Lith came down from the ring with a dumbstruck expression, trying to understand what had just happened.
'Maybe Professor Trasque wanted to teach you respect for the opponent. By beating them like that, you abused your power, and that's exactly what the Headmaster criticized earlier.' Solus pondered.
'Trasque caring for respect? After how he threatened everyone and how he laughed in the face of that girl? Unlikely.'
Lith stood there, watching the other students performing their training. As Trasque predicted, every exchange was fast, but not as fast as Lith's. The performances he saw were mediocre at best, no points were assigned, but none were deducted either.
He was about to ask Solus to replay the exact wording Trasque had used for him when he finally understood.
In the following two hours, whenever it was his turn, Lith would let his opponent perform their attack before neutralizing it when he played the victim, while as the assailant he would give them the time to react.
Doing so cost him several defeats.
Despite all his battle experience against savage and magical beasts, letting the opponent set their own rhythm would sometimes put him at a disadvantage that was unsurmountable in such a limited space, with only first magic.
Lith spent most of the time spectating the other matches, often clicking his tongue at a bad move or at his own stupidity. At the end of the lesson, most of the students were mentally exhausted.
The uniforms protected them from any harm first magic could do, but in such a competitive environment, even a simulated life and death situation was faced as if it was real.
Playing both roles had made them realize how easy it was to take their lives and how big of an advantage those who had a weapon granted during an ambush truly had.
Only very few of them were actually capable of using first magic properly, the others were forced to improvise on the spot, desperately trying to score a single win.
Lith was still fuming when Trasque came over to him.
"Have you figured out your problem?" Trasque asked.
"Yes. This is an academy, not a battlefield. Hence my problem is an impulse control issue. During the warm-up rounds, I took my opponents down so fast that neither of us could learn anything from the training.
"In a real-life situation that would be good, but this is just an exercise, where I lost control of my pride and bloodlust. I risked leading the others by example, making them so focused on winning that they would not learn from their fights or those of the others."
Trasque had a pleased expression.
"Not bad, kid. You avoided ranting about my allegedly unfair judgment and actually questioned yourself. Usually kids your age are incapable of introspection.
"For that, I'll give you ten points for having learned your lesson, but the total still remains minus ten points, because I want you to remember it. A mage incapable of controlling his actions is a danger to himself and others."
Lith bowed to him in a sign of respect before leaving for the next class. Ten points were worth the Professor's respect, yet he realized that his reactions were out of proportion.
He was used to always being calm and collected, while now he was acting like a caged tiger trying to forcefully escape.
'This is so unnatural for me. Why didn't I pretend to accept Yurial's peace offering yesterday? I had everything to gain and nothing to lose. And today I wasn't able to grasp the meaning of the exercise until it was too late.
'Could this be another effect of the hormones, or is it my body somehow rejecting my mind?'
The thought was quite frightening, so Lith used Invigoration while walking. He checked every nook and cranny of his being, searching for a clue. At a first look, everything was fine, everything was as he remembered from over a year ago.
But then he noticed that the impurities in his body had moved a little toward his mana core, yet that made no sense. It would only happen when he refined his internal energy, and he had long been stuck at his bottleneck.
So, Lith focused on his mana core and discovered the source of all his troubles. It was pulsing, like a heart and at every beat it would turn to a lighter shade of cyan, while turning back to its normal color when at rest.
'Damn! My refining of the mana core has overlapped with its natural evolution. My core gets stronger over time, like everyone else's, but I have pushed mine so far that my body can't tolerate any further strengthening.
'My body and core will be at war until the latter is allowed to expand properly. That's why my first crush hit me so hard, the imbalance is also affecting my mind. From now on, I better count to one hundred before taking any decision.'
The fear of ending up like the Wither sent chills down his spine. It was a fate far worse than death, and he could do nothing about it but hope for his growth spurt to hurry up and finally happen.
He was so depressed that when he reached the Principles of Advanced Magic training hall, he barely noticed Professor Nalear.
