Hell Difficulty Tutorial
Chapter 612 – Fellow enthusiast

The more I play around with [Framework], the more I like it. It helps me with the structure of mana creations, including arrays and inscriptions. It also has a mental component that allows me to store frameworks for said arrays more effectively in my mind.

It will be difficult to decide between keeping it and [Ur Line], and probably a few more skills I might explore later, but that is a problem for future me. Screw that guy.

As for the drachen I’ve earned, they’re all gone, kaput. The head accountant, after taking a cut of course, was able to secure lessons for me from one of the five people in the Academy rumored to be somewhere around level 400 if not just over that threshold.

It all happens surprisingly quickly, but when I hear who agreed, I understand why, having dealt with them in my previous loop. The requirement they impose to hold these lessons also explains a lot. It’s simple, but it still reveals much.

Bring your bond to the lesson.

All the money buys me three lessons. Just three for a mid-arcane item. I mean, how crazy is that? It makes for an extremely poor financial decision on my part. I know that logically, even if the person in question is pretty highly leveled, items like that have enormous value. But overall, I just don’t care all that much. I’ll have the shards back by the next loop. And let us not consider the option that this is the last loop.

Hehe.

Please don’t be the last loop.

All things said, I find myself meeting up with the Vice Director on the second day of the loop, in one of the private training grounds, the ones they keep the servants out of. There are five of these high-tier training grounds in the Academy, each one very different from the last.

For example, one of them is a huge underground chamber, and I mean huge huge. From what I have heard, it’s a massive cube shaped room underground with walls that have been reinforced by a Champion at some point. This "cave" supposedly borders on indestructible. Sometimes, there are even duels held there.

But that’s not the one I’m heading to now. My destination is a hemispheric cupola on the surface, its walls covered in small black hexagonal pieces similar to those in the sensory deprivation tank. It’s also quite large, on top of the additions they’ve made to keep it from being an eyesore. A few splashes of color, a huge tree nearby whose branches have clearly been shaped to lean over the cupola, and a dozen similar details beside. In the end, it makes for quite a pleasant view.

There is no guard at the entrance; instead, I place my hand on a nearby panel and send my mana through allowing it to verify my signature. Only once my reservation is confirmed am I allowed inside.

Biscuit, in a rare burst of energy, decides to leave my arms and float like the tiny burrito shaped airship he is. Lately, he seems to have been staying in his puppy form most of the time, and part of me strongly suspects it is because he receives more food and pets this way.

A part of me also hopes he doesn’t ever realize that in his giga form, he would probably be able to eat even more. But who knows. Even in puppy form, we have yet to find a limit to his hunger.

The interior of the training ground is quite pretty all on its own. The flooring is made of simple white stone, and the walls of the sphere are lined with a display seemingly created through some form of illusion or projection, showing clouds and a bright blue sky from the point of view of someone flying through them.

The Vice Director stands there, rocking her big, tall, and pointy, wide brimmed hat like something out of an old fairy tale, and a robe. Her tiny owl sits on her shoulder, glancing between me and the floating Biscuit. For some reason, it even hoots and pecks the selari woman's cheek a few times.

As I saw before, the vice director lets it happen without even trying to defend herself.

“Greetings, Assistant Professor Gwyn.”

“Greetings, Vice Director.”

“Greetings, great bond.” She chirps, greeting Biscuit with markedly more enthusiasm than she had for me.

The corgi quickly tilts his head in a confused manner, causing his ears to flop to the side.

Tuu-tu!

The tiny owl shouts, pecking the selari woman three times in response.

“Assistant Professor Gwyn,” the vice director says.

“No,” I answer.

(Food?) Biscuit says, floating over to me and booping my cheek three times with his nose as if he were mimicking the owl bond´s pecks.

“Vice Director, may I ask what your specialization is?” I ask holding Biscuit to prevent him from escaping, as I boop/peck his cheek three times in response with my own nose.

In a terrible arc of revenge, he starts wagging his tail, floats higher, bites into the hair near my temple, and starts pulling on it, leaving saliva on it and pulling some out.

Kwit! Kwit!

The tiny owl pecks the Vice Director five times.

Only then does the selari woman answer: “It is rare for people to spend so much on lessons from a person whose specialization they don’t even know. Very well. I rarely teach, but before I joined the Academy, my specialization was in Continental Infrastructure Destruction and Large-Scale Containment Operations.”

“You served in the army?”

“I used to lead a unit that operated directly under one of our Champions, Angar. Our work was, as I mentioned, focused on independent operations and the creation of protocols and arrays to be used on a mass scale with additional personnel or individual Champions.”

“Sounds important. Is Champion Angar the one coming to speak at the Academy in the next couple of days?”

“Champion Angar is dead. He was the leading candidate to become the Absolute, but in the end, he died at the hands of the man who became our current Absolute. We, as his subordinates, were given the option to serve or die.”

“And that’s how you ended up in the Academy?”

“Correct. Now, Assistant Professor Gwyn, may I ask what your specialization is so we can proceed?”

“It is hard to say. I would say it revolves around large-scale attacks that might require some preparation. Also channeling large amounts of mana. I am also decent at mana disruption. There is primordial energy I have and…”

“Two energies. There is no need to lie to me. So it seems like your skills are built around Grand-Scale Destructive Assaults, judging by your mana levels, then High-Capacity Mana Channeling and Wide-Area Mana Interference.”

