After a good night's meditation followed by a hearty breakfast, I attended Urda's alchemy class; where I learned of a rather fascinating potion that greatly increased one's lung capacity, allowing for hours of underwater exploration. Though we didn't make it, the recipe required only a relatively common type of seaweed found at the bottom of fresh bodies of water and the body of an aquatic creature to be mixed and churned through a variety of steps before it was brewed into a pale, blue concoction that lasted for six hours.
Following the class, I spent the lunch period making my rounds and stopped by the 53rd floor to check on Toril; who was near the rear of the vast enclosure, toiling with the landscape to bring the design I gave him into fruition.
Which was coming along nicely, if I may add.
Though the reason for my visit revolved around other things, and so I quickly got down to business.
"How did the briefing go, Toril?" Though I'd long since heard the students' ramblings in the halls, it was apparent that I gauge Toril's feelings on the matter for myself.
"It… it could've gone better." He turned his head to the side.
"Just remember that with failure, comes an opportunity to learn," I assured him. "It's better to struggle now, than when you need to do it for real. Practice makes perfect, Toril."
"Yes, Your Grace." He resignedly bowed. Then brought his cobalt-blue eyes back up to mine. "Forgive my presumptuousness, but I'll be needing your help to accomplish this task, Your Grace."
"I'm aware." I quickly waved the matter aside. "I planned to be in attendance from the start. Only to supervise and assist, but not directly teach." I added with a pointed finger.
"I understand. "He bowed. "I plan to break the students up into groups and have them rotate between stations on one-hour rotations. We begin tomorrow."
"I assume you'll be needing some doppelgangers, then?" I assumed, to which Toril nodded in approval. "Very well, I'll see you then." I waved over my shoulder. Then stepped through the shadows to continue my usual schedule of grabbing various things with raw mana before sunset and the countless death matches with my Grandfather began.
With the passing of midnight, I once again followed Grandpa Lich into the tower for a closing lesson on poison usage before he began his lectures on decay. Though much like the night prior, we were in an unsuitable environment to practice such techniques; and so they remained as mere theories or concepts to be practiced at a later time.
Much the same routine continued today: I woke up, attended Urda's class for part two of the Rich Lungs Potion, and checked on my vassals during lunchtime, then lost myself in mana manipulation shortly after.
The only difference was that my therapeutic practice had ceased with the ringing of the school bell.
At which time, I retreated to my 'room' to eat and freshen up before descending to the 53rd floor.
In the vast, open park were four stations, marked off by waist-high pillars of stone to make up the corners of a field no less than 100 meters to a side, separated by roughly 120 meters of open space between them. Set in a star pattern around a platform of raised stone, each station contained around a company or two of students, lying or sitting or standing idly while my three vassals spoke among themselves on the platform.
With my appearing from above in my Semi-Wraith Form, each and every head craned or turned to give me its undivided attention. I on the other hand wordlessly took on my physical form in front of my kneeled vassals and quickly told them to rise from their feet.
Then, I turned face to the sea of students. "How many of them are there?"
"Five-hundred-fifty-six." Came Toril's blunt reply. "One-hundred-eleven per station. Give or take."
I slowly turned to him, brows raised in disbelief as I asked. "All of them are here?"
Toril nodded solemnly and silently in shared disbelief. Or more likely, as if he were daunted by the difficulty of the task I gave him.
Though I couldn't exactly blame him.
I was- without a doubt, throwing him to the wolves. With some lessons; and with some people, it was one of the simplest, best teaching methods that existed. Cruel as it may seem, nyctophobia could be cured by locking someone or oneself in a dark closet; many learned to swim by being thrown in the water by someone older than them; and most commonly of all, kids are thrown into the wolves den and are forced to learn how to socialize on top of absorbing lesson after lesson in their daily lives.
Like my Grandfather threw me before the students just a few days ago, I would do to not only Toril but the others as well. And like the countless kind-hearted sadists before me, I'd be there to stand watch and aid Toril as he struggled. All so that he could lead to the best of his ability come the day we graduate from the academy.
The task I now had, however, seemed similarly daunting.
556 students. 556 doppelgangers.
In my almost 11 years of living, I've only ever spawned four of them. From memory, spawning three at the same time required almost no mana at all. Like a single grain of sand compared to the countless galaxies, stars, planets, and moons in the universe, it required an insignificant shard off the mass that was my well.
I was fully aware that my well was not only of the highest density but also abnormally large for a human. How that compared to the average human or what that meant in terms of power limits was currently beyond me, but I at least felt that spawning this many doppelgangers at once would be a fairly accurate measure to gauge just how powerful I truly was.
I took a moment to study the students surrounding me before I withdrew any mana from my well. With the segregated floors of the school facing the western coast, the sun's rays came in through the windows at an off-angle, indirectly illuminating the voluminous space in tandem with the enchantments embedded into the ceiling. Leaving a twilight-esque environment that met the conditions for the Wraith Form and a space that cast the faintest of shadows from anyone inside.
"Make some light," I ordered over my shoulder.
And immediately, Toril raised both arms high and produced a torch that shot up towards the ceiling. Splaying the hundreds of anxious and expectant faces in amber light.
