Chapter 36: Advancing to C-rank
The training chamber bore the evidence of two days spent refusing to stop.
Scratches ran across the stone floor, some shallow and others deep enough to expose the lighter stone beneath. Dark stains of blood had dried between them, while several battered training dummies stood along the walls, their replacements already reduced to little more than splintered frames. The air carried the lingering scent of sweat, blood, and spent mana.
Caelus stood at the center of the room, breathing evenly as he examined the results of the last two days.
He raised one hand.
Mana stirred around his fingers without a chant. A faint current passed over his skin, and the dried blood and sweat covering his body and clothes disappeared at once, leaving only the tears and damage in the fabric.
Cleanse.
The spell activated so smoothly that Caelus barely noticed the transition from intention to result. Two days ago, he had struggled to cast Cleanse with a full incantation. Now he could execute it chantlessly while barely thinking about the process.
The repeated incantations had already taught his body the spell’s structure. Chantless casting was not the creation of a new process, but the removal of a step he had already internalized. Once the pattern became familiar enough, the words stopped being necessary.
Cleanse had been the easiest to internalize, followed by Light and Spark. None of them were impressive by themselves, but that was precisely why Veyra had started him there. The spells forced him to understand control before power could become a distraction.
He lifted his other hand.
A small sphere of light formed above one palm while a thin spark crawled across his fingers. At the same time, Cleanse activated across the floor, stripping away traces of sweat and blood without interfering with either spell.
Three spells with no chant.
Caelus dismissed them.
He could now cast Zero-Tier spells without chanting and, with enough concentration, maintain several at once. His casting speed had improved considerably, but the improvement came with an obvious limitation.
They were still only Zero-Tier spells.
Better control did not change the amount of mana his body could handle. Faster casting did not increase his rank. He had improved the way he used his strength without actually gaining much more of it.
Better than before but still insufficient.
Learning to use those spells in combat had been considerably less pleasant.
Caelus had taken turns fighting Eve and Elysia, and neither had shown him any mercy.
Against Eve, the problem was pressure. She never gave him enough space to comfortably prepare a spell, forcing him to cast between movements instead of stopping to construct it. Every hesitation became an opening, and every opening became another strike.
Against Elysia, the problem was worse.
Space and Lightning gave her too many ways to control the distance between them. A position that looked safe one moment could become useless the next, and her attacks forced him to think about movement before he could even consider casting.
His first attempts had ended quickly.
So had the second.
The third lasted long enough for him to understand what he was doing wrong.
He stopped trying to cast magic as though it were a separate action.
Sword. Step. Spell.
Evasion. Counter. Spell again.
The transitions were awkward at first, but they gradually became less deliberate. His swordsmanship no longer needed his entire attention, leaving enough of his mind free to manipulate mana while moving.
He still lost.
Repeatedly.
That did not bother him.
Losing only became a problem when he learned nothing from it.
The Ring of Whispers added another layer to the training. He deliberately kept it active during some exchanges, forcing himself to process its strange information without allowing it to interfere with his decisions. It was still difficult to understand, but he was beginning to treat it as another sense rather than an interruption.
Swordsmanship. Spellcasting. The ring. His opponent. His surroundings.
He was slowly teaching himself to process all of them at once.
Eve and Elysia had beaten that lesson into him more efficiently than any lecture could have.
Elysia approached from the edge of the training chamber. Her movements were light and unhurried, and she watched him with the same unreadable expression she had worn since arriving.
"You’ve improved in just two days," she said.
"As expected of my Cael."
Caelus’s brow tightened. "Please don’t speak like that."
She tilted her head innocently. "Speak like what?"
He stared at her.
She stared back.
So this is how Veyra must have felt when I spoke to her.
"I’m not wrong." Elysia blinked with exaggerated innocence.
"Most people would struggle to perform a single chantless Zero-Tier spell after only two days."
Caelus ignored the provocation and looked toward Eve instead.
She remained seated at the edge of the chamber, her legs crossed as increasingly dense currents of mana gathered around her. The fluctuations were subtle, but Caelus could feel the difference.
She was approaching C+, the upper boundary of C-rank.
In the original story, Eve had been one of the academy’s strongest entrants. Her talent had been obvious long before the entrance examination.
