abcnovels
Chapter 225
Chapter 225
Walter's offer to be a direct disciple.
This was the second time he'd been offered a direct discipleship this semester. But without a second thought, Simon bowed his head in apology.
"I'm sorry, but I must refuse."
Simon figured it'd be better to decline him cleanly without leading the professor on.
Walter didn't ask Simon for his reason and instead simply nodded.
"If you do ever change your mind, let me know. Your Hemomancy would improve severalfold if you joined forces with me. I'm sure of it."
"Alright. And thank you for your concern in making these classes useful for me."
"You can thank Professor Silage yourself once he returns. After all, he was the one who directed the whole study."
"Of course. I'll be sure to thank him when he gets back to Kizen."
Simon bowed to Walter and left the lab.
* * *
"What do you call it when you step on a branch in the middle of the street? A stick-y situation!"
After something over two dozen iterations, Rick finally got the joke to land. Camibarez giggled loudly, and Meilyn only smirked so as to not hurt her own pride.
"Yes! At last, Meilyn laughed!"
"I-I didn't laugh! Why would I—?!"
Meilyn's stammered excuses were quickly interrupted by Rick and Camibarez laughing even harder.
Watching this scene with a smile, Simon returned to his thoughts.
'A new power.'
He turned down Walter's offer to be his direct disciple, but he wouldn't neglect training his 'Cloud' after Silage put so much work into it. He just had to figure out how to use it most effectively.
'Speaking of which, I should try forming it one more time.'
Simon drew blood from the tip of his finger and conjured the magic circle he had just learned from Walter. The blood and magic circle combined to produce a peculiarly patterned smog, the teal swirls resembling snail shells.
Seeing a vivid aqua light from the combination of blood and jet-black was strange. It felt like it had turned into a completely different, third substance.
As Simon flicked his finger up and down, the smog followed. Finally, he pointed off to the side, and the cloud shot forward to engulf the hot sauce bottle his finger was aimed at.
'It really feels like I'm holding it in my hand.'
Controlling the Cloud was as easy as controlling his own body.
The smog returned and placed the sauce bottle in Simon's hand. He then dissipated the cloud and added the hot sauce to a freshly served bowl of noodles.
"…"
Only after adding the sauce did he notice that his friends' conversation had stopped. When he looked up, the three of them were staring at him, jaws dropped.
"Wh-Wh-What?! How did you just do that?!"
Exclaimed Meilyn.
"…Whoa, do you realize how cool you kinda were? Everyone dreams of being able to pick shit up without moving, you know."
Envied Rick.
"That's so awesome! Is that a new skill of yours, Simon?"
Asked Camibarez, her eyes wide open and hands clasped together in excitement.
The reactions were more intense than he expected…
Simon let out an awkward chuckle before explaining,
"Professor Walter taught me it when he pulled me aside. He told me that this is a new use for SM-1."
"That weird blood type you have?"
"Yeah."
Looking back to his meal, Simon slurped down his noodles.
'Crap, so spicy. I put on too much hot sauce.'
"So you're going to learn along with us during Hemomancy now, Simon?"
Questioned Camibarez, barely managing to contain her grin.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"That's great! It kept bothering me how you'd sit all alone every Hemomancy class!"josei
That was true. Simon suddenly felt a bit better at the thought of taking proper Hemomancy classes from now on.
Meilyn, back in her seat and munching on her crunchy lentil salad, looked up and asked,
"Oh, by the way, what's our next class again?"
"Summoning!"
Immediately answered Rick.
"We get it two days in a row! But it means this is the end of Summoning for the week."
"He did put us on a tight schedule! Maybe Professor Aaron is going on a mission again."
Letting Rick and Camibarez' conversation fall into the background, Simon went back to thinking.
'Ah, come to think of it…'
* * *
* * *
The second Summoning class was on the same track as yesterday's.
"Today, we will review the 'Skeleton Dash' we learned last lesson."
Said Aaron, continuing,
"I will say this again, but if you don't succeed in this class along with your rest, you will lose points in the upcoming evaluation."
At those words, the students' focus and participation skyrocketed, with hands going up everywhere for help and feedback. As a result, the assistant teachers had to scramble around diligently.
"Keeping the skeleton intact comes first. Dashing comes after."
Aaron was also helping students with their practical activities.
First was Cindy Vivace, who was failing everything except for Necromancy.
"You're too focused on the dash. That's why the feet fly off on their own."
"But if I focus on the skeleton's unity, it won't dash forward!"
"Still, unity comes first. You have your priorities wrong."
Accepting Aaron's feedback, Cindy focussed only on keeping the skeleton together and commanded it to dash.
The skeleton moved barely an inch from where it started.
"Yikes. As I expected—!"
"Well done. This is how you get the hang of it."
"But the others' skeletons are going so much faster!"
Bwooooom!
Just then, behind Aaron, Simon lined up multiple skeletons in a row and ordered the first one to dash. A cleanly sliced straw dummy flew high into the air before landing at Aaron's feet.
Aaron ignored it and focused on Cindy's feedback.
"If you stick to the basics, your distance will eventually increase."
Slash!
"Conversely, when you let impatience take root and shake your foundations, everything will fall apart."
Bwooooooooooom!
"No one gets it right the first time. Give yourself enough time to learn and—"
Poooooooooooooow!
