Chapter 148: Erikko Te & Experimenting
The students turned their heads towards the origin of sound, and a few recognised the source. As they looked, Drake''s face brightened up as he turned to Lee. His face had sweat drops rolling down, but his change of expression nullified the fatigue sweat signified.
"I was wondering when you would arrive."
Lee gave a smile as reply. Drake let out a mouthful of air and walked to him. As he walked closer, Janvi was caught in his sight. Lee conveyed that she led him here, and Drake permitted her to stay. Then, he heard some murmurs from his behind, and felt the need to introduce Lee. Turning around, he raised his voice and spoke-
"Students, this is Lee. He is the champion of the Tri-annual Tournament of the city. And, he is a Mana user, an adventurer."
Drake patted Lee''s shoulders as he said these words. Those who were unknown about him became wonderstruck with the information. As far as they know, the Tri-annual Tournament is a ce where people die before they could even admit defeat.
Drake further gave a short description on how Lee defended against the cultivators, and how he ended the fight in a second. When he ended the narration by describing the Veil Of Whiteness, the students went into an uproar.
"Sir, please demonstrate your skills!"
A boy from the back of the crowd shouted, and the students went in chorus with him. Janvi, who was standing a few feet away from Drake and Lee, heard the narration and couldn''t help, but join the request.
"Even I am eager to see your skills, If you may."
Even the head of the Spell department expressed his desire. But he did not force, and let the final decision in the hands of Lee. The champion, who disliked letting people down, gave an approving nod and the students were excited. Drake took a few steps away from Lee and gave him space for disying. He also gestured to Janvi to join the crowd of students. As her juniors, they weed her into the group and eagerly peered at Lee.
''Time for experimenting.''
Lee recollected certain words from the chapter one of the Encyclopaedia To Greatness, and made up his mind. When an aim was acquired, his brain began to simte and formte the ways which he can achieve that. He took off his jacket, and folded it well before cing it on the ground.
Feminine voices momentarily rose up and died down, as his sleeveless cotton tee exposed his arms. Faint lines of sweat outlined his physique and projected his chiseled figure. Stares of envy and appreciation were felt by Lee, who predicted this oue in his mind. Hanging his arms rxed, he stepped forward.
The outdoor training ground hadnes for practice. Everyne had the distance measurements from the target marked on it. Thus, it enabled the practitioner to evaluate himself ording to the distance he/she stood, whileparing it with the potential the blow delivered. Thenes were marked with runes, so as to prevent the casted spells derailing from it''s ownne.
The target dummy was a mannequin made out of the Twisted Teak wood. Due to the spiralling of the tree as it grows, the trunk of the tree was much stronger and resistant to both physical and energy strikes. The twisted wood also had the ability to disperse magical energy, and thus was invulnerable to an array of spells. Only spells above a certain level of destruction could make a dent on it, and it varied from individual to individual.
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''Encyclopaedia To Greatness'' assimted with the memory.
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The unexpected notification gave Lee a hint that the dimension sovereign was watching his actions, while simultaneously holding a conversation with the apparition. Lee thanked D for watching him over like a guardian angel and steadied his footing as he walked to the end of thene.
Drake frowned as he saw Lee walking towards the end of thene, thus creating more distance between him and the target. Students who witnessed this became more excited, as they deduced that Lee would use his weapon in the arsenal. Janvi was wondering as to which element Lee had an affinity to, which gave him a huge boost in confidence.
''This would do.''
Lee stopped at the 150 metres marker and stood facing the target at a distance. He was having second thoughts on increasing the distance a bit more, to 200 metres, but finalised not to. ncing at the crowd ready to witness his skills, he gestured them to move away from thene, and more from the target. What he was about to do waspletely strange, even to him. The crowd promptly took his words to consideration and acted appropriately.
''Condense and amplify.''
Lee brought his palms in front of his chest, about six inches from his sternum. For better concentration since it was his first time, he closed his eyes. Fire affinity was activated and Mana began to form red hot mes between his palms. The ball began to expand as the density began to increase. Red colour slowly began to shift towards a more orange hue, and a lot of Mana began to deplete. ncing at the Mana count in the visual interface, Lee converted 4000 Essence into Mana.
After reaching the size of a basketball, he began topress the construct. The process proved rtively more troublesome than the first half, because Lee felt slight resistances repeatedly from the shrinking construct. The reddish orange colour slowly changed to a faint blueplexion as he slowly and steadily shrunk the construct to the size of a baseball. Then a more lethal reaction began to rise up.
Once the colour has stably transitioned into blue, the construct showed the urge to repel apart and violently tear itself. The repulsions disrupted the rhythm with which Lee regrlypressed it. But because of his extraordinary stats, he used his strength to counter and nullify the effects. The students witnessed this tug-of-war, and nced at Drake, to see his eyes opened wide. They assumed that the feat Lee was performing was one with an increased fatality rate, and peered back at him, without blinking.
It took Lee 11 minutes topress the baseball sized construct to a golf ball size. The sweat ran down from his foreheads, and signified the struggle he went through and the heat of the me he resisted. If Lee was an ordinary human, he would have disintegrated his entire arms, and part of his torso, while pulling off this achievement. The deep sky-blue coloured sphere emitted intense waves of heat and alerted the surroundings with a sense of threat.
More than 3200 Mana was used topress the sphere and stabilise it. A continuous stream of 70 Mana was used to maintain this form for every passing second. The decreasing count alerted Lee to proceed to the next step immediately. Activating Ice affinity and covering a thick and pure sheet of ice in his palms, Lee used Air affinity to suck in arge quantity of air from the surroundings to propel thepressed sphere into the air. The ice slowly thinned and a jet of air sted the ball up into the air!
A weird crispy noise was produced as the superheated blue sphere rose up into the sky. Lee maintained the Mana usage to propel the ball to a safe altitude. But ording to his calctions, this mini supernova would bring forth disaster if detonated below 300 metres.
The air current lifted it further high and as it reached almost 290 metres, the Mana resource was down to zero. The bindings that held the supernova came loose and the sky above the qvier academy brightened up like christmas. Waves of heat and difort rippled around and the students and Drake were forced to step about 20 steps backward. Their magic imbued robes nullified a major portion of the pulsating threat, but the intensity of the experiment was still felt by them.
Bright light suspended about 300 metres above the ground attracted the attention of almost everyone in the academy. But, the unbearable heat emitted from it raised queries about this strange and pulsating beacon in the air. Lee, Drake and the students standing on the ground retreated away from the spot, and the vacant ground below the miniature star gave a sense of cluelessness to the observers. The heads of other departments came to witness this spectacr sight and were in an awe.
"This is unquestionably a 5th grade spell. Who would have thought that we have hidden prodigies here?"
The principal of the qvier academy, Erikko Te,mented as he tried to take a nce at the bright blue ball of fire. Ganga Equis, the head of the Magic Research department nodded as she came and stood next to the principal, near the window. For the next 2 minutes, till the threatening presence of the fireball wear off, they stood there and observed it with eagerness. As thest sliver of fire was fading into the air, Ganga noticed something from the dying me. She pushed her round spectacles back to its position on the nose, sharpened her stare and took a step forward, and stated-
"Principal, something is different with that fireball."