novelraw Chapter 144 145: Applied Theory Day [III]
Chapter 144 145: Applied Theory Day [III]
The Old Noble clutched his head as Koya answered the last of the theory questions, making his head hurt.
'H-how…' Did he know some sort of mind reading magic? Every answer that he asked, it was the exact same thing that he was thinking, that was what Koya told him and it was very stressful, considering that his thoughts didn't feel personal anymore at all.
Several questions… and the answers that Koya gave… the phrasing, the structure, even the specific examples he always used when he thought through this particular subject.
All of it coming back out of this boy's mouth word for word. It felt like this young commoner could peek into them and that scared him a lot.
"So right, am I done here now? You did say that this was the last question." Koya said with a smug look on his face and the old man wanted to do nothing but smack him but the Academy forbade violence between Professors and Students, even proctors like them who were originally not from the Academy had to obey that protocol.
Then there was the chance that Koya was physically stronger and faster than him which was highly likely since he was an old man. In the end, he had to let go of the thought completely.
"Yes you are done with the Theoretical section of your Applied Test, now go do the practical section." The old man said. "Your total scores will either be tallied as Fail, Average, Pass or Excellent, only a few students under us have been able to get Excellent so challenge this to the best of your abilities. I believe you will do well."
Koya stood up and walked to the field, nearly rolling his eyes.
The man had just been setting him up for failure making him answer in under thirty seconds and now suddenly he acted as if he had been believing in him from the very beginning.
The sudden warmth in his voice after three questions of barely concealed contempt was almost impressive as a performance.
「I believe this is how most humans in this world act.」
'Well you finally did something good… He looked scared shitless.' Koya thought while almost snickering, now he stepped onto the field and the moment he did, the woman looked up from her book with a raised eyebrow.
"Welcome to the Practical section of the Applied Test." She said simply, putting both legs down on the ground. "Every Proctor has a different kind of practical study they're doing but I don't care about all that… Your Mana Control, that's what I want to see."
The woman bit the inside of her cheek, looking at the student.
'So this is him?' She thought, she had watched a few streams where he fought and even his manga livestreams before he revealed his face so essentially she was a fan but that wasn't the major thing, she wanted to see how his mana reacted.
As someone who could use two different kinds of magic, how did his mana react? Did it react differently or just branch out to cover everything… Also was he open for a date? There were many things she was interested in.
She had cleared her schedule for this particular batch specifically because his name was on the list. That was not something she was going to admit to anyone.
"I see." Koya said, his Mana Control was good so he didn't have much problems with it.
"I'll give you three practical exercises and if you're able to pass them excellently then I will give you an Excellent Mark in this practical." The Awakened woman stood up. "Should we begin?"
"Yes." Koya said, wondering what kind of exercises she had in mind. Being the first one to get Excellent here would naturally make everyone outside respect or fear him more.
"Good…" She said and folded her hands. "I want you to go into Mana Mode."
The instant she blinked, the mana had already surrounded him like a blue aura covering his whole body.
'A-already…' She had seen him do it a few times on stream, she was sure but all of that looked fake. How could a Four-liner reach Mana Mode in an instant?
Mana Mode wasn't supposed to be instantaneous at Four-liner rank. The standard was a minute or so of concentration minimum for a student at his level. He had done it before she even finished blinking. He usually did the same on his streams but she assumed it was fake…
However what was in front of her wasn't fake and it made her gulp.
"Amazing, I'm sure you know how to combine all that energy into one point… What follows is pretty easy, shoot the energy out as a beam moving directly to my face." The woman said, she had studied the Mana Theory that the students did and so far, the Creation Mage hadn't taught them this so naturally she was going to use these exercises to test out the knowledge of the students.
"Hm?" Koya raised up two fingers and converged the mana into those points, he had to shoot it out as a beam… that meant he just had to do it similar to the method of making a stronger Blood Burst.
First instead of using Blood Converge to gather the blood at those singular points where he wanted to shoot the blood out of, he would use Mana Mode instead focusing it at the ends and now he had to force that mana to shoot outward as if it was a beam which was easier said than done.