Caelus studied her for several seconds before looking away.
She was strong.
Therefore, she was another person he needed to surpass.
Elysia followed his gaze. "What do you think?" she asked. "Will you get rank one in the entrance examination?"
He answered without hesitation. "I will."
If he could not take first place despite everything he knew about the academy, its students, and the world beyond it, then his current strength was inadequate.
The corrupt king would not care that Caelus had mediocre potential.
Neither would the academy.
Neither would the people who wanted him dead.
He needed strength that could survive reality, not strength that looked impressive on paper.
Elysia smiled. "Then perhaps I’ll compete against you."
Caelus looked at her.
"Are you planning to participate?"
"Maybe."
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
She laughed. "I was joking."
She turned her gaze toward Eve. "I already received an invitation through recommendation. There’s no reason for me to go through the ordinary entrance examination."
Caelus nodded.
That made sense.
With Space and Lightning as her affinities, along with the resources available to someone raised within the Sylvaris Duchy, Elysia had little reason to prove herself through an examination designed for ordinary applicants.
Her strength had been one of the reasons Caelus had originally written her out of the Hero’s path, creating circumstances that allowed the Hero to defeat her.
He had no intention of repeating that mistake.
But neither did he intend to place her on some untouchable pedestal.
If Elysia ever stood between him and first place, then she would simply become another opponent.
He turned away and picked up his sword.
Elysia’s eyes settled on the sword in his hand.
"You’re really going to develop a Mind Core?"
"Yes."
"Does that mean you’re abandoning swordsmanship?"
Caelus looked down at his blade.
"No."
His fingers tightened around the hilt.
"Swordsmanship is what I’ve spent years building. I’m not throwing that away because I’ve decided to learn magecraft."
"Magecraft will serve my swordsmanship."
That was the entire point.
His swordsmanship was the foundation he had already built. Magecraft would simply give it options a pure swordsman could never possess.
Elysia considered his words. "That’s dangerous. Forming two cores is dangerous. Make a single mistake during the process and you’ll die."
"I know." He met her gaze. "That’s why I’m only forming a Mind Core."
The Heart Core would push him toward a more conventional physical path. The Mind Core would offer greater potential for pure magecraft.
The Ring of Whispers with his water affinity made both paths possible, but only with a Mind Core.
He knew the architecture of the spells because he had once designed the system behind them. That gave him an advantage no ordinary mage possessed.
But that did not give him infinite mana.
It did not give his body infinite tolerance.
And it certainly did not mean every spell he understood could be executed immediately.
Knowledge gave him the blueprint.
His body still had to build it.
Another possibility had occurred to him while studying the structure of the Mind Core.
The human body.
He understood its mana pathways better than anyone else could. If he could eventually achieve precise enough internal control, there were applications beyond ordinary enhancement.
Blood manipulation was one of them.
He could not simply make another person bleed from across the room right now. That would be absurd, and he had no intention of building his combat system around a power that ignored every reasonable limitation until he’s good enough for it.
But his own body was different.
If he could develop the right spells, he might eventually learn to manipulate his own circulation, blood pressure, and blood flow.
But manipulating someone else’s blood? Not yet.
He lacked the precision.
He would need to make specialized spells before attempting something that dangerous.
So he put the idea aside.
There would be a time for it later.
Caelus lowered his sword.
He intended to spend several more days preparing before attempting the Mind Core.
The door to the training chamber opened.
Veyra entered, her gaze passing briefly over the ruined room before settling on Caelus.
"You’re preparing for the academy?"
"Yes."
"Then prepare faster."
Caelus frowned slightly. "Why?"
"The entrance examination has been moved to next week."
"Next week?"
Veyra nodded. "The schedule was changed."
Caelus fell silent.
Next week.
That wasn’t supposed to happen.
The entrance examination had been scheduled for later. He had planned to use the remaining time to strengthen his body, refine his spellcasting, and prepare properly for the Mind Core.
Something had changed.
The shortened schedule left him with little choice. He could delay the breakthrough and enter the academy weaker than he intended, or attempt the Mind Core before he was completely prepared.
Neither option was ideal.
Caelus’s fingers tightened slightly around the hilt.
He had less time than he thought.