Meditation was very useful when you needed to create order in chaos, or if you need to vent your frustrations. For Lucas, it did both at the same time. He had calmed down a bit, enough for him to inspect his mental sphere once more.
Losing touch with reality, he was back in the cracked dome. The blood-red moon was the only thing on the ceiling that wasn't broken. Everything else felt damaged. With his attention on the crimson moon, the walls of the dome started to replay and fabricate new images of what happened. Lucas didn't know whether to be happy or not when some of the images were replaced by Elam's friend.
It seems like he hadn't calmed down entirely, his subconscious was still angry. The images of Elam's friend critiquing him made him feel childish, he was actually upset at such a minor thing. Still, it wasn't as if he could make his feelings go away with a single realization.
While in his dome he could see the almost finished rune he created. Lucas was still unsure of what he was doing, interpreting a feeling by drawing it wasn't easy. He didn't have any artistic capabilities, making an interpretation even harder. After all, how would one draw feelings?
The rune was still under construction, but Lucas couldn't work on it anymore. Every time he touched it he got pushed out of his dome. The rune consisted of certain perfectly straight lines making hexagons and a few round lines that encapsulated them all. Part of Lucas found that description fit the Scarlet Moon, after all, the first contact with it mesmerized him with how it looked.
Another part of Lucas found that to be ridiculous, if a rune was to be created around the Scarlet Moon, the interpretation should reflect the chaos it caused, not the form it had. While the bloody moon itself was beautiful to look at, not many had the privilege to watch the sky when it appears. Part of Lucas found it necessary that chaos was introduced in the rune as well, making the lines on top look like scribbles.
The weirdest part was that the scribbles and the hexagons within the circles somehow matched up. There were only a few more lines that were needed to complete the rune. What that rune would do exactly was a mystery even for the creator or creators themselves. What Lucas wanted it to do was to be a vessel for his willpower to push back the Rank 2 aura, but if it would do such a thing remained to be seen.
Looking at the cracks in the dome it was time to see if that salve was a solution or if it was useless. With Elam saying it was mostly used to calm down and repair mental instability, Lucas did not have the certainty of it helping him out.
Exiting the dome he reached for the salve to take a bit of it on his fingers. Sitting there he was actually not sure what to do next. The salve on his hand should be applied to his head, but where exactly? He was never taught where the Mental Sphere was actually located.
With a bit of hesitation he simply spread the salve over his forehead, bringing him immediate relief. His headache was somehow lessened, but Lucas was left confused since he didn't understand why.
Entering his dome once more he could see the cracks had been repaired, even if only for a tiny bit. It was reason enough for Lucas to continue using the salve until he didn't feel his headache anymore. His fear of using it wrong was actually misplaced since the salve was meant to work wherever it was applied. The closer it was to the Mental Sphere the better it would work.
Actually applying it on the Mental Sphere would be impossible, except if Lucas was able to dig into his own brain.
His headache was gone, that feeling was incredibly freeing. He could go back to work on his rune, but decided to enjoy the moment of clarity. He tried making some tea by following the instructions left behind. At first, it looked simple, yet not long after he realized that cooking wasn't his best skill. It didn't taste that great, not that it mattered. Lucas just wanted to experience the headacheless life for a bit longer before his personality kicked in.
He wasn't being productive anymore, there were tons of projects and things to work on, and yet he was just lying down in Elam's couch? Was he just going to laze around doing absolutely nothing? Before those thoughts got the upper hand, Lucas fell asleep.
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The School's competition was over, many were happy, others were disappointed. As one of the major victors, Matheo should be praised and delighted. Sadly, reality didn't like that idea. He could feel the gazes and silent laughter of his so-called friends and onlookers. He was second in the competition, yet none were congratulating him.
Matheo was used to people, no matter their position, to praise and adore him. Women were always lining up, his fans would always support him and teachers didn't mind giving him advantages over other students. Now, everyone was keeping their distance. Those groups would form again later on, but right after the competition, everyone was busy with something else.
He knew his position and, while annoyed, didn't need those groups at all. It was more the norm for people to surround him, it wasn't a lifeline for Matheo. The one thing he was actually scared, and angry over was the fact that he needed to go home.
Was he successful? Yes. A prodigy of his school? Absolutely. Did he get there by his own work and effort? Partially.
Through the use of his family's connections and wealth did he gain the power to almost reach Rank 2. He was very close even, he just needed a few more things, and it would be done, but his family would only give him those things if he got first place. Now did he not only get second place, but he embarrassed the name of his family.
On his way home he could feel his rapidly beating heart clamp up now and then. His servants were still dutifully handling everything for him, riding the carriage and providing protection, although not many dared to ambush them.
In a massive mansion that was comparable to a castle the Reinheart family lived, a powerful and influential family that had great ties to the royalty of the Frigus kingdom.
Within the family all decision were made by the patriarch and matriarch. They were both blessed with magical prowess and used their abilities to their utmost to create their dynasty. With power came responsibility, so they had a lot of work reigning over their land and also regulate their family as well.
"Honey, Matheo's competition is over.", the woman was beautiful, but her face seemed stone-cold. Not a speck of emotion was visible, even though she spoke very softly. Many would fall in love at first sight, but if they learned of what she did they would run like never before.