"Simon Polentia!"
Shouted Aaron, turning around. Simon, who had just completed dashing his fifth skeleton back-to-back, looked back at Aaron with innocent eyes.
'…You sly brat.'
Aaron sighed, rubbing his eyes as he said,
"You stay after class."
"…Ah!"
Aaron always gave Simon extra work when he couldn't learn something in class. Simon smiled as if he'd been expecting it.
"Yes, Professor!"
* * *
After the regular summoning class, Aaron and Simon met up in the open space behind the school. They had a quick catch-up.
"You learned… Corpse Explosion?"
Asked Aaron, face utterly grim.
"Yeah! Want me to show you?"
"Who did you learn it from?"
Simon was surprised, secretly expecting Aaron to praise him for learning a new skill. Instead, Aaron was frighteningly serious, not a hint of mischief in his voice.
"This is an important question. Don't look away and answer me honestly."
With the Fifth Commander—Magnus—on his heels, he needed to keep a tight seal on all information about Commanders. He definitely couldn't say it was Yona, and mentioning the name 'Richard Polentia' was dangerous for other reasons.
It was a bit cliche, but Simon made an excuse.
"A retired necromancer was staying over at our place for a while during the holidays, and I asked him to…"
Simon's voice trailed off when he saw Aaron was utterly unconvinced
"Just try conjuring the magic circle."
Simon flinched slightly at the harshness in Aaron's voice.
He did as he was told and drew his usual Corpse Explosion magic circle.
Aaron scanned over the magic circle frantically.
"…Phew."
A sigh passed through his clenched teeth. Simon gulped nervously.
"Who did you learn it from again?"
"Oh, an acquaintance of my father. Is there something wrong?"
Aaron couldn't hide his awe while gazing upon the magic circle. It almost looked as though he was savoring it.
"This is incredible."
Simon's eyes widened.
"This formula for Corpse Explosion is specialized for quick casting, but it's made so that the power will still be sizable. It could be quite mentally taxing, but that's to be expected in a field where a single slip up often means death. It's a thoroughly practical spell made by a man who has cast it tens of millions of times and has his own technical know-how."
'Is it really that good?'
When Richard taught Simon the Corpse Explosion, he did tell him that it was a simplified version of Richard's own formula and structure.
"You learned well and from a good person."
Flick.
Aaron took out a cigar from his pocket, put it into his mouth, and lit it. He turned away, took a puff, and then looked back at Simon.
"You know how jet-black has a tendency to 'remember'? If you learn an incomplete or unnecessary formula, you'll have difficulty correcting it later. Teenagers like you, who're still learning, should be especially careful. That's why you shouldn't learn dark magic from just anyone.'
"I-I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize. If you had learned Corpse Explosion from me, I would've taught you something a little heavier, but a compact Corpse Explosion like this isn't so bad. He even left room for a formula to increase the firepower as you grow up. It's up to you to fill in the blanks."
Aaron crossed his arms.
"He's certainly not an ordinary man. I'd like to meet him and talk to him sometime."
Simon was surprised that a Kizen professor would go so far. But he quickly shut Aaron down.
"W-Well, he is my father's friend, not mine. He only so happened to be visiting while I was home, although I used to see him a lot when I was younger."
"I see. There are still a lot of unsociable necromancers out there, after all. Alright. That's enough about the Corpse Explosion."
Aaron flicked the end of his cigar.
"So, what do you want to learn from me this time? That is why you were showing off in class, was it not?"
"Ah. The thing is…"
Simon explained everything that had happened in Walter's lab, then conjured up the Cloud and demonstrated it to Aaron.
But maybe because it was a skill from hemomancy…
Unlike the surprise from the other group members, Aaron looked rather disinterested.
"I don't understand why you're showing me this. I'm sure Professor Walter knows more about hemomancy than I do."
"Oh, well…"
Simon scratched the side of his head and smiled awkwardly.
"Actually, I just turned down an offer to be Professor Walter's direct disciple, you see. Also, this isn't a skill in any textbook and I feel bad to ask him about this, so…"
Simon took a deep breath.
"So I was wondering if you might be able to combine this power with summoning."
Aaron took a long draw of his cigar. Then another, then another.
After finishing the cigar, he took out a new one and lit it again.
"…A completely unknown skill from hemomancy. And combining it with summoning, huh?"
Tap tap.
Aaron flicked off the charred end of his cigar and looked at Simon.
"Later, when you reach second-year, there's a subject called 'Combined Studies'. It's when you mix and match knowledge from different subjects to create synergies that a single field cannot account for."
"Ah, in that case, hemomancy and summoning can also…!"
"Of course. It's not a problem to teach you, but it's a bit tricky because it's a combination of a brand new hemomancy skill and summoni—"
Aaron's eyes widened. He muttered something under his breath before confirming,
"Wait, you said this smoke feels connected to your body, right?"
"Ah, yes."
"And it shares sensations and nerves, too?"
"Yep."
Aaron reached for a third cigar but stopped midway to stroke his chin. Then, after a moment of deep thought, he said,
"One week."
"What?"
"Come see me after your Summoning class next week. I'll have it finalized by then."
Aaron straightened his back, his eyes shining with the strong desire to research.
"The next skill you'll learn is creating blood golems, which is typically taught to third-years."
——