Ride to the wilds

Beyern- No, Hariot was sitting in a cart, along with seven others. Six of them were for the test, the other was there to score the test takers.

There were a few folded bags in the back of the cart, and there was also someone steering the cart along with the horse pulling it.

He, the one with 1:8.9 mana filling his mana pool, causing a searing pain in his heart, as if a knife was stuck in it- Though it luckily wasn't a physical pain, allowing him to ignore it.

Though there was a problem; He tended to get intensely focused on something while in pain, like... I don't know... Attributing his mana with the fire aspect.

He held a ball of 1 mp in his palm while in a vaguely trance-like state, thoughts being pushed to the forefront of his mind, being tied together;

The forest being set ablaze, the smouldering ashes of a hearth, the third degree burns of a snitch, the embers of a campfire, and a fireball spell he had seen Simmons use while young.

'-Shouldn't I have more memories with fire? And why are they so strange too?!' He thought off-handedly, breaking his focus, leaving a now slightly orange-ish ball of uncompressed mana that seemed to give off heat.

Hariot frowned at the fact he had lost his groove, because he had felt he could aspect it even more before he had been interupted by his somewhat intrusive thought, even if it was already aspected 'What do I even do with this?'

===

Congratulations, Beyern, due to aspecting mana with 'Fire', an aspect you hold average affinity towards, 'Aspect attribution' has gained 2-star mastery

===

He had basically traded 1 mp for some more mastery, a good deal.

"No need to lord over us with your experience, old man." A scaving statement was made from the mouth of one of the others sitting in the cart.

Hariot looked at the person who spoke, with his natural neutral smile "Oh, I wasn't showing off, it's just best to do something with the time. Pray tell, what do you feel while the seconds of your finite lifespan are fading in the wind, with nothing in exchange due to your lack of drive?"

He didn't really understand why the guy thought he was showing off, but when someone verbally attacked you, you had to fight back- Verbally most of the time.

Though, sometimes it's proper to respond with a gauntlet.

He looked back to his creation, and forced it to be smaller to a degree of 1:5 in only a moment, and started to make it float around him for the hell of it. He thought about what he could do with it.

He didn't know how to make it a proper fireball, or firebolt, ect.

He had no clue how to use fire mana properly, which was a shame, since it would've been such a good cover for his class. Well it doesn't matter really, he could build up his reputation as a fire mage, or a pyromancer if he was especially good at pyromancy, which was the name for fire magic.

While he was training his {Mana-packing} and {Mana-manipulation} at the same time by moving a ball of fire mana around while compressing and decompressing it, one of the others in the cart tried to break the ice "Well... Putting that aside, what's everyone's class? I'll tell mine first, I'm a Darkness mage!"

Hariot frowned, who would tell strangers their class- "I'm a thunder mage apprentice."

'What? Are these people idiots? I don't believe that someone else will-' "I am a fire magus." The annoying female that dared to interupt his magical experiments said proudly.

While forming the mana into a bolt and slowly re-fill his mana pool and rings, Hariot stated to put her down, and mostly to hide his real class "Pyromancer here."

He smiled slightly mentally, having put himself above the others in the hierarchy of classes. It was a lie, but he was already on the top of the pyramid anyways, he had just exchanged three letters for two other letters.

To excentuate his words, he fired out the fire mana like any magic missile, as a spell with some mental energy attached to launch it.

He wasn't going to disperse it, who knows what would happen if he let that occur, just think of what happened to that corpse when he let death mana disperse. Better to use it for some posing by launching it away.

The female that was now aposed to his posistion, squinted her eyes towards Hariot, who was still wielding his neutral smile like a weapon. Though she sighed slightly and continued to listen to the conversation.

Hariot saw this in the corner of his eyes while he started to siphon all the mana from his regen after his mana pool had fully regenerated since he had taken the 1 mp.

Of course, it took 13 minutes to get 1 full mp, but he had done a fun thing- Taken out the mp regen to increase the amount he could channel at once, so it was closer to 12 and a half minutes.

He did not gather up mana until reaching 1 mp, he instead shot out small, small amounts of mana out of some random part of his body that had nothing touching it, and had it arch towards a single point in space-

In his current initial refrence frame, he was not letting his mana behind as he moved with the cart. That'd be such a waste, since it'd disperse due to the fact that he could not maintain mana at a distance 'And that's going to be a future aspect of magic I will train on.'

Having let the others finish introducing themselves, though dissapointed slightly at the fact they had such a low level of intelligence and wisdom, Hariot would not let such a small factor get in the way "So, what's on the platter today?" He asked while looking at the proctor.

The man he looked at took the chance, and said "It's a very basic test today, it'll just be some hunting and harvesting. That's what the bags are for."

"Any idea what's the prey is?" Beyern asked.

The proctor shrugged "Some Beyklir, a few Parvus Lupus maybe? There have been a few sightings nearby recently, though I doubt it'd be a problem either way."

'Beyklir and maybe some Parvus Lupus,' Hariot noted and examined 'Beyklir will be easy, just a sword to the throat- But I should probably kill one or two with a magic missile+. And, Parvus Lupus, I've never had experience with them, meaning that I should be cautious of their possible presence.'

He nodded slightly and continued to train his magical prowess.

Some time later he had some mana to play around with, so it was time to make some cool things.

Specifically; Training {Mana-shaping}.

He would make a minature version of something, due to the lack of mana. He'd love to make a life-sized copy of himself, just because he was always available to be a reference, but he could also make due with a dagger due to a lack of means to look at himself.

He took out one of his three daggers, and inspected it a bit, and then started to think for a moment to properly scale it for his mana's volume.

Then his mana coverged into a construct that vaguely looked like a dagger, but more like a cross used for crusifiction but with one pointy end.

Dissapointed in the restult, I continued unperturbed.

-----

Beyern kicked a Pavis Lupus off of his blade with pure disdain in his face, they were more complex and intelligent than Beyklir, even having pack tactics, but they weren't like a human, being variable.

If you fought a human, you'd never know their habits and and their next move on your first meeting, so slaying hundreds of them over a battlefield is enough to show you are greatly adaptable if they were around your level.

But if you killed a hundred Pavis Lupus, that would've just shown you knew their patterns and instincts well.

They were troublesome, and it would've been dangerous if he did it alone, but it was good that there were others working with him this time.

He had yet to fire the 1:8.5 10 mp magic missile he had kept as insurance during the altercation, which was dissapointing really.

He shifted his eyes around while letting his, newly turned into a ball, magic missile, spinning around him randomly.

He was sure it was cool to look at him at that moment, it was somewhat difficult to detach the mana from his own movements, especially when he was doing something else at the same time.

Sadly, his search for a target had found nothing suitable, and he let his 10 mp pass through his clothes and just directly return to being myriad rings around his heart through his side.

He would be sure to use his magic missile later, he really couldn't risk this being a miss, that'd be a huge waste of time.

And more importantly; It'd derail his short term plans for getting in the good graces of all the churches, specifically with Zankret's for this matter.

But seeing as the proctor didn't seem to by giving him the side eye, and was more focused on the others, he'd probably be fine- Or he had already decided to fail him for being old.

You can never be sure.

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Author here; next chap in 5 days.