all at once, it did give him a lot of room to breathe.

His headache seemed to have disappeared as he started thinking of all the things he could do with these crystals.

"Well, now that it is clear you are okay and the situation has been explained, it seems like it's time for you to go back to your room, isn't it?"

The kind professor arched one of his eyebrows as Villin got out of his train of thought somewhat stumped. He nodded before getting off of what he now noticed was the teacher's desk. Just as he was about to leave he realized something and returned the paper this teacher had given him last time.

"I have also decided not to use incantations so I have no need for this. Thank you for saving my life and lending this to me!"

Villin bowed before actually leaving. This time there was nobody in the halls and so he quickly returned to his room, it was then that he realized it was five in the morning.

Normally he slept until eight but he really didn't feel tired anymore, his headache had also subsided. For a bit, he didn't know if he felt happy or terrified. After all, he had almost died!

He calmed himself down by doing some basic fitness. After he did this he reached into his mind, finding the nodes required for reverto. The nodes required for this one were right in the middle of his web, one of the nodes was just next to the middle, where he had awakened his first node ever.

He started awakening nodes and by the time he ran out of magic power he had managed to awaken seven out of the nine required magic nodes. Each of the nodes fought back but Villin had grown better at controlling his magic power. Whenever the node attacked, he isolated the magic power it sent out and annihilated it by pressuring it heavily from three sides. Then it would instinctively try to escape the encirclement which allowed Villin to easily whittle it down while it was escaping, losing a minimum amount of magic power himself.

He knew he would be able to get all the nodes awakened before class so that wasn't a problem. He did hope he would also be able to cast the spell though as this was rather uncertain.

Now that he didn't have enough magic power to spare for practice and it was only six o'clock in the morning, Villin headed toward the library. He asked to read in the library for two hours and after paying twenty magic crystals he started reading.

He had already decided on the topic of today. It would be on magic arrays. Even though the textbook on magic arrays was without a doubt the most valuable book he had ever read, it didn't allow him to actually learn magic arrays in a short period of time. The book would probably be more fitting as a rune-magic textbook than anything else.

It was only now he realized how much his comprehension had improved after becoming a mage. After all his pace in the enchanting and magic arrays textbooks was frighteningly slow. One of them seemed to have a secret message, one he was now sure he didn't have to know for the classes. The other was extremely detailed and profound explaining everything about each individual line in a magic array, something that you had to understand properly and not just remember.

In the two hours he spent here he had read over two-dozen books about magic arrays, he also felt that with the more basic knowledge about arrays he had, reading the profound textbook would go a bit quicker.

After this, he awakened the final two nodes required for the reverto spell, and once this was also done he headed toward the first class of today. 'Wandless Magic'. After this, he would have the final basic class he had yet to have which was 'Combat Classes' before finishing up with his first optional class 'Enchanting' in which he would be taught with class A.