Chapter 9   - 8 - Exhausted

Yeah, so it turns out, I couldn't wait till tomorrow.

Well, it was the next day now so technically today.

Last night after I'd gotten back to the inn, I couldn't fall sleep due to my anticipation and excitement, so I decided to try out that lightning internal enhancement technique and snuck out of the walls.

So, remember how I'd assumed that practicing this technique wouldn't be a problem for me?

Yeah, I was wrong.

I could bear the pain no problem, and my Healing Factor had no issues with the damage it caused. But the problem was the technique itself. First of all, evenly spreading out lightning through my entire body was insanely difficult. And once I managed to do that, maintaining the flows' even consistency was the next obstacle.

Everytime I tried moving in that state, the lightning streaming around the muscles that I move automatically increase in flow.

In the end, I used my Healing Factor so much that I'd felt completely wiped out and exhausted afterwards. By then, I had kinda gotten the hang of how to move forward in a straight line in that state, but I didn't have full control...dodging, countering and other complex movements would take a lot more practice, time and effort.

And even with dashing forward in a straight line, I could only manage to stream enough lightning through myself to just barely double my speed, attempting to spread any more lightning through my body was extremely difficult to do evenly, I kept unconsciously spreading it disproportionately, sending more to my legs and feet and less to my upper body, which ended up frying the nerves and muscles in my legs.

When using that technique, your body emits a faint blue electric glow, and the more lightning you spread out, the brighter you glow. An even glow throughout your body was an indicator of a successful execution of the technique. However mine became lopsided when I tried increasing the lightning, my legs would let out a bright glow while my upper body was a lot dimmer.

An even glow meant that the all the lightning streaming inside me was flowing at the same speed. An uneven glow meant the opposite, and causes the overall flow to become unstable and stagnate, resulting in internal damage to yourself.

I was so worn out after last night that I'd felt super lethargic during the first session today, and I was currently sleeping through the second session. I mean, it was kinda my fault for underestimating how difficult this technique would be and getting overly excited, but I couldn't help but feel a bit frustrated.

When I had been training as an assassin, things were certainly tough in the beginning, but after I'd gotten the basics down, the rest came really easy to me and I'd sort of gotten used to mastering new techniques without too much trouble. Even in this world, it didn't take me too long to get the hang of Mana and controlling the output and intensity of my lightning blasts.

But with this technique, I could tell that fully mastering it was going to take a really long time and would require a lot of practice. Man, how do people who can't heal themselves even begin to try this technique?

...and no, I'm not sulking.

I'm just frustrated that things didn't go the way I had expected them to.

Not the same thing.

I sighed and opened my drooping eyelids, sneaking a glance at the clock in the front of the classroom. Barely half an hour had passed in the second session. I groaned internally and buried my head in my arms on the desk again.

Is that what a hangover felt like? I wouldn't know, never tried alcohol in my old life, and it's not just because I was underage. I mean, I was an assassin, so not exactly a law-abiding citizen, but I was just never all that interested in getting drunk, though I had gotten high on weed a few times.

What am I even talking about? I felt like I was just trying to occupy my mind so that time would move faster.

"Hey, I know you're not asleep. You do realize that we'll be tested on these, don't you? You won't be able to advance to the next year if you fail-."

"No worries, I'll copy your notes during the weekend or something. Thanks in advance, Kitty Cat," I mumbled in reply.

"Yeah right, you won't be getting any help from me!" She huffed.

"Sure I won't. Wake me up when the session's over, 'kay?"

I was expecting a few more comebacks from her, but she surprisingly let me be. I dozed off, and eventually fell asleep, my body giving into the fatigue.

I woke up with a start as I felt a shock run down my spine. As I opened my eyes, a smug looking Rai stood in front of me.

"Hehe, that's payback for yesterday!"

"You picked the wrong day to mess with me, Lemur," I growled, reaching out to grab his tail while sparks crackled out of my hand.

"H-hey, easy now-."

"Group D? I would like to have a word," Interrupted a deadpan voice.

Crap.

We turned to face Professor Tolsh, who had approached our group. I also just noticed that we were the only ones left in the room. Sweet, guess I had slept through the whole session.

"Uh, what is it, sir?" Asked Key.

"Well...I had noticed that, three of your members are usually asleep during my classes. The policy at this Academy is to allow students freedom to do as they please, since those who do not study and train will inevitably fail the year-end exams and be unable to advance to the next year. However, as an educator, I do prefer to advise my students at the very least. If you are truly intent on becoming Adventurers, simply passing the combat and magic exams will not be enough, you will also need to pass my written exam. For that, I recommend that you either try to pay better attention during the session, or I can arrange it so that your group desk cluster can be moved to the front of the classroom. Well, that is all. Have a good day."

Was that a veiled threat?

It was hard to say when it was delivered with such an emotionless, boring tone. Either way, there was absolutely no way I could sit at the front! That had to be avoided at all costs.

