Chapter 16 - A pat

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In the vice-principal's office, a teacher was making his report, "He's inapt for magic. He has determination, but his body can't keep up. If he still wishes to study magic, then he should be a researcher."

The old man in front of him didn't say anything. With his hand on his chin, he pondered, "This can't be..."

"What can't be?" the male teacher inquired, only to be told not to worry.

"You are dismissed. You've done well," the teacher dismissed him.

After a few minutes of silence, he walked toward the bookshelf behind him and picked a book. The bookshelf then opened in two as a passage opened to him.

He walked into a library filled with old books and parchments. He headed deeper and deeper until he was in front of a small table.

On it were documents and a book, a weird book...

He picked up one of the documents. On it were countless pieces of information, but what was more prominent was the name Mortimer Bloodborne...

...

Dante, in his room, was experimenting with his mana. Iris, while working on him, had guided him on his mana mastery.

What felt like nothing before now felt easy. So easy that he and his teacher started doubting if he really was a novice.

For now, he was casting water into a bucket. They had discovered that his skill made mana stay indefinitely. His still-existing severed limbs were in her lab.

As water came out in front of his hand, it started getting colder and colder. But no matter how much he tried, he couldn't replicate Sylph's ice spears.

In swordsmanship class, he had been warned not to use his mana to enhance his muscles, not even to pour mana into any part of his body.

But curiosity got the best of him. Because of this, he was conjuring water in a bucket to wipe all the blood-covered floor.

He had tried to enhance his arm. At first, it felt somewhat more powerful, but then, as he poured more mana into it, his veins exploded.

This was but a small scratch compared to what he was subjected to. He didn't look concerned at all, and with his blood arm, he grabbed a small cane and crushed it without much difficulty.

Everyone would have thought that he would stop there, but he didn't. He started pouring all his mana and tried to punch the training mannequins when his whole arm exploded.

Bits of flesh covered the whole training room...

He hadn't thought about what would happen if he didn't have any mana. So, with his mana slowly regenerating, he started conjuring water to clean the fleshy mess.

Half an hour later, he could be seen sitting on his sofa, casting spell after spell to familiarize himself with the mana.

He didn't really care about the water falling on his floor or sofa, as it would disappear after a while.

Next to him was a snake-like red tendril. It was playing around with the water, like a cat with a cotton ball.

Dante looked at it. "What can you do?" as he put his head on his arms and slowly fell asleep. "I wonder why this body was laying on the ground when I transmigrated..."

...

When he woke up, he felt something heavy on his chest. When he looked at it, it was the puppy Iris raised.

"What are you doing here?" I tiredly asked.

It just looked at me and tilted its head to the side, as if asking if I was dumb. It then hit my calf with its nose.

"The fuck do you think I am? A meat grinder?" I then threw the dog to the side. When I looked outside my window, I saw that it was nighttime.

Heading to the kitchen, my stomach grumbled. I started cooking something. After a while, I sat down and ate peacefully.

I wanted to sleep more, but I had fallen asleep in the middle of the day, so it was impossible. Preparing to train my spell casting, I felt something chew my thigh.

When I looked down, I saw the pup not trying to eat, but more like trying to bring me somewhere.

As if understanding my thoughts, it started walking the dark corridors of the academy. I had never seen such a busy place be this empty and eerie.

I wonder how easily an assassin would slaughter a few students in their sleep. Maybe there is something I'm not aware of.

Before long, we reached Iris's office. The door, like always, opened on its own. I didn't look for her as I just walked toward the door leading to the basement.

"Teacher, sleep is extremely important for a human," I asked the purple-haired woman with dark circles under her eyes.

"What do you mean I didn't sleep? I clearly slept!" The teacher tried to rebuke.

"Oh? But I didn't say you hadn't slept, did I?" A small smile appeared on my face.

"Rahh, just shut up already and come here." On the desk, there was a hand. All kinds of magic tools were hanging around it like those movies with deranged and psycho doctors.

