The Rune of Transmission
The practical assessment began at once.
Students swarmed forward and started picking out rune fragments and staffs.
"This is the first time I've ever been in a class this amazing!"
Meilyn said, her cheeks flushed as she fiddled with a rune fragment. Simon nodded in agreement.
The Magiste system.
When a student pressed a rune fragment against the magic circle set before their desk and supplemented it with the proper formulas, the other circles layered beneath it meshed together like gears and tuned themselves for maximum performance.
A genuine summoning circle was incomparably more complex than this, but the Magiste system had been built for a single purpose: testing and developing summoned familiars. Swap out a rune or two, adjust a formula, and you could trial-run the optimal summoning circle without ever building one from scratch.
"Simon! Simon! Look at this!"
Camibarez beamed, holding up a rune fragment for him to see.
"It's the Rune of Bloodhardening! I heard we don't learn that until third year! Even a rune this advanced, we can use it here!"
"Really? That's fun."
Simon began browsing the runes at a leisurely pace as well.
The problem, however, was this:
"Give it!"
"I saw it first!"
With students converging from every direction, the competition was no joke. In the time it took to hesitate, the rune fragments were vanishing one after another. Like Dick, plenty of students simply grabbed every rune within arm's reach before anyone else could.
"Okay, okay! No fighting!"
A Summoning TA came over and called out.
"There are plenty of rune fragments to go around. Any student who can't find the rune they want, please head to the lab next door."
Simon and the students moved straight into the adjacent laboratory.
"Whoaaaa!"
Display cases were packed full of rune fragments, and beneath each one sat a detailed write-up of the rune's properties, complete with sample formulas.
Meilyn let out an ecstatic shriek.
"What is this? Why are they spoiling us like this?"
Her excitement made perfect sense.
Learning even a single spell of dark magic normally took a considerable amount of time. You had to understand the circle, trace its flow, engrave the proper sequence into your brain, and tame your Jet-Black through endless repetition.
But here, all it took was snapping a rune fragment into place and the effect reproduced itself.
Meilyn scooped up an armful of her favorite fragments.
'Hmm.'
Simon didn't rush to grab anything. Instead, he took his time wandering around the room, browsing at his own pace.
[Rune of Wavepiercing] — Core medium of the Wavepiercing Arrow.
'I want to get a feel for this first. Maybe I'll start simple with it.'
Simon picked up a rune fragment and headed back to the lecture hall, where the TAs were shouting.
"Okay, okay! Anyone handling the equipment for the first time, don't try it alone and break something — call a TA over and get an explanation first!"
Even so, there were always those impatient souls who, the moment they got something new, tossed the manual aside and started poking at it.
Then the TA added:
"And if you break something, you'll be billed 50,000 gold!"
Several students froze mid-motion. One let out a nervous laugh.
"Come on, 50,000 gold for breaking one little thing?"
"The Magiste system is networked as a single whole. When one unit goes down, they all go down."
Only then did a few of the students raise their hands with sheepish expressions. Simon raised his as well and called a TA over.
"The Rune of Wavepiercing? You've decided on this one?"
"Yes!"
"Alright, watch closely."
She slotted the rune fragment into the center of the magic circle. The fragment melted into the circle as though dissolving, locking into place and beginning to link up with the formulas.
"You only draw the essential circuits and the big structural formulas in Jet-Black. The system fills in all the fiddly little details on its own."
After sketching out a rough formula, she pressed the complete button beneath the magic circle. The panels whirred to life, finished their calculations, stacked the formulas into place, and rapidly assembled the full circle.
Beep! Beep!
The circle suddenly flashed red and malfunctioned. Simon looked at the TA in surprise.
"What went wrong?"
"Ah! In this case, it's just 'capacity exceeded.'"
"Capacity exceeded?"
"Yes."
The TA raised her index finger and explained.
"It means you've loaded the Skeleton Mage with dark magic beyond what it can actually cast. Something too heavy, too powerful, or a higher-tier spell that's simply too complex for it."
