Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 5 | Day 8

When I enter the Magic Circuitry class, I find Rebecca already sitting where she was yesterday.

Huh, she got here early.

I walk up the stairs to my usual spot before sitting down as she turns around and says, “Morning Nathan.”

“Morning.” I return while placing my bag on the table in front of me and setting my sword and rifle against the wall behind me, not bothering to take anything out of the bag since the instructor already said that we’re going to be practicing making our magic circles today.

The thought of magic circles immediately reminds me of last night.

I still don’t know why my disease tries to use up the remnants of my body first before returning it to normal, even if they’re burnt or separated, but it does.

My only guess is that it’s specific to the time mana that was infused into my body, but even if the parts aren’t usable anymore, it wipes them from existence before returning whatever is still in existence and recovering all of the rest.

Although regardless of why my disease is like this, it is rather convenient in regard to clearing any signs of my injury from a place. Since it uses my own spilled blood while repairing my body, and thereby leaving my room without any signs of the incident, seeing as I at least managed to keep my arm above the ground throughout all of it so as to not burn the floor of my room.

Which was really all I could do during that pain, outside of keeping myself from screaming.

That aside, I did make sure not to get too focused that I would be surprised by something like an unexpected visitor when I eventually tried another magic circle an hour after the little incident.

Fortunately, I was able to motivate myself to continue doing it through imagining what would happen if something like that happened during class.

Because that wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

Just the thought of ending up as a test subject for some powerful magician is enough to power through the pain, or the thought of feeling more pain.

Although, even with my repeated practice last night, I’m still nowhere near even close to being able to make a magic circle without the device…

I turn my attention towards the door for a few seconds, wondering where the others are before leaning back in my chair.

At most I can understand a very blurry picture of the theoretical way to move my mana through the magical membrane. But even if I could do it, I can’t even move my mana in the way the device shows without the device yet, so it’s not like I could test it.

It’s honestly a little frustrating, but I at least know how to cut my mana off from the magic circle if it does backfire. So there’s that.

I should be able to stop it from making itself known to the others by cutting it off almost immediately, since it’s only flames leaking out. Assuming there aren’t any other types of backfiring for fire mana, that is.

My thoughts are interrupted as I hear the door to the room open again – which as it turns out, if the door opens on one side, it opens on the other side too – followed by Aidan, Cyria, and Sophia stepping through it. They then begin climbing the stairs towards us, with Aidan casually waving on the way.

Cyria sits next to me, with the other two sitting by her. Meanwhile, several other students enter the classroom through the portal, with Muscles following at the back of the group.

A bit of anxiety builds up in my chest as I wait for the instructor to enter, only for me to clear it away with a deep breath, reminding myself to just act normal.

I practiced last night for a reason after all.

Several minutes pass by with a peaceful chatter filling the room from the cadets before the instructor finally comes in and immediately heads to his desk. He then just stays there for a few more minutes until class time officially begins, where he claps his hands once, causing a small explosion of flames to come from them, drawing the attention of all of the cadets and silencing them in an instant.

“Alright, if you completed the program last time, go to the training facility and begin practicing your magic circles,” he says while crossing his arms, “Instructor Dawn should already be in there and ready in case something goes wrong.”

He then waves his hand past the magi-tech board, prompting the same tutorial and a different program from last time to appear on the board, “As for the rest of you, you may either practice coding some more, or you can attempt this new assignment.”

One of the cadets raises their hand as I begin to get up from my seat and gather my things. Once the instructor nods his head at the cadet, he asks a question, “Why a new one and not the other one?”

The instructor walks around the desk at the front before leaning back against the front of it and says, “Because I know some of you probably wrote down the assignment and got help from other cadets on it from higher years.”

His gaze immediately locks onto a few cadets in particular as they show small reactions to his words, “And the point of this little test is to see if you have the ability to write a program on the spot without any help. Because you won’t have any help when casting a spell in battle.”

At this point, I begin to walk down the stairs towards the training facility with Cyria and Sophia following next to me.

“That said, if you want any pointers when you’re working on the tutorial, I’d be happy to help,” I hear him say right before we enter the portal and once again appear in the training facility.

The place looks the same as it was yesterday, except for the chair I find Instructor Dawn sitting on a chair near the magi-tech board in the facility. After we walk in, she raises her head from a book she had been reading to look at us, only for her gaze to lock onto Sophia and reveal a faint smile before she nods and looks back down at her book.

I glance at Sophia with a raised brow.

Guess I’m not the only one with an instructor considering me a favorite. Although for her it’s likely because of her knowledge, while for me, I think Instructor Leo just likes that I stay quiet, listen, and have fire affinity.

Anyways, deciding to avoid the obvious location for practice, I start walking over to the shooting range. Once I get there, I set my rifle and sword down against the wall, along with my bag, before looking around at the other cadets as they file into the room.

Overall, there are about eight other cadets in the room besides me, Sophia, and Cyria. And over half of them moves over to the training dummies, while Cyria and Sophia both decided to follow me to the shooting range.

There are also a couple of cadets who start practicing almost as soon as they enter the room, with Muscles actually being one of them.

Although I’m not sure if he’s trying to act more responsible due to his past embarrassments, or if he’s just rushing to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore.

But at least he’s not doing anything to bother us, so it doesn’t really matter to me why he’s actually doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

And with that thought in mind, I begin practicing my own spell circles while being extremely careful not to mess anything up, even giving up some focus on learning to make sure I don’t do anything wrong.

After all, I can spend more time focusing during my nighttime training, so less efficiency now won’t matter much then.

It takes about ten or so minutes before some more cadets begin to enter the training facility, with Aidan being one of them. After canceling the magic circle I was working on, I turn my attention towards him as he makes it to our group without saying a word so as to not disturb the girls who are still focusing on their own magic circles.

Suddenly, a water portal just like in Mana Manipulation yesterday appears above him and a device just like the one on my arm falls down from it front of Aidan, landing onto the floor with a light clink.

Aidan looks at the device on the floor before turning towards the instructor as I turn my attention back to practicing. It looks like she’s gonna teach him, so imma just go back to practicing.

After that, we spend the entirety of the rest of class practicing in silence.