Consequently, I began focusing on the many shadows flickering across the ground and started withdrawing mana.
Like a sculptor was chipping away at my well, shards of the crystalline energy broke off from the structure and sublimed into a stream of energy as it fell towards my core and poured out darkness from the other side. Following my eyes, the energy poured forth and settled in the hundreds of umbral figures cast from Toril's light. Only after they darkened and began amassing into a solid shape did I avert my gaze elsewhere; and all the while shard after shard of mana broke off from my well and collapsed towards my affinity core.
When all was said and done, the number of bodies in the room had veritably doubled and only a fraction of mana had been lost from my reserves. If I had to estimate, the mass spawn required maybe… not even 1/200th of my total mana capacity. Which meant that it'd be a long time before I could test the full extent of my power.
Lest I wished to impose a day of darkness on the Empire.
Or kill every living thing in Deapou.
Or send the entire island to the void.
Frustratingly enough.
With a now soured mood, I gave a wave over my shoulder to Toril. Signaling for him to take over the students before I assumed my Wraith Form and floated overhead to observe.
Toril took the center and gave a quick briefing for the students before they began. Essentially, it was that combat training would be indirectly supervised; with the doppelgangers in place, it was virtually impossible for them to sham on their training. Spell development would be much the same, with the exception being that the students born without an affinity core were essentially allowed to train in whatever they so pleased. That left the other three stations to be instructed by each of my vassals. Who each quickly got to work in corralling the students.
Within the passing hours, I unsurprisingly realized that the vast majority of them were absolutely awful at elemental manipulation. Though a few had an innate knack for it, Grandpa Lich was a lousy teacher in the art. More so, it seemed his teachers were as well. Toril on the other hand was doing remarkably well with teaching them. Though he seemed to grow visibly frustrated whenever a student just wasn't getting it.
The sparring sessions went far better, however. Though I couldn't observe much due to my doppelgangers' constant assault. Many of the students were holding their own against their umbral selves. Even after they picked up their training weapons.
Following that, the pt and conditioning station was rather fascinating. Not by the wide range of physical fitness levels the students displayed, but by Jaimess' 'lead by example' method of teaching. "Each exercise was not only properly demonstrated and spot corrected, but Jaimess would also complete each exercise alongside each and every group.
Much to my amusement, the following station was both a mystery and an object of fascination for many of the students. Naturally, most of each hour was spent by Jonet explaining the obstacles presented before them and how to properly traverse them. As expected, they were as clumsy as anyone running an O-course for the first time. So much so, that I lost count of how many students tripped in the raised tire-like pits or burned their hands on the rope climb. There had to be dozens of them who were caught heaving for breath under the wires stretching just above the ground or repeatedly failing to vault over low walls and rails.
What was unexpected, however, was Jonet's smirk of satisfaction at watching the students struggle. More than once I caught her with a pleasurable grin as she stared at the students climbing Jacob's Ladder; a building-sized ladder with rungs that were increasingly spaced apart in a direct proportion to a rise in height.
Looking at them all fail and thinking of them all seamlessly running the course in record times birthed within me the desire to run the course myself. Though with the sea of eyes still somewhat focused on me and the many types of magic being flung about in the last station made me think otherwise.
There were many types of magic that I expected to see: standard or more complex elemental affinities like fire or granite; as well as more specific affinities like string or ash or even wax.
Naturally; or not, looking at them go made me start thinking about my own spells.
Since I was still struggling with developing new ones, I'd been devoting most of my solo training time to advancing my proficiency in my known spells in the hopes that one of them would evolve. While I had many theories on how to apply my dormant cores, I practically had no spells for both death and void magic.
After a little self-reflection, I realized that I'd been thinking of my affinities in the same way as elemental manipulation. Where it was about guiding the elements into doing what they'd naturally do on their own.
What my most used spell suggested, however, was that magic granted by affinity cores allowed these elements to do the impossible. Which meant that my avenues of thinking were simply too narrow.
In other words, I was ignorant.
Operating under such assumptions, I began to ponder on a spell similar to Leech Hand, only the intent would be to have it drain mana instead of vitality or stamina; though I was confident that such line of thinking was simply me reaching.
However, that did bring into light something that I've been overlooking this entire time: My lack of spells cast from raw mana. As a half-elf, I was in tune with the energy in a way that no other human could ever hope to achieve. And according to the words of my mother, I could directly cast with the stuff. What that entailed or how that even looked was beyond me. But I assumed it was the second step in one day learning how to mana forge.
On top of that were the mysteries of how to raise the undead and how the anomaly that was void magic could be applied. As far as I knew, the void completely destroyed everything it touched; much like my grandfather stated years ago. But if it was anything like the immense voids found throughout the cosmos, I was certain that it'd take considerable time to figure out how that related to my magic.
And then, there was the matter of my dreams.
In all, I had only a few basic attack and defense spells in my grimoire and naught a clue as to how to unlock the full potential of my magic that brewed around a drive- an obsession, to learn more. To do more.
And so, I found a quiet place on the guest floor to practice until the sun set below the Mortal Plane. At which time I moved up to my Grandfather's office to train the night away in earnest.