The next morning when Julius woke up he really didn't want anything more than to just silence his alarm spell and go to sleep for even just a few more minutes, but he knew if he gave in now he wouldn't just be sleeping a few more minutes so he slowly stood up and got himself ready for the day, this time without Rachel who wouldn't want to leave the warmth of Julius' just yet.
And since no one else would be awake this early in the morning Julius decided to use that time for a bit of experimenting.
For that Julius just sat down in outside in the dark, when he opened the door and the cold air hit him he instantly felt his sleepiness dissipate and he'd still have almost an hour before the sun even began to rise.
First he cast a small spell with the task of keeping anything distracting away from him, like a leaf, raindrops or even just the wind.
Then he connected to the Source and let some of his magic convert into death magic, but instead of using it directly, he just let it be.
Then he tried willing it to bring death to the air in front of him, doing his best to replicate the feeling he had gotten from his experiment with Theo earlier.
But after a few minutes of trying with no results, Julius took a small breather.
He wasn't even completely sure if what he was doing could potentially have positive results, it was just something he really wanted to try out if there was even just the slightest chance at success.
This could after all very well be a great breakthrough for him in the ways of death magic, especially with his limited success trying to improve in the only spell he was able to use up to this point.
After a short break Julius breathed in the fresh morning air and continued his experiment.
This time he didn't want to just give up after a short time so he gave it his best to keep his focus, completely ignoring everything else.
After a while a headache began to set in but Julius just kept on trying until, unknown to him, the first rays of the sun began peeking over the horizon.
Completely focused and without any consideration for the time, Julius just kept on willing the air in front of him to die, to no result.
Then, something happened; suddenly Julius could feel some of the death magic moving -
- and then it was all gone and he could feel a slight breeze.
But before Julius could even start to think about what just happened and its ramifications his alarm spell began blaring and the piercing headache he had been ignoring up to this point made itself felt.
And under the warm rays of the morning sun, Julius began making his way over to a breakfast he really didn't want to miss.
...
After enjoying a delicious breakfast (curtesy of Theo) together with his adorable little sisters, his best friend and his mother, Julius didn't really want to go back to magic again instead of spending time with his family, but what had happened before was serious enough to warrant making an exception and so he found himself making up a half-hearted excuse and making his way towards the Mausoleum after taking the grimoire from his room.
'Hopefully teacher will be able to tell me something about this, I really don't want to have to research this all on my own,' he thought as he opened the doors using the grimoire.
Once he had entered and the doors had closed behind him, the eagle-shaped umbra seemingly awoke as he turned towards Julius.
Ignoring the new nickname Julius got straight to the point:
"I tried willing death magic to do my bidding as I've read those who have broken through the last threshold of magic can do normally and I got an unexpected result, you wouldn't just so happen to know anything about that, teacher?"
Immediately as Julius finished speaking, he could almost feel the bafflement oozing off of the eagle, even though there were of course no facial expressions to speak of besides a slightly opened beak.
But even if his teacher's surprise hadn't been as apparent, his next words confirmed Julius' observation:
Before Julius could say something on his own, the umbra continued:
The next few minutes were used by the umbra questioning Julius on what exactly the results he had achieved were and how it had felt, but one thing was crystal clear; the youngest head of the Abraxus family in all of its recorded history had managed to perform a huge feat by willing the death magic to erase a bit of air from existence.
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If you've got any ideas how to creatively use this power once Julius is more proficient in using it please let me know, I'm curious what you will come up with.
Thanks for reading :)