"You can't do it? That's normal, it is an advanced mana exercise after a–" A beam of mana shot toward her face in an instant, colliding with the Mana Construct barrier she had set up initially and split into several different beams hitting several places in the room.
The barrier cracked down the center on impact and three splinters of the beam went wide… one hit the ceiling, one hit the left wall and one went straight for the old man's table.
Hell, it soared over to the old man piercing a hole through his mug and spilling the remnants of the coffee all over the table and his body.
It was the second time today that coffee had ended up somewhere it wasn't supposed to be and both times had directly involved this one student.
"Hot Hot Hot!" The old man complained however the other two in the room completely ignored him.
"That's nice…" She said, from the point where the beam hit, cracks had formed in her mana barrier and this was just the first time he was doing it.
The cracks spread outward from the center like a web… she had put a bit of mana into that barrier and he had still fractured it on the first attempt with a technique he had never formally learned.
There was a lot of room for improvement. "You passed your first exercise."
Koya let out a sigh of relief, still ignoring the old man that was yelling at them from the side. He felt like putting a beam through the man's head truly.
'Calm down… don't let the intrusive thoughts get the best of you.' Koya thought.
"Now for the second exercise… Mana Constructs, just like the ones I used to defend myself against your attack. I want you to create a mana construct, whether it be a barrier or even an attacking weapon." The proctor said.
This one was better known amongst the higher classes but not everybody could make a proper Mana Construct.
"Alright then." Koya said and gathered the mana in front of him, forming it into a sword that was similar to those ALI issued swords for students in the Weapons class. He held onto it and the woman watched.
"Good, you have experience in making constructs… now I'll be testing how durable that construct is, if it can survive one hit from my own construct then you pass." She said and her own mana construct which was in the shape of a large hammer materialized in her hand.
Koya didn't reply but he got in a defensive position, making her nod as well and then she closed the distance between them pretty slowly.
'I guess it's because I'm used to much faster movement.' He thought as she raised the hammer up, pouring mana into her construct.
In the time that it took her to strike, he could have used Overdrive to close the distance and get a clear shot but that wasn't the main goal of this… It was to defend.
He lifted his sword construct just as she brought down her hammer against it.
A shockwave exploded outward from that point, spreading across the room and knocking several things off the table in quick succession, making the old man shout again.
His sword held perfectly and the woman withdrew her weapon, letting it dissipate into nothingness.
The crack in the sword construct was barely visible, there was just a hairline split at the top edge where the hammer had made direct contact but everything else was intact.
"Despite the construct being a regular sword, it was able to hold cleanly against the full attack of my hammer. What nice construct strength…" She commented while placing a hand on her waist.
He really was a natural at all of this…
"Now for your final exercise, if you can point out one of the mana points in my body then you get an Excellent." She said. "Do you need to know what mana points are?"
She was sure that Saki already taught this in her class so it was a pretty easy question and Koya shook his head.
"I know what they are already."
It was one of the things Saki taught him alongside when they were training familiars and also explained in class recently.
Mana Points were simply the points in the body which mana flowed through which channeled power into spells… It was also where Hollowblade was most important, if he struck the mana point of an awakened with that blade, there was a chance that their whole system would collapse and they would die.
Each point was found in a general area but it differed from Awakened to Awakened since everybody had different bodies.
'Hitting a direct strike on a Mana Point with your own mana can cause them to faint though if you're on equal levels of power.' He thought but again Mana Points were different from Awakened to Awakened so it would be hard finding another person's mana points.
For example a mana point could be found within a general area in the stomach, who had time to go through all the different muscles to find the point there?
"Then go ahead… find at least one point in my body." The proctor said, the initial students all had to find the mana points on their own bodies but it was part of her test here, as someone able to use multiple affinities, he should be more sensitive to mana than most.
'Don't I have a skill that can help with this?' Koya thought, remembering the skill set that Hakai had… at the very top was Analytical Sight, he equipped it and the world changed around his eyes.
At least he wasn't seeing organs this time… but her whole body had become black and several blue points popped up all over her body with blue energy flowing through them as well. There were red points as well.
