Bookbound Bunny

B2 - Chapter 68 - Reactions

The observers felt bad about the other students currently taking their mock test, but seeing the strange sight of a Lagia mage stole everyone's attention. Those who hadn't truly known about her were dying of curiosity, while those who did were excited to see her magic in action.

Even the Headmaster hadn't received a proper demonstration of this "star magic" yet, and only Elius and Alice had truly seen what she could do. When Lily entered the first room and summoned her Nebula Veil, it instantly caused excited murmurs from the crowd.

"Is that a magic item?" Gerrard asked.

"No, it's not," Elius answered, wanting to immediately shut down that topic of conversation.

"If such a convenient magic item existed, and I could afford to give it away, I wouldn't be in this teaching gig," Alice sneered.

"So this is star magic..." Fabrelis murmured. "It definitely describes itself on the tin."

"I think she just picked the first word that came to her mind," Elius tried to explain.

"It does sound like it was made up by a child," Beatrice said with a giggle.

What happened next caught everyone by surprise. Lily looked directly at them and then panicked in response as if she'd seen a ghost. The question on everyone's mind was "Did she see through the illusion?" and they turned to the headmaster for an answer.

"That's... odd," Fabrelis responded. "I obviously don't use the strongest illusion or I'd be drained dry, but a student shouldn't have been able to detect it."

"Her results in class prove she does have good senses; perhaps you were just tired?" Elius offered a suggestion.

"It has been a long day..." Fabrelis replied, adjusting his spectacles. "Or maybe she has other hidden talents from her bloodline."

"Are you suggesting this star magic counters illusions?" Gerrard asked, with apparent interest.

Fabrelis shrugged. "Perhaps... I might need to try testing her."

"Oh, look, look!" Sylwel said frantically, pointing at Lily, pulling out small pieces of paper.

"Glyphs? How did she manage to sneak those in?" Gerrard asked with a frown.

"She didn't need to; she proved she manufactured and drew them herself," Ollie replied.

This revelation caused a bit of a debate among the staff, and quite a few came to Lily's defense, including the headmaster.

"I watched her draw and activate an alchemy glyph in my very office," Fabrelis explained.

"And she's drawn plenty more since then!" Sylwel said enthusiastically.

The staff continued to watch in fascination as she quite easily cleared the first room and began moving to the next. They were surprised by her speed, not having seen glyphs used like this before, and the large fireball was certainly an explosive experience.

"Why wasn't it a triangle?" Sylwel complained, staring at Ollie.

"I don't know... perhaps she doesn't know how to change it yet?" he tried to answer.

The talk of triangles confused the other teachers, so a brief explanation was given to bring them up to speed. Initially, they were curious about the answer, but when they found out it only involved glyphs, they grew somewhat bored as none of them really went down that path.

Professor Melina was an exception, though, who was twirling her red hair while pondering, "Interesting... so this is why she asked me about glyphs."

"I'm more interested in why it detonated in mid-air," Gerrard pointed out. "If it were a glyph, it shouldn't be controllable after the fact, and I'm assuming this star magic is her bloodline, not fire."

Sylwel laughed mockingly, "Well, the answer is simple, she drew it to explode at that point."

None of the teachers believed the madman, until Ollie suddenly agreed with him, "Yes. Lily said she sets standardized distances on all her glyphs."

Their conversation was interrupted as Lily was finally proceeding with her plan in the second room. They had time to leisurely chat while she worked on her solution. Would she try to brute force her way over the bridge, or did she have another solution? Everyone was watching in anticipation, and when she blasted herself over the gap with a collection of wind glyphs, they were speechless.

Melina and Beatrice let out startled yelps when they saw Lily about to crash into the ceiling, but her cloak moved to protect her, causing quite a stir from those who noticed it. The rest then caught it when she rolled across the ground after wrapping herself in it entirely.

"Is the cloak alive?" Headmaster Fabrelis asked.

"No. It responds to her will," Elius answered again. "As I mentioned earlier, she has spectacular senses and reaction time, so she moves to protect herself almost unconsciously."

"I can't even imagine how much she must have practiced that one spell to get to that level," Beatrice commented.

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Gerrard sighed. "From the looks of things so far, it appears to be her only spell. I take it she can't use other magic?"

"She can," Melina answered this time. "But from what I observed, she has so little affinity with them that she can barely output anything."

"Hence why she falls back on glyphs," Ollie concluded, although he left out his speculation that she had learnt glyphs before even becoming a mage.

When Lily neared the third test, everyone braced in anticipation. This was arguably the hardest room in the test, and most students were forced to just survive for the duration. Hana had managed to defeat it, although she only saved a bit of time and might have been better off just waiting it out.

Lotte and Thomas were the only ones whose focus on attack had actually benefited them, as the former treated the enemy like a joke and the latter held its natural weakness. Thus, the observers were curious if Lily had prepared a glyph to solve this, or if her star magic could pull out a miracle.

When Lily pulled out a stack of talismans, they were excited to see what she had prepared, and that was when the rock walls were being formed. However, no matter how many she created, the Brassbound destroyed them with minimal effort.

"Her idea is sound, but the results are rather poor," Gerrard commented. "I'm surprised she can't create stronger walls. Is her Mana low?"

"No, she actually has well above average Mana," the headmaster answered.

"Then why are her ramparts so small and feeble?" Gerrard asked.

