Punishment Game

Alex had originally planned on entering a Magic University, so arcane calculation was one of the subjects he studied the hardest and was highly proficient in. He could still enter if he chose, but he would never be able to become a true mage.

Ms. Lilith drew three magic arrays filled with complex formulae on the board.

"Students, now copy down these three arrays and calculate what they do, and where the error in each one is. Let's make sure none of you got rusty over the holidays~"

Everyone began scribbling down the arrays into their workbooks. Despite how advanced technology had become, manually writing things down had proven to be the most effective learning method. There were deep learning pods in which students would learn in a virtual environment and have knowledge ingrained into them, but this was only for the highly wealthy and powerful families.

Alex quickly copied down the first array and began reverse calculating the formulae in each quadrant according to the star map it was arranged within.

'Aderendum Fonicus?' Lucas thought to himself, immediately finding the error.

This was Magic Tongue, the language used to draw power from a higher being or concept. This allowed one to power a magic array, or magic in general, with minimal requirements on the caster's magic, but also made the casting time much longer and had much less versatility than creating one's own spell.

Aderendum Fonicus however was a call to the eastern gods, while the array itself was based off the Libra constellation. Doing this would cause the array to fail and most likely backfire on the mage as well.

Alex scrubbed out the incorrect wording and replaced it with a simple command that called the Libra constellation. This was an array that drew power from the constellation and would be used to judge the current person's accumulated sin. It was actually a rather common array used in the modern day legal system in trial cases.

Looking back up at the board to start copying the second array, Alex's eyes fell upon the back of the beautiful girl called Vanessa. It was inevitable as he was sitting directly behind her, but he noticed that when he looked at her, the pen in her hand stagnated and she came to a stop.

[Lusty Gaze +15exp]

[Lusty Gaze upgraded to Lv 2 (3/200)]

Alex quickly pulled his gaze off Vanessa and scribbled down the remaining two arrays. He had never gotten more than a single digit of experience for the skill at one time, so the sudden five-fold increase left him surprised.

He worried that the beauty in front of him would misunderstand his intentions and be angry at him, as she was obviously aware of his gaze.

