Descending Into A Novel-Chapter 68:Sky Soaring

It was a bit embarrassing to admit this. But despite it being the fourth month since the academy started, Raymond still had not attended a single Sky Soaring club meeting.

Despite having received numerous items from them, Raymond had always skipped out on the meetings or whatever activities they held.

Mainly because he was lazy but also because he really didn’t want to see Zachary. Ever since his challenge in fact, Raymond had done his absolute best to avoid Zachary. Going out of his way to teleport or invisible himself if there was even a slight chance of contact with him.

Mainly because Raymond felt quite bad for what he did last time. Zachary was a principled person who wouldn’t cheat or lie to others, admittedly—beating him up just for copying him was a bit overkill.

But he was just really damn angry at the time, being reminded of his past like that was like a punch to the face after having a good day. Or like stepping on a pile of dog crap in new shoes. No matter how good your day was, it was bound to turn to crap after something like that.

Well, it had already been two months since then. Raymond also felt kind of bad for just taking so much stuff for free from Sky Soaring, so with a little bit of ’persuasion’ from Ellen, he had made up his mind to go to the meeting today.

He already skipped basically every class except for the special class only ones, as well as nearly every meeting for Mages For Life. Except for the occasional ones that really interested him. Like that time Alex Balakin was brought in to teach them.

Entering into the academy hall where Sky Soaring was having their meeting, Raymond could immediately feel several gazes locking onto him.

Sky Soaring was for only the elites in terms of talent, the very best of the best. Each year having less then ten members. Being in the top 10 was basically the minimum just to even be considered for Sky Soaring.

As for why Zachary was also in Sky Soaring despite having been close to the bottom at the start of the year? Well he just showed off how much his potential score could improve with the system. Such a damn cheat honestly.

A tall, lean teenager frowned slightly at the interruption before quickly smiling when he recognized Raymond. His eyes were narrow, and his hair combed neatly to the sides. Paired with rectangular glasses, he was the second ranked fourth year.

The fifth years meanwhile, were usually constantly busy with whatever sick assignments the school had assigned them. Not to mention, the constant missions just for the points. They had no time to waste on managing clubs and whatnot.

The third year was when students were required to either split off into one of four courses—the warrior course, mage course, researcher course or the hero course. Each course having their own mandatory classes and several extra elective classes you could choose from. It was also the year when students could choose to accept missions from the academy to earn more points, rather then just relying on the occasional reward from teachers and the monthly income.

These courses were pretty tame in the first and second year, but by the third year—they got absolutely brutal. Except for the hero course which was always brutal.

As for which course Zachary and the gang took, well it was obvious enough.

Ethan’s voice sounded monotone, "Raymond Vance. I’m glad that you could make the time for us today."

For a secret demon contracter in hiding, he sure didn’t hide his malice.

"I was busy."

"Is that so? Very well then, you may take a seat. I was merely demonstrating a few Arts techniques."

Sitting down next to Ellen, she asked him. "What took you so long?"

"I made an improvement to the engraving so I stayed back a little to-

"Raymond Vance. If the first thing you are going to do is chit-chat, please see yourself out. You may be an unprecedented talent but I do not care about such a thing. Leave if you will not listen."

The same monotone voice cut in, interrupting him. Looking at his face, he could see a stern glare from his eyes.

He wasn’t even that loud! Did it really matter whether he talked or not?

Lucy and Thomas shot him a glance, before quickly turning away. Meanwhile Noelle just quietly continued her notetaking. As for Audrina, she was literally dozing off how come Ethan never said anything about that?!

He could literally see Audrina’s head continuously swinging back before jolting back up again! He was sitting at an angle so he couldn’t see her eyes but he was willing to bet all his points that they were closed.

He could see Zachary giving him a mean side eye as well.

Closing his eyes to calm himself, he apologized. "Sorry. Won’t happen again."

"Good, now as I was saying. Aura is one of the most common Arts that you will face, it’s a simple technique where you simply coat your weapon or parts of your body in mana to enforce it. The trick to countering this is to find out what the mana attunement of the enemy is."

