Chronicles of the True Wizard

The week of the exams, a schedule arrived which Felix wasn't expecting at all but looking through it, he more or less understood why. His exams had been compressed into just a couple of days except for Solo Combat which had its own day and Group Combat which had 7 days allocated to it. Otherwise though, they were grouped by recommendation meaning he had Mana Structures and Spell Formations back to back.

First was Mana Structures where he had to efficiently send an audible message to the opposite end of the planet. Felix had spent more time on this spell than he would have liked but ultimately, was rather happy with his solution.

He had initially tried all kinds of variations on portals and even anima spells but ultimately, as was often the case, the simplest solution reigned supreme. Taking a normal spell form to output sound, Felix simply shoved one of the most powerful and precise targeting component he could find into it then pushed it until it pointed to the other end of the planet.

The location the sound had to end up was precise but, they were given exact measurements as to the location so all he had to do was adjust the spell form with the computer in his mind.

Walking into the exam room, he waited for his turn then walked through the portal in the middle of the classroom and found a very similar setup to the evaluation room. This time however, instead of a large sheet of parchment on the table, there was every tool Felix could imagine, and many he had never seen before. Lastly, Director Amelia stood on a stool, just like last time.

As he approached the table, Director Amelia nodded to him, "Did you bring your spell with you or will you inscribe it here?"

"Actually, can I cast it myself?"

She nodded and held up a hand indicating he should wait, "Of course."

Sifting through a drawer on her side of the table, she found what she was looking for, a huge machine that surrounded a small window. She slammed it-due to the sheer weight-down onto the table then set herself up behind it and indicated with her hand that he should begin.

Glancing over at the provided coordinates as they changed for each participant, Felix made some quick adjustments then carefully constructed the spell form in front of him. Even though, in total, the spell only required a dozen spell levels at most to be functional, Felix ended up using nearly 60 spell levels of focus, the excess entirely dedicated to the targeting component of the spell.

His solution relied entirely on his precision as even embedding this spell into a ritual, would require very specific materials and a lot of mana cleaning and normalization.

He felt a wave of gratitude towards Melody once again as what he was doing wouldn't have been possible had she not accelerated his soul's healing and he had no satisfactory backup solution. He hadn't really spent much time worrying about his exams in general, especially not Mana Structures and so, he had left everything to the last few dekads. Had he not been forced to sleep for almost two dekads straight as well, he knew he would have come up with something better but he really didn't have a choice on that front.

With almost 50 spell levels of focus on the targeting component alone, Felix made sure it pointed exactly where it had to and was as precise as could be then held its shape steady as he cast the spell. He strained to hold it not because he needed to but because he wanted to be as accurate as possible.

The cast was completely anticlimactic but he was pretty confident it had worked. Turning back to Amelia, she waited for a few moments then nodded as a source-less sound echoed back into their chamber from the Adept stationed at the other end. She confirmed that the message he had sent matched the one they got back then hopped up onto the table and walked around the massive machine she had used to measure.

"I measured… 97 mana, does that match what you consumed?"

Felix shrugged, "Yeah, my screen says 97.316."

She nodded, "You are allowed to try a few more times if you wish, given you cast the spell yourself. You were about half a kilometer off from the target location."

Oh shit, that's not very close at all.

"Yeah, I'll try again."

Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm and center himself. He even briefly tried to engage his conviction but it just wasn't applicable enough in this situation. There was no losing, just a grade that represented his performance.

He tried a few more times and managed to shave off another point by refining the rest of the spell form a little and pushed his target within a hundred meters, but didn't get any further than that. Though he didn't feel like he was being strained or experience any pain, he was still pretty sure he could have brought his accuracy within a meter were his will power and his soul at 100%.

He knew he was only at about 90% at the moment but he didn't feel like it was limiting him before. Even now he didn't feel limited but the logical processes of his brain noticed the difference. Every attempt, he pushed harder but there was a limit he just couldn't push through there and so the spell wasn't nearly as accurate as he would have liked.

