NOVEL FROG Chapter 103
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Time passed as my school life continued, it was more or less fine for me, and I was able to keep up with my chosen subjects, and excel at most of them even, especially blacksmithing. It was one of my favorite things to watch online back in my old life, the act of turning a block of metal into a work of art… too bad my blacksmithing classes were rather strict in their curriculum as we were on a rather tight schedule, leaving little to no time for personal projects. I would need to get my own smithy when I get home… hopefully, Dad is amenable to the idea.
As for my social life tho… it was… meh. Besides Dave, Sam, Henry, and Arabella who I fought alongside in the Arena, my interactions with my peers were… uneventful to say the least. And to find out why, I did some snooping.
The moment I noticed a hint of my name coming up anywhere, I would stealthily use Air Molecular Magic, or Instinctive magic as it is more commonly known, to carry their hushed whispers to my ears.
From what I heard from the nobles, they were of three different opinions, the first were those who honestly did not care about some baron’s son from the borders of the kingdom. The second were those who were keeping an eye on me, especially after publicly kicking Oswald’s ass and my performance at the Arena, turns out news of me had gotten back to their parents and their parents instructed them to keep an eye on me but not approach, they did not elaborate why. As for the last group, they were Oswald’s circle and were talking mad shit about me, but that's all it was, shit talk, and everyone knew it was because they were salty of their defeat by ‘some border bumkin’, so most just humored them.
As for the commoners, they did not know what to think of me, I did not act like I had a stick up my ass like most nobles and were confused about how to act around me in general, so they fell back on the safe option, avoid the noble and keep out of my way. Besides Dave, Sam, and a few other acquaintances from my other classes I was not approached my most. The only ones who approached me were the merchant kids who introduced their family company’s name, but then again, they did that to every noble they ran into, networking and shit.
But in the end, it was not like I was being very social myself, I was just too busy. If I was not in class or night class, I was continuing my experiments with Professor Sageira or staying cooped up in my room to condition my body to higher levels of rapid mana flow.
But thankfully, my room was not the only place I could do my conditioning, I did it whenever I was doing an activity that I had an excuse to sweat, which was Advanced Combat & Tactics and Blacksmithing, otherwise it would look like there was something wrong with me if I was sweating profusely in my Advanced Spell Theory class.
The conditioning process was grueling, tedious, and painful whenever I upped the internal mana flow speed, but I stuck to it, and now I can increase my mana flow by 220% before I start to strain my mana pathways, and with this increase in internal mana flow, I noticed an improvement in my casting speed and power.
This eventually made me ask myself ‘Why has this not been done before?’, and after scouring the academy’s main library, I found similar experiments carried out across the ages ever since mages first noticed how certain magic beasts were capable of increasing their mana flow.
Many mages tried to replicate the process, but this always left them or their subjects crippled or dead. Eventually, all mages came to the consensus that this was a dead-end in this branch of research and moved on.
It is too bad they did not have an ancient dragon to guide them and were not capable of using instinctive magic, which Professor Sageira says helps a lot.
But with all that being said, the important thing that is coming up soon is the mid-year exams that are taking place in a week, and most of my classmates seem to be freaking out.
As for me, it does not seem so bad, I am confident of passing my mandatory classes as well as Advanced Spell Theory, Advanced Combat & Tactics, Blacksmithing, and Array Architecture.
As for my Elven language and Languages of Power, turns out I am somewhat of a polyglot. Probably thanks to me learning multiple languages growing up in my previous life.
The only class I am somewhat worried about is Enchanting. Sure, I would most likely get a pass, due to my grasp of the basic foundation of the subject, but I am far from the best in my class. Turns out, the more I learn about Enchanting, the more I find it is more of an art form, an expression of one’s own intent upon the enchantment that makes the difference between an average enchantment or a great enchantment, and I am not that good at art, best I can do is stick figures. It was also explained to me that even if someone did a direct copy of an enchantment, yes, it may work, but it would most likely be weaker or perform differently from the original.
I guess this explains why Professor Bixby is so eccentric, most artistic people are quirky in some way or another, while true geniuses like Professor Bixby more often than not have a screw loose. But I guess that is what is needed to look at the world in a way that others do not and find innovative solutions.
To remedy this and get some inspiration, Professor Bixby, showed me a bunch of equipment he and other students had enchanted, but also recommended that I take a look at other enchanting styles, so today, on the day I do not have any night class, I make my way into the capital after school in search of some more inspiration.