Chapter 60: Hunting Shadows
Nathan checked the academy around him, watching to see how it responded to a death. Last time there'd been no immediate reaction to a death, but he hadnt stuck around long enough to see if it just took a little while. After thirty seconds, there was nothing. The sense of wizardry attention just drifted away in the moments after the man died, like it had stopped paying attention.
Thats convenient. Makes me wonder if Giantsrest has full control over the Academy, or is just able to whitelist people.
He shrugged and walked over to the body, making sure that Rilrar was completely dead. Thered been a notification, but it paid to be sure about these things. Sure enough, the mans skull had been crushed when he hit the ground. Nathan considered trying to take something from the corpse, such as the mages mark on the mans finger.
He decided against it, setting off back towards the low-tier residences. Rilrar had been using a strange [Fly] spell, and it was possible his death might be interpreted as an accident. That wouldnt be true if anything was missing from the body. Furthermore, a mages mark wouldnt do anything for him, since the Academy didnt rely on them to identify people. It just tracked them directly.
Nathan increased his speed to a run, leaving the hall behind in moments. He dodged a couple of golems on patrol and snuck back into his room, then collapsed on his bed. It took a little while to go to sleep, with him turning over how much more time hed need before he understood wizardry well enough to actually start climbing the Academy. He was making progress, but he wasnt sure if hed figure out anything worthwhile before his cover got blown.
Keep going. Its worth the attempt to learn.
The gossip the next morning was spicy, and had a different theory about how Rilrar had died. Nobody seemed to believe it had been an accident, though many of the ideas were even more outlandish than Ronis Quazian ghost hypothesis. The brown-haired boy continued to defend that idea, arguing with Yelun about the topic.
As they were getting up and heading to class Nathan overheard somebody at a different table suggesting it could be assassins from Gemore. Luckily, that idea didnt seem to be gaining much traction. But he did notice that people were moving in larger groups, each clique of students unwilling to get too far away from any others in case they ran into whatever danger was stalking the halls of the Ascendent Academy.
Nathan flexed his stealth skills to avoid Brans eye in the practical lesson, and pretended to struggle with force mana for the benefit of his suitemates. He handed his homework to the lecturer on the way out the door.
The pudgy man flipped through it right there and then, beady eyes glowering down at the correct answers. He paused on the force weave drawing, then snapped the sheaf closed. Work on your drawing skills. The Insight is there, but it looks like a splintered spell.
High-tier Noticeability 5 achieved!
Then the lecturer turned away in clear dismissal, letting Nathan and his suitemates escape the room and hustle to lunch.
Eban was waiting in ambush again, but they ducked in through the side entrance to avoid him. The surly white-robed student came in half an hour later, spotting them at the table. He looked over angrily but didnt approach. Everybody let out a relieved sigh.
The lecture class in the afternoon started out strangely. The lecturer was still Brardan dho Shisk, the ruddy-faced man who could make the Insight behind a [Fireball] boring. But this time he entered the room with uncommon energy, standing behind the podium instead of sitting as he usually did.
The Ascendant Academy has lost a hand of the Giant. Rilrar dho Magoad was a wonderful mage. He paused to sniffle slightly. I sponsored him to high-tier, and hoped he would grasp the title of lecturer. He was brilliant beyond words, and developed a novel [Fly] Insight that should have seen him raised to Archmage.
The lecturer scanned around the room, a tangible sadness in his eyes. But now that Insight is lost, for it was never shared. Mourn, all of you. A brilliant work of magic has been lost today, and know that proper weight is being given to the investigation of his death.
d give his value at about twelve levels. That was kind of a lot for a high-tier student. I wonder what that investigation is gonna look like. I didnt leave a lot of clues.
Nathan blinked at the line of thought. Hed been totally justified in killing Rilrar, since the man had tried to mess with Nathan's mind, and would have exposed him regardless. But it was a bad habit to start thinking of people as sources of levels. That was the kind of thing that could lead to Kia hunting him down later.
After the surprisingly emotional eulogy, the lecture resumed its normal monotony. Given his late-night antics, Nathan had to use [Perfected Body] to keep himself awake. This time Brardan assigned homework, flicking a finger and casting [Force Fingers] to distribute the papers to every student in the class.
That evening, Nathan noticed that his original robe had been mended and cleaned. It was the one that Faline had given him, which had been damaged when he busted into the Academy. More importantly, it had been stained with the enforcement mage's blood when Nathan had put a fist through his face.
Nathan stepped out into the main living space, shooting a quick look at the old slave who was heating up a few snacks for them. He still didn't know her name. She hadnt paid him any special attention today, but after cleaning blood from the sleeve of his robe she had to suspect something. He resolved to keep an eye out and joined the other students as they bent over their homework.
That night, Nathan departed once again. He intended to make this a shorter trip, mostly to reduce the risk he killed somebody else. Two deaths in a row were suspicious and worth investigating, but three would definitely trigger a response.
I wonder if they know its an assassin, or specifically me. Badud might suspect, but he hasnt done anything about it so far as I've seen except increasing the patrols. I need to be careful of those tonight.
Nathans next goal was to open the simplest non-residential door he could find, which led to the dining room where they had breakfast. It was a three-layer spell, and Nathan was pretty sure it would be a good next step. His real goal was learning to manipulate the wizardry without triggering the alarm. If he wasnt worried about mages teleporting in, it would be a lot faster and easier to experiment with the magic and figure out more about wizardry.
My skills are helping a lot here. Ive got [Antimagic Stealth] and [Wizards Intuition] that are making it a lot easier to mess with things without setting off alarms. But the real goal is to improve [Denial of Wizardry]. Its letting me interact with the wizardry, and interfacing with Spell Redirection to let me actually manipulate it. But its more effective the better I understand the wizardry Im targeting. Right now its like Im trying to hotwire a car while wearing oven mitts.
He probed the lock carefully, slipping tendrils of antimagic into the structure and burning Focus to make sure he didn't slip up and break anything unintentionally. Then he started gently poking it in various places and watching the response. He kept the impulses small, and every time a signal looked like it was building up too much he quashed the magic and waited for it to return to neutral.
After nearly an hour he was starting to feel comfortable with some of the individual modules and connections of the spell. It was analogous to measuring currents and voltage across different parts of a circuit to reconstruct what individual components did, though wizardry didnt behave like electricity at all. Unfortunately his Focus was a limiter on the process. It regenerated even as he worked, but maintaining his auras shape and carefully monitoring the wizardry in the lock was a draining task. He had to pause occasionally to meditate and restore the resource, all while keeping on guard for patrols.
Nathan had just finished infiltrating his aura back into the lock when he heard the stomp of an approaching golem around the far corner. He had seconds before the construct rounded the corner and spotted him. He could hide from the magic of the Academy, but the golems had actual physical eyes that would spot him. Not only was he not on whatever whitelist Giantsrest had, there was a nighttime curfew throughout the Academy.
The problem was that his aura was still extended into the wall. If he ripped it out hed mangle the door that led into the dining hall, setting off alarms and potentially busting the entrance in a way that screamed an antimage was here. He looked around the bare corridor frantically before leaping into the air, teeth clenched as his aura fed out behind him. He got over the lip of the cornice and flattened himself to the vaulted ceiling fifty feet in the air.
He was half-exposed to the corridor below, but didnt have the time to do anything else. His aura was still stuck into the wall far below, and the distance made it hard to maintain the complex shape. He slowly started disentangling his power from the wall, the task made difficult with distance. It was like lifting a heavy weight with outstretched arms.
Mid-tier Aura Manipulation 8 achieved!
The golem stomped down the hall below him, and Nathan yanked the last of his aura out of the wall and retracted it with a quiet sigh of relief. Then he turned his attention to the fifteen-foot tall statue below, using the opportunity to study it closely. It moved with greater fluidity than the Giantsrest golems he'd seen outside of the Academy, and wizardry was incorporated into its structure to make an artificial mana pool. The giant statue kept its gaze low, not looking up at any point.
He caught a faint thread of wizardry coming off the golem, stretching into the walls and connecting to the magic that flowed through the Academy. It wasnt anything substantial, more of a data connection than anything capable of transmitting power. But it seemed to be the way that the golem stayed in touch with the greater magic of the academy.
Wizard Senses 8 achieved!
I wonder if I could snip that cord and then fight it. Its obviously tougher than any golem Ive fought before, and it would be good to know that I could take it. But theres no need to take the risk right now.
Nathan sighed when the golem turned the corner, and moved to lower himself back to the ground. But before he did, he noticed something strange. The vaulted ceiling was painted with a colorful fresco, and the area hed been pressed against had lost some of its vibrancy. There also seemed to be a slight indent where hed been trying to push himself into the surface.
He stared at the spot for a moment, then retreated a few steps in midair and watched the bleached section. The color slowly started to return and the surface smoothed out, accompanied by a faintest tinge of wizardry. He poked a portion of the wall with a dense tendril of antimagic and saw the color drain away slowly. Now that he was paying attention, he could see the material of the school itself dissolving as he absorbed the local wizardry.
He dropped back to the ground and repeated the process with a column nearby. Nothing seemed to happen, so he made the aura more concentrated and kept at it for a few minutes until he saw a tiny divot form in the stone.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I guess I understand the wizardry well enough to start dissolving portions of the school itself? Thats promising. But its slow as hell. Not really practically useful. I need more practice, and more examples to test myself against.
He returned to the low-tier student quarters, musing over his discovery and what it meant for his plans inside the Academy. It might be the kind of thing he could use to Develop his antimagic Talent.
Status of Nathan Lark:
Permanent Talent 1: Aura of Antimagic 9
Permanent Talent 2: Perfected Body 10
Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 5
Class: Void of Magic level316
Deepened Stamina: 6822/9750
Void of Feeling
Antimagic Momentum
Raging Thrill
Implacable Inertia
Unarmored Resilience
Magic Anathema
Airborne Agility
Hand-to-hand Expertise
Voluminous Aura
Denial of Wizardry
Mana Severance
Class: Magekiller level 159
Regenerative Focus: 1523/1690
Catastrophic Blows
Battle Stealth
Mage Infiltration
Forgettable
Unsuspecting Strike
Antimagic Stealth
Spell Redirection
Lethal Index
Utility skills:
Battle Meditation 10
Inspiration 1
Acceleration 4
Wizard Senses 8
Alertness 6
Wizards Intuition 9
Effortless Dodge 2
Mental Fortress 9
Tutoring 2
High-tier Tumbling 10
High-tier Noticeability 5
Mid-tier Disguise 6
Mid-tier Battle Cry 7
Mid-tier Aura Manipulation 8