After he-reluctantly-decided he was done, Director Amelia nodded to him then tapped at her clipboard a few times, "Could you draw out the spell form you used?"

Felix nodded and walked over to the table, Amelia hopped off onto a stool then Felix pulled over a piece of parchment and drew out the spell form he had used.

Amelia looked at it for all of a second then cocked her head, "Do you have any skills affecting your spell casts in any way?"

Felix shook his head, "Nope."

"Would you mind following me?"

He shrugged, "I have another exam in a couple hours but otherwise I'm free."

She nodded then waved her hand to open a portal and stepped through. Felix followed her through it and immediately recognized the hall they stepped into as the one he took to the Mana Control classroom and Professor Fin's office. He wasn't entirely sure that was where they were headed, but he had a feeling.

Sure enough, he continued following her all the way to the classroom where she knocked on the door.

"You probably don't know this room but this is Professor Fin's office. You're in Mana Control, right?"

Felix nodded, "I am. I actually do kn-"

Felix was cutoff by the door opening on its own and he didn't bother finishing as they walked in and right up to the front of the room where they met Fin, standing just outside the door to his office with a grin on his face.

Fin nodded to both of them in turn, "Director Amelia. Felix."

She brushed by him, already knowing he would agree before she asked, "Mind if I use the mana board in your office?"

Fin stepped back and gestured for them to enter then closed the door behind them.

Turning to Felix, Amelia crossed her arms and gestured towards the board with her head, "Can you cast the same spell into this board, and don't bother changing the targeting component."

Felix looked at Fin who's grin grew a little wider then shrugged and cast the spell into the board without moving.

It took Amelia a few seconds to realize he was done and she only caught on because both he and Fin were staring at her, Fin waiting to see her reaction.

She looked at the board then frowned, "This is the exact spell you cast? No batteries, skills or anything else that was disallowed?"

Felix nodded, "Yup. That's the one."

Sighing, she finally addressed Fin's grin, "What am I missing? Why didn't this explode in his face?"

Fin chuckled, "I know you're busy and don't pay much attention to everything happening at the school… Felix was pulled out of 3 classes due to his… unique abilities. Oh and Director Fen was very close as well."

She sighed, "Explain."

Fin locked eyes with Felix for just a moment, looking for permission because of The System contract he had signed.

Felix nodded his permission so Fin turned back to Amelia, "Felix is the reason Khidell is only a Grand Master now."

Amelia rubbed her eyes and groaned, "He was actually demoted all the way to Expert but it happened gradually so not many know about it."

The expression of shock on Fin's face actually made Felix worried, "REALLY?"

She nodded, "Still sure it was because of him?"

Fin looked at Felix for a few seconds then nodded, "It's more likely than Khidell having lost his abilities."

She shook her head and sighed, "Okay, catch me up. How exactly are you casting that spell?"

"I ju-"

Fin cut Felix off with a forceful tap to his calf, "Mind if I take a stab?"

Felix shrugged and gestured his indifference causing Fin to happily hop over onto a rolling stool in front of the board. He used spells to move himself around so he could point at specific parts of the spell form, "You just stretched a targeting node to its limits… what a crude and oddly insightful solution. You must be stretching your own limits just keeping it stable enough. How accurate was it?"

Felix sighed and dropped his shoulders in disappointment, "I managed about a hundred meters off on my best attempt."

He snorted then turned back to the board, "As for everything else-and to answer Amelia's question as to why it didn't explode-you're normalizing and cleaning the mana yourself, right? Then you must also be managing the flow rate and suppressing transients?"

"Yup."

He shook his head, "Hah."

Amelia looked at Felix with a disgusted expression that completely threw him off then sighed, "Show me."

Felix had no idea how he was supposed to do that so he looked at Fin who had already hopped from the stool to his desk where he retrieved a number of devices, "Can't believe we never did this before. I didn't know you could clean and normalize mana as well. What else?"