I turned to the other two guys.

"Fellas...let's not sleep during these sessions anymore."

"Agreed. It won't be easy, but it beats the alternative," Nodded Azyl, looking at the front of the class with a look of dread.

Guess he didn't like the idea of sitting up front either.

"Stop acting like you guys are making sacrifices, staying awake in class is what you're supposed to do in the first place! Now let's hurry up and change into our gear and head to the training hall. We'll be late at this rate," Urged Key, looking at the time.

Oh, hey...that kinda rhym-.

"Hey, nice rhyme-!" Began Rai.

"Just shut up and get going."

"Yes ma'am!"

A little while later, we were in the training hall, a couple of minutes late. Everyone was in their gear, making the training hall a lot more colorful that the classroom. Persia and I wore our usual black gear.

Rai's battle gear consisted of a dark blue long sleeved spandex-like top with green fingerless gloves, and a navy blue battle trouser with tons of small pockets and compartments, most of them were empty though, so it was pretty underutilized.

His sickle hung on his lower back, while the chain was wrapped around his right arm. Key had full body dark red leather armor on, consisting of a sleeveless upper half, with armored maroon gloves that covered her forearm, and armored, rough tights that fully covered her legs, with sturdy looking maroon boots on her feet. Her sword was attached to her belt by her hip.

Azyl had light metal armor on, it looked pretty ordinary, but was probably the strongest armor in our group in terms of defense, the rest of us wore mostly leather armor while he was wearing mostly metal, even if it was very light, consisting of chain-mail, light gauntlets, and grieves, with leather gloves on his hands, which he kept on even during classes for some reason. He didn't seem to have a weapon.

"Alright, first years! For today's session, you'll first try your hand at activating the basic barrier spell using ready-made scrolls, these are the most frequently bought type of scroll by Adventurers. Each group will get one scroll, and your members will take turns activating it. After that, you'll each attempt to attach a spell onto a blank Spell Scroll," Explained Instructor Tabbs, handing out a scroll to each of the four groups.

"Is it alright if we use Elemental Magic to see how effective this barrier is?" I inquired hopefully, as she handed us our scroll.

That nap during the last session cleared up some of my fatigue, and I was feeling a bit less pessimistic than I had been earlier.

"Hmm...I suppose that would be fine, but nothing too destructive, this may be a school, but if you damage the walls or rooms, we will charge you for the damages."

Huh, I should definitely keep that in mind.

"Hey guys, let's test out how much damage this barrier spell can withstand. As each of us take turns casting the barrier, the rest of us should take turns trying to break the barrier," I suggested.

"That's not a bad idea. Since these scrolls are commonly used by Adventurers, it won't hurt to have a feel for their durability," Agreed Key.

And so, we began.

Persia was the first to activate the barrier, while Key went first in attacking it, drawing her sword. It held up against her regular swings, after which she engulfed the blade in flames and tried again. After a couple of solid strikes, the barrier began to crack, before a third slash shattered it.

Next up, Azyl set up the barrier with Rai attacking. He didn't reach for his sickle, instead taking a deep breath and getting in position to charge forward. Wait, was he...? His body began glowing slightly, and a couple of sparks crackled across him.

No way.

He shot forward rapidly and broke through the barrier with just a couple of speedy punches.

Seriously...the comic relief character had better control over that technique than I did!?

This is...not fair. No, I'm not being childish!

"How much did you boost your speed by?" I inquired casually, making sure my voice didn't reflect my envy and frustration.

"Hmm? Oh a little less than double, maybe around a x1.8 increase? I've been working on this technique even before applying to the Academy, and I have full control over and can move around pretty freely at the speed I just used. If I really push myself, I can boost it to about x2.5, but I can only use simple, straightforward movements at that speed, I can't fully control it yet, if I try moving too much at that speed I mess up the internal flow and shock myself," He explained.

Yup, he was way ahead of me. Even with a minimal boost in speed, I couldn't move around freely without disrupting the flow of the internal lightning streams. I could move in straight lines all the way upto a x2 boost, but even then it takes every last drop of my concentration to maintain the consistency of the flow.

On top of that, when I'd looked into this technique a bit more at the Academy's library this morning, I discovered that generally only one in every five Adventurers with Lightning Magic could properly master and use this technique at x2 speed or more.

Of the rest, some couldn't even begin to try the technique while the rest could only ever manage to use it at the unstable level I'm currently stuck at. Rai may be an idiot and annoying as hell, but I had to admit that he definitely knew what he was doing.

It was quite possible that he could beat me in an all out fight at the moment. Not that I would admit that to anyone, ever. Damn it, I needed to hurry up and get stronger before anyone else figures it out. While I wasn't interested in being the strongest person in the world or whatever, I do still have some pride, you know.