「The blue points are the active mana points of the target… the blue energy flowing between them is internal mana in transit. The red points are active weak points that when struck will break through the target's defenses temporarily. Note: weak points shift based on body movement and positioning so they are not fixed targets. Striking a mana point directly with enough force will cause the target's mana circuit to temporarily shut down in that region」
'This is pretty convenient.' Koya thought, so Hakai could just see everyone's weak points to exploit? And where their mana points were? Talk about overpowered.
"If you've found it, put mana on your fingers and touch it." The proctor told him, as she was a Blue crest awakened, on normal occasions, he wouldn't be able to break through the mana that covered her mana point. "Are you ready?"
"Absolutely." Koya said and she nodded, blinking as he closed the distance between them far quicker than she had.
She hadn't been quite ready for that.
She had assumed he would approach the same way she had during the construct test but instead he was already in front of her before the nod finished leaving her head.
Two of his fingers angled forward and zipped through the air to one of her mana points except…
Koya's fingers touched something really soft and squishy, he could feel the mana point and pushed his mana there and though it didn't do anything, he was done with the exercise but still… what was this squishy thing?
It didn't feel like a mana point. Mana points had a specific texture to them when you pushed mana against them… it was firm like pressing on a knot and though he could feel it, the flesh he was touching was the opposite of that.
He poked it again and it grew hard against his finger, while using Analytical Sight, he could only see that her body was black and her mana point was under his finger.
Koya blinked and deactivated the skill, finally seeing what he was touching.
Apparently the mana point had been around the area of her breast but he was specifically poking her nipple and the Proctor hadn't worn a bra.
Before he could pull his hand back, the damage was already done.
"Haaaaaangh~" The proctor moaned out loud, alerting even the students outside.
A minute later, Koya walked out of the room with a sigh as the old man's voice called from inside the room.
"Amagi Koya, Excellent!" He reported and there were several gazes in his direction with looks of awe in their eyes.
The waiting line had gone completely quiet.
A few people who had been looking at their phones lowered them. Ryouma was the only one whose expression didn't change… he just leaned back further in his chair and crossed his arms like he had already known.
Koya couldn't blame them since he was the first person to get Excellent among this batch, if there was someone before, Hayate would have said so.
'But if the tests are this easy then how did that noble fail?' Koya thought as he walked and nodded at Hayate and Ryouma.
"Next, Itsuhara Hayate! Come in for testing!"
The half noble's face twitched in fear and then he slowly got to his feet, fumbling for the ALI phone in his pocket.
Since Hayate had given him words of encouragement, Koya decided to give him the same too. He placed his hand on Hayate's shoulder, making the young man stiff.
"Go get em' tiger." He told Hayate and then pushed him in the direction of the door. "If you get high enough marks then we can have lunch together."
He didn't bother to look at Hayate's face as he waved him off but he could hear the young man taking a very deep breath before the door closed behind him.
Koya noticed someone was looking at him from the end of the hall, all he could catch a glimpse of before the person vanished was that they had pinkish hair.
'Shion?' Koya thought as he left the Waiting line and was in one of the hallways of the main ALI halls. 'She's gone…'
He looked at the end of the hall for a long moment. There was nothing. If it was her, she had moved fast enough that even his eyes barely caught her.
She was one of the heroines naturally and his favorite one in the original manga but who knew the kind of changes that the God of novelty had given her in this new world?
Instead of her though, a bat popped up in front of his face and Koya sighed.
"Again, Mirei?" He asked, looking at the succubus. If she were normal then he would have entertained her but she wanted to turn him into a slave, besides even if they did it… What would her skills be?
In a small flash of light, the small bat turned into the human succubus woman with pointed ears and styled hair in her Class 1 uniform.
"So…" She didn't look him in the face and Koya was confused, why was she acting so shy? Mirei… shy? But then again, why was that so cute? He really had a thing for shy girls. "Since we're done with our Applied test, I wanted to ask… You don't have to if you don't want to but would you spend time with me?"
"No–"
"Wait…" She looked at him and her eyes were glossy as if she wanted to cry. "Before you say no, I want you to know that I've made a very good effort to try and at least act like a regular woman so please, could you spend time with me?"
Koya bit the insides of his lip, he didn't have anything to do at this time so he was free.
"Sure then, what's the worst that could happen?"
…A lot, a lot of worst things could happen.