Ch48.Expansion - Part 2.

I continued to creep around him as I built up as much power as I could in both my legs and one of my arms, after building up my power for over 10 minutes, I jumped out of my shadow space, immediately released all the tension I had built up in my legs and shot forward as fast as I could. When I arrived in front of Bortie, I spun around building up extra momentum and then punched forward with all the power I could muster, while releasing all the tension.

Borties water stream automatically responded, blocking the path of my attack, but this time I could feel my punch tearing through his water stream. After my hand got through the stream I opened it into a claw shape and tried to use my nails to slice his neck open. Unfortunately most of my power was used up in getting through his defenses and what I faced as my claw was about to reach him was not the shocked and frightened face I was expecting.

Instead I saw him smiling before he moved his two hands together to face me while a large Magic Circle with multiple Runes interlocked in a delicate manner was floating and expanding from within his palms. He then grinned wider, showing all his teeth before activating the circle. What happened next was a massive water stream of water burst forth with an insane amount of power.

Just as I struck him, causing a claw mark to appear on his face that slowly started to bleed, the blast of water hit me in the chest, knocking me back and causing me to fly back and smash into the walls of a house, creating a large hole as the wall broke down collapsing on top of me. I quickly sunk into my shadow space to avoid getting covered by the bricks.

In my Space I started gasping for air as that blast knocked the wind out of me and I felt as if I couldn't breath. Besides winding me, the blast also tore through what remained of my vest and broke passed my skin as well as causing my insides to hurt. After slowly catching my breath, I thought to myself, 'Fuck that was insane! That has to be his ultimate attack and must have consumed a massive amount of Magical energy! I don't rely too much on Magical Energy so I should just wait for him to run out of energy before attacking him when is weak, not a fuck am I taking another hit like that again!'

After rubbing in some healing paste and wrapping my chest with some bandages, I then peaked out of my shadow space to see when Bortie was doing and if he still had his shield up. As I looked over to him I could see a stream of what water flowing from his fountain house all the way to what looked like a piece of wood shaped into a teardrop. After the teardrop absorbed the water, I could see the defense streams of water around him growing larger and his Magical Circle transforming from the dull fading blue color, back into a deep blue again.

'Fuck he is somehow using his house and that teardrop to fill up his magic reserves!! There goes my plan...'

As soon as I was contemplating leaving, I saw Bortie turn his head to face me, smile and say, "That was a good hit! But now I have no choice but to kill you, it's nothing personal, I just can't have my men think I got injured without anything to show for it...". He then started forming another large Magical Circle and started aiming it towards me.

'Shit, time to get out of here!', After deciding to leave I shouted towards Bortie, "OK you win this time, but only because you cheated by using that Rune Device! You better not leave your house anytime soon because I will be watching you in the shadows and as soon as I see you in a vulnerable position I won't hesitate to take you out, HAHAHAHAAH!! I have already been paid, so your life is mine!!"

After saying that I dropped into my shadow space and started running away, moving as far as my shadow space would allow, making sure to leave Borties line of sight. After getting far enough away, I dispelled my Panther camouflage, got on my Bike and started racing away! 'Fuck, I can't believe I lost that badly, this isn't over! I will give him a nice gift as thanks for showing me the limits of my current Runes.'

I drive at top speed towards my house and as soon as I arrive, I see my clan members standing outside holding a variety of weapons while Birdhead is standing in the front wearing his suit with the sleeves ripped off. I stopped in front of them and shouted, "Change of plans boys, we will be moving out a bit later. Get Nafets and tell him to get ready for a fight, I am going to get some help to take down Bortie. That fucker is dying tonight! Also stay on alert and guard my territory, fuck up any other gang that tries to enter, Birdhead you are in charge of this!"

I then sped off towards the Academy without waiting for a response, although losing a fight may make me seem weak, I have never claimed to be the strongest and have never falsified this in front of my men, maybe at first they started following me because I beat their old boss, but now that they have seen all the benefits I can bring them in money, statues and power, I believe most of them don't care if I lose a fight or two, as long as I prevail in the end.

I was driving as fast as I could and as soon as I arrived at the Academies front entrance, I jumped off my Bike, shoved open the front gate and ran to the closest square where students usually gather. There aren't too many people here as it is still quite early in the morning and a lot of these guys only wake up after 12. After arriving at the square, I grabbed a microphone Rune Device and shouted into it, "Listen up all who want to earn some easy cash!!".

After gathering the attention from all the students in the square and even causing one pair of them to stop mid fight as they were grappling each other on the floor. I then continued, "I need help beating up Bortie from the Xrinda area! I will pay anyone who follows me 1 gold coin, anyone who can land a solid hit on Bortie 10 Gold and I will give the person who knocks him out 100 GOLD COINS! I am in a rush, so quickly decide if you are in and follow me!"

I then started walking away back to the Academies entrance and noticed that basically everyone in the square started following me, around about 20 people or so, they were all looking really excited and even the two who were just fighting were whispering to each other with large smiles on their faces as if they were the best of friends. While walking towards the gate I could hear some of their conversations, making comments like 'Who is Bortie' or 'Is this big guy rich? Do you think he will pay us if we become his goons?' and even 'Wont it be easier to just steal this juniors cash?'..

It looks like it's not only the teachers in this Academy that are money crazy, I guess the students are too… This is great news, as long as I can increase my Clans profits, I will be able to hire a few powerful goons! I just need to be careful of the more powerful students as I don't want to get robbed, I guess I will try and bribe a few teachers for protection as although they will also probably want to rob me, they aren't allowed to.

We walk to the exit of the academy, I then turn around and say "We need to hurry guys, does everyone have a Carriage? If not we will have to run there, if a few of you have a carriage, lets see if we can sort lifts out for everyone."

After that a few of the students took out their carriages and the ones who didn't have one quickly jumped into the closest one available, seeing that I grinned, took out my Bike and drove off towards my house to pick Nafets up, 'I can't wait to see Borties face when I show up like this!'

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Hi all, you can see here that Rob has experienced his first loss, I know not everyone likes MC's that lose, but realistically for someone who has literally just become a Mage against a semi-veteran, a loss is pretty much inevitable and the most realistic response. I feel it is necessary for a character to experience both ups and downs in order to truly become powerful and in other novels, the old powerful elders quite often mention this, but it is hardly* ever displayed, at least not for the MC.

In this chapter he will have a plan 2, but in the later chapters, I plan to actually create some true hurdles for him as well as times where he won't come out on top, and not somehow miraculously benefit from a 'dire' situation.

What are your thoughts on this, any ideas as to what troubles he may face, I am open to any suggestions?

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