Overlap

The next day, Reagan came to class.

Everyone stood together in a group.

『The casters have completed their mana shield training?』[Reagan]

On Marn, Katherin, and Sophia was a transparent film of mana.

『Okay. Good. And the physical group?』[Reagan]

He looked at them as if he was expecting a poor performance.

They raised their hand up facing Reagan, and the circle appeared.

『...What the? Who taught you this?!』[Reagan]

He was very alarmed when he saw this.

『Nova did. He said that he saw your method and copied it.』[Thomas]

『...You're kidding?』[Reagan]

『...Nope.』[Anastasia]

He took a moment before he sighed.

『...Alright. I'll teach you all the modifier for the mana shield first.』[Reagan]

He raised up his own mana shield.

『The modifier will allow you to harden the overall density of your shield. This is makes you spend a large quantity of mana less in order to maintain your shield, or use the same amount to significantly strengthen your shield.』[Reagan]

Everyone was significantly surprised when Reagan talked about this modifier without any drawbacks.

『Woah! Why don't they teach everyone that, Reagan?』[Marn]

Once Reagan was done talking, he gave Marn a strange look.

『...They do. What do you think is happening right now?』[Reagan]

『...Oh.』[Marn]

He shut himself up.

『Anyway, to apply the modifier into your shield, you have to imagine a tight weave of mana strands inside of your shield.』[Reagan]

『Mana strands?』[Katherin]

『Mana strands are one of the ways mana can form. Mana is often thought of as a gas or something that cannot come into contact with anything, but the truth is that it is in its own category. After all, mana can be turned into solids, liquids, even gas and plasma.』[Reagan]

He summoned multiple pillars of blue semi-translucent spirals.

『These things are what you want to imagine when using this modifier. The augment's name is Overlap.』[Reagan]

The pillars suddenly pulled together and began to merge, forming a much more visible pillar.

『Now, they fuse into one strand. Their existence overlaps on each other, thus the name.』[Reagan]

He then formed a shield with it that took on the color of the pillar.

『Okay. That's all. Just overlap shields until its stronger. Scientifically, think of it as the dispersion of weight on a wide surface. Assume that the surfaces exist on multiple planes, like a heavy weight on 1 tiny surface that is reinforced over and over until it's unbreakable and unshakable.』[Reagan]

He then began to walk away and snap his fingers.

A gate immediately appeared in front of him.

『Alright. See you when you all finish.』[Reagan]

He faded away.

『...Can't be too bad, right?』[Marn]

...

Marn was so wrong, it wasn't even funny.

After a full week, their shields hadn't even begun to exhibit signs of merging.

『...This is not great.』[Jade]

『No kidding! How are you supposed to make them into strands and weave them together into one?』[Katherin]

Even when Nova asked Reischneid he got a vague answer.

『Oh. You just have to kinda feel it. Like, you imagine conjuring a membrane or something for the normal one, right?』[Reischneid]

Reischneid then moved his finger around.

『You push the membranes together, and they become a thicker membrane!』[Reischneid]

He pushed an invisible membrane together until it became visible.

Nova was sitting in the middle of training with the others.

He was pushing the membrane forward, in an attempt to get them to fuse together.

『That twisting thing really doesn't work..』[Marn]

He had been weaving a line of mana for a while now.

It twisted and turned, but wouldn't fuse together.

『AHHHHHH! I can't take this anymore! Why can't I just practice wave instead?!』[Thomas]

He quickly formed a magical circle before he punched straight into it, breaking it.

『Huh?』[Thomas]

He looked up, and saw that Nova was standing in the way of his projectile.

Nova was fiddling with a second layer of mana, and wasn't paying attention.

『Nova!』[Jade]

『Get out of the way!』[Thomas]

『Huh?』[Nova]

He looked up and saw the projectile come flying toward him.

『HUH?!』[Nova]

He raised the two layer shield up to the projectile and blocked it.

『Guh..』[Nova]

Despite blocking it with his shield, he had felt an impact similar to Anastasia's attacks.

However, looking at the shield, it wasn't broken at all.

Instead, it was perfectly fine.

『Wait. Thomas! Can you hit my shield again?!』[Nova]

He looked a little confused.

『Huh? Uh… I guess.』[Thomas]

He came over and smacked Nova's shield, causing it to suddenly flash blue.

『...Oh my god.』[Nova]

Thomas along with the rest of the class seemed to be confused.

『What is it? Did you find something out?』[Jade]

Nova nodded.

『Did you ever think that Reagan's shield was blue just because his mana was so much denser than ours?』[Nova]

『....』

The class went completely silent.

『...Can you hit my shield?』[Anastasia]

Nova nodded, before he walked over to her and landed a solid strike on her shield, breaking it.

『...Okay.』[Anastasia]

She formed another one.

『Do it with a little more strength?』[Anastasia]

He punched it, but it didn't even crack.

『...Oh my god.』[Thomas]

Marn looked a little irritated.

『So.. This entire time, we had the thing down pat, but because it wasn't blue, we wasted an entire week on it?!』[Marn]

Even Katherin was desolate.

『...All that time. Gone to waste...』[Katherin]

Jade just shrugged it off.

『Oh well. Training is training. Let's go get Reagan.』[Jade]

Nova however, sat there.

Motionless.

『...I'm going to murder Reagan.』[Nova]