"I can change the attunement and energy levels but it's… slow." Felix winced a little, unhappy with the speed himself.

The look of disgust on Amelia's face deepened as the wide eyed smile on Fin's grew, "How slow?"

Felix sighed, "I'm down to just under 15 minutes to make the attunement as clean as I can manage, mostly because I wanted to attune mana directly for my Spell Formation exam."

Fin grabbed one of the gadgets from his desk and tossed it to Felix, "Attune some mana into this."

"What attunement?"

"Any."

Felix nodded then got to work as the two Professors watched him for the entirety of the 16 minutes it took until he was done. It took longer than he had hoped and he wanted it to be as clean as he could manage and even then, he noticed it was less than he could have managed before his current injury. Not entirely satisfied, but knowing he wasn't going to do any better even if he took an hour, Felix finally pushed the mana into the device.

As he did, it glowed briefly and Fin snatched it from his hands then connected it into another machine with a huge grid of lights on it. It looked almost like the scoreboard for a sports game with all the individual lights. After a brief moment, just one of the lights on the machine lit up.

Amelia stared incredulously at the machine and Fin laughed, "It took you just over 15 minutes to match building sized machines and rituals."

"Efficiency?" Amelia asked without looking away from the grid of lights.

Felix cocked a brow, "What do you mean?"

She looked at him like he was an idiot, "Ratio of mana in to mana out. You're in my class?"

He also kind of felt like an idiot but at the same time, felt justified in his confusion, "Right just… 100%? I didn't… I just changed the attunement, nothing was lost. There was no… conversion process?"

She groaned which only made Fin laugh harder.

Felix waited a few moments but Amelia didn't look like she was planning on moving, "Can I leave?"

She looked over at him, her face still painted in complete disgust, "What? No, you can't leave. How am I supposed to grade you? You took out as many Mana Structures as you could in your Mana Structures exam."

Felix shrugged, "It was efficient though."

"I-" She groaned again, "How are there two of you in one cycle."

Felix suddenly became very focused, "What? Two of me? Someone else can do what I do?"

She looked at him, "Wha- No. I mean students who make grading impossible. On the one hand, it was efficient. On the other, you didn't have the worst accuracy but it was close. Also the spell form you created is complete trash and by far the worst in the class. Yet if I stick to my normal grading scheme of efficiency and accuracy, you'd ace the class… Then there's… ugh."

There was no point trying to contain his relief, "Oh. Who's the other one?"

It looked like she wasn't going to answer for a moment then she just sighed, "Adaline's inscribed spell used 23 mana."

Felix's eyes widened in shock, "23? Holy shit. How?"

Amelia threw her hands in the air, "My question exactly. She threw so much spatial nonsense I don't understand in the slightest into her soloution that… I don't know how to grade her. I can't grade her. Do I just give her an S and move on? That seems wrong because what she did, makes every other S I've ever given look like a C at best."

Felix made a mental note to talk to her then shook his head to refocus himself, "What do you need from me for grading?"

She sighed, once again, her exasperation very evident, "Giving you a test on the spot without preparation isn't fair but I need to submit my grades and you have your Group Combat expedition soon… Can you show me spells you're particularly proud of that you designed recently?"

Fin spoke up before Felix could respond, "That might not be the best idea. Felix casts all his spells with his Mana Control directly and his biggest limiting factor is the complexity of the spell."

She dropped her head back and groaned again, "So all your spells are like this."

"You do any enchanting recently?" Fin looked at Felix hopefully.

He winced, "Not really. I've been focused on other things."

Shaking her head slowly, Amelia took a deliberate breath, "Alright, you know what. Just show me whatever spells or enchantments you have that you created. Literally anything."

Felix nodded then began pulling up every spell, ward and enchantment the had ever created.

