A Scholarly Week (2)

At first the invasive sense that Caligo placed upon Cyrus was like a fly buzzing outside one's ear, annoying but tolerable to anyone who has been outdoors every now and then. Slowly it transformed from the buzzing of a fly to one of crashing pieces of metal, perhaps what one might feel such vibrating of their core if they were in the midst of a busy blacksmiths shop.

This too was easily tolerable for Cyrus, until the pressure changed once more this time from the banging and clashing of metal to ghastly screams and the sounds of a battlefield full of slaughter and death. The chorus of butchery increased in both scope and scale, turning from a small-scale conflict to a full out war between two major powers clashing together in a desperate struggle for supremacy.

The pressure was somewhat difficult to bear, but nothing that Cyrus had not experienced before as one who had now been through many battles against both man and beast. Perhaps understanding that such a method was pointless against Cyrus, Caligo changed up the method of applying pressure from one of a psychological nature to one of sheer power and force. Immediately Cyrus felt as if he were submerged deep into a pool of water, reminding him of the time that Cato made him dive to the bottom of an oasis to fetch a coin that he had dropped. Except this was even deeper than that, causing him to feel completely and utterly suffocated from all angles as the pressure of the water grew more and more threatening to pop him like a soap bubble from the inside out.

Still, he did his best to maintain his connection to his domain despite all of this. Holding out for several more seconds…or perhaps minutes as Cyrus was in no condition to accurately keep track of time.

Eventually even the hardened Cyrus could no longer hold out, his control over the spell wavering at last almost completely breaking his connection to the Mors domain. This would have been the end result, if a rush of icy power did not flood his veins at that very moment allowing the pressure that made him feel as if he were drowning in an unfathomable depth to wading in a shallow puddle. The pressure was lessened so much that he was able to open his eyes fully once more, just to see the look of shock on the face of Caligo.

"This" thought a surprised Cyrus, now having the leisure of coherent thought once again, "this should be my closest companion, it seems he is making progress in the world within."

"I am honestly shocked, to think that you are already at such a level…what on Mundus did you experience in your life to be so trained at such a young age…" mumbled Caligo as he came to grips with the oddity that was in front of him.

"It seems I will need to use a slightly more creative method" said Caligo with a look of interest.

In the next moment the pressure that Cyrus was under completely receded, as if the professor had given up completely. Yet the moment Cyrus began to relax was the moment when Caligo struck again, this time the pressure several folds greater than what Cyrus had ever had directly focused on him before. So much so that even with the support of his other half he was struggling.

Then without warning, the pressure dissipated once more…causing Cyrus to be slightly off put as he found himself suddenly resisting absolutely nothing desperately.

"I see… this is wha-" thought Cyrus for a moment before the pressure returned once again, causing him to focus his entire being this time into resisting it ceasing all thoughts he had.

Back and forth, like a tug of war between two opposing sides, was the path that the pressure followed quickly wearing on Cyrus ability as he had extreme difficulty matching the pace and so was finding himself resisting absolutely nothing more often than not. Such a mistake by him caused him to tire mentally far faster than he normally would, eventually leading him to crumble in defeat as the connection to his spell was severed in short order.

Stepping back a bit, as Caligo was essentially right in the face of Cyrus at that point, he clapped twice in a rather sincere way while saying

"You are perhaps one of the best I have seen at your age, not the top but extremely close to it. If you follow along the path of sense manipulation perhaps it would become an exceedingly deadly tool in your hands in the future…but do not become complacent as you will only reach your full potential if you continue to work as if every moment is the one where one of your most hated enemies will challenge you to a duel to the death" ended Caligo as he stepped back and walked to the next row.

The rest of the test was as one would expect, each lasting about as long as the others had and Caligo finding new and unique ways to degrade each and every one of them who lasted even shorter than the small amount of time that the average student did.

Now back at the front of the hall the professor once more sat down on his lackey chair and rested his head on his hand, supported by his knee, he said

"You lot should understand your limits now. If you are ever to encounter someone else who is far more accomplished than you in the Arcane Arts, well, they would not even need to use a spell to defeat you per say if you remain as you are. Thus, the first order of business for my class will be to reach a certain threshold of tolerance. There are many metrics we could use, but at the very least you need to be able to withstand raw pressure before we even begin to talk about the more fanciful methods…"

Caligo then snapped his finger once more, with two more lackeys appearing. One of them carried writing materials while the other was emptyhanded, but soon enough he showed what he was to be used for as he assumed a position similar to the one of the 'chair' that Caligo was sitting on. Except this time the one who had carried in the writing materials got on top of him, forming a lackey desk for Caligo to write on.

After a few moments, Caligo had finished writing whatever he was working on and handed it to the top half of the lackey table to read off.

"Now that I think about it, how can he even write in the first place? What is he using to keep track of where he is writing in relation to the other words and the paper itself…the only method I could possibly think of would be using his magical sense. Is he perhaps mixing in a bit of shadow essence with every stroke, so it lights up the entire paper in his eyes…" pondered Cyrus as the lackey began reading off names, grouped two at a time before moving onto the next group.

After the lackey was done reading, he left alongside the other half of the lackey desk.

"What was just read off was the groups that you will be in. Each was paired with another that has a similar level of tolerance to an invasive sense, which allows you to train with one another in a meaningful way. Whenever you have free time you are to get together and train the sense of the other, taking turns like good little kiddies, until you work up enough resistance to not be a total liability in the real world" explained Caligo.

"As for our top two, Caliban and Cyrus…they will require some 'special training' as their tolerance levels are quite high as it is" said Caligo with a sadistic smile.