After a little while the teacher came back to her senses and was able to direct the class to their practices. Not a single mocking comment could be heard—except for Flint. He felt good rubbing it in to the previous unbelievers.

Truth be told, even Reylor was surprised. He now felt that magic was far more chaotic than spacial energy. That being said, he did see the benefits to it. Spacial energy was scarce here, but the ambient mana was rich, which meant he could use magic here almost as freely as he used spacial energy at the Spacial Hall.

The teacher gave different pointers to the various students, as well as assigning exercises. She left Reylor to practice using less energy.

The class dragged on.

*** *** ***

On the Path to Votran

A lone man dressed in furs walked along the path, his sword dripping with blood.

The creatures of the area were fairly smart, avoiding larger parties, if possible. He was walking alone, and so naturally attracted many predators looking for an easy snack.

“Whoosh” “Sching!”

A shade wolf blasted out of the trees.

Without even looking at it, the man sliced it cleanly in half. It didn’t even have the chance to whimper.

“Halt!” a voice called out, but he ignored it, walking on.

“Hey man, are you deaf or something?” A warrior stepped into the path to stop the man. Three mages began preparing high-damage spells, while four rogues blocked the path behind him.

There was one main group of thieves along the route to Votran. A decent part of their group had been wiped out by a certain fire mage, and so they decided to play it safe and send out larger groups.

“Hehe, today is not his day,” one of the bandits thought. This was a single guy, and they had two A-Class mages, three A-Class rogues, and several B-Class fighters. The aftermath would not be pretty.

“You are surrounded, so give us your money, or we’ll have to take it from you ourselves, along with your life,” the warrior said.

“Move or die,” the man said succinctly.

Seeing that the warrior was not moving, the man in furs raised his sword.

“Attack! Rang out from one of the rogues, at which the mages let loose the spells they had been charging up. Three different spells converged on him at the same time. They were just about to hit him as three runes on his body began to glow, at which the three spells instantly dissipated!

The man flicked the blood off his sword and sheathed it. The bandits were in both shock and confusion. “Didn’t he just destroy three spells instantly? But then why is he putting his sword away? Isn’t he going to fight us?”

He was going to fight, but not with his sword. In fact, the sword was not his main way of fighting, but since he could not cast magic, the sword with a blessed blade was his only surefire way to kill the shade beasts, which was why he had been using it.

He stopped in the path and began making signs and seals with his hands. A few people felt like laughing at him, but there was one educated person in the group. “Oh, no. No, no, no! He’s a grand auramancer!” Several faces paled. “Crud, crud, crud. What have we gotten ourselves into? Run, I gotta run away. We are done for!” Many such thoughts were running through their minds. But it was too late. A surge of energy locked on to every nearby lifeform, including all the bandits and a few stray beasts. They were then all pulled together into one place and immobilized there. Several artifacts meant for breaking away from magical traps glowed, but they had no effect. He was not using magic.

Grand auramancers were the bane of mages. To receive the title of “Grand,” an auramancer must already be capable of consistently defeating Class-A mages. After evaluation, the auramancer would be granted a set of runic tattoos, which would nullify the auramancer’s ability to use magic, but also nullified direct magic attacks made against them. They would then be able to receive a few more sets of these tattoos as they ranked up, shielding them from less common forms of magic.

The man made several more hand signs and walked off as a great pressure descended, causing them all to black out and breath their last.

The gates of Votran City loomed in the distance.

*** *** ***

As soon as class was dismissed, Reylor brought Elany and Aileen to the library and went up to the librarian.

“Hello, is there anything I can help you with?” A man asked. He was middle aged, but appeared to be quite fit—so much so that he looked a bit misplaced.

“Yes, I am looking for a void magic that can detect presences and alert me of them from a distance. Do you have such a magic here?”

“Yes, we have several, though that depends on what rank you have. Could you show me your identification?” The librarian asked. Reylor reluctantly revealed his badge. “Man, if the spells are locked behind rank walls, then I will not be able to get what I am looking for.” He thought.

“As you can see, I have only recently enrolled here, however I am absolutely capable to handling higher level spells, as I am competent with another kind of energy. Is there any way for me to access the higher tier spells without taking the time to rank up?”

The librarian furrowed his brows, as if scrutinizing Reylor. “There are two, though quite unlikely. The first is to get permission from the headmaster, but good luck even getting an audience with him. He is always swamped with work. The second is by receiving permission from a fighter with an SS-Class certification. Unfortunately, that would be even more difficult, as there are only four even in existence. Even the Emperor seldom knows where more than one is at a given time, and they don’t tend to meddle in the affairs of others—of course that is if you can even find one. But nevertheless, if your reason is important enough, those are the other methods available to you”

“No hope of that.” Reylor sighed inside, but thanked the librarian for the information. He then proceeded to check out a stack of course textbooks. He then stored the books, and went to the practice fields with Elany and Aileen.

Reylor continued practicing his spell intensity, though already being quite proficient at it. Aileen alternated between practicing how far she could shoot a void bolt, and practicing size adjustments to her void barrier. Elany was having it hard enough just being able to consistenly shoot in the righ direction…

The day passed by, and so they headed back, ate some vegetable stew for supper.