It took nearly an hour for them to get through everything at which point Amelia groaned one final time before deciding she had had enough. Her annoyance was apparent the entire time but Felix was at leas 50% sure he wasn't going to get a terrible grade. He also gave it a 20% chance she just failed him.

Man… what a bummer. If I had my full control, my spell would have been accurate and she might have just given me a good grade on the spot. Now, I honestly don't know. She just seemed so…

Grim chuckled in his mind, Annoyed, exasperated and disgusted all at once.

He winced then sighed as he mentally moved onto the next exam on his schedule.

With his first exam finally done, he headed straight for his second exam and arrived almost an hour early. Taking a seat, he entered his Soul Garden and began running through his solution for Spell Formations once again. Despite the exam being in a real world hour, he ended up revamping the entire spell but, it still relied on his manually attuning the mana.

He wasn't exactly rushed given the time dilation though.

Once it was his turn, he walked through the portal and waited for the professor's signal before casting his spell. This time, it took him nearly 20 minutes to fully attune the required mana to cast the spell and even then, he was worried the spell wouldn't pass. The box he was moving though managed to stay within the given path, albeit barely.

Professor Elkord was, despite looking amazing with an an organic metal body, rather boring. His lectures were straight forward and to the point, they weren't particularly fast or slow. They were concise and understandable. They were also simply, boring. It definitely didn't help that his face just looked like a blank metal sheet, like someone wearing a mask.

Despite knowing they were largely expressionless, Felix was still expecting something when he cast his spell. They were given a track and his spell moved the cube through it without it ever touching the sides-despite how close it had gotten-and he managed to use just 17 mana in total.

After casting his spell though, Elkord recorded how much mana Felix used then informed him, once again expressionlessly, that he could attempt to cast the spell twice more.

He nodded and did so once again, the second time taking only 16 minutes for whatever reason and halving the mana required to cast the spell down to just 8 points. His third attempt, he pushed as hard as he could and honed his focus but 17 minutes later, he could already feel it wasn't the same. For whatever reason, he had found a groove in his second attempt that he failed to replicate with his third. As a result, his third attempt used 13 points of mana.

Once he was done, Elkord directed him to the table where he drew out the spell form on a piece of parchment. Looking at the completed drawing, Elkord nodded towards it, "This is your spell formation?"

The question was asked so blankly, Felix couldn't help but grow a little nervous. Especially considering what had happened with Amelia just a few hours ago, he was worried he was going to be failed for cheating or something, "Yeah this is the spell I just cast."

They nodded exactly twice, "Okay. Thank you." Then gestured for the exit portal.

Sighing, Felix left the room, resigned to his fate as now that he was really thinking about it, as much as he may have been very efficient with his spell, he also did strip out as much actual spell formation as he could. Thinking back, though it would have been less efficient, he could have taken a page from Withrel's playbook and used fractal channels to create a complex structure to really show off what he knew. it would have used at least 5 or 6 times more mana but it would have been more appropriate.

As much as he knew his grades didn't matter a ton, he still wanted his grades to be great for no reason other than wanting to win against his classmates.

He was already pretty sure he could get a recruitment offer from Amatara and Tekragoraxius no matter what his grades were and those were really all he needed. Although, he was definitely interested in Edras' recruitment given he was so big on open knowledge and his afterlife was a library.

Felix's final exam for the day was Mana Control so he headed back to Fin's office and they went ahead and measured everything they had before. Writing down all the values, Felix was a little disappointed at first because his Mana Control Range wasn't as big as he would have liked. His Mana Control Limit never hindered him but precision directly affected the density of his computers and he just wanted it to be lower. His Mana Control Speed was directly proportional to his flow rate and the force he could apply with his Mana Control alone was so low, it was useless. Lastly his Spell Construction Speed for a 20th level spell wasn't even close to as low as he would have liked.

Once they were done, Fin wrote out the original measurements next to the new ones though and despite feeling limited by the values and burning with a desire to improve even more, he couldn't help but appreciate how much they had changed.