Anyway, it was now my turn to activate the barrier, as Persia got ready to try and break it. I ran some Mana through the scroll, and square shaped barrier appeared in front of me. She crouched down and propelled herself forward at full speed, spearing through the barrier with her claws like it was a sheet of paper and nearly taking me out too. I narrowly dodged her claws and planted my feet firmly onto the ground and, remembering what Instructor Tabbs had said regarding damages, grabbed her legs to stop her from crashing into the wall. She fell flat on her face.

"Overkill much, Cat Girl?"

"Ow...I, uh, thought it would be stronger, I mean so far, everyone needed multiple strong looking strikes to break through, so...," She trailed off embarrassed, rubbing her nose gingerly.

She set up the barrier next while Azyl attacked.

Sort of.

He lazily shot a stream of water at the barrier with about the same level of pressure you'd expect from a garden hose. He yawned and shrugged after a few seconds, stopping his attack.

"Dude, I know you can do a lot better than that!" Urged Rai, after a brief silence.

"No, not really. Besides, I can just gauge the durability of the barrier by watching the rest of you," He replied lazily.

Come to think of it, back when we'd all found each other in the Goblin maze, Persia mentioned that he had barely used up any of his Mana. Guess he wanted to keep his abilities a secret.

And finally, it was my turn to attack, with Rai casting the spell. Should I use the enhancement technique? No, I'd prefer not to use it in front of other people before I had gotten at least some semblance of control over it.

Besides, there was something else I wanted to try out. So far, whenever I discharged lightning attacks, it was in single bolts and blasts, it's over in the blink of an eye. I wanted to try firing a continuous stream of lightning without decreasing it's speed or intensity, like those energy beams in action animes.

I had refrained from trying it out against monsters since something like that would probably drain my Mana pretty quickly. Well, here was an ideal opportunity.

I raised my hand and pointed it at the barrier, with my palm facing it. I then gathered mana at the center of my palm and fired a stream of lightning forward. It was a lot harder than I imagined, and definitely a lot slower than my usual attacks.

Picture it this way, firing a single bolt or blast of lightning was like firing a gun, while what I was currently doing was like opening a tap of water.

Obviously, the speed at which water flows from a tap is a lot slower than the speed of a fired bullet. My aim was to try and bridge that gap in speed. That would take some practice though.

The barrier shattered pretty quickly, despite the lack of speed in my attack it still packed quite a punch in terms of power. As for my Mana...I had used up almost a fifth of my total capacity.

Crap, that was almost as much as my Lightning Incineration Cano- I mean, that powerful blast I used in the maze, but while that attack took nearly a whole minute to charge, this was barely five seconds. A beam of lightning may not be worth the effort if it guzzles Mana this fast.

After that, we were all given blank scrolls and a guide book on how to enter and string together command lines. A few people managed to make simple barriers, but the majority failed to successfully implement a spell onto the scrolls.

Anyway, as the session came to an end and we began preparing for the Elemental Magic session, I reluctantly approached Rai.

"H-hey, uh, dude. How did you go about training to master the internal enhancement technique?" I asked, trying to sound friendlier than normal.

I heard a stifled laugh from behind me, which was probably Persia.

Crap, I didn't sound very natural just then, did I?

Wait...why was I making an effort to ask him in a genuine manner, instead of just manipulating him into giving me the information like I did with some targets in my old life?

"You alright? You sound kinda weird, man."

"Y-yeah I'm fine, j-just answer the question!" I replied, as blood rushed to my face in embarrassment.

"How I trained, huh? Hmm well, when I started out I just kept working on getting used to how it felt when the lightning is evenly spread out. After I got a good feel for that, I started with simple movements like moving straight, and then slowly moved on to more complex moves like zigzag and turns. There were times where I got kinda impatient and tried to move on to something more advanced too quickly, but I just ended up zapping myself and having to wait a couple of weeks to recover. The training is pretty tedious and repetitive, but it feels great when you get it right!"

Dammit, so there was no shortcut or anything. Well, if I'm being objective, my Healing Factor is kind of a shortcut, since normal people can't instantly heal any injuries they get and would have to wait several days to recover before being able to practice again.

But whenever I fry my insides, I just have to wait a few seconds and get back to practicing.

That's right, Kuro, keep looking at the bright side, I wasn't going to get anywhere if I kept sulk- I mean, looking at things pessimistically due to childish frustration.

My train of thought was interrupted as Instructor Tabbs entered the hall again. She was by herself though, none of the assistant instructors were with her.

"For today's Elemental Magic session, I thought we'd do something different. One of the assistant instructors is unwell today, so I'm compromising," She explained, looking a bit annoyed at the mention of the unwell instructor.

"Wonder what we're in for," Mused Rai curiously.

She smiled and folded her arms.

"You're going to have a mock one-on-one battle tournament amongst yourselves!"

I was fatigued, sleepy and I had used up a fair chunk of my Mana during the last session, so I wasn't quite in peak condition for a battle tournament.

But as soon as the words left her lips, my blood began to boil with excitement, and only one thought went through my mind.

'This should be fun!'

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