‎ ‎ 

~~~~

As soon as the bell signalling the end of class and beginning of the first break rang, nearly all of the students quickly packed up their book and rushed out of the classroom. Alex had seen this many times before and even used to participate in what was known as the 'cafeteria rush', a race to get to the cafeteria first and secure the best food.

Vanessa apparently wasn't a part of this tradition as she calmly placed her books into her bag neatly and left the classroom without a word to anyone.

Alex lied his head in his arms as he wasn't feeling hungry at the moment and wanted to avoid contact with too many people.

While he was sitting there, two chairs were pulled up in front of the desk as two students sat facing him. Confused, Alex lifted his head to see a shorter bald kid wearing a string of Buddhist beads around his neck and a large demi-orc kid. Both boys were Alex's age, yet they all had vastly different statures.

"I saw that you were checking our Ice Princess, was it love at first sight?" The bald kid asked Alex with a mischievous grin.

"Eh, no, it's nothing like that," Alex awkwardly tried to deflect the question while wanting to cry. "By the way, I'm, umm, Alex."

Alex had originally wanted to talk with some of the boys in class and make some friends, but his time of being ostracized had left him feeling socially awkward and not knowing how to approach them. The fact that these two approached him was actually a great help.

"I'm Kenneth," The balk kid introduced himself.

"Orion," The demi-orc, otherwise known as a half orc, gave himself a simple introduction.

"It's nice to meet you."

"Haha, there's no need to be so formal. We are all friends here. And we are interested in the new kid who was eyeing the most beautiful girl in school."

"I told you, I wasn't!"

Despite my protests, Kenneth and Orion still looked as if they didn't believe me.

"What classes do you have next?" Alex sighed in defeat as there was no use in trying to convince them about something they already believed.

""Universal Law."" They both answered at the same time while Orion also stated, "So does Vanessa."

"Okay! Stop bringing her up!"

It was getting annoying already.

Kenneth laughed with tears in his eyes. "We get it man, we're just teasing you. So, are you studying to be a mage too then?"

"Yeah, I'm a bit nervous about it though." Alex wryly smiled while remorsefully thinking of his own condition. *'I dedicated everything into being a mage. Then I awakened a System… THAT System.'*

"You're a brother," Orion beat his fist against his giant chest as he gruffly spoke.

"Don't stress too much about it, Orion is a demi-orc and is trying to become a mage too, despite the disadvantage of his heritage."

What Kenneth spoke of was the inherent trait that was synonymous with orcs – being dumb. Even if he was only a demi-orc, it was still present to a certain extent. Even if he were from a shaman lineage, it wouldn't change that fact.

Becoming a mage however was one of the most common professions people aimed for when they didn't awaken powers early or have talent in cultivation, so there were of course orcs and demi-orcs included in that number. Usually though they trained in Battle Qi, which they had more talent for, but nothing was exclusive or limited.

Kenneth's eyes glistened as he said, "How about we have a competition? Consider it a celebration to making new friends."

"Hmm, sure, why not."

With Alex's agreement, Kenneth pulled out his phone and opened an app.

"We'll have a competition of Arrays of the Ages."

Arrays of the Ages was a puzzle game one could play and was extremely popular with aspiring mages. The game had countless small to giant array designs that the player had to locate errors within then correct them.

It also came with a multiplayer challenge mode, where everyone would work on the same array for a specified amount of time. Once an error was found or fixed, it was also updated for the other players who wouldn't be able to claim the same thing. Finding an error counted as 1 point, while correcting one was 2 points. Any mistake would automatically take away 1 point, but it was not as if there was only one correct answer for most problems either.

"Let's begin with a five-minute round," Kenneth said as he opened a mid-sized array from the random selection.

Setting the players beforehand, three projection came out of the phone and displayed the array on the desk before Alex, Kenneth and Orion. The projection could zoom in and out as well as scroll around with just the movements of the fingers, allowing the players to freely manipulate and move the array around before them.

As soon as the round started, Alex zoomed in on the central core of the array. This was to not just get a grasp of the concept or magic the array revolved around, but also a prime location where there were usually errors.

It was a barrier array, and Alex very quickly found one error and circled it with one finger. He didn't have the time to spend calculating a correction for it and instead started scrolling around with his palm, looking for more errors.

He soon found one by it lit up red before he could circle it, this point being earned by Kenneth. Thankfully, Alex had already calculated a revision for it and input the correction before Kenneth, succeeding in 'sniping' 2 points.

All was fair in this competition, and short of memorizing the entire library of arrays and their permutations, it was impossible to cheat.

Once the five minutes were up, the arrays froze and nobody could interact with them anymore. The final score was:

17 points – Alex

16 points – Kenneth

14 points – Orion

Alex had to admit, Orion did far better than he thought he would given his heritage, not that he had any doubts on whether he could become a mage or not. Orcs and demi-orcs simply had slower thought processing and were disadvantaged at such games.

"Hah! That was good fun," Alex laughed gloriously over his victory.

"Indeed, it was." "Fun."

Kenneth resets it with another random array and proposed with a mellow smile, "How about another match, this time with stakes?"

"I don't have any money." "Punishment?"

"I come from a family of monks, so gambling is a sin. Orion has the right idea though, a punishment for whoever comes last."

Alex did have some money, but that was for his lunch and he didn't want to go hungry on his first day of school. The punishment to whoever came last did seem fun to him as well.

"What will be the punishment?"

"We were just talking about Vanessa, or campus belle before. So, whoever comes last, has to confess to her during the lunch break." Kenneth's smile was harmless, but Alex detected a bit of teasing in his voice.

Alex felt conflicted. He didn't want to be rude, but he felt Orion's heritage was a major disadvantage to him in this game. He wanted to make friends and not leave any poor impressions.

"Agreed," Orion heartily laughed and slapped his thigh, to which Alex could only agree as well.

It was another five-minute round and everyone was aggressively trying to earn points. Kenneth and Orion took a spearhead tactic and relentlessly 'sniped' Alex, frustrating him to no end. Alex refused to give up and changed to a 'scatter' tactic where he would constantly jump to random sections of the array and lose the snipers.

The match was full of suspense and the results came out several minutes later:

21 points – Kenneth

19 points – Orion

15 points – Alex

Alex's heart dropped into his stomach when looking at the scores. He aggrievedly looked up at his two new 'friends' and stated, "You tricked me."

"Not really, we just worked together," Orion said, completely unlike his earlier short phrases, with a grin that looked completely evil.

Kenneth simply placed his hands together in pray, "Amitabha."

Teamwork was definitely a fair tactic, but Alex still felt cheated.

"Do I really have to go through with it?"

"No reneging on promises."

"Amitabha."

Alex could only release a sigh of defeat. "Well, I lost fair and square… kind of."

"Don't worry, about fifty have confessed to Vanessa already this year, you'll just be another one."

"And she turned down everyone?"

Orion laughed and added, "Rejected them ruthlessly."

"Amitabha."