“Does everything need to have such fancy names?”

“I apologize, but I’ve grown accustomed to the protocols and jargon we used in the military. As for the lesson, I’ve generally found that what helps my students the most is pointing out the mistakes in their approach and the ways I would counter them. It’s something I’m quite good at, as shown by my experience leading a unit directly under a Champion. How about I ask you for a small sample of your capabilities, and I’ll point out how I’d go about countering them in combat so that you can work on those areas?”

“That sounds good.”

“Very well,” she turns her head to the side to look directly at the tiny owl and whispers in a very gentle voice, “Lulu, can you stop limiting my mana, please?”

Hoo!

There is no change I can see, but immediately I can feel it. The pressure surrounding the selari woman increases multiple times, to the point where the mana radiating around her forms huge pulses that flow rhythmically into the area.

“Now then, Assistant Professor Gwyn, as a fellow Amplificator, there is a lot I can show you. Unlike you, I was never great at handling the sheer quantity of mana I possess and so I’ve always had to rely on my bond and other methods. Therefore, I ask you: please be very careful and try not to die in the event that I find myself lashing out against you by reflex. Please start with mana interference.”

Glancing at her, I activate my eyes and at the same moment deactivate them, taking notice of the instant reaction from her mana and the way it starts to fluctuate.

She just tried to make me pass out from information overload the moment she noticed my eyes. She must either know about the trait or suspect it.

How annoying; that means it could happen in the future. Liss already used it against me during the fifth event, my new skill, now her. I’ll need to do something about that.

I also move my mana and raise it. The surroundings start shifting their colors as I activate [Eclipse] and gradually strengthen it.

Then she does something interesting. The best way I can describe it is that she starts creating “sacrificial” structures that she modifies and places in my skill’s path. None of them contains all that much mana, but each manages to be complex and present enough for my skill to target them first. These structures are deployed multiple times per second with minimal quantities of mana and very little effort. Even though she puts herself down, she demonstrates an impressive degree of control over her mana.

As I raise my mana, she raises hers as well, and for the first time in a while, I’ve encountered someone with a larger mana pool than mine, outside of those at Champion level or higher.

She’s probably a "mere" seventy to ninety levels higher than I, but her mana completely overwhelms mine, something I wouldn’t have thought possible unless she’d been investing in it in a manner similar to mine.

While I deal with my mana through my talent in mana channeling, containment, and using Mana Cycling, she has her bond to help her, along with a number of other things I can’t quite perceive yet.

We face each other, raising our mana to the utmost degree.

The shift is subtle at first. The air grows thicker, not from pressure, but from the sheer saturation of our mana leaking into the environment. Colors dim. Sounds grow muffled as if we were underwater. Dust on the floor begins to tremble and rise into the air. My mana slides against hers, the edges clashing in overlapping frequencies just barely out of sync.

Gradually, it reaches the point where I have to devote my entire [Focus] to handling it and sending it crashing into hers.

As if we agreed on it, I drop [Eclipse], and she stops bothering with sacrificial structures; her bond is the only thing helping her handle all that mana.

At this point, both of us forget about everything else, and it turns into a mana measuring contest.

For the first time, she begins to smile ever so slightly as her robes and pointy hat flicker around her from the sheer pressure of her mana.

Indeed, an Amplificator and fellow mana enthusiast.

Then she forgets to hold herself back; the mana around me is instantly overpowered by hers, and I find myself being thrown against one of the walls, fracturing most of the bones in my body.

Her pressure disappears, and a look of sudden concern flashes across her face, making it clear that this was not done by intent.

As I slide down the wall, the blood trail stays behind, and I activate multiple healing marks Lily left on me, healing myself and realizing for a moment how close I was to dying.

Then my mana rises again. I channel it much quicker than she can raise hers again. She herself told me she cannot channel as swiftly as I.

My mana collides with hers and sends her crashing to the ground, causing her to slide until she crashes against the opposing wall. Her hat falls off, and her bond lifts up, circles once in the air, then lands back on her shoulder.

Even during all of that, her mana pressure continues to rise, less instant and more gradual than mine, but she overwhelms me entirely and sends me stumbling back until I cannot move, pinned against the wall, as her mana constantly disrupts my attempts to overcome the effect.

The Vice Director stands, picks up her hat, dusting it off as she does, and slowly sets it on her head before turning back to me.

She’s wearing a wide grin.

Then I start feeling a tightness in my chest; I grow light-headed and feel as if I am about to vomit. Funnily enough, it reminds me of the lesson I gave that class of students with Elian. But I refuse to give up. I fight back as long as possible, trying my best, using all the mana I can gather and channel. At this point, there’s already so much filling the room.

I use Mana Wavelength Tyrant, I rely on my Mana Physique, I use my reservoir, and weaken my constructs just to bring the entirety of my mana to bear. And all the while I push my mental passives to their limit.

But the gap in skill, levels, and mana capacity is far too wide.

In the end, I throw up, and just before the world goes black, I feel my head slam against the floor.

What a great training session, I think with satisfaction.