"Ah, I see."
Come to think of it, if a Skeleton Mage could freely fling around top-tier dark magic, there would be no such thing as a Jet-Black Mechanics major in this era.
"In that case, lighten the load a little."
The TA adjusted the projectile count from five down to one.
Simon spotted the count belatedly and laughed awkwardly. A spell that fired five shots at once was naturally beyond the mage's capacity.
"Actually, I triggered that error on purpose, just to show you."
The TA said with a smile.
Once the count dropped to one, the circle visibly streamlined itself to an astonishing degree. It glowed blue, then settled back into its original color.
"That's everything! Go ahead and try."
"Yes, ma'am."
Simon placed his palm on the magic circle and drove the Skeleton Mage with his will. The mage's staff lifted and turned toward the barrier.
'Fire!'
At Simon's command, small orbs burst from the circle at the tip of the staff, converged on a single point, and shot out. Then, with a loud smack, they slammed into the barrier.
Simon clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Checking the barrier's readout, he found it had taken 60% damage. Before long the circle restored itself, climbing back to a full 100%.
"So close!"
The TA clapped her hands.
"You get the idea now, right? That's the gist of it. To break the barrier, restructure your formulas or circuits more efficiently. Or swap the staff. Or slot in a different rune and have your Skeleton Mage cast another spell entirely."
"Understood completely. Thank you!"
It really was a fascinating lesson, Simon thought.
All around him — beyond his own desk — dark magic detonated with a crack-crack!, the sound of spells hammering against barriers echoing through the hall.
"Huh? Why won't this one work?"
"I already min-maxed the specs down as far as they'll go."
But most of the students were getting slapped with the flashing-red 'capacity exceeded' judgment.
Because they had been too greedy — setting up the sort of flashy spells they wanted to see, rather than spells a Skeleton Mage could realistically cast.
"I understand you're all excited, but this is not playtime. It's a practical assessment."
Aaron said, glancing at his wristwatch.
"You have exactly half the class time remaining. Start being realistic about your specs."
At those words, the students snapped back to their senses and scrambled off to exchange their rune fragments. Only now were they returning with runes for the dark magic they were actually confident in, or simple ones at that.
"Ugh, this is hard."
Dick, for his part, was preparing three casts of Atomic Blast — a high-tier dark magic, no less.
"...Get a grip, Dick."
"One more try!"
"Success — Jamie Victoria! Spell used: Scratch."
Fifteen minutes before the end of class, the number of successful students was steadily climbing. The TAs were writing their names and spells on the blackboard as they passed.
"Success — Pierre Berkeley! Spell used: Impaler."
"Success — Catherine Terrell! Spell used: Chain Lightning."
Ten minutes remaining. Meilyn licked her lips, raised her hand with a careful expression, and the Skeleton Mage's staff moved.
"Come on!"
The ice spike tore through the air and struck the barrier. With a sharp crack, the barrier shattered to pieces.
"Success — Meilyn Villenne! Spell used: Ice Pike."
"Yes!"
Meilyn threw both arms up in triumph.
"...Would you keep it down."
Cindy Vivace said this from the seat behind her, then began preparing her own spell. Meilyn turned, wondering what she meant.
"A Jet-Black Arrow? S-seriously?"
The most basic of basic dark magic — a single Jet-Black Arrow flew out and struck the barrier.
It was huge, and it spun like a drill, gnawing away at the barrier bit by bit until it finally shattered it completely.
"S-success — Cindy Vivace! Spell used: Jet-Black Arrow."
Cindy straightened up with a perfectly relaxed expression and watched the TA write her name on the blackboard.
Meilyn let out an awkward laugh.
"...You're kind of a freak, you know that?"
"Thank you for the compliment."
Current pass rate: 60%.
The students were making a final sprint, barraging their barriers in a frenzy.
'Still, though.'
Meilyn's head turned.
'What's going on with the summoning prodigy over there?'
