[33] Teleportation (4)
The time to get from point A to point B was under a second. Trying to calculate variables in that span was nearly impossible. Above all, because teleportation required repeating short jumps many times, the more repetitions he attempted the more confused he would become.
"Ah, I see."
Shirone slapped his palm down. He couldn't compute it with his head, but he could feel it with intuition.
Just as you can count leaves through the Spirit Zone, the speed of light could be perceived through insight.
This was exactly what Alpheas wanted: a magic anyone could learn, but whose mastery would diverge sharply based on talent.
Shirone felt a surge of confidence. He lagged behind in Omniscience, but in Omnipotence he had been training every day since he was twelve.
Thirty days remained until the exam.
Shirone did his best to incorporate Kergos's photonization theory into his Omniscience. After class he holed up in the dorm and devoured the books all night. After twenty days, reading alone no longer taught him anything new.
From then on he used the training ground reserved for Class Seven. The other students seemed to be doing private training elsewhere, so the place lay quietly empty.
Shirone fused the photonization theory of Omniscience with the Spirit Zone's Omnipotence. Because it was his first attempt, finding the right sensations was difficult.
He positioned himself between Omniscience and Omnipotence. In that state, the moment he erased his sense of self, the two would snap together and trigger the magic.
He cast the spell in a trance. His body felt like it was disintegrating and a flash of light exploded. As he dipped his head forward to move, a melting world slammed over him.
"Uaaah!"
After traveling five meters, Shirone hit the ground and rolled the instant he arrived. It felt like every bone in his body had shattered.
"Ugh…"
Even as he gritted his teeth and endured the pain, the word failure burned into his mind. If he didn't reduce his mass perfectly through photonization, the force of moving at near-light speed hit him in full.
It was a magic far too dangerous to attempt alone.
But Shirone had no private tutor and no senior to ask for advice—he could only learn by throwing his body at it.
'I won't give up. I'll make it.'
From that day he fixed errors through countless trials and failures. It was a crude method, but in the end only lessons learned by the body truly stick.
A few days later, someone of unknown identity showed up at the training ground and watched him. Probably a spy sent by someone, but Shirone paid it no mind. There was nowhere else appropriate to train anyway.
How many times had he rolled on the ground and smashed his lips into the dirt? Mottled bruises appeared across his skin, and every morning his joints ached.
Then the final day approached.
About ten minutes before midnight, Shirone staggered back to his mark.
"I'll never… give up…"
Dust choked his throat. With half-open eyes he stood rooted in the center of the training ground.
Most of the errors had been fixed. What remained was the stamina to endure the pain and the will to overcome fear.
He couldn't move. He was terrified to cast teleportation. His strength had been drained, and now even touching his bones caused a dull ache.
"Do it… I have to…."
He muttered in a daze. Maybe it would even be better if he failed—then people might forget him without more effort.
"Teleportation."
At the tipping point where his upper body leaned, Shirone's body shot forward ten meters. Not comparable to light, but to the human eye it passed like a streak of luminescence.
When he arrived, he scrambled to catch himself from pitching forward.
"…"
He stood like that for a long time. He couldn't feel anything. This time the sting of pain didn't reach him.
"Heh heh, I did it."
The bell announcing midnight chimed.
Hearing that solemn sound, Shirone collapsed to the ground from his standing position. The smell of earth struck his nose.
In thirty days, the total distance he'd covered by teleportation was a mere ten meters. But it was the first ten meters he had ever leapt.
'How far could this go?'
To cross the unbridgeable 700-meter chasm, he'd need at least seventy teleportations. And if it were a race, stamina would become a factor.
Casting teleportation once was far less efficient than casting an offensive spell.
If you had to cast teleportation to move ten meters, you might as well run.
In the end, the key was chaining.
If you couldn't cast continuously without rest, teleportation was worse than useless.
If you arrived at the destination in a perfectly photonized state, inertia disappeared. That prevented a mage's body from being smashed, but chaining still required the same concentrated focus each time.
'I don't have time for this. I can't lie down. I need more practice. At least reinforce the chaining part…'
His will remained, but not a finger would move. Consciousness was sucked into the abyss and Shirone's eyelids slid shut.
Morning came.
* * *
Mark opened the window and breathed the fresh morning air. He stretched lazily, washed his face, and smiled as he changed clothes.
Today would be a historic day in his life.
'Rapid promotion from Class Seven. Heh heh. I'm already looking forward to how the Class Six kids will treat me.'
At fifteen he was surprisingly well-built. In the world of magic the body didn't matter that much, but children still felt intimidated by visible size. On top of that, he'd been born with talent, so nobody in Class Seven dared touch him. That pride was bolstered by the fact he'd driven Shirone around and earned this opportunity.
