thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 3 - Education - Chapter 29
🕑 Added 2019-02-03 05:02:55 +0000 UTCThomas clenched his fists and slowly walked over to Serena with a smile on his face. He wanted to see if he could punch through her wall. He didn't consider himself to be much of a musclehead but he was definitely the curious sort and once he had an idea it was hard for him to ignore it. Serena glanced up from her work on practicing the spell and seeing Thomas approaching her she gave him a smile, though she looked a little confused.
Thomas gave her a friendly handwave and explained before she could ask, "I was experimenting with the sturdiness of my wall and was wondering how sturdy others walls might be. Would it be alright for me to try giving your wall a punch?"
Serena thought for a brief moment then smiled warmly at him while gesturing to her wall, "Be my guest. I'm kind of curious which is stronger, you or my wall."
Thomas laughed and stepped up to her wall. Serena's wall was only at a height of about a meter but it was nearly twice as thick as the walls that Thomas had created. Thomas rolled her shoulders and flicked his arms a bit to loosen them up before he took his stance. He slowly inhaled and tensed his muscles, with a sharp exhale he launched his fist forward and slammed it into Serena's wall. There was a deafening sound reminiscent of thunder as his fist slammed into the stone wall.
Thomas felt the impact with the wall traveling from his fist and up his arm before something curious happened. The energy from the impact reached his shoulder before it seemed to rebound and travel back down his arm and into his fist to impact into the wall a second time. The first blow from his fist had weakened the wall, but the reverberation of the energy returning to his fist sent a second impact into the wall that shattered it with a deafening sound.
The whole process of the impact energy traveling up and down his arm had only taken a split second, so from the outside, it all seemed like a single impact had hit the wall. Both Thomas and Serena stared at her shattered wall in surprise, though for two different reasons. Serena was surprised and felt like her pride had been hurt a little by Thomas so 'easily' shattering her wall. While Thomas was surprised by the feeling he'd gotten while punching the wall.
After a few awkward moments of silence, Serena spoke to Thomas, "What is your Power at for you to so easily shatter my wall?"
Thomas slowly retracted himself out of his stance and gave Serena a sheepish smile as he answered her, "It's at forty right now."
Thomas used his other hand to wipe the actual dust on his knuckles off of his throbbing fist. He might have shattered the wall, but it left a rather painful throbbing behind to remind him of its brief existence. Serena sighed and nodded, "That explains it then. Your power is higher than mine so you were able to overwhelm my wall spell with raw strength."
Thomas shrugged his shoulders as he tried to comfort her a little bit, "Yeah, but because I invested so much experience into my other attributes my Magic attribute is a little lacking at the moment. When I get the chance I need to head into the city dungeon to gain some experience so I can raise my Magic attribute to a more appropriate level."
Serena looked at Thomas, she knew what he was doing but she still appreciated it. She smiled softly at him then waved towards where Thomas had been previously practicing in a shooing motion, "Alright you trouble maker. Go back over there and practice your spell. You've disturbed the class enough for now."
At her words, he glanced around and noticed that every other student, and Fulin, were giving him the stink eye. The noise from his punching the wall had been extremely loud and had disturbed the entire class. Thomas felt warmth in his cheeks and immediately knew he was blushing and it only got worse when Fulin called out, "Can't you go a single day without bothering the class?"
Thomas felt his cheeks warming further as he spun on his heels and stiffly walked over to where he'd been practicing previously. He faced his back to the rest of the class and closed his eyes. He took several slow and deep breaths to calm himself down so he could use 'Serenity' to recover his mana before he went back to practicing the wall spell.
With his mana recovered, he started to channel some of it into the ground before calling it up, converting it into the earth element, and hardening it into a wall large enough to completely cover him behind it. He looked over the hardened wall and smiled to himself, it still took a good few seconds for him to summon the wall up, but he could see many situations where it could come in handy for defending against mundane weapons. However, he had proven just how easily the wall could be destroyed as long as the one attacking it had a high enough Power attribute.
He dismissed the wall and went about summoning another one. For now, he needed to practice forming and creating the wall to increase his casting speed for it. That was the whole point of the practice after all. Thinking about that he smiled and summoned another wall, only this time he made a tiny wall less than thirty centimeters tall. A wall like that wouldn't protect him in the least, except maybe from an ankle biter, but it did allow him to practice the spell while expending much less mana.
Fulin had said that the spell could be variable and never mentioned that it couldn't be smaller! Thomas laughed to himself as he dismissed the wall and summoned another small one right after. Over the course of two hours, he summoned tiny walls repeatedly while using 'Serenity' to recover his mana whenever he felt like he was getting low. In that manner, the time passed until Fulin called out to everyone, "Alright we'll stop practicing here. Go get your lunch and we will meet back in the classroom in an hour!"
Thomas wiped some sweat off of his brow and turned to look at Serena. He wanted to invite her to lunch again. When he spotted Serena he saw that Brao had beaten him to the punch and was already speaking to her. They were talking too low for him to hear what they were saying, but he could see that Serena looked rather annoyed. She glanced over at him, smiled at him, then said something to Brao before making her way over to him. Serena gave him a somewhat pleading look as she asked in a very low voice, "Would you please join me for lunch? I told Brao that I already had plans with you, you wouldn't want to make me look like a liar would you?"
It took everything he had not to laugh at what she said. He intended to ask her to join him for lunch anyway so this just worked out even better in his opinion! Not only would he get to enjoy having lunch with her, but she would 'owe' him a favor on top of that! Thomas gave her a warm smile and made a sweeping gesture towards the cafeteria as he whispered, "Well, I wouldn't want to make you into a liar."
After they walked far enough away to not be heard by anyone, Thomas looked over at Serena and asked, "So, you didn't want to spend time in Brao's company?"
Serena huffed and looked annoyed, "I can't stand nobles like him. All they know how to do is brag about themselves in some effort to seem impressive. What does talking about how important members of your family have to do with their personal merits? So what if his cousin is related to some duke? What does that have to do with him and his accomplishments? If he wants to brag he should at least do something himself that is worth bragging about!" She sighed and shook her head, "Or better yet he should take a page from your book and just not brag about his accomplishments at all."
Thomas felt a bit of pride at that but didn't feel like he'd performed any feats worth bragging about so he simply said, "If I had anything worth bragging about then I just might turn into a braggart."
Serena looked at him like he was daft, "Don't have anything to brag about? You managed to get Hekrin to make you his apprentice! He's never taken one before so that's a big accomplishment. On top of that, he even wrote a recommendation letter for you to get into the academy. Then there's the fact that you have an affinity with every single element, something that's completely unheard of! I'd say you have plenty to brag about. Just don't brag to me, I get enough of that from the noblemen I meet."
Thomas laughed, "Well, no need to worry about that. Even with what you've mentioned I don't feel like I've done enough to brag. Wait until I learn more about this world and how it works. Once I have the skills, materials, and knowledge I need I will start making the most powerful weapons this world has ever seen. Then I will have something to brag about."
Serena gave him an incredulous look for a moment before she started laughing merrily. She laughed for a bit until she noticed the serious look on his face and asked, "You're serious?"
Thomas looked over at Serena and smiled broadly, "It's what I do. My whole purpose here is to make weapons, armor, and items for my fellow otherworlders to defeat monsters." He sighed and got a faraway look in his eyes, "I can't wait until I have my own place where I can spend the whole day forging the most powerful items I can create. Then taking them out into the field to test them out and make sure that they're as awesome as they should be."
Serena looked thoughtful for a moment then asked, "Is that what you did in your previous world?"
Thomas nodded in response and then shrugged, "I am not trying to brag when I say this, but in the past, I was known as a rather excellent weaponsmith and armorsmith making some of the most powerful weapons for the most powerful individuals. My name was well known and people came from all over for my services." He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, "But here, I am nobody once again. I am not even sure if any of my friends are here. Even if they are I do not know where they are located in this world. It will be hard to find any of them if any can be found at all."
They made their way into the cafeteria in silence. After waiting in line for a bit Serena asked, "Is that what why you sought out Hekrin? To learn how to make weapons?"
Thomas shook his head and replied, "In all honesty, I went to Hekrin because I was curious. When I was first summoned I saw some children playing with a toy he'd created. It was new and interesting to me so I asked them about it and found my way to Hekrin's shop." He laughed at himself before he continued, "I didn't even think it through. I was so single-mindedly focused on the idea of learning something new that I didn't even mind Hekrin's attitude and just focused on what he asked me to do and nothing else. Thinking back on it, it was rather stupid. I missed out on a lot of obvious things in my single-minded focus to learn what he had to teach. However, I have no regrets at all about it. It's led me here to learn proper magic and Hekrin even granted me his inheritance."
Serena looked thunderstruck as she asked in a small voice, "Hekrin even gave you his inheritance?"
Thomas just casually nodded to her before he accepted his tray of food from the lady working in the cafeteria. The two of them made their way to a table and sat down to eat their food in silence for a bit. Serena seemed to be thinking rather deeply about something as they ate. About halfway through their meal Serena finally spoke again in a somewhat teasing tone, "I may have underestimated just how much you have to brag about."
Thomas laughed lightly and waved a hand dismissively, "I honestly don't like to brag. I much prefer to let my feats and actions speak for themselves. I've only been here a little over five weeks and it will likely be a year or more before I can perform at a level I feel is adequate."
Serena arched an eyebrow at that, "Only a year to do things that the greatest experts in the world spend their whole lives working towards?" She chuckled, "Now you are bragging."
Thomas laughed and then shrugged his shoulders, "Stick around and see."
After they finished their lunch they made their way back to the classroom together. They walked in silence as the two of them thought about their own things. They arrived at the classroom together and Thomas was once again assaulted by the glare of Brao. He felt like he would, eventually, have to do something about the annoying noble brat. The time to teach him a lesson would come eventually he was sure. Until then he'd just ignore the little pest.
Comments
CptJimmy
I hope you didn’t scare him off... it’s been 2 days!! The wait is getting to me.
Hey Thomas, I'm a new patreon here and a I'm quite enjoying the story and character progression. Please take care of yourself, as to not overburn yourself. I see you coming with chapter after chapter, don;t get me wrong, I do love consistency and the daily chapters , and that entails a bit of work on your side, so please take care of yourself . Thank you for the awesome chapters and keep up the good work ^^.
Shaggy Stephenson
type - Thomas rolled her shoulders -> Thomas rolled his shoulders
