Curse the Mainframe! 13 Elemental Magic Technique

Alec arrived at the classroom early.

He felt strange, heading in this direction. Most of the six previous years had mostly consisted of dwelling in the forest for the duration of a day, each day exploring different parts with the imparted knowledge from their teacher.

Alec loved it.

The soft, warm sunshine that hit him under the foliage of the trees, the gentle breeze that caressed his skin, the distant roars of unknown beings he never once got to put a name to. The soft, bird chirps, so near, yet unseen.

He loved all of it.

Somehow, sitting in a classroom reminded him too much of his rewarding but frustrating life as a System.

So lost in his thoughts, he never noticed when Zacharias stood before him.

"Hey," Zacharias said impatiently. Even if the others were willing to wait, that didn't mean he was! Not to mention, it was almost time for their teacher to appear as he usually did for the day. "Snap out of it already!"

Alec blinked, smiling. "Yes?" He had a feeling he knew where this was going.

"Cut it out already," Zacharias said brusquely. "If you don't want to smile, then don't!"

Alec obligingly dropped the signature smile that he had perfected over the years. Truly, practice made perfect.

Even though he wasn't really all that thrilled about having the 'most useless' Magitype, he wasn't all that torn about it either. But, somewhere in the System's cold, dead heart, he felt something weaken a little. How strange.

Zacharias let out a 'hmph', crossing his arms and looking away.

Alec hid a little smile, sure that the teen wouldn't appreciate it. "I'm fine."

Zacharias scoffed. "Of course you are. It's just that those guys," he said, jerking a thumb in their direction, "don't think you are. But I know better. You're stupidly stubborn. Something as minor as this won't keep you down for long."

This time, Alec smiled at him genuinely. He quite liked Zacharias, despite the disdain he had been shown years earlier. The boy had mellowed out a lot over the years, and had Alec been inclined to label him, like some other transmigrators or reincarnators that he had the greatest pleasure of meeting, he would be a tsundere.

The more Alec watched him, the more he felt like the teen was rather cute.

"You didn't even lose to me when it comes to theoretical work, after all," the teen said proudly.

Alec wanted to laugh so badly.

Evin entered the room, interrupting their conversation.

Zacharias reluctantly went back to his seat, shoving away that feeling of pride when he saw the other's marginally more relaxed expressions. As if he needed their approval.

Evin made no reference to their appraisal status the day before, staring with the magic theory lessons.

Taking out five scrolls, he passed them one each.

Curiously, Alec unrolled the scroll. This was the first time he had seen something like this. More of the information that he found written down was in the form of books, so the appearance of a scroll was new.

"Don't op-"

The moment he opened it, his vision swam alarmingly. All of his consciousness was sucked into the scroll without a warning.

Stunned, Alec looked around.

There was nothing in front of him, only pure darkness. Even when he stretched out his hand, he could not see it.

Then, the surroundings started getting brighter visibly, a soft glow, where a man stood in the middle of the ray of light.

Instantly, Alec's eyes locked onto the man.

He had the same distinct characteristics that the Neil Clan embodied. Who was he? He emitted a amicable aura, much like Cyrus, but where the teen gave off a feeling that he was a big brother, this man instead possessed a disposition where one innately felt like he was worthy of their trust.

For some reason, Alec couldn't take his eyes off him. How strange. There was something familiar about him…

The man made a series of strange, flowing moves, ending in a resting position. Alec stared harder at the motions he was going through, committing them to memory.

Alongside, he followed, obviously getting it wrong various times.

Ten times, twenty times, thirty times, hundred times…

Alec didn't know how long passed, but he knew that there were countless, endless repetitions, until suddenly, the man stopped and smiled, disappearing.

Alec blinked and found himself back in the classroom.

Dazed, Alec looked around, only to see that the rest were clearly staring into space in a daze.

Evin looked dryly at his student. Even after all these years, Alecris still moved before he fully thought things through.

"As I was saying," the man said in a tone so dry he would have fit right into the desert. "The scroll is something that the ancestor made for the Clan. It's the accumulation technique for the Elemental magic stage."

Alec only smiled, feeling sheepish. He hadn't done something like that for a while now, but in his eagerness to see what was inside the scroll, his hands moved without him thinking. Needless to say, his curiosity had always been something of a problem…

Within minutes, Cyrus blinked, his consciousness returning, followed by Zacharias, then Tatiana and Elias at almost the same time.

Alec nodded at them. That didn't take too long.

"Ah, yes," Evin said, seeing their elated faces. "I forgot to say, but once you get sucked into a magic scroll like that, it all depends on your comprehension. Though you can exit at any time, it all depends on you. One charge of the scroll will show you ten repetitions, where you have to recharge the scroll with magic to view it again."

Alec was surprised. Ten times? The way Evin said it, he sounded so sure, as if he was speaking of something tested and proven, but that wasn't right! He didn't know how many times he had practiced, but clearly, it was definitely more than ten times.

Cyrus raised a brow, asking the question that they wanted to ask. "Isn't there something like imparting of knowledge directly?"

Evin snorted. "Do you think this is some fairy tale? Of course not! Just like how everyone has different ways of using their Magitypes, the knowledge is there for you to see, but whether or not you comprehend it is another issue altogether!"

They nodded to show their understanding.

Evin gestured for them to follow him.

Outside, near the classroom, there was an open field with only trees in the vicinity. Away from prying eyes, they would be able to practice here without anyone getting hurt.

"Show me," Evin said simply.

Zacharias, ever so enthusiastic, jumped to be the first in line, his eyes glinting. "Me first!"

Running through the sequence, Alec immediately spotted a few flaws in the teen's movements.

Likewise, Evin caught them, making a few corrections here and there.

"Next."

Tatiana performed remarkably well. Her movements looked smooth and natural, even though there were still small inconsistencies, it was clearly higher than Zacharias' by a notch.

By the time it reached Alec's turn, he already got a gist of how the others were doing. However, did he want to show what he already felt like he mastered? Had he truly mastered it? He hesitated briefly before shoving it aside.

That wasn't like him. Alec liked to think of himself as a person who took action instead of thinking endlessly over the various possibilities. Anyway, who knew if he had really mastered it or not? It wasn't like he'd done this before.

Starting off with the first pose, which started with an arm held perpendicular to his body, and the other a fist hovering at the core of his body, Alec flowed smoothly into the ten moves that he had practiced endlessly.

The moves came so naturally that it surprised him, considering he hadn't used his body in the real world to practice it. Though, that might have been expected, with how he had repeated the same thing countless, endless times in order to obtain the man's approval.

Was he the ancestor himself?

Why was it that he wasn't only limited to ten times? Was it his Societype? His Magitype?

Somehow, he leaned towards the Awakening Magitype. There had to be something that everyone was missing…

Chapter end

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