Chapter 11: Viria Sterling

Pira city is the largest of the five cities in the kingdom of Colchis. The entire kingdom is basically in a shape of a circle with a square separating the cities. That is how it looks from the sky. The square separating the cities are known as defensive walls. 

Unlike the holy kingdom that's separated into two sides; north and south, our kingdom is separated into five cities. 

The names of those cities are Pira, Calo, Zluxford, Storvine, and Prester.

Pira houses the most population counting up to two million people. It is also one of the most prosperous cities on the continent. You can find the noble districts as well as many famous merchant guilds everywhere you look. The entire city is filled with businesses or buildings belonging to people who have immense wealth. 

Many of the prominent academies and training camps also exist here. Including the Graponia Royal Academy. You can find everything from entertainment down to luxurious residences. No wonder it's called the capital city.

Calo is the city near the south gate of the kingdom. It's nearer to the ocean as well so it can be called a port city where many people aiming to get rich by fishing can live in. 

Zluxford is the city where temples and churches spread the influence of the goddess Sol and Minra. Speaking of Sol, I should visit Sol's church when I have time. She said I had to pray for her. It's not like I'm that much of a churchgoer, it's just that I'm grateful for the skill I received so I'll do as she said and pray.

Storvine and Prester aren't worth mentioning since both cities have worse living conditions than the others I mentioned. Storvine is a city overrun by gangs and criminals. Prester is an abandoned city where most of the people of the slum live. It has a mayor but I doubt that person would be able to fix the city's problems. 

Anyway, we finally arrived at Pira city's royal academy. All I could say is that it was vast and majestic. 

It was like seeing castles built on the same property. A clock tower was in front of us when we got off the carriage.

"Young master Clyde, will you be fine on your own?"

"Of course. I'm only going to the lectures anyway."

Lithia smiled and then turned towards Arielle and Arthur.

"Then we will be on our way."

"Don't you dare be late!"

Arielle shouted sternly at me.

"Okay, okay."

I wouldn't want to get hit so I should make it back quick.

"We have the entire day and there is lots to do. We might arrive later than we promised the duke."

Lithia took Arielle and Arthur towards the battle arena in the distance. 

'Gladiator battles for kids... doesn't get more PG than that.'

I sarcastically thought and looked at the booklet Lithia gave me. 

With the crest of Luxembourg, no one should be bothering me on the account of my age.

Lecture held by Viria Sterling. 

Rune spell demonstration

Magical thesis

Demonstration of spell fusion

Destruction magic explanation

"Viria... the current head mage."

She's a woman who was given the title of Head Mage at 20 years old. They say that despite being the Head Mage, she can only cast High rank spells. The kinds of spells you can cast don't necessarily determine how strong you are.

Let me explain what's the disparity between High rank, Upper High, and God rank magic.

High-rank magic makes it possible to change the weather for example. You can cause mini disasters or floods.

Upper High-rank magic users can cause a large disaster that can destroy cities within mere minutes judging by the type of spell that was casted. [Hellfire] is an example of this. When casting the spell, a barrier of flames appears around the area you want to destroy and slowly draw near each other. The spell has limits, however, like the right conditions have to be met.

God rank magic... it's fairly obvious how powerful magic of that rank is capable of. People on that level can break common sense. Lifting a large chunk of a continent's land is not impossible.

Viria would be near the level of an Upper High-rank mage.

People often call her the strongest mage alive today but others say that title belongs to Eredhel. The latter didn't seem to want the title of Head mage. Maybe she's not interested.

"Sterling... no way. Master Jacob's sister? Or is it a coincidence that they have the same surname?"

'I'll have to as him later on when we have another class.'

◇

When I finally managed to make it into the corridor of the academy, I began looking around for anything of interest before the lecture starts.

'It's 2 pm at the moment.'

I checked my pocketwatch and verified the time. 

The entire academy was filled to the brim with people of different statuses. You could tell who were rich nobles from their demeanours. I was even pushed out of the way by a noble brat. I wanted to burn his face so much with a spell but I held it in.

"..."

I looked through the hall of wizards which shows all the famous mages who were born throughout the history of the continent.

"Odette."

The name everyone knew of. The strongest mage to ever exist. A portrait of the Great Sage was behind the reinforced glass. 

