Chapter CXIII - Drowned in Power (part 1)

"Damn... She can fly now?"

Everyone else mutters as they watch Jericho scream in amusement as she flies past our heads at high speed. 

Her face looks pretty happy… well, that is what would happen to any happy-go-lucky girls whenever they obtained the ability to fly--

BRUUUSHHH!!!

But... apparently she was not prepared for landing.

She landed on the hard stone cold ground... face first. 

Oh dear, that's a creepy looking face.

I quickly casted healing magic while everyone else laughed their butt cheeks to the ground. I was also holding my laughter, but they still came out in the form of a smile and a chuckle.

When her face healed, Jericho could only blush red while showing an already healed angry face.

"S-Shut up!! I'm still training!"

She barked at the boys who laughed at her before rushingly standing up and sat next to Manda, who doesn't seem to laugh whatsoever.

I guess the funniest part here was Manda's surprised face when Jericho crash landed. She showed no sign of mocking, at all, and only showed the face of someone worrying.

Damn… that's what it means to have a best friend on your side, huh…?

Everyone else continued with their training, including the lady who fell from the sky. And watching Elmone do stuff with his shadow magic, a question popped into my head.

"Say, Elmone... Can you create wings on your back and fly like Jericho?"

I asked Elmone expecting him to know the answer, but he shook his head.

"I'm afraid of heights, so that's already a big no from me."

"I see… But is it possible, though?"

"Probably. Why?"

"Just maybe… I could fly too."

I tried making a shadow wing on my back. At the beginning, it felt difficult, considering how terrible I am at shadow magic control.

!!!

ZREEGG!!!!

All of a sudden, my head was filled with a brand new memory. Memory... That felt incredibly uncomfortable.

The feeling… of rage…

Howls… are they hell hounds?

VWOOOOMM!!!!!!!!!

In an instant, a large shadow lump appeared right on my back, expanding like a burning black flame. From the lump of shadow, it slowly took form into a single large shadow wing that was incredibly detailed, to the point that it had spikes on some parts.

Similar to an evil angel's wings, except that it was mixed with monster-y stuff and is pitch black.

"W-Woah... That looks cool."

Elmone mumbled, but my thought process is still damaged.

I placed my hand on my head due to the headache and tried to access the new memory on my brain. I can see some glances of someone... laughing. Fingers, sharper than knives, slicing away the bodies of large beasts.

Blood… blood is everywhere…

Is this…

"Ah... It was from that time..."

"W-What is it? Rize, are you okay?"

Elmone tried asking me, but I'm already sweating really hard. I shook my head to remove his confusion, but he already looked too confused.

"N-Nothing... I'm okay."

I turned to look at my new wing, and it looks like I can control it just fine. I moved it around and even tried flapping, but obviously I won't be able to fly with just one wing.

So I imagined a second wing on my left back, exactly the same as the one on my right. 

VWOOM!!!!!!

But... What appeared was simply a small cute butterfly wing.

"Wow. That's really cute."

"Oh, shut up."

The wing is so small, like the wings of a butterfly. In comparison to the other wing, the smaller wing looks very cute. It has no details whatsoever… 

Grekek, it's actually a butterfly wing!!

"C-Can you try flying with that?"

"What do you think!?"

I gave up on my left wing and tried flapping the right wing, and the force of the wind might actually be enough for me to go slightly upwards, but in the end... 

I still need two wings to fly, damn it…

"... I guess I can't."

"Ah..."

The shadow wings dispersed into thin air, and I took a long deep breath. Whatever just happened to my brain… was uncomfortable. I don't know how it happened, and I don't know how to prevent it. 

So, I can only move on.

We continued with the training, and without realizing, the sun went down. The boys went ahead and grabbed the tree that I sliced and brought them here. They worked together and made it into a rather large campfire.

Manda lit the giant campfire with her flame magic, and the flames quickly cast the wood into flames.

Everyone sat around the campfire while talking about how strong they have become, now that they were able to tier up.

"Ah, I know. Why don't we do the shoot at full strength thing? Like the magic aptitude class?"

Manda suddenly spoke out. Everyone else pondered about it and agreed.

They wanted to see the maximum strength of their new powers, and what better way to see it than to test it out? 

And so, we all headed to an edge of the mountain and faced the opposite direction from the academy. If we shoot towards the academy, they will definitely think of it as an enemy attack, so we can't face that way.

"Horyaa!!"

Manda shouted as she shot her most powerful fire blast attack into the dark sky. The fireball was very large, and it exploded after flying for fifty meters.

BAAARRR!!!

The explosion was quite big, but it's definitely nowhere near the explosion I just did back at the Magic Aptitude class. Everyone simply clapped and Manda moved to let the line continue.

"Okay, my turn!"

One by one the students who remained at the training ground began firing away their new strengths and powers towards the skies. And for a while, the skies turned really bright from their explosions and magic attacks. Some didn't explode since it was never an explosive magic, but it was clear that they were very different than previously, when we did it in class.

"Woahh!! That was very different!!"

"Y-Yeah! I felt much stronger!!"

They are all drowned in strength… Hmph.

Seeing how everyone else has already tried firing and the line ended like 10 minutes ago, it seems to be about time for a little show.

"Alright. My turn."

I stepped forward towards the edge, and everyone stared at me confusingly.

"What? You think the explosion that I did in the class was my full power?"

"I-I thought so…"

Manda let out a sigh as she facepalmed. That wasn't even my full strength, and yet it was already so destructive.

I let out a slight chuckle as I lifted both of my hands. I opened my palms and faced the skies. And then…

VWOOOOOOMM!!!!

I knew it... It's this large.

It's like the sensitivity to conjure fire magic is so much bigger for me. The green firebomb that I conjured in front of me is twice as large as the previous red firebomb that was created with the same amount of energy.

Which gets me to realize that this size of a firebomb can be quite annoying, considering how big they are...

So I focused, and focused really hard to compress it, all the way until it became the normal size. Which means the explosion should be around two times larger…

Or so I assumed. My calculations were never correct when it comes to explosions…