3 Contractor (2)

I said strongly disapproving.

"No-no you want to do experiments on me and don't try to hide it you suck at it… and seriously am not a guinea pig. Master said he will send me to learn magic not to be someone's test subject…"

"Ah don't worry about that didn't you notice the change in your magic flux?" Osfor said.

"Huh what do you mean? Euh now that you mention it, I can pull more mana from the sword!"

"Yes thank god… it would have been awful if something bad happened after I gave you the prism stone"

"You lost me what are you talking about sensei?" I said with a look that demanded an explanation.

"Well to tell you the truth. That prism stone a rare item that purifies the mana circuits, it's really expensive…about a couple million Crona but don't worry about that its the least I could do…"

Osfor began to avert his eyes from Asura's and began to sweat quite a lot while fidgeting a bit…

"Sensei… what-Did-YOU-DO?"

I started walking toward Osfor bit by bit while releasing a pressure aura.

"I Mean you didn't tell me you were a contractor and, luckily, it all worked out you don't need to be mad he-he…."

While gulping down Osfor began to walk back trying to make a distance from Asura.

"I am not going to repeat myself what the hell did you do?"

This time my eye glowed in a deep gold shining even behind the eye patch I wore. The pressure that was exerted before was nothing like the one being released right now. A wave of heat enveloped the perimeter and Osfor who took the full brunt of it flinched a bit.

"Okay, Okay calm down… I should have probably verified with you about your condition before presenting the prism stone. That thing while clearing away impurities it speeds the growth of mana veins it was going to boost the basic capacity of the mana you can hold within you and balance it out to your current age instead of a 5 year Old's circuit that you are currently harboring. What I didn't take in consideration was the fact that you were a contractor…"

"What do you mean?"

"Well…I thought that you had some sort of conversion done on your body to suppress the evolvement of your mana on the expense of extending your life expectancy I wanted to give you the prism stone so that it opens unnatural mana veins so that your already shortened lifespan can get a boost … this, in theory, should have given you a couple more years to live but what I didn't know that you were not taking mana from within but you were getting supplements of it from an external source via your weapon…I found it weird that you were still alive after all those years but now I understand why…" Osfor said explicitly.

I found it disturbing that the number of strange words to me seemed to have formed a sentence and Osfor was saying it…in short I understood nothing from what he was saying so I said.

"ENGLISH PLEASE I can't seem to understand anything of what you were saying Oh my god my head is starting to hurt."

"… Long story short. You have a frozen mana circuit, I tried to unfreeze it by making mana flow from different unnatural veins. Veins that you won't open while growing up, but because your body cannot use its mana but have to use the demons' mana what happened is that those new veins will now be used as a battery of some sort it will help you charge them and keep mana within you for a longer period"

"Huh… isn't that a good thing?"

"… Those veins will only be charged by the demon's mana, not your body's… which will make his influence on you much stronger… I fear I just gave the demon more leeway into controlling your body…"

"Huh is that all… I thought that you messed up on something crucial…for the magic part I don't care and for your information what you did will not change my life force. Hell, I think I got even a bit stronger. I am managing to suppress the demonic presence with my spiritual energy. As long the ratio of my spiritual energy is stronger than my current mana I will not succumb to the demon.

But as you may have noticed that will not work forever I barely have a few years to live now and I am planning to take full advantage of it. The demon can no longer halt the advancement of the death curse and he will be more than glad to have my corpse once I die from it. So getting him to prolong the contract is not a possibility."

"So your contract is a halting of your mana circuit so that the curse cannot advance yet at the same time you are taking advantage of the demon's mana which is transmitted via the sword to you. I wonder what happens when you are away from your sword for a prolonged period and if you exert a lot of magic from your body…wait hang on a second… you used my S class magic… that spell will easily cost Over 9000 mana unit you didn't have your sword so how come the curse didn't activate?"

"Now that you mention it… I don't know…"

"This needs more tests… in the meantime how many units can you pull from that sword right now?"

'Units what is he talking about? Probably a system to calculate magic energy.' I said

"Oh…I have no idea I am new to this measurement system of yours"

"Oh wait a second…"

Osfor ran back to his cabin and brought what seemed like a wristwatch

"Put this on and let me see the result you got," he said expectantly.

I didn't question him and placed the item on his wrist. After a few seconds, it showed a number

"It says 1600 MU"

"…that is impossible…I mean if it shows that and you said that you just felt your power rising after the prism stone addition… this means that your Mana units were even lower than this, giving the opening of a new path for the mana to circulate this is obvious but… how were you able to cast an S class magic with this low Mu… if you had your sword with you I might have considered that it was the demon's doing but you didn't have it… meaning that you were able to use external mana conversion…that's it. The secret ability of that eye… Mana Flux!!!"

"External mana? What do you mean …teacher in all my life I never got to process this many informations at once can u explain a bit more slowly?"

"You're right you're right. That eye of yours was suspected to have the ability to suck the mana from outside the body it could process pure mana which is lethal to any mage in its raw form and convert it into the body of the host… a truly frightening thing you are holding which is one more reason that you must keep this one a secret even more so than the fact that you are a contractor."

After a clap of his hands, Osfor adds

"Well then now that you have more mana to spare why don't I teach you a bit about magic cladding?"

"Magic what???"

"Magic Clad or Magic Armament. It's a type of booster that helps the body to move and execute what could be impossible for a human body in a rather easy way. The idea is to coat the body in a thin layer of sustainable magic that will split the pressure and weight that should normally affect the body and absorb some external effects. This layer should be very thin yet as sturdy as it can get. The point is to make the layer do the hard work while your body moves within it negating most of the stress."

I dumbly said.

"You mean like a magical power suit?"

