Chapter 7

Having said goodbye to Alexander Andreevich and other guards of the village, the students went to the railway station - the roads between the villages and railway stations were patrolled and cleared of monsters. On the way, the friends told each other about their plans for the rest of the summer, but it turned out that everyone was going to stay in the city and cultivate. The students agreed to meet periodically at the college's outdoor training grounds and train together.

The rest of the summer passed for Ivan quite quickly and productively: Ivan achieved control of the fourth star of the element of space, but at joint training sessions with his friends, Ivan acted mainly as a spectator: no one from the company could yet cause any damage to Kosolapy.

In the new academic year, the newly minted sophomores of the college were redistributed into groups, in accordance with the results of the exam. Ivan, Pavel and Olga, of course, were again in the same group. Starting from the second year, college students received monthly points required for exchange for various magical tools and artifacts, in accordance with their place in the overall ranking, which was updated every month and the place in it was determined by the total number of points earned. Thanks to the points received for the exam, Ivan immediately took first place in the ranking among sophomores, which attracted attention. Also, all students who reached the second stage of primary-level magic received a large number of points once.

In mid-November, Ivan was finally able to gain control of all seven stars of the space element. In order to check the release of space magic, Ivan went to the park, found a place where there were no people around, and decided to try to use Space Magic Control on the stones. Ivan did not succeed in lifting the stones without damaging that day: due to the fact that Ivan had an innate fourth spiritual boundary, but no experience of controlling the magic of space, all the stones cracked as soon as Ivan directed magic at them. "Yeah, before I can use the magic of space to pour myself tea without getting up from the couch, I'll have to train my magic control a lot."

After Ivan learned to release the magic of space, he divided the cultivation time equally between the elements of summoning and space, with chaos, Ivan decided to postpone at least to an average level.

In the second year of college, after the first half of the year, there was an intermediate certification. It went as follows: all the students were taken to the Leningrad region to a special base built for training students of magic colleges. On the territory adjacent to the base, there were lower and younger Servants, they were specially driven here from the surrounding forests. The students split into teams of eight. The goal of each team was to kill as many monsters as possible in a day. Counting of the killed monsters was conducted by observers who also monitored the safety of the students. For Ivan, Pavel and Olga, who united into one team, this certification was very easy, in the summer they already got the hang of killing lower and younger Servants, and their teammates, for the most part, were also not ballast, they were all classmates of Ivan, Pavel and Olga, from the top twenty of the second year ranking. As a result, Ivan's team took first place, since it was hard for the rest of the teams to kill the junior Servants, they took a lot of time and energy, and Ivan had the Kosolapy, easily tearing apart the junior and lower Servants.

In February, Olga turned 18, she invited Pavel, Ivan and Marina to her home, who, since after her second year she had not yet reached the third stage of elementary magic, was studying in an additional third year of college. This time they drank much less than in the summer and did not have any special consequences.

By mid-March, Ivan had reached the third stage of the initial level of summoning magic and the second stage of the initial level of space magic.

At the end of March, Ivan turned 18, and he threw a booze at his home, inviting the same company. In the morning, the front door and several windows had to be repaired, but everything else went well, the drunk friends did not pay attention to how drunk Ivan tried with the magic of space to carefully pour vodka into glasses, and, since the bottle was empty, he did not succeed, although the bottle itself remained intact.

At the beginning of May, Ivan lowered all the points accumulated over the two courses on the most expensive artifact that could be exchanged for points: magic armor that could withstand the blow of the highest Servant.

In mid-May, Pavel came of age, who, unlike Olga, did not manage to drive his parents out of the apartment for a day, and he called his friends to the bar.

By the end of May, Ivan's control of space magic had noticeably improved: Ivan learned, by focusing on influencing objects with exactly the power that he needed, although sometimes there was still a loss of control.

For those sophomores who reached the third stage of the initial level by the end of the academic year and were in the top ten of the ranking, there was no exam: they were was given the opportunity to cultivate for two weeks at the outer level of the Heart of the Marshes. The heart of the Swamps is the concentration of the swamp energy of St. Petersburg, in this place a little more than three hundred years ago, Peter the First led a group of the strongest magicians of the spell of the Russian kingdom and killed the senior Emperor of the Water Swamps and founded St. Petersburg.

The Heart of the Swamps was now underground, surrounded by four walls that prevented the swamp energy from dissipating. Thus, in the complex of the Heart of the Marshes there were four levels located between the protective walls: the outer one, located between the outer wall and one of the inner ones, on it allowed the entry-level magicians of the third stage to break through to the middle level, the first inner one, on which there was a place for cultivation mages of the middle level, the second inner, on which it was possible to cultivate mages of a high level and the level of the Heart of the Marshes, at which once a year one peak mages of the highest level of water or earth were given the opportunity to rise to the level of a half-spell.

Ivan, having got to the outer level of the Bolot Heart complex, felt that in this place the energy was very concentrated, his body itself began to absorb this energy, and Ivan's amulet began to help the student in this process - he increased the amount of energy supplied to Ivan's body three times. "And my amulet is smart, if it began to uncontrollably absorb the surrounding energy, I would most likely be kicked out of here and the amulet was taken away. There is a very concentrated breathing of the elements of water and earth, even if my cultivation has accelerated many times over, what bonuses will Pavel and Oksana receive? "

After a week and a half of continuous cultivation - the energy of the Heart of the Marshes had a restorative effect, and the cultivating magician did not need food or sleep - Ivan broke through to the middle level of the summoning element, the magician saw how the number of stars of the summoning element in his inner world increased to 49. During the remaining time, Ivan established control over 15 summoning stars, the stars, under the influence of the energy of the Heart of Swamps, became very malleable (Ivan began to control 22 summoning stars in total) and brought the space to the third stage of the initial level.

Leaving the Heart of Marshes complex, Ivan went up to Pavel and Olga standing at the exit and greeted them:

- Great, how are you? Pasha, I suppose with such a breath of the earth, you rose to the spell?

- Hi, of course I did not rise before the spell, but I already control all 49 stars of the earth element and my spiritual seed has developed from small to large (spiritual seeds are divided into secondary, small and large) - Paul said cheerfully.

- Hi, I have more modest success, I only control 10 lightning stars, but still - we are now mid-level magicians! You broke through, didn't you? - said Olga.

- Yes, I broke through, and now I need spare parts for the promotion of Clubfoot, thump on the occasion of the breakthrough? - answered Ivan.

- Again? Every year in the summer, my friends and I ...? So? I certainly do not mind having a drink with you, but not to the same extent as last summer - Olga said a little irritatedly.

- Well, we are now adults, and we were drinking on the occasion of your, mine and Pasha's coming of age, so don't be afraid - Ivan said in a soothing confident tone.

- I am for - Paul replied shortly - only need to come sober the day after tomorrow to the awakening provided by the college as a reward for a breakthrough, won't you go? Or will you awaken at the Magic Center?

- Okay, let's go to drink, of course I will go to the awakening, because this time the stones of awakening are provided by the university to lure future applicants, so they are not much worse than those that I can afford in the Magic Center. - Olga said

- I, too, will go to the awakening - said Ivan.

Friends called Marina, who also recently broke through to the intermediate level, however, it took her almost a year after reaching the third level, because only those who reached the third level in their second year are sent to the Heart of the Marshes, and even then not everyone, and went to the bar to celebrate the achievement average level.