"What are the results?", the head of the family was a very well toned man with a small white mustache. His white hair was pulled back, and the magical monocle on his face made him seem very capable. Like the woman, he also didn't have an ounce of emotion when he spoke.
"Second place, and he got humiliated on stage by a commoner."
"Tch, a failure then?", a hint of anger got through his apathetic look. Like most mages, they supressed their emotions to have a better grasp on the world. They weren't exactly combative mages, rather, they were rulers.
"Should we dispose of him darling?"
"Honey, no, his brothers and sisters have decent enough accomplishments to outweigh his incompetence."
"There's also news about Eliot, who was supposed to be second that got obliterated on the stage and is now at the bottom, leaving room for another commoner to enter the top 50 that will go to the national competition."
"That's not an issue, the school can't afford to send two commoners, the weakest one will be disposed off. Then the school will have to look for a replacement, and then we can come in."
"How much do you propose we give the academy?"
"That watered down institution can't be called an academy, it's at most a playground for children. Not that it stops their greed, give them around a 100 decent magic crystals. That should be enough for them to agree to our demands. Give that Eliot's family the correct instructions."
"I'll inform them, how's our progress so far?"
"With the Prince?", to which the woman nodded.
"Things aren't going great, but it's not the worst either. The third faction is growing in power at a rapid pace. Rumors are going around that the third child of the king is alive and well."
"Wasn't she supposed to be assassinated already?"
"Honey, she was ambushed by monsters, that's the official story. Sadly, yes, she seems to have returned with plenty of vigor."
"Then how do you suppose we deal with them darling?"
"Hmm, she was under watch of a trusted guard, but he works for the elder Princess's faction, we don't have any ties with them. Luckily they would experience the same problem with the third faction, so they'll take care of it."
"And what do you suppose we do with Matheo?"
"Discipline him."
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Lucas woke up covered in a warm and soft blanket, it felt almost magically comfortable. Lucas couldn't help but think it was no wonder Elam was always in his couch. It truly was heavenly to forget about everything around him and sleep.
As a Rank 1 mage he didn't need sleep per se. With magic, he could stay awake for as long as needed. Sleeping did bring its benefits of course, like for example, a clear mind.
Getting out of the couch felt more difficult than he imagined, it felt like it was trying to pull Lucas back in. Standing up the first thing he did was inspect his Mental Sphere. Things looked fine, the cracks were gone, the Scarlet Moon was still there with its towering presence.
He believed it was time to complete it, yet held out on actually working on it. If he had to create the rune that had to symbolize his feelings, Lucas felt it would be best done when he was back under that pressure during his training.
With his mind cleared of frustrations Lucas thought it was time for him to work on his shortcomings, and there were a lot of those. His strength, resilience, spells, techniques..., everything needed an upgrade if he wanted to survive against a Rank 2.
He might be capable of tricking an almost Rank 2 brat like Matheo, but if he has to fight them head on, he was certain he would be dead.
'First things first, the Martial Class.'
While the Martial Class was extremely strong in the physical sense, they lost their magical capabilities. To Lucas this was blasphemy, in a world ruled by magic, losing that right was suicide. During the competition he tried to figure out how the teacher of the Martial Class created those students.
'They gave up their pathways to reinforce their body, so how did they actually strengthen it?'
'Perhaps by fusing elementless magicules and the body, but if he did that then the pathways started to absorb it instead?'
'Hmm, isn't that a little too on the nose?'
'I don't know, we're spitballing at this point.'
'How would we even "fuse" magic into our body?'
'If only we had one of their bodies.'
'We're not going to go out and kill one of them for our experiments, okay?'
'Fine, fine, make it harder for us.'
'Sigh, let's start with something basic. When you overloaded our arm to get a high score during the tests, it almost exploded, so how about we just give it a little bit and see what happens?'
'Go for it.'
Lucas started to send small amounts of elementless magicules down his arm, since his entire body was a giant pathway, he didn't have any restrictions on where it had to go. So they just stayed there and floated around inside his arm. Minutes passed without any change, Lucas was starting to get bored, so he sent a few more.
Yet nothing happened, he kept repeating the process until it became too much to handle, and he had to either disperse the magic outside or take it back into his core. His first experiment ended in total failure, the only thing he learned was that this method didn't work, which was at least something.
He tried a few more things before losing hope in figuring it out right away. Thus, he started to work on spells, especially the ones with firepower.
Typical fireballs and intensified fireballs were good, but if he wanted to really deal some heavy damage, he would need to find stronger spells. He had a few ideas, like making the ground turn into a pool of mud or quicksand. Other ideas were based on what he saw from Elam's friend, like making roots of the trees entangle someone, making a giant bubble of water where someone would drown. Creating a strong stone box that could be filled with fire, combining wind and fire to create a fire tornado, and the ideas kept growing bigger and bigger.
The only issue was that Lucas didn't have the knowledge to actualize those spells, he could only think of them. He wanted to use poison in his spells, but didn't know anything about it, he wanted to create a tornado, but didn't know how exactly.
When he reviewed all his ideas, few were good enough, even fewer possible. What Lucas did notice was the fact that none of his ideas included Light or Dark magic, making him wonder if he could do something with that. He knew that there were a lot more elements than the 6 he learned from Venion, but he didn't know the others, nor how to access them.
'We have a lot of work ahead of us.'