The room was almost identical to the one they had just left, but instead of rings, strange contraptions occupied most of the space.
They consisted of a small pedestal, from which a reversed test tube jutted out. It was 1.8 meters (5'11") high and contained a black sphere made of metal. Every 30 centimeters (less than 1 foot) there was a mark on the glass, for a total of six marks.
"I hope you have studied and understood the first spell of your book, as I recommended last class, because that's what we are going to do today. Contrary to all others tier four spells, Lift works almost like an inferior spell."
She recited the spell, "Brezza Reale", and the weight inside the contraption in front of her rose completely above the first mark.
"The problem is, it has no use outside of practicing higher magic. What you just saw, is the effect obtained by casting it as if it was a tier three. But…"
She recited the spell once again, and this time the weight rose above the second and then the third marks before finally falling down.
"…you can freely add as many buckets of mana as you want. Your goal for this lesson is to manage to raise the weight to the top of the bell jar. You have two hours. To just barely pass, doing it just once is enough.
"Ten times out of ten means you pass with flying colors. Choose your station and start whenever you want. For those who don't remember the spell, you can study it now, but the time limit is always two hours, starting five minutes ago."
Professor Nalear ignored all the swearing that followed the students taking their position.
"Is she crazy?"
"This is insane! How can they demand that we become pentacasters in two hours?" "If this is her way to get even with us for yesterday, I'll report that b*tch to the Headmaster!"
Those were the politest remarks addressed to her.
Lith chose a bell jar in line of sight with Yurial, intending to use him as a beginner standard.
According to the school records he had in Soluspedia, an A rank magician was able to complete the exercise within half an hour, a B rank in more than one hour, C rank and below could fail.
That gave him an idea of how much time he should waste before succeeding, but not how to begin. Since Yurial managed to start from the third mark, he did the same just a minute later. The exercise was incredibly boring for Lith.
For a true mage, Lift was an oversimplified spell that made getting the weight up to the last mark easy as cake. Compared to achieving the same feat with spirit magic, it was ten times easier.
Lith could have done it on his first try, but that would make him too outstanding. The worst part was that the only way he had to measure time was for Solus to count the seconds.
After fifteen minutes, he allowed the weight to reach the fourth mark. After a little over twenty it reached the fifth, and less than five minutes later it reached the top. The bell jar turned red, emitting a "Ding!" sound.
Lith was so startled that he flinched back.
"Seems someone finally made it." Professor Nalear came to his side, her hair smelled like roses, making Lith's pressure spike.
"Twenty points for getting the first spot without any help." She said in her communicator amulet.
"But are you capable of doing it again?" She asked, coming dangerously close.
Solus activated protocol omega, generating cold spots under his armpits and at the back of his neck, to keep Lith from sweating bullets.
"Yes, of course." He tried focusing on the spell again, despite having troubles swallowing, like he had a tennis ball stuck in his throat.
The weight rose once again to the top, producing another ding.
"Interesting, I can see the weight has a fluid motion. Five steps?"
"Yes, once you get the gist of it, it's quite easy." He said looking at her nose instead of her eyes.
"Okay, champ. Since no one seems to be brave enough to ask for a hint, humor me. Try going slower, put half a second between every step."
Lith did as instructed, discovering that the spell was actually really versatile, allowing him to add mana freely, without fixed intervals, as long as the amount was always the same.
"Bravo! Now try going faster, like you want to break the bell jar."
Soon the situation degenerated into cries of "Faster", "Slower" and "Not so rough, be gentler".
Even though she was clearly referring to the handling of the weight, carrying no double entendre whatsoever, those words conjured in Lith's feverish mind images that were completely unrelated to magic.
Despite doing his best to focus on the task at hand, while Solus was cooling him off as fast as she could, Lith's paranoid nature was the only thing that saved him from embarrassment in the end.
That morning he had bandaged his nether regions, so that in the worst-case scenario, the rise of the spear hero would cause no bulge in his pants, keeping it sticking to his abdomen.