Mana Theory(3)

A few minutes passed since Liz asked us to show her our best spells. One by one, cadets stepped forward and displayed their magical abilities.

Since most of them were young lords or young ladies of prestigious families, their spells were quite good, to say the least.

I turned my gaze to the right and glanced at the cadets patiently sitting in their seats.

They were the bunch who had not learned any spells yet. That indicated that they all belonged to common families.

While sweeping my glance across them, my eyes stopped at one particular face.

It was a handsomely chiseled face of a boy with dark hair and pretty scarlet eyes. That boy was peculiar in more ways than one. Hugh Jass.

Even if he had a gift related to handguns, one had to have excellent mana control to be able to proficiently use firearms such as handguns. So I had expected him to know a few basic spells but it seems he didn't know any. I guess it is because he hailed from a commoner family.

Only if the nobles didn't monopolize knowledge about magic then these commoners would be able to become much stronger than others.

The world is owned and run by the Central Government.

Even the Union Military has to answer to the Central Government.

There are 12 seats in the Central Government but logically speaking, 12 people alone can not run the whole world, can they?

To deal with that, the Central Government bestowed governmental titles to four families— essentially giving them the authority to rule over certain parts of the world.

These titles are inherited within families and passed down through generations. The families who hold these titles are known as "Ruling Houses."

It is worth noting that new Ruling Houses can only be established if a current ruling house is completely wiped out or removed from power by the Central Government.

The four families with governmental titles are:

The Morningstar house which oversees the Western Continent.

The Wright house that rules the Northern Continent.

The Netyoive house that governs the Southern Continent.

And the Vermër house that supervises the Eastern Continent.

These are the four ruling houses of the world. They all possess authority only secondary to the Central Government.

These Ruling Houses have many 'Vassal Families' that serve under them. Those vassal families are also called noble families.

Aside from these few elite families, all other people are called commoners, and their families are called common families.

It's a chain command system that is very similar to the aristocracy. And because of this, the commoners don't have access to knowledge about mana and magic spells.

"Lucas Morningstar! Stop daydreaming and step forward at once!"

Shaking me out of my thoughts was an enraged shout. It was Liz. She was yelling at me for some reason.

I looked at her cluelessly and said, "Yes?"

"Can't you hear me calling for you?!" She yelled back at me.

"...You called?"

"...Yes! You're the last one remaining! Come forward and display your spell!"

"Ah…"

Looking around, I found I was indeed the last one remaining. Without much delay, I nodded and stepped forward.

There wasn't much to think about what spell to use since Lucas had learned only 2 spells. I had nothing to worry about. If something goes wrong, then Liz will handle it.

"Fuuu"

I took a long deep breath and focused on my abdomen region, precisely around my solar plexus.

Soon I felt a warm feeling surging out.

I guided that feeling to my right hand before raising it up and pointing my open palm at Liz.

In my mind, I imagined a ball of fire forming in front of my open palm. As I did so, mana started pouring out of my hand.

According to my memories, this was the right time to chant and cast the spell.

In a low voice, I quickly muttered, "Ignis Rateom."

And almost as if waiting for that cue, a sphere of blazing red and orange fire quickly lit up before my palm. I then used more mana to make the flame bigger and stronger.

The flame which was the size of a tennis ball before quickly turned into the size of a bean bag and the flames turned blue from red.

"Whaaa..."

Liz seemed to say something but I didn't pay any attention to it and quickly shot the fireball towards her. 

Just like before Liz tried to dispel the fireball but it didn't work. In panic, Liz caught the fireball with two arms which resulted in her getting pushed back a bit.

Black energy seeped out of her arms and covered the fireball as it continued to shrink in size. Before long the entire fireball was extinguished and Liz let out a sigh of relief.

Then she faced me with a look of anger and surprise.

Not only her, but the entire class was looking at me with shock. I could literally see Nero's jaw touching the ground.

Looks like I messed up with time. After seeing Nero and Quinn's demonstration I thought it would be okay to let loose a bit. But I forgot to consider one crucial point, the quality and density of my mana is much greater than ordinary people's.

 "What was that?" Liz asked with a blank expression. Perhaps it hasn't sunk in yet that there is a student just as strong as her disciple if not stronger.

"Ah...fireball?" I managed a reply but my mind was racing on to give an excuse for that spell. It is still too early for me to expose my strength. Otherwise, Amelia might figure out that I was holding back in the sparring session.

"You think I don't know that." I could clearly see a vein bulging on her head. "What I want to know is how a low-level spell has so much power, for god's sake."

"I too don't know Instructor, all I did was infuse more mana than usual. I didn't think it would result in this."

After thinking all sorts of excuses this is the best I could come up with. I can't risk saying something unnecessary and end up revealing something this world doesn't know yet.

"That's all you did?" Liz asked once again.

"Yes. I don't know why that happened either." 

I swear on my family's name, I didn't think this would happen either. 

"I see. Well, your mana control was flawless but don't experiment with spells in the classroom next time. It's a shame you wasted your talent till now. Now all of you go back to your seats."

After an awkward exchange of words, Liz asked us to get back to our seats with a gesture of her hand.

After everyone settled down, she started explaining "Well, there are two things I would like to address.

"First, starting next week, we'll apply the magic theories we're going to learn in this class to combat training class. So till then, I want all of you to familiarize yourself with magic casting fully. Practice the spells I gave you today.

"Second, after this class, you all will be assigned into groups of five via text messages that you'll receive on your smart bracelets."

Ah, Fuck!

I am so screwed. Given what happened till now, I am 99% sure that Amelia and I will be on the same team.

And the worst part is that I can't even do anything about it.

I am sure that the teams were already decided. Even if I were to hack now and change it, there is a good chance that someone might notice the change. 

And Joe will also notice it since I clearly didn't have enough Edit Points to change my team.

Now all I can do is keep my interactions with my team absolutely minimal.

But as if fate was laughing at my decision, Liz's next words shook me to the core.

"The group you'll be put into will be your 'Unit,' and you'll perform group drill exercises together. Once assigned, you'll be part of this unit until graduation. You'll be awarded merit points based on your synergy and comradeship with other members of your group, so get to know each other.

"Also, those of you who can use magic spells will have to help the members of your group who can't. Remember, this will affect the merit points you'll get. Don't think you can trick us because our AI will be monitoring you all through your smart bracelets all the time. That's all. Class dismissed."

Why does fate love to play such twisted jokes on me?

Now if I avoid my team, then it will definitely affect our points.

Ding—!

Right when I was in the middle of cursing the universe, the smart bracelet on my wrist rang as a notification popped up on it.

Touching the screen, I opened the text message. My premonition turned out to be much worse than expected.

"I don't know when, but one day I'll definitely kill the one who wrote the fate of this world Joe."