After giving my classmates a renewed sense of courage, we went back to the lecture hall. The next session focused heavily on advanced magical theory: elemental attributes, structural weaknesses, physical strengths, projectile speed, casting accuracy, attribute compatibility, and battlefield analysis.
Once the professor dismissed us, the class huddled together to discuss our strategy for the tournament. Everyone unexpectedly suggested that I should take the lead. I panicked internally. How on earth was I supposed to lead an entire department of mages?
Since the administration had announced we had no formal classes the next day, I made an executive decision. I told everyone we should gather at the secluded mage department training area before dawn. Since it was strictly restricted to the spellcasting track, no one from the physical combat classes would be around to bother us.
[The Next Day: 4:00 AM]
The training hall was dimly lit when I arrived. To my surprise, every single one of my classmates was already standing in formation; it turned out I was the only one who had arrived late. Shaking off my embarrassment, I stepped up to the podium to break down the realities of our class track.
"Listen up," I called out, my voice echoing off the sandstone walls. "We need to deeply analyze our mechanical advantages and disadvantages. Our primary advantage is obvious: we can drop devastating, serious damage from long range. But our fatal flaws are our fragile physical defense and the severe bottleneck of mana depletion if we continuously cast high-tier skills."
I meticulously laid out every piece of theory that could help us identify and patch our weaknesses as mages.
"Prate! Could you help me sort everyone into rows based on their primary elemental attributes?"
"Got it," Prate nodded, stepping forward.
The class quickly divided themselves. The distribution covered the fundamental elements: Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, and Lightning. Most of my classmates relied on these primary attributes and the basic skills they had obtained when they initially awakened. However, a select few possessed rare variant strains like Gravity, Ice, and Poison.
"Alright," I directed the crowd. "Before we focus on the enemy, every single one of you needs to map out the exact mechanical weaknesses of your own specific attribute."
While they began working, I turned to Prate. "What do you think of our odds, Prate?"
"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted quietly. "But I do have a specialized suggestion. I don't know if the rest of the class is going to have the stomach to make it work, but... yeah, let's give it a shot. Why don't you try leading the practical exercises? You're actually really good at directing us."
"Alright," I said, turning back to the tiers. "Everyone, please gather at the central grid! First, we need to address the elephant in the room: mana management."
"Why focus so heavily on mana this time?" a student called out.
"Think about it," I countered. "What is our most common cause of failure in a prolonged engagement?"
"It's because we suffer from low total capacity, slow natural recovery, and sudden mana exhaustion out of nowhere," Hezel voiced from the front row. "It causes people to completely pass out cold on the battlefield or inside the dungeons.
My eyes widened slightly. They pass out when their mana hits absolute zero? Why didn't I know that? Was that an intrinsic rule for normal players? No wonder I hadn't lost consciousness back then when I completely depleted my reserves; my creator-altered system must have bypassed that standard penalty.
"That's exactly right, Hezel," Prate cut in, drawing a heavy leather journal from his bag. "Since we are constantly bottlenecked by low reserves, I want us to experiment with an unconventional, high-risk method that I've been developing in secret."
The class muttered in confusion. He had actively developed his own distinct resource circuit rather than sticking to the rigid curriculum the academy professors taught us?
"Prate, what exactly do you mean by developing your own method?" I asked.
"[Blood Magic]," Prate stated flatly. "It requires a player to forcefully convert their own underlying life force into raw mana. I usually don't recommend it because it actively eats away at your health bar to fuel your spells."
"Tell us how it works anyway," I pressured, intrigued by the mechanical implications.
"Let me give you a practical scenario," Prate explained, pacing the floor. "Normally, if I cast a high-tier fireball, it consumes my remaining mana pool in a single gulp. With my reserves completely empty, the system would force me to faint. But with this technique active, my health bar will temporarily act as a secondary mana reservoir to prevent the blackout."
The concept was too radical for the class to grasp in a single explanation, but my developer intuition instantly locked onto the massive potential of the system Prate had invented.
"How exactly can you teach us to manifest that blood circuit?" I asked.
"Kekeke," Prate smirked, reaching into his pack and pulling out a stack of hand-written grimoires. "Here, take a look. This is the structural manual I drafted. I made multiple copies to ensure someone in our track would eventually utilize it."
I took a manual, and the interface immediately scanned the text.