"Young master, how are you feeling?"
A slender man opened the door and bowed. He'd been Mark's personal teleportation instructor for the past month. Hired urgently for a time-sensitive job, he was still a certified ninth-rank mage and skilled at mimicry.
"I'm fine. How's Shirone?"
"As always. Even if teleportation is easy to learn, doing it alone has limits. Even if he takes the promotion test, he won't be a match for you."
"Hmm. Still, don't get careless. At least his Spirit Zone is larger than mine."
Mark was pleased with the line he'd just delivered. They often said a genius's weakness was laziness. But he was different—he paired innate talent with effort, so he wouldn't lose to Shirone.
"By the way, how many are participating in the operation?"
"As far as I heard yesterday, four."
"That's few. Getting personal coaching from a certified mage is a rare opportunity."
"They must be ignorant of the subject and greedy. Or maybe it's fragile pride."
Mark snorted, thinking of the students who'd refused to join the operation. Those with no talent had blinded themselves to a chance for early promotion and walked into misfortune by their own choice.
'Let them. Early promotion is mine anyway—Slider Mark's.'
The Slider family was third-rank nobility. Not the highest, but with many family members working at the Magic Association, they had significant influence.
The haughty first-rank scions might scoff, but those kids didn't even apply unless they were confident in their magic, so they didn't stay long in places like Class Seven.
In any competition there are top tiers and lower tiers. Mark recruited middling students to form the operation team. When he offered to help them get a job at the Association after graduation, a few agreed. It was more realistic than trying to squeeze through a needle's-eye acceptance.
"Four is enough. We'll crush them early."
"How about teleportation?"
Mark gave a thumbs-up as he stepped out the door.
"Perfect. I can cross seven hundred meters with my eyes closed."
"Good luck, young master."
The certified ninth-rank mage treated Mark with courtesy until the last day. Mark was a distant junior, but the mage's employer was Mark's father, a technical consultant for the Association, so the boy was effectively his employer's son.
Mark headed to the upper-class building. There were no classes because of the promotion test, but students not taking the test remained to study. Mark had come to meet with the operation team.
As expected, the faces of the students left behind were sour. They were crushed by the shame of not even qualifying to take the exam.
Mark surveyed them with smug satisfaction. Thinking that the students left in the classroom would likely be polishing someone's shoes in society made him smile.
"Hey, Maria! You gave up on the test too?"
Mark raised his hand toward Maria approaching from afar. Her face paled. After she reported the Shirone bullying incident to Shiina, she herself had become ostracized.
Mark looked at the flustered Maria with disgust.
"Tch. Batty girl. Where was she when we were bullying him, and now she sneaks out alone? Old enough but useless. Why does someone like that even come to school?"
Terrified, Maria spoke first.
"Mark, didn't you go to the training ground? Are you studying too?"
"Haha! As if. I'm not you. I just had some time and thought I'd meet friends."
Maria, four years older yet treated like a junior by Mark, felt dejected. But she couldn't blame anyone—her skill was lacking.
"What are you doing here then? Studying one day isn't going to change anything. That's why you don't get results. Go up to the training ground and observe. Watching good people is studying too."
"Yeah, right…"
Maria kept an awkward smile as Mark lectured. She just wanted the conversation over.
"Do your best. I hope you pass."
"Kek! You really think that?"
Mark's sneer made Maria's heart drop.
"I put up with you because you were a classmate. But when I become a senior, remember this. I won't forget you tattling to the teacher."
Maria tried to flail out an excuse, but her mind went blank. Resigned, she lowered her head and hurried away.
Mark snorted and entered the classroom where the operation team had gathered. Four classmates waited in the empty lecture hall.
Three boys, one girl. They had trained for a month to obstruct Shirone. Their focus had been situations within a hundred meters.
Shirone would know he was being watched, so he'd surge forward early. The key was to eliminate him before that.
They had to be careful—deliberate collisions could result in punishment—but from Mark's perspective, roughing him up didn't matter. Sacrifice them and he'd reward them later.
"How's it? We set the plan right?"
"Yeah. As soon as we start, two people will swarm Shirone. The remaining two will cover you. If Shirone breaks through, we'll use the final method."
They'd have at most two chances to make Shirone fall. But for a fight within a hundred meters, it was a satisfactory window.
Shirone's leap was probably the standard ten meters. If so, the team needed to make him fall within the first ten jumps.
"I won't forget your help. If I get early promotion, I'll lead you."
"Yeah. We're counting on you."
Mark was pleased. Everything was going according to plan. The proud victor of two early promotions would be him.
"All right! Let's go."