"Exactly. an invisible yet very thin one and much stronger than metallic power suits. Tell me Asura-kun what is the maximum weight you can carry without spiritual buffs?"

"… It should be about 400kg… why?"

A frightening number that is and the look on Osfor changed accordingly he was surprised but even that was within his calculation because he knew that Asura trained under the most vicious of the seven heavenly demons of Alsa, Ainz Greetman.

"Then how about after using your spiritual buffs…"

"After a full buff, I can manage to hold about 4 to 5 tons but…"Asura

Asura hesitated a moment before he added.

"I have yet to see the full limit because I need to reserve more than 40% of my spiritual energy to keep the curse from activating … as the demon is only supplying me with mana and stopping my natural mana veins from growing, yet every time I take mana from him the demonic aura is constantly entering my body and I need a huge amount of spiritual power to suppress and contain it, having a lot of mana within my body will activate the curse while having low spiritual energy will ease the hold of the demon on my body. Normally the mana boost I got from the prism stone should be dangerous but apparently, I am still perfectly fine."

"…So the more mana in your body the riskier it gets… and the less spiritual energy you have the worse your situation gets…ah in this is probably why you couldn't go full power vs Mikado…complicated, your situation is very delicate hmm…well it doesn't matter because you have the Eye of the Wise. I think that in theory if you use it to absorb natural mana from your surrounding yet at the same time using it instantly without storing it in your body you will be fine… in theory that is, good this helps with the magic clad training more than I could hope for"

"What do you mean? "

"well I can't help you with controlling the demonic energy because I never studied a Contractor but with time I might have ideas on how to make you benefit more of your unused power, however, if it's about magic I think that using the Eye of the Wise I can somehow make you stronger. "

"Hmm, and how are you going to do that sensei?"

"Well first off let's start with basic cladding, it is similar to magic writing yet a bit different, while gathering energy in your finger then releasing it to write, Magic clad is used to condense and maintain that energy on a body part strengthening it. Try it"

I then started to imitate the same thing I did when I was with Shiki and the rest, after concentrating I gathered mana on my index finger and maintained it. A blue hue started emitting from my finger but because I did not release it my finger started throbbing a bit then hating up. The blue colored light changed to a faint azure then changed to a black purple.

Interested by what happened Osfor said.

"Now use two fingers."

I concentrated a bit and the glow transferred to my middle finger

"Now your entire hand, then clad your arm until your elbow."

I began to sweat a bit after moving the purplish aura until it reached my elbow.

"…This is a bit tiresome I don't think I can keep this up for a long time."

"Yeah, I know. But try not to pull mana from your sword and use only your natural mana. Now that you have access to three different types of mana you should master all of them the mana from your sword is rich but it is risky as your body is susceptible to the demon's influence, the mana from your body is non-sufficient because you lack the veins and the mana from nature is a bit complicated to use we will start on that one after you experience your first magic poisoning"

"Huh, magic poisoning that sounds dangerous… huff… guhhhhh"

Before I could finish my sentence my hand started showing blood veins. The aura started to dim and I could feel a strong pulse on my right arm. I dropped on my knees holding my right arm in agony.

"What the hell is this? Guhaaaa…"

"Here bite on this."

Osfor threw me a black plume like fruit.

"Ugh, it's bitter…"

Biting on it my face started lightening up. My right arm turned back to normal.

"Hmm, you have a bad case of incomplete combustion… your body cannot fully transform the mana you use, thus the excess mana turns back and contaminant your bloodstreams. Before you can fully use mana clad, you need to overcome this hurdle. Let take a look at that processor on your hand."

I handed it to him while still feeling the pain from before.

"… this is bad your case is worse than that girl… but maybe this is because you are just beginning to use magic, this might change… you have a 70% rebound meaning that your blood will receive that sum every time you use a spell. that is dangerous, using high grad spells will surely kill you"

"But didn't you just say that I used an S grad spell earlier?"

"You did but that was because your eye managed the mana inside your body and fully exploited it leaving nothing to cause a rebound. That was caused unnaturally, you need to know how to control your mana and use most of it. A good mage can have a 15% rebound as max some people even have 0 rebounds but they're rare."

"What is your rebound count Osfor sensei?"

"Ah, you're interested in this old fart hehe… not to brag but my rebound count is 0%."

"Amazing… it's going to be hard to reach where you stand sensei but I'll try my best…"

"That what I want to hear. Now I believe we have a problem, your low MU means that you can't use magic clad for prolonged periods of time so start by cladding just your finger until you get the hang of it and until you rebound is less than 50% then move to other body parts this should take about two weeks until you master this."

"Two weeks!! That is a lot of time how am I going to attend classes…Won't there be a problem with the school administration?"

"No, No you are in my care. Although I will have to leave for a few days and you will have to develop yourself alone for some time I will come back and teach you what you need for the exams.

But the practical tests you need a lot of training to be efficient. I will leave a crystal orb linked to the school library this should give you access to all subject and information regarding magic and the history of the continents it should keep you occupied and relieve boredom."

"You mean I will be alone in this forest…"

"Well technically yes but I will be back in a few days. Like I told you I need to get some information about that eye of yours and how it can harvest raw mana, this type of information is highly classified and it is not available to the public to view.

I will have to go to the capital's library and look through the classified archives I believe they will let me in considering my status hehe"

As always a creepy smile painted on the teacher's face who was starting to cast his teleportation spell.

He noticed again the gathering of mana around Asura's eye but yet again decided to remain silent.

A few moments after I was left in the darkened forest accompanying me was the sound of cracking from the enflamed lumber and the hushed sound of insects. But I was not one to panic in this situation I went through a hell of a lot worse than this with Master. this should be easier than a walk in the park is what I thought.