She herself had passed, and so had Camibarez — yet somehow Simon's success was taking forever.
Meilyn clasped her hands behind her back and drifted over toward Simon.
"Hey, if you're stuck on something, I could help—"
Then her eyes fell on his magic circle, and they went wide.
"Gyah! What are you doing!!"
Several students frowned and turned around at Meilyn's shout.
She flushed red, shot apologetic looks around, and turned back to Simon.
"Y-you do actually understand the assignment, right? The Rune of Transmission?"
That was simply a rune used in communication magic. No matter how she thought about it, it had absolutely nothing to do with smashing a barrier.
"......"
But something was off about Simon. It seemed he couldn't even hear her voice.
Muttering something strange, buried deep in his magic circle, Simon's pupils looked like those of a man whose mind had wandered off somewhere far away. Drool was pooling at the corner of his mouth.
'...Terrifying focus,'
Meilyn rubbed her arms, a slight chill running through her.
'No, wait — but is he even aiming at the right thing? Is the Rune of Transmission actually a good idea?'
She fully acknowledged that Simon's powers of concentration were exceptional. It was just that this time, she worried, that insane focus might be pointed in entirely the wrong direction.
KRA-KOOM!
A thunderous roar rang out, and every head in the room turned.
"S-success — Hector Moore! Dragon Breath."
The barrier had been blown utterly to pieces. Aaron came over and examined Hector's magic circle closely.
'Impressive.'
The Moore family's signature dark magic, cast by a Skeleton Mage.
Of course, it wasn't a true Dragon Breath. Hector had tuned the specifications, honing the runes and formulas to imitate it. But reproducing even a portion of his family's exclusive dark magic through an undead was a success on a entirely different level from the other students.
'Not an expression I'm fond of, but the family name does earn its keep.'
Hector exhaled lightly and glanced at the blackboard.
"?"
He, too, noticed Simon's name was absent from it — and turned to look at Simon, who was still hunched in concentration, manipulating something.
Aaron spoke.
"Three minutes left."
The students made their final attempts. The TAs hurriedly recorded each new success on the blackboard.
"Simon...!"
Meilyn was anxiously grinding her lips between her teeth.
"One minute."
The eyes of no small number of students — Meilyn and Hector among them — were fixed on Simon.
And with good reason: Class A's Summoning ace still hadn't passed the practical assessment.
"Twenty seconds."
It was over now. Most of the students made their last attempt, then let their hands fall and accepted the result.
The only one still touching a magic circle was Simon.
And then—
Simon's Skeleton Mage's staff moved.
"He cast a spell!"
"Hm? Nothing's happening, though."
Everyone was staring at Simon's Skeleton Mage when—
Click!
The change appeared somewhere else entirely.
Click! Click! Click!
In every lecture hall, the staffs of the Skeleton Mages that students had let go of moved — all at the same instant.
"Ah!"
And every single staff was aimed in one direction: at Simon's barrier.
A heartbeat later, the staffs spewed fire.
BOOOOOM!
CRASH-CRUMBLE!
Dozens of spells — each with its own distinct roar pouring in from all directions — converged on Simon's barrier all at once.
Students cried out in shock and ducked or covered their heads.
And then—
Dooong!
The bell announcing the end of class rang.
When everyone lifted their heads, Simon's magic circle had been obliterated without a trace.
"M-my Skeleton Mage got hijacked?"
"My Chain Lightning...!"
Simon opened his eyes and let out a long breath of relief. The TA's shoulders trembled as she spoke.
"S-success — Simon! Impaler, Dragon Breath, Scratch, Chain Lightning... and so on. Roughly thirty spells in total."
At that, Aaron let out an exasperated laugh.
'That lunatic, through and through.'
Half the blackboard was soon filled with Simon's name and the list of spells he had used.
"H-hey! What did you just do?"
Meilyn rushed over and demanded.
"Hive magic."
Simon said, still panting for breath.
"I tried recreating Professor Aaron's spell."