That night Reylor poured over the books as Elany and Aileen slept, comprehending the course materials with such speed and ease that other students would have wanted to puke from envy had they witnessed it.

A few hours later:

“Errr, Errr, Errr” Alarms went off in several residences, waking the elites of the academy. “Intruder Detected!”

Mages poured out from multiple different areas

“Dang, where is this guy?” “Endel, can you run a void search?” “Sorry man, I’m trying, but nothing is picking up!

“Felicia, give us some light!” “Yes sir, I’ll light this place up like daytime!”

Multiple A-Class and even S-Class squadrons began working together to discover the intruder, but it was not going like they’d think it should. So far, they could not even find a trace of the person.

“Maybe it was a false alarm?” “Shut up stupid, theses systems are high tech-it knows there is another presence around here. Kell, alert the principal!” “Will do!”

“Brr. Brr.” An alarm woke a sleepy headmaster. “What is it now?” He went over to a window, and peered out with his nearly god-like eyes. He wasn’t just headmaster for his management ability. He was an SS-Class void mage, with some abilities that even SS-Class mages did not possess. One of these abilities was his extremely perceptive eye-sight. It only took a single glance for him to spot the intruder and know what was happening.

“You again,” he said, as he face-palmed.

He turned to another staff member who had rushed over to the headmaster’s residence. “Don’t worry about it. Just let them fight, but keep them from using forbidden spells,” the headmaster told him with a magical technique. He then went back to his room, hoping to catch a bit more sleep.

“Dangit! Is the headmaster gone? He didn’t answer me!” “Aelen, mist the place. He must be using some sort of camouflage.”

A mage executed a technique, flooding the entire academy grounds with a fine white mist. Through his connection with the spell, he was finally able to detect a person, who had been hidden from all the other perception skills used heretofore.

“Got him! He is… Crud, he’s standing in the middle of the main courtyard!” “What?! Is he mocking us?”

“Took you five minutes. Shoddy work guys.” The mist cleared, and a person seemed to materialize from the middle of the courtyard. He was a big man, dressed in furs, wearing a very clear smirk on his face.

“So you're just going to let me stand here?”

“Like that’s going to happen! Squad A Formation 32!” “Squads B through G, Control 83”

Commands rang out as the mages spread out around the man. A sudden fluctuation in the atmosphere slightly shook the mages as massive group spells were released in rapid succession, descending on their target with vengeance.

“Haha, jerk. Play with fire and you’re gonna get hurt” Witty comments came from a few arrogant mages, as they waited for the after-effects of the spells to clear.

“What? Ah!” A strong force suddenly gripped all the commenters, as they were all pulled to the center of the aftermath.

“Better wash your dirty mouths with talk like that.” The man sneered as he held his sword over them, gazing with the eyes of a savage beast.

“B-barriers, quick!” One of the guys in the center stammered out. Unfortunately, the others also found themselves frozen in place, and unable to cast spells strong enough to deal with the entity in front of them.

Amid the terror of all the mages, the eyes of one suddenly opened wide. “Grand auramancer!” The rest of the mages began to pale.

“Xendus, that’s enough. You’re going to kill them with fright.” The spectating instructor called out.

“Aww, man, I was just getting started!” Xendus called out.”

An undetected energy field suddenly shattered, freeing the pale terror-stricken students.

“Lesson one. If you can’t find your target in 30 seconds, for the love of Aretor, switch to another method! Lesson two: Outnumbered does not mean overpowered. Gauge your opponent before counting your victory. Lesson three: You can’t match the Tyrant!” Xendus let out a raucous laugh.

“The heck? He’s the Tyrant?” “No wonder we lost, he’s the Grimwood Tyrant!”

The Grimwood Tyrant got his name from his start in Votran City, which was surrounded by thick woods. Back when it was just starting out, Xendus had been the main powerhouse, protecting the city from the wiles of the woods. The name was given when a Vilnor Empire official witnessed him slay an entire pack of shade beasts by himself. He brought back tales of a Grimwoods hero, who was no less than a tyrant when pitted against the shade. At the time, he was a new S-Class grand auramancer, and had only grown stronger since, spreading his fame throughout the entire empire with his shows of strength and oppression.

He still remembered his roots however, and came to revisit Votran on occasion. At such times, he would always show up unannounced to “test” Votran Academy’s finest. Of course this was nothing more than a headache to the headmaster, but what could he do? This man could kill him twice before Earlstine had the chance to even touch him. Grand auramancy was such a huge cheat in this world.

“Well, enough of that, I still have some other business to attend to here,” Xendus said. Making a few hand signs a faint wave of energy expanded from where he was, enveloping more and more of the academy, suddenly coming to a halt after passing over where Reylor was. “Gotcha, brat,” He thought with a smile. A few people tried to follow him, by they found themselves blocked by a sudden surge of energy. “Think about those lessons, I’ve got other things to do,” Xendus said, walking in Reylor’s direction.

Reylor, being awake, had naturally noticed something was going on, and so had climbed onto the roof of the residence to observe what he could from the incident, and so also noticed Xendus making his way over. Reylor jumped off the roof and went to meet him.

Finally getting a good view of Xendus, Reylor blanked for a moment. Regaining himself, he could only voice a one word question: “Brent?”