"What do you think?" She eagerly asked me, as if waiting to be praised.

Does she have a praise kink? When I looked at the severed hand, I could see blue lines on it.

"I've been working on this for the whole day and night. As he has no affinity, I can do whatever I want without rejection." She thought.

As if answering her thoughts, Dante said, "You're skilled at drawing well, my hand now looks cool. Thank you."

I then tried to pat her head. But she grabbed my hand and asked in cold voice, "What do you think you're doing?"

Before I could make heads of it, I was thrown against a wall because of the explosion of a fireball.

The air in my lungs left my lungs, and I started choking a little, but not for long. "Teacher, that's not really kind of—"

I was cut off mid-sentence as she rebuked, "What were you just trying to do ?" Oh, so that was the problem.

I just listened to the voice in my head and tried pat her without even thinking about it. It was, however, super pleasing to see her slightly blushed face. Worth breaking a rib or two.

"Teacher, that's not very moral of you to hurt your student like this. I broke some ribs." I spoke in a sarcastic voice.

"Shut up. If it wasn't for your affinity being rare, I would have just murdered you." She retorted in a somewhat angry voice, which made her look even cuter.

"Anyway, what's up with the painting?"

"It's not a painting, you moron. It's engraved runes. They serve as a word language. You can see it as an automatisms. If you stand in front of your room's door, it's automated to recognize you and open." She explained.

"Ohh, so it's like programming a prompt." My eyes shone brightly with interest, which was quickly killed by one sentence.

"What's a prompt?"

"Ah, haha... it's my way of talking about the runic language. That's why I didn't understand you at first. Anyway, what does it do?" I tried to change the conversation.

"I discovered that as you don't have an affinity, your body doesn't reject anything. Think of it as those blood types that can accommodate every blood type. With this in mind, and the fact that you just began your magic casting training, I put something in it."

"Want to try that out?" She grinned as she grabbed the hand and threw it at me.

When I tried to grab it, my hand fell off, a sharp ice blade next to what used to be my hand.

"..."

"Hahaha! Your face is so funny!" She grabbed her belly and erratically laughed at her morbid joke.

As if apologizing, the runic hand floated toward me, then toward my wound. Knowing what to do, small tendrils started sprouting from my arm's flesh and attached it.

After a few seconds, it was as good as new. I clutched my hand several times before making a fist and throwing it toward the wall. It, of course, made a cracking sound, but compared to my old hand, it was much more sturdy.

Before I could react, I heard a whistling sound and, on reflex, put my hand toward my face.

The wind blade then disappeared as the blue runes on my hand turned red.

"What the...?" Confused, I looked at my teacher, whose smile grew wide and her nose turned toward the sky, proud.

"Try to pour mana into it now." She asked me. I didn't know her temper too well, so instead of aiming at her, I aimed at the poor wall.

whistle clang!

The blade made the same whistling sound and hit the wall with a metallic sound. "So the wall was steel all along..."

"You idiot! You're more impressed by a steel wall than one of my greatest inventions!" She then hit my head.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. Come here, let me pat you." I then started walking toward her. She then started blushing, and I felt something, the ground precisely...

An ice blade had cut one of my feet...

"Teacher, you should not normalize violence like this. It's unhealthy." I asked in a monotonous voice, as if nothing had happened to me.

I picked up my leg and, like with the hand, easily reattached it. This wasn't even bothering me anymore, clearly affirming my mental disorder.

It had been a while since I had seen that other me with red eyes... Maybe I shouldn't jinx it. I don't know what could happen.

"So what do you think?" She asked me.

"It's extremely incredible. However, it takes my flesh to make things..." I criticized.

We then continued our morbid experiments, my feeling of sleep having disappeared.

After a few hours, Iris was fast asleep. She had maybe been so excited that she couldn't sleep. It was Sunday, so she wouldn't have to worry about lessons.

Before I left the basement, I saw her sleeping on her table. Over it were countless incomprehensible research documents.

I just put a cover on her and headed toward my room

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