[Blood Magic]: Converts 1 HP into 1 MP when the primary mana pool hits absolute zero. Prevents the player from suffering the 'Mana Exhaustion' unconsciousness penalty, consuming physical health to fuel spellcasting instead.
[Passive Effect]: Increases baseline health recovery and mana recovery speed by 10%.
I brought up my interface to verify my current thresholds before attempting the conversion.
Name: Lucas Ferios
Class: Restricted
Title: [Goblin Slayer 2]
Level: 31
[Hp 1281], [Mp 302]
Stats: [Str 107], [Int 55], [Vit 56], [Wis 52], [Dex 57], [Agi 57], [Luk 54]
Skill: [Thrust leap], [Force strike], [Fireball F], [Wind blade], [Aura body], [Camouflage], [Mana Circle], [Lightning Spear]
Ex Skill: [Soul Extract], [Time of Life and Death]
Rp: 0
I aimed my hand at a heavy ironwood training dummy and invoked my lowest-tier spell, [Fireball F].
[Mp 302] -> [Mp 277]
A sphere of flame manifested and blasted across the room, slamming into the dummy. I gritted my teeth and began casting sequentially, firing spell after spell without a pause until my primary blue bar completely vanished. The moment my MP hit 0, a sharp, burning sensation flared through my chest. The system didn't knock me out. Instead, my health bar instantly twitched downward.
[Hp 1281] -> [Hp 1258]
It actually worked perfectly; the internal loop was drawing directly from my vitality.
"I don't think this is universally safe to use," I announced to Prate, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead. "This is an incredibly dangerous skill for traditional mages who possess low vitality stats. If they aren't careful, they could literally accidentally kill themselves mid-cast."
"That's exactly what I warned you about," Prate nodded seriously. "But if mastered, it is a game-changing card to survive the upcoming arena tournament. We need to filter our classmates."
We approached the group and openly asked who was willing to take the risk of learning the forbidden circuit. Prate systematically distributed the copies to five specific students who possessed the highest base vitality attributes in the class. Those with healing capabilities and resource-allocation skills also stepped forward. Hezel, who specialized in [Mana Transfer], realized she held the most crucial utility role for the upcoming team composition.
"For those who don't possess the required vitality thresholds, do not force it," I instructed the remainder of the class. "You will stick strictly to the traditional manipulation methods the professors taught us. If optimized, that standard method is still highly efficient."
In the end, a core unit of seven students officially committed to mastering the blood circuit. Prate, Hezel, and I took charge, dividing the four new trainees into pairs to oversee their dangerous initiation.
The training quickly turned brutal. For the next six hours, the room became an intense crucible of smoke, sweat, and blood. We forced the trainees through grueling physical conditioning to raise their heart rates before making them intentionally exhaust their mana pools.
"Again!" Prate shouted at an earth mage who was trembling on his knees. "Don't let your mind slip when the mana bar empties! Force the pathway in your chest to pull from your blood vessels! Control the conversion rate or your heart will stop!"
Hezel stood in the center, her hands glowing with a soft blue aura as she practiced her micro-management. Every time a student's health bar dropped dangerously low into the critical zone during conversion, she would slam her palms down, invoking [Mana Transfer] and stabilizing their circuits right before they collapsed. They were pushing their bodies to the absolute limit, learning the precise mathematical threshold of how many spells they could fire before their health entered the fatal zone.
To reinforce the frontline of our high-risk core team, Prate stepped over to a heavy wooden crate and unlatched the iron lid.
"Here," Prate said, pulling out a set of heavy, glowing artifacts. "These are specialized defensive pieces I forged using the remnants of my family's hoard: the [Necklace of Cyclops Hearts]."
I took one of the heavy iron chains, feeling the faint, rhythmic thumping radiating from the crimson gemstone embedded in the center.
Type: Necklace
Rank: A
Name: Necklace of Cyclops Hearts
Description: Forged by binding the residual vitality of multiple high-level Cyclops entities into a singular metallic matrix. Cyclops are legendary for their absurd durability and raw physical power, capable of crushing targets below Level 100 instantly. This artifact forces the wearer's life force to adapt to that baseline.
[Attribute Buff]: Increases maximum HP by 30% and grants a passive health recovery factor of 1% per second.
[Special Effect]: When the wearer's current HP drops below the 30% threshold, overall spell damage output is automatically boosted by 50%.
"Prate... isn't an A-rank artifact series far too expensive for you to just give away to us?" Hezel gasped, her hands shaking as she held the chain. "The structural buffs on this piece are completely insane!"
