“I can’t anymore! This ain’t workin’!”
Too spent to continue, I collapsed onto my butt. I panted like a dog as I turned my head upward and closed my eyes, sweat streaming down into them like a waterfall. I couldn’t even keep them open.
“I ain’t a dragon or an elemental. I can’t use Thunderbolt for thirty minutes straight.”
I’d made the right decision taking off my robes before I tried to cast a prolonged Thunderbolt. The whole thing felt like doing push-ups and squats simultaneously without a second of rest. After a certain point, things suddenly got super hard—I started panting, and it felt like every single pore in my body was gushing out sweat.
My black tank top and cotton pants were sopping wet. I realized I shouldn’t have tried to test out my limits on a whim like that. Or at the very least, I should’ve prepped a change of clothes.
It was afternoon, after all the morning lectures, and we were in a practice room on the first floor of the Academy. The place was big enough to fit three dragons lying down and featured a super-tall domed ceiling, all built from heat-resistant bricks that could withstand temperatures of more than thirty-six hundred degrees. The floor was made of solid white clay.
Only the three of us were using it at the moment.
After watching me discharge powerful waves of electricity from afar, Cyril and Myfila came over to talk—and it sure sounded like they were trying to console me.
“I think five minutes and twenty seconds is impressive for anyone, really.”
“I know you’re throttling the output, but you know Thunderbolt is a hefty spell. An average conjurer’s spell would dissipate after a minute. Isn’t five minutes of manipulating Pandora plenty?”
I practically spat my words back at them. “You idiots. What good will it be if I can only move his finger for five minutes?!”
I staggered to my feet and slung the robes that I’d abandoned over my right shoulder.
“I’m not gonna stop till I can get ’im to stand, run, and punch. If I’m goin’ to make his whole body move, I’ll need to be able to cast multiple Thunderbolt spells. I’d barely manage ten seconds based on my attempt a moment ago. It’d take everything I have just to make Pandora stand!”
“Is that why you keep going on and on about getting to thirty minutes?”
“I’d be able to deliver a punch to Sasha’s archangel if I could manage a minute.”
“Are you sure? Cecelia’s really fast.”
“Then you can just give me pointers on hand-to-hand combat, Cyril.”
“Are you planning to do some light boxing with Pandora? Now that’d be a show.”
Then the next moment, the double doors of the practice room opened, and a whole bunch of people sauntered in.
“Looks like you’re working hard, deadbeat. Tell me, is spellcasting really this hard for all poors?”
Another day, another visit from the head dumbass, Bernhart Hadcheck and his goons. He had no idea what I’d just been putting myself through, but he sure loved to run his mouth.
“Looks like you made it into the cemetery. Couldn’t you make a fortune selling off those artifacts, then? Oh, sorry. Just remembered you didn’t manage to bring any home. Ha-ha! Sucks for you! I would’ve paid you so much for one of those things!”
The moment he spread both his arms, his cronies also burst into laughter.
He’d been quiet since making Cyril upset the other day, but it seemed our success at the cemetery had rekindled his jealousy to its full vigor again. The last few days, he’d been nothing but persistent at mocking us. He was getting on my nerves like never before.
Then again…
“Warmin’ up for your first match of the afternoon? Break a leg out there.”
Instead of giving him the satisfaction of riling me up, I headed to the wide-open doors. “Want to teach them a lesson?” Cyril asked me.
“Let ’em talk.” I snorted. “Who’s got time to deal with some rich kid? I’ve gotta focus on drawin’ out the time I can use electromagic. Gotta think of somethin’ that’ll work. No human has got the ability to cast Thunderbolt for thirty whole minutes.”
“You don’t need to feed it more power?” Myfila asked. “You were casting a really weak version of the spell.”
“As long as I choose the shortest route through the nerves, a hundredth of a normal Thunderbolt’s power is enough.”
“You’re ridiculous, Feil. That wouldn’t be a Thunderbolt anymore. If you restrict your magical output to that extent, the spell won’t even invoke.”
“I know. That’s the conundrum, ain’t it? But Thunderbolt’s the easiest spell to regulate. Electromagic eats up a ton of magical reserves.”
We talked as we headed out. We’d probably hurt Bernhart’s pride in the process, but who cares? He’d probably vent his bad mood by punching one of his cronies anyway.
None of us looked back to see what kind of face Bernhart was making as we left him and the practice room behind.
The late-autumn sunlight filtered through the hallways.
“What are you two up to after this? Want to go watch the ranking matches?”
“Today’s lineup doesn’t look all that interesting,” I said. “Plus, I’ve gotta finish up my bindin’ enchantment assignment first.”
“Oh, right, there was that. Undoing the seals seems like it’ll take a while.”
“Which kind did you two get?” I asked. “I got the lousiest one—the one that’s on the Azoton ruin entrance.”
“Wow, Feil…my condolences.”
“Doesn’t that one have the most seals, too? Do you think you’ll be able to break it today?”
We were trudging along just talking when suddenly…