"Fairymoss has very little Mana. I think she's stretched the limit of what it can accomplish," Sylwel answered.

Ollie sighed, shaking his head. "It's a pity she's so averse to blood glyphs, or she would have probably succeeded."

Gerrard seemed startled. "Those glyphs aren't drawn with blood!?"

Ollie shook his head. "No. It's just a herb and some ink."

"What!? Surely even glyph chalk would be better?" another professor asked.

"That wouldn't be allowed to bring to this test," Ollie explained. "And unless she had a storage bag, how would she keep so many preprepared slates?"

They soon realized their mistake in judgment and sighed, wishing that she had just used blood glyphs like any normal mage. None of them really understood her aversion and thought it was a huge pity to let a bit of squeamishness get in the way of achieving outstanding results.

A few of them also pointed out that if she had prepared a lightning glyph, she would have easily won, like Thomas had. Obviously, they had no idea how much preparation time she had, and Ollie and Sylwel mentioned she had only received permission to use her glyphs the night before.

The Brassbound began to advance toward her, and the professors started to fear that Lily was going to be forced into a corner, but what happened next caught them off guard. Abruptly, three stars flung out from her between her hands, heading straight toward the enemy.

Having never seen this before, the room collectively gasped, but their momentary surprise was deflated when the three stars exploded harmlessly against its shield. Lily had stopped it from approaching her, but she had done no damage to the monster.

"Well, I can see why she called it star magic!" Sylwel cheered.

"It's certainly unique... but it didn't appear to do much," Gerrard replied.

Most of the professors seemed to agree, and considering Lily was not casting more of those strange exploding stars, they collectively decided that she must have given up.

Only Alice and Elius shared a knowing glance at one another. They smirked, knowing full well what those stars could actually do, and now the Brassbound was covered in stardust.

This is your chance. Alice thought, clenching her hands tightly.

After the brief excitement was over, others also pointed out that her speed was terribly slow for a Lagia, as she was currently boosting herself with magic, and yet she still couldn't get behind the Brassbound. This comment caused Alice to shoot them a nasty glare, quickly silencing them and forcing them to pretend it wasn't mentioned.

However, everyone's attention was grabbed when Lily started changing things up and using water glyphs. They quickly realized her strategy and began nodding in approval as the ground started becoming a muddy quagmire.

"I think she's going to make her move," Elius said eagerly.

Sure enough, once the Brassbound was stuck in the mud, Lily darted around to the back. This time, she had enough time to get to its vulnerable back and flung out four more stars. The room was impressed by her tenacity, but they had already written off her chances after seeing how lackluster her unique spell was.

The stars exploded, but the result was beyond their wildest expectations as the Brassbound was blown to bits. Elius and Alice jumped to their feet, shouting a collective "Yes!" at the sight.

Other than the two gloating, the rest of the room was silent as they had no idea what had just happened. Why was the spell suddenly so much more effective? Was the first attack just a false flag?

Gerrard was the first to break the silence. "What just happened?"

"She defeated the guardian," Alice said, a smug grin plastered on her face.

"I can see that. But how and why!?" Gerrard demanded.

Alice didn't say anything, as she just stared with pure smugness radiating off of her at a dangerous level.

"I'd also love to know what happened," Headmaster Fabrelis admitted.

Seeing Alice refuse to answer, Elius sighed and was forced to be the mature one. He gave a brief explanation of her stars and the stardust and how Lily had said they had a stacking effect.

Almost nobody wanted to believe him, as it was such a strange power that defied belief. But... wasn't that the case with most bloodline spells?

"Remind me not to get on her bad side," Sylwel joked.

"Maybe you should reduce the amount of glyphs you have her drawing," Ollie teased.

Sylwel stroked his chin. "Yes... That's probably a good idea. Thanks, old chum."

Ollie snorted in response, not knowing whether to be offended or not that Sylwel thought they were friends. Nobody wanted to be caught guilty by association with this madman.

"Do you think this magic can be shared?" Gerrard asked.

"I've never seen anything like it," the headmaster admitted. "We could try searching the history books if there's any mention of something similar, but it might truly be one of a kind."

"Well, it should get a better name if it's one of a kind," Sylwel said.

"I can't believe I'm agreeing with him, but I have to agree," Elius sighed.

A few of the teachers nodded reluctantly; it seemed everyone thought calling it "star magic" was a terrible disservice to something so strange and magical. This opinion only grew stronger when they watched Lily effortlessly walk through the final room.

"First, those strange earth scales, and now this cloak also blocks everything," Gerrard muttered.

"It even blocked my molten orb on day one," Elius commented.

That caused quite a stir, as it wasn't every day that someone passed that trial on the first try. Elius even explained that he'd yet to see it fail to stop anything, leading quite a few professors to feel quite envious of this powerful magic they were witnessing.

"So she has an impenetrable shield, and an attack that stacks up over time..." Gerrard replied, now drumming his fingers along the armrest of his chair.

"She could be quite the ace in our tournaments," Fabrelis said happily.

"Assuming she wants to compete," Alice said. "Although I think her real chance to shine will be when challenging the dungeon."

Last year brought them Rose, who was outstanding, but the rest of her grade was rather average in comparison. This year's batch of students was exceptional as a group, and then throwing in this unknown new type of magic brought their excitement to a fever pitch.