"Instead of wasting time thanking me, why don't we actually start testing our limits? Hahaha!" Prate laughed, strapping his own necklace on.
Luna, our primary defensive specialist, stepped into the central ring to demonstrate the core defensive formation: [Mana Shield]. While the skill was relatively easy to master, it was an exclusive trait restricted entirely to the Mage class tree. The barrier functioned by creating a skin-tight kinetic field around the caster, completely negating all incoming physical and magical damage by draining the user's active mana pool instead of their health bar.
To prepare for the arena tournament—which would select ten elite representatives based on individual class performance—we split the department into four distinct tactical groups.
"Lukas! Prate!" Luna called out from the defensive grid. "Why don't you two perform a live-combat demonstration so the rest of the trainees can visually comprehend the structural limits of the barrier?"
"Alright," I said, stepping into the offensive sector and rolling up my sleeves.
"I'll take the brunt of the incoming impact, Lukas," Prate grinned, stepping into the defensive square. "Don't hold back."
"Are you absolutely serious?" I asked, looking at his baseline attributes.
"Of course I am. Let's see what you've got."
Prate dropped into a deep stance, his eyes narrowing as he triggered his barrier. "[Mana Shield]!" A shimmering, translucent hexagonal field manifested around his frame, locking into the stone floor.
I took a slow, deep breath, letting the raw current of my dual-core system surge violently through my veins. I focused all my intent directly onto my fingertips, channeling my massive 107 Strength and 55 Intelligence attributes into the spell matrix. But instead of manifesting a standard, low-tier fireball, the extreme compression from my dual-core pathways forced the spell framework to rapidly alter. The magic structure buckled, condensing into a blinding, hyper-compressed sphere of white-hot plasma.
[System Notification]: Your repetitive spell execution and high stat compression have triggered a skill evolution! [Fireball E] -> [Fire Blast D]
The heat in the room spiked instantly, scorching the air.
"L-Lucas?!" Prate's eyes widened to the size of saucers as he felt the apocalyptic mana pressure radiating from my hand.
Realizing the output was breaching safe parameters, Prate threw his arms forward, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Everyone!! Channel your residual mana directly into me right now!!!!"
The six other blood-magic practitioners didn't hesitate. They slammed their palms onto the floor, activating their blood loops to forcefully transfer their resources. Prate channeled the entire collective pool, forcing his barrier to expand and transform.
"[Great Mana Wall A]!"
A massive, glowing fortress wall of solid blue energy erupted from the tiles just as I unleashed my hand. The hyper-compressed sphere of [Fire Blast D] shot across the distance at blistering speed, slamming dead-center into the magical fortress wall.
BAAANG!
A deafening, apocalyptic explosion ripped through the training hall. The sheer kinetic shockwave shattered the reinforced glass observation windows overhead, sending a storm of dust and debris flying through the air. The room was instantly filled with a thick, choking blanket of black smoke.
When the dust finally began to settle, the entire class was left standing completely frozen, staring at the center of the room in absolute, stunned silence.
The heavy ironwood dummy behind the grid had been reduced to literal ash, and a jagged, smoking crater was torn into the reinforced stone floor. In the center of the blast zone, the remnants of the A-rank wall finally dissolved. Prate was sitting flat on his back, his entire body shaking violently in pure, instinctual fear, completely unable to stand up on his own legs.
"Did... did we actually just generate that much destructive power?" a student whispered, looking at their hands.
The realization hit them like a truck. The department erupted into cheers and ecstatic shouting. They began celebrating wildly, realizing that by combining their defensive fields and utilizing the high-risk blood loop, they had unlocked a tactical nuke capability. They were completely exhausted, their resources drained down to the absolute dregs from the single clash, but their eyes were bright with hope.
I stood in the corner, staring down at my calloused palms. Even I hadn't realized just how terrifyingly strong my attributes had become after resetting back to level 1.
I walked over to the center and extended a hand to my friend. "Prate, you alright?"
"Yeah... I'm fine—" Prate croaked, reaching up to take my hand. But as I pulled him up, his knees buckled instantly, his legs wobbling like jelly.
I couldn't help but burst into a smirk. "Hahaha! Look at you, man. You're literally shaking over here, hahaha."
"Shut up, Lucas," Prate groaned, though a wide, prideful grin broke across his face. "We are going to absolutely slaughter those arrogant seniors in the arena."