After the nurse had left, Damian straightened his back and started talking to Roy.
"How soon can we start training?"
"you can't." Roy replied.
Unexpectedly, Damian didn't even flinch.
He'd gotten used to Roy's way of speaking.
"...Not until we sort out your class specialization" Roy finished.
"Didn't we do that already?" Damian asked, "You chose fire."
"That was your element specialization kid" Roy corrected in an impatient voice.
"Class specialization determines what kind of magician you'll be."
Damian vaguely felt like he was about to sit through an exposition dump.
"In the beginning" Roy began. "Magicians focused only on their element specialization and learnt spells relating to that. For example, An Ice specialization magician wouldn't even bother trying to learn fire magic."
Damian nodded along before butting in.
"Doesn't that mean that an ice specialization magician would be useless when up against magicians that didn't learn fire based spells?"
"exactly" Roy affirmed. "This mage would be like a snowball in hell. No chance."
So then, how did they stay alive?" Damian asked.
"They formed teams!" Damian seemed to see Roy's eyes shine when he mentioned teams.
Roy didn't need to explain any further.
If an ice specialization magician was struggling against a magician of a nature specialization mage, they could just recruit a fire specialization mage to help them.
"Every element has it's counter" Roy lectured. "In fact, every element can counter each other."
"huh?" Damian, already bored with the explanation decided to cut it short.
"So about those cool spells and shit...?"
Roy sighed.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"...Haaah. Fine.... welp, To the batcave!!!"
"The what?"
"..."
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Ten minutes later, Damian was standing on a wooden board in the basement. His left foot was slightly raised and the board seemed to slowly spin.
"What the hell is this?" Damian asked.
"I'm glad you asked. This is the ancient technique passed down from one master to the next. It attempts to train the Acolyte by simulating the methodical turning of the mana circle while the master would inject small amounts of magic power at random times."
"Okay" Damian nodded. "so I just stand here? doing nothing? heh, becoming a magician is easier than I thought."
Roy frowned before rebutting. "You jumped into a cauldron. you want to talk about easy? Cultivating is just sitting down and sucking up mana like a lazy vacuum cleaner."
"A what?"
"....Never mind."
Suddenly Damien felt an almost stinging pain around his chest. He grabbed at his chest as if attempting to scratch an itch.
"Oi Roy, what the hell is this?"
"heheh. You'll see." Roy Cackled. Almost instantly, Roy condensed a thin line out of the air, if it didn't shimmer occasionally, it would be completely invisible.
"Take this! Secret Miyagi technique: Crane kick!"
"What the hell do you mean 'kick' ya stinky old bat?!"
From then on, Damian felt as if he was being stung by 1000 of bees. He wanted to fall, he wanted to give up. Just a quick break. That was fine, wasn't it? However, Damien found that he couldn't move a single muscle. Unbeknown to him, that itchy feeling was actually Roy locking up his muscle so that he couldn't esca- I mean, rest.
-----------------------------------------------------------
An hour later, Damien stumbled back to his room with his entire body screaming in pain. Every step caused imaginary needles to pierce through his feet, every breath felt like he was bashing his lungs with a sledgehammer and every time he crashed into a wall, he'd see stars.
"What the hell is wrong with that old fart?! Is he actually an S?"
"Like hell I am!" Roy barked. "You should be grateful! If I was any normal mage, you'd spend weeks straight doing nothing but that."
Damien froze up for a moment at the idea of even 1 second longer of that torment. As he continued to stumble forward, he caught sight of a couple students at the end of the hall. However, they seemed to be staring at him while whispering. Before Damien could get close enough to hear, they backed up before sprinting down the hall.
"The hell was that about? Do I have something on my face?" Damien wondered.
By his side, Roy shook his head. "Looks like this kid is famous. Too bad it's for the wrong reasons!"