She had white hair and wore a purple robe.

"Is this real?"

I looked at the staff which was near her portrait. 

I wanted to verify how powerful the staff was. Breaking the magical defenses around the glass would be easy for me as long as no one finds me–

"What do you think you're doing?"

A cold voice called me from behind and made my shoulders jerk up.

When I turned around, I saw a mature woman wearing glasses and holding books in her hands. 

She looked like a milf teacher.

"Ah... I.. err..."

"Were you wondering if that is the real  Chaos staff?"

"Chaos staff? That was what she named it?"

What a chuuni name.

"Yes." The woman walked towards me. "This was the staff the great mage of the past used to save our continent from evil. Some say her soul rests within this staff."

She looked towards me with a raised eyebrow.

"What are you doing alone when you're this young? Your parents are irresponsible for leaving you here."

"That's not it." I showed her the crest and brochure. "I'm here to observe. I'm family of Duke Luxembourg."

"Aha..." The woman then cleared her throat. "Pardon me then. Are you here for the magic lecture?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're in luck. I'm on my way there now."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"I'm the teacher of the first class."

"..."

'This is Viria? The one they call the head mage?'

I was expecting a nerd wearing goggles for glasses with acne on her face and a large wizard hat.

To me, she looked more like an intellectual who passes all her exams with flying colors and is the diligent type.

"It's nice to meet you, Lady Viria!! My name is Clyde Astley!"

I bowed at a ninety degree angle.

"Hahaha. It's nice to meet you too, Clyde."

She held out her hand.

"Come. I'll take you there."

◇◇

Lady Viria told me that she teaches a fourth-year class. That meant that Kenia was also in her class.

Kenia doesn't use magic. She's the kind who is interested in many things so that's why she also stayed for the magic class.

Students from other subjects besides swordsmanship and magic can observe either of the aforementioned lectures. Kenia studies administration and business as her main courses.

"Greetings, students!"

And as expected, I saw her sitting in one of the seats.

The class responded with enthusiasm.

"""" Greetings, Lady Viria!!""""

"Please call me teacher today."

Viria organized her notes and then drew a magic rune circle with her wand.

"Can anyone explain what type of rune this is?"

"Intermediate magic called Water Cluster!"

"Good job!"

She flicked her wand and then the spell vanished.

"It's good to see everyone awake for this lecture. Some find theory boring. I'm not one to point fingers since I do as well."

The students laughed at her random joke.

"Anyway, I assume everyone has already read the history of magic. Since that is the case today I will handle how far magic can advance forward. We'll discuss the basic elements down to the spatial elements found everywhere in our universe besides on this planet–"

The lecture continued at a snail's pace. 

I took down all the notes Viria wrote on the board. It was amazing to see her write and talk at the same time. It was like seeing a human with two different brains teaching the class.

I learned interesting things like mending magic into raw mana by breaking the basic veins in the magic circle itself and forcing the mana out. Wouldn't it seem kind of overpowered to be able to absorb any person's mana no matter how much they try?

Well, the technique doesn't seem that popular amongst students.

It was apparently too hard to implement that sort of technique on any spell higher than low rank magic. 

'Why create such a technique if no one uses it, Great Sage?'

When I heard the name [Mana Bending] I was expecting the technique to make people able to steal mana from an entire army of mages. Yet, it can only be used for lower ranked mages?

Maybe I should try strengthening this technique for homework. Everything seemed so interesting to me that I wanted to learn them right after getting back home. I was never even excited for homework on earth. I'd always say my dog ate it.

"For this next demonstration I would like one volunteer. Please note that the student must be a person with mana."

Although she said volunteer, her eyes landed on me.

'Seriously?'

I just wanted to be a mob amongst the protagonists and side characters…

I stood up as everyone's eyes landed on me.

"A kid?"

"Tsk. Lady Viria should've picked me."

"He doesn't even look like much."

There were multiple complaints flying over my head as I walked towards the stage.

Viria smiled when I stood in front of her. Her eyes narrowed in delight.

"Many of you may be wondering why I chose to pick this boy…" I saw the professors who also joined the lecture nod their heads. "That is because this boy has more than enough mana to help me with this demonstration which normally requires ten of my fourth year students."

""""""….""""""

The entire hall went silent.

Viria smirked and took out a brush and paint.

I curiously looked towards the items.

"What I will demonstrate is synchronisation. This boy right here will be my fuel."

She rubbed the brush in the red pain and drew a rune on her right hand.

"Please open your hand as well." I did as she said. "The reason I am doing this is because we must have the same wavelength to be able to sync with each other. This rune will force our veins to regulate thus forming the same waves."

She painted a circle with a dot inside, on my hand.

"Now then."

Viria walked backwards a few meters and held out her hand with her palm facing me.

Many of the professors leaned forward with interest as they watched this process. I've also never heard of synchronization. Perhaps it was something she came up with herself.

"I will now cast a High rank spell called Giga flame."

"Wait, what?"

"I will now set up barriers."

When she said that, multiple shields appeared in front of everyone. One appeared around my body as well.

"As long as you don't force your waves to rise then the spell will succeed. I want this demonstration to be everyone's homework as there are many other mechanisms to do this. I am trying to implement this technique without using runes. This will be my first time using another person to help me with this rune spell."

After she finished speaking, a heavy pressure weighed down on the entire classroom. Dense mana started to flicker in different colours and gather around each other.

A ball of flames appeared out of Viria's hands.

'Huh?'

I felt my mana rapidly being sucked up by the spell. 

I clenched my hand and concentrated.

"See how the energy come out of his hand? The rune is the medium to extracting his mana. Neat, isn't it?"

I saw the rune let out a type of energy out of my hand. 

'So that's my mana?'

The spell grew in size until eventually…

WOOONG

A giant cluster of energy measuring 10m in diameter appeared between us.  

Even though I was protected by a barrier, the heat of the flames reached the skin on my hand. Even the oxygen I breathed made my lungs burn.

"Truly magnificent. You even beat the exchange student from the Magic Empire in mana pool alone."

The person she was referring to was the mysterious girl who came from the Magic Empire. I broke her record for having a larger mana pool.

She's famous in the academy for being such a beauty and is also sought after by many of the seniors as well despite being a first year student.

I heard she joined the disciplinary committee a week after coming to Graponia.

"I already described the purpose of this rune and I'm glad to say it worked. I don't feel an ounce of exhaustion nor did I feel like my mana was being sapped up."

Viria shouted from the other side.

'Huh?'

I noticed something strange about her body.

Being this near the spell, I could see mana seeping out of her body as well. Her body was letting out particles. Threads of mana appeared in my eyes when I infused mana into them.

'A clone or perhaps a puppet? Is she controlling it from somewhere?'

I didn't know. All I knew was that humans don't randomly glow and turn into mana.

She secretly got the particles under control using weaving magic and turned towards everyone.

"As you can see, anyone will be able to cast high ranking magic or any other form of magic so long as they have this rune and enough mana."

Viria bowed and cancelled the spell.

The classroom was silent for a moment before everyone erupted into applause.

"Magnificent! I'd expect no less from the Head Mage!"

"She managed to decipher another rune of the Abyss!"

"Lady Viria is so awesome!"

Students and professors alike started kissing Viria's ass with praise. She closed her eyes in satisfaction and then spoke again.

"I appreciate your sincere praise." She turned towards me. "Thank you for helping me out with my demonstration, boy."

"Y-Yeah."

I was able to confirm that Viria was indeed a puppet being controlled. Without the distraction of that spell, I could sense her mana clearer. 

I wiped my hand and looked at her in suspicion. 

'Where's her real body then?'

"My next demonstration will involve Anti-Magic and the Destruction series. To my students, please do pay attention as I will include hints about the upcoming exam as well in my lecture."

I went towards my seat only to find Kenia sitting down.

"Hello, little Clyde."

She scooted over so I could sit down. When I sat on the bench, she moved close and patted my head.

"Err…"

"Excellent performance. I didn't believe my father when he said you had magical talent above average but I was wrong. Who knows? Maybe that could be you on that stage teaching the next generation one day."

She continued patting my head.

Viria continued with her demonstration while Kenia spoke with me the entire time. I didn't have the energy to speak a lot since I felt a little exhausted. 

That confirmed that I wasn't ready for High ranking spells yet. I felt tired after just casting one.

'If master Jacob arrives tomorrow then I should ask him why that was the case.'