As I uttered those words, the blue aura that was shrouding my body thickened, and I could feel a significant drop in energy after the expenditure of mana.
In my eyes, time started to slow down, as the space in front of me started to fold in on itself like a wormhole.
The thin blue aura started to extend from my body, shooting out to the open doorway and entangling with itself like the bare roots of a tree.
The roots of magic started to come closer together, circling around the perimeter of the open square area, before reaching the centre, destroying matter and atoms and replacing it with a hazy red colour.
You could see the reflection of reality rewriting itself in my glowing blue eyes.
"Woah..."
The image in front of me looked like the ripple in a lake, hazy and unclear after it suddenly sharpened into focus.
Before me, instead of the open space connecting to the main corridor, was a solid wall, looking exactly like the walls by the side of it.
This place was now completely sealed off, with a wall that looked like it had always been there.
'What in the world...?'
I stood there, dumbfoundedly staring at the apparent wall I had manifested.
Reaching out my hand, I cautiously put my fingertips to the tip of the apparent bricks.
But my hand just passed through seamlessly, as if the wall was just air.
*** Mason's POV ***
"BOYS, HURRY UP WOULD YOU? WE ARE GONNA MISS HIM!"
"Haaaa... haaa... wait up... please, you are way.... haaa... too fast." said one of the boys in short breaths.
"I TOLD YOU BLOODY IDIOTS TO TRAIN MORE DIDN'T I?"
While Mason did go out of his way to be a shitty human being, he still had his own line set for himself, where he would never slack off on training, no matter the circumstance.
This was the only way he could remain as 'The Strongest Combat Candidate', which was his only source of self-assurance.
The strongest combat candidate was a role given to only the ones with the most potential within the whole academy. This meant, that the school had to recognise your efforts in accordance with your talent at your age, which also meant that there was a high chance of having this esteemed role taken away from you by someone younger.
Anyone with this role would be given free protection from the rules at the academy, meaning that any actions that could hurt them would be overlooked by the teachers.
This was one of the reasons why Mason had not been expelled by now.
If Mason liked, he could bunk all of his classes to do whatever he wanted, which was why he currently had the time to be chasing and bullying someone younger than him, and there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about it.
"Dude, what is even so interesting about that guy?"
"He is a Steelheart as well, it wouldn't be that great of an idea to piss him off."
"Guys, just shut up. I have special permission to be overlooked by the teachers, but he doesn't. If he tries anything funny, I could always just snake him out. That is what makes this fun." Mason replied with a slightly crazed smile.
"What's more? It is that he gave me a weird feeling the last time we met, he just... irked me..."
The boys looked at Mason with incredulous expressions.
"Anyway, if you wimps are too slow, just head to class, I'll just train by myself after I finish with the twerp."
With slight nods, the goons hurried off in their own directions, like squirrels scuttering away.
'Now, I believe he turned right around here.'
Mason playfully peeked his head over the corner, expecting to see Ray running in fear.
But what met him was just emptiness and a dead end.
"Wait, is this it? What is the point of a turn like this? Where the hell did he go?"
The walls were lined up with no doors or joining hallways, just the odd painting and vending machine around the perimeter.
"Damn it. Did he use magic or something?"
Giving up, Mason walked down into the eerie dead end of the corridor, inspecting everything on the off chance that he could find something.
But there was nothing.
Sighing, he silently cursed and ran off, muttering about how he had wasted so much time doing this.
A few seconds after, a head popped out of the blank-looking wall near the back of the dead end.
"So he couldn't see through huh..."
Plotting to himself, Ray broke the concentration he was using to hold the magic spell, and the wall began to dissipate into thin air.
'This spell is surprisingly useful, I imagine there could be a lot of possibilities I could use with this, but it is one of the spells that are best used when they are unknown, so it isn't a good idea to reveal this in front of the whole class and the professor.'
'It seems that I am still back at the drawing board.'
Clicking his tongue, Ray walked into his next class, with his hands inside his pockets.
The big double door led to a decently big locker room, and you could see that there were a second pair of doors leading to the outside grounds of the academy near the back, with a large sandy duelling arena in the middle of a vast green expanse.
The area already had quite a few people waiting, so it looked like Ray was one of the later ones.
"Newcomers, welcome welcome! Please, before the class starts, you can change into your provided sports uniform in your locker. You are allowed to use whatever you need outside after that, but once I call you, everyone needs to be here within a minute." said the teacher with a cheerful grin.
The teacher was called Professor Rebecca, and she was talking with a hairband in her mouth as she tied up her hair.
The teacher who was now teaching this class was a toned, but slim woman, with beautiful long red hair, and naturally bright blue pupils. She was revealing a bit of skin in a tight-fit sports outfit, accentuating her alluring figure.
"Alright" answered some of the students who were also walking in behind me.
In a robotic manner, students started to walk up to a locker that had a number on it, which I presumed was their dorm room number.
They then brought their wrist to the front of the handle, and after a short beep, their watch would open the cabinet, allowing them to place their belongings in there and take out their bodysuit.
I did the same.
I found that the boys would then walk towards the left to get changed in a private dressing room, and the girls would go to the right.
Quite frankly, I had no friends at the moment, so I could only just walk awkwardly past the group of boys who were going to change as well.
After putting on the bodysuit, I found that it was also pretty tight, snuggly fitting around your body shape.
It was coated in matte black and had stripes of gold running down near the shoulder blades and thighs.
It didn't restrict your movements in any way and seemed to be made out of a material that was durable and flexible.
Flexing and rotating my arm, I checked out the tightness of the suit until I was accustomed and satisfied.
As I was walking out, two of the boys who I had seen earlier had also changed and were waiting for their last friend.
One of the boys turned around and noticed me walking by.
"Damn bro, you seem pretty built for an 11-year-old," he called out with a slight smile.
After training relentlessly through the white box, my muscles had become slightly toned, and it seemed that the bodysuit made these a bit more apparent.
'More people... seriously...?'