Pushing his glasses up slightly, he continued.

"Fire-attunements usually result in a much stronger offensive aura, usually taking on a light orange tone making it easy to recognize. Fire-attunements can of course be countered by water or ice-attunements."

"The problem is with the more unique mana-attunements. This requires a deep understanding of the elements in order to counter said Aura. For example, a shadow-attunement Aura has the bizarre effect of making their movements hard to read. Their body seemingly vanishing at times and their attacks able to sap the strength from you. The counter is to of course use a light-attuned mana."

"But that brings up the biggest problem. It is easy to say that you should use this mana attunement or that mana attunement to counter it. But we are all stuck with only our own unique mana attunement. Unless we are lucky, we would theoretically stand no chance in a battle against our counters."

Good point, but that only applied to Zachary, Thomas, Audrina and Cador. Thomas and Audrina’s holy and demonic energy would counter each other while the other two had mana attunements of light and ash.

As for himself, Ellen, Lucy and Noelle. Well there wasn’t exactly an easy counter to dimensions, time, willpower, life and astral-attuned mana. But that was all in the future of course, right now. Only a few of their attunements were confirmed.

Maybe Noelle’s could be countered by darkness and shadow attunements. But it wasn’t a true full counter like fire and water.

"Thus, we must all find a way to combat our own weaknesses. That being mana attunements which are counters to our own. I have here a plan created for some of you to help with sealing up your own weaknesses."

As he said that, Ethan handed out folders to them. With only he, Audrina and Lucy not receiving a folder.

The reason was pretty simple, it was unknown what mana attunement they had or would form.

Thomas and Audrina’s were confirmed due to their race. But Audrina couldn’t exactly reveal that she was a demon. Lucy’s was unknown and Raymond had formed an entirely new never before seen attunement.

Only the others were confirmed, the Asteria family had ways to guarantee their descendants would form an astral-attunement. Killian’s inheritance had a method to form an emotions-attunement mana like he himself did, Thomas was an angel and Zachary had such an incredible affinity with light that there was no chance he didn’t form a light-attunement.

Ethan stared at the few who didn’t receive folders. A slight hint of displeasure forming on his face.

"It is unfortunate that the mana attunements for each of you is currently unknown. But I hope that each of you will still strive to find methods to patch up your own weaknesses."

Raymond had to fight his own facial muscles to not smile. What exactly was the weakness for dimensions and time that he had to patch up?

He turned to look at Ellen, who was actively absorbed in her folder. Looking over her shoulder, he caught a glimpse of what Ethan had written.

-The emotions-attunement is an extremely difficult attunement to use or fight with. It lacks the firepower of other attunements, or the defense and versatility. The benefits brought from such an attunement are very abstract and hard to quantify.

-Killian Halu’an is an extremely good example of how such an attunement can be used. Assuming you form a similar attunement, that being all emotions like Killian did rather then a specific one.

-However, the method you have used only guarantees forming an attunement similar to what Killian had. Whether you will form the same umbrella emotions attunement he had is difficult to ensure.

Ethan may have been a secret demon contracter, but he sure took his disguise seriously. Offering genuine advice to them, even if he was planning on secretly killing them.

He was right as well, Ellen hadn’t awakened emotions-attunement like Killian did—which encompassed all emotions. Rather, she formed a willpower-attunement.

Raymond wondered what the folders the others had received were like. Ethan was genuinely a good teacher so there was definitely lots of good advice for them as well.

Lucy also seemed sour about not receiving a folder, looking over the one provided to Cador. Who was simply staring at his with a blank face.

He mentally patted her on the back, ’Don’t be too sad, you’re going to form a life-attunement in the future! Super useful and stuff.’

The same life-attunement would go on to save the lives of many of the people here and many citizens as well. Including her Art which let her fuse with her pets, she was easily the most versatile out of all of them.

Not including Raymond of course, he might have been an Archmage of Dimension and Time magic. But he was still an Archmage, he could cast most spells of any branch as long as it wasn’t too high level.

Ellen caught him staring at Lucy, a concerned expression on her face.

’Raymond...she’s too young!’