Chereads / Dark Crow Rising / Chapter 657 - Incline 24: Aspirer Baltanthan

Chapter 657 - Incline 24: Aspirer Baltanthan

"Come on, show me your best spell." Seigunfrei requests as he takes the final steps back towards the far end of the arena. Frowning, I shift my weight towards my staff and an arm comes up to lazily point at him.

Eugh, thank the gods for people putting in voice equipment...

"What is the point of you being all the way over there if you want to see my best?" I want to know, not getting at all why he's so strict about us being so far apart. These arenas are built to hold a hall's worth of people battling it out. Let alone the stalls for people to watch from. The size is for total accommodation, not anything else, really.

"One thing the Academy staff will be looking out for is your ability to control your magic. Overwhelming power in comparison is only one part of the process. There are two ways we can test that, either I beat you up to violate your focus or you pitch your best ball." he explains, the spell that lets us clearly talk not picking up on his clap. A faint noise reaches my ears and probably dies crawling in my earwax.

"Fine." I mix into my next breath, my body straightening itself out so that my posture is proper. Letting another bout of air come through my lungs and out the nose, I feel out for my magic reserves. My aura of external-magic obeys and a sensation only understood by witches blows through my body hair. The familiar glow of my power disrupts the building's light, casting a patchy network of brown shifting to deep green.

Taking his words literally if only for the brief amusement, I pass my staff to my left and let an orb come into being in my palm. Rearing the arm back as the air seemingly turns solid, I skip forward. I throw it. Three branches of whistling wind show how it is spiralling.

Seigunfrei's legs suddenly come to life with a thick canopy of apatite light. He skirts my spell and disappears, my magic bursting out across the wall and not doing a whole lot. If the building wasn't stone but metal, the results would be spectacular, surely. Only, they're not, they'r-

"FOCUS!" Seigunfrei snaps as he bursts back into view!

His blender of a shin coming for me. Flinching into a jump, my staff goes down first, my left lets three fingers out and a wall of scales appears. His magic catches one and the rest join the coil, my power becoming his just like that. Taking some more steps back, I watch carefully as he crosses his arms, my strength clearly not enough to bother him.

Rather than complaining at his sudden shift in teaching, I use both hands to take my staff and I focus my power up. Glowing like a beacon, I roar under the strain it's putting on my lungs and slam it down, the magic's position inverting. While the ground does not erupt, my arcane strength still manages to blanket the area. One, thanks to my recent visit to Mechanical House, strikes me as having a particularly toxic glow.

I turn towards Seigunfrei as he runs circles on a small section of the wall, "Those examining you will be looking for more than just your ability to cover an area, Baltanthan. When your magic is so great you struggle to focus it, that's the commitment they want to see. Make sure your defences are ready..."

Heeding his warning, I run close to the edge while he is still in the air. Bringing up my shield spell properly this time and sticking to it, I catch his shadow landing in the middle of the arena. My magic splashes away submissively and lurches back for him, the entire place draining away as if he pulled the building's plug. He spreads his legs, his magic-swelled calves bulging to a grotesque degree before he seemingly swallows the added strength.

Thinking it's over, I let my shield down, only to catch his smirk.

"Again, focus. If you want to be out there with Nin, you need to have something approaching to his awareness." Seigunfrei reminds me, his legs tensing to unleash the stored magic. 

"GAH!" I let out, slamming against the wall and dropping into the dirt. Blinking with one eye against the pale, grainy ground, I let my mind get back in order. Breaking out into a cough, I push myself up. My hand needing to go back down for my staff which I had clumsily forgotten.

"I know I might be seeming provocative or harsh right now, Baltanthan, but Exceptional's name has meaning. To briefly make this a history lesson, the first student to hold the name was incomprehensibly powerful compared to the rest of the ancient school." he dares to remind me, his natural confidence getting on my nerves while something dares me to run.

"I know... I know...! I BLOODY DAMN WELL KNOW!" I steadily build up into snapping as my mind does much the same on the magic that's gotten into the air. Clamouring back for control of -my- magic, I roar once again to snatch it from my friend. Rupturing a hole in his control of it, a storm's eye opens up and it begins to rain.

"Ooooo, we're onto something here." Seigunfrei amuses himself with and he begins to dance amidst the chunky, exploding projectiles. Like bursting bottles of water, I soak the ground once again with my magic. My frustrations only grow when he decides to have a kick about with some of the magic before it bursts. A glare hardens alongside the dialling up of my staff's glow.

Having grown sick of sticking to his request for range, I run straight for him, an invisible weight on my conduit. Focusing all I can into a spear shape, I thrust it straight at him. I stumble ahead, nothing stopping me. Twisting around, he slaps the staff out of my hands, wasting all that magic under the arches of an entranceway.

"An Exceptional can carry themselves without the need for a conduit like a staff or wand. So, come on, let me see what those hands are made of." he has to lie, there's no way that there is any truth to this. Members of the faculty have directly told me that it is fine to apply for Exceptional House while using a conduit. Gods, I know I've seen Exceptional Students with them.

His little historical reference was even about an old man with a staff made of Moonlit Oak, the literal stereotype of a wise old witch!

"You want my hands...? You want my hands?" I repeat, rubbing them together and then putting them down at my sides so they can flex contently. Magic comes back to them and I keep it up despite the odd feeling of having it stop there.

"Yes, now, come on." he tells me, a finger flexing for me to come closer. Trudging up to him with the growing strain of my heavily-packed palms, he keeps on stepping away. He looks back again and again at the wall as if I am some backing-up vehicle.

"STOP MOVING!" I demand, leaping for him and getting kicked in the gut for the trouble. The world spins and swirls and somehow, the hard floor makes me bounce. Holding in my cough out of pure spite, I glare up at the sky as Seigunfrei appears in the corner of my vision. He crosses his arms and tuts.

"What did I tell you at the start?" he asks, a hand soon being offered to me.

"Focus..." I repeat, my patience wearing thin. But, minding my manners, rather than slapping the hand away, I grasp it tightly. I put my work into the pickup and dust myself off. Only getting fussy and immature when he starts to use his magic like a duster.

He smiles and stops it, his eyes looking to the entrance again, "I guess we got time still."

"She's probably lost somewhere in Mechanical House, let alone the space between Houses." I remark with a roll of my eyes.

"Well, we won't go on for too long or we'll never do what we actually came here to do!" Seigunfrei laughs before